Official numbers released Monday show that the number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon so far this year has already topped what was recorded for the whole of 2021. This has raised new concerns about the world’s largest rainforest.
From January 1 to September 18 this year, satellites found 75,592 fires. This is already more than the 75,090 fires found last year, according to the Brazilian space agency INPE.
The latest bad news from the Amazon rainforest is likely to put more pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for re-election next month and is being criticized around the world for the rise in destruction in the Amazon while he has been in office.
Since the far-right agribusiness ally took office in January 2019, the average number of trees cut down each year in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75% compared to the last ten years.
Andre Freitas, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Brazil, said that the latest numbers were “a tragedy foretold.”
“After four years of a clear and objective anti-environmental policy by the federal government, we are seeing that as this government’s term comes to an end — one of the darkest times ever for the Brazilian environment — land-grabbers and other illegal actors see it as the perfect time to advance on the forest,” he said in a statement.
