Brazil president threatens officers over deforestation data

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is threatening to dismiss officers at the agency that monitors deforestation in the Amazon over its publication of data he disagrees with.

Bolsonaro on Thursday repeated his charge that the INPE federal agency may have manipulated deforestation figures to make his administration look bad. He called the number “doubtful,” and said if someone in the agency broke trust by providing incorrect figures, “the person needs to be immediately fired.”

The agency reported recently that 920 square kilometers (370 square miles) of Amazon forest was lost in June, a spike of 88% from the amount of deforestation the same month last year.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles also called INPE’s figures sensationalist and inaccurate, but did not offer another estimate.