Called “the lungs of the Earth”, the large swathes of Amazon rainforest are burning. This green spread produces roughly 20% of the oxygen on Earth. However, now, the skies of Sao Paolo, Brazil is black and covered with smoke and flames ravaging all over from the Amazon rainforest which is on fire, reducing the earth’s lung capacity.
In the #AmazonRainforest, fire season has arrived.
The MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this images of several fires burning in the Brazilian states of Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, and Mato Grosso on August 11, 2019. pic.twitter.com/btulI01v5n
— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) August 21, 2019
As the amazon forest continues to burn, it drastically contributes to the climate crisis, both from the carbon released by the fire and from the loss of trees and the ability to absorb the carbon in coming future.
Spanning over more than eight countries, the world’s most diverse wildlife — remains under siege.
NASA maps carbon monoxide from #AmazonRainforest fires from orbit: https://t.co/xFvWUfDfVm pic.twitter.com/eRrp34QvGm
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) August 23, 2019
Amazon is critical to the survival of not only the local and about 400 indigenous groups that it shelters, but to our entire planet. Conservationists have blamed Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, of exacerbating the problem by allowing deforestation.
The indigenous people of the Amazon have been demanding attention to the repercussions of failing to protect the rainforest for years. They have also been resisting the destruction, sometimes paying with their own lives.
Why Is Amazon Burning?
NASA released images on August 11 showing the spread of wildfires and reported that its satellites had detected heightened fire activity in July and August.
However, some reports suggest that some farmers and small scale traders organised a “fire day” along BR-163, a highway that runs through the heart of the rainforest.
Scientists claim three primary reasons- one of which is deforestation. The amazon is shedding a considerable amount of trees. The most common way of disposing of the cut trees is to let it dry and then burn them.
The final cause is droughts, which occur naturally but are now a frequent affair due to climate change and deforestation.
Third is farming or cattle ranching. Fire becomes a standard way of maintaining an area for agricultural purposes. This technique has increased drastically, affecting the forest.
The thousands of trees burning in the Amazon don’t look like the major forest fires of Europe or North America — instead, they are fuelled mainly by branches, vegetation and other byproducts of deforestation in cleared areas, experts say.
The dangerous magnitude of this year’s fire is the result of a significant increase in deforestation for the lumber industry, agriculture or other human activities.
Why Is It A Matter Of Concern?
Amazon rainforest is home to 40 per cent of the world’s tropical forest and accounts for 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater supply.
It is also home to world’s 40,000 plant species and around 3,000 varieties of edible fruits. It is also a natural habitat for 430 species of mammals and millions of insect species.
The fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have been burning at the highest rate. There have been around 72,843 fires in Brazil in 2019 alone, with more than half in the Amazon rainforest.
This shows an 80 per cent increase in fires during the same period in 2018.
The Amazon rainforest is home to indigenous communities whose lives and homelands are endangered due to encroachment by the Brazil government, foreign corporations and governments with economic interests in the resource-rich region, and local farmers.
Much of the Amazon rainforest is vulnerable because it consists of lowland, wetland forests which are not capable of combating the fire.
Connection With Climate Change
With the increase in fire, there is an increase in greenhouse emissions too. This makes the planet’s overall temperature rise, as a result of which extreme weather events like significant droughts happen more often.
When forests burn, carbon is released in the form of Carbon Dioxide, adding to rising levels of carbon in the atmosphere. Some scientists estimate that we could reach a tipping point where the Amazon forests might not be able to hold the carbon content anymore, thereby releasing it into the atmosphere.
“In addition to increasing emissions, deforestation contributes directly to a change in rainfall patterns in the affected region, extending the length of the dry season, further affecting forests, biodiversity, agriculture and human health,” Greenpeace said in the release.
While the direct impact of the fire would bring changes in the heating of the regional atmosphere, in the long term, it is expected to lead to a substantial decline in natural carbon.
According to scientists, the Amazon rainforest fire could give a massive blow to the global fight against climate change.
Once a fire engulfs any habitat, every animal dependent on it suffers and loses shelter and food.
