TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Brazil is witnessing a record number of fires in the Amazon rainforest this year, BBC reports.
According to Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), there were 73,000 fires in the country’s Amazon on Tuesday (Aug. 20), way ahead of the 68,000 recorded in 2016. The impact of the fires is visible from space.
Plumes of smoke visible from space (NASA image)
Although rainfall is slightly lower than average this year the climate is normal, INPE researcher Alberto Setzer noted. A slightly dryer season does not explain an 84 percent increase in the number of fires over the previous year, he added.
Ricardo Mello at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said a dryer season creates favorable conditions for fire to spread, but the main reason for the fires was deforestation, which increased by 88 percent this year, according to INPE. “Starting a fire is the work of humans, either deliberately or by accident," he added.
It is common for nomadic farmers to slash and burn forest to create fertilized farmland in the dry season, which begins from July or August, and continues until early November. However, this primitive method of agriculture is not scalable or sustainable given large populations.
The situation is most severe in the Brazilian states of Amazonas, Rondônia, Pará, and Mato Grosso. Black smoke from the forests burning turned day into night in the capital São Paulo on Monday (Aug. 19).
The Amazon rainforest, sometimes referred to as “the lungs of the Earth,” generates 20 percent of the world’s oxygen and is home to 10 percent of the world’s species. The threat brought by the fires to ecosystems and human health is worldwide.
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has prioritized development over conservation since he took office in January 2019. He sacked the previous director of INPE, Ricardo Galvão, accusing him of faking deforestation data to undermine the government.
Bolsonaro told Reuters the fires are normal for “the season of the queimada.” Later during a Facebook live posting on Wednesday (Aug. 21), he changed his mind and blamed NGOs for setting the fire “to call attention against my person and the government of Brazil” – though he also admitted there was no evidence of this.
There was a 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
