More than 200,000 hectares of Amazon forest have been destroyed in just nine months

Rio de Janeiro: A non-government group that monitors the Amazon rainforest says the pace of deforestation is increasing.

A deforested area near Novo Progresso in Brazil's northern state of Para.

Imazon said that satellite imagery show the region lost 2169 square kilometres (216,900 hectares) of forest in the most recent August-through-April period.

That's a 20 per cent jump from the 1807 square kilometres lost over the same nine-month period the previous year.

Analysts blame uncontrolled logging and land invasion for much of the loss, some of which occurred in protected areas and Indigenous reserves.

Read the story from The Age - “More than 200,000 hectares of Amazon forest have been destroyed in just nine months.”