Peru warns that the Amazon rainforest is destroyed at a rapid rate

Peru's Ministry of Environment on May 8 said the country's Amazon rainforest area has lost nearly 2 million hectares of forest land between 2001 and 2016, equivalent to 123,000 hectares of flattened forest land each year.

A corner of the Amazon forest.

According to Cesar Calmet, the head of Peru's Ministry of Environment's forest conservation program, cultivation, animal husbandry, logging, illegal mining and drug smuggling is the main cause of the situation and if not Settlement plan, the area of ​​cleared forest can reach 300,000-400,000ha a year.

Satellite images show that deforestation continues to increase in 2017, with 143,000 hectares of Amazon forest removed from the Peruvian map.

According to Calmet, the situation is particularly difficult in the Madre de Dios area in southern Amazon, where gold mining is widespread and deforestation is increasing rapidly, from 5,000 hectares in 2001 to 17,000 hectares in the year. 2016.

Peru is one of the countries with the largest Amazon forest area, just behind Brazil. According to the United Nations Environment Program, this country is one of 17 countries with "great ecological diversity".

Located in eastern Peru, the Amazon basin occupies one third of Peru's territory and is an important source of Earth's greenhouse gas.