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Megafires are spreading in the Amazon — and they are here to stay

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“When I see the rainforest burning, I know what I’m really seeing is Amazonia dying. I see that fire and, as a scientist, I know how much that hectare will lose in terms of individual lives, how much carbon will be emitted and how much the process accelerates climate changes,” states Erika Berenguer, a Brazilian researcher at the University of Oxford. “At the same time, I lose a part of myself — my identity as a human being, as a scientist, is very tied into it. It’s in the soil, in the rainforest, walking in the forest every day.” In October of 2023, Berenguer began seeing large forest fires in the region near the city of Santarém in western Pará state. It was a repeat of the scenario she witnessed in 2015 when the region suffered similar burns. According to her calculations in 2015, 2.5 billion trees died and the volume of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere was greater than the emissions from entire nations including France and the United Kingdom. “I’m seeing everything happen all over again,” states Berenguer, who had been diagnosed with pneumonia brought on by smoke inhalation. “And I’m looking into the future and thinking that this will happen more and more often. That megafires are not the exception. They will become the rule.” Smoke from a megafire in the municipality of Belterra, in the state of Pará. Image courtesy of Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace. Technically defined as an enormous fire burning more than 100 square kilometers…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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