'Fighting wildfires should be just an incident—not the rule'
🌐 Ane Alencar, IPAM's science director, on managing fire risk in Brazil.
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
WorldWise readers—
As the fire burning across Greater Los Angeles grabs the headlines, I’m thinking about how much harder it’s becoming to ignore the costs of failing to take seriously how the planet is changing. People, nature, infrastructure, economies—it’s all on the line. A reality that’s now touching Hollywood, not ‘just’ farmland in the Global South.
The place and the details may differ, but similar reports were coming through a few weeks back from South America. At the time, I reached out via the Science Panel for the Amazon to a Brazilian scientist who knows fire well. The brief conversation that follows is a reminder of how knowledge can help us feel more in control of events that in pre-scientific times may have seemed an act of God.
Risks can be managed—and that only becomes possible when leaders know enough to value knowledge in the first place, never mind how to use it.
Anita
INSIGHT | views & analysis
The fire was in the air.
When Ane Alencar got on the phone for our conversation, her voice was struggling to come through. The cough was relentless at times.
“I'm not [even] in the worst place in Brazil,” she explains. People in other parts of the country—closer to the blazes—really had it bad with the breathing problems.
That was last October. Brazil was still in the grip of a record-high fire season. Other countries in the region, Ecuador and Peru included, would also struggle with fire emergencies for weeks to come.
I asked if we should continue, offered to interrupt at any time. But we went ahead—why else, other than how important it is to talk about this—keeping it as brief as possible.
Thinking about fire is a big part of Alencar’s work. A geographer by training, she is now the science director of IPAM: the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, an independent research body founded some 30 years ago in Brazil. Much of her research is dedicated to understanding how the Amazon has become more susceptible to forest fires—working with satellite imagery to understand fire patterns, their relationship with how land use and the climate are changing, and the resilience of forests.
Speaking from Brasilia—in an interview edited for length and clarity as usual—Alencar brings scientific knowledge to the table to shed light on some of the complexity behind what’s making fire a growing risk, and strategies to manage it.
AM: What would you say is the main reason that wildfires in Brazil are becoming stronger these past few years?
AL: For sure, this year fire activity up to September [was the] worst since 2007 in terms of number of hot pixels [digital map units], which represent fire activity. The thing that makes us very worried is that we had a major reduction in deforestation. The process of deforestation is one important element to increase fire use in the landscape. But in the past two years we have been, fortunately, reducing deforestation [by a lot]—which [is] really good news because we are having still a major problem with drought, strong drought that started in 2023.
The fire season—when people use fire in the Amazon for their agriculture—was really, really dry. We had, as a result, an increase in forest fires, and an increase in burned area, even though we had a major reduction in deforestation. So if we didn't have that drought, [we] probably would have much less burned area.
Of course it's not completely correct to blame only the weather or the climate. If people were not using fire, we wouldn't have the same situation. So it's a mix of both things. [When] the landscape is very flammable, for sure [the] likelihood of fires to escape and burn a much larger area, including forest, is high.
Have you seen—whether in the Amazon or more generally—any substantial changes, improvements in policy to deal with the problem?
I can see that policy improvements to fight deforestation were really important to not let this crisis to scale up even more. It was important that the government put a lot of effort to do that. People were talking about how the Amazon, and in Brazil almost as a whole, we had lots of fire going on. But in fact, if we didn't have focus on reducing deforestation, we would be in a much worse situation. So I think that was one step forward that was important.
But of course, we still had fire spread. Because that happened in many places at the same time, the government also started to learn more [about] how to deal with this crisis all over Brazil without [many] resources. Fighting wildfires, or accidents with fire, should be something that is just an incident—not the rule. But what we noticed in 2024 is that with lots of fires happening in [the] Pantanal, Cerrado, Amazon, São Paulo, at the same time, it was hard for the government to face that.
Another important point [is that] the responsibility to deal with fires, it's not only from the federal government. It depends: if it's in private properties, it's [on] firefighters that belong to the states. The responsibility from the federal government is to fight fires in federal lands: some protected areas, some Indigenous lands, other public lands. So the responsibility is shared among different government decision-makers and stakeholders.
I imagine this also makes it more complicated to manage, because it needs coordination—it makes it easier for one unit to pass on the responsibility to another, that sort of thing.
Exactly, and that coordination is crucial. That's why it was really important, in the middle of the crisis, that the President signed a law on integrated fire management. Because that law helped to organise the structure of how institutions [should] deal with that in a moment of crisis. The law also allows states to create programmes of integrated fire management. Some ecosystems in Brazil do have fire as part of their ecology in their process. So if we completely take out fire from these landscapes, it can generate conditions that facilitate fire to spread and gain force.
The Amazon is completely another world, in a way. Integrated fire management law there would actually talk about prevention. I think we should, at least [there], really move towards reducing the use of fire in the landscape. Of course, we have thousands to millions of people in the Amazon that do rely on fire to do slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture, and that would be harder to fight. But it's [also] not in their interest [to have] fire escape to their nearby forest. Because these nearby forests are their supermarkets.
📌 Learn more in the SPA policy brief Amazonia on Fire: Perspectives from the SPA on the 2024 Wildfire Emergency.
GLOBAL BRIEFING | around the world
Spotlight on…a new year era
Environmental action | As 2024 drew to a close, Aaron Clark wrote for Bloomberg about the series of “disappointing” results of UN meetings on climate change, biodiversity and plastic pollution—resonating with our end-of-year round-up of environmental action on the global stage. “This year could see a rise in “minilateralism”, whereby small groups of states and multi-sectoral coalitions form alliances to address common priorities”, he concludes.
Development & humanitarian aid | This year marks the beginning of a new era in international development, according to Devex editor Raj Kumar, who makes out five future trends in the sector, including less money for the UN and more emphasis on short-term responses over long-term development. The editors of The New Humanitarian lay out some key trends likely to drive up levels of humanitarian need this year. On the SDGs, the editors of Nature argue for reforming the rules of global finance, which they say is a key reason behind the global failure to make progress with the goals. The view is echoed by Mariana Mazzucato in a blog for the UN.
Globalisation & cooperation | International cooperation has now “flatlined” after positive trends for the past decade, according to an index developed by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company. Multilateral peacekeeping is also winding down, according to The Economist. In “Never Too Much”, a review of Martin Wolf’s The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism published in the New York Review, Trevor Jackson asks if a just economy is achievable as democracy and globalization retreat both in practice and as ideologies. Globalisation has been on the back foot since Brexit and Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency in 2016—now, it’s fallen to a “final defeat”, Rajan Menon writes in The New Statesman.
The news in context
What happened: Incoming US president Donald Trump has ramped up talk of buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, which lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
The goal? A strategic advantage by accessing energy-significant resources: natural gas, oil and critical minerals, which the territory has in abundance, say Rachel Rizzo of the Atlantic Council and Vince Beiser in Power Metal. But territorial expansion could also be a motivation, according to the Atlantic Council.
Meanwhile: The Economist is running away with the idea. Ever the pragmatist in the room, it’s moved on to calculate a “decent price”, calling a potential purchase “the deal of the century”. Trump is also talking about seizing the Panama Canal, which The Economist believes has to do with gaining strategic advantage over China.
A wider lens: The United States isn’t alone in seeking to benefit from the changes ushered in by climate change. All the way across the globe to the Antarctic, a visit by Chilean president—his environment and defence ministers in tow—to the country’s Union Glacier Station, signals a geopolitical tussle emerging over land, resources and security, writes James Bosworth for World Politics Review.
News highlights
🏗 On development
The resource-hungry nature of AI and data centres is getting more attention for undermining sustainability goals by gobbling up water, land, metals and minerals, Lynn Doan reports for Bloomberg (though a follow-up story by Naureen Malik this week points out that homes are by far the biggest consumers—that’s in the US). Data centres associated with AI are also behind a rise in carbon emissions in recent years, a trend expected to continue, James O’Donnell writes for MIT Tech Review. AI is also responsible for e-waste, Vince Beiser points out in Power Metal.
The Economist reports that China is going ahead with the world’s most expensive infrastructure project: building the largest-ever hydroelectric dam, on the Yarlung Tsangpo. Dubbed the “Everest of rivers”, it falls by 2,000 metres over a stretch of 50 kilometres. It also flows from Tibet into India and Bangladesh.
Indonesia has officially joined the BRICS bloc of emerging economies, according to multiple reports including this one in Al Jazeera. Six other countries joined at the same time—Malaysia, Cuba, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Bolivia, Thailand and Uganda—according to a report by Geoffrey York in The Globe and Mail, which focuses on the fact that Russia has so far failed to persuade Saudi Arabia and Turkey to join the club.
Ivory Coast has announced that French troops have been asked to leave the country after decades, the latest African country to turn away from military presence by its former colonial power, Toussaint N’Gotta reports for AP.
Ecuador has agreed a US$1.5 billion debt swap with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which will secure US$460 million for conservation in the Amazon over the next 17 years, according to the DFC.
The EU is signing agreements with Latin American countries to meet its demand for lithium and other critical raw materials, Inês Trindade Pereira reports for Euronews.
The Taliban have signed deals with investors from China, Russia and Iran to mine gemstones, gold, copper and other valuable minerals, David Zucchino reports for The New York Times.
Cocoa farmers in Ghana, the world’s second largest producer of the crop, are stuck in poverty as the country’s regulations leave them no choice on sale prices or buyers, Olatunji Olaigbe & Ibrahim Khalilulahi Usman report in Eco Media.
🔥 On climate change
2024 was the Earth’s hottest year on record, scientific agencies have confirmed after preliminary reports late last year. Multiple media reported that for the first time, temperatures have crossed the threshold 1.5C above pre-industrial levels—the hottest day ever recorded was on July 21st. But scientists are puzzled by the rate at which temperatures are rising, which is higher than what’s been predicted by solid models, Zoë Schlanger writes in the Atlantic and Eric Roston in Bloomberg.
As carbon trading becomes more central to the world’s efforts to tackle climate change—see our previous post—Shi Yi reports for Dialogue Earth that credits procured to offset greenhouse gas emissions by some major companies never even existed, reflecting the fraud and quality scandals that come with carbon markets.
Colombia is going through a bumpy economic ride as it pushes sustainability initiatives to cut dependence on fossil fuels, Andrea Jaramillo reports for Bloomberg.
Farmers in Malawi are