Major Fire Tragedy in Roraima, Brazil

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

3/26/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

The fires ravaging Brazil's forests are of an unprecedented magnitude,

as various estimates in the articles below put the area burnt at 4, 16

and 25 percent of Roraima. A line of fire stretching 250 miles (400

km) was advancing in the north-east of the state. This is

approximately 30,000 square kilometers of savannah and 6,500 of

forests or deforested area in a state covering 230,000 square

kilometers. There has been no rain in the area in 8 months, which is

extremely atypical. Following are three articles concerning the

situation. The first a good overview of the situation, the second

highlights slash and burn agriculture and the under reported role of

selective logging in making conditions conducive to conflagrations of

this intensity, and the final discusses international assistance

efforts. The rainforests of the world are going up in flames because

of our fundamental misunderstanding of their nature.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: BRAZIL: Fire Devours Savannah and Amazon Forests

Source: InterPress Third World News Agency via econet

Date: March 16, 1998

Byline: Maria Osava

/** ips.english: 510.0 **/

** Topic: ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Fire Devours Savannah and Amazon Forests

** Written 2:43 PM Mar 19, 1998 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 16-Mar-98 ***

Title: ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Fire Devours Savannah and Amazon Forests

by Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 16 (IPS) - The El Nino climatic phenomenon added

drought, high temperature and strong winds to the ''burning season''

in Amazonia, fanning fires which destroyed the State of Roraima in the

far north of Brazil.

This was the explanation given by Reinaldo Imbrizio from the Amazon

Research Institute (INPA) of the fire in Roraima, striking small

farmers and indigenous people on the frontier with Venezuela and

Guyana particularly hard.

The burning of grasslands, old crops and forests is normal procedure

in Roraima and other areas of Brazil due to ''the low technological

level'' of the agricultural and livestock activity. But this year, the

fire got completely out of control aided by the reigning climatic

conditions, he said.

Barbosa calculated 16.1 percent of the territory of Roraima had been

burnt by late Saturday, that is, 30,000 kilometers of savannah and

6,500 of forests or deforested area in a state covering 230,000 square

kilometers.

Meanwhile, state authorities said the fires had destroyed 25 percent

of the total area. There are 3,000 fires out of control throughout the

state, said Pedro Estevam, director of the Roraima government

Agriculture and Livestock Production department.

The fire, which has already been burning for two months, has killed

around 20,000 head of cattle - five percent of local stocks - and has

destroyed practically all crops, except for the irrigated rice, said

Estevam.

''Not a drop of rain has fallen for eight months, which is not

typical,'' substantially affecting the subsistence agriculture of the

indigenous people and around 50,000 small rural farmers, generally

migrants from other areas of Brazil.

Efforts to control the flames now have support from central

government, including the army. Expert fire-fighters flew into Roraima

from Brasilia, to direct operations, although little could really be

done given the extent of the catastrophe.

Barbosa said the fire has now passed its peak - which lasted from late

February until the present. ''Most of the biomass which can burn has

done so, and now there are only the residual fires,'' he said.

Weather forecasts do not include heavy rains until the end of April,

although small ''hopeful showers'' as the local population call them,

could occur earlier, said the researcher.

The fires, of an unprecedented extension and strength for Roraima,

invaded the forests of the Yanomami indian reserve. The National

Indian Foundation, official aid body for the indigenous population,

say 15 square kilometers have been burnt within this area.

But there are other indigenous groups in the state, numbering a total

of 37,000, said Jose Adalberto da Silva, vice-co-ordinator of the

Roraima Indigenous Council.

Several villages, after first losing their crops, are now without

water, said Da Silva, who travelled to Brasilia to ask central

government for help.

Most of these indigenous people live in savannah or cleared land, the

most affected by the fires. They generally plant yucca and maize as

subsistence crops. This year they will have to buy this in from the

markets.

The large landowners, who Barbosa considers mostly responsible for the

burning, are mainly dedicated to livestock farming.

Roraima has around 260,000 inhabitants, and is one of the least

populated states in Brazil. But in 1980 it only had 80,000 people,

said Barbosa.

Only 20 years ago, the deforested area of the state measured only 100

square kilometers, but this figure had increased 53 times by 1996.

The accelerated occupation of land, deforestation and the ''culture of

burning'' by rural farmers and large livestock breeders, created the

conditions needed for the drought to turn disaster.

''There are no spontaneous fires in Amazonia,'' said Barbosa, adding

that atmospheric humidity in Roraima had been between 50 and 60

percent last month, which is ''drought for a region which normally has

between 70 and 80 percent humidity.''

However, this low level of humidity alone is not enough to cause

spontaneous fire. The ''burning'' went out of control because the

temperature and wind intensity also increased, he concluded.

ITEM #2

Title: Scientists Say Amazon Fires May be Face of Things to Come

Source: Associated Press

Date: March 22, 1998

Byline: MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer

BOA VISTA, Brazil (March 22, 1998 6:37 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net)

-- Unless changes are made in rain forest development, more fires like

those that have consumed 1.5 million acres of pasture, savanna and

virgin Amazon forest are likely, scientists say.

Carbon-dating has indicated at least four huge burn-offs in the past

2,000 years -- the last about 400 years ago. But this year's fires in

the remote northern state of Roraima, fueled by the severest drought

in 30 years, are the worst in recent history.

According to Daniel Nepstad, a forest ecologist with the Woods Hole

Research Center in Massachusetts, Roraima can be seen as a microcosm

for the whole Amazon because it has all types of vegetation endemic to

the region contained in a relatively small area.

"It's very dry now and depending on the frequency and the amount of

rains this year, 1998 could be the fieriest year ever," Nepstad warns.

