Data on fires in the Amazon

- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.

- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station comprises some 3.37 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, and is home to hundreds of species – including some that are threatened with extinction.- But despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with satellite data showing deforestation doubling in 2021.- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land speculators spilling over from the neighboring Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become the most deforested slice of the Brazilian Amazon in recent years.- Pending legislation could make it even easier to legalize illegitimate land claims, providing hope to land speculators and cattle ranchers that they could soon receive land titles for land they have deforested and occupied illegally.

- Forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased this year, with much of the smoke generated concentrating in the state of Acre and disproportionately affecting the health of Indigenous people.- At the peak of the fires, in July and August, a total of 88,400 hectares (218,400 acres) of land burned, a 20% increase from the 76,400 hectares (188,800 acres) burned in the same period in 2020.- Recorded cases of respiratory disease increased by almost 8% from June to September 2021 over the previous year, according to data from the Acre state health department.- Indigenous people, who have lower immunity and a higher incidence of pre-existing medical conditions, are among the most at-risk groups to the smoke pollution, compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

- In the last two decades, the Amazon Rainforest has been impacted by increasingly intense and frequent droughts, the most severe occurring in 2005, 2010 and 2015.- A new study shows that stretches of forest affected by drought have taken between one and three years to recover their growth rate.- With droughts expected to worsen because of global warming, scientists warn that the Amazon’s capacity for carbon absorption will be increasingly compromised.- They highlight that efforts to stabilize the climate will depend on combating deforestation in the Amazon.

- In an interview with Mongabay, filmmakers Davi Kopenawa and Luiz Bolognesi talk about the production process of “The Last Forest,” a documentary that brings the current reality of Brazil’s Indigenous Yanomami people to theaters.- Located in Roraima state, the Yanomami Indigenous Territory is the largest reserve in Brazil, with 26,000 Indigenous inhabitants — but nearly as many illegal miners, spurred on by the anti-Indigenous rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro.- “People from the city don’t know the Yanomami; we live very far away, close to the mountains. It’s important to show who Brazilian Indigenous people are — those who first took care of our place, of our country,” says Davi Kopenawa about the decision to make the film.

- Satellite imagery brings us a first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots, areas where forest cover was lost in high densities across the Amazon, amounting to more than 860,000 hectares (2.1 million acres).- The majority of deforestation (76%) occurred in Brazil and was clustered around roads, according to a recent report from Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP); many of the areas deforested this year in Brazil have also burned.- In Colombia, deforestation hotspots this year were in and around numerous protected areas, including Tinigua and Chiribiquete national parks, as well as Indigenous reserves, particularly Yari-Yaguara II and Nukak Maku; in Peru, rice farming and a new Mennonite colony drove recent deforestation.- Of primary forests loss across the western Amazon between 2017 and 2020, three-quarters were outside protected areas and Indigenous territories, highlighting the importance of these key land use designations for safeguarding the remaining Amazon rainforest.

- New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades.- Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.- Primates were the most affected, as they depend on trees for movement, food and shelter. Rare and endemic species with restricted habitats suffered the strongest impacts.- The study assessed two decades of fires between 2001 and 2019 and confirmed the impact of environmental policies on deforestation cycles in the Amazon; law enforcement was concluded to have direct impact on the extent and volume of fires.

- Researchers monitored the forests of 22 Latin American countries from 2003 to 2018, and analyzed their resistance to fires.- According to the researchers, 48% of these ecosystems that suffered burning in 2003 were wiped out in subsequent years.- The study found that all forests in Latin America are susceptible to fires, with severe implications for greenhouse gas emissions, particulate matter, and biodiversity.

- Fires are gaining momentum in Acre, a state in southwesten Brazil 80% covered in old-growth Amazon rainforest, where a historic drought and high levels of deforestation have experts worried that this will be a bad year for fires- Wildfires generate small particulate matter which, when inhaled, can travel into the lungs, bloodstream, and vital organs, causing serious damage, akin to cigarette smoke.- Data from Acre’s air-quality monitoring network, the largest in the Amazon, show that during the peak burning seasons in 2019 and 2020, the rates of particulate matter hovered well above the level recognized by the World Health Organization as clean and safe for breathing- Wildfire smoke has been linked to higher COVID-19 mortality rates, threatening to compound what is already one of the worst burdens of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world. At particular risk are Indigenous populations, who suffer mortality rates 1.5 times the average in Brazil.

- As of Aug. 15, 29 major fires have been set this year in the southwestern Brazilian state of Acre, burning more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), compared to just one major fire reported by the same date last year, which burned 20 hectares (50 acres).- A recent study found that unprecedented levels of fires burned in standing rainforest in 2019, which was neither a drought nor an El Niño year, meaning the risk of forest fires is rising, even when rainfall is normal.- The authors say this adds to mounting evidence that the discourse and policies of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which began in January 2019, have relaxed regulations and emboldened land grabbers and those who set illegal fires.  - Researchers say they hope that new platforms to monitor and predict fires, as well as educational programs about fires and fire alternatives in schools, communities and on the radio will lead to behavioral changes and less fire, but say government support and investment is needed.