RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Deforestation in the Amazon increased in June, almost sixty percent over the same month in 2018. According to data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), last month the Amazon lost 762.3 km of native forest, equivalent to twice the area of Belo Horizonte.
Over the same period, in June 2018, deforestation had totaled 488.4 km. In 2019, Brazil saw a reduction of approximately 1.5 times the territory of the city of São Paulo: 2,273.6 km. This is the worst record since 2016.
In the month-to-month comparison for 2018, the data were stable until April. From April to May, deforestation leaped from 247.2 km to 735.8 km of destroyed forest.