The Amazon rainforest has been burning at a record rate for three weeks now. Earlier this month, Brazil declared a state of emergency over the rising number of fires in the region. In 2019 itself, Brazil’s space research center, INPE has detected almost 73000 fires. This is about 83% more than the number of fires in 2018, and it is the highest number on fires on record since 2013, according to Reuters.

The Amazon rainforests are generally wet and humid, except during the dry season. During this time, people often set patches of rainforests on fire to clear land for farming and ranching. Images taken by satellites show huge fires in the Brazilian states of Amazonas, Rondonia, Para and Mato Grosso. Of these, Amazonas is the worst affected.

Incidentally, these fires are not the problem impacting Brazil alone. The Amazon rainforests generate more than 20% of world’s oxygen and are home to about 10% of the world’s biodiversity. No wonder, they are called as the ‘lungs of the planet’, and they undoubtedly play a major role in regulating climate change.

The smoke from these fires can be seen from the space. The European Union Earth Observation Program’s Sentinel satellites captured images of ‘significant amounts of smoke’ over different parts of Brazil, especially over Amazonas and Rondonia. The winds have caused the smoke and particulate emissions to be carried over 1700 miles away already, causing a widespread environmental crisis.

These fires may be all the way across the globe for you, and there might not be a way for you to actually douse those fires. But there’s something you can do to help in protecting these precious rainforests, such as –

• Donate to Rainforest Action Network to protect an acre of the Amazonian rainforest
• Donate to the Rainforest Trust to help buy land in the rainforest.
• Reduce your paper and wood consumption
• Double-check with Rainforest Alliance if what you are buying is rainforest-safe
• Reduce your beef intake, as beef and other processed products & fast food burgers come from the rainforests
• Contribute your time and/or resources to the World Wide Fund for Nature
• Contribute to Ecoasia.org – a search engine that plants a tree for every 45 searches you run
• Explore Change.org petitions
• Donate to Amazon Watch – an organization that protects rainforests, defends indigenous rights and works to address climate change
• Donate to the Amazon Conservation Team
• Donate to the Amazon Conservation – it lists exactly what your money goes towards
• Donate to One Tree Planted that works to prevent deforestation all across the world
• Sign GreenPeace’s petition telling the Brazilian government to save the Amazon rainforest and protect the land of indigenous and traditional communities

Together, we need to wake up and realize that we need to protect our forests, our environment for us to survive, as well as to leave behind a live-able planet for our future generations. Let’s join hands and do this.