Brazil set a new low for Amazon deforestation in the first three months of 2022, compared to the same period the previous year, according to government data, prompting concern and warnings from environmentalists.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 64% year on year from January to March, reaching 941 square kilometers (363 square miles), according to data from the national space research agency Inpe.

That area, which is larger than New York City, has lost the most forest cover since the data series began in 2015.

Destruction of the world’s largest rainforest has increased since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019. He has weakened environmental protections, claiming that they impede economic development and thus poverty reduction in the Amazon region.

According to Al Jazeera’s Monica Yanakiew, reporting from Rio de Janeiro, the new data is especially concerning because Brazil is in the midst of its rainy season when loggers do not typically cut down trees and farmers do not burn them to clear land.

“There should be less activity, less deforestation,” Yanakiew explained.

She went on to say that the figures came as representatives from 100 Indigenous tribes gathered in the capital, Brasilia, to demand greater protection for their lands and to condemn proposed laws that would allow the government to further exploit the rainforest.

“They’re protesting to ensure that Congress does not pass bills pushed by the government to make commercial exploitation of the Amazon [rain]forest easier.” President Jair Bolsonaro is attempting to complete this before running for re-election in October.”

The president’s office and the Environment Ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on Friday’s deforestation data.

According to the data, deforestation slowed by 15% in March, but this came after two months of record highs.

Farming and land speculation are primarily to blame for the devastation in Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse and the world’s largest exporter of beef and soy. The country is home to roughly 60% of the Amazon rainforest.

Raoni Raja, an environmental management professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, described the situation in the Amazon as “quite dire.”

“The fact that we are already at a record high and seeing numbers that are usually expected mid-year – when it’s drier and easier to access the forest and cause some damage – is indeed concerning,” Raja told Al Jazeera.

He claimed that deforestation, combined with climate change, has had a “significant impact” on the Amazon, even in areas far removed from human activity. “Even in areas far from the agricultural frontier, we’re seeing the forest drying up and becoming more prone to fires,” Raja explained.

“And this is very concerning because it suggests that we may be approaching a tipping point where the damage to the forest may become irreversible.”

On Monday, the United Nations Climate Panel issued a report warning that governments are not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

While the use of fossil fuels is primarily to blame, the report claims that deforestation accounts for about 10% of global emissions.

“Brazil is an example of what the UN climate report says when it comes to governments not taking the necessary actions,” said Cristiane Mazzetti, a Greenpeace forest campaigner in Brazil. “We have a government that actively opposes the necessary steps to limit climate change.”