This year’s Amazon fire season is already breaking records. In July, there were 27% more fires in Brazil’s portion of the world's largest tropical rainforest than last year, when images of trees ablaze shocked the world. And the numbers are still growing.
The fires became an unwelcome hallmark of the administration of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president who took office in 2019. Though Brazil has invested millions in fighting fires in the Amazon since last year, the root of the problem remains intact.
“This story that the Amazon is burning is a lie,” president Bolsonaro said in a recent meeting.
Fires typically follow deforestation in the Amazon, a problem Bolsonaro’s administration has resisted fighting. Bolsonaro refused to strengthen the country’s environmental protection agencies as increasingly large parts of the forest were converted to pasture and illegal mining sites.
