https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis_Constantino3 thanks for the satellite image showing the extent of the smoke. The distance between Lisbon and Warsaw is 3316 Km...

People also need to know that penguin and sea lions are appearing in Rio de Janeiro and other unusual places.

Regards.

The Amazon forest is on fire according to NASA satellite images

The Brazilian government should give more importance to the environment, placing in the management of the Ministry of Environment more qualified people from the environmental area to allow the analysis and creation of environmental projects focused on the sustainable development of existing communities in the Amazon (Indigenous and other inhabitants of the area). ) through the rational use of forests (agroforestry, sustainable extractivism, creation of Conservation Units for sustainable use, etc.) not allowing the use of the area for agriculture, livestock and mining that require deforestation and vegetation burning. The Government of Brazil should provide more resources for environmental supervision to hire more technicians and logistical support for the control and monitoring of what is being done within the forest. The Amazonian Forest must be preserved in a sustainable way so that, besides protecting the high biodiversity present in this ecosystem, it can bring benefits to the natural communities that live in the region, thus not allowing any action that may conflict with the rational use of the forest.

Dear Luis Miguel,

thanks for opening this discussion. Since Bolsonaro took power the environment agency has issued fewer penalties, and ministers have made clear that their sympathies are with loggers rather than the indigenous groups who live in the forest. The head of Brazil’s space agency was fired last month after the president disputed the official deforestation data from satellites. No doubt that those who destroy the Amazon and let deforestation continue are encouraged by the Bolsonaro government’s actions and policies. He should in no way get away with this but should be removed from office immediately, and funds from countries all over the world should be used to put out the fires, reforest our planet's lung and return to the indigenous people what once used to be their ancestral home territory. Just some brief thoughts,

Johannes

Thank you very much Johannes and José Augusto for giving your opinions and alternatives to stop deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and protect biodiversity and indigenous territories from uncontrolled destruction and colonization mainly in Brazil where this destructive practice of natural resources is being promoted by the goverment. We must join forces all scientists, politicians, the public in general to ensure the protection and conservation of the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous communities that have protected for years the forests that are the sustenance for their survival.

Dear Luis Miguel,

very well spoken, and I think that indigenous people should respectfully be asked and officially be paid by the world community (UNESCO) to protect those indescribably beautiful rainforests on which our planet depends. Best wishes,

Johannes

This article is important to read and understand the environmental problems and threats affecting the Amazon rainforest today under the government of the anti-environmental president Bolsonaro in Brazil which has been called the most dangerous man on Earth.

Torching Earth’s Lungs: Bolsonaro’s Environmental Policies Set Scene for Catastrophe

https://theglobepost.com/2019/07/01/brazil-bolsonaro-amazon/

A very good article that summarizes the situation on the basis of facts without polemics. Another very dangerous child in power who plays with the vital resources of our planet, selling them irresponsibly.

In Germany on the news today: The Brazilian government just rejected the millions in aid promised by the G7 countries in the fight against the forest fires in the Amazon region.

Incredible Johannes, he does not let himself be helped nor does anything to protect the forest from fire, this man must definitely be dismissed immediately, it is a threat to the planet.

I believe that drought is a major factor. Follows data analyzed by Pedro Higuchi, showing that the historical data of INPE. You should take care and care about Bolivia, Congo and Angola. The fires in these forests are at higher levels than in the Brazilian Amazon. Respect the Brazilian sovereignty. Where are your forests?

https://www.facebook.com/100000802192871/posts/2326439637392753?sfns=mo

No doubt that European forests were cut down on a tremendously large scale to build ships which helped to conquer the Americas and ruin their civilizations. Columbus day shound not be celebrated but it is the start of a gigantic genozide not seen anywhere else in history. However: The difference is that we are talking about forests that exist now, and must be saved now, not hundereds of years ago. Brazilia does not own those forests, they belong to the indigenous people. Therefore, respect the indigenious people who desperately try to save what is left of their heritage, after the brazilian government fueled these fires by statements in favour of farmers and stockbreeders encouraging them to burn down the rain forest. The indigenous people now watch in horror as 78.000 fires burn down their future, started by criminals encouraged by the current brazilian government.

Thank you Marcelo for your opinion, but deforestation in the Amazon forest explains most of the fires. Historically, fires are linked to the progress of deforestation, combined with periods of intense dry season. But in this year 2019 we do not have a drought as severe as that of previous years and there is a substantial increase in fires.

So everything indicates that the dry season is not the predominant factor nor the climatic change. If there had been more drought, it would have been much worse.

Fires always had the hand of man; Fire is used to clean already deforested areas, to open roads or to prepare farmland. The lack of prevention makes these fires spread to areas that did not want to burn and are drier.

In my opinion, the tropical forests of the Amazon are plundered by foreign corporations and companies that are destroying this forest to obtain land for farming crops and for the needs of cow breeding, pork production for export to many countries, to other regions of the world. A significant part of this production of agricultural products and pork is bought by rich countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The problem is, among other things, that when consumers in these countries buy these products in stores, they are usually not aware that by buying these food products they contribute to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. This is the lack of effective communication and promotion of the need to change consumers' shopping habits to which agricultural products are exported. In addition, the rainforest converted into arable land has fertile soil usually for max. several years. After this time, the soil quickly goes barren and agricultural production companies in a plundering manner, intensively acquire further areas of the tropical forest, which through deforestation they turn into arable land.

Unfortunately, the country in which this fast deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is taking place is also responsible. The Brazilian government is therefore jointly responsible for this predatory forest management, which causes the rapid deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. The rich countries to which the abovementioned agricultural crops are exported should change their policy in such a way that this export gradually falls and should help developing countries, e.g. Brazil, to solve the problem of rapid deforestation of the Amazon rain forests. This is not a problem only in Brazil. This is a global problem, because the Amazon rainforests produce about 20 percent of the planet's atmosphere. Oxygen! The destruction of these forests will deepen the current imbalance in nature, which man has led to. This will result in the intensification of climate disasters, acceleration of climate change processes and the global warming process!

