Luísa Mota
Fire in the Amazon
Amazonia 😢
This is our biodiversity being transformed into yet more carbon in the atmosphere. Two environmental crimes at once. It is hard to express the frustration and hopelessness that someone who works with the amazon forest feels... I made this picture a few weeks ago, in my last trip to there. These days, the media has been showing the alarming rates of fires happening in the region for the last three weeks, but, I must say, the amazon has been burning for much longer. These are not natural fires, they are deliberately started with the purpose of destroying the forest and opening areas for cattle and agriculture, and the record levels we see now in Brazil are a consequence of people feeling encouraged by a government that seems to have waged war against the forest and the environment. However, even a few years ago, when deforestation was shrinking, I never thought we had anything to celebrate. Slowing it down is not enough - deforestation has to stop. The amazon forest is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, and it is too important for the local and global climate for us to simply destroy it. But we don't have much time: scientist believe there is only so much deforestation the amazon can take before being unable to maintain itself and changing into a savanna. Praying won't help - Saving the amazon, and solving other environmental problems as well, will require an unprecedent level of commitment at all possible scales, from international politics to our very own way of life.
Fire in the Amazon
Amazonia 😢
This is our biodiversity being transformed into yet more carbon in the atmosphere. Two environmental crimes at once. It is hard to express the frustration and hopelessness that someone who works with the amazon forest feels... I made this picture a few weeks ago, in my last trip to there. These days, the media has been showing the alarming rates of fires happening in the region for the last three weeks, but, I must say, the amazon has been burning for much longer. These are not natural fires, they are deliberately started with the purpose of destroying the forest and opening areas for cattle and agriculture, and the record levels we see now in Brazil are a consequence of people feeling encouraged by a government that seems to have waged war against the forest and the environment. However, even a few years ago, when deforestation was shrinking, I never thought we had anything to celebrate. Slowing it down is not enough - deforestation has to stop. The amazon forest is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, and it is too important for the local and global climate for us to simply destroy it. But we don't have much time: scientist believe there is only so much deforestation the amazon can take before being unable to maintain itself and changing into a savanna. Praying won't help - Saving the amazon, and solving other environmental problems as well, will require an unprecedent level of commitment at all possible scales, from international politics to our very own way of life.