Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon skyrocketed in January and broke a new record, with 430 square kilometers of native vegetation devastated, five times more than the area logged in the same month last year and the highest destruction in the biome for this period since 2016.
This is an increase of 419% compared to January 2021, when the largest tropical forest on the planet lost 82.88 square kilometers of its vegetation cover.and 87.9% compared to 2016, when the measurement began in the country, according to estimates published this Friday by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).
The data correspond to the measurement of deforestation carried out by Inpe based on an alert system -for January there were 1,587 warnings- of alterations in the forest cover of the Amazon from the analysis of satellite images.
Although it is an estimate, the figure usually coincides with the actual final data, which is only disclosed, annually, in the second half of the year and whose latest results were not good for the Brazilian Amazon.
Aggressive vegetation loss
Official data indicates that between August 2020 and July 2021, this biome lost 13,235 square kilometers of vegetation, the largest degraded area for a 12-month period in the last 15 years.
This growth has been attributed by environmentalists to the relaxation of the control and inspection measures that have taken place during the Government of Jair Bolsonaro.which defends the economic exploitation of the Amazon and the end of the demarcation of new indigenous reserves.
Deforestation, generated mainly by illegal mining and illegal timber trade, is one of the main causes of the fires that have consumed much of the vegetation of the Amazon in Brazil in recent years and that caused a stir in the whole world two years ago.
According to experts, the largest tropical forest on the planet concentrates 72.5% of all mining in the country.
In January, the fires in the Brazilian Amazon skyrocketed 54%, with 1,226 sources of fire, compared to the same month in 2021, after the flames in the largest tropical forest on the planet had given a truce last year. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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