According to satellite data released on Monday, the Brazilian Amazon saw 13,489 wildfires in the first half of the year—the highest number in 20 years.
Experts attribute the increase in the amount to the catastrophic drought that hit the world’s largest tropical rainforest last year, since it was up more than 61 percent over the same period the previous year.
Only two other years since 1998, when Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) started keeping records, have had more wildfires from January to June: 2003 (17,143) and 2004 (17,340).
The data presents challenging news for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration, as the number of fires is rising while the Amazon’s deforestation, which absorbs carbon dioxide and helps prevent global warming, is declining.
When compared to the same period in 2023, the surface area exposed to deforestation reduced by 42% between January 1 and June 21, according to INPE data.
By 2030, Lula has promised to stop the illegal deforestation of the Amazon. Under the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, the practice had gotten much worse.
According to Greenpeace’s spokesman for Brazil, Romulo Batista, “climate change is contributing” to the rise in wildfires.
Batista explained to AFP that most of Brazil’s biomes, or distinct natural regions, are under stress due to a lack of precipitation.
“The environment is drier, and thus vegetation is more dried out and more vulnerable to fires,” he said.
However, he stated that most wildfires were probably started by human action, particularly the use of agricultural burning, rather than being spontaneous, like those started by lightning.
