Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe situation in the Amazon is “very urgent,”\nstressed Gerhard Dieterle, executive director of the International Tropical\nTimber Organisation, an intergovernmental agency group that promotes\nsustainable forestry use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is something that might affect the integrity of\nthe Amazon as a whole, because if the forest fires spread, the grasslands\nbecome more prone to forest fires,” Dieterle told AFP on the sidelines of\na conference on African development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Many experts fear it may be a tipping point” for\nthe rainforest, as the latest figures show a total of more than 82,000 fires\nblazing in Brazil, even as military aircraft and troops help battle them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than half of the fires are in the massive Amazon basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the blazes are down to natural causes, Dieterle\nsaid, but they are mostly started deliberately by farmers clearing land for\nagriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If tropical dense forests are affected by forest\nfires, they need many, many years to regroup. It will alter the climate, the\nlocal climate, the national climate and the regional climate. It will also have\nan influence on the global climate,” said the forestry expert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked about the G7’s $20 million pledge to combat the\nflames, Dieterle said it was “a beginning but much more is needed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is the national sovereignty of Brazil… if they\nask for funding, I think the world might be willing to provide more\nresources,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is the Amazon burning?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
An unprecedented number of fires have raged throughout\nBrazil in 2019, intensifying in August. There have been more than 74,000 fires\nso far this year, the most ever recorded by the country\u2019s National Institute\nfor Space Research (INPE). It\u2019s a roughly 80 percent jump compared to the\nnumber of fires the country experienced over the same time period in 2018. More\nthan half of those fires are taking place in the Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is this a big deal?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Everyone on the planet benefits from the health of the\nAmazon. As its trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, the Amazon\nplays a huge role in pulling planet-warming greenhouse gases out of the\natmosphere. Without it, climate change speeds up. But as the world\u2019s largest\nrainforest is eaten away by logging, mining, and agribusiness, it may not be\nable to provide the same buffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is this a hot topic politically?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
When Jair Bolsonaro was campaigning for office as a\nfar-right candidate, he called for setting aside less land in the Amazon for\nindigenous tribes and preservation, and instead making it easier for industry\nto come into the rainforest. Since his election in October 2018, Bolsonaro put\nthe Ministry of Agriculture in charge of the demarcation of indigenous\nterritories instead of the Justice Ministry, essentially \u201cletting the fox take\nover the chicken coop,\u201d according to one lawmaker. His policies have been politically\npopular among industry and agricultural interests in Brazil, even as they\u2019ve\nbeen condemned by Brazilian environmental groups and opposition lawmakers.\nHundreds of indigenous women stormed the country\u2019s capital on August 13th to\nprotest Bolsonaro\u2019s environmental rollbacks and encroachment of development on\nindigenous lands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How are the fires being fought?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\nOn August 24th, after weeks of international and\ninternal pressure, Bolsonaro deployed the military to help battle the fires,\nsending 44,000 troops to six states. Reuters reported the next day that\nwarplanes were dousing flames.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The fires tearing through the Amazon represent a “tipping point” for the health of the rainforest, the head of a top global forestry management body said on 28 August, urging the world to do more to save the trees. Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2019 The situation in the Amazon is “very urgent,” stressed Gerhard Dieterle, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[676],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-5596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-tipping-point"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5598,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596\/revisions\/5598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5596"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=5596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}