page_title: Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest
section_title: Loss rates
hierarchical_section_title: Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest / Loss rates
caption_attribution_description: Ibama e Polícia Federal combatem grupo criminoso responsável por extrair e comercializar ilegalmente madeira da Reserva Biológica do Gurupi e das Terras Indígenas Caru e Alto Turiaçu, no Maranhão. Foto: Felipe Werneck - Ascom/Ibama
context_page_description: The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world, covering an area of 5,500,000 km². It represents over half of the planet's rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60%, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and France.
  The cattle sector of the Brazilian Amazon, incentivized by the international beef and leather trades, has been responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region, or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the world's largest single driver of deforestation. The vast majority of agricultural activity resulting in deforestation was subsidized by government tax revenue. By 1995, 70% of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970 had been converted to cattle ranching.
context_section_description: The annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon region dramatically increased from 1991 to 2003. In the nine years from 1991 to 2000, the total area of Amazon rainforest cleared since 1970 rose from 419,010 to 575,903 km² (161,781 to 222,357 sq mi), comparable to the land area of Spain, Madagascar or Manitoba. Most of this lost forest was replaced by pasture for cattle.
  Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest continued to accelerate in the early 2000s, reaching an annual rate of 27,423 km² of forest loss in the year 2004. The annual rate of forest loss generally slowed between 2004 and 2012, though rates of deforestation jumped again in 2008, 2013 and 2015.
  Today the loss of remaining forest cover appears to be accelerating again. Between August 2017 and July 2018, 7,900 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi) were deforested in Brazil – a 13.7% rise over the previous year and the largest area cleared since 2008. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest rose more than 88% in June 2019 compared with the same month in 2018,  and more than doubled in January 2020 compared with the same month in 2019.
  In August 2019, 30,901 individual forest fires were reported, three times the number a year earlier. The number dropped by a third in September, and by October 7 the number was down to about 10,000. Deforestation is said to be worse than burning, Brazil's satellite agency, National Institute for Space Research estimates that at least 7,747 km² of Brazilian Amazon rainforest have already been cleared so far this year, and the number is expected to go up.
  In Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, or National Institute of Space Research) produces deforestation figures annually. Their deforestation estimates are derived from 100 to 220 images taken during the dry season in the Amazon by the Landsat satellite, and may only consider the loss of the Amazon rainforest – not the loss of natural fields or savannah within the Amazon biome.
caption: Deforestation in the Maranhão state in 2016
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