These problems are exacerbated by the current (late August 2019) fires of the Amazon rainforest. In my opinion, the scale of these fires increased by about 80 percent. compared to the previous year may be to a significant extent the result of the progressing global warming process, which process drains larger and larger land areas in various climate zones, melting glaciers, etc. The confirmation of this thesis is the fact that this year there are also numerous forest fires in other regions of the world, in other climatic zones, on other continents and in places where fires did not occur on such a scale as today. For example, the current forest fires of the Siberian Tundra, tropical rainforest fires on the islands of Oceania, tropical forest fires in South Africa, etc. confirm this thesis that these are further negative effects of the ongoing global warming process. On the other hand, the global warming process is mainly caused by an increase in greenhouse gas emissions generated by the energy sector based on classic energy generating electricity from coal combustion and the automotive industry also based on internal combustion engines. In connection with the above, it is necessary to increase expenditure in all countries on ecological reforms in order to implement the principles of sustainable ecological development according to the green economy philosophy.

I think this policies have been employed due the general ignorance in our society about the Science. This ignorance has been largely spread by many departments in the Bolsonaro's government, this leads people belive that the Amazon rainforest aren't an important thing. This is extremely deleteroius for our society itself. Many studies already prove that the forest plays a role in the rainfall dynamics. But, unfortunely, we live in a Post-Truth age, and it's getting harder fight against this type of speech

The international community urgently needs to understand: If we lose the forests, we lose the fight against climate change

Antonio Enésio Tenharin, leader of the Tenharin, an indigenous people in the south of the state of Amazonas, sits on a burnt field.

The worst environmental disaster is happening in the jungles of the Amazon right now. Some scary figures: Fires in Amazon rainforest have increased by 84% this year according to satellite data. The National Institute for Space Research in Brazil, detected 72,000 fires between January and August, 2019, the highest since 2013. The Amazon, the world´s largest rainforest, plays the vital role of a carbon sink and slows down the rate of Global Warming. Dary season provides favourable conditions for wildfires in Brazil, but they are also often caused by fires meant to clear the land for cattle ranching. The country saw 88% increase in deforestation in june 2019 according to data published by the research agency.

The Amazon must be protected.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/video/climate-change/record-surge-in-forest-fires-in-amazon-rainforest-66283

Amazon burning: smoke travels nearly 3000 km to blackout the city of Sao Paulo

Deforestation promoted to open fields for agriculture and cattle ranching is the main cause of fires in the Amazon. It is urgent to change the unsustainable model of production and consumption in the world or governments will face unprecedented damage and degradation.

The Brazilian climatologist Carlos Nobre put on the table in 1991 a worrying hypothesis: the sabanization of the Amazon. Their research suggested that large-scale deforestation of Amazon rainforests increases atmospheric temperature, reduces rainfall and lengthens the dry season. The long-term result, he warned, would be the transformation of dense tropical forests into savanna vegetation, especially in the south and southeast of the Amazon.

Almost three decades later, Nobre is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the data support his hypothesis. The Amazon basin has already lost 20% of its surface due to deforestation in the last 60 years - especially to create farmland, pastures for livestock or mining operations - and the temperature has increased by one degree. The 77,000 fires recorded so far in 2019 in the Amazon break the downward trend of recent years and pave the way for disaster.

He is not the only one. A similar policy is being pursued in Russia, central Africa, the North of Canada, Indonesia - wherever there is still forest. The difference is only in the level of chatter. The trouble is that politicians only think about the present day and not about the future.

https://www.facebook.com/1379589266/posts/10219980615250606?sfns=mo

Report of a person who has contact with the people of the Amazon. It is not only Brazilian Indians. It is 20 million people between native and naturalized. Very much they do not want to be zoo animals. They want electricity, health care, food, state security like all Brazilians. See the model of the North American Indians. Respect Brazilian indigenous populations and integrate them into Brazilian society respecting their culture and territories. These territories are Brazilian. The Brazilian state must invest and defend. Unfortunately we are in transition of ideology and behavior. Corruption and the outlook on the world are changing. We will not let the Spanish, Portuguese or any nation direct interventions on our territory.

Yes, of course, this is Brasilian forest. If you want to burn it, let burn. It is sovereign right. But have you set aside money to buy oxygen?

There should be some funds for Amazon Rain-forest as it is badly needed for the rest of the world. So why the big heads doesn't raise funds for the amazon and its containing countries? Whatever happened doesn't matters, but now it is badly needed to stop the Brazilian government from such type of self harmful policies. More diplomatic pressure is needed.

For the next world sustainability, it is time call to make an international policy about forest. At least for the developed countries according to the forest percentage. If one country doesn't have enough forest because of its civilization, then it should raise funds for the forests. UN could play an important role in that case.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis_Constantino3 thanks for the satellite image showing the extent of the smoke. The distance between Lisbon and Warsaw is 3316 Km...

People also need to know that penguin and sea lions are appearing in Rio de Janeiro and other unusual places.

Regards.

This armadillo was blinded by fires, as the conservation area it lived in burned in Bolivia.

Evo Morales has faced mounting fury, both over his failure to act and over policies his critics say favor greater deforestation in the Amazon forest.

Bolivia's total forest area has been steadily shrinking in recent years, from 47.3 million hectares in 2005 to 43.8 million hectares in 2017, according to a study published by Bolivian environmental and human rights organization the Solon Foundation.

The Friends of Nature Foundation NGO says the true extent of forest destruction this year is 1.8 million hectares.

Ecologists have attacked a law promulgated by Morales that offers incentives to burn forest areas to transform them into pastureland.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49481710

https://www.vir.com.vn/bolivia-lost-12-million-hectares-to-fires-this-year-government-70229.html

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2019/aug/28/armadillos-and-tapirs-among-wildlife-caught-in-bolivias-fires-video

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49450925

Evo Morales is an unfortunate traitor of the environmental cause, he promulgated a law in Bolivia that offers incentives to burn 10 million hectares of forest areas to transform them into pastureland.

