Illegal deforestation
Brazil promises to preserve the Amazon
A burned and deforested area in an Amazon region. Photo: Fernando Souza / ZUMA / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Between August 2019 and July 2020, around three rainforest football fields were cleared every minute in the Brazilian Amazon. Brazil’s government aims to end illegal logging by 2027 or 2028.
Shortly before the start of the UN climate conference COP26, Brazil’s government, which has come under international pressure, promised measures to preserve the Amazon region.
According to Vice President Hamilton Mourão, the Brazilian delegation will announce at the COP that it will end illegal logging of the Amazon rainforest by 2027 or 2028. President Jair Bolsonaro named 2030 as a target at the US President Joe Biden’s climate summit in April. “A more ambitious goal would, in my opinion, be very welcome in the international community,” Mourão said at a press conference.
According to the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which evaluates satellite data, the deforestation of the rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon continued to increase until the previous year. According to Inpe, 11,088 square kilometers of Amazon forest were cleared between August 2019 and July 2020. This corresponds to around 4,340 soccer fields per day or 3 soccer fields per minute – and means an increase of 9.5 percent compared to the previous period. The deforested area was the largest since 2008.
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 Bolsonaro sees the Amazon region primarily as untapped economic potential.
The COP starts on Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland. The aim is to discuss how the goal formulated in Paris in 2015 of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees as far as possible compared to the pre-industrial era can be achieved.