The area deforested in Brazil’s Amazon reached a 15-year high after a 22% jump from the prior year, according to official data published, AP reported.
The National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system showed the Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometers of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from Aug. 2020 to July 2021. That’s the most since 2006.

The Brazilian Amazon hadn’t recorded a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometers of deforestation in over a decade before President Jair Bolsonaro’s term started. in Jan. 2019. Between 2009 and 2018, the average was 6,500 square kilometers. Since then, the annual average leapt to 11,405 square kilometers.
“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups, told AP. “We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy.”

Bolsonaro took office with promises to develop the Amazon, and dismissing global outcry about its destruction. His administration has defanged environmental authorities, and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers.