The mining industry welcomes a new decision by Brazilian President Michel Temer to lift a rainforest reserve larger than Denmark.
The area extends over an area of nearly 47,000 square kilometres in the states of Pará and Amapá in northern Brazil.
The goal is to attract new investments, jobs and prosperity, the government writes in a statement. At the same time, it is ensured that the majority of protected forest areas and indigenous territories located in the reserve will not be affected.
Opposition senator Randolfe Rodrigues calls, according to O Globo, the decision for "the biggest attack on the Amazon in the last 50 years".
Rescued from prosecution
The background to the criticism is a situation where Amazon's wake-up rate has begun to increase again. Temer's government has previously decided on amnesty for all occupied public land by 2011, which, according to critics, encourages continued landslides and wreckage in the Amazon.
It was also recently proposed a bill to downgrade the protection in another large rainforest area in northern Brazil.
According to critics, Temer knocks on the big mining and agriculture lobby in Congress, whose support rescued the corruption suspect president from prosecution.
