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The Amazon is still burning! -

In July 2020, Brazil announced a four-month ban on burning, designed to reassure the world that something was being done, as reported in the UK's Guardian newspaper. But satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, INPE, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August, it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas (pictured)— one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon. This is the highest number since 1998. 

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More than 29,307 fires in August -

According to the same newspaper, INPE announced more recently that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August 2020—the second-highest number in a decade and only slightly less than 2019’s figure of 30,900.

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Deliberate and Illegal -

Wildfires are common in the dry season in Brazil, but they are also deliberately started in efforts to illegally deforest land for cattle ranching. Pictured is a tract of the Amazon rain forest seen burning in August near Ouro Preto in Rondônia State.

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Degrading a precious resource -

CNN reports that rain forest fire destruction in 2020 could be worse than summer 2019, and is set to further degrade one of the world's most precious resources.

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Deforestation on the increase -

Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, deforestation has been on the increase with a nearly 30% jump in the number of fires compared to 2018, according to INPE, and reported by CNN. Pictured: a general view of a tract of land burned near Apuí in Amazonas encroaching on the rain forest.

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Fighting the fire -

A firefighter monitors a spot fire in an area of the Amazon rain forest near Porto Velho in Rondônia State.

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Unsustainable -

A single bird flies over a scorched Amazon rain forest, its natural habitat destroyed. The Los Angeles Times ran a story in August reporting that experts believe the blazes are pushing the world’s largest rain forest toward a tipping point, after which it will cease to generate enough rainfall to sustain itself.

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Out of control -

A Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) fire brigade member retreats from a wall of flames as a fire burns out of control. It's a familiar scene and mirrors that of the emergency in 2019.

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Record number of fires -

Brazil's Amazon rain forest had seen a record number of fires in 2019. 

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Worsening crisis - In fact, the first half of 2019 had seen more than double the number of fires in Brazil than in 2013.

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9,500 forest fires in a week! - Ipne said it had observed more than 9,500 forest fires in a single week, mostly in the Amazon region (pictured).

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Shrouded in smoke - The satellite images showed Brazil's northernmost state, Roraima, shrouded in dark smoke, while neighboring Amazonas declared an emergency over the fires.

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Devastation - Brazil is used to forest fires during the dry season. Pictured is a view of the devastation caused by a wild fire in an area of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, in Alto Paraiso, Goias.

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The dry season is not to blame - INPE, however, noted that the number of fires was not in line with those normally reported during the dry season, as reported by the BBC.

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Bolsonaro is being blamed - The unprecedented surge in wildfires occurred since Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, took office in January 2019. Bolsonaro has brushed aside foreign pressure to safeguard the Amazon rain forest.

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Development over conservation - Criticism was rife over Bolsonaro's environmental policies. Scientists argue that the Amazon has suffered losses at an alarming rate since he took office, with policies favoring development over conservation.

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Deforestation - The fact is that the Amazon rain forest is being eaten away by deforestation, much of which takes place as areas are burnt by large fires to clear land for agriculture.

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Wiping out the environment - Data released back in 2013 by INPE already suggested that destruction of the vast rain forest—the largest in the world—had spiked by more than a third over 2012, wiping out an area more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles.

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Reversing progress - Figures then confirmed the fears of scientists and environmental activists who warned that farming, mining, and Amazon infrastructure projects, coupled with changes to Brazil's long-standing environmental policies, were reversing progress made against deforestation.

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The Amazon is dammed - An aerial view of the construction site of a hydroelectric dam along the Teles Pires river, a tributary of the Amazon, near the city of Alta Floresta, Para state.

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No trees left - A fisherman's house is seen along the Tapajos River, a tributary of the Amazon. The surrounding area is bereft of vegetation.  

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Farming - A tractor works on a wheat plantation on land that used to be virgin Amazon rain forest.  

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Tipping point - An article in the Economist warned that "South America’s natural wonder may be perilously close to the tipping-point beyond which its gradual transformation into something closer to steppe cannot be stopped or reversed, even if people lay down their axes."

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Illegal sawmills - The construction site of an illegal sawmill. The Rain Forest Foundation has issued a grim reminder that over the last 40 years, we have lost 20% of the Amazon.

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The loss caused by logging - Sawmills process illegally logged trees from the Amazon rain forest. 

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Carbon dioxide - Logs that are burned release even more carbon into the air. Deforestation releases 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

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The final cut? - Tool of destruction: a worker carries a blade at an illegal sawmill. 

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Processing wood - A sawmill worker processes trees illegally extracted from the Amazon jungle. 

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Threat from loggers - A tree, which was illegally felled, lies on the floor of the Amazon rain forest in Jamanxim National Park. Illegal loggers frequently threaten, coerce, and even kill indigenous leaders and communities that protect their forests, claims the Rain Forest Foundation.

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The industrialization of the Amazon - A truck transports a mechanical shovel at a sawmill located on barren land that was once pristine rain forest.

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Unique - A single ipe (lapacho) tree is seen in this aerial view of the Amazon rain forest near the city of Novo Progresso, Para state.

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Only for cattle - Cattle walk on a tract of Amazon rain forest that was long ago cleared for agricultural purposes.

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Industrial waste - Furnaces used to make charcoal from wood discarded by the illegal logging and lumber industries. 

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Slash and burn - Illegal loggers adopt a slash and burn policy in order to clear forest quickly and efficiently. 

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Forest now pasture - Herders drive cattle, which were raised on pasture grown on an area of deforested Amazon rain forest, along the Trans-Amazonian highway near the city of Uruara, Para state.  

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Mining disaster - An illegal gold mine, located on an area of deforested Amazon rain forest, is seen near the city of Castelo dos Sonhos, Para state.

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The future is not looking bright -

Even a rainbow can't detract from the sorry sight of the environment as it arcs over tract of rain forest leveled for commercial use.

See also: The natural wonder of the Pantanal.

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