The enormous blazes have destroyed nearly 12% of the planet’s largest tropical wetland in Brazil. The fires are the quadruple size of the largest fire in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, according to the recent NASA’s satellite images.
Fires in the Brazilian Amazon are raging in the wetlands of west-central Brazil, leaving behind a vast swath of charred ruins in a paradise of biodiversity, Yeni Safak reports.
Scientists say the magnitude of the loss cannot be estimated. Satellites of the National Institute for Space Research reported that from January to September, 14,764 fire spots swept the Brazilian side of this biome, an increase of 214% from the same period in 2019.
The unprecedentedly cruel fires have already destroyed nearly 12% of the global largest tropical wetland. In other words, the natural disaster is partially reducing to ashes one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth.
With attention to the authorities, the fires, often set by ranchers and farmers to clear land but exacerbated by the most severe drought in 47 years, are out of control.
For example, the region Pantanal, which also covers areas of Bolivia and Paraguay, is home to roughly 1,200 vertebrate animal species, including 36 that are threatened with extinction. A point often overlooked is the region is home to rare birds and the world’s densest population of jaguars.
NASA warns: Brazil faced the largest in its Amazon rainforest
The fires in the Brazilian Amazon are becoming stronger, aggravated by deforestation, for which environmentalists blame President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing him of encouraging intervention in protected lands.
The fires in the Pantanal this year quadruple the size of the largest fire in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Pantanal is smaller and less-known than the Amazon jungle, but the region has abundant waters and a strategic location.
