Brasilia: Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose sharply last month as it prepared to send troops to curb illegal logging and mining, the country's space research agency said.
On Friday, Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) said that more than 405 sq km of the Amazon had been deforested last month compared with 248 sq km in April 2019, the BBC reported.
Read also: Amazon rainforest is burning
Between January and April, destruction of the forest by illegal loggers and ranchers rose 55 percent or a total of 1,202 sq km was wiped out, it said.
Deforestation in the region has soared since President Jair Bolsonaro took office last year, according to conservation groups. He argued that more farming and mining in protected areas of the forest were the only way to lift the region out of poverty.
Read also: WATCH: Wildfires rage in parts of Amazon
Bolsonaro's environmental policies have been widely condemned but he rejected the criticism, saying Brazil remains an example for conservation.
Conservation groups have also said that since the coronavirus pandemic began, fewer government enforcement agents had been deployed, reported the BBC.
Brazil has been one of the worst-affected countries in South America, with 1,41,000 cases and nearly 10,000 deaths.
"The pandemic has not helped because there are apparently fewer agents out there and in remote areas of the Amazon, illegal loggers don't care about the virus," the BBC quoted Paulo Barreto, senior researcher for the non-profit conservation group Imazon, as saying.
Environmental enforcement agency Ibama said that it was scaling backfield agents in other at-risk areas but not in the Amazon.
The rainforest is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.
IANS