The perpetrators aren't known, but Bolivian President Evo Morales has justified people starting fires, saying: "If small families don't set fires, what are they going to live on?"

The disaster comes just a month after Morales announced a new "supreme decree" aimed at increasing beef production for export.

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-not-just-brazil-s-amazon-bolivia-s-vital-forests-are-on-fire-too

https://es.theepochtimes.com/protestan-por-incendios-en-amazonia-evo-morales-decreto-quemas-en-santa-cruz-y-beni-un-mes-antes_517628.html

https://www.vir.com.vn/bolivia-lost-12-million-hectares-to-fires-this-year-government-70229.html

The fires now are particularly striking, but the Amazon has been losing huge areas for years. It takes about 200 years for the trees to grow back. The animals that perform important tasks in the Amazon jungle, such as spreading seeds, are irretrievably lost once destroyed. From a biologist's point of view, this is a horror. The Amazon is not one of the areas that burn naturally. The fires are man-made.

Farmers who started the fires argue economically. They needed the land to graze or grow soy. However, there is no economic reason to clear land in the Amazon region. Here land is irretrievably destroyed that cannot be farmed in the long term. Tropical rainforests cannot be used sustainably for economic purposes, that is a big mistake. Because the nutrients of the rainforest are not stored in the soil, they circulate above ground. So it would only be possible to cultivate something on the nutrient-poor soil for a short time. In a few years, the fires will leave only one desert behind.

Bolsonaro should definitely attend a lecture on biodiversity, where you learn this in the first lesson.

That's right Johannes, completely agree, it is a sadness to see all this horror that is happening in the Amazon basin and the consequences of the negative impacts that fires and deforestation will have on the loss of biodiversity, on the climate, on global warming and in the loss of territory of the indigenous communities. The economic interests of countries with ignorant governments are leading us to environmental disaster.

It's very sad watching one of the world's most important ecological paradises burning in flames.., with awful concequences for the future of our planet and humanity.

The evil policies of Bolsonaro's, Morales's and many other governments, lead us to this disaster. In addition to their ignorance, here is a lot of hypocricy in the subject. As far as I know, in Brazil, insect collection is almost totally banned, and even for scientific purposes permits are issued very hardly. This way, the government tries to cover its corruption, and to show ecologically sensitive..But actually they are very dangerous for the future of our planet, damaging our environment with their evil deforestation policies that promote these destructive fires for creating cultivated lands. The big financial interests are the source of this disaster.

Bolsonaro's evil policies, in addition to promotion of these awful fires, include the greenlighting of many very toxic new pesticides, which already killed hundreds of millions of bees.

https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-pesticides-bees-bolsonaro-2639936373.html

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-brazil-ecological-paradises-threaten-biodiversity.html

All of this is very worrying. Man has treated nature very badly, and I'm afraid he will get what he deserves finally..We must stop this destruction before it's too late.

One of my dreams since I was a child is to travel to the Amazon and observe some of its magnificent insects, like the fantastic butterflies (Agrias, Prepona, Papilio,..) and beetles (Dynastes, Megasoma, Titanus, Macrodontia, Ctenoscelis,..) living there. I'm afraid that it will never come true if this environmental destruction continues. There will be no habitat left for these magnificent creatures. And it's not only this. Is about our own existence. Without these valuable forests, without oxygen, we are dead.

On behalf of savage and neo-fascist capitalism we are witnessing the greatest environmental disaster in history against America and the entire planet with the deliberated fires in the Amazon basin. The greed of the heartless voracity of corporations, ranchers, the complicit governments of capital, extractivism and all criminals who benefit from the disappearance of the rainforest. More than 70,000 wildfires in Brazil without control favored by the mockery and insensitivity of the neo-nazi Bolsonaro, a criminal against humanity, an accomplice of Trump and the fires.

The holocaust of the lung of the world is a suicidal act, not only of greed, but of bad faith and stupidity. Bolsonaro announced the elimination of the Ministry of the Environment, and announces giving the burned areas to the farmers, whom he supports without any shame, Brazilian farmers who produce 10% of the meat consumed by the world in the devastated Amazon. Like Trump who denies global warming, which he considers an invention by environmentalists, Bolsonaro ignores international environmental protection agreements and stigmatizes indigenous people as enemies of progress. In Brazil it is where most environmentalists are killed.

In Brazil, it is clear that a large percentage of the fires are arson or deliberate fires. An inconceivable crime. Capitalist progress is the death of the earth, the loss of water, air pollution, the loss and extinction of biodiversity, global warming and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Three weeks ago the fires consumed the Amazon rainforest and the government does nothing. Wait for the Apocalypse to complete, what does not burn, is cut down. It is the Modus Operandi to appropriate the common good turned ashes to fill them with cattle and soybean crops. Fires affect water sources in Brazil, in Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, even in the Andean region. The blizzards of sand and ash that bandage from the Amazon will make us breathe a quasi-toxic air, all to fill the accounts of the rich farmers and businessmen of the continent and the world, at the cost of the destruction of the environment. 20 million tons of water and 900,000 indigenous people living in the forest and thousands of endangered species of flora and fauna are in danger.

Fires are actions caused criminally by agents of agribusiness and livestock, but for Bolsonaro science lies, does not believe that the Amazon contributes 20% of the world's oxygen, they are choking us, the emergency is immense, catastrophic as never seen before in the last centuries of the earth. The drought is not the cause of the fires, there are immense economic interests that order the burning and that they obtained free of Bolsonaro so that farmers and great investors get rich at the cost of the entire life of the planet, suicides, criminals. The next stage will be the legalization of burned and razed land in the hands of arsonists.

