Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest affected the largest area for a September since current records began, government data from last month showed on Friday, as fires in the region surged to their highest level in more than a decade.
In the Amazon, 1,455 square kilometres (562 square miles) were cleared this month, breaking the previous record set in September 2019 in a data series that started in 2015. This is according to satellite data from the Brazilian space research organisation INPE.
Friday’s preliminary figures also pushed deforestation in the region to a record high for the first nine months of the year, according to INPE, with 8,590 square kilometers cleared from January to September, equal to an area 11 times the size of New York City and up 22.6% from last year.
Under President Jair Bolsonaro, annual figures revealed that deforestation had already risen to a 15-year high.
Experts hold the far-right leader, who is running for re-election, responsible for weakening environmental safeguards and allowing ranchers and loggers to further unlawfully clear more of the Amazon.
The accelerating deforestation had ‘pretty relevant impacts not only for the biome, but also for the weather and the region’s rainfall regime, as well as economic impacts for those who live in the Amazon and Brazil as a whole,’ said Mariana Napolitano, WWF-Brasil’s science manager.
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