Deforestation up by 60 percent under the Bolsonaro

Photo: Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock

Amazon deforestation increased by almost 60 percent during the Jair Bolsonaro administration, according to official data published on Wednesday.

Satellite data from Inpe, Brazil’s national space research institute, estimates 11,568 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon between August 2021 and July 2022.

While the figures represent a 11-percent decrease in relation to the previous 12-month period, it was not enough to offset earlier increases under the Bolsonaro administration, which took office in January 2019.

Climate watchdog Observatório do Clima showed that Mr. Bolsonaro oversaw the highest percentage increase in deforestation of any president since the beginning of measurements by satellite, in 1988.

The annual deforestation rate in the Amazon during the Bolsonaro years was 11,396 km², a 60-percent increase in relation to the 7,145 km² yearly average in the 2015-2018 period, in which Dilma Rousseff and later Michel Temer were president.

Data for more recent months shows that deforestation in the latter part of 2022 could still see an increase. Forest destruction alerts covered a total area of 1,455 km² in September, 47 percent more than the same month last year.

Also, forest fires in three states in the Amazon that recently re-elected pro-Bolsonaro governors jumped sharply in the two weeks following the October 30 runoff election.

In April 2021, the Bolsonaro administration officially presented an environmental plan that actually allowed deforestation to increase by up to 15 percent. It has fallen short even of that goal.