The Amazon is under attack. But you can do something about it.
Last year, the world watched in horror as large areas of the Amazon rainforest burned. But this year’s fires may be even bigger.
In spite of a declared fire ban and the presence of the army,[1][2] the number of fire hotspots recorded in August are likely to be even higher than last year.[3]
Why is the Amazon burning?
Fires in the Amazon rainforest are not natural. They are deliberately set by land-grabbers and ranchers to expand the land used for cattle grazing and industrial agriculture production.[4]
Since Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, the problem has gotten much worse. Bolsonaro is pushing for more industrial projects in the Amazon.[5] His government is actively dismantling environment laws, slashing funding for environmental protection agencies and demolishing Indigenous land rights.[6][7][8]
This has given free reign for forest destroyers to clear and burn the forest without being held accountable. There has even been a surge in murders of Indigenous forest guardians as land-grabbers move in on Indigenous lands.[9]
What’s at stake?
The Amazon is home to a staggering diversity of plants and animals – around 10 percent of all vertebrate species and many species found nowhere else on Earth.[10] Plants and slow-moving animals are burned up in the fires, while fast-moving animals may escape only to die from habitat loss.[11]
The fires – and Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies – threaten Indigenous Peoples’ very existence.[12] Indigenous communities in the Amazon also face an immediate serious health threat from the forest fire smoke, as many communities are already reeling from high COVID-19 mortality.[13][14]
And the impacts of the fires ripple far beyond the region itself. Every person on earth depends on the Amazon to help regulate our climate.[15] The rainforest sucks carbon from the air and stores it in billions of trees. It produces a “flying river” of water vapour that distributes rain across South America and impacts weather in other continents.[16][17]
If deforestation continues, the entire biome will hit an irreversible tipping point.[18] The surviving forest would no longer be able to produce its own rainfall and quickly transform into an arid savannah – killing off species and releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
What can you do?
Ultimately President Bolsonaro and his government must be made to back down from their assault on Indigenous rights and environmental protections, and instead take concrete action to protect the Amazon.
So far the only thing that has influenced Bolsonaro is intense international pressure from companies, investors and governments threatening to cut business ties unless the Amazon is protected.[19]
Despite this, our own government plans to continue negotiating a Canada-Mercosur free trade agreement with Brazil. Even worse, Brazil’s Big Agro is celebrating because the agreement is expected to increase Brazil’s meat exports to Canada.[20] Yes! The lead driver of the Amazon fires!
It is unacceptable for our government to reward Bolsonaro’s attacks on the environment and to make Canadians complicit in it.
We need to send a clear message that will resonate all the way back to Bolsonaro: There will be no trade deals in environmental destruction.
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-08/bolsonaro-plans-to-appease-investors-with-ban-on-amazon-fires
- https://www.thestar.com/news/world/americas/2020/08/28/ap-finds-brazils-plan-to-protect-amazon-has-opposite-effect.html
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-fires-exclusive/exclusive-brazil-amazon-fires-likely-worst-in-10-years-august-data-incomplete-government-researcher-says-idUSKBN25T349
- https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/where-theres-cattle-ranching-and-soybean-farming-theres-fire-study-finds/
- https://www.northernminer.com/news/brazils-bolsonaro-eyes-amazon-riches/1003814139/
- https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazil-end-runs-environmental-laws-via-huge-surge-in-executive-acts-study/
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-deforestation-climate-change-a/brazil-slashes-budget-to-fight-climate-change-as-deforestation-spikes-idUSKBN2392LC
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-amazon-indigenous.html
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52135362
- https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/1/2/205
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/08/how-the-amazon-rainforest-wildfires-will-affect-wild-animals/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-amazon-indigenous.html
- https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-07-02/fires-and-coronavirus-are-deadly-combination-amazon-s-indigenous-people
- https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/07/07/news/already-fighting-their-lands-and-lives-indigenous-communities-brazil-slammed-covid19
- https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-49452736/amazon-fires-why-the-rainforest-helps-fight-climate-change
- https://ideas.ted.com/this-airborne-river-may-be-the-largest-river-on-earth/
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather/
- https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/
- https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/brazil-bows-to-pressure-from-business-decrees-120-day-amazon-fire-ban/
- https://en.mercopress.com/2020/07/30/brazil-optimistic-about-a-mercosur-free-trade-accord-with-canada
Discussion
Leave The Amazon alone!
please leave it alone, cause once the amazon is gone it,s gone
Das Amazonasgebiet ist für die ganze Welt wichtig. Wenn dieses vernichtet wird, wird die Menschheit durch den Klimawandel mehr oder weniger untergehen,
please have some love and respect for our world! It is the only one we have 🐵🦝🐮🐷🦒🐏🐀🐰🦘🕊🐥🐨🦩🐸🐡🦡🦃🐦
Greenpeace
Ohne Bäume, kein Sauerstoff.
Stop bolsonaro madness
Dear Reykia, "Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies"? You follow the speech of the brazilian leftwing bitter sentiment for having lost the funding to gain their income doing nothing, a world record corruption (PT's almost 15 years in power) and their feeling that the return to power is a dream getting further and further away (the Bolsonaro government has done much more for the people of Brazil more than 1.5 decades of PT government, and the brazilian population sees it). If you really want to help: - have no political bias (during the PT government Greenpeace was very nice with Brazil.....but what was going on now is no different than then, if not worse, in terms of the environment - read about Marina da Silva, a former environment leader in Brazil who was Environment Minister during a short time during the PT government but left because of what was really going on in terms of environment policies during the PT government); - pressure the UN for the carbon credits (rich countries talk a lot, but when they have to participate $, it is another story - or NONE); - pressure for reforms in Brazil towards the end of the perks politicians have (like judicial privileges), pressure for the incarceration after 2nd degree trial [PT and its allies are not allowing these last two to happen because they work solely intending corruption]; see how these two issues happen in Brazil in relation to other countries. The way you (Greenpeace) work, like fighting for the rich countries not to have trade deals with Brazil, only helps the leftwing and its allies (with its corruption) to continue freely working in Brazil, harming the brazilian people. Change the way you act. In regards to Brazil, the way you are seems like just an angry politically biased organization that ends up only benefiting political corruption in Brazil. Thank you.
We must act as one - all the people who are against the destruction of the Amazon must pull together and threaten to boycott any products coming from Brazil and threaten to boycott any corporate company that will step in and use the destroyed natural forest areas for grazing animals. However, to act as one people we need to forget divisions such as where we come from, our religion or our race. To have strength we must unite and act as 1 group.