The National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system showed the Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometers of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021. That’s the most since 2006
In this photo taken on September 22, 2021, an official from Para State, northern Brazil, inspects a deforested area in the Amazon rain forest during surveillance. Pic/AFP
The area deforested in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high after a 22 per cent jump from the prior year, according to official data published Thursday. The National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system showed the Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometers of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021. That’s the most since 2006.
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The 15-year high flies in the face of Bolsonaro government’s recent attempts to shore up its environmental credibility, having made overtures to the administration of US President Joe Biden and moved forward its commitment to end illegal deforestation at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow this month.
Before Jair Bolsonaro’s term began in January 2019, the Brazilian Amazon hadn’t recorded a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometers of deforestation in over a decade. Between 2009 and 2018, the average was 6,500 square kilometers. Since then, the annual average leapt to 11,405 square kilometers, and the three-year total is an area bigger than the state of Maryland.
“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups, said. “We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy.”
Bolsonaro took office with promises to develop the Amazon, and dismissing global outcry about its destruction. His administration has defanged environmental authorities and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers. This week at a conference in the United Arab Emirates to attract investment, he told the crowd that attacks on Brazil for deforestation are unfair and that most of the Amazon remains pristine.
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