A new, sad, record for the Amazon in Brazil. In January just gone, the world's largest rainforest recorded a new deforestation record. The destruction of the Earth's green lung is an ill that keeps getting worse, despite the promises of Jair Bolsonaro's government. In January 2022, trees were felled across an area of 430 square kilometres. Five times more than what was recorded in January 2021. Roughly equivalent to the combined area of Milan, Naples and Palermo.

The data were collected through the government space research agency Inpe. But for the environmental researchers studying the phenomenon this comes as no surprise: since Jair Bolsonaro became president in January 2019, forest destruction has been on the rise, as has the weakening of environmental protections.

Those who destroy the Amazon are not denied subsidies

The deforestation rate is unusually high even taking into account that the current season is the rainy one. In other months of the year things are even worse: Inpe reports that in October 2021 877 square kilometres of forest were destroyed, 5 per cent more than in the same month of 2020. Over the whole of 2021, 9,724 square kilometres of forest disappeared, the equivalent of the area of the Marche region. This is 33 per cent more than in 2020, a year that had already proved extremely critical for the health of the Amazon.

Furthermore, a recent investigation found that several farmers in Brazil — previously included on the Amazon deforestation blacklist — had been authorised to receive subsidised loans from the government to purchase tractors and other equipment. The loans were granted by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (Bndes), through a programme of measures to support agriculture and livestock farming.

In three years, deforestation in Brazil has grown by 52 per cent

The conservation of the Amazon — threatened by the expansion of livestock farming and soya cultivation — is crucial to curbing the effects of climate change, thanks to the large quantities of greenhouse gases absorbed by its plants. The news of the negative record comes just days after the publication of another study, this time by Greenpeace, on Jair Bolsonaro's first three years as president of Brazil. Three years in which deforestation of the Amazon grew by 52.9 per cent compared to the previous three-year period. This brought about an increase in emissions of 10 per cent.

The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment commented that comparing individual months is misleading and that between August and January deforestation had fallen slightly compared to the same period a year ago. "The federal government is acting more forcefully in 2022 to combat environmental crimes," was the ministry's comment, as reported by the press agency Reuters.

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The forest is burning! Last month, Brazil recorded the most fires in the Amazon in 14 years for the month of June. Fire is used by the agribusiness in the deforestation process, as seen on this shocking video by photographer and videographer Kamikia Kisedje.

♥ 219💬 7 1 lug 2021 · Apri su X →

Deforestation will stop when Bolsonaro is gone

In the face of international pressure, Brazil has committed to ending illegal deforestation by 2028 and signed a global pact at Cop26 to halt forest destruction by 2030. Shortly after these commitments, however, Inpe published data showing that the rate of deforestation in 2021 in the Brazilian Amazon had reached its highest point in 15 years. The month of January 2022 demonstrates that this is a destruction in constant growth.

According to researchers, although Bolsonaro's tone appears to have changed, his policies remain the same. Many argue that deforestation will stop increasing only if Bolsonaro loses the presidential election, scheduled for this coming October.