Amazon forest fire
Flying above the Amazon fire reveals skyline is invisible by plumes of smoke and flames rushing across plains like lava.
Thousands of fires are ravaging the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, including the northern states of Roraima, Acre, Rondonia and Amazonas. More than 75, 000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of 2019 the highest number since 2013 and compares 40, 000 in the same period in 2018.
Forest fires are common in Amazon in the dry season , from July to October. Plumes of smoke have spread across the Amazon region and beyond. According to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service a part of European Union’s Earth observation programme, the smoke has been travelling as far as the Atlantic coast and even caused the skies to darken in Sao Paulo more than 2000 miles away.
The fires have been releasing 228 megatonnes of carbon dioxide according to Cams the highest since 2010 and also emitting highly toxic carbon monoxide, a gas released when wood is burned and does not have much access to oxygen.
The Amazon basin spanning 2.9 million sq miles ( 7.4million Sq km), home to three million species of plants and animals and one million indigenous people is crucial to regulating global warming with its forest absorbing millions of tonnes of carbon emissions every year.
The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has marshalled 40, 000 troops from the armed forces to tacke the fires including the use of helicopters and aeroplanes to drop water.
The Bolivian government has hired a fire-fighting airtanker to help extinguish fires in the east of the country.
Boris Johnson today has announced £10m of funding to help protect and restore the Amazon rainforest in Brazil including the areas affected by the current fires.
The Israeli government is sending an aircraft to assist the Brazilian military in fighting in the Amazon rainforest.
Boris Johnson today has announced £10m of funding to help protect and restore the Amazon rainforest in Brazil including the areas affected by the current fires.
France have threatened to halt on of the world’s biggest trade deals with the support of other EU nations, unless Brazil does more to fight forest fires in the Amazon.
Emmanuel Macron vowed to oppose ratification of a trade pact between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc and said “ Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro had lied about his environmental promises”.
Germany however said it would not oppose the deal but Irish Prime minister Leo Varadkar said there was no way his country could support it if Brazil did not honour its environmental commitments.
Finland which holds the EU’s presidency called for the bloc to examine the possibility of banning Brazilian beef.
Mr Bolsonaro accused French president of having a colonial mindset and said that Mr Macron was seeking personal political gain at the expense of Brazil and the other countries of the Amazon.
According to Brazil’s own satellite data, the number of fires so far this year has crossed 75, 000 up 84 per cent from the same period last year and the highest since 2013.
Jair Bolsonaro who backs further commercial development of the Amazon forest, has been accused of encouraging loggers to start fires and of not directing enough resources to fight the blazes now said the army might be brought in to help combat the rainforest fires. He has claimed that environmental groups have turned to arson to discredit Brazil. Areas of rainforest are constantly set alight in order to clear areas for pastoral farming by cattle farmers but under Mercosur beef exporters are set to benefit from a 99, 000- tonne annual quota which will only be subject to a 7.5 per cent tariff.