Fire in the Jungle

"Out on the water, the dolphin-men emerge.  Joyously, each joins his lover, reenacting the promises by which we now the fullness of the world.  The botos swim, the dancers dance.  But in the western sky, the Amazon is burning."

- Sy Montgomery, Journey of the Pink Dolphins

It took a while to make the news.  The fires at Paris’ Notre Dame were front page news around the world almost as soon as the first smoke was sighted.  The world’s largest rainforest was burning for weeks before the world finally began to pay attention.

Well, we’re paying attention now.

Whenever there is a tremendous disaster, there is a tendency for inaccurate or exaggerated media to spread.  I’ve seen pictures of orangutans and tigers from Indonesia, displaced by palm oil plantations being labelled as refugees of the Amazon fires.  I’ve read dire predictions of how we’re all about to asphyxiate from the loss oxygen produced by the burning of the trees.   I dislike the hyperbole, because the untruths cover up a very basic message.  This is bad.  We don’t need to exaggerate how bad it is, because it’s already bad enough.

It’s not, at this point, an unprecedented bad – the Amazon is constantly being burned away, but it is worse than previous years.  And it shows no signs of stopping.

It’s a disaster, albeit not a natural one.  The fires are, directly or not, the children of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned on the platform of opening up the Amazon for development.  Bolsonaro first tried to downplay the seriousness of the fire, then said it was a good thing because it cleared away the forest for Brazilians to use, then darkly insinuated that it was set up environmentalists and/or indigenous people in order to undermine his administration.  Now, shamed and scolded on all sides, he is begrudgingly taking steps to fight the fire.  Other South American countries are pitching in, as are various international nonprofits.  The loss will still be staggering.

Given the enormous degree of biodiversity and specialization found in the Amazon, it is a certainty that some species will be driven to extinction by this calamity.  Not jaguars, or tapirs, or Amazon river dolphins, or any of the most famous, celebrated denizens of the forest, but important ones nonetheless.  That’s also overlooking the damage that will occur to local water systems and microclimates.

The Amazon is not California or Canada, a habitat that is continually shaped by naturally occurring fires which help rejuvenate the ecosystem.  It is a fragile ecosystem, bound to existence only by a thin layer of topsoil, which, when exposed by clearcutting or fire, disappears into the wind.  That is the reason that rainforest destruction continues so constantly.  When you clear a patch of jungle for farming, it doesn’t stay good farmland for long.  Pretty soon, you’re left with infertile dust, and back to the jungle you must go, ax in hand.

Most of the ways that the average citizen can help involve financial contributions, but be wary – in situations like this, it can be counted on with certainty that unscrupulous people will set up sham charities to siphon off funds for themselves.  Make sure the organization you are contributing to is reputable – examples include the Rainforest Trust, the Rainforest Foundation and the Aazon Conservation Association, among others.    During the recent G7 meeting, the leaders of the world’s biggest economies pledged their support.

Many zoos and aquariums feature Amazonian wildlife.  At this time, each and every one of them, independently or as part of their joint associations (AZA, Wildlife Conservation Society, etc) should raise their voices in explaining what is at stake in this fires, and what poor decision making led to their being set.

The Amazon will, as a whole, survive these fires.  But what about the ones that are set next year, and the year after?  There’s going to come a time when humanity is going to have to acknowledge what we are at risk of losing and commit to protecting that which remains.  

It might as well be now.