Brazil: eleven thousand square kilometers of rainforest cut down

The space agency Inpe announced on Monday that almost 11,100 square kilometers had been cleared this year. This is an increase of 9.5 percent compared to the previous year. Environmental regulations have been weakened under President Jair Bolsonaro.

For comparison: Upper Austria has an area of ​​11,900 square kilometers.

It had already become apparent in autumn that this year would not be a good one for the world’s largest rainforest. In September, scientists from the spatial authority had shown with data that the number of forest fires was even higher than in 2019, which is another record for over a decade.

The destruction of the rainforest has increased massively since Bolsonaro took office, while at the same time environmental protection has been massively reduced. When huge forest areas were in flames in autumn 2019, there was a worldwide outcry, including from heads of state and government, because Brazil’s politics hardly do anything against the destruction of the “lungs of the world”.

Bolsonaro, who also denies climate change and global warming, had only this summer repeatedly stated that reports of forest fires in the Amazon were false.