Amazon Rain Forest Burning!

The Amazon is often called as ‘lungs of the earth’, for its ability to absorb carbon-di-oxide from the air and help earth fight against global warming. It generates more than 20% of the world’s oxygen. This year, the Amazon rainforest saw a record number of fires, over 73000, as recorded by Brazil’s space research center INPE.

Since 2013, there was an increase in the number of fires that the region witnessed. From 2018 alone, the increase is 84%. The latest fire which has engulfed the region is so bad that the smoke from the flames was detected on both NASA and NOAA satellites.A significant amount of smoke was seen over the Amazonas and Rondonia states.

On Monday, the largest city of Brazil, São Paulo, witnessed a daytime blackout. The winds carried smoke 1700 miles away. Meteorologist Joselia Pegorim told, “The smoke did not come from fires from the state of São Paulo, but from very dense and wide fires that have been going on for several days in Rondônia and Bolivia. The cold front changed the direction of the winds and transported this smoke to São Paulo.”

Deforestation is considered a major factor for such an alarming number of fires. As estimated by the World Wildlife Fund, if the current rate of deforestation continues, one-fourth of the Amazon will be without trees by 2030. Many conservationists have blamed President Jair Bolsonaro for endangering the rainforest by neglecting global climate change fight.