Amazon Forest is on Fire

Eco goals Concerns about Amazon Forests

The news sparkling around is Amazon forest is burning up at an alarming rate. The Satellite images published by NASA is showing the devastating fires in the Amazon between the borders of Paraguay and Brazil and is totally destroying it. 

These images just found out after a week when the director of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) dismissed order released by Jair government in the midst of a controversy over its satellite data. The images showed a devastating rise in Amazon deforestation, which the far-right government vehemently denied and dismissed as “lies” and didn’t listen to it. It is yet unclear whether the current fires were set intentionally by human activity or whether they are a consequence of rising temperatures by global warming and humidity.

Source: NASA's satellite image showing the fires between the border of Paraguay and Brazil

 Anyhow the data published by INPE and other environmental organizations shows that Amazon is indeed burning at an alarming rate in Brazil and its premises. This year a total of 72,843 fires have been detected, which is an increase of 83% for the same period and the lungs of the earth are totally burning by the fires. Historically Brazil’s agricultural industry had a strong influence on it. The business platform in brazil is farming by cattle and a lot of animals required for the business so that is the one reason for fire, Dubbed the farm of the world, the business of brazil is mostly meat ,Brazil depends on the export of meat and soy (mostly for animal fodder) to the entire world and the European Union is one of its biggest export markets. 

Trees planted through Ecosia searches in the Mata Atlântica, a former rainforest spreading across Brazil's coast.

 Additionally, Bolsonaro’s government is regulating and reversing previous governments’ policies to enforce environmental regulations and working strictly on it. Environmental Agencies and conservation organizations in Brazil have been weakened after barely half a year in government. Today, civil organizations feel they can “no longer contribute to Brazil’s environmental policies”, Overall, there is a sense of insecurity prevailing around. 

Severino (left), director of PACTO, Ecosia's tree planting partner in Brazil.

With weak law enforcement under Bolsonaro, environmental organizations fear that ruralistas - who hold large amounts of Brazil’s forested territory - might feel empowered to set fires on their lands. Either to make space for cattle holding or to allow mining and logging activities in exchange for quick financial gains. Scientists consider the Amazon Forest to be the lungs of the world. It pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it beneath the soil, which is why protecting it is vital to preventing climate breakdown. With three million species of plants and animals, the Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world and home to a million people. Brazil's forests are some of the world's most biodiverse, which is why at Ecosia we are planting an additional one million trees there to help regenerate lost biodiversity and as a sign against policies that ignore environmental deterioration.