Landsat 8 acquired images of one of the larger fires in South America burning north of the Paraguay River near Puerto Busch on 25 August 2019 with IR Joshua Stevens NASA Earth Observatory

As Brazilian Amazon burns, fires in next-door Bolivia also wreak havoc – “I’ve never seen an environmental tragedy on this scale”

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Monica Machicao 25 August 2019 LA PAZ, Bolivia (The New York Times) – Amid growing international alarm over fires in Brazil’s Amazon region, neighboring Bolivia is facing devastating fires of its own, with flames devouring farmland and environmentally sensitive forests alike. In midst of the calamity, the country’s president, Evo Morales, suspended his […]

Krimej village indigenous Chief Kadjyre Kayapo, of the Kayapo indigenous community, pauses on the path opened by illegal loggers on the border between Menkragnotire indigenous lands and the Biological Reserve Serra do Cachimbo in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, Saturday, 31 August 2019. He wears a traditional headdress and a necklace reading “Jesus Christ” in Kayapo language. Much of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is done illegally -- land grabbers burn areas to clear land for agriculture and loggers encroach on national forests and indigenous reserves, and Kayapo says he does not want loggers and prospectors on his land. Photo: Leo Correa / AP Photo

Indigenous leaders in Brazil’s Amazon try to thwart loggers and miners – “What is being done here is an atrocity against us”

By Leo Correa 1 September 2019 ALTAMIRA, Brazil (AP) – An indigenous leader in Brazil’s Amazon says he will do what he can to stop loggers and prospectors encroaching on his people’s land. Kadjyre Kayapo, his son and other companions searched in recent days for signs of trespassing in the lush rainforest of the Kayapo […]

Map showing active fire detections in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil as observed by Terra and Aqua MODIS satellites between 15 August 2019 and 22 August 2019. Photo: Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory

NASA satellites confirm Amazon rainforest is burning at a record rate

By Passant Rabie 27 August 2019 (Space.com) – As raging fires continue to sweep through the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, NASA satellites and astronauts aboard the International Space Station are tracking the flames from above. Their view confirmed that this is the most active fire year in Brazil since 2010. Fire detections by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) […]

Map showing Amazonian species richness (number of species per grid cell) affected by global change and deforestation. (a) Original AOO only. (b) Original AOO and 2050 IGS53,54. (c) Original AOO and 2050 BAU53,54. (d) 2050 RCP 2.6 AOO only. (e) 2050 RCP 2.6 AOO combined with 2050 IGS deforestation. (f) 2050 RCP 2.6 AOO combined with 2050 BAU deforestation, (g) 2050 RCP 8.5 AOO only. (h) 2050 RCP 8.5 AOO combined with 2050 IGS deforestation. (i) 2050 RCP 8.5 AOO combined with 2050 BAU deforestation. Colour scale indicates decrease in AOO from blue (forested area) to red (loss in AOO). Graphic: Gomes, et al., 2019 / Nature Climate Change

Deforestation, climate crisis could crash Amazon tree diversity – “Deforestation is no longer the only major threat to the Pan-Amazon”

By Jenny Gonzales 18 August 2019 (Mongabay) – The combined impact of ongoing deforestation and escalating climate change on the Amazon rainforest could radically transform its configuration by 2050, with the biome divided into two distinct blocks — one occupied by still significant but very seriously diminished rainforest, the other dominated by agribusiness and scattered […]

Satellite views of land subsidence in Jakarta Indonesia in 1984-1991 and 2010-2015. Data: Subsidence data courtesy of Irwan Gumilar of Geodesy Research Group of ITB; satellite images via Landsat 5 and Landsat 8. Graphic: The New York Times

Indonesia announces site of capital city to replace sinking Jakarta – Choice of Borneo for £27 billion project raises fears of forest destruction and pollution

By Jonathan Watts 26 August 2019 (The Guardian) – Indonesia has announced plans to move its capital from the climate-threatened megalopolis of Jakarta to the sparsely populated island of Borneo, which is home to some of the world’s greatest tropical rainforests. President Joko Widodo said the move was necessary because the burden on Jakarta was […]

Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro gestures during the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association's Unica Forum 2018 in São Paulo, 18 June 2018. Photo: Miguel Schincariol / Getty Images

Humans bicker while the rainforest burns: Brazil rejects G-7 aid pledged to fight Amazon fires, but Bolsonaro might accept offer if Macron apologizes

By Guy Davies 27 August 2019 LONDON (ABC News) – A senior government official said Brazil would reject the $22 million G-7 countries promised to help fight the wildfires raging in the Amazon. Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni told Globo News, a Brazilian publication, that Brazil would reject the $22 million aid package, suggesting that the money […]

Timelapse satellite view of deforestation since 2015 of a plot of Amazon rainforest in Brazil, from 21 October 2015 to 21 August 2019. Photo: Pierre Markuse / ESA / Copernicus

Here’s how the Amazon wildfires and deforestation look from space

By Andrew Freedman 22 August 2019 (The Washington Post) – The wildfires burning in the Amazon have the potential to release vast quantities of long-stored carbon — thereby accelerating climate change and cause permanent harm to the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. A fleet of public and private-sector satellites are keeping tabs on deforestation rates in […]

Satellite view of wildfires in South America on 21 August 2019. Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest hit a record number in 2019, with 72,843 fires detected in August by Brazil’s space research center INPE. Graphic: INPE

Record number of fires burning in Brazil rainforest – Bolsonaro blames conservationists, after he defunded environmental agencies

21 August 2019 (BBC News) – Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the […]

Comparison of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) trends over the globally vegetated areas between two periods of 1982–1998 and 1999–2015. (A) NDVI trend of 1982–1998. (B) NDVI trend of 1999–2015. (C) Differences of NDVI trend between 1999–2015 and 1982–1998. The insets (I) show the relative frequency (percent) distribution of significant decreases (Dec*; P < 0.05), decreases (Dec), increases (Inc), and significant increases (Inc*), and the insets (II) show the frequency distributions of the corresponding ranges. Graphic: Yuan, et al., 2019 / Science Advances

Atmospheric vapor deficit causing worldwide loss of vegetation

By Bob Yirka 15 August 2019 (Phys.org) – A large international team of researchers has found evidence of a connection between an increase in the atmospheric vapor deficit and worldwide vegetation loss. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their analysis of climate datasets and the correlation of an increase in […]

IBAMA environmental agency agents investigate illegal deforestation in Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state, Brazil. Photo: Mongabay

Brazil’s Amazon deforestation surge is real, despite President Bolsonaro’s denial – Brazil environmental agencies and deforestation controls “effectively dismantled”

By Philip M. Fearnside 29 July 2019 (Mongabay) – Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation in June 2019 was 88 percent greater than for the same month in 2018, and deforestation in the first half of July was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July in 2018. There is no reason to question INPE’s current deforestation numbers from the DETER (Detection […]

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