According to official numbers released on Monday that have raised further concerns for the largest rainforest in the world, the number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon this year has already topped that for the entire year 2021.
According to the Brazilian space agency INPE, satellite monitoring has found 75,592 fires between January 1 and September 18, which is already more than the 75,090 reported for the entire previous year.
The most recent depressing reports from the Amazon will probably put President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for reelection next, under more pressure.
month and is the target of international criticism for a spike in Amazonian devastation that occurred under his watch.
In the Brazilian Amazon, average annual deforestation has surged by 75% over the past ten years since the far-right agribusiness allies assumed office in January 2019. As a result, an area roughly the size of Puerto Rico’s forest cover was destroyed in 2018.
According to experts, illicit farmers, ranchers, and investors destroy land and burn trees to start fires in the Amazon.
The Bolsonaro administration has reduced funding for environmental enforcement activities and pushed to allow mining on protected Amazonian regions despite the harm that is taking place there.
The latest statistics, according to Greenpeace Brazil’s Andre Freitas, are a “tragedy predicted.”
“We are seeing that as we approach the end of this government’s term — one of the darkest periods ever for the Brazilian environment — land-grabbers and other illegal actors see it as the perfect opportunity to advance on the forest,” he said in a statement. “After four years of a clear and objective anti-environmental policy by the federal government, we are seeing that as we approach the end of this government’s term.”
The Amazon, a crucial barrier against global warming, has had a concerning year.
At 1,661 square kilometres, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon this month was almost twice the amount from August 2021. (641 square miles).
The number of fires has also increased since the burning season really got off in August when drier weather arrived.
The so-called “Day of Fire” on August 10, 2019, when farmers initiated a concerted effort to burn enormous volumes of felled rainforest in the northern state of Para, according to INPE data, has been surpassed on many occasions.
Then, fires caused a worldwide outrage as photographs of one of them reached Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) away.
