Amid concerns about the policies of Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s environmental ministry has released preliminary figures showing that deforestation in the Amazon has hit its highest rate in a decade. Between August 2017 and July 2018, around 7,900 square kilometers (3,050 square miles) of rainforest was destroyed, an area 134 times the size of Manhattan’s land mass.
That marks a 13.7% rise on the previous year with the states of Pará, Mato Grosso, and Rondônia accounting for nearly three quarters of the deforestation. In the early part of the 21st century, the amount of rainforest destroyed declined significantly. For example, 19,000 square kilometers of deforestation was recorded in 2005 and by 2012, it fell to around 4,600 square kilometers. It started to rise again in 2013 when President Rousseff approved a new code giving amnesty to deforestation on small properties.
Environmentalists have voiced their concern about the latest figures and many of them expect the situation to worsen under Bolsonaro. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro said he would limit fines for damaging forestry, allow mining in protected indigenous reserves and consider merging the environmental and agriculture ministries, all moves that could cause significant further damage to the rainforest.
*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)
