Brazil’s Amazon is burning at a record rate, according to data from the National Institute of Space Research that intensified domestic and international scrutiny of President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policies.
INPE, as the institute is known, recorded an 84% increase in fires in Brazil between 2018 and 2019, with well over half taking place in the Amazon rainforest. It was the highest level since records began 7 years ago. Speaking to reporters in Brasilia on Wednesday, the president said that NGOs could be behind the fires, in an attempt to discredit him and to draw attention to the cuts in ...