BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s Chiribiquete national park saw “major deforestation” between September 2021 and February of this year, an environmental monitoring group said on Monday, warning that the destruction hampered conservation of the Amazon.
More than 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) were deforested in Chiribiquete over the six month period, according to a report by Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
That is slightly more than the 1,948 hectares deforested during a 12-month period over 2019 and 2020, as tallied by the Colombian Institute of Meteorology.
Though Chiribiquete is Colombia’s largest protected area and one of its most isolated, the park has in recent years seen multiple new deforestation fronts emerge.
President Ivan Duque – who recently took Amazon AMZN.O founder Jeff Bezos on a tour of the UNESCO-recognized park to highlight its importance – had pledged to cut deforestation in half by the end of his term this August; though, last year Environment Minister Carlos Correa gave a more conservative reduction target of 30%.
Fires seen across the park in February represented burning of recently deforested areas, the report said.
While preliminary data suggests national deforestation in 2021 was slightly lower than the year before, destruction remains much higher than levels seen before a 2016 peace deal with leftist rebels opened many areas to development, Matt Finer, Amazon Conservation senior research specialist and MAAP director, told Reuters.
“Deforestation across the Colom-bian Amazon is not at record levels but (is) still quite high and not sustainable for the long-term conservation of the region,” Finer said.
While data from Chiribiquete should not be extrapolated to other forests, it suggests destruction is increasing, Rodrigo Botero, director general of the Foundation for Con-servation and Sustainable Develop-ment (FCDS) said.
“I predict that definitely there is once again growth in deforestation in the Amazon region versus the previous year,” Botero said.
Deforestation soared following a peace deal with the FARC guerrillas as former fighters left the jungle en masse, opening vast tracts to logging, cattle ranching and other damaging activities. Colombia’s environment ministry did not immediately res-pond to questions.
