Latest government satellite data shows that the number of trees cut down in the Brazilian Amazon in January far exceeded deforestation for the same month in 2021.
According to the data from Brazil’s space agency, the National Institute for Space Research, INPE, the area destroyed was five times larger than 2021, the highest January total since records began in 2015 and environmentalists accuse Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro of allowing deforestation to accelerate.
Read also: World Bank: Clean air, healthy seas, coastlines degrading in Middle East, North Africa
Although trees are felled for their wood as well as to clear spaces to plant crops to supply global food companies, protecting the Amazon is essential in the race to tackle climate change.
Recall that at the climate change summit COP26 in Glasgow last year, more than 100 governments promised to stop and reverse deforestation by 2030.
However, the latest satellite data question the Brazilian government’s commitment to protecting its huge rainforest, say, environmentalists.
Cristiane Mazzetti of Greenpeace Brazil said that the new data yet again exposes how the government’s actions contradict its greenwashing campaigns.
According to her, Greenpeace is calling on supermarkets in the UK and elsewhere to drop suppliers who are involved in deforestation from their meat and dairy supply chains suppliers.
According to the data, deforestation totalled 430 square kilometres (166 square miles) in January – an area more than seven times the size of Manhattan, New York.
Felling large numbers of trees at the start of the year has been described as unusual because the rainy season usually stops loggers from accessing dense forest.
Story was adapted from BBC.
