Amazon Reflection

Everything you need to know about the fires in the Amazon
Why are the fires burning? And why is it such a big

deal?
By Justine Calma@justcalma Aug 28, 2019, 3:33pm EDT
Charred areas of the Amazon in Brazil, August 27,

2019 JOAO LAET/AFP/Getty Images
Record-breaking fires are ripping through

the Amazon — an ecosystem on which the
whole world depends. The Verge will update
this page with news and analysis on the
fires and the effects that could linger once
the ash settles.
Why is the Amazon burning?
An unprecedented number of fires raged throughout Brazil in 2019,

intensifying in August. That month, the country’s National Institute
for Space Research (INPE) reported that there were more than
80,000 fires, the most that it had ever recorded. It was a nearly 80
percent jump compared to the number of fires the country
experienced over the same time period in 2018. More than half of
those fires took place in the Amazon.
The number of blazes decreased in September, after president Jair
Bolsonaro bowed to mounting pressure to address the flames and
announced a 60-day ban on setting fires to clear land. Some
exceptions were made for indigenous peoples who practice
subsistence agriculture and those who’ve received clearance by
environmental authorities to use controlled burning to prevent
larger fires.
“THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THIS RISE IN FIRE ACTIVITY IS
ASSOCIATED WITH A SHARP RISE IN DEFORESTATION”
“These are intentional fires to clear the forest,” Cathelijne Stoof,

coordinator of the Fire Center at Wageningen University (WUR) in
the Netherlands, tells The Verge. “People want to get rid of the
forest to make agricultural land, for people to eat meat.”
“There is no doubt that this rise in fire activity is associated with a
sharp rise in deforestation,” Paulo Artaxo, an atmospheric physicist
at the University of São Paulo, told Science Magazine. He explained
that the fires are expanding along the borders of new agricultural
development, which is what’s often seen in fires related to forest
clearing.
President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which had pledged to open

up the Amazon to more development, has sought to shift attention
away from deforestation. Bolsonaro initially pointed a finger at NGOs
opposing his policies for allegedly intentionally setting fires in
protest, without giving any evidence to back his claim. In August,
he fired the director of the National Institute for Space Research
over a dispute over data it released showing the sharp uptick in
deforestation that’s taken place since Bolsonaro took office. On
August 20th, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Ricardo
Salles tweeted that dry weather,
wind, and heat caused the fires to
spread so widely. But even during
the dry season, large fires aren’t a
natural phenomenon in the
Amazon’s tropical ecosystem.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest,
August 2019 CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images
Why is this a big deal?
Everyone on the planet benefits

from the health of the Amazon. As its trees take in carbon dioxide
and release oxygen, the Amazon plays a huge role in pulling planet-
warming greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Without it,
climate change speeds up. But as the world’s largest rainforest is
eaten away by logging, mining, and agribusiness, it may not be able
to provide the same buffer.
“The Amazon was buying you some time that it is not going to buy
anymore,” Carlos Quesada, a scientist at Brazil’s National Institute
for Amazonian Research, told Public Radio International in 2018.
Scientists warn that the rainforest could reach a tipping point,
turning into something more like a savanna when it can no longer
sustain itself as a rainforest. That would mean it’s not able to soak
up nearly as much carbon as it does now. And if the Amazon as we
know it dies, it wouldn’t go quietly. As the trees and plants perish,
they would release billions of tons of carbon that has been stored for
decades — making it nearly impossible to escape a climate
catastrophe.
EVERYONE ON THE PLANET BENEFITS FROM THE HEALTH OF THE
AMAZON
Of course, those nearest to the fires will bear the most immediate
effects. Smoke from the fires got so bad, it seemed to turn day into
night in São Paulo on August 20th. Residents say the air quality is
still making it difficult to breathe. On top of that, a massive
global study on air pollution found that among the two dozen
countries it observed, Brazil showed one of the sharpest increases in
mortality rates whenever there’s more soot in the air.
And because fire isn’t a natural phenomenon in the region, it can
have outsized impacts on local plants and animals. One in ten of all
animal species on Earth call the Amazon home, and experts expect
that they will be dramatically affected by the fires in the short term.
In the Amazon, plants and animals are “exceptionally sensitive” to
fire, Jos Barlow, a professor of conservation science at Lancaster
University in the UK, said to The Verge in an email. According to
Barlow, even low-intensity fires with flames just 30 centimeters tall
can kill up to half of the trees burned in a tropical rainforest.
Why is this a hot topic politically?
When Jair Bolsonaro was campaigning for office as a far-right
candidate, he called for setting aside less land in the Amazon for
indigenous tribes and preservation, and instead making it easier for
industry to come into the rainforest. Since his election in October
2018, Bolsonaro put the Ministry of Agriculture in charge of the
demarcation of indigenous territories instead of the Justice Ministry,
essentially “letting the fox take over the chicken coop,” according to
one lawmaker. His policies have been politically popular among
industry and agricultural interests in Brazil, even as they’ve been
condemned by Brazilian environmental groups and opposition
lawmakers. Hundreds of indigenous
women stormed the country’s capital on
August 13th to protest Bolsonaro’s
environmental rollbacks and encroachment of
development on indigenous lands. The
hashtag #PrayforAmazonia blew up on
Twitter.
Indigenous women take part in a protest against Bolsonaro’s
environmental policies on August 13th, 2019 Photo by Tuane Fernandes/picture alliance via
Getty Images
About 60 percent of the Amazon can be found within Brazil’s
borders, which gives the nation a massive amount of influence over
the region. Not surprisingly, the fires have called international
attention to the plight of the Amazon and have turned up the heat
on Bolsonaro’s environmental policies.
French President Emmanuel Macron took to Twitter to call for action,

pushing for emergency international talks on the Amazon at the G7
summit. On August 26th, the world’s seven largest economies
offered Brazil more than $22 million in aid to help it get the fires
under control. Bolsonaro promptly turned down the money, accusing
Macron on Twitter of treating Brazil like a colony. Some in Brazil,
including Bolsonaro, see the international aid as an attack on
Brazil’s sovereignty, and its right to decide how to manage the land
within its borders.
“LETTING THE FOX TAKE OVER THE CHICKEN COOP”
President Donald Trump, on the other hand, congratulated