In a few months Bolsonaro finished the conservation work of a whole generation. The jungle if it survives will take at least two centuries to recover from the damage. The violent fires will generate more violence, the pyromanians will feel protected by ultracapitalist power and will continue if the world does not stop them. It is the entire world that must react in defense of planet earth. Mother Earth has been attacked and in that way, so burned she will rise from her ashes and be returned against her incinerators.

https://www.facebook.com/saved/?notif_id=1567254822905881&cref=52¬if_t=saved_off_fb&ref=notif

There is no doubt that Brazil´s fires are linked to deforestation, scientist say.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/theres-no-doubt-brazils-fires-are-caused-deforestation-scientists-say?fbclid=IwAR2XUmlCRmdI2aut9akUGp5RpmAFMh7SJZLhlHNJ05MvgI1JWZ1P2FMAIM4

This is what is sought after the fires in the Amazon of Brazil and Bolivia, no matter displaced people, or wildlife in ashes. Illustration of Abecor Amoarte.

Bolsonaro will be denounced for environmental crime against humanity in the international court of The Hague.

Jair Bolsonaro, is not only a threat to Brazil, but to the planet. He has already warned that he intends to follow Donald Trump and remove Brazil from the Paris Agreement, which seeks to control global warming. He and his followers have also announced several measures that will deforest the Amazon. The jungle, of which 20% has already been destroyed, is dangerously close to the tipping point. From there, the largest rainforest in the world will become a region with sparse vegetation and low biodiversity. And the global fight against the effects of climate change will be an almost impossible challenge.

NASA photos show 2019 is Brazilian Amazon’s worst fire year in a decade

Carbon monoxide emisiones in the region after fires in the Amazon basin of Brazil and Bolivia

Fires are still active in Brazil Amazon forests after three weeks

https://www.infobae.com/tag/incendio-en-la-amazonia/

Did you know that environmental activists are being killed in Brazil for protecting the Amazon rainforest? I was distraught about a month ago when I read about married couple Jose Claudio Ribeiro and Maria Do Espirito Santo Da Silva getting shot and killed for protesting against loggers. They were ambushed by gunmen. This was no accident, it was deliberate, and it’s far from the first time. Many deaths go unreported with an estimated 1,500 murders since 1988.

https://fourleafcloverblog.com/?p=3625

# Pray for Amazonia, dont let them take your oxygen away, this is your earth too

The number of forest fires in the Amazon region of Brazil continues to increase. Although the burning of areas has been banned since last Thursday by a decree of President Jair Bolsonaro, 3859 new sources of fire were visible on satellite images of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (Inpe) on Friday and Saturday - about 2000 of them in the Amazon basin.

Destroying one of the most important ecological systems in the world.

The fact that Brazil is one of the world's largest agro-exporters is due to the geographical interaction of the Andes and the Amazon. To destroy it is suicide. Many scientists also warn against this. The anthropologist and environmentalist Martin von Hildebrand has therefore proposed a corridor from the Andes via the Amazon to the Atlantic. From Ecuador and Peru to the Guyanas, in the north of Amazonia, where the jungle is best preserved. In this corridor, 50 percent are already protected or owned by indigenous people. Now it is a matter of including the rest, because Hildebrand says that the Amazon no longer functions as a climate engine as a patchwork rug.

That´s right. Brazilian farmers produce 10% of the meat consumed by the world in the devastated Amazon. But the problem is that president Bolsonaro announced giving the burned areas to the farmers, whom he supports without any shame. The same thing in Bolivia where Evo Morales enacted a decree to burn 10 million hectares of rainforest to turn them into pastures for cattle, so Bolsonaro and Morales are culpable over unprecedented destruction of wildlife and rainforest in the Amazon basin. These criminals against humanity must be prosecuted to pay for all environmental damage done to the Amazon rainforest and to the planet.

NASA shows devastating image of how the Amazon burns from space

Brazilian indigenous leader Ailton Krenak says that President Jair Bolsonaro must be "internationally condemned" for his offensive against indigenous reserves, which he intends to open to mining and agriculture, with risk to the Amazon rainforest and the balance of the climate on the planet .

The indigenous people of the Amazon see themselves as part of the forest, like every tree and every animal. That is such a strong feeling, that is perhaps not so comprehensible for us. They say we are just one more species. They don't make the difference that we mistakenly make: Here man and there nature. We place man absolutely above nature and outside nature and nature must serve us. This is a completely crazy, skewed view of the world. That has slipped for centuries. The worst thing is that we do not learn. The most important thing we can learn from the indigenous forest people in the Amazon is that they see themselves as part of nature. If we destroy nature, we also perish. Everything is interaction and what we do wrong falls back on us. But in the end, nature is the stronger. We are losing out and we will be soon. We must have more humility and understand who we are and what our role is. We can also learn from the indigenous people. Of course, they cut sprouts off a plant because they want something to eat. But they apologize to the plant for cutting off the shoots and they don't do it excessively, they only take what they really need.

It is true. The Amazon is the largest tropical forest in the world, covering more than five million square kilometres across nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

It acts as an enormous carbon sink, storing up to an estimated 100 years worth of carbon emissions produced by humans, and is seen as vital to slowing the pace of global warming. 

The Amazon is the most significant climate stabiliser we have. Preserving the forest is of critical importance for both the region it encompasses and the rest of the world. But in the last half-century alone, nearly 20 percent of the forest has disappeared.

Scientists have warned that if tree loss in the Amazon were to pass a certain tipping point, somewhere between 25 and 40 percent, deforestation could start to feed on itself and lead to the demise of the forest within a matter of decades.

One of the cornerstones of climatic stability on our planet is in peril and the consequences of this are almost too large to fathom. The future of our civilisation depends on its integrity.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/amazon-burning-190823082046821.html

The Brazilian newspaper "O'Globo" reports that the Environment Ministry will cut its fire-fighting budget by 35 percent next year. This is fatal given the scale of the fires in the Amazon basin. And not only for the environment. Many of the helpers are also worried about their jobs. Brazil continues to refuse money from abroad and aid.

Very worrying this situation in Brazil with forest fires in the Amazon forest, seem to have no solution in the current Bolsonaro government. It is incredible that we are more concerned about this situation of the fires, than the Brazilians themselves. I also notice a lot of apathy and little feedback on this important subject from other researchers registered at Research Gate, it seems that they are not interested in environmental issues that concern us all. After all, we are all inhabitants of the same planet and undue actions done by a few people in a country can have negative environmental and climatic impacts on the entire planet.

