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For the first time in four years, less than 10,000 square kilometers of forest have been cut down in one year in the Brazilian Amazon. This is evident from figures from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).
From August 2022 to July 2023, an area of approximately 9,000 square kilometers of forest was lost. That is comparable to the area of the island of Cyprus. This is a decrease of 22.3 percent compared to the same period last year, when it was just under 11,600 square kilometers. It is also the lowest figure since 2019.
When former President Jair Bolsonaro was in power from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation skyrocketed by 75 percent, compared to the previous decade. Current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged to fight deforestation.
The Amazon rainforest is considered a CO2 reservoir and has an important function in the international fight against climate change. Brazil owns a large part of the Amazon region, about the size of Western Europe, spanning nine states.
