Destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped last year to the highest levels since 1995, prompting the government to pledge new controls to reduce deforestation.
Logging in the world's largest tropical forest reached 7,659 square miles last year, up from 6,664 square miles in 1999, according to preliminary figures from the government's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Environmentalists were angered by the rise, saying more action was needed quickly to reverse what they see as the unsustainable destruction of the Amazon, home to up to 30 per cent of the world's animal and plant life.
"The beginning of the new millennium could not have been worse for the Amazon, the figures are worrying if we look to the future," said the World Wildlife Fund in a statement.
The annual INPE figures, based on satellite images of the Amazon, showed 0.56 percent of total jungle was cut down in 2000. Most of the Amazon - which is larger than all Western Europe combined - is in Brazil, although it stretches to neighboring countries like Venezuela and Colombia.
Destruction of the Amazon, which is sometimes considered to be the "lungs of the planet" due to the huge amounts of oxygen produced by its trees, had been gradually falling from the highest rate in recent years of 0.8 percent in 1995.
INPE said last year's increase in deforestation was mainly due to increased logging on small properties owned by farmers trying to make a living from the land.
The area of the Amazon cut down last year was about the size of Belgium.