You are right Luis, and in August 2019, a total of 25,000 square kilometres of forest were burnt in the Brazilian Amazon region according to WWF. This is more than four times as much as in previous years. There is a logic behind deforestation, because it is about the occupation of land. It doesn't matter whether there were people living there before, indigenous people, mixed people or blacks. As soon as they are expelled, the land is deforested and sawmills are opened. Then grass is sown, fenced in and cattle are put out to pasture. They legitimise the legal right to this land, because that is what makes the land arable. At the very end of the economic sequence come the mining companies. That is the current business. It's about niobium, rare earths, diamonds, of which there are more and better in the Amazon than in Africa.

Yes, Johannes. According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), there have been 93,947 fires recorded in the Amazon so far this year. During the same period in 2018, there were 57,968.

The sharp rise in fires has triggered global alarm over the environmental impact, as well as a crisis for the Bolsonaro administration, which strongly advocated the development of agribusiness and gold or cassiterite ore exploration in the Amazon. It is a criminal action setting fires deliberately.

Three weeks ago the fires consumed the Amazon rainforest and the government of Brazil did not nothing. What does not burn, is cut down. It is the Modus Operandi to appropriate the common good turned ashes to fill them with cattle and soybean crops, all to fill the accounts of the rich farmers and businessmen of the continent and the world, at the cost of the destruction of the environment.

Fires are actions caused criminally by agents of agribusiness and livestock, but for Bolsonaro science lies, does not believe that the Amazon contributes 20% of the world's oxygen, they are choking us, the emergency is immense, catastrophic as never seen before in the last centuries of the earth. The drought is not the cause of the fires, there are immense economic interests that order the burning of the amazon forest with the complacency of the Bolsonaro government that supports these policies of destruction, so that farmers and great investors get rich at the cost of the entire life of the planet. The next stage will be the legalization of burned and razed land in the hands of arsonists.

The jungle if it survives will take at least two centuries to recover from the damage done.

but there’s a way we can fight back, please read this link:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/we-can-still-save-the-worlds-forests-but-must-act-now/

A predatory form of politics called Bolsonarism has assumed nearly total, and totalitarian, power in Brazil.

According to the Guardian News, the Amazon is the centre of the world. Right now, as our planet experiences climate collapse, there is nowhere more important. If we don’t grasp this, there is no way to meet that challenge.

For 500 years, this has been a place of ruins. First with the European invasion, which brought a particularly destructive form of civilisation, the death of hundreds of thousands of indigenous men and women and the extinction of dozens of peoples. More recently, with the clearance of vast swaths of the forest and all life within it. Right now, in 2019, we are witnessing the beginning of a new, disastrous chapter. The area of trees being cleared has surged this year. In July, the deforestation rate was an area the size of Manhattan every day, a Greater London every three weeks. This month, fires are incinerating the Amazon at a record rate, almost certainly part of a scorched-earth strategy to clear territory. Why is this happening now? Because of a change in power.

A predatory form of politics called Bolsonarism has assumed nearly total, and totalitarian, power in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief project is to create more ruins in the Amazon forest, methodically and swiftly. This is why, for the first time since Brazil became a democracy again, it effectively has a minister against the environment.

For more than 30 years no environment minister has enjoyed the same autonomy as Ricardo Salles. He is a gofer for agribusiness, which is responsible for the majority of the deaths in the fields and forests, and Brazil’s greatest destructive force. The landowners lobby has always been part of Brazil’s government, formally or not. But today, this has reached a new level. They are not just in the government, they are the government.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/23/amazon-rainforest-fires-deforestation-jair-bolsonaro

The Companies Behind the Burning of the Amazon

The burning of the Amazon and the darkening of skies from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, have captured the world’s conscience. Much of the blame for the fires has rightly fallen on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for directly encouraging the burning of forests and the seizure of Indigenous Peoples’ lands.

But the incentive for the destruction comes from large-scale international meat and soy animal feed companies like JBS and Cargill, and the global brands like Stop & Shop, Costco, McDonald’s, Walmart/Asda, and Sysco that buy from them and sell to the public. It is these companies that are creating the international demand that finances the fires and deforestation.

But how can we help stop deforestation and forest destruction ?

Do not buy soybean oil from Brazil nor consume global brands like Stop & Shop, Costco, McDonald’s, Walmart/Asda, and Sysco that buy from them and sell to the public. Read more:

https://stories.mightyearth.org/amazonfires/index.html?fbclid=IwAR02sJw4nwl1YD7wldjQBmRE7AJJGZz3XKNW_-0-HPv56K5mqi8oXcKSHKk

The tribes fighting to save the Amazon

Agriculture is one of the main causes of deforestation. Commercial agriculture for products such as meat, palm oil, rubber, soy, cocoa, livestock, timber and fuel wood, are increasingly encroaching on forest lands.

For instance, China’s increased consumption of beef can be tied to forest loss in Brazil. Between 2011 to 2016, China’s consumption of beef rose by 20%. Brazil is the main provider of that beef, 29%, and that demand has resulted in the loss of nearly 6,000 square kilometers of tropical forest in the country.

https://www.facebook.com/theguardianaustralia/videos/419293852025613/

Respected Luis Miguel Constantino , you are doing great job, Allah Almighty bless you and your family always Ameen.

Agreed! Thanks for showing the courage to speak up, Luis, by clarifying the background, naming those responsible in Brazil and which companies to avoid worldwide in an effort to not support those criminal activities any longer.

Thank you very much Nazia and Johannes for your attention and understanding about the situation of forest fires in the Amazon. This deforestation situation can be considered as one of the most serious in the recent history of the Amazon basin. I live in Colombia, which is one of the countries that are part of the Amazon basin in South America, but we cannot stand idly by watching how other countries are irresponsibly destroying the world's largest rainforest considered the lung of the planet. After all, we are all inhabitants of the same planet and undue actions done by a few people in a country can have negative environmental and climatic impacts on the entire planet. We must conserve the Amazon rainforest.

An area of forest twice the size of the UK will have been destroyed within a decade for products such as palm oil and soy, experts have said.

A report from Greenpeace suggests that at least 50 million hectares of forests across the world will have been lost in the decade to 2020 as a result of growing production and consumption of agricultural commodities.

Vast swathes of trees are being cleared as people worldwide are consuming more meat and products containing palm oil and soy. Environmentalists have called on big businesses to do much more, saying the world is risking an ecological catastrophe.

The report said that since 2010, the area planted with soy in Brazil has increased by 45% and Indonesian palm oil production is up 75%.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/11/forests-twice-size-uk-destroyed-soy-palm-oil-production-9899684/?ito=cbshare

Our house is on fire. Join the Global Climate Strikes in September 20-27

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKUwU8zBjLA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv5DFrO6d_0

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has dispatched 44,000 soldiers to the rainforest to fight the fire. So far, he didn't give a damn about the earth's green lungs: leaked documents now show that he even wanted to prevent an international Andean Amazon protected area. Before the World Climate Conference in Paris in 2015, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had proposed the creation of an Andean-Amazon Protected Area. However, after neither Brazil nor Venezuela joined in, the initiative faded. Last year, 500 indigenous organisations from nine countries reactivated the plan and could soon receive high-ranking support at the Amazon Synod, which will meet in the Vatican in October on papal initiative.

Bolsonaro wants to thwart these intentions. One of the leaked documents entitled "Strategic Agenda" bears Bolsonaros signature. It states: "The integration of the northern side of the Amazon with the rest of the national territory in order to counter international pressure for the implementation of the AAA project". Specifically, the BR-163 Amazon highway, which runs from south to north, is to be extended to the border with Surinam. A hydroelectric power plant and a bridge over the river will cross the Andean-Atlantic corridor. Coincidence or not: along the BR-163, of all places, most of the fires broke out. Several landowners in the region around the town of Novo Progresso had arranged an open "Fire Day" on 10 August.

Only after a black and sooty night laid over the metropolis of São Paulo on a Monday afternoon, after France's President Emmanuel Macron threatened the bursting of the recently agreed free trade agreement with the EU and after Brazil's soy baron attacked him, Jair Messias Bolsonaro stood in front of the cameras and said: "It is our duty to protect the forest.“ But the fact that Bolsonaro, the political pyromaniac in the presidential palace, is now giving in is not understood by the farmers at all.

Bolsonaro is the worst case for the Amazon. Since Bolsonaro took office on New Year's Day, he and his Environment Minister Ricardo Salles have systematically deactivated all systems that document and sanction the overexploitation of the largest continental oxygen generator.

Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles was booed during a climate conference in the northern city of Salvador, by protesters amid growing international outrage over deforestation and major forest fires in the Amazon.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief project is to create more ruins in the Amazon forest, methodically and swiftly. This is why, for the first time since Brazil became a democracy again, it effectively has a minister against the environment.

For more than 30 years no environment minister has enjoyed the same autonomy as Ricardo Salles. He is a gofer for agribusiness, which is responsible for the majority of the deaths in the fields and forests, and Brazil’s greatest destructive force. The landowners lobby has always been part of Brazil’s government, formally or not. But today, this has reached a new level. They are not just in the government, they are the government.

We are heading towards the time..., when Amazon forest will be only in pictures...., and will be extinct from the planet earth.....Save the pictures of Amazon forest, before.......

Ricardo Galvão, INPE's dismissed scientist, reveals how the government caused the burning in the Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAfVjWNA17Y

Thank you Elton for sharing this important explanatory video of the evidence of how the Brazilian government caused the burning of forests in the Amazon. More evidence to denounce the Bolsonaro government for crimes against humanity.

Precisely because INPE has highly qualified and competent people, the Bolsonaro government wants to end up with INPE to hide all the destruction and damage that is causing to the Amazon jungle, unraveling and destroying the territories of indigenous communities to burn the woods and convert it into pastures for cattle.

Burned areas of the Amazon could take centuries to fully recover. The ongoing fires could fundamentally change the world’s largest tropical rainforest

The Brazilian Amazon continues to burn. As international leaders call for action and the Brazilian military attempts to battle the flames, researchers have started to warn that if the spate of fires continues to spread into the forest, the flames could bring a massive transformation to the region. The process could turn once-moist jungles into dry wastelands, killing ancient trees, making them more vulnerable to future fires and releasing millennia of trapped carbon into the air.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/10/20858834/amazon-fire-brazil-forest-harm-recovery-century

Regardless of the identification of the causes, it is necessary to systematically develop methods for protecting the Amazon rainforest against the development of fires. The growing and increasing year by year fires of the Amazon rainforest is a serious global problem, so other countries, especially the developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere, should help Brazil and other countries where forests are burning to extinguish them as soon as possible. This is very important because through these fires of the Amazon rainforest, the planet Earth loses a significant part of its unique biodiversity, natural wealth. Every year many species of flora and fauna are dying out irretrievably and the above-mentioned fires accelerate this very negative process of environmental degradation and reduction of biodiversity.

Best wishes

Interesting discussion! I am keenly following

Thank you Dariusz for your suggestion about the identification of methods for protecting the Amazon rainforest against the development of fires. I am sure that the countries in the Amazon basin should implement conservation measures for the forest and indigenous communities.The problem is when there are countries and criminal governments like Brazil that is not interested in the conservation of the Amazon forests. For these governments it is necessary to apply international sanctions and economic blocks to agricultural products and beef from the Amazon to prevent them from deforesting and destroying the forest.

It is clear that a large percentage of fires in Brazil are deliberated. The woods don't burn for themselves. Behind these are criminals who set fire to the forest for the purpose of violently seizing the territory to convert it into grazing lands, without importing the consequences of destroying fauna, flora and the reserve areas of indigenous communities. An inconceivable crime against humanity.

Continues dry weather in Brazil according to the satellite weather map for the region.

https://www.tiempo.es/mapa-satelite/america-del-sur

The fires in the Amazon are a “true apocalypse”, according to a Brazilian archbishop who expects next month’s papal synod at the Vatican to strongly denounce the destruction of the rainforest.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/05/amazon-fires-are-true-apocalypse-says-brazilian-archbishop

Farmers in the Amazon are primarily responsible for burning the forests. To contain the progress of illegal livestock and eradicate it from the Amazon, the solution is to confiscate cattle and remove it from forested regions to prevent them from continuing to expand the livestock frontier.

Agustín Tentets, president of the Achuar, an indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest, travelled 100 km by canoe from his home village to an interview with German journal "Focus", asking the world for help: "When I see all this, I notice how irresponsible we humans are with the Amazon forest. Everyone knows that the forest gives us clean air and clean water, that it stores climate-damaging gases, that it purifies the atmosphere. Attacking this is self-destructive. When I think of the animals that are not guilty but they burn, it makes me very sad. We must teach people to understand what it means to destroy the forest. Because we are destroying our future, the future of our children and our livelihood".

"Since I was a child, I have never seen the forest burn. Of course we have a dry season here, but there are also huge trees and in between a lot of undergrowth and green climbing plants, many rivers and swamps and all this cannot burn in a natural way. We, the Achuar people and all indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest, never burn our forest. We clear to plant. If we clear a small piece of land of never more than half a hectare, we cut down the trees. If they are felled, we can burn them, but we need permission to do so. We are allowed to do this only when we need the field to plant something. Otherwise it is forbidden to burn or to clear as the settlers do outside."

"My call to you, to Germany and to all people, and my great wish is that we not only preserve and protect nature, but that we really do contribute actively to nature conservation. It is said that the Amazon rainforest is the lung of the world. I see much more in it: it is really the lifeblood, the heart of the world. Life is born here like nowhere else and that simply must not be allowed to break. I see the fact that so much has now been destroyed as a wake-up call from Arutam (the god of the forest). Nature burns to finally open our eyes, to shake us awake. Please, protect us, protect your own livelihood, protect the life nerve of the planet and rethink. It is nature itself that now reacts and calls out loudly for help."

Published in German by Focus on 12. Sept 2019

Charred areas of the Amazon in Brazil, August 27, 2019 JOAO LAET/AFP/Getty Images

“Letting the fox take over the chicken coop”: Under Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, funds for the Brazilian environmental protection agency IBAMA have been cut by 95%. Only after weeks of international and internal pressure, Bolsonaro deployed the military to help battle the fires on August 24. He rejected a $20 million aid package from the G7 countries that would go toward extinguishing the flames devastating the rainforest on August 26.

President Donald Trump congratulated Bolsonaro on his handling of the fires. “He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil,” he tweeted on the 27th.

Some of our world's leaders seem to be suffering from psychopathy and having a mental state that poses an enormous danger, appearing so wantonly unconcerned about the welfare of others and willing to do anything to promote themselves.

I really liked Agustin's thinking, very wise. The natives are smarter than the white settlers, they really conserve the forest, they have always been the natural inhabitants of the Amazon forest.

Yes Luis, and the indigenous people should be given the task, the authority and all the money required - coming from the world community - for watching over the Amazon rainforest.

Yes Johannes, the United States is one of the countries that most pollutes the environment and is not interested in finding solutions to mitigate climate change. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal of the Paris agreement on climate change in 2015.

Like Trump who denies global warming, which he considers an invention by environmentalists, Bolsonaro ignores international environmental protection agreements and stigmatizes indigenous people as enemies of progress. These two people are a threat to the planet, they are only interested in destroying natural ecosystems for economic development and their own benefit, at the cost of destruction and misery for thousands of indigenous people in the Amazon forest.

Record-breaking fires are ripping through the Amazon. The question now before us is: how can the fires be stopped and the Amazon rainforest reforested? About 1.3 billion US$ would be readily available from the Amazon Fund, established by Brazil in 2008 to attract international donations for conservation efforts. However, extinguishing the fires will be an arduous task and possible only by the combined efforts of man and nature (rain). As regards reforestation, a project called muvuc suggests to make use of an innovative planting strategy, requiring a diverse mix of over 200 tree species to be dispersed over the degraded land, possibly by using drones. This will both provide bio-diversity in the reforested area and allow for “survival of the fittest“, determining which species will thrive where. Studies performed in 2014 by the Food and Agriculture Organization and Biodiversity International, found that this approach produced forests that were particularly robust, exhibiting the ability to survive drought conditions for up to six months without irrigation.

Yes, Johannes, an excellent recommendation to restore burned forest areas, I hope they do something about it to restore the burned areas, but the main problem in the Amazon region of Brazil are white settlers and farmers.

Bolsonaro announced the elimination of the Ministry of the Environment, and announces giving the burned areas to the farmers, whom he supports without any shame. Brazilian farmers produce 10% of the meat consumed by the world in the devastated Amazon. Three weeks ago the fires consumed the Amazon rainforest and the government did nothing. Wait for the Apocalypse to complete, what does not burn, is cut down. It is the Modus Operandi of these criminals to appropriate the common good turned ashes to fill them with cattle and soybean crops.

Seven South American countries have agreed measures to protect the Amazon river basin, amid global concern over massive fires in the world's largest tropical forest.

Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname signed a pact, setting up a disaster response network and satellite monitoring.

At a summit in Colombia, they also agreed to work on reforestation.

More than 80,000 fires have broken out in the Amazon rainforest this year.

"This meeting will live on as a co-ordination mechanism for the presidents that share this treasure - the Amazon," said Colombian Presiden Iván Duque, who hosted the summit in the city of Leticia.

The seven nations also agreed to put more efforts into education and increase the role of indigenous communities.

The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming, and 60% of it is located in Brazil.

The number of fires between January and August 2019 is double that of the same period last year, according to the country's National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).

President Bolsonaro has drawn intense domestic and international criticism for failing to protect the region.

Environmentalists say his policies have led to an increase in fires this year and that he has encouraged cattle farmers to clear vast swathes of the rainforest since his election last October.

Bolivia has also seen fires rage across the forest near its borders with Brazil and Paraguay.

Meanwhile, Brazil's leading meat export industry group and agricultural businesses have joined an environmental campaign calling for an end to deforestation in public lands in the Amazon and demanding government action.

Several international retailers have said they are suspending purchases of Brazilian leather because of the links between cattle ranching and the fires devastating parts of the Amazon rainforest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49609702

Fires in the Amazon are not a consequence of climate change, it is due to deforestation and subsequent burning of the forest caused by man to convert it into grazing lands for livestock and agriculture.

Destruction and predation of the Amazon rainforest

According to CIMI, isolated indigenous peoples are one of the most vulnerable human groups in the Amazon and the world. They are victims of the violence of the global predatory economic model imposed. But they are also living testimony of resistance to that globalization that unifies and kills diversity, the life of humanity and the planet.

https://www.entreculturas.org/es/pueblos-indigenas-aislados-Amazonia

For many indigenous peoples, the land is sacred. But farmers are clearing the forest for crops and cattle. The currently raging fires are not just a crisis, but also an illustration of the native people's larger struggle for autonomy. The reason why fires are so prevalent this year is due to President Jair Bolsonaros policy. He supports farmers over indigenous people, and has said no more tribal land would be made into official indigenous reserves, which would have provided their land with more protections. Bolsonaro even went so far as to compare indigenous peoples to animals trapped in the zoo.

At the front of destruction: While the world looks away, the Amazon burns down. "We can't breathe properly anymore": say indigenous people, while smoke ties their throats.

Chaos, chaos, chaos: a journey through Bolsonaro's Amazon inferno. “The Amazon is not burning, not burning at all,” Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, insisted in an interview with CNN. Suggested reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/09/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest

Norway stops Amazon fund contribution in dispute with Brazil

"Norway has suspended donations supporting projects to curb deforestation in Brazil after the country’s right-wing government of Bolsonaro blocked operations of a fund receiving the aid, the Norwegian ministry of climate and environment said on Thursday.

Norway has worked closely with Brazil to protect the Amazon rainforest for more than a decade and has paid some $1.2 billion into the Amazon Fund, to which it is by far the biggest donor.

But the government of President Jair Bolsonaro unilaterally changed the fund’s governance structure and closed down the steering committee that selects the projects to back, making no formal proposal for the composition of a new committee".

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-norway/norway-stops-amazon-fund-contribution-in-dispute-with-brazil-idUSKCN1V52C9

"Criminals, violence, and illegal activity drive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch . This is a brutal reminder that the people setting the Amazon rainforest on fire will do so at any cost—even human life."

"Human Rights Watch on Tuesday published the 165-page report “Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon,” outlining the ways gangs exhibiting this illegal, criminal behavior not only threatens the world’s largest rainforest but also the people who live in and around it.

Criminals cut down trees in the Amazon and burn the rest of it to help make room for cattle pastures or croplands. The Guardian reported Tuesday that Marfrig, a Brazilian meat supplier for companies like McDonald’s and Burger King, sourced meat from a farmer who’s used deforested land. And the people most at risk when these fires burn are the indigenous tribes who live in and depend on the rainforest to survive. Many have equated these intentional fires to genocide. Coincidentally, indigenous Amazonians delivered a letter to Congress on Tuesday demanding U.S. leaders take action to protect their blazing home and endangered lives." Read more

https://earther.gizmodo.com/criminal-gangs-are-behind-the-destruction-of-the-brazil-1838184622

The Extreme Beauty of the Amazon Rain forest

( http://bestphotos2share.blogspot.com/2011/12/7-pictures-of-extreme-beauty-of-amazon.html )

Burned areas of the Amazon rainforest, near Porto Velho, Rondonia state, Brazil, on 24 August 2019. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images.

The Brazilian government is encouraging the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. President Bolsonaro is a criminal who must be removed from power to stop the destruction and burning of the Amazon forest. Given the inability of the Brazilian government to protect the Amazon region, the solution is to hand over a coalition of international countries to take control and management of this region for its conservation. Conserving rainforests is necessary if there is to be any chance of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s not just humanity at stake - the Amazon contains at least 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity.

School strike for climate action in Melbourne (Photo: Julian Meehan/CC)

Millions of people across the world are expected to take to the streets today Friday demanding their governments take greater climate action, in what is anticipated to be the largest climate protest in history.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/09/19/millions-expected-make-friday-climate-protest-largest-history/

+++ Fridays for Future global climate strike on 20.09.2019 +++ A colorful climate demonstration in Berlin, Germany, brought out protestors of all ages, gathering to pressure the government into taking urgent climate action

Greta Thumberg to lead youth climate strike in 150 countries today.

https://www.vox.com/2019/9/17/20864740/greta-thunberg-youth-climate-strike-fridays-future

Hello Luis, it is nice that we share the same ideas - together with millions of people around the globe. I believe that change is already under way. This cannot be stopped anymore!

Best wishes, Johannes

Yes, Johannes we need to join the strike aganist cimate change. Is going to be the largest climate protest in history.

Sydney, Australia

People from Australia to Alaska are staying away from school and work to call for urgent measures to stop the environmental catastrophe.

Dublin today, Thousands joined a march in the Irish capital.

"At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rain forest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity"

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, (Chico Mendes) (Xapuri Brasil, 15 de diciembre de 1944 - Xapuri, 22 de diciembre de 1988).

Chico Mendes, original name Francisco Alves Mendes, Jr., (born December 15, 1944, Xapuri, Acre, Brazil—died December 22, 1988, Xapuri), Brazilian labour leader and conservationist who defended the interests of the seringueiros, or rubber tree tappers, in the Amazonian state of Acre, calling for land reform and preservation of the Amazon Rainforest. His activism won him recognition throughout Brazil and internationally but also provoked the enmity of local ranchers, who eventually arranged his murder.