{"id":10428,"date":"2019-09-09T10:27:45","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amazoniasocioambiental.org\/?p=10428"},"modified":"2019-09-09T10:39:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:39:53","slug":"were-thinking-about-the-amazon-fires-all-wrong-these-maps-show-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/radar\/were-thinking-about-the-amazon-fires-all-wrong-these-maps-show-why\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re thinking about the Amazon fires all wrong. These maps show why."},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Sergio Pe\u00e7anha and Tim Wallace<\/strong><\/div>\n
The Washington Post<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

September 5, 2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For weeks, we\u2019ve seen headlines saying the Amazon rainforest is\u00a0burning<\/a>. But something unexpected happens when you map\u00a0satellite data<\/a>\u00a0showing both the fires this year and those that have burned in the previous four years: The bulk of the forest remains almost entirely intact.<\/p>\n

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Confused? That\u2019s because the heart of the Amazon is not actually on fire. Instead, most of the fires are burning at the fringes of the forest. That\u2019s where the real story, and the real solution to these fires, lie.<\/p>\n

Fires are common in the region during this time of the year, as seen on the maps below. They are mostly a man-made event. These fires are set in areas that had\u00a0already<\/a>\u00a0been deforested in previous years and are now being cleared for agriculture.<\/p>\n

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Brazil nearly doubled its arable land for intensive row cropping between 2000 and 2014, according to a\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0by researchers from the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland. Much of the new cultivable land is a result of deforestation.<\/p>\n

Earlier this decade, deforestation in Brazil slowed considerably, but more recently, both deforestation and the fires that go along with it have been rising. There were nearly\u00a0three times<\/a>\u00a0as many fires this August as there were the previous August, affecting more than 10,000 square miles of land. Brazil is one of the\u00a0world\u2019s biggest generators<\/a>\u00a0of greenhouse gas emissions,\u00a0<\/b>and about\u00a046 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the country\u2019s emissions come from the slash and burn deforestation process.<\/p>\n

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The maps below zoom in on the town of Apu\u00ed, in Amazonas state. The white areas on the first image show previously deforested areas. The yellow on the second image locates the fires last month. Most fires overlap previously deforested areas, a reminder that most of the fires are not in the forest but on its fringes.<\/p>\n

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The fires were so widespread last month that in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil\u2019s largest city, smoke clouds originating hundreds of miles away\u00a0turned the day to night<\/a>. Soot and smoke are contaminating clouds, and some scientists believe that it could be reducing precipitation and altering the regional climate \u2014 and even that the deforestation-related fires\u00a0could turn large parts of South America into a desert<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And to understand what\u2019s driving this expansion of Brazilian cropland, it\u2019s helpful to remember that Brazil\u2019s economy has long relied on commodity exports, mostly from agriculture. With an unemployment rate at 12 percent \u2014 about\u00a028.4 million<\/a>\u00a0people are without a job or underemployed \u2014 the country can ill-afford to back off one of its\u00a0few thriving sectors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the past few years,\u00a0Brazil became<\/a>\u00a0one of the world\u2019s biggest producers of such proteins as\u00a0soy<\/a>\u00a0and beef. The European Union is a\u00a0key importer<\/a>\u00a0of Brazilian agricultural products, and China is an even bigger trading partner. The ongoing trade war between the United States and China has afforded Brazilian soy farmers an opportunity to outflank their U.S. competitors and lock down a vast new market. Meeting that demand is yet another incentive to clear more land for cultivation.<\/p>\n

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro inherited this economic dynamic. But he has been\u00a0widely blamed<\/a>\u00a0for the fires because his policies exacerbate the problem. Even before taking office this past January, Bolsonaro announced plans to\u00a0unravel the ministry<\/a>\u00a0responsible for protecting the environment. The idea was later scratched, but environmental protection have been weakened under his leadership. Bolsonaro\u2019s government\u00a0reduced the budget<\/a>\u00a0of Brazil\u2019s environmental protection agency by 24 percent,\u00a0fired employees<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0created a department<\/a>\u00a0to revise, reduce or cancel environmental fines.<\/p>\n

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Bolsonaro has\u00a0bluntly<\/a>\u00a0rebuked<\/a>\u00a0other countries that he believes are trying to dictate to Brazilians how to handle their natural resources. Leaders of the Group of Seven nations\u00a0did just that<\/a>\u00a0during their recent summit in France, even though they later remained silent about President Trump\u2019s reported push to lift\u00a0logging restrictions<\/a>\u00a0in a part of Alaska roughly as large as West Virginia.<\/p>\n

The consequences of the fires in the Amazon know no borders, and neither do the forces that ignited them. If the developed nations want a greater say in the stewardship of the rainforest, they might need to provide more than the modest $20 million offered by the G-7 last month. They might need to pay for it in higher prices for agricultural imports. Most important, they might have to readjust their own consumption habits.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro, as he has on so many other occasions, is also missing the point \u2014 and an opportunity. If he really wants to revitalize Brazil\u2019s economy, he could take advantage of the world\u2019s renewed interest in the Amazon and ask developed countries just how much they\u2019re willing to pay to help preserve it. Allowing further deforestation may be a tempting short-term economic lifeline, but this policy puts at risk the future of his country and of its neighbors around the globe.<\/p>\n

*Tim Wallace has a PhD in geography from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is currently a visual storyteller at Descartes Labs.<\/i><\/p>\n

Extracted from: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2019\/09\/05\/were-thinking-about-amazon-fires-all-wrong-these-maps-show-why\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For weeks, we\u2019ve seen headlines saying the Amazon rainforest is burning. But something unexpected happens when you map satellite data showing both the fires this year and those that have burned in the previous four years: The bulk of the forest remains almost entirely intact.
\nConfused? That\u2019s because the heart of the Amazon is not actually on fire. Instead, most of the fires are burning at the fringes of the forest. That\u2019s where the real story, and the real solution to these fires, lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radar","category-2","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10428"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10446,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions\/10446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisg.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}