AMAZON BURNS The world reacts
The world reacts to the shocking Amazon rainforest crisis
Like an ominous scene from a Hollywood blockbuster, the skies over the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo went dark on the afternoon of August 19. Strong winds brought smoke from the worst wildfires in history currently ripping through the Amazon rainforest, some 2700km away. “It was as if the day had turned into night,” resident Gianvitor Dias told the BBC. “Everyone here commented, because even on rainy days it doesn’t usually get that dark. It was very impressive.”
While fires in the rainforest are reportedly
common at this time of the year, the sheer number this year is extraordinary. According to Brazil’s space research centre, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the number of fires detected in the Amazon this year so far had reached 72,843 – an 83 per cent increase on last year and the highest since records began in 2013. The INPE says more than one-and-a-half soccer fields’ worth of Amazon rainforest are being destroyed every minute. More worryingly, the fires – which cover more than half of Brazil and are particularly fierce in the northern part of the country in the states of Rondônia and Amazonas – are now so prevalent they’re visible from space.
The world – including Hollywood – has reacted with horror at the sight of the Amazon on fire. Kendall Jenner posted four pictures of the fires and wrote: “our lungs are burning”. Singer Camila Cabello described the fires as “heartbreaking ... We’re literally destroying our miracle of a home,” she wrote on Instagram. Oscar-winner and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio pointed the finger at the media for not covering the fires, tweeting: “Terrifying to think that the Amazon is the largest rainforest on the planet, creating 20 per cent of the earth’s oxygen, basically the lungs of
the world, has been on fire and burning for the last 16 days running, with literally no media coverage whatsoever! Why?”
The bigger question is, why the unusually high number of fires this year? Environmental organisations say the fires were most likely caused by humans. They say cattle ranchers and loggers are starting fires to clear the land for business purposes.
Christian Poirier , the program director of Amazon Watch, a non-profit organisation that aims to protect the rainforest, said: “The unprecedented fires ravaging the Amazon are an international tragedy and a dangerous contribution to climate chaos. The vast majority of these fires are human-lit.”
Some have blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his government’s probusiness policies. They say the Amazon – the biggest rainforest in the world – has suffered huge losses since Bolsonaro, a former army captain, took office in January. Bolsonaro has said his government is investigating the fires but lacks the resources to battle the huge number of blazes. In a bizarre move, Bolsonaro initially suggested nongovernmental organisations had started fires in the rainforest. But he admitted he had no evidence to support these claims.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, tweeted the fires in the Amazon are an “international crisis”. “Our house is burning. Literally,” he said. Leaders of the Group of Seven nations are preparing to help Brazil fight the fires. Bolsonaro, however, has reacted angrily to the growing international concern about the fires, and specifically what he perceived as Macron’s meddling in Brazil’s affairs. “I regret that President Macron seeks to take advantage of what is a domestic Brazilian issue and of other Amazonian countries for personal political gain,” Bolsonaro tweeted. And his politician son, Eduardo, followed his lead, tweeting a YouTube video called “Macron is an idiot”.
Yet the Brazilian government continues to come under sharp criticism. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, said the rainforest fires were “aided and abetted by the Brazilian government”. He described the deadly blazes as “an act of shocking environmental vandalism with global consequences”.
“Our house is burning. Literally”
– Macron