The Brazilian government hid data on deforestation in the Amazon until the end of the COP 26

Brasil – no boss Jair Bolsonaro As Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Joaquim Leit, he learned that the annual rate of deforestation Amazon had risen before climate talks in United nations (ONU) in GlasgowBut they did not announce the results so as not to hinder the negotiations, according to three of the ministers they spoke to Associated Press On condition of anonymity.

Monitoring system data Prodes subordinate National Institute for Space Research (INPE for its Portuguese acronym) Posted on Thursday, show it The Amazon lost 5,110 square miles of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from August 2020 to July 2021. This number is 22% more than the previous 12-month period and is the highest in 15 years.

The three ministers, as well as the INPE coordinator collecting the data – who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals – said that The annual deforestation report was available on GIS before October 31, when talks began in Glasgow.

Six days before that, during a meeting in the Republican Palace, Bolsonaro and several ministers discussed the results of deforestation from 2020 to 2021 and decided not to release it until after the climate conference.The three ministers said, two of them were present at the meeting.

Later that day, the government launched a program to promote green development. Official speeches sounded like a rehearsal for attempts to demonstrate responsible environmental management in Glasgow after two years of high levels of deforestation.

One of the two ministers who took part in the meeting said the decision to withhold data was part of a strategy to restore environmental credibility abroad. The person indicated that it was not an attempt to lie, but rather a way to emphasize positive developments, particularly the annual decrease reflected in the preliminary data on deforestation for the months of July and August from the Deter monitoring system.

Bolsonaro highlighted those same statements when he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in September. However, in the two months since then, Deter’s regimen has shown strong year-over-year increases.

Deter’s data is published monthly and is an important indicator for completing the calculations for the more accurate Prodes system, which is based on clearer images and is published once a year. Prodes generally match the data from Deter.

After Prodes’ data was released on Thursday, Leite told reporters that the data did not reflect the government’s commitment in recent months. Leyte led the Brazilian delegation to the United Nations climate summit.

Bolsonaro, who has long advocated development in the Amazon, including indigenous land mining, did not participate in Glasgow after attending a G-20 meeting in Rome.

The press offices of the Ministry of the Environment and the Presidency did not respond to emails from the Associated Press asking when Light and Bolsonaro were informed of deforestation data in 2020-2021 and why its publication was delayed.