Why is Amazon Forest Burning so Alarmingly?

The Amazon rainforest is on fire and it is so intense that the smoke from the blaze has covered nearby cities with dark clouds. It has been reported that Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recorded over 72,000 fires this year, which is an increase of about 80% from last year. More worrisome is the fact that more than 9,000 of these fires have taken place in the last week alone.

The fires have engulfed several large Amazon states in Northwestern Brazil. NASA, on August 11 noted that the fires were huge enough to be spotted from the space.

Deforestation is to Blame

In the month of July itself, the Amazon has lost 519 square miles (1,345 square kilometers) of rainforest, as reported in the Guardian. This area is more than double the size of Tokyo. Well, this sets a record of deforestation in the Amazon in a single month. The data from Brazilian satellites reveal that Amazonian trees amounting the area of almost three football fields are disappearing every minute. Since July 2018, the total area of deforestation is up by over 39%. In the past 50 years, one-fifth of Amazon’s forest has already been cut and burned to make the way for logging, ranching and or mining. The area deforested spans some 3,00,000 square miles, according to Intercept, and amounts an area larger than Texas, US.

A forest enters a loop where deforestation leads to more forest loss, thus making the region drier, which in turn spurs more deforestation. Most part of the rains in the Amazon is generated by the rainforest itself. Obviously, as trees disappear, rainfall declines. Experts apprehend that Amazon is about to reach a tipping point, where it can’t return back to the previous state. As half of the rainfall in the Amazon is made by the rainforest itself, devastation will make the region drier and more fires would be witnessed.

“In the previous years’ [wildfires] were very much related to the lack of rain, but it has been quite moist this year. That leads us to think that this is deforestation-driven fire”, says Adriane Muelbert, an ecologist who expertise on Amazon deforestation and its impact on climate change.

What is disturbing is at the current trend of deforestation, there is the possibility of Amazon rainforest’s permanent disappearance. If another 20% of the Amazon were to disappear, there would be the triggering of a feedback loop known as a dieback. The dieback is the condition where the forest dries and burns. Once this dieback starts, the forest would enter the loop where any human intervention will become “beyond the reach”. What will happen in such a condition is that Amazon would turn into a savanna-like landscape.

Devastations have accelerated once Right-winger Jair Bolsonaro took charge of Brazil. Bolsonaro’s administration has worked out to loosen protections on natural land reserves. One of the first things that Bolsonaro’s administration had done in terms of changes at the policy level, was the transfer of the authority to certify indigenous lands as protected areas from Brazil’s FUNAI (the National Indian Foundation) to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, this change had to be reversed due to huge protests by native communities.

Being world’s largest rainforest, Amazon plays a crucial role in keeping world’s carbon-dioxide level at a check. Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the atmosphere through the process they live—the process of photosynthesis. Amazon, which covers 2.1 million square miles, is referred to as the lungs of the planet for it being the densest forest. Undoubtedly, this is the reason Amazon’s health is so important when climate change and global warming have reached the peak.