Where are the fires? Why is
the Amazon important? Six things to know about the fires burning in the 'lungs
of Earth'.
by David Child
7 hours ago
The Amazon is being shrouded
in plumes of smoke as fires rage across parts of the rainforest,
imperilling the so-called "lungs of the planet" and the vast array of
life to which it is home.
Visible from outer space, the
smoke billows have prompted international alarm, calls for action and much
finger-pointing over what, or who, is responsible for the burning.
Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny for his
controversial stewardship of Brazil's
majority share of the rainforest.
Al Jazeera answers some of the
major questions being asked about the crisis in the Amazon, one of Earth's
greatest natural treasures.
Where are the fires?
The fires are burning across a
range of states in Brazil's section of the Amazon rainforest.
Northerly Roraima down through
Amazonas, Acre, Rondonia and Mato Grosso do Sul have all been badly affected.
Brazil's National Institute
for Space Research (INPE) spotted more than 9,500 new forest fires in
Brazil since August 15 alone, while atmospheric monitoring agencies have
tracked smoke from the Amazon region drifting thousands of kilometres across
the Latin American giant to the Atlantic coast and Sao Paulo, briefly turning daytime in Brazil's biggest city to night on
Monday.
From the other side of Earth,
here’s the latest on the Amazonia fires
Produced by @CopernicusEU’s atmosphere monitoring service, it shows the smoke reaching the Atlantic coast and São Paulo
DATA HERE
http://bit.ly/2TLbM2E
Produced by @CopernicusEU’s atmosphere monitoring service, it shows the smoke reaching the Atlantic coast and São Paulo
DATA HERE
Amazonas, Brazil's largest
state, declared a state of emergency on August 9 while Acre has been
on environmental alert since August 16 due to the fires.
Several other countries in the
Amazon region, including Bolivia and Peru, which both
border Brazil, have also seen a surge in fires this year, according to
INPE data.
How many?
The INPE recorded nearly
73,000 fires in Brazil between January and August this year - the highest
since INPE records began in 2013 and a more than 80 percent bump on the figure
for the same period last year. Most of them were in the Amazon.
Meanwhile, as of August 16, a
NASA analysis suggested that "total fire activity
across the Amazon basin has been close to the average in comparison to the past
15 years". NASA noted that the Amazon spreads across several countries.
It also added, "though
activity appears to be above average in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia, it
has so far appeared below average in Mato Grosso and Para".
What's causing them?
Fires are a regular and
natural occurrence in the Amazon at this time of year, during the dry season.
But environmentalists
and non-governmental organisations have attributed the record number
of fires to farmers setting the forest alight to clear land for pasture and to
loggers razing the forest for its wood, with INPE itself ruling
out natural phenomena being responsible for the surge.
Critics say far-right
President Bolsonaro's weakening of
Brazil's environmental agency, IBAMA, and push to open up the Amazon region for
more farming and mining has emboldened such actors and created a climate of
impunity for those felling the forest illegally.
Recent evidence appears to
bear that out with preliminary data showing deforestation
in the Brazilian Amazon is skyrocketing under Bolsonaro's watch.
The rate of forest destruction
soared more than 278 percent in July compared with the same month a year
ago, according to research by the Amazon Environmental
Research Institute. Previously, INPE pegged the rate of deforestation in
June at 88 percent higher than during the corresponding month in 2018.
"These statistics speak
to who is in power and what he (Bolsonaro) is doing to undermine environmental
protection ... and open the floodgates to illegal and destructive
behaviour," said Christian Poirier, Brazil programme director for NGO
Amazon Watch.
Bolsonaro's government,
meanwhile, has offered a range of explanations for the blazes - including
increased drought and the president himself making unfounded claims that NGOs
had started the fires in an attempt to undermine his administration after it
slashed their funding.
On Friday, Bolsonaro said he
had authorised the use of troops to help contain the blazes and stop illegal
deforestation, but he also blamed the weather for the fires.
Brazilian military planes
began dumping water on fires in Rondonia over the weekend, but the
government had yet to provide any operational details for other states.
Why does the Amazon matter?
