Brazil’s Amazon rainforests have been burning since the last three weeks and strangely not many are talking about it.
On Monday, the smokes from the forest fire caused a daytime blackout in the city of Sao Paulo, which is 2500km away from the forests.
Just a little alert to the world: the sky randomly turned dark today in São Paulo, and meteorologists believe it’s smoke from the fires burning *thousands* of kilometers away, in Rondônia or Paraguay. Imagine how much has to be burning to create that much smoke(!). SOS pic.twitter.com/P1DrCzQO6x
— Shannon Sims (@shannongsims) August 20, 2019
The smoke is so much that it can be seen from space. NASA’s Aqua satellite on August 11 captured the blaze which engulfed parts of the states of Rondônia, Amazonas, Pará, and Mato Grosso in Brazil.
Earlier this month, the Brazilian state of Amazonas had declared a state of emergency over the rising number of fires in the region.
According to BBC, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said they’ve detected over 72,000 fires between January and August -the highest number since 2013. INPE also cited that deforestation in the rainforest rose by 88% in June compared to the same month last year. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has received criticism for his policies favouring development over conservation.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts that conserving areas like Amazon rainforest are integral to combating climate change. The vast rainforest, spread over 5.5 million km² is home to the world’s richest biological reservoir and its preservation is not just important, but essential.
