Deforestation in Brazil is rising again — after years of decline

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8134115/deforestation-brazil-increasing

Brad Plumer

March 2, 2015

Picture 1

Between 2005 and 2012, the amount of Amazon rainforests cut down each year fell by 70%. The recent increase in deforestation was observed by Imazon, a Brazilian non-profit that is using satellite data to track forest loss. They have estimated that 1,660 square kilometers of rainforests were cleared between August 2014 and January 2015. This is triple the amount that was cleared the year before. . The data shows increase of deforestation all around the country.In the western states Mato Grosso and Rondonia, forests are being burned and cleared away. In the state of Para, illegal logging is rising. On Picture 3, on the map you can see the activity in January 2015, the red dots are deforestation. Tree clearing is a major contributor to the rise of greenhouse-gases causeing global warming, as these trees are burned all the carbon they've stored up goes into the atmosphere. 

Picture 2

Picture 3 

Why deforestation in Brazil is rising again?

Some environmentalists blame the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. They say, that Rousseff helped weaken the country's "Forest Code", which tells the farmers and companies how much of forest they have to leave on their lands. Rouseff's administration is making new dam projects which will take key forest areas. This is very bad, because many animals and plants will loose their home. 

I believe that it may be the Presidents fault to some extend but I mostly think that it is the people's fault who are logging for example the forests, because even if the government would put laws in there would be people who would still do it. The people who are doing this to the environment maybe do not know how much they are harming the environment and themselves actually.