The deforestation of the rainforest in Brazil has accelerated rapidly. In July, the area of the destroyed forest was almost four times higher than in the same month of the previous year, as reported by the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) yesterday.
The institute delivers satellite images of the state of the Brazilian Amazon forest, which is considered the „lung of the earth“ and plays an indispensable role in global climate protection.
According to INPE, a total of 2,254 square kilometers of forest were logged in July in the South American state. In July 2018, it was still 596.6 square kilometers. That’s an increase of 278 percent. Last June, deforestation levels were still 88 percent higher than in the same month last year.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has doubts about man-made climate change and is a friend of the agricultural industry. With his policy, he favors the depletion of the Amazon forest. Monocoltures such as the cultivation of soybeans and cattle breeding are being subsidized at the expense of more environmentally friendly family farms. Bolsonaro had recently fired the director of the INPE. He accuses the institute of supplying „lying“ figures about the condition of the rainforest.
