Almost 4,000 new forest fires were started in Brazil in the two days after the government banned deliberate burning of the Amazon, officials have revealed.

Some 3,859 outbreaks were recorded by the country’s National Space Research Institute (Inpe) in the 48 hours following the 60-day prohibition on setting trees alight. Around 2,000 of those blazes were in the Amazon rainforest.

The figures come as the latest blow in an environmental crisis that has caused panic across the world, and which led the agenda at the recent G7 summit in France.

More than 72,000 fires had already been detected across Brazil between January and August – the highest number since records began in 2013 and an 83 per cent increase on the same period last year.

Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Fire rages in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonina on August 23 Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billlows from burning tracts of the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Para on August 23 AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Fire rages in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonina on August 23 EPA Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Land in the Amazon rainforest left scorched in the fires in the Brazilian state of Rondonina on August 23 AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Rondonia, Brazil on August 23 AFP Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Fire tears through a farm in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso AP Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures An area of the Amazon rainforest left scorched in the fires in the Brazilian state of Amazonas on August 24 AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Satellite images show a series of fires in the southwest Brazilian state of Rondonia on August 15 AP Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Rondonia, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures A satellite image released by NASA shows the active fires that have been detected in the Amazon region EPA Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Amazonas, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Rondonia, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Rondonia, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Amazonas, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Indigenous people from the Mura tribe wallk in a deforested area inside the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Amazonas on August 20 Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Fire tears through a farm in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso AP Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows from a stretch of fire in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonia on 23 August AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest in the state of Amazonas, Brazil Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Indigenous people from the Mura tribe wallk in a deforested area inside the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Amazonas on August 20 Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows from a stretch of fire in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonia on 23 August AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures A view of logs felled illegally in the Amazon rainforest are seen in sawmills in the Brazilian state of Amazonas on August 22 Reuters Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures A scorched patch of land in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil on 20 August EPA Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Several fires are seen burning in the Amazon rainforest in this satellite image taken by NASA on 11 August AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures Smoke billows from a stretch of fire in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonia on 23 August AFP/Getty Amazon rainforest swept by fires: In pictures The sunsets behind clouds and smoke from fires in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondonia on 18 August EPA

Because it is the world’s largest rainforest, the fate of the Amazon – often called the “lungs of the world” – is widely considered by climate change experts as key to the future of the planet.

It is a vital carbon store that slows down global warming while providing some 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen. Its destruction – deliberate or otherwise – reduces the ability of nature to suck carbon from the atmosphere.

But Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who came into power promising to clear vast tracts of the rainforest for development, had, until last week, remained unmoved.

He has systematically weakened institutions designed to protect the rainforest, while offering moral support to farmers wishing to turn the land into cattle ranches.

And, although he has now placed a 60-day ban on burning and deployed 44,000 troops to fight the ongoing blazes, critics fear it is too little too late.

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Tasso Azevedo, who runs the deforestation monitoring group Mapbiomas, said the legislation’s focus on fire means developers clearing the forest would continue to legally chop down trees – and then simply burn them after the prohibition period ended.

Writing in O Globo newspaper, he called for the ban on the use of fire to be extended until the end of the dry season in November.