RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Amazon lost 580.55 kilometers of forest in April, a new record for the month and the largest devastated area for that period in the last six years since the measurement began, according to deforestation alerts released this Friday, May 7.
According to monthly data captured by the Real-Time Legal Amazon Deforestation Detection System (Deter) and disclosed by the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), this is an area 42% larger than that destroyed in April 2020.
The previous record for the month was in 2018, with 490 kilometers of forest destroyed.
April is the second consecutive monthly record set this year. Last March, 367.6 kilometers of forest were devastated, an area 12.6% larger than that destroyed in the same month of 2020.
The methodology used in Deter is based on satellite images and is used by INPE to provide early warnings about the areas being deforested in the Amazon. In total, 1,566 deforestation warnings were sent by the system in April.
According to experts, the amount of devastated native vegetation may be higher, since during April, 26% of the Amazon was covered by clouds, making that portion of the forest invisible to the satellite.
“This is the highest percentage of cloud cover for the month in the series that began in 2015. There may be more hidden deforestation, which will be revealed when the weather opens up,” assured in a statement the Climate Observatory network, a network that brings together more than 50 civil organizations in defense of environmental causes in Brazil and the world.
In 2020, about 8,500 square kilometers were devastated in the Brazilian Amazon, a mark that was only below the historical record of 2019, when 9,178 square kilometers of trees were cut down in the largest rainforest in the world.
During the last Climate Summit, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pledged to move forward to eliminate illegal deforestation in Brazil by 2030.
However, since the right-wing leader came to power on January 1, 2019, the devastation of the Amazon rainforest has been the worst in Brazil’s history, and environmental organizations have harshly criticized his environmental policies.
The president defends the exploitation of the Amazon’s natural resources, even in indigenous reserves, and has relaxed the control of activities that directly attack the environment, such as mining and the timber trade, mostly practiced illegally in that region.