While a good deal of blame for fires that have raged for three months

has been placed on the El Nino weather phenomenon, which has brought

only 1/25th of an inch of rain all year, there are other contributors.

"People want to treat this like a nature disaster, like an earthquake

or tidal wave, where nothing can be done. But it's not just El Nino,

there are economic and social factors that also have an impact," said

Philip Fearnside, a scientist at the National Institute for Amazon

Research in the jungle city of Manaus.

Settlers streaming into the region and increased logging are making

the rain forest increasingly vulnerable to burning.

To plant on the Amazon's weak soil, settlers must cut down more forest

each year and then burn it to create a layer of ash, which fertilizes

the soil. During dry years, the burning often gets out of control, but

even in wet years, open pasture leaves the forest exposed. Scientists

estimate that 2,000 square miles of rain forest are lost every year to

slash-and-burn agriculture.

The problem is apparent in the Apiau region, 70 miles southwest of Boa

Vista, the state capital, where some of the worst burning has taken

place.

Once a dense swath of forest, poor farmers settled by the government

in the mid-1980s cut out large pastures. Fires set to clear land

quickly spread into the forest's underbrush.

Selective logging, in which only a few of the most valuable trees are

logged, also punches holes in the forest canopy. Heat and light stream

through, robbing the forest of its moisture. And when the selected

trees are felled, they topple dozens of smaller ones that are left

behind and provide more fuel for future fires.

According to the National Space Research Institute, which is

responsible for monitoring Amazon deforestation, about 12 percent of

the 2 million-square-mile Amazon has been cut down.

Nepstad says there has been so much selective logging -- something not

visible from satellite photos -- in the Amazon that official

deforestation figures are far too low.

Selective logging and clearing the forest for farmland sets the stage

for ever more frequent and fierce fires in forests that until recently

were thought to be nearly fire proof.

"I think this will be a lesson. They used to say tropical rain forest

doesn't burn. Now, they can see it does," said Ademir dos Santos, head

of Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency in Roraima state. "If we

don't move away from this archaic method (slash-and-burn agriculture),

we are risking other tragedies."

Dos Santos says increased environmental awareness is the only way to

end the fires. Whether that approach can work in a region where the

farmers and the soil are poor and fertilizer is expensive isn't

certain.

"We have to look at alternative agriculture, such as growing fruit

trees, rubber and Brazil nuts instead of crops," said Robert

Buschbacher, director of conservation at the World Wildlife Fund

Brazil.

Buschbacher also says agriculture may not be the best way to develop

the Amazon. The answer, he suggests, may lie in sustainable logging --

a practice something like crop rotation that is considered less

devastating to the environment because areas are allowed years to

recover.

The World Wildlife Fund has been experimenting with sustainable

logging in conjunction with the Brazilian government, and Buschbacher

says the results have been encouraging.

The practice is controversial, with critics concerned about any

depletion of the forest's biodiversity. It also would require long-

term planning of a sort that has been rare in the region.

ITEM #3

Title: Brazil accepts emergency World Bank funds for Amazon

Source: Reuters

Date: March 26, 1998

Byline: Joelle Diderich

BRASILIA, March 26 (Reuters) - Brazil has accepted a $5 million rescue

package from the World Bank to combat fires ravaging the Amazon

rainforest and was considering other international offers of help, an

official said Thursday.

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso formed a commission to

study offers of help from the United Nations and several countries,

presidential spokesman Sergio Amaral said.

The commission will include government ministers, representatives of

the government's environmental agency IBAMA and Foreign Ministry

officials who will have the last say on accepting any offers of help.

The move marks a shift in attitude on the part of the Brazilian

government, which has traditionally been resistant to foreign

intervention in the Amazon.

``There is no resistance to international help as long as it conforms

to Brazilian needs,'' Amaral told reporters.

Fires set by subsistence farmers have burned out of control since

January in savannah near Brazil's border with Venezuela. The flames

are now pressing into jungle that is dry from a drought blamed on the

El Nino weather phenomenon.

Amaral said the fires had burned between four percent and six percent

of the total territory of Roraima, a state roughly the size of

Britain. This represents between 3,500 square miles (9,000 square km)

and 5,200 square miles (13,500 square km).

A line of fire stretching 250 miles (400 km) was advancing in the

north-east of the state and a quarter of Roraima was at risk from the

blazes, he said.

The United Nations' Department of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday

it was ready to send in a team of firefighting specialists to help

Brazil assess the damage and lay the groundwork for mobilizing

international assistance.

``All offers of help are welcome as long as they are adapted to needs

and are of a humanitarian nature,'' said Amaral, adding that IBAMA was

studying the U.N. proposal.

Brazil, despite its huge Amazon territory, lacks the technology needed

to tackle major fires in tropical <strong>forests</strong>.

Russia is ready to send in two water-carrying airplanes to help put

out the flames, but technical problems were holding up the proposal,

he said.

Brazil is sending another 500 men to help in its biggest ever

firefighting effort, bringing the total number of men combating the

blazes up to around 1,500, including Argentine and Venezuelan

firefighters who arrived last week.

One of their priorities will be to prevent the flames from eating

further into the jungle reservation of the primitive Yanomami Indians,

whose livelihood is threatened by the flames which have already burnt

swathes of the reservation.

Cardoso was monitoring the situation and may fly out to Roraima to

assess the region's needs, the spokesman said.

Reports Thursday indicated the fires were spreading across the

grasslands and <strong>forests</strong> of neighboring Guyana.

Amaral did not specify which other countries had offered to help, but

his comments indicated Brazil was cautiously accepting the need for

external assistance. For decades, Brazil's armed forces have treated

the Amazon as a national security issue. REUTERS

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