An area the size of a football pitch of tropical rainforest is now being destroyed.
A new report says that every 6 seconds now, an area of the tropical rainforest the size of a football pitch is destroyed. This comes after deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has accelerated since this lockdowns began this year and last years forest fires which raged through the Amazon rainforest for most of the year - from January to October.
Last years Amazon rainforest fires destroyed over one million hectares.
The new report comes from Global Forest Watch. They have found that last year, almost 12 million hectares of tropical rainforest was destroyed. Last year seen a 2.8% increase in deforestation.
Brazil, where the Amazon rainforest is found, was by far the country with the highest levels of deforestation: 1,361,000 hectares were destroyed there.
These are the top 10 countries which lost most forest in 2019:
1) Brazil
2) Democratic Republic of Congo
3) Indonesia
4) Bolivia
5) Peru
6) Malaysia
7) Columbia
8) Laos
9) Mexico
10) Cambodia
Fires in Bolivia were exceptionally high, as they were higher by 80% last year.
Brazil had one-third of deforestation in 2019 of all countries.
But, in Indonesia, even though they had one of the worst levels of deforestation it had a 5% decline in deforestation last year and, deforestation had declined for the third year in a row.
If you want to see the full report, you can find this - here.
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