An area a quarter the size of Switzerland was deforested in the last year

The destruction of Brazil's vast Amazon rain forest appeared to increase slightly over the past year after slowing since 2004, the government said.


The National Space Research Institute announced that satellite images showed a total of 4,633 square miles were deforested from August 2007 to July 2008 – an area about one quarter the size of Switzerland.


That is about 3.8% more land deforested than the 4,440 square miles destroyed during the previous 12-month period.