Hilal Elver & Alyssa Brierley | last updated 13 Sept. 2019 —
Forest fires are dramatic signs of global warming and the fires currently burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest at an astonishing rate have received a great deal of attention in recent weeks. We should be concerned for several reasons.
First, when large amounts of forest are lost to deforestation and fires, the world loses an important tool in helping to fight climate change.[3] The Amazon rainforest serves as one of the planet’s largest carbon sinks that help to regulate global warming by absorbing millions of tons of carbon each year. When trees are lost through cutting or burning, not only does their capacity for storing carbon diminish, they release the carbon they were storing into the atmosphere. At present, this has happened at the highest level since 2010.[4]
Trees also emit carbon monoxide when they burn, which adds another gas to the atmosphere that is toxic at high levels. Satellite maps show carbon monoxide being carried from the Brazilian rainforest well beyond Brazil’s border and far off the coast of South America.
More importantly, the Amazon rainforest is known as the planet’s lungs. Official figures are disputed as to the amount of oxygen that the Amazon is responsible for producing, with some claiming that it represents up to 20 percent of all the world’s oxygen,[5] while others say the number is closer to 6 percent. Regardless of the number, it’s clear that it generates a significant amount of oxygen, which is crucial to life on the planet and our ability to survive.
Secondly, the Amazon rainforest is an area of significant biodiversity, as it is home to more species than anywhere else on the planet.[1] Over three million plants and animals have their home in the Amazon rainforest basin, which includes 25 percent of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity and more fish species than any other river system.[2] Biodiversity is important in regulating the regional and global climate and also in providing opportunities for innovation in solving complex challenges faced by humanity – discoveries in rainforests have led to important medical developments that have saved millions of lives.
If none of that is compelling, the Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in ensuring local food security as the home to approximately one million of Brazil’s indigenous people and numerous peasants. Foods foraged in forests provide nutritional diversity for local people and serve as important safety net during times of food scarcity. Wood from forests serve as primary fuel sources for rural peoples for cooking and sterilizing water, and forests help to regulate the many natural inputs for food cultivation: water flow, stabilizing soil and maintaining its fertility, regulating the climate, and providing the necessary habitat for pollinators and predators for pests.[2]
In a world struggling to make real progress on eliminating hunger and fighting against climate change, these Amazon fires are nothing short of a disaster. But perhaps what’s worse is that much of this harm is completely avoidable, as it’s a man-made phenomenon.
Although forest fires are common in the Amazon during the dry season (July – October),[6] the rain forest is burning at a rate above normal. NASA satellites confirm that 2019 has been the most active year for fires in almost a decade.[1] There are 80% more fires in Brazil this year than last year (87,000 forest fires in the first eight months of 2019, compared with 49,000 by the same time in 2018). There have been no changes to the underlying environmental conditions compared to previous years. What has changed however, are the political conditions. Brazil’s new President Bolsonaro has promised to develop the region for farming and mining. A recent BBC analysis has found that the record number of fires burning in the Amazon has coincided with a significant drop in the number of fines being issued for environmental violations.[7] This is just one of several ways in which the Brazilian President is widely understood to condone if not outright encourage such practices.
Forest fires are a tragedy for the environment no doubt, but it is important to understand the broader connections between this phenomenon and our global food systems. Trees that have been cut down are set on fire after deforesting operations, in order to allow the ashes to fertilize the soil.[8] In Brazil, that soil is often used to plant soy for the purpose of feeding cattle.
Some claim that the clearing of the rainforest for agriculture in this way supports food security, but this is simply false. Planting soy for export markets does not promote the food security of local people in Brazil and neither do agricultural activities that contribute to the already too-high levels of red meat consumption that are denigrating the planet and making it more difficult to grow the food that nourishes us. The only winners are the large national and international corporations who reap excessive profits in this process.
It is a vicious cycle: We destroy rainforests for red meat, and we produce more GHG emissions to bring red meat to the table.
This is policy driven deforestation and fire, not a naturally-occurring environmental phenomenon. In other words, this has become an integral and entirely predictable outcome of Brazil’s current policy of expanding agricultural output in order to respond to global markets hungry for beef, for which Brazil is the largest supplier.[9]
As the Amazon burns and the world looks on in horror, little is being done to address its root causes. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has pointed out in its recent report,[10] nothing short of an overhaul in our current approach to food systems will suffice. Their main recommendations include reducing the demand for beef and strengthening regulations that would prevent deforestation in places like the Amazon.
However, as Tim Wise has pointed out, the IPCC proposals “seem like common sense, yet little seems to change,”[11]primarily as a result of the significant resistance of corporate agriculture. 70-80% of total forest loss globally is a result of the deliberate clearing of forests to convert woodlands into agricultural land.[12] Effectively what we’re seeing play out in the Amazon before our eyes is nothing less than the visual manifestation of the failure of our food systems.
If this trend continues at the current rate, more than a quarter of Brazil’s rainforest will be without trees by 2030, according to the World Wildlife Fund.[13] This cannot be allowed to happen. The Amazon rainforest, like other rainforests throughout the world, are the common heritage of humankind. Their preservation cannot be left to the mercy of irresponsible national leaders abusing claims of territorial sovereignty.
Yet our current international systems are not capable of addressing complex problems of this nature, not because we don’t have the laws but because our international systems are weak and progress towards these important goals can be stalled by the lack of political will of its member states. We can and must do better and if that means that significant reform or restructuring of our international systems is required, so be it. Governing our common heritage has never been more important and humanity ignores this challenge at its peril.
[1]The sub-Saharan and Borneo/Indonesia rainforests also play crucial roles and are also afflicted by increasing burning.
[3] https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145498/uptick-in-amazon-fire-activity-in-2019
[4] http://www.fao.org/3/I8877EN/i8877en.pdf p. 1
[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49433767
[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49433767
[7] https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/americas/brazil-beef-amazon-rainforest-fire-intl/index.html
[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49433767
[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49460022
[10] https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/amazon-rainforest-fires-leave-sao-paulo-in-the-dark/
[12] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/
[13] https://www.wired.com/story/big-ag-is-sabotaging-progress-on-climate-change/
[14] http://www.fao.org/3/I8877EN/i8877en.pdf at 1.
[15] https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts2/deforestation_in_the_amazon/