After four months of decline compared to last year, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon began to rise again in October, with an increase of 50%, according to data released Friday, November 13.
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The satellites of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) have revealed the disappearance of 836 km2 of tropical forest.
This is the first time since June that the area deforested in a month is greater than that of last year, when all records were broken.
With nearly 7,899 km2 over the first ten months of the year, the total remains slightly lower than that from January to October 2019 (8,425 km2).
But the gap continues to decrease: only 6% decline since the start of the year, against 10% from January to September.
And the total of deforested areas in 2020 is already much higher than that of the whole of each of the years preceding the coming to power, in 2019, of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (4,951 km2 in 2018, 3,551 km2 in 2017 , 6,032 km2 in 2016 and 2,195 km2 in 2015).
The situation also remains very worrying on the forest fire front.
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At the beginning of November, the INPE satellites had counted more than double the number of fires in October than in the same month of 2019 in the Amazon.
Over the first ten months of the year, there are 93,356 households, against 89,176 for the whole of 2019. "
Forest fires and deforestation have the same cause: the absence of an environmental policy in our country
" , denounced last week Rômulo Batista, of the Brazilian branch of Greenpeace.
Last week, Vice President Hamilton Mourao flew over the Amazon with diplomats from several countries in an attempt to restore the image of a much criticized Brazil.
But several NGOs judged that the chosen areas were not the most affected by deforestation and fires.
Tuesday Jair Bolsonaro, who has still not congratulated Joe Biden on his election to the presidency of the United States, warned the latter that Brazil did not intend to be pressured on the Amazon.
Joe Biden threatened Brazil with "
significant economic consequences
" in October
if deforestation continued in the Amazon.