Amazon deforestation has risen by 20% this year, monitoring group warns

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks out in favour of expanding mining and industrial farming in the Amazon

Deforestation of the Amazon has increased by 20 per cent in the past year, according to a non-governmental group that has been monitoring the rainforest for two decades.

Uncontrolled logging and land invasion has been blamed by analysts for much of the loss, some of which occurred in protected areas and Indigenous reserves.

Environmental group Imazon said satellite imagery showed the region lost 2,169 square kilometres (837 square miles) of forest between August and April. This is up from 1,807 square kilometres lost over the same period the previous year.

The group's monitoring year begins with August, to match Brazil's dry season, when logging rates are usually at their highest.

The country's president Jair Bolsonaro and his environment minister Ricardo de Aquino Salles have questioned the reality of climate change and spoken in favour of expanding mining and industrial farming into the Amazon and protected areas.

Both believe environmental laws and activist groups often work to hinder Brazil’s economic potential.

Mr Salles said earlier this month that he wanted to overhaul the Amazon Fund, an initiative created to contain deforestation in an area of nearly seven million square kilometres (2.7 million square miles).

He was scheduled to meet with representatives of the German and Norwegian governments, two of the fund’s main contributors, this week.

Mr Salles has said his ministry reviewed 103 contracts awarded by the fund to non-profit groups, about a third of all contracts signed since its launch in 2008. He said the inquiry found “irregularities” in all 103 contracts, but he did not give any specific cases, citing confidentiality clauses until a review by auditors.

He reiterated his intention to shake up the fund by tightening rules and supervision over the allocation of contracts and the choice of projects that can get funding in a recent interview with Globo TV.

“We want better results to reverse the rise in deforestation,” Mr Salles said, adding that he wanted “measurable” results and a “return on investment.”

He could not give more details about the ministry’s proposed changes before discussing them with Norway and Germany, he said. Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, is the fund’s third biggest contributor.

The fund was created to receive donations to help prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, a vast area rich in biodiversity and whose preservation is seen as essential to curbing climate change.

Additional reporting by Associated Press