Picturing the Brazil Forest Fires

Editor's Note: Yesterday we shared a post from Frederico Schlottfeldt on the Brazil forest fires in our Brazil office. Today we share a direct encounter of the fires from our Brazil Director. In mid-August 2010, ACT-Brazil Director Vasco van Roosmalen traveled via the BR-364 road in the Brazilian state of Rondônia between the population centers of Cacoal and Porto Velho. The area represents one of the great remaining Amazonian frontier regions, and is susceptible to forest fires, many created intentionally to clear land.  

Vasco documented the air effects of these fires:

“It is hard to capture in a photo just how much smoke from forest fires is covering the area. It has been really bad for almost a week now. These pictures were taken on the outskirts of Cacoal, where Metareila, the association of the indigenous Surui people is located.

We are in the middle of the Amazon, where there just isn't enough industry and there are not enough cars to create smog like this over such a large area. The sky in these pictures should be full blue...there is not a cloud in the sky.”

Vasco van Roosmalen
ACT Brazil Director

Increasing Forest Fires in Rondonia, Brazil

For more than a week, a cover of smoke in the sky around the Brazilian state of Rondonia has drawn the attention of residents and visitors. Fires have increased significantly in the local forests. One of the hardest hit regions is between Porto Velho and Cacoal.

Smoke over Rondonia

The situation in Rondonia resembles that of other regions of the country. According to the National Institute of Space Research, fires in Brazil increased 85 percent in 2010. The research was based on the time period from January 1 through August 12. A recent article published by Folha de São Paulo, one of the most recognized newspapers in Brazil cited that 25,999 fires occurred during this period compared to 14,019 in 2009. Studies conducted by researchers from the Institute of Physics of São Paulo´s University (USP), and financed by Fapesp, found that the air quality in the Amazon during this period, due to fires, is worse than the air of São Paulo.

The states of Brazil with the largest number of fires were Mato Grosso (6,693); Tocantins (4,210); Pará (2,526); and Bahia (2,020). In 2010, Mato Grosso has experienced a 91percent increase in fires.

For over a decade, ACT has been pointing out the clear and unbreakable link between healthy forest and human health. In the southwest Amazon, the destruction of the forest has brought drought, fires, airport closures, economic costs and human misery.

Frederico Schlottfeldt
ACT Brazil
Communications Coordinator

Environmental Education

Editor's Note: Dr. Sara Bennett is a biologist who leads a small NGO, Maikuchiga, in Colombia’s Amacayacu National Park that operates a rescue center for orphaned animals.  The Park, in the nation’s Amazonas state, is traversed by the Amazon River. This post is one in a series from Dr. Bennett. Post originally developed February 6, 2010.

Saturday morning, Animals House. Claudia, the littlest, special-needs woolly monkey, is a nice warm, fast asleep, softly snoring, getting better lump on my lap. It’s raining quietly outside, with no drama.  The river’s rising.

Dr. Sara Bennett with manatee

There is no crisis at the moment and no one’s being bad (Aladino having just fixed the hole one of the squirrel monkeys either made or found to get into the kitchen and make a big mess).  A faraway hoodoo pigeon is calling “hoo doo, hoo doo.”  Lo, the spirit moves.

A friend from Palmeras, the community just upriver, told us last week that there was a woolly monkey in Eugenio’s house that was probably the aforementioned Surba. Jhon and I went up to check it out. It checked out and we’re concerned again.  They’d come across her in the woods about a two hour walk away, and either she came back with them or they brought her back and was with them a few days in their house. They left the house alone on Sunday and she was gone when they came back. The upriver communities think woolly monkeys are delicious and fair game. The four downriver communities think woolly monkeys are delicious and have agreed not to hunt them. We have spread the word that if someone helps us round her up (alive), the reward will be better than one monkey stew.

So, ahem, Topic for the Day here: environmental education in acculturated indigenous communities.  Whatever does this mean and how do you do whatever it is? Without being Right, culturally insensitive, overbearing, arrogant, well-meaning, out-of-context, irrelevant, disrespectful  …  There are a lot of reasons to let this be someone else’s responsibility.  Someone Else hasn’t shown up.