Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon broke the monthly record for September, according to official figures released Friday, triggering calls from environmentalists to vote far-right President Jair Bolsonaro out of office later this month.

In the latest worrying news on the rainforest, satellite monitoring showed 1,455 square kilometers (562 square miles) of forest cover was destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon last month, according to national space agency INPE's real-time surveillance program, DETER.

The area is equivalent to 25 times the size of Manhattan, and the worst for September since the program was launched in 2015.

The previous record for September was also under Bolsonaro: 1,454 square kilometers in 2019.

The figures came as Bolsonaro battles to win re-election in an October 30 runoff against leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), who has vowed to work to achieve net-zero deforestation.

Lula -- who also faced criticism at times for his environmental record as president -- won Sunday's first-round election with 48 percent of the vote, to 43 percent for Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro, an ally of the powerful agribusiness sector, has faced international criticism for presiding over a surge of destruction in Brazil's 60-percent share of the world's biggest rainforest, a key buffer against global warming.

Since he took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent from the previous decade.

Experts say the agribusiness industry is driving the destruction by clear-cutting and burning forest to turn it to farmland and pasture.

With three months to go, 2022 is already the second-worst year on record for deforestation, at 8,590 square kilometers, according to DETER.

That is second only to 2019, Bolsonaro's first year in office, when 9,178 square kilometers were destroyed. The second- and third-worst years were also under Bolsonaro -- 2020 and 2021, respectively.

"Anyone who cares about the future of the rainforest, the lives of indigenous peoples and the possibility of having a livable planet should vote to remove Bolsonaro," Marcio Astrini, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups, said in a statement.

Bolsonaro's campaign defends his record as "balancing environmental protection with fair and sustainable economic growth."

Scientists reach tallest tree ever found in Amazon
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Oct 7, 2022 - After three years of planning, five expeditions and a two-week trek through dense jungle, scientists have reached the tallest tree ever found in the Amazon rainforest, a towering specimen the size of a 25-storey building.

The giant tree, whose top juts out high above the canopy in the Iratapuru River Nature Reserve in northern Brazil, is an angelim vermelho (scientific name: Dinizia excelsa) measuring 88.5 meters (290 feet) tall and 9.9 meters (32 feet) around -- the biggest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say.

Researchers first spotted the enormous tree in satellite images in 2019 as part of a 3D mapping project.

A team of academics, environmentalists and local guides mounted an expedition to try to reach it later that year. But after a 10-day trek through difficult terrain, exhausted, low on supplies and with a team member falling ill, they had to turn back.

Three more expeditions to the reserve's remote Jari Valley region, which sits at the border between the states of Amapa and Para, reached several other gigantic trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon -- 66 meters.

But the enormous angelim vermelho remained elusive until the September 12-25 expedition, when researchers traveled 250 kilometers (155 miles) by boat up rivers with treacherous rapids, plus another 20 kilometers on foot across mountainous jungle terrain to reach it.

One person on the 19-member expedition was bitten by what the team doctor believes was a poisonous spider.

But it was worth it, says forest engineer Diego Armando Silva of Amapa Federal University, who helped organize the trip.

"It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Just divine," Silva, 33, told AFP.

"You're in the middle of this forest where humankind has never set foot before, with absolutely exuberant nature."

After camping under the massive tree, the group collected leaves, soil and other samples, which will now be analyzed to study questions including how old the tree is -- at least 400 to 600 years, Silva estimates -- why the region has so many giant trees, and how much carbon they store.

Around half of the weight of the region's giant trees is carbon absorbed from the atmosphere -- fundamental in helping curb climate change, says Silva.

But despite its remoteness, the region's giants are under threat.

Angelim vermelho wood is prized by loggers, and the Iratapuru reserve is being invaded by illegal gold miners infamous for bringing ecological destruction, says Jakeline Pereira of environmental group Imazon, which helped organize the expedition.

"We were so thrilled to make this find," says Pereira.

"It's super important at a time when the Amazon is facing such frightening levels of deforestation."

Over the past three years, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased 75 percent from the previous decade.

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