A lot of carbon in a big forest is contained in its soil. Layers of organic matter reside on top of the soil, which provides a vital home for small invertebrates. All this organic matter burns up in a wildfire.
Hence, any wildfire disturbs the delicate balance of the environment.
Which Areas Are Affected?
Satellite images show fires in the Brazilian states of Amazonas, Rondonia, Para and Mato Grosso. The state of Amazonas is most affected, according to Euronews.
Impact of the damage caused to the Amazon is beyond Brazil and its neighbours. The lungs of the planet play a significant role in regulating the climate, and the world would drastically change if the rainforest were to disappear, impacting everything from farms to drinking water.
The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase of fires in Brazil compared to 2018
But US space agency NASA said overall fire activity across the entire Amazon basin was slightly below average this yearhttps://t.co/2GhUcjY2CQ pic.twitter.com/g72dWGjkqQ
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 22, 2019
The fire still remains active. Bolsonaro has been mobilising the Brazilian army to combat the flames, Euronews reported.
Reports of rain and thunderstorms also surfaced, but it remained unclear whether the showers were able to extinguish the fires.
This is what Bolsnaro’s dismantling environmental + indigenous protections looks like: @amnesty images of fires on indigenous land taken yesterday in Mato Grosso in #Brazil. Before being burned, this forest has been fenced off in preparation for being farmed. pic.twitter.com/L5kJG7WC90
— Richard Pearshouse (@RPearshouse) August 24, 2019
Role Of Politicians
A New York Times analysis of public records suggested that the enforcement actions aimed at discouraging illegal deforestation including such as fines by Brazil’s main environmental agency dropped by 20 per cent during the first six months of 2019.
However, Bolsonaro blames non-governmental organizations for the fires, and environmental experts reject the claim.
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro expressed worries about the fires engulfing Brazil and Bolivia and offered aid to help extinguish them.
The Venezuelan Chancellery also expressed solidarity with the indigenous communities in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Peru.
“Venezuela expresses its deep concern about the gigantic and terrible fires that devastate the Amazon region in the territory of several South American countries, with severe impacts on the population, ecosystems and biological diversity of the area,” Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The Bolivarian Government of Venezuela also proposed a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) posting a letter Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.
El Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela ha propuesto oficialmente una reunión extraordinaria de Cancilleres de la Organización del Tratado de Cooperación Amazónica (OTCA), para abordar y atender las secuelas ecológicas y sociales de los devastadores incendios en la región amazónica pic.twitter.com/GzQtptOXNh
— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) August 23, 2019
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted with the hashtag #ActForTheAmazon. “Members of the G7 Summit, let’s discuss this emergency first order in two days!” Macron said in his post.
Additionally, UK Member of Parliament Rebecca Long-Bailey wrote a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, suggesting that the destruction of the Amazon must stop.
In early July, an anonymous senior Brazilian official told the BBC that Bolsonaro encouraged deforestation.
Ricardo Galvão, the director of the INPE, was fired on August 2 after defending data that showed deforestation was 88% higher in June than it was a year ago.
Public Comes Out In Support To Save Amazon
#ActForTheAmazon started trending on Twitter and protests began. Twitter users also slammed the media for giving more attention to Notre Dame and not Amazon rainforest. Social media users also called out billionaires for lack of donations.
There was worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral was on fire. Why is there not the same level of outrage for the fires destroying the #AmazonRainforest? pic.twitter.com/VbSda5PYAK
— WWF UK (@wwf_uk) August 21, 2019
In Zurich, activists from the Klimastreik Ecological Movement and Brazilians assembled outside of the Brazilian Consulate on August 23, morning. Demonstrations also started in Paris, London, Madrid and Copenhagen, Denmark.
“Faced with this ecological devastation, WWF calls on the countries of the region — Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname — to protect the Amazon, fight deforestation and reduce the causes behind these fires. It also calls on the EU and its Member States to step up its efforts to curb the impact of EU consumption on deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems around the world, linked to commodities such as soy, palm oil, cocoa or meat,” the World Wildlife Fund’s European policy office said in an official statement.
Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio added a donation link to Amazon Watch on his Instagram profile and posted about the fire in Amazon rainforest.
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