The Amazon Rainforest is on Fire For Weeks and Hardly Anyone’s Talking About It

The
hashtag #PrayForAmazonia went
viral on Tuesday as social media users tried to draw the world’s attention to
the Amazon rainforest, which has been devastated for weeks by fires so powerful they
can be observed from space. According
to Euro News, it is uncertain if the fires were produced by
agricultural activity or deforestation. Both have accelerated
fast under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who made opening the
Amazon to corporate misuse a key plank of his election movement.

Twitter
users on Tuesday condemned the media for paying too little attention to the
Amazon fires, mainly given the vital role the rainforest plays in absorbing
planet-warming carbon dioxide—a capability that earned it the nickname “lungs
of the world.”

“The
Amazon has been burning for three weeks, and I’m just now finding out because
of the lack of media coverage,” wrote one
observer. “This is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth.”

Satellite
data gathered by the Brazilian government’s National Space Research Institute
(INPE) issued in June revealed that deforestation has increased radically under
Bolsonaro, who sacked the research as “a
lie” and fired INPE
director Ricardo Galvão for defending the data. As The Guardian stated,
the INPE results revealed the Amazon “lost 739sq km during the 31 days [of
May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute.”

The
fires have become so strong that smoke from the blaze darkened the afternoon
sky on Monday in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populated city.

“The
Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it’s so bad it’s literally
blotting out the sun miles away,” tweeted Robert Maguire, research director at
U.S. government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in
Washington.

The
support group Amazon Watch on Tuesday called the
Bolsonaro regime’s attacks on the world’s biggest rainforest “an international
tragedy.”

“What
can we do?” the group tweeted. “1. Support the courageous resistance of the
indigenous peoples of the Amazon. 2. Make clear to the agribusiness and
financiers involved in the destruction that we won’t buy their products.”