Amazon Rain Forest Fire

Still burning, and no signs of stopping

Deforestation has been a huge issue in the past few decades, however, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest has significantly increased since Brazil’s new president who claims that “Brazil’s vast protected lands were an obstacle to economic growth”, took over. Environmental experts are worried that this will affect climate change as the Amazon’s vast forests store a significant amount of carbon dioxide and produce 20% of the oxygen in our planet’s atmosphere, so burning them would cause a loss of this storage as well as more carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

The Amazon rain forest is still on fire and has caused environmental chaos mainly because of the thick clouds of smoke forming from the fire. These clouds have forced schools to close, disrupted air travel and made a significant number of people ill. Most of the worst-affected regions are in the north of Brazil. Firefighters have tried their best to fight this but, unfortunately, the limited equipment was not enough to kill the enormous fire. The Amazon, however, isn’t the only thing that’s burning. Hundreds of wildfires have spread across Indonesian Borneo, a rugged island in Southeast Asia. Officials have stated that about 80 percent of all these wildfires were caused intentionally to make room for palm plantation.

President Jair Bolsonaro had declared that the Brazilian government had lacked the required resources to kill the fire, but later stated that he would get the military involved in order to ensure environmental laws are being followed and that the fire is killed.