….the percentage of the Amazon Rainforest protected by its host countries.
The Amazon rainforest is big (duh), and as nearly 2/3rds of it is in Brazil that’s the country most associated with all things environmental. But the rainforest covers a total of five countries and the chart above shows how much of each country’s patch is protected by either government legislation or by being inside an officially recognized indigenous zone (as they keep things in balance).
Best citizen is Ecuador, with Venezuela coming second. Colombia gets third spot, but the 56% is hardly anything the write home about. However the really bad boys are also the countries with the largest amount of rainforest on their patches; both Brazil and Peru fail the test. Data is from the Red Amazónica de Información Socioambiental Georreferenciada (RAISG), a mouthful of a name for an NGO that translates easily enough. Here’s a Spanish language report on the findings.