Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between August 2021 and July 2022 decreased by 11.3% compared to the same period a year earlier.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon decreased between August 2021 and July 2022, but overall it has increased significantly since incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro came to power, according to official data released Wednesday.
About 11,568 km2 of forests, corresponding to an area larger than that of Qatar, were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon between August 2021 and July 2022, the reference period analyzed by the PRODES satellite monitoring system of National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil.
Deforestation between August 2021 and July 2022 thus decreased by 11.3% compared to the same period of the previous year, when the INPE recorded 13,038 km2 of forests destroyed, the highest figure in 15 years.
This decline in deforestation, however, caps four years of what environmental activists describe as disastrous management of the Amazon under the far-right incumbent president.
Since he came to power, average annual deforestation has increased by 59.5% over the previous four years and by 75.5% over the previous decade, according to INPE.
successor of Jair Bolsonaro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (left), has pledged to fight for zero deforestation when he takes office on January 1 for a third term, having ruled the country from 2003 to 2010.
“The Bolsonaro government has been a machine to destroy forests”, notes in a press release Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental organizations. “Jair Bolsonaro will leave his successor with a disgusting legacy of rampant deforestation and a burning Amazon.”he adds, urging former President Lula to show “zero tolerance” for environmental crimes.
According to experts, the vast majority of logging and fires ravaging the Amazon are intended to create agricultural land, mainly for cattle ranching, while Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef.
