Latest news with #environmentMinistry
Asharq Al-Awsat
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation
A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday. The figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024, said AFP. And they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period. That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years. The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference. In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024. Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought. Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.
Malay Mail
31-05-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
Man killed by lion at Namibian safari lodge after stepping out to use toilet; campers managed to scare predator away
WINDHOEK (Namibia), May 31 — A lion killed a 59-year-old man at a luxury lodge in the remote north-west of Namibia, police said. The victim was camping with other tourists at the tented resort when the early morning incident happened, police said. He was attacked when he stepped out of his tent to use the toilet, environment ministry spokesperson Ndeshipanda Hamunyela told local news outlet Informante. Other campers managed to scare off the lion but the man was already dead by then, he said. Police were 'attending the scene and a full report will be submitted in due course,' spokesperson Elifas Kuwinga said. Desert-adapted lions roam the remote northwest of the country where mountains and sand dunes meet. In 2023, they were estimated to be around 60 adults and more than dozen cubs. But their numbers have dipped in recent months following a drought-induced drop in prey and conflict with humans. — AFP
