The green lungs of the earth are getting smaller and smaller. In the past reporting year, 22 percent more forest area was destroyed than in the previous year, reports the Brazilian Institute for Space Research after evaluating satellite data.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continues to rise sharply. The deforested area in the region was 13,235 square kilometers between August 2020 and July 2021, according to a statement from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which evaluates satellite data, on Thursday. That corresponds to an area almost as large as Schlwesig-Holstein.
Accordingly, this is an increase of 22 percent compared to the previous period from August 2019 to July 2020 and the deforested area was the largest since 2008. The preliminary data from Inpe had already indicated an increase in destruction. “The numbers are still a challenge for us and we have to take action against these crimes with more force,” said Brazil’s Environment Minister Joaquim Pereira Leite on Thursday. Mauricio Voivodic, head of the environmental organization World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, replied: “Reality shows that the Bolsonaro government has accelerated the destruction of the Amazon.”
Brazil, where there has been a lack of water and drought in large parts of the past few months, is assigned a key role in climate protection. The proportion of the South American country in the Amazon region, which is considered to be an important reservoir for the climate-damaging greenhouse gas CO2, corresponds to the size of Western Europe in terms of area. The right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro sees the Amazon region primarily as untapped economic potential.
The Brazilian government, which is under international pressure, announced at the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow that it would end the illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2028. President Bolsonaro named 2030 as a target at the US President Joe Biden’s climate summit in April.
However, the announcement published on Thursday is dated October 27, that is, a few days before COP26. The Brazilian government tried to polish up its image, even though it knew that another record had been broken in deforestation, according to a statement from the environmental organization Greenpeace.
The European Union put forward a proposal on Wednesday to restrict the importation of goods whose production had destroyed forests, which could affect Brazil, among others. The Brazilian Agricultural Producers’ Association issued a notice to “express its outrage at the proposal”.