Then & Now Amazon Deforestation

When it comes to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, a lot of numbers get thrown around, such as a certain number of football fields disappearing on a daily basis. That begs the question: how much of it is actually being destroyed? That question has gotten louder since Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil's president and late last year, the country's environmental ministry revealed that deforestation reached its worst level in a decade.

In 2018, 7,900 square kilometers disappeared, an area roughly five times the size as London. Back in 1970 when the rainforest was in better shape, it stretched for just over 4 million square kilometers, according to statistics from Mongabay. 20.3 percent of total forest cover has now been removed and by 2018, the total area had fallen to 3.3 million square kilometers.