Satellites from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) have detected 75,592 fire outbreaks in the world’s largest rainforest since January 2022, compared to 75,090 all of last year.
Brazil recorded more forest fires in the Amazon in less than nine months than in all of 2021, official figures released Monday show.
Satellites from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) have detected 75,592 fire outbreaks in the world’s largest rainforest since January 2022, compared to 75,090 all of last year.
In the current month, September, the disaster is accelerating: in just one week, the number of fire outbreaks detected in the Brazilian Amazon was higher than the total of the corresponding month of 2021.
In September of last year, the Institute counted 16,742 fires, a number much higher than in the corresponding month of 2020 (32,017) and than the monthly average of the period 1998-2021 (32,110).
But in just three weeks this year, 30,000 fires have been detected since the start of September; this month could turn out to be one of the worst on record.
“These forest fires are a foretold tragedy. During the four years of (far-right president Jáich Bolsonaro’s) term, we experienced one of the darkest periods for the environment in our country,” was the reaction of Andre Freitas, representative of the Brazilian branch of Greenpeace in the Amazon.
“All those engaged in illegal activities took advantage of this background to rush into the forest,” he said.
President Bolsonaro, who will run for a second term on October 2, has been accused in particular of favoring mining and farming in the Amazon at the expense of the rainforest.
According to some experts, deforestation and fires have escalated this year because Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and the center-left former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to be much tougher on protecting the Amazon, is the favorite in the election.
Since Mr. Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, the average annual deforestation of the part of the Amazon forest located in Brazil has increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.
In August, deforestation reached 1,661 square kilometers, almost double the area deforested in the same period last year (918 square kilometers).
RES-EMP
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