The Brazilian Amazon recorded 13,489 wildfires in the first half of the year, the worst figure in 20 years, satellite data revealed on Monday.
The total was up more than 61 percent from the same period last year — an increase that experts say is the result of a historic drought that struck the world’s largest tropical rainforest last year.
Since Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) began compiling records in 1998, only two other years had more wildfires from January through June: 2003 (17,143) and 2004 (17,340).
Photo: AFP
The data make for difficult news for the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with the number of fires increasing even as deforestation is declining in the Amazon.
The surface area subject to deforestation decreased 42 percent from January 1 to June 21, from the same period last year, INPE data showed.
“Climate change is contributing” to the increase in the number of wildfires, said Romulo Batista, spokesman from the Brazilian branch of Greenpeace.
“The environment is drier, and thus vegetation is more dried out and more vulnerable to fires,” he said.
Most of the wildfires were likley caused by human activity, especially agricultural burning, Batista said.
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