São Paulo, 7 September 2022 – 16,698 fire hotspots were registered in the Amazon just in the first week of September, according to the Brazilian Space Agency (INPE), almost as many registered in the entire month of September last year (16,742 hotspots).
Photos and videos of the fires and smoke are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.
Cristiane Mazzetti, senior forest campaigner for Greenpeace Brazil, said:
“On the day Brazil celebrates its 200th Independence Anniversary, and in the same week the Day of the Amazon was celebrated, the number of fires in the Amazon only reinforce the country still follows the same predatory dynamic since its colonization. An economy based on the destruction of the environment, that has been perpetuated for hundreds of years, extracting natural resources at the cost of biodiversity, threatening the lives of Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities and the global climate, while only favouring the profits of a few and not leading to real and fair development.”
Fires and deforestation have exploded in the Amazon since Bolsonaro took office in 2019. The area deforested each year in the Amazon increased by 52% in the first three years of the Bolsonaro administration (average of 11,339 km² between 2019 and 2021) compared to the previous three-year average (average of 7,458 km² between 2016 and 2018). And there was a 16.7% increase in fire hotspots in the Amazon from January through August 2022 compared to the same time period the previous year.
“We are witnessing a climate-critical ecosystem disappear in front of our eyes, by the hands of criminals that are advancing into the forest at an alarming rate. Right now, these criminals have met an ally in the federal government, who have been emboldening these criminal actions over the past three years through an anti-environmental agenda,” added Mazzetti.
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