The Amazon rainforest is the largest in the world also housing most of the worlds species — flora and fauna. It accounts for more than half of the volume of remaining rainforests on earth and is credited with generating more than 20 percent of the oxygen used all over the world.
For about three weeks now, wildfires have been clearing out swathes of land in the Amazon and it is alarming. Environmental organisations and researchers are accusing cattle ranchers and loggers who want to clear and utilize the land for the unprecedented destruction. The environmentalists claim that the ranchers and loggers are emboldened by Brazil’s pro-business president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Brazil is home to about 60 percent of the Amazonia, while Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana house what is left of the 5,500,000 km² forest. The Amazonia is a bulwark of conservation and one of the last line of defence against global warming. The forest is a major greenhouse gases sink.
If the forest is lost to these wildfires, about 2.5 million insect species, at least 40,000 plant species, 2,200 fishes, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles which have been scientifically classified in the region may be lost forever.
“The vast majority of these fires are human-lit,” said Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organization Amazon Watch. He added that even during dry seasons, the Amazon — a humid rainforest — doesn’t catch on fire easily, unlike the dry bushland in California or Australia.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron described the wildfires as “international crisis” , calling on the G7 to make the issue a top priority at its summit.
According to satellite imagery reports from Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), there have been 74,155 fires in the Amazon since the beginning of the year 2019 so far, representing an 84 per cent increase from the same period last year.
Meanwhile, President Bolsonaro is counter-accusing the Environmental organisations of been responsible for the fires.
“Maybe – I am not affirming it – these (NGO people) are carrying out some criminal actions to draw attention against me, against the government of Brazil,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.
“It could be ranchers. Everyone is suspicious, but the biggest suspicion comes from NGOs.”
He expressed suspicion that the NGOs are trying to make him look bad because they have lost funding since he became president.
