The Amazon is the largest river in the world, and it is also the longest. Its hydrographic basin occupies seven million square kilometers, and crosses Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian territory. The basin of this great river is a jungle rich in biodiversity, the Amazon, one of the largest natural environments in the world, and which covers the territory of countries such as Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.
In the Amazon region, fires are rare for much of the year because the humid climate prevents them from both starting and spreading. In fact, the humidity is such that the Amazon is able to create its own ‘rainy season’.
However, between June and November, the risk of fire increases due to the arrival of the dry season. In it, factors such as drought conditions and climatic anomalies increase the risk of fires. Still, fires from natural causes are unlikely in this region of the planet. So what is the cause of the Amazon burning?
2019 registers almost 60% more hot spots than the previous year
Annually, the Amazon experiences a fire season, which varies considerably from year to year and from month to month. However, 2019 stands out as the most active year in this region since 2010 , according to data from NASA’s Earth Observatory, which uses satellite activity to track fire activity on Earth.
In addition, the number of fire outbreaks registered in the Amazon this year is almost 60% higher than the levels observed in the last three years, according to a report by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) published on August 23. Specifically, there have been 1,790 hot spots this year, 57% more than in 2018 and 23% more than in 2016.
Is it possible that climatic activity was the cause of these fires? Everything points to no. The IPAM report concludes that the outbreak of a record number of fires can be attributed to deforestation and not to drought ; In other words, climatic causes, although they may have aggravated the problem, are not enough to explain the fires that are raging in the Amazon today. We must go to anthropological causes.
The map above shows active fire detections in Brazil as observed by Terra and Aqua MODIS between August 15 and 22, 2019. Fire locations are shown in orange, cities and towns are in white; wooded areas appear black; and the savannas and tropical forests, in gray.
The conclusions of Douglas Morton, head of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, point in the same direction: “This year there has been a notable increase in controlled, intense and persistent fires, which occur at along the main roads of the central Brazilian Amazon ”, as can be extracted from an informative article published on the NASA Earth Observatory website.
“There are no natural fires in the Amazon”
Controlled fires are started with the aim of clearing a forested area after deforestation . An analysis of the current hotspots and the log record produced by the Deforestation Alert System (SAD) suggests that this is the case: although drought has played an important role in fires in the past, the timing and location of Arson detections early in the 2019 dry season explain the problem more forcefully.
The scientific director of IPAM and one of the authors of the recently published report, Ane Alencar, explains it this way: “There are no natural fires in the Amazon. However, there are people who start fires that can spiral out of control and turn into wildfires during the dry season. Even during a less severe dry season than in 2016, when we suffered the severe effects of El Niño, the risk of wildfires is high. “
In addition, in 2019, fires in the Amazon are not only more frequent, but more intense. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, fires in 2019 are more intense than in previous years in terms of the radioactive power of the fire, in line with the observed increase in deforestation.
Consequences of burning the Amazon
As we all know (or will remember), plants use CO2 from the air to return oxygen (O2) to the environment , an oxygen that all living beings use to breathe, and perform vital functions normally. Although it resonates there that the Amazon returns 20% of the oxygen we breathe (considering it a “lung of the planet”), the truth is that there are no studies on how much this percentage would be. Jonathan Foley, director of Project Drawdown, estimates that, in reality, all the tropical forests on Earth (and not just the Amazon) could produce between 5 and 6%; Much more important still for maintaining the balance of oxygen levels is marine phytoplankton.
As if the destruction of one of the main producers of oxygen on the planet were not serious, the disaster of the Amazon ecosystem has other consequences for living beings much more immediate. To begin with, it is estimated that the Amazon is home to 50% of the plant species and 20% of the bird species of the entire planet.
In addition, for the population living in the areas most adjacent to the Amazon rainforest, the consequences are urgent, as the IPAM report also points out: air pollution is potentially unhealthy for people and the socioeconomic impact that this entails can be high. .
Sources:
Amazon on fire. Technical note from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute – IPAM. August, 2019
Image1: NASA Earth Observatory capture by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS / LANCE and GIBS / Worldview and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS / LANCE and GIBS / Worldview, and the Suomi National Polar Orbit Association./ Adam Voiland.
Image 2: NASA Earth Observatory map by Joshua Stevens, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS / LANCE and GIBS / Worldview, data from NASA EOSDIS Fire Information System for Resource Management (FIRMS), and data from the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED). / Adam Voiland, with input from Douglas Morton (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).
