Lanka Talents

In a statement, Brazilian non-governmental organisation Climate Observatory said the figures “reflect the result of a successful initiative to annihilate the capacity of the Brazilian State and the inspection bodies to take care of our forests and fight crime in the Amazon”.

But some officials said the fact that the rate of increase was lower than that recorded last year was a sign of progress.

“While we are not here to celebrate this, it does signify that the efforts we are making are beginning to bear fruit,” Vice-President Hamilton Mourão told reporters.

The scale of destruction in the Amazon rainforest is hard to comprehend.

Last year I experienced the silent aftermath of deforestation where huge trees had been bulldozed and would later be burned.

This is done to create fields for cattle grazing and soya cultivation – big earners for Brazil.

At the time it was said that an area of forest the size of a football pitch was cleared every single minute.

But soon that calculation was overtaken, and this year has seen the largest fires for a decade.

None of this should be a surprise: Jair Bolsonaro, was elected on a promise of development.

Keen to promote mining as well as agriculture, he described the Amazon as “a periodic table” of valuable minerals, and he resents what he sees as outside interference.

But climate scientists say the billions of trees are a vast store of carbon and, without them, the rise in global temperatures will accelerate.