Forest fires are a fact of life. Often, in especially dry months, even rainforests like the Amazon may ignite. Sometimes, this is beneficial for the ecosystem, fertilizing the soil and making room for tougher plants to grow.

This is not the case with the recent Amazon fires.

Brazil’s agricultural industry is no stranger to scandals. For years now, President Jair Bolsonaro and his predecessor Michel Temer have been slashing environmental protections, including one that requires rural properties in the Amazon to preserve 80% of their native vegetation. Brazil is also ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental activists, who are frequently killed for trying to protect the land. Over the past months, a generally declining rate of forest fires in the area was alarmingly reversed when thousands of fires sprung up. These fires have cleared well over 7000 acres. NASA satellite imaging shows that a majority of these fires were intentionally started to create more land for farming.

Bolsonaro does not deny the damage, but has rather sought to shift the blame. “We preserve more [rainforest] than anyone,” he stated, a fact which is obviously true due to the Amazon being the largest rainforest in the world. Any country containing it would have little issue in claiming this statistic with minimal protections in place. He continued, “No country in the world has the moral right to talk about the Amazon. You destroyed your own ecosystems.”

This statement might apply to contained political issues such as infrastructure upkeep, but is insultingly simple when applied to the one spot on Earth with the highest concentration of biodiversity and a potentially catastrophic amount of stored carbon dioxide. Some especially alarming articles suggest that the destruction of the Amazon would lower oxygen levels in the atmosphere, with claims that the rainforest contributes 20% of the gas. This is well intended, but unnecessarily muddles the issue. The majority of that oxygen only affects the surrounding area, and losing it would not cause 20% of the world’s oxygen to immediately vanish. It would, however, destroy the majority of South America’s ecosystems, as the continent depends heavily on rainfall generated by the Amazon.

There are still urgent threats on the global scale. Ecologist Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Oxford notes that, if the carbon stored in the Amazon were to be released on such a broad scale, then all efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from motor vehicles would essentially be pointless. In other words, if Brazil continues to prioritize profit over preservation and no action is taken to hold their agricultural businesses accountable, then the world is facing a point of no return in the fight against climate change.

Photo from stokpic via Pixabay