RIO DE JANEIRO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian government said on Monday that President Jair Bolsonaro does not intend to stop the publication of Brazil's deforestation figures.
Bolsonaro does not want to shut public access to the figures gathered by the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe), said government spokesperson Otavio Rego Barros.
The intention of the president's recent comment on an Inpe report is for the government to identify the demands and the necessary actions from the report, Rego Barros added.
The president was caught in a dispute with the Inpe during the past weekends, on Sunday saying that the government agency's latest publication of deforestation figures damaged Brazil's reputation, leaving the country "in a complicated situation" in international negotiations.
He urged the agency to coordinate such reports with higher officials in the administration before publication. He was then accused of trying to censor Inpe's data to cover up rising deforestation of Amazon rainforest.
Bolsonaro's comment came two days after he questioned the veracity of Inpe's latest figures, triggering protest from the agency.
Inpe's director reaffirmed that the data are valid, noting that the agency has long been measuring deforestation in Amazon through real-time satellite imaging and the result aligns well with those from other institutions.
Preliminary data indicate that an area of more than 3,700 square km has been deforested this year. In July alone, 1,250 square km of forest has been lost, surging 68 percent year-on-year, Inpe report showed.
