View of a burnt area in the Amazon rainforest near Candeias do Jamari, Rondonia state, northern Brazil, September 2, 2022 – Copyright AFP/File Yasuyoshi CHIBA
The number of wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon this year has already surpassed the number of wildfires recorded in all of 2021, according to official figures released on Monday, raising a new alarm for the world’s largest rainforest.
According to the Brazilian space agency INPE, satellite monitoring recorded 75,592 fires from January 1 to September 18 this year, already more than the 75,090 detected in all of last year.
The latest grim news from the rainforest is likely to increase the pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for re-election next month and facing international criticism over the surge of destruction in the Amazon before his eyes.
Since a far-right agribusiness ally took power in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.
Greenpeace Brazil spokesman Andre Freitas called the latest data “a predicted tragedy.”
“After four years of a clear and objective federal government anti-environmental policy, we see that as this government’s tenure – one of the darkest periods for the Brazilian environment – comes to an end, land grabbers and other illegal actors see this as a golden opportunity. move forward in the forest,” he said in a statement.
