Rio de Janeiro, Nov. 10, (dpa/GNA) – Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon region slowed for the first time in four years, with less than 10,000 square kilometres of forest being cleared in a single year, according to preliminary figures by the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).
From August 2022 to July 2023, an area of around 9,000 square kilometres of forest was lost, Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said on Thursday citing Inpe figures.
This is about the same land area as the island of Cyprus – and a decrease of 22.1% compared to the same period the previous year, when nearly 11,600 square kilometres of forest were lost. It is also the lowest figure since 2019.
The Amazon rainforest is considered a CO2 reservoir and has an important function in the international fight against climate change. Brazil owns a large part of the Amazon, about the size of Western Europe, which stretches across nine states.
The left-wing politician Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in as Brazil’s president for the third time on January 1, was not known as an environmentalist in his previous terms in office from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2010.
But in a speech at the United Nations in September, Lula called for a determined fight against climate change and the growing social inequality which it is causing.
At an international Amazon summit in August, Lula said it had “never been more urgent” to preserve the Amazon and that he would prioritize environmental and climate protection.
After four years, Germany recently resumed aid payments for a fund to protect the rainforest in the Amazon region. This so-called Amazon Fund was set up in 2008, but was frozen due to disagreements over the use of the money under the government of president Jair Bolsonaro.
For the right-wing populist, the Amazon region primarily represented untapped economic potential. During his term of office from 2019 to 2022, deforestation and slash-and-burn farming increased sharply.
GNA