Lisandra Paraguassu: Wildfires Raging Across Amazon Rainforest Hit Record High
BRASILIA (Reuters) -
Wildfires raging in the Amazon
rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so
far by Brazil’s space research center INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing
President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy. The surge marks an 83%
increase over the same period of 2018, the agency said on Tuesday, and is the
highest since records began in 2013.
Since Thursday, INPE
said satellite images spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the country, mostly in
the Amazon basin, home to the world’s largest tropical forest seen as vital to
countering global warming.
Images show the
northernmost state of Roraima covered in dark smoke. Amazonas declared an
emergency in the south of the state and in its capital Manaus on Aug. 9. Acre,
on the border with Peru, has been on environmental alert since Friday due to
the fires.
Wildfires have
increased in Mato Grosso and Para, two states where Brazil’s agricultural
frontier has pushed into the Amazon basin and spurred deforestation. Wildfires
are common in the dry season, but are also deliberately set by farmers
illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching.
The unprecedented
surge in wildfires has occurred since Bolsonaro took office in January vowing
to develop the Amazon region for farming and mining, ignoring international
concern over increased deforestation. Asked about the spread
of uncontrolled fires, Bolsonaro brushed off criticism, saying it was the time
of the year of the “queimada” or burn, when farmers use fire to clear land... read more: