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Week of September 18th: Intense Drought in Brazil & Wildfires in the Amazon

Sep 18, 20242 min read

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Image credit: AP Photo/Eraldo Peres. Taken from The Associated Press.

Topic

Wildfires

Date

Reported as of September 18, 2024

Location

Brazil and the Amazon rainforest

Why was it on the news?

The Associated Press reported that in 2024, Brazil experienced its worst drought since measurements began seven decades ago. According to the National Institute for Space Research, this was the worst fire in 14 years counting the beginning of the year (DW). According Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the Brazilian National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, this marked the first time that a drought had covered the country’s north all the way to the southeast (Conservation International). The area hardest hit was the Amazon rainforest. According to Efrain Tinta Guachalla, a socio-territorial investigator at Fundación Tierra, the wildfire season in the Amazon usually starts at August and ends at October, but this year it stretched to six months (ABC News), with 22.38 million hectares of land in Brazil being ravaged by fires from the first nine months of 2024, an area comparable to Belarus (DW). 5.5 million hectares were burned in September alone, which was almost a 200% increase from last year. The Cerrado water reservoir saw a 158% increase of land affected by the fires to 4.3 million hectares, while The Pantanal, which is the world’s largest wetland, saw a 662% increase. Most fires were manmade for the purpose of intentional deforestation to free up land for pastures and agricultural land (The Associated Press). Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon were one of the most affected, with rising river temperatures causing fish, a critical food for local communities, to die (Conservation International). Plummeting river levels had also caused many communities to be stranded as they are only accessible by water. Lack of potable water had also caused a surge in illnesses.

Sources