World's largest wetland Brazil's Pantanal burns from above and below
BY REUTERS
POCONE, BRAZIL AMERICAS AUG 29, 2020 8:08 PM GMT+3
Smoke from a fire is seen near Cuiaba River at Pantanal, in Pocone, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, Aug. 28, 2020. (Reuters Photo)
The world's largest wetland is ablaze, but the fire is often invisible.
In Brazil's Pantanal, the vegetation compacted under the marshy floodwater during the wet season dries out as ponds and lagoons evaporate, leaving flammable deposits underground that can continue to smolder long after visible flames die down.
Firefighters across Brazil are battling raging towers of flames from the Amazon rainforest to the Cerrado savannah, but the fires beneath their feet are a particular challenge in the Pantanal. The only way to combat underground fires is to dig a trench around it, said state firefighter Lieutenant Isaac Wihby.
"But how do you do that if you have a line of fire that's 20 kilometers (12 miles) long? It's not viable," he said.
More:
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/americas/worlds-largest-wetland-brazils-pantanal-burns-from-above-and-below
Please look at the images of the Pantanal at google images in the following link, before it has been destroyed:
https://tinyurl.com/y2tgggcl
Also posted in Environment and energy:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127139971
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About 2,500 kilometres south of the Amazon rainforest, other one-of-a-kind ecosystems are falling victim to fire and axe.
FIRES HAVE RIPPED THROUGH THE ARARA AZUL BLUE MACAW SANCTUARY IN BRAZIL'S PANTANAL WETLANDS. THE LAND WAS USED TO PROTECT SOME OF THE WORLD'S LAST REMAINING BLUE MACAWS. | BLOOMBERG
About 2,500 kilometres south of the Amazon rainforest, other one-of-a-kind ecosystems are falling victim to fire and axe.
South America’s Pantanal wetlands – reaching into Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay – are burning at a record pace this year. In Brazil, a sanctuary that was home to some of the world’s last surviving blue macaws said it was devastated by fire. And in Argentina, thousands of acres of wetlands around the Paraná River have been ablaze for months, with apocalyptic images on social media showing the port city of Rosario encircled in red flames in July.
Like in the Amazon, commercial farmers are largely to blame for the destruction, clearing vegetation during the annual dry season to graze cattle and grow crops for export. This year, they got a head-start in Argentina and Brazil as the continent has been hit by drought.
In July, the number of fires burning in the Pantanal, which spans about 210,000 square kilometres (81,100 square miles), reached the highest for the month since the data started being collected in 1998, according to Brazil’s Spacial Research Institute, known as Inpe. The alarming trend is continuing in August, with September historically the worst month for blazes. Across South America, fires are at their highest in a decade.
More:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/wetlands-are-burning-across-south-america-with-farmers-to-blame.phtml
