Record deforestation in the Amazon in October

The Deforestation in the Amazon Brazil reached 904 square kilometers in October, a record for this month of the year, according to official data released on Friday. The DETER satellite observation system, in use since 2015, detected a 3% increase in the deforested area of ​​the planet’s largest rainforest compared to October 2021. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recorded the data.

In just ten months, 2022 was already the worst in this statistical series of deforestation in Amazon, with 9,494 square kilometers of vegetation erased from the map, breaking the record of 9,178 square kilometers for the whole of 2021. The Brazilian branch of the NGO WWF confirmed in a press release that deforestation and fires have “exploded” in the Amazon. Since the outcome of the presidential election.

“Race to Destruction”

On October 30, Jair Bolsonaro, was accused by environmentalists Promoting the destruction of the Amazon, was narrowly defeated by former leftist president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), who vowed to fight for the complete eradication of the forests. “The increase in deforestation (in October) was expected, but the preliminary data for the first days of November are frightening, it is a real frantic race for destruction” before the change of government, laments the WWF.

under the Jair Bolsonaro PresidencyThe annual deforestation rate has increased by 75% compared to the previous decade. “The new government will have a lot of work to do to get the country back on track, to put an end to the perception that the Amazon is a lawless land,” Raoul de Valle, of the WWF, said in the NGO’s statement.