JURUTI, Pará — As we approach the airport in Santarém, Pará, astonishment echoes loudly throughout the plane as its passengers see the extent of the drought below. Through the tiny window, we see the immense waters recede, leaving sandbanks exposed in the landscape. Beneath a sky that has not brought rain in months and walking through the dried-out backyards of family farmers, the skeletons of young trees are frequent reminders of the drought. “We don’t irrigate here — we always expect water to fall from the sky,” says Raimundo Nunes from beneath a dead cupuaçu tree (Theobroma grandiflorum). “Aside from the fruit trees, some native species like andiroba [Carapa guianensis] are also having a hard time,” says the agricultural engineer from his home located in the Jará Environmental Protection Area in Juruti, in western Pará state. Since May, most of the western part of Amazonia has seen below-average rainfall. More than just the natural and cyclic variation that characterizes the region’s flood and dry seasons, this year’s severe drought is caused by increasing climate changes coupled with interferences by El Niño, the meteorological phenomenon that normally raises temperatures and intensifies drought in Brazil’s north and northeast. In the rural zone of Juruti, in Pará state, agroforestry farming is being used to try and recuperate degraded land. Younger seedlings are not withstanding the drought. Photo by Julia Lima/Mongabay. Lost crops, shrinking fish populations, complicated logistics due to low river levels and difficult access to potable water led to a notification in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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