A lot of attention has been placed on the Amazon lately regarding raging forest fires but new information reveals it’s a lot worse in Africa. Data from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System showed at least 6,902 fires in Angola and 3,395 burning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – numbers that are actually much higher than Brazil’s 2,127 for the same time period.
While the massive surge in fires in the Amazon this year has caused global concern, the extent of the fires affecting forested areas in Africa is unclear. What makes things complicated is how purpose-lit fires in agricultural areas have been a common part of farming techniques for thousands of years. Farmers set crop fields on fire to burn off the leftover grasses and scrub plants, which helps maintain rich soils good for farming.
The problem is that now the practice has gotten way out of hand. So much so the whole world is at risk from the effects it could cause. The rainforest is the most biodiverse land area on earth and it stores enormous amounts of carbon. Its conservation is crucial if we are to limit the impacts of global heating. However, farmers worldwide are now being driven to increase the slash and burn clearing of forests due to lack of traditional grasslands.
Like in Africa, the forest fires in Brazil have largely been caused by agricultural activity. When landowners burn stubble after harvest, they take advantage to simultaneously use illegal slash and burn clearing techniques to create more land for crops or rearing beef. Sometimes they’ll carry out logging as well to raise the value of the land.
For some reason, despite the growing awareness of the hazards of deforestation, greater areas of tropical rainforest are being lost now more than ever before! In 2016 and 2017, more tree cover was lost across the world than in any other year this century.
The director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, Richard Black, says it is hard to determine whether the fires in Africa represented similar problems as those currently affecting the Amazon. He told The Independent:
Clearly both in the Amazon and in the Congo, burning by small scale farmers is a way of life, it does happen. What’s different is the increase in the Amazon this year over last year – almost a doubling in the number of fires. Bolsonaro seems to be encouraging this, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this in any of [the African] countries, is a key difference I think.
French President Emmanuel Macron drew attention to the fires in sub-Saharan Africa and said:
We are considering the possibility of launching an initiative similar to the one we just announced for the Amazon.
Unfortunately, while everyone’s focus is on Brazil, other rainforests around the world are burning away unnoticed. Even in the Amazon, the NASA data shows there are fires in the rainforest of the eight other South American countries including Bolivia, as well as thousands of fires in Indonesia.
The three great tropical forests – the Amazon, the Congo, and Indonesia’s Borneo – are all important to the well-being of our planet. Yet, all of them over the last 20 years have seen really destructive forest fires.
