Amazon deforestation sets record ahead of Brazil’s presidential election

Brazilian national space research agency Inpe released preliminary data showing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest reached a record high for the first half of 2022. Friday’s data shows that from January to June, roughly 1,540 square miles of rainforest were cleared. That area is:

• Five times the size of New York City
• An increase of 10.6% from January to June of 2021
• The highest level for the January to June period since Inpe began compiling its current DETER-B data series in mid-2015

“This is very bad. The first semester in the Amazon is when we have the rainy season, so we shouldn’t be seeing these high numbers,” Manoela Machado, a wildfire and deforestation researcher at Oxford University, said Thursday. “Historically, the peak of the deforestation shouldn’t be happening while it’s raining, so we have a combination of a drier climate with more motivation to deforest.”

Environmental groups like Greenpeace have been paying close attention to the Amazon. It contains vast amounts of carbon, which is released as trees are destroyed, warming the atmosphere and driving climate change.

Activists and experts in Brazil blame President Jair Bolsonaro for the record Amazon rainforest deforestation. They cite his rolling back of environmental protections, accusing him of emboldening loggers, ranchers and land speculators to clear public land for profit.

“This number only confirms that the federal government has neither the capacity nor the interest to combat all this environmental destruction,” Rômulo Batista, spokesperson for the Amazon campaign of Greenpeace Brazil, said in a Friday statement. “Whether by action or omission, what we see is an unacceptable escalation of the destruction of the forest and the massacre of its peoples and defenders.”

Bolsonaro is up for re-election this fall. He is set to face former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who presided over a steep decline in deforestation during his presidency from 2003 to 2010.

Reuters contributed to this report.