The Amazon rainforest has been burning at a record rate this year and more than 120,000 fires have been detected since the start of the year. The devastating fires are destroying the homes of indigenous tribes and threatening millions of animals.
The increasing rates were first reported by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in June and July through satellite monitoring systems.
The reports received international attention in August when NASA corroborated the findings.
The main cause of the fires has been blamed on deforestation.
Fires are deliberately started in efforts to illegally deforest land for cattle ranching.
READ MORE: EU blamed for Amazon rainforest fires: ‘A mockery of the Commission!’
Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80 percent of current deforestation rates.
Amazon Brazil is home to approximately 200 million head of cattle, and is the largest exporter in the world, supplying about one-quarter of the global market.
New data from the Brazilian government has now revealed the rate of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has risen to its highest level in 11 years.
The data, which included the estimated deforestation rates for nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon, was generated by the Satellite Legal Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Project (PRODES).
READ MORE: Amazon fires truth: Were the fires deliberately set?
The increase in deforestation comes while the country is under the leadership of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro who was elected in October 2018.
Mr Bolsonaro has been criticised for doing little to protect the Amazon rainforest.
Greenpeace Brazil’s Amazon campaigner, Cristiane Mazzetti, said: “President Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental agenda favours those who practice environmental crimes, and encourages violence against forest people.
“His administration is trashing practically all the work that has been done in recent decades to protect the environment and end deforestation.”
She added: “High deforestation rates and lack of governance costs lives and positions the country against the fight to tackle climate change.
“It also damages the economy, as the international market does not want to buy products contaminated with environmental destruction and violence.”
Spanning more than two million square miles across the northern part of South America, the Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest.
Dr Josh Gray, an assistant professor at NC State’s Center for Geospatial Analytics and Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, told how the rainforest is “extremely important” to the environment.
He said: “The Amazon is extremely important to our global environment. Our lives would be very different without it.”
“Trees release their stored carbon back into the atmosphere when they die. Burning releases it immediately though.”
Is the Amazon rainforest still burning?
The Amazon rainforest hasn’t stopped burning and it unlikely to do so anytime soon.
The problem centres on deforestation through the systematic chopping down of trees, which are either logged or burned, mostly to convert the land for raising cattle and growing crops.
The practice has expanded from a small scale to an industrial production, leading to about 20 percent of the Brazilian Amazon being cleared since 1970.
Nigel Sizer, chief program officer for the advocacy organisation Rainforest Alliance told USA Today: “The factors that led to such widespread fires in the first place – decreased enforcement of forest law, illegal deforestation for agriculture and invasion of indigenous territories – remain in place.
“It is good news that there are fewer fires in the Amazon right now, but this is a short-term respite from the larger problem.”