IRREPLACEABLE
0 Golden Parakeet Guaruba
guarouba
Photo Fernando Calmon/
Shutterstock
Black-fronted Piping-
guan Penelope jacutinga
Photo Erni/Shutterstock
7
Brazilian presidential
candidate Jair Bolsonaro
during a rally in Juiz de
Fora, 6th September 2018
Photo Antonio Scorza/
Shutterstock
3
environmentalists, including the head of the
satellite agency that monitors changes in
forest cover. He scoffed at government data
suggesting that deforestation rates had reached
a decade-long peak in July.
This is the context in which August’s forest
fires were perceived worldwide. Granted, fire is
a regular dry-season phenomenon. But Brazil’s
satellite agency detected 74,000 fires between
New Year’s Day and 20 August – 84% up on
2018 and the most conflagrations since 2010.
“The full repercussions will only be clear in
the medium or long term”, says Pedro Develey,
Director of SAVE Brasil (BirdLife Partner). Develey
fears we will lose more forest and biodiversity, as
the distribution of many fires overlaps with that
of globally threatened birds. Globally threatened
Amazonian species found in at-risk IBAs
include Golden-crowned Manakin Lepidothrix
vilasboasi (Vulnerable) in Novo Progresso;
Golden Parakeet Guaruba guarouba (Vulnerable)
in Cristalino/Serra do Cachimbo; Rondonia
Bushbird Clytoctantes atrogularis (Vulnerable)
in Alto Sucunduri; and Rio Branco Antbird
Cercomacra carbonaria (Critically Endangered)
in Campinas e Várzeas do Rio Branco.
Continued monitoring of the extent and
impact of the fires is clearly needed. BirdLife
“Indigenous territories no longer
seem sacrosanct, suffering 68 fires
in a single week“
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is addressing this need via a project funded by
the Cambridge Conservation Initiative that is
assessing how to use remote-sensing data to
monitor Key Biodiversity Areas. But what about
the fires’ impacts beyond biodiversity?
BirdLife Partners are among voices
expressing concerns about the fires’ climatic
consequences. The Copernicus Atmosphere
Monitoring Service calculates 228 megatonnes
of carbon dioxide equivalent were lost from the
world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink during the
first eight months of 2019.
People are suffering too. Indigenous territories
no longer seem sacrosanct, suffering 68 fires in
a single week described by Survival International
as perhaps the “worst moment for the Amazon’s
indigenous people” for three decades.
Bolsonaro’s attitude appears to have
emboldened settlers, ranchers and loggers.
Seeking rights for habitation, soy cultivation
(mainly for animal feed), livestock grazing
or logging, they no longer fear prosecution
for destroying forest. “Poorly regulated
land ownership is a key driver of fires and
deforestation,” says Develey. “With so much
land-grabbing and illegal occupation, oversight
of the New Forest Code is difficult.”
Fires and deforestation are not problems
unique to Brazil, of course. This year, fires have
devastated vast tracts of Bolivia, Colombia and
Paraguay.” Small-scale fires may be ecologically
acceptable,” says José Luis Cartes, Chief
Executive Officer of BirdLife Partner, Guyra
Paraguay. “But the intensity, frequency and
extent of this year’s fires mean we envisage
BIRDLIFE • OCT-DEC 2019