““I saw heavy clouds of smoke from the windows of my apartment... It was shocking to see it in person.”
- Julia Talamo ’21”
BY CASEY ROEPKE ’21
The Amazon rainforest, spanning eight countries and over 2 million square miles, experienced an 80 percent increase in fires this year. Fires are devastating local species and have international implications surrounding climate change and human consumption. According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, over 80,000 fires have broken out in the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
The Amazon rainforest functions as a carbon dioxide sink through carbon sequestration. Because the fires have ravaged so many acres of valuable land and trees, the rainforest’s capacity to stop carbon emissions from warming the planet is diminishing. The fires also have a devastating impact on vulnerable flora and fauna, as well as indigenous tribes living within the rainforest.
During some of the major Amazon fires, Julia Talamo ’21 was in Uruguay, interning with the Partnership for Action on Green Economy: an organization thataimed to assist countries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
“While I was down there, I saw heavy clouds of smoke from the windows of my apartment,” Talamo said.
She commented on the practice of setting fires to clear land for cattle grazing, a method which has a negative impact on the environment. “It was shocking to see it in person, and it made many people think about the consequences of eating meat,” she said.
Vox reports that “some of the blazes are started by farmers aiming to clear land, some by illegal loggers trying to cover their tracks and some by negligence.”
Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, has made strides to allow development in the rainforest since his inauguration on Jan. 1. These actions, including loosening restrictions on deforestation for agricultural businesses, counteracted what had previously been a decline in forest destruction.
Bolsonaro’s denial of climate change has provoked international ire. French President Emmanuel Macron called the Amazon rainforest “the lungs of the planet,” and called for its protection, according to the Associated Press. The G7 summit, a meeting between the seven countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., resulted in an offer of $22 million in aid to fight the fires. But Bolsonaro refused the money, firing back insults at Macron via Twitter. He has since said that Brazil would accept aid, but only if Macron apologized to Bolsonaro.
As politicians debate the importance of the Amazon rainforest environmentally, agriculturally and economically, it continues to burn — and the impact of that destruction will extend beyond the eight countries and 2 million square miles.