Deforestation has continued to slow down in Brazil's Amazon but was on the increase in the country's Atlantic rainforest, dpa quoted Brazilian officials as saying late Wednesday. According to the figures made public by the Brazilian Environment Ministry on World Environment Day, a total of 4,571 square kilometres were deforested in the Amazon from August 2011-July 2012, the lowest such figure since regular monitoring started in 1988. Between 2011 and 2012, however, 235 square kilometres of Atlantic rainforest, the so-called Mata Atlantica, were deforested across 10 states. This amounts to a 29-per-cent increase over the previous year, the environmental protection organization SOS Mata Atlantica and the public Institute for Space Research (INPE) said Tuesday. This means that the rate of deforestation in the Atlantic region was the highest since 2008. The species-rich Mata Atlantica is regarded as one of the world's most-threatened rainforests. In fact, it is down to about 8 per cent of its original surface, after an estimated 18,300 square kilometres have been destroyed over the past 27 years, according to the report.