The Amazon is the largest
tropical forest in the world, covering more than five million square kilometres
across nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana,
Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
It acts as an enormous carbon
sink, storing up to an estimated 100 years worth of carbon emissions produced
by humans, and is seen as vital to slowing the pace of global
warming.
"The Amazon is the most
significant climate stabiliser we have, it creates 20 percent of the air we
breathe and it also holds 20 percent of the fresh flowing water on the
planet," Poirier said.
Put simply, he added,
preserving the forest is of "critical importance" for both the region
it encompasses and the rest of the world.
But in the last
half-century alone, nearly 20 percent of the forest has disappeared.
Scientists have warned that if tree loss in the Amazon were to pass a
certain "tipping point", somewhere between 25 and 40 percent,
deforestation could start to feed on itself and lead to the demise of the
forest within a matter of decades.
"One of the cornerstones
of climatic stability on our planet is in peril and the consequences of this
are almost too large to fathom," Poirier said. "The future of
our civilisation depends on its integrity."
Who (and what) calls the
Amazon home?
The Amazon has been inhabited
by humans for at least 11,000 years and is home to more than 30 million people
- about two-thirds of whom live in cities carved out of the greenery.
Among those living in the
region are about one million indigenous people who are divided into some
400 tribes., according to
indigenous rights group Survival International.
Most live in villages, though
some remain nomadic, with each tribe possessing its distinct
language and culture, both of which are traditionally intimately
intertwined with the surrounding environment.
Jonathan Mazower, a spokesman
for Survival International, said the tribes were "dependent on their
forests for everything, and have managed and looked after them for
millennia".
"[But] many are seeing
their lands burned in front of their eyes, and with it their livelihood, source
of food, medicines, and their very homes," he added.
Poirier agreed, saying
the fires pose an "affront" to the "safety and integrity"
of their way of life.
"Indigenous people are on
the frontline of this struggle - the work they do to protect the forest is so
vital and their connection to the forest is so important to their
cultures," he added.
"The potential is here
for not just environmental devastation, but also cultural genocide."
In addition to the human
presence within the Amazon, the forest also houses 10 percent of all
known wildlife species, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF), with a "new" species of animal or plant discovered in the
rainforest every three days on average.
How has the world reacted?
The response to the fires is
predominantly with a chorus of concern and condemnation of Bolsonaro's
environmental stewardship.
French President Emmanuel
Macron and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar
said separately on Friday they would move to veto a landmark European
Union trade deal brokered with South American bloc Mercosur unless Brazil
takes action to protect the rainforest.
The pact requires the Latin American giant to abide by the
Paris climate accord, which Bolsonaro has threatened to leave, and also aims to
end illegal deforestation, including in the Brazilian Amazon.
Macron also called for the
fires to be front and centre of the agenda for this weekend's G7 summit,
branding the blazes an "international crisis".
"Our house is burning.
Literally. The Amazon rainforest - the lungs which produce 20 percent of our
planet's oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7
Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days!" Macron
tweeted on Thursday.
Our house is burning.
Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our
planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7
Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days! #ActForTheAmazon
This was echoed by German
Chancellor Angela Merkel,
who said the Amazon fires posed an "acute emergency" and belonged on
the G7's agenda, despite Brazil not being a member of the group.
However, Macron's comments
earned a swift rebuke from Bolsonaro, who called the issue an "internal
matter" and said the French leader's suggestion evoked "a colonialist
mentality that is out of place in the 21st century".
The spat came after Norway and
Germany earlier this month halted millions of dollars of Amazon protection
subsidies to the Amazon Fund, accusing Brazil of turning its back on the fight
against deforestation.
Meanwhile, social media users
around the world have latched on to #PrayForAmazonia and #PrayForAmazon,
pushing the topic towards the top of Twitter's global trends earlier this week.
Public demonstrations also
took place in several major Brazilian cities over the weekend, mirroring
protests held elsewhere around the world.
"The outpouring of
concern, grief and anger is unprecedented - what this is creating is a lasting
impression for people that the Amazon is absolutely essential to our future and
we all have a responsibility to protect it, contrary to what Bolsonaro may
say," Poirier said.
"But we can't allow
ourselves to fall into despair, there's no other way, we have to act - we have
a responsibility to ourselves, to future generations and to other beings on
this planet, are of which are suffering today as a result of this
chaos."
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