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Brazil has launched a military deployment to protect the Amazon rainforest, Vice President Hamilton Mourao says, in response to surging deforestation this year with the high season for forest fires still approaching.
The military - along with environmental authorities, police and other government agencies - began on Monday with an operation to stop illegal environmental destruction in a national forest in the state of Rondonia near the Bolivian border, Mourao said at a press conference alongside other government ministers.
Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva said authorities are establishing bases of operation in three Amazon cities, with 3800 troops mobilised to begin raids against illegal logging and other crimes, with initial operational costs of $US10.3 million ($NZ16.9 million).
Government data released on Friday showed that deforestation rose 55% in the first four months of the year, compared to the same period a year ago, to 1202 square kilometres.
That comes on top of last year's destruction rising to an 11-year high, provoking international outcry that not enough was being done to protect the world's largest rainforest.
President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree last week deploying the military to the region, repeating a move he made last year to send in the armed forces after forest fires and deforestation surged.
This year troops are being sent in three months earlier than in 2019.