Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), which monitors the Amazon’s forests using satellites, has released preliminary data to show at least 11,008 square kilometers (4,281 square miles) of rainfall in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest in 2020. This is the largest deforestation area since 2008 when 12,911 square kilometers (4,984 square miles) were rained down and burned.
\Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has risen to a 12-year high after burning, dispersing, and dispersing rainwater larger than Hawaii’s Big Island compared to last year. Forest levels in the Amazon have risen in recent years since reaching the bottom in 2012. Worryingly the edge near a tipping point from which it cannot recover.
There are several reasons behind the recent uptick in deforestation. Perhaps unexpectedly the Covid-19 epidemic has played some role. The ongoing outbreak in rural areas due to a small amount of environmental agent rainfall and more economic problems has only fueled the fires of illegal land clearing.
The Amazon is deforested because of clearing land for logging, digging, and rearing, increasing global demand for products such as beef, soy, and palm oil. Many of these products end up in supermarket shelves and fast-food restaurants around the world. Banks and financial institutions around the world, including Europe and the United States, are also investing billions of dollars in the world’s most harmful agribusiness and benefiting from activities related to upstream forests. While there are laws in place to allow logging in designated areas, most of the demolition of housing is conducted illegally and continues to be controlled.
The current administration has also been accused of turning a blind eye to deforestation control by not imposing government fines on businesses or corporations that illegally clear land on Amazon. In a particularly memorable moment, physicist Ricardo Galvão was fired from the post of director of the INPE after a public row at Bolsonaro over the scale of deforestation on the Amazon. President Bolsonaro also accused actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrupting the rain fire that spread across Brazil in 2019.
“It simply came to our notice then. Instead of acting to stop deforestation, the Bolsonaro government has been denying the reality of the situation, dismantling environmental organizations, and attacking NGOs working on Amazon soil. Due to the federal government’s anti-environmental policies, deforestation in Brazil is almost three times the country’s national policy on climate change set by 2020, “said Christian Mazzetti, an Amazon promoter for Greenpeace Brazil in a statement.
