Status: 11/19/2021 2:54 a.m.
At the World Climate Conference, Brazil also committed itself to stopping rainforest deforestation by 2030 – but it is currently increasing again massively. Environmentalists blame President Bolsonaro.
Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has reached its highest level in 15 years. According to official data, deforestation increased 22 percent from August 2020 to July 2021 compared to the previous year period. The Prodes observation system of the national institute for space research recorded a loss of rainforest area of 13,235 square kilometers.
Before Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, annual deforestation had never exceeded 10,000 square kilometers for more than ten years. Between 2009 and 2018, the average deforestation area per year was 6,500 square kilometers. Since then, the annual average has risen to 11,405 square kilometers.
“It’s a shame”
Environmental and climate protection activists blame Bolsonaro’s policy for this, which they accuse of facilitating illegal clearing. “It’s a shame,” the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory environmental group network, Márcio Astrini, told the AP news agency. “It’s a crime. We’re seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government that has made environmental degradation a public policy.”
The Amazon rainforest is of central importance for climate protection – it is considered the “green lung” of the earth. When he took office, Bolsonaro had promised to open up the Amazon. At a conference in the United Arab Emirates this week, he said attacks on Brazil over deforestation were unfair: most of the Amazon was untouched. Environment Minister Joaquim Leite admitted that the new numbers were “a challenge”. He also announced a more determined fight against environmental crime.
At the World Climate Conference in Glasgow, more than a hundred countries pledged to stop deforestation by 2030, including Brazil.