By Mark Heley, Esperanza Project
The Indigenous peoples of Amazonia have lived in a symbiotic way with the rainforest for millenia. They are the keepers of deep knowledge about the ecosystems they live within and are indispensable to its effective protection. Protecting the rights of indigenous people and their land claims in the Amazon can be one of the most effective ways of halting deforestation.
By Kayla Mi-Kyung Vandervort, Esperanza Project
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro isn’t the only culprit behind the fires currently raging across the Amazon at a rate of a football field per minute. With the high demand for meat, soy, and petroleum in developed countries, we are directly fuelling these fires in the Amazon basin. There is much that we can do to help turn this crisis around.
By Francesc Badia I Dalmases, Open Democracy
The Amazon is so key to the future of our planet that it has become a hot issue of geopolitics. And, we are not only talking about the physical environment. We are talking about the future of the people- those who live there and us.
By Claire F.R. Wordley, The Conversation
Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That’s more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years.
By Chris Nelder, Energy Transition Show
We are fortunate to have Michael Wara as our guest in this episode—a bona fide expert on the subject who is a member of the state-appointed wildfire commission in California—to help us think through this complex web of issues and understand how to start plotting a new path into the future.
By Dahr Jamail, TruthOut
And now, the Amazon is on fire. Wildfires are incinerating the rainforest at a record pace, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE as it is commonly referenced). INPE recently stated that there has been an 80 percent increase in wildfires in the Amazon, compared to the same period from last year.
By Thomas Smith, Carbon Brief
The unprecedented UK wildfire seasons in 2018 and 2019 have raised key questions about how fire risk in the UK is changing and how we can prepare for them in future.
By Viki Cramer, Ensia
Combining traditional knowledge with modern science and technology could reduce loss of property and human life from out-of-control blazes.
By Louise Dunlap, YES! magazine
But I want us to ask Indigenous people to take the reins themselves and help get us back on track with fire. I want them to take care of their own lands once again, as the Karuk people are doing up north on the Klamath River.
By Eric Holthaus, Grist
A trio of rapidly expanding wildfires are burning in California, marking the latest in a string of harrowing climate-related disasters in America.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee
In British Columbia alone, wildfires released between 150 and 200 megatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2017. That’s more than twice the volume created by human activities in the province.
By Andrew Kurjata, Confluence
When I woke up this week, the sun was blocked out by smoke. I’m writing this on August 19, 2018 from Prince George which, according to the map on my computer, has an air quality index rating of 224 aka Purple aka “Very Unhealthy.”