The Amazon is burning. Who is responsible, and what can be done?
Summer 2019. Swimming in the river, barbecues in the park, long, warm evenings — and devastating fires across the Amazon rainforest.
The fires have been devastating for the trees of the rainforest, which are a valuable source of carbon storage, as well as habitats for many species of animal who call the Amazon their home.
Why has the Amazon been burning?
Every year, from June to December, the southern Amazon Basin dries out. It’s a natural occurrence, with rainfall rare and temperatures high, which means that fires can become a concern.
When the Amazon is left to its own devices, though, fires are a rarity. The vast majority of fires in the Amazon are caused purely by human activity, usually the clearing of land. Trees are cut down earlier in the year, and then once the fallen trees have dried out the area is deliberately set on fire in order to quickly remove any vegetation that remains, leaving behind open land.
What is this land used for?
The majority of land is cleared to make way for profit-making agricultural activity, usually used to keep cattle, or to grow soybean crops (which are mostly used as cattle feed across the world). Essentially, this land is used to ensure consumers across the world have access to cheap meat.
And it isn’t local Brazilian farmers who are to blame. It’s the big players in agribusiness, who are buying up vast areas of land to increase their profits.
Land in the Amazon has always been used for farming. Throughout human history it has been used for subsistence farming by local people, producing crops to feed their family. This began to change in the later part of the 20th century, when large-scale agricultural activities began to take place in the Amazon. By 2000 over three quarters of tree clearing in the Amazon was for the purpose of keeping cattle.
For this reason, the burning of the Amazon represents not only an environmental problem, but also a social problem. The indigenous people who live in the Amazon basin are seeing their land stolen by huge corporations and often burned illegally. A group has been set up called the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) to boycott the companies who invade these protected areas for their own purposes. So far, they’ve disclosed a list of foreign companies who have engaged in trade or purchase of products produced in protected areas. They intend to submit their findings to the European Parliament, asking them to take action.
One company which must take responsibility for this summer’s fires is Hidrovias do Brasil, a company that is owned in large part by Blackstone, a major investment firm in the USA. Over the past two years they have been building a huge shipping terminal at Miritituba, deep in the Amazon in the Brazilian state of Pará. This terminal allows soybean growers to load crops onto barges, which sail to a larger port before being shipped around the world. To create this, the company took control of vast areas of land, deforested it, and built a highway through the jungle, leading to their new terminal.
Of course, companies like Hidrovias do Brasil sell their products on to other companies across the world. In 2019 the UK purchased £1 billion of beef from firms directly tied to deforestation in the Amazon. McDonalds and Burger King have both been linked to Marfrig, a Brazilian meat company which produced cattle on a farm using deforested land in a part of the Amazon which was ravaged by fires over the summer.
In 2019 UK purchased £1bn of beef from firms tied to Amazon deforestation. Marfrig, a Brazilian meat company that has supplied McDonald’s, Burger King and other huge fast food chains around the world, bought cattle from a farm using deforested land in a part of the Amazon currently ravaged by forest fires. For this reason, one immediate action which we can all take, is to reduce our consumption of beef, and try to ensure that any beef we do buy is not coming from farms in the Amazon.
Why is this allowed to happen?
In 2008 strict regulations were put in place in Brazil in order to protect the Amazon. But in 2019 a new administration came into effect, with far-right Jair Bolsonaro becoming President of Brazil. He immediately began to actively encourage agricultural activity in the Amazon, with less action taken against illegal deforestation. This is purely for economic reasons, with Bolsonaro recognising the global demand for commodities like beef, soy, sugar and palm oil. The Amazon rainforest is an asset which he can use to increase the GDP of Brazil — but this brings with it huge environmental risks.
From April to June 2019 over 700 square miles of forest in the Amazon was cut down, around 25% more than in 2018. This directly correlates with the worsened fires this summer, with 80% more fires than in 2019 — in July alone over 7,200 square miles of rainforest burned.
We need these trees. The Amazon is our largest rainforest. In an average year, it absorbs around 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, as well as releasing oxygen which we humans need to survive — that’s why it’s known as the ‘lungs of the earth’. And when the trees are burned, they release this carbon dioxide, and they cannot absorb any more.
So what can we do to make sure we never have fires this bad in the Amazon again? It can feel difficult to take action against something taking place thousands of miles away. But you can make a difference.
- Donate to organisations working on this problem, such as the WWF, the Rainforest Trust, the Rainforest Alliance, and the Arbor Day Foundation
- Consume consciously. Reduce the amount of beef you eat, and try to ensure that when you do it’s grown locally. Look for labels like Rainforest Alliance Certified and Forest Stewardship Council to verify that your products have been produced sustainably.
- Sign the WWF’s petition and share your outrage.
