Deforestation
in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest increased by 22% from the last corresponding
period and reached its highest levels in 15 years, official data published on
Thursday confirmed. According to data from the National Institute for Space
Research’s Prodes monitoring system, 13,235 square kilometres of rainforest was
lost from the period between August 2020 and July 2021.

This comes in
the backdrop of the President Jair Bolsonaro-led government’s recent efforts to
boost environmental credibility, including promises to end illegal
deforestation at the UN climate summit and other commitments to United States
President Joe Biden.

Deforestation
in the Brazilian Amazon had not surpassed 10,000 square kilometres in a single year
for over a decade before Bolsonaro’s term began in 2019, recording an average
of 6,500 square kilometres between 2009 and 2018.

However, the
annual average has nearly doubled to 11,405 square kilometres since his term
began, with the total area deforested in the three years since bigger than the
US state of Maryland.

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“It is a
shame. It is a crime,” Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate
Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups, told The Associated
Press. “We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a
government which made environmental destruction its public policy.”

Bolsonaro
promised to develop the Amazon when he took office and dismissed global concerns
about the destruction of the rainforest. He has rendered environmental
authorities toothless and backed laws that loosen land protection, empowering
land-grabbers.

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Data
gathered so far for the 2021-2022 period indicates a worse fate for the forest.
Deter, the space agency’s monthly monitoring system, has detected higher deforestation
for September and October compared to 2020. While data from Deter is less
reliable than Prodes, it is seen as a leading indicator.

“This is
the real Brazil that the Bolsonaro government tries to hide with fantastical
speeches and actions of greenwashing abroad,” Mauricio Voivodic, WWF’s
executive director for Brazil, said in a statement after release of the Prodes
data. “The reality shows that the Bolsonaro government accelerated the path of
Amazon destruction.”

(With inputs from the Associated Press)