BRAZIL — Brazil has recorded its worst annual deforestation figures in ten years.<br /><br />7,900 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest was destroyed between August 2017 and July 2018, according to the BBC.<br /><br />This represents a 13.7 percent increase from last year's figures.<br /><br />Most of the deforestation took place in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Para.<br /><br />In addition to affecting water supplies, deforestation could also cause the rainforest to start releasing greenhouse gases instead of taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the National Geographic reports.<br /><br />Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist, said if sixty percent of the forest degrades to a savanna, it could result in five or six years' of fossil-fuel emissions being released into the air.<br /><br />Deforestation was responsible for forty-six percent of Brazil's greenhouse gas emission in 2017, according to the Guardian.
