Amazon Deforestation Records Reveal The Truth About Bolsonaro

Amid the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Greenpeace and other international organizations denounced that the Brazilian Amazon's deforestation grew by 5 percent during the last year, a figure that seriously questions the statements of the President Jair Bolsonaro's delegates.

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On Thursday, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) published data showing that the world's largest rainforest lost 877 square kilometers in October. This figure represents an increase of 5 percent compared to the loss of 836 square kilometers recorded in October 2020.

In the last two years, some 8,000 kilometers of forest have been lost in the first 10 months of each year as a result of business activities carried out in the Amazon. These unfortunate figures were denounced to the international community on the day in which world leaders seek to reach an agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees during this century.

Despite the evidence, Brazilian officials vow the Bolsonaro administration has lowered deforestation rates through control and surveillance campaigns. They also dared to argue that Brazil will eliminate illegal deforestation by 2028 and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent in 2030.

The tweet reads, "Txai Surui, the 24-year-old Indigenous law student from Rondonia, who was brutally insulted by Bolsonaro for representing the Amazonian peoples at COP26 in Glasgow, has lived under threat ever since. She replied, 'Indigenous peoples live like this, threatened'."

"Emission reductions happen on the forest floor, not in Glasgow plenaries," Climate Observatory Secretary Marcio Astrini said outraged at claims from a government which has given free rein to land grabbers, loggers, and miners.

"While the Bolsonaro administration tries to sell Brazil as a 'green superpower' at COP26, October deforestation broke another record, which has been driven by anti-environmental policies promoted by the President and the Environmental Ministry with the support of Congress," the Greenpeace Amazon Campaign spokesperson, Roberto Batista, pointed out and recalled the violence that the far-right politician deploys against Indigenous peoples.

Since Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019, deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon have skyrocketed towards levels not seen since 2002. Brazilian net emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) increased from 1,970 million tons in 2019 to 2,160 million tons in 2020. The former Capitan, however, defends resource depletion arguing his country needs economic growth.