BRASILIA: A recent analysis by Amazon Conservation Organisation (ACO) on deforestation showed that roughly 21,000 square kilometers (8,108 square miles) of old-growth forest, about the size of New Jersey, was cut or burned down in the year 2020. ACO is a United States based non-profit group, who in its analysis of satellite data found that an area equivalent to the size of Israel was deforested in the Amazon biome. The analysis also established that there has been surge in destruction by 21 per cent in the region that is home to world’s largest rainforest and spans nine countries.
Matt Finer, Head-Amazon Monitoring Project, ACO, informed that Bolivia accounted for the biggest increase in destruction compared to 2019 as enormous fires tore through its Chiquitano dry forests. He cited the reason to be Bolivians using slash and burn tactic to clear land for cattle or soy, and the possibility of fires getting out of control and escape into the forest in dry conditions.
According to the analysis, Brazil accounted for deforestation in 61 per cent of the hotspots in Amazon overall, although, Finer said, forest destruction in 2020 was similar to that in 2019 in Brazil. He commented, “I think 2019 is regarded as a really bad year for the Brazilian Amazon. 2020 got less press and attention but it was just as bad, if not worse.”
Reports of a study conducted by the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network released in December 2020 also established that deforestation in the Amazon destroyed an area bigger than Spain from 2000 to 2018, thus wiping out eight per cent of the world’s largest rainforest. The study had found that after making gains against deforestation early in the century, the Amazon region has again slipped into a worrying cycle of destruction, which is fuelled by logging, farming, ranching, mining, and infrastructure projects on formerly pristine forest land.