Deforestation fell by 30.6 percent between August 2023 and August 2024, according to the Brazilian space agency INPE, which uses satellite images to monitor the situation in the rainforest.
During the period, 6,288 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed, an area roughly the same size as Oslo and Akershus. According to INPE head Gilvan Oliveira, it is currently the lowest level of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in nine years.
Over the past century, the Amazon rainforest, which covers nearly 40 percent of South America, has lost about 20 percent of its area to deforestation. This has been due to increased agriculture and cattle farming, logging and mining and urban development.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva has promised to stop the deforestation of the Amazon by 2030, but is stuck as a result of a number of vested interests.
In addition to the Amazon, 8,174 square kilometers of the Cerrado, the most species-rich savanna in the world, were destroyed in the same period, according to INPE.
Both the Cerrado and the Amazon were recently hit by historic drought and the subsequent spread of forest fires.
Brazil’s climate minister Marina Silva, who will attend the UN climate summit next week, says it is good that deforestation has been reduced and that it shows Brazil’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Deforestation in Brazil worsened drastically under Lula’s predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, when deforestation increased by 75 percent compared to the average of the previous decade.
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