Deforestation In Brazil's Amazon Skyrockets After Years Of Decline

MARANHAO STATE, BRAZIL - NOVEMBER 21: Smoke from a brush fire hovers above a deforested section of the Amazon basin on November 21, 2014 in Maranhao state, Brazil. Fires are often set by ranchers to clear shrubs and forest for grazing land in the Amazon basin. The non-governmental group Imazon recently warned that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon skyrocketed 450 percent in October of this year compared with the same month last year. The United Nations climate change conference begins December 1 in neighboring Peru. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)