Ever since the start of the year, fires have spread over the Amazon rainforest, engulfing provinces in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and across Latin America. While some governments have been scrambling to put the fires out, others have been ignoring them, causing the destruction to increase and spread to even more countries.
The origins of the fire
Every year, during the “season of fires,” farmers in the Latin American countryside burn their own lands to cultivate them. After they are set aflame, the rain comes down and controls the spread of the fire. However, Latin America is currently seeing the effects of its longest drought in fifty years in multiple countries, including Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia. This means that when farmers set their lands on fire (a practice that is nominally illegal in these countries), there are no rains to stop the fires from spreading.
Right-wing zealots have been using the agricultural origins of the fires to deny climate change and blame the left-wing leaders in Brazil and Colombia. While some of the origin-points of the fires have been confirmed as man-made, downplaying the role of climate change in exacerbating their spread is irresponsible. Slash-and-burn agriculture is not a new phenomenon, and in the past it has been used with less destructive results than in recent years (this year alone, there have been 346,000 fire hotspots across all countries in South America).
The Niña phenomenon has also been making things worse. Niña, a periodic episode that warms rainforest climates in South America while also causing more rainfall, was expected to contain the fires. However, in the midst of the drought, it has only caused temperatures to increase.
The scale of destruction
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research has registered significant wildfire outbreaks in each South American country. The countries with the highest number are 184,363 in Brazil, 64,420 in Bolivia, and 39,036 in Venezuela. The area of land affected by these wildfires reaches 11.39 million hectares in Brazil, 3.8 million hectares in Bolivia, 30,000 hectares in Ecuador, and unconfirmed amounts in other countries. The sum of hectares burned in Brazil and Bolivia alone add up to more than 150,000 square kilometers— 238 times the size of metropolitan Toronto. While 15 people are confirmed to be dead in Peru, there is no accounting for the people currently missing or the communities that will be affected by the smoke.
Government response
Brazil’s government has been dispatching upwards of 7,000 workers to combat the fires, but it’s simply not enough. Lula da Silva, the country’s president, has visited the Amazon himself and announced plans to combat the wildfires. The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has called for the international community to come to the aid of the Amazon. However, government responses across the entire region have left a lot to be desired.
In Peru, the government’s poor and delayed response to the wildfires has caused residents of the countryside and Amazon to try to put the fires out on their own. According to Pablo Vega, the director of a Peruvian organization that monitors risks and disasters in the Amazon, a government helicopter flew over the fires and went away without helping. A journalist and commentator lamented that the president, Dina Boluarte, was too preoccupied with burying former fascist dictator, Alberto Fujimori, to oversee a proper response. Now, 22 out of 25 provinces of Peru have reported emergencies over the wildfires, and there is no reason to believe they will slow down. Like the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano said, “If nature were a bank, it would have already been saved.”
Photo courtesy of EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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