The world’s largest tropical wetland has noticed an alarming number of man-made fires this month, and experts fear the worst is coming as the dry season intensifies.
Since the beginning of July, the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research has detected 1,573 chimneys in the country’s Pantanal region, the highest number recorded for the month in 22 years of registration. In the first six months of 2020, the number of chimneys in the Pantanal more than doubled compared to the same time last year, affecting approximately 1.5 million acres of land. The chimney season in the Pantanal region peaks in September, meaning the scenario may simply worsen, poses a serious risk to the unique biodiversity of wetlands and to a population already affected by Covid-19.
“The scenario is serious,” said Marcos Rosa, technical coordinator of MapBiomas, a Brazilian study initiative that produces maps of the country’s land canopy. “We have a lot of fires in some spaces that are wetlands [in July].”
The Pantanal is a 42 million-acre wetland covering southwestern Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. It is famous for its plant and animal life, which has helped some of them be identified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is estimated that another 4,700 plants and animals inhabit the Pantanal, adding jaguars, alligators, giant anteaters, capybars, hyacinths (the largest parrot in the world) and lots of fish species. The entire population of the Pantanal is adapted to the reflux and flow of water entering this vast floodplain from the savannahs of the highlands in the rainy season from October to April, creating rivers of pastures and giant water lily fields that slowly drain the dry season.
The Pantanal is also suitable for the fireplace, to some extent. Natural chimneys caused by lightning have occurred during the dry season, and other Aboriginal people have long used the chimney to manage their land well. But today, it’s not unusual for chimneys to start through other people to escape control and grow, creating a non-herbal scenario that threatens wild ecosystems. The threat of large, uncontrollable chimneys is greatest during droughts, when wetlands become tinder-like grasslands. And this year, the Pantanal is dry.
The low rainfall in the springs of the Paraguay River, which supply nutrients and water to the Pantanal, which seasonally flooded wetlands have dried up earlier than expected. “We have all those meadows around the Paraguay River flood-free and very dry,” said Geraldo Damasceno, an ecologist at Mato Grosso do Sul University. “So everything’s on fire now.”
Although Damascene has not been on the floor due to the coronavirus pandemic, he suspects that some of the fires have escaped control and are having a ‘great effect on plants at this time’.
Large and uncontrollable fires can also have a significant effect on local animals, either by killing them directly or destroying their habitat, says Danilo Ribeiro, a biologist at the University of Mato Grosso do Sul who studies the effects of fires on the pantanal. Wildlife.
“When we have so much water, typical aquatic animals, such as alligators and capybars, come out of the water to look for food,” Ribeiro said. “And if the chimney attracts those animals to those places, they will die. We can expect this year’s chimneys to kill many more animals than they kill.”
On July 15, the Brazilian government issued a decree banning fires for 120 days in both the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal. (Climate scientists have warned that the southern Amazon may also face an intense and fire-filled dry season this year, partly due to heat buildup in the tropical Atlantic.) However, Brazilian scientists who have spoken to Motherboard doubt that fire ban will have a lot of effect, raising the lack of application and the belief that President Bolsonaro’s government does not care if citizens respect environmental standards.
“We haven’t noticed a strong enough government position to tell others that they must abide by the law,” said Ane Alencar, clinical director of Amazon’s Environmental Research Institute. The Brazilian firm in the area has detected more than 1,000 more fires in the Pantanal since the ban came into force.
Meanwhile, the state of Mato Grosso do Sul declared a state of emergency in the pantanal and is now being helped by army aircraft to help extinguish the flames. In his emergency decree, the state governor cited that the environment has an effect on fires and fitness hazards posed by maximum smoke levels, which can exacerbate respiratory disorders among a population that has already suffered covid-19.
“The smoke of those wonderful fires travels very far, ” said Ribeiro. “This will increase other people’s breathing problems. People will have to move to hospitals and we will lose some options that can be used for other people with Covid.”