QUIFF ME, HARDY
THREE locks of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s hair in two paper packs have been sold for £5,000 at auction in Aylsham, Norfolk.
FIRE ravages the Amazon again, burning the planet’s biggest rainforest on a terrifying scale even before the region’s dry season kicks in.
With the world distracted by the pandemic, some 1,900 square miles of football pitches have been turned to ash so far this year – equivalent to more than half a million football pitches.
As firefighters hold back the blaze, a baby armadillo scrambles towards them, its parents having perished.
But it is too late to save many of the jungle’s other creatures. The charred bodies of several huge pythons lie nearby, one with its mouth wide open.
Most fires are set by farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for pasture, or by illegal loggers and miners to drive indigenous people from protected territories.
They are bolstered by Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who has long pledged to open up the Amazon, including its indigenous reserves, to mining, agriculture and oil and gas exploration.
Deforestation increased by 25% in the first six months of this Mirror story year compared on last year’s fires with the same period last year, figures show.
But the number of firefighters has been drastically cut. One of the worstaffected areas is the northwestern state of Rondonia, where the Porto Velho municipal brigade has been fighting forest fires since 2015.
Last year the brigade was disbanded and the group of 20 men lost their jobs.
Rather than allow the fires to blaze out of control, the men have continued to fight them even without getting paid.
Leader Marcus Silva said: “We decided to carry on as volunteers for the love of our profession, our community and for the plants and animals which are suffering. Last year was bad, but this year the fires have started earlier. The work is difficult, there are ranchers, loggers and people with power who don’t like us putting out their fires.
“There aren’t nearly enough firefighters to respond to all the fires, and now they’ve decided to stop funding our brigade too.
“There is an emergency line that people can call when they see a fire, but no one
The Amazon rainforest spans 2.7million sq miles - 17 times the size of the UK and Ireland.
There are around 40,000 species of plants, 1,300 different birds, 3,000 types of fish, 430 mammals and 2.5 million different insects.
It is home to up to 500 indigenous tribes, about 50 of which have never had contact with the outside world.
The forest is so thick that the floor is in permanent darkness, and rain takes 10 minutes to reach the ground.
The 3,976-mile-long Amazon River is the largest in the world, and accounts for one fifth of the world’s total river flow.
It was named by Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana in 1541, who likened the tribes of female warriors he encountered there to Amazons of Greek mythology.
Over 80% of the world’s food varieties originate from the rainforest, including coffee, while more than 25% of modern pharmaceuticals contain Amazonian ingredients. But only 1% of plant species have been tested for medicinal properties.
The rainforest has more than 3,000 fruits. Only 200 are consumed in the western world.
If the Amazon rainforest was a country, it would be the 9th largest in the world. answers. Those in power don’t care that the rainforest is being burned to the ground. “My fear is that my children and grandchildren may never see the rainforest, the plants and animals I grew up with.” The Amazon, 60% in Brazil, is
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