Climate Changed
Amazon Forest Destruction Surges Under Brazil’s ‘Captain Chainsaw’
- Deforestation rose almost fourfold from a year earlier: Inpe
- Bolsonaro dismisses data as ‘lying’ and ‘bad advertising’
An employee cuts wood logs at a lumber mill near Boa Vista, Roraima state, Brazil.
Photographer: Dado Galdieri/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon soared to alarming levels in July as President Jair Bolsonaro dismissed official numbers as “lying” and “bad advertising,” while escalating his rhetoric against what he sees as foreign interference in the region.
An area almost three times the size of New York City was cleared in the jungle last month alone, according to the alert system of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, known as Inpe. The rate of destruction rose almost fourfold from a year earlier to about 2,200 square kilometers (850 square miles), the figures show.