Bolsonaro on his handling of the fires. “He is working very hard on
the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people
of Brazil,” he tweeted on the 27th.
Bolsonaro has since said that he’ll reconsider the deal, as long as
Macron takes back his “insults” and Brazil has control over how the
money is spent. On the 27th, Bolsonaro accepted $12.2 million in
aid from the UK.
How are the fires being fought?
After weeks of international and internal pressure,
Bolsonaro deployed the military to help battle the fires on August
24, sending 44,000 troops to six states. Reuters reported the next
day that warplanes were dousing flames.
“It’s a complex operation. We have a lot of challenges,” Paulo
Barroso tells The Verge. Barroso is the chairman of the national
forest fire management committee of the National League of Military
Firefighters Corps in Brazil. He has spent three decades fighting fires
in Mato Grosso, one of the regions most affected by the ongoing
fires. According to Barroso, more than 10,400 firefighters are spread
thin across 5.5 million square kilometers in the Amazon and
“hotspots” break out in the locations they’re unable to cover.
“WE DON’T HAVE AN ADEQUATE STRUCTURE TO PREVENT, TO
CONTROL, AND TO FIGHT THE FOREST FIRES”
Barroso contends that they need more equipment and infrastructure

to adequately battle the flames. There are 778 municipalities
throughout the Amazon, but according to Barroso, only 110 of those
have fire departments. “We don’t have an adequate structure to
prevent, to control, and to fight the forest fires,” Barroso says. He
wants to establish a forest fire protection system in the Amazon that
brings together government entities, indigenous peoples, local
communities, the military, large companies, NGOs, and education
and research centers. “We have to integrate everybody,” Barroso
says, adding, “we need money to do this, we have to receive a great
investment.”
Barroso and other experts agree that it’s important to look ahead to
prevent fires like we’re seeing now. After all, August is just the
beginning of Brazil’s largely manmade fire season, when slashing-
and-burning in the country peaks and coincides with drier weather.
Military firefighters in Brazil, August 2019 Photo credit should read SERGIO LIMA/AFP/Getty
Images
Controlled burns are also a popular deforestation technique in other

countries where the Amazon is burning, including Bolivia. There, the
government brought in a modified Boeing 747 supertanker to douse
the flames.
Using planes to put out wildfires in the Amazon isn’t a typical
method of firefighting in tropical forests, and is likely to get
expensive, Lancaster University’s Jos Barlow tells The Verge. He
says that large-scale fires in areas cleared by deforestation “are
best contained with wide firebreaks created with bulldozers — not
easy in remote regions.” If the fires enter the forest itself, they
require different tactics. “They can normally be contained by
clearing narrow fire breaks in the leaf litter and fine fuel,” Barlow
says. “But this is labour intensive over large scales, and fires need
to be reached soon, before they get too big.”
Fires that have been intentionally set, as we’re seeing in Brazil, can
be even more difficult to control compared to a sudden wildland fire.
“They’re designed to be deliberately destructive,” says Timothy
Ingalsbee, co-founder and executive director of Firefighters United
for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology and research associate at the
University of Oregon. Slashing before burning produces a lot of very
dry, very flammable fuel. And at this scale, Ingalsbee calls the fires
“an act of global vandalism.”
Barlow says, “The best fire fighting technique in the Amazon is to
prevent them in the first place — by controlling deforestation and
managing agricultural activities.”
WUR’s Cathelijne Stoof agrees: “Fighting the fires is of course

important now,” she says. “For the longer term, it is way more
important to focus on deforestation.”
REFLECTION
Based on environmental organizations and researchers,

the wildfires blazing in the Brazilian rainforest were set by
cattle ranchers and loggers who want to clear and utilize the
land which is very disheartening. Due to some humans’ desire
to earn more, our planet is at stake. It may be in just a part of
the world, ruining it will affect the whole biosphere.
Protecting the environment should be backed up by laws.

And so, the government must be strict in the implementation
of these laws. They are the ones who have the power and that
power should be used for the common good. But as per news
and different articles that are coming up, the Brazilian
President Jair Bolsonaro seems to encourage more harm to
the Amazon by prioritizing economic development through the
resources from the rainforest. Indigenous people who are
living in the forest for so many years were being pushed and
isolated to lesser land area.
According to researches, Amazon produces about 20% of

the world’s oxygen which is why it is often called “the planet’s
lungs”. Just like the human body, infected lungs weaken the
whole body and will cause more diseases. That is why we
should cherish and protect what is part of us. Love our Mother
Earth.

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Everything you need to know about the fires in the Amazon

Why are the fires burning? And why is it such a big

Charred areas of the Amazon in Brazil, August 27,

Record-breaking fires are ripping through

Why is the Amazon burning?

An unprecedented number of fires raged throughout Brazil in 2019,

“These are intentional fires to clear the forest,” Cathelijne Stoof,

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which had pledged to open

Why is this a big deal?

Everyone on the planet benefits

French President Emmanuel Macron took to Twitter to call for action,

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, congratulated

Barroso contends that they need more equipment and infrastructure

Controlled burns are also a popular deforestation technique in other

WUR’s Cathelijne Stoof agrees: “Fighting the fires is of course

Based on environmental organizations and researchers,

Protecting the environment should be backed up by laws.

According to researches, Amazon produces about 20% of

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