Monday’s statistics from Brazilian space agency INPE are the latest in a series of disturbing messages from the world’s largest rainforest.

Satellite monitoring in the Amazon recorded 5,373 fires in July, compared with 4,977 in the same month in 2021.

However, the number is far lower than the worst month of July on record, when 19,364 fires were counted in 2005.

Fire season in the Amazon usually begins in July, when the weather becomes drier. Fires are often started by farmers and speculators clearing land for agriculture, according to experts.

Rainforests are considered an important resource to reduce global warming. So far this year, INPE has recorded 12,906 fires, 13 percent higher than the same period last year.

– This is just the start of the dry season in the Amazon, when the number of criminal forest fires explodes, says Romulo Batista of Greenpeace in Brazil.

– Apart from depleting forests and their biodiversity, fires and destruction are also affecting the health of local residents from the haze, Batista said in a statement.

President Jair Bolsonaro has come under strong criticism for how the government manages Brazil’s share of the Amazon, which is 60 percent. Since Bolsonaro came to power in 2019, deforestation has also increased sharply. Among other things, open mining and agriculture in protected areas.