By now you might have heard that many of the pictures circulating on social media, claiming to show the Amazon fires, are actually misattributed images. Some were taken of previous Amazon fires 20 some years ago, while other photographs were taken in places such as Sweden and Montana in the US. However, there's a very real crisis taking place in the Brazilian Amazon, and many fires are raging across the rainforest.
During the past week alone, more than 9,500 new forest fires were reported in the Amazonian region of Brazil, according to anewspost.com. Since the year started, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has detected more than 74,000 fires, which represents an 84% increase since 2018.
Reputable satellite imagery has been released from NASA, depicting the true extent of the recent fires.
NASA’s online Worldview instrument gives us a glimpse into how widespread the fires are. The pictures also showed many fires spread across Africa as well.
In the picture below, the Amazonian fires are represented by red dots on the screen.
NASA
Bolivia reportedly sent the largest fire-fighting plane in the world to the border with Brazil in hopes of stopping the blaze.
President Jair Bolsonaro has received pressure from all over the world to take action in the crisis, after days of stalling and insisting that the issue was not a priority. Now, the president is finally admitting that there is a problem, and is reportedly sending government resources to help fight the fire.
August 2019 is continuing an active Amazon fire season, with large and intense fires burning in the region. @NASA satellites tracked actively burning fires across South America and captured images of smoke in the last week. https://t.co/EZKu01MPHg pic.twitter.com/VEoNZi2KJQ
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) August 23, 2019
However, activists are suspicious of Bolsonaro’s true motives. On Friday, August 23, Bolsonaro signed a decree after an emergency meeting with his cabinet, that orders the deployment of Brazilian military forces to affected regions. That includes indigenous territories, that often find themselves forced off their lands by the Brazilian military.
According to an NGO report released in July 2019 by Global Witness, a shocking number of environmental activists and indigenous people are being murdered for participating in resistance movements against large corporations and the governments that protect them.
Here's what deforestation of the Amazon looks like in Brazil. For decades, protecting the rain forest was at the heart of the country’s environmental policy. 7 months into his term, the far right President Jair Bolsonaro has changed course drastically. https://t.co/b7X1VMkytF pic.twitter.com/A4wZJJbwuz
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 28, 2019
At least 164 environmental activists around the world were murdered in 2018, which amounts to around three people every week, according to the report. Global Witness suggests that those numbers are likely on the low side, as it is hard to track these deaths and their causes.
Even before the fires, scientists around the planet were warning that the Amazon could be reaching a tipping point because of deforestation, which could result in a complete collapse of the rainforest.
According to the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil, the Amazon rainforest saw an 80 percent reduction between 2006 and 2012.
Experts believe many of the recent fires are the result of cattle ranchers intentionally setting fires to clear room for their grazing fields.
As a Yale study reports, the Amazon is the largest beef exporter in the world, supplying nearly a quarter of the global market. This practice is responsible for almost 80% of the Amazon’s deforestation. Approximately 450,000 square kilometers of deforested Amazon in Brazil are now in cattle pastures, according to the study.
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