Brazilian government announces a 60-day ban on starting new forest fires on the South American country last week and nature still seems to be weeping, there has been a new outbreak of 3859 within 48 hours, according to the reports of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE). Approximately 2000 of these catastrophic fires took place in the Amazon rain forest.
President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro continuously claims that the forest fires in this year are low compared to previous years, however, according to research, there has been an increment in deforestation. As per the study reports produced in July by INPE showed that in June 2019, Amazon has lost over 2,072 square kilometers, this is an area as same as the Los Angeles metropolitan area. According to statistics, it is 15 percent increment compared to the same period last year.
President Bolsonaro and his ministers claim that the data that have been produced by the study are a hoax, even though researchers have been using this methodology to gather data for decades, since 2004 and before Bolsonaro took power these methodologies helped law enforcement to reduce deforestation in the country.
The government sacked the head of INPE Ricardo Galvao proving how difficult it is to practice science in the country after they took the office in January.
The burning ban is seen as an appeasement to the international outcry for the Amazon fires. As an activist who runs the deforestation monitoring group, Tasso Azevedo stated that “Worst is yet to come”.
“What we are experiencing is a real crisis, which can turn into a tragedy that will feature fires much larger than the current ones if not stopped immediately,” Azevedo writes, calling for the ban to be extended until at least late November when the dry season ends.
