Brazil’s Amazon region lost 24% more rainforest in the year ending July 31, 2015 than was cleared in the preceding 12 months, according to figures released by the Brazilian government last month. The causes of the quickening deforestation pace included increased soy and beef prices and reduction in environmental-enforcement personnel, government and private-sector specialists say. Deforestation consumed 6,207 square kilometers (2,397 square miles) of Amazon rainforest in the measured period—the most recent for which definitive data are available—according to the new figures, issued in September by the government’s National Space Research Institute (INPE). That area, roughly equivalent in size to the U.S. state of Delaware, compares to the 5,012 square kilometers (1,935 sq. miles) of Amazon rainforest lost in the 12... [Log in to read more]