Amazon Rain forest – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

Why Are Amazon Rainforest Called The Lungs Of The Earth

•  Billions of trees absorb tons of carbon dioxide every year and slow down the climate change along with producing 20% of earth’s oxygen, hence named ‘Lungs of Earth.

• More than 75,000 fires have erupted in the Amazon since the start of the year.
• Between January and August alone, the number of fires in the region was 83 per cent higher than last year. (2018)
• Brazil’s army was deployed to curb the flames.

In August last year, surging fires in the Amazon captured global headlines and prompted criticism from world leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron that Brazil was not doing enough to protect the rainforest.

IN 2020, situation is going from bad to worse

• Fires in Brazil’s Amazon increased 13 per cent in the first nine months of the year compared with a year ago, as the rainforest region experiences its worst rash of fires in a decade.
• Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hot spots in the world’s largest rainforest, a 61 per cent rise from the same month in 2019.

Joe Biden offered help

• US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called for a world effort to offer $20 billion to end Amazon deforestation and threatened Brazil with unspecified “economic consequences” if it did not “stop tearing down the forest.”

2020 is worrisome than 2019

• The data from National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that in 2019, fires spiked in August and declined considerably the month after,
• but this year’s peak has been more sustained.
• Both August and September of 2020 have matched or surpassed last year’s single-month high.

Why are fires occurring? (Man Made Reason)

• It is an unending loop…Deforestation ⇒  Burning Virgin Forest (existential threat to Lungs of earth ⇒Forest becoming more prone to fire.
• The fires in September are not only burning recently deforested areas and farmland, where ranchers set them to clear land, but are also increasingly burning virgin forest, a worrying trend that suggests the rainforest is becoming drier and more prone to fire.

Natural Factors

• Ane Alencar, science director for Brazil’s Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).
• “It could get worse if the drought continues. We are at the mercy of the rain.”
• The Amazon is experiencing a more severe dry season than last year, which scientists attribute in part to warming in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean pulling moisture away from South America.

• Wetlands are also on fire.
• A Federal University of Rio de Janeiro analysis found that 23 per cent of the wetlands, which are home to the densest population of jaguars in the world, has burned.

Man made reasons exceed natural reasons

• The center (INPE) also claims that about 99% of Amazon fires start from human actions, either on purpose or by accident. It has been mentioned by international bodies that fires have been set up to clear the land for cattle ranching, farming, and logging. The number of human-made fires is growing and growing, which has literally plagued the Amazon in recent years and disturbed the ecosystem drastically.

Impact

• Tribes are getting affected by the wildfires.
• Large animals like Jaguars and Puma might escape from fire, but slowmoving animals like sloths, pangolins, small creatures like frogs and lizards might die due to not having the capability to move out quickly from this fire.

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