Forget The Amazon Hype, Fires Globally Have Declined 25% Since 2003 Thanks To Economic Growth

Forbes
The land area burned by fire has declined 25% from 2003-2019 Nasa | James Alexander Michie

The land area burned by fire has declined 25% from 2003-2019 thanks to economic growth. Nasa

It is already well known that the Amazon is a vast region of the central and northern part of South America that includes the rainforest of the Amazon River basin. This Amazon rainforest is the most extensive tropical forest in the world. It is considered that its extension reaches 7,000,000 km² also stands out as one of the ecoregions with the greatest biodiversity on the planet.

In relation to the Amazon, the news about the forest fires that are affecting the Brazilian Amazon has shocked the entire world, because of the images of complete destruction and lack of control that the fire has caused in one of the vital areas of the planet.

And it has been made headlines by The New York Times, CNN and the mainstream media around the world that ensure that the entire world is burning. In fact, they have claimed that the Amazon could soon “self-destruct”. Likewise, they have emphasized that in consequence of the fires the world’s largest rainforest could be erased from the earth.

Fires Globally declining

As already mentioned before, the media have been in charge of informing the world that in case enough tropical [Amazon] rainforest is lost and it cannot be restored, consequently the area would become savanna that of course would not store so much carbon, which would bring a significant reduction in the ‘lung capacity’ of the planet.

Although it is being claimed that fires worldwide are on the rise, but they are not. In fact, NASA has indicated that there was a huge 25 percent decrease in the burned area from 2003 to 2019. Certainly it has been said that the fires that have occurred in recent years are caused by economic growth, however, The truth is quite the opposite since the amount of land being burned is decreasing thanks to development, including urbanization.

This is because the amount of land converted into ranches and farms has decreased, not increased and because more is being done with machines than with fire. For the past 35 years, the world has been reforesting, which means that the growth of new trees has overcome deforestation. The area of forest-covered Earth has increased in an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined.

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Source: Michael Shellenberger | Forbes

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