amazon RAINFOREST DE JESUS, SHANE G. BSAE 1 The Amazon is a vast biome that spans eight rapidly developing countries—Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname—and French Guiana, an overseas territory of France. facts It is bounded by the Guiana Highlands to the north, the Andes Mountains to the west, the Brazilian central plateau to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Everyone on the planet benefits from the health of the Amazon. As its trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, the Amazon plays a huge role in pulling planetwarming greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. covering an area of 2,300,000 square miles (6,000,000 square km) The number of indigenous people within Brazil was estimated to be over 6 million in the 15th century. Today there are roughly 310,000. Brazil is home to more uncontacted peoples than anywhere on the planet. AMAZON RAINFOREST fire fire tragedy tragedy The country's space research agency monitoring system showed that the region lost over 5,100 square miles of rainforest — comparable to about the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut — between August 2020 to July 2021. On June 27, the Brazilian government banned unauthorized outdoor fires for 120 days, meaning the 160 fires detected since are likely illegal, MAAP says. This policy is a repeat of similar fire bans from 2019 and 2020, which failed to lower rates of fires. A major fire burning recently deforested area in the state of Mato Grosso in the Brazilian Amazon in June 2021. Data: MAAP, Planet. why is the amazon burning? “There is no doubt that this rise in fire activity is associated with a sharp rise in deforestation,” Paulo Artaxo, an atmospheric physicist at the University of São Paulo, told Science Magazine. He explained that the fires are expanding along the borders of new agricultural development, which is what’s often seen in fires related to forest clearing. President Jair Bolsonaro initially pointed a finger at NGOs opposing his policies for allegedly intentionally setting fires in protest, without giving any evidence to back his claim. In August, he fired the director of the National Institute for Space Research over a dispute over data it released showing the sharp uptick in deforestation that’s taken place since Bolsonaro took office. On August 20th, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles tweeted that dry weather, wind, and heat caused the fires to spread so widely. But even during the dry season, large fires aren’t a natural phenomenon in the Amazon’s tropical ecosystem. AMAZON RAINFOREST threats threats The number of fires burning in standing Amazon rainforest spiked dramatically in recent weeks, threatening the forest’s biodiversity — a richness of flora and fauna not adapted to withstand the flames. A tropical forest's trees and understory can be devastated by raging fires. Trees suffer badly, but plants and animals living closer to the ground are also extremely vulnerable. Changes to the Amazon rainforest harm its indigenous tribes in a number of ways: Plants and animals may die as their habitat changes or is destroyed. The people who depend on these species for food will suffer as a result. Without it, climate change speeds up. But as the world’s largest rainforest is eaten away by logging, mining, and agribusiness, it may not be able to provide the same buffer. Among the threats behind environmental destruction and degradation in the Amazon are the lack of policy frameworks to support sustainable development and natural resource protection, political instability, the inability of some institutional and governmental entities to establish and enforce legislation for nature conservation, and poverty and inequality. HOW ARE FIRES BEING FOUGHT? According to Barroso, more than 10,400 firefighters are spread thin across 5.5 million square kilometers in the Amazon and “hotspots” break out in the locations they’re unable to cover. He wants to establish a forest fire protection system in the Amazon that brings together government entities, indigenous peoples, local communities, the military, large companies, NGOs, and education and research centers. Controlled burns are also a popular deforestation technique in other countries where the Amazon is burning, including Bolivia. There, the government brought in a modified Boeing 747 supertanker to douse the flames. Barlow says, “The best fire fighting technique in the Amazon is to prevent them in the first place — by controlling deforestation and managing agricultural activities.”
