The Amazon Brazilian registered 98,646 forest fires in 2023, 10.8% less than in 2022 (115,033), despite the historic drought that the biome faced in the final months of last year, when fire outbreaks broke out, official sources reported this Tuesday.
The number of heat sources measured last year by the satellites of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE, for its acronym in Portuguese) fell compared to 2022, but it was by 31.4% higher than in 2021 (75,090), according to the organization linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Although they ended the year at a high level, forest fires fell progressively in the last months of 2023, from 26,452 in September, when they reached the highest level of the year, to 22,061 in October, 13,943 in November and 4,701 in December.
The number of heat sources in December 2023, despite the fact that a 66.3% compared to November, it jumped 70.6% in the comparison with the same month of 2022 (2,756) and a 194.5% compared to December 2021 (1,596), which was the lowest for this month since the INPE began measuring the indicator in 1998.
The increase in fires in the final months of last year occurred because the Amazon, the largest freshwater reserve in the world, is experiencing a serious drought that brought the level of its rivers to a minimum last October.
According to the Center for Monitoring of Alerts and Natural Disasters (Cemaden), the current drought, which may be historic, is a consequence of the El Niño phenomenon, which this year has been more intense than in 2015 and 2016, when the biome experienced its worst water crisis, and may extend until February 2024.
Despite the historic drought, the fires fell thanks to the efforts of the Government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to stop the devastation of the biome.
Since assuming his third term, on January 1, 203, Lula has increased resources and oversight in the Amazon region with the aim of achieving the goal he committed to, ending illegal deforestation by 2030.
According to INPE data, their measures allowed deforestation of the largest tropical forest in the world to fall by 51.5% in the first eleven months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, when, during the administration of far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, the destruction of the biome was a record.
Source: Gestion
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