RIO DE JANEIRO: Fires recorded in the Brazilian Pantanal, a biodiversity sanctuary in the southern Amazon rainforest, have quadrupled in 2019 compared to the same period last year, the country’s space research agency said Thursday.
The number of fires recorded by satellite since January in the Pantanal hit 4,515, an increase of 334 percent from the same period in 2018 where only 1,039 fires were recorded, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said.
The Pantanal, which is the world’s largest tropical wetland and located primarily in Brazil along with parts of neighbouring Paraguay and Bolivia, is 80 percent flooded during the wet season from October to May.
That leaves the vegetation, which is particularly rich and diverse, vulnerable to fires during the summer dry season. – AFP
