Deforestation in the Amazon reaches highest level in 15 years as area the size of Yorkshire is lost in a single year
- Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil at its highest level in 15 years
- The rainforest had lost 5,110 square miles from August 2020 to July this year
- It has been claimed Brazil knew this before this year’s Cop26 climate summit
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has reached its highest level in 15 years.
The area of trees lost rose by 22 per cent in a year despite President Jair Bolsonaro’s assurances that the country is curbing illegal logging.
Data from space research agency INPE showed the rainforest lost 5,110 square miles – close to the size of Yorkshire – to deforestation from August 2020 to July this year, the highest recorded since 2006.
The Amazon basin in north-western Brazil in 2019. Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has reached its highest level in 15 years
An official in northern Brazil inspecting a deforested area in the Amazon rainforest earlier this year
It has been claimed Brazil knew this before the Cop26 climate summit during which it signed up to a deal to end deforestation by 2030.
Mauricio Voivodic, of WWF, said: ‘This is the real Brazil that the Bolsonaro government tries to hide.’
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