In the Amazon, Brazil has made huge gains in its battle against deforesters, but it is increasingly losing ground to another threat: climate change.
In the Amazon, Brazil has made huge gains in its battle against deforesters, but it is increasingly losing ground to another threat: climate change. Amid pervasive drought this year, the number of wildfires has hit a 20-year high, official figures show.
From January through June, Brazil recorded 13,489 wildfires in the Amazon, according to satellite data from the national space agency. That is 61 percent more fires than during the first half of last year. And the wildfire season has yet to reach its peak, which usually comes in August or September.
“We’re seeing fires this year that began in pastures or recently cleared rainforest and then spread into the surrounding rainforest areas that are burning hundreds of square kilometers,” said NASA researcher Shane Coffield, who studies wildfires in Brazil. “These are huge wildfires.”
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
Smoke from wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon, February 2024. (Photo Credit: NASA)
