BRAZIL: JANUARY DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON HIGHEST IN 14 YEARS

Sat 12 February 2022:

According to government data, Brazil had the most deforestation in the Amazon jungle for the month of January.

From January 1 to January 31, about 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) of forest cover were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon, an area more than six times the size of Manhattan, according to INPE, Brazil’s national space research institution.

According to environmentalists, this means there’s a good chance 2022 will be another disastrous year for the Brazilian Amazon.

Faced with international pressure from the US and Europe, Brazil announced last year that it will eliminate illegal deforestation by 2028 and sign a global agreement to terminate all forest loss by 2030.

President Jair Bolsonaro has been criticized around the world for the rapid destruction of the Amazon, a vital resource in the fight against climate change.

Before Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency began in 2019, the Brazilian Amazon had not seen a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometers of deforestation in over a decade.

Bolsonaro campaigned on vows to develop the Amazon, rejecting international criticism over its destruction. His administration has undermined environmental agencies and backed legislation that weakens land regulations, giving land grabbers a boost.

“We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy.” said Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.

“This is the real Brazil that the Bolsonaro government tries to hide with fantastical speeches and actions of greenwashing abroad,” Mauricio Voivodic, international environmental group WWF’s executive director for Brazil, said in a statement.

“The reality shows that the Bolsonaro government accelerated the path of Amazon destruction.”

Deforestation will only cease rising if Bolsonaro loses the presidential race in October, according to Britaldo Soares Filho, an environmental modeling researcher at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and Ana Karine Pereira, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia.

“In order for us to break through this trend of high deforestation rates, I believe that a change in the political profile of the president and the conduct of the federal government is crucial,” Pereira said.

High deforestation is rare during the present rainy season, when loggers find it more difficult to gain access to the forests. New clearance was still less than half of what it is during the peak months of June to September, according to the January figures.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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