RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday. The data was released by the National Institute for Space Research.
The agency’s Prodes monitoring system shows the rainforest lost an area roughly the size of Qatar, some 11,600 square kilometers in the 12 months from August 2021 to July 2022.For more than a decade it looked as though things were getting better for the Brazilian Amazon. Deforestation had declined dramatically and never rose back above 10,000 square kilometers. That was before the presidency of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, beginning in January 2019.
In one state, Para, a fierce rate of destruction went down by 21% yet it was still the center of one-third of all Brazil’s Amazon forest loss. Part of the tree cutting and burning happens in areas that are ostensibly protected. One such area is Paru State Forest, where the nonprofit Amazon Institute of People and the Environment registered 2 square kilometers of deforestation in just October.
Researchers and environmentalists have blamed Bolsonaro’s policies for the surge in deforestation. The administration weakened environmental agencies and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections in the name of economic development, paired with a view of occupying a sparsely-populated territory at any cost. This policy has emboldened land robbers and spurred more illegal mining.
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