Brazil Quenches Some Amazon Fires
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
November 16, 2000
By MICHAEL ASTOR
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When the Brazilian government announced a dramatic drop in the number of fires in the Amazon this year, environmentalists were hesitant to point out that it wasn't entirely true.
After all, they said, federal authorities finally were doing something after years of inaction. They had banned burning during the driest months, sent teams into critical areas to teach farmers about alternatives to burning, and heavily fined those who didn't listen.
So when officials said the number of fires through September was down 28 percent from last year, environmentalists were willing to give them credit.
''I think we have to recognize the decrease as a consequence of what the government has been doing over the last two years,'' said Paulo Adario of Greenpeace. ''While not addressing the root causes of Amazon destruction, they've adopted measures that have yielded results.''
Scientists warn, however, that the burning season isn't over _ and the worst probably is still to come.
''It's too early to say if fires are down,'' said Dr. Alberto Setzer of Brazil's National Institute of Space Research, which analyzes satellite data on burning. ''Since the beginning of October (when the ban on burning ended), we've seen them jump off the chart.''
Setzer pointed out that the early months of the late-year burning season were wetter than usual, with rains tapering off around the same time the ban was lifted. With dry weather predicted for November, the early gains could easily go up in smoke.
Setzer's candid assessment is indicative of how times have changed. When Amazon fires became a matter of world concern in the mid-1980s, the government steadfastly denied the fires even existed, and later the space research institute was accused of fiddling the data to make the problem look less serious than it was.
Today, officials post daily updates about the annual fires on the Internet.
Environmentalists acknowledge that simply banning fires outright won't work. The use of fire to clear Amazon land for planting is an ancient practice. But as more ranchers and farmers moved in, the number of fires in the rain forest soared, releasing millions of tons of greenhouse gases.
The worst year was 1998, when fires aggravated by El Nino-induced dryness scorched an area twice the size of New Jersey. And it wasn't just old pasture and scrub; about one-quarter of the charred 16,000 square miles was standing forest, a rare occurrence in the humid tropics.
The fires drew international attention and caught the government unprepared. As Brazil scrambled to bring in poorly trained, under-equipped fire brigades from thousands of miles away, officials realized that battling massive blazes across a 2 million square-mile wilderness was futile. They decided to invest in prevention and education instead.
Humberto Candeias, the head of the government's Amazon fire prevention program, declared the campaign a success. In the states where the teams were present, fires dropped by as much as 55 percent though September, he said. In other states, fires held steady or even increased.
''We will take advantage of our experience this year, introducing our program in more states so every year the number of fires will be smaller,'' Candeias said.
Not everyone shares his optimism.
Philip Fearnside, an American scientist, notes that the government opposes a proposal to allow polluting countries to pay nations that preserve their forests. The idea is to be discussed at this week's Sixth International Conference on Global Warming, in the Netherlands.
''There's a very powerful myth that (Amazon destruction) is inherently out of control, that there is nothing Brazil can do about it,'' says Fearnside, of the National Institute of Amazon Research in the jungle city of Manaus.
Therefore, he says, Brazil is reluctant to commit to safeguarding and being credited for forests whose survival it doesn't believe can be guaranteed.
Time may be running short. Scientists fear that changes in the way the Amazon is being logged will make annual fires more likely to rage out of control.
Today, logging is selective, unlike the clear-cutting popular in the 1970s and 1980s. But selective logging leaves the forest floor littered with less valuable trees knocked down accidentally, and they quickly dry out and turn into eventual fuel for fires.