For the last several weeks, terrible forest fires have engulfed the largest country in South America. Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva has told the Argentine La Nación that it does not yet seem they can be controlled, much less extinguished.
We’re told that to date, there have been around 68,000 fires, the worst August since 2010.
The regions of the Brazilian states of Sao Paulo and the Pantanal, where the largest tropical wetland in the world is located, are the most affected. And even areas of Bolivia have been consumed by fire. The winds and drought, along with record high temperatures, have created the perfect conditions for environmental disaster.
The region of the Amazon, location of the most abundant and important tropical rainforests, is being threatened every day. The uncomfortable truth is that the indiscriminate felling of trees in these tropical forests have extremely harmful consequences,. Where there are trees there is abundant humidity for sustaining tropical life, which makes these regions the home of some of the greatest ecological diversity on the planet. That is, where there are trees, the chain of Life is kept in balance; the soil maintains its water table and supports life on the surface.
In Brazil, the so-called “scorched earth” agricultural techniques are likely also one of the causes of uncontrollable fires. That’s in addition to cigarettes carelessly tossed, and also suspected arsonists. That is to say, human action, according to the Brazilian authorities, is partly responsible for this disaster.
Climatologist and manager of the National Disaster Monitoring Center, José Antonio Marengo, told France 24 that the El Niño phenomenon has caused greater droughts this year on the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, leading to a doubling in the number of wildfire outbreaks as compared to last year.
Deutsche Welle reported that many animals of the humid rain forest — including jaguars, tapirs and monkeys —have been seen on the roads fleeing the fire.
Smoke from the fires has affected Amazonian communities as much as 2,000 kilometers away from the south where the fires are reported in the city of Manaus in the state of Amazonas. People are suffering from the heavy smoke that clouds everything and brings severe health problems.
The government has declared a state of emergency in 44 cities, with significant danger to homes and to human life. Two deaths have already been reported from the efforts to put out the fires.
Environment minister Marina Silva says she has declared war on both the fires and the organized crime she says burns the land for exploitation of minerals, timber and drug trafficking.
