Peru reaches the highest deforestation rate in the last 20 years

The year 2020 has been devastating for the Peruvian Amazon. Deforestation reached 203,272 hectares, a figure that is 54,846 more than the amount of forests lost the previous year.

This figure, the highest in the last two decades, is the result of satellite monitoring carried out by the Ministry of the Environment (Minam), through its National Program for the Conservation of Forests for the Mitigation of Climate Change.

The report also indicates that between 2001 and 2020, 2,636,585 hectares of forests were lost in Peru. »In a year marked by national immobilization due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of forests in Peru has had the highest figures so far this century. Without a doubt, most of the proportion of deforestation is due to illegal activity, that activity that is not regulated, ”says Gabriel Quijandría, a former Minister of the Environment who was in office until July 2021.

Ucayali has been the region with the highest deforestation in Peru in 2020. The figures from the Geobosques portal indicate 47,267 hectares lost in the region.

In this department, in addition, 45 possible clandestine landing strips have been identified during 2020 and nine more so far in 2021, according to reports from the Regional Government of Ucayali. This is a