High Season For Amazon Deforestation Now Only Three Months Away - And We Can Expect More In 2020
OSLO (Reuters) - Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest threatens to accelerate and draw increased global concern since no new fire prevention measures have been taken in the crucial run-up to this year’s dry season, according to Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of a group called MapBiomas that monitors the rate of forest destruction.
“It would be expected that it will be worse than last year unless something really big happens in the next two or three months to avoid the high season of deforestation that starts in May,” Azevedo told Reuters in Oslo on Wednesday.
Deforestation in Brazil, home to the biggest share of the Amazon rainforest, rose to its highest in over a decade in 2019, the first year in office of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. The number of fires in the Amazon rainforest increased 30.5% in 2019 from the previous year, while deforestation rose 85%, according to recent data released by Brazil’s space research agency INPE.
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Risks to the forest sparked a public outcry in August when fires raged through the Amazon, drawing sharp criticism from France’s President Emmanuel Macron. But the government has yet to roll out any measures to avoid fires in 2020, Azevedo said. “There is no budget ... if you want to prevent fires you have to start right now, all has to be done in the first half of the year,” he said.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment/amazon-deforestation-could-speed-up-in-2020-expert-idUSKBN1ZE2HL