Several environmental protection organizations stated this on Wednesday based on satellite images. That is 89 percent more than in the same month last year. According to the information, 81 percent of the 775,000 hectares affected are in the Amazon.
“These figures once again show the increase in destruction in recent months from the Bolsonaro government,” the environmentalists said, referring to President Jair Bolsonaro being voted out. For years, activists have held him directly responsible for the increase in fires and accuse him of promoting illegal deforestation.
Since the right-wing president took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.
Bolsonaro was voted out in the presidential election at the end of October. The winner of the election is the left-wing politician Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who takes office on January 1. He has already announced that he wants to better protect the Amazon rainforest.
(SDA)