The Amazon rainforest has the capacity to absorb 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, that is, a quarter of all the carbon absorbed by the world's forests. For this very important lung of our Earth is going through one of its worst moments after a wave of fires that is igniting alerts around the world.
According to figures from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 72,843 fires have been detected in the Amazon since January 2019. This represents an 83% increase over the fires recorded in 2018, the highest figure since records began in 2013.
THE EARTH'S LUNG IS BURNING
On August 9, farmers in the Brazilian state of Pará called for a "day of fire," also known as "la queimada," a practice that consists of carrying out "controlled fires" to cleanse the land and create favorable conditions for its use. The problem is that some of these fires would have taken place in unauthorized areas, which triggered, among other things, that carbon dioxide emissions skyrocketed to levels considered "acceptable.
Precisely since August 9, an emergency has been declared in the Amazon jungle, due to the increase in fires in Mato Grosso and Pará, two regions where agricultural activity in Brazil has penetrated the Amazon and stimulated deforestation. Forest fires are common in the so-called "dry season," but they can also be considered deliberate, since, they say, farmers illegally deforest land for cattle ranching.
In addition, the Amazon has also seen its deforestation rate increase in recent months. According to July figures, every three minutes a piece of rainforest the size of a football field disappeared. This led to Germany and Norway withdrawing their funding from the 'Amazon Fund', which is a programme that precisely seeks to maintain sustainability in the region and which serves as an incentive to reduce deforestation.
In the last ten days the fires have not abated, which has caused a huge column of smoke to arrive in Sao Paulo since last Monday, leaving overwhelming scenes of darkened streets in the middle of the afternoon where cars have had to light their headlights when it was still three o'clock in the afternoon.
