Fires Spread Over Drought-parched Amazon Rainforest
10/31/97
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Headline: Fires Spread Over Drought-parched Amazon Rainforest
Source: Associated Press
Date: 10/31/97
Author: Michael Astor
Copyright 1997 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Fires have spread over drought-parched Amazon rain forest
A Brazilian policy encourages farmers to burn their land. Even the trees in a
lake have ignited.
MANAUS, Brazil -- This year's burning season in
the Amazon rain forest is so bad that even a lake
is on fire.
Two factors -- the worst drought in 25 years and
government policy that encourages farmers to burn
their land -- are speeding destruction of the
world's largest wilderness, not to mention choking
inhabitants of the Amazon's largest city with
thick smoke.
At the Balbina Dam reservoir, a record-low water
level has exposed trees that were long submerged.
For months they dried, then caught fire.
"Even the trees in the lake are burning. I've
never seen anything like it," said Abner Brandao
de Souza of Ibama, the government's environmental
protection agency.
A dense haze spews from the thousands of fires
that have spread with ease over the parched Amazon
rain forest, an area nearly two-thirds the size of
the continental United States. The haze is choking
the 1.1 million residents of the city of Manaus.
"You leave the house in the morning and you step
into a thick haze," secretary Selena Oliveira
said.
Fires at this time of year are common in heavily
deforested Amazon states such as Mato Grosso and
Para, where land is regularly burned for pasture.
But the fires now are the worst in memory -- and
the intensity is new here in Amazonas state,
Brazil's largest, where nearly 98 percent of the
original forest canopy remains intact.
Worse, the fires have spread into virgin forest,
where deep roots usually keep trees so moist they
rarely burn. By most estimates, at least 10
percent of the rain forest has been destroyed.
There are no widespread efforts to stamp out the
blazes because they mostly are cases of landowners
burning on their own property. And nothing has
been attempted to stop the smoke.
Doctors say the number of people seeking treatment
for respiratory ailments has risen 30 percent
since the smoke began smothering Manaus in
mid-September.
Before scant showers fell in mid-October, the
region had gone 70 days without rain.
The water level at Balbina Dam, 100 miles north of
Manaus, has plunged to the point that the city is
forced to ration energy. Some neighborhoods have
electricity for only six hours a day. Two babies
died at a maternity ward that lacked a private
generator to power their incubators.
El Nino has been blamed for the drought. The
cyclical phenomenon of warm Pacific Ocean currents
is sending tropical storms north to desert
regions, such as Baja California and Arizona, and
leaving normally moist areas thirsty.
But another problem is strictly man-made --
Brazil's policy of indirectly encouraging farmers
to burn their land.
Chain saw in hand, Idalino Cordeiro de Sousa, 34,
was clearing the trees on the plot he received
from a federal land-distribution institute called
Incra. He said it was the only way to obtain
credit to buy an irrigation system.
"What else are we going to do?" he said. "Incra
only gives loans for planting, and we can only
plant if we cut."
Incra says it may change that policy. Still,
Brazilian law allows settlers to cut and burn up
to eight acres without authorization from Ibama,
the environmental protection agency. The
government says small farmers account for 40
percent of Amazon deforestation.
Sousa will sell the valuable tropical wood and
burn off what's left. Thick scrub quickly replaces
the forest, but the weak soil must periodically be
fertilized with ashes, so burning becomes
perennial.
Ibama has just 60 poorly paid inspectors to cover
the 600,000 square miles of Amazonas state, nearly
as large as Alaska. They rely on help from the air
force to locate the fires.
Amilton Casara, who heads Ibama in Amazonas, said
the agency had levied a record $276,000 in fines
over 18 days in October. But such fines are rarely
paid, and Casara had no figures for how much has
been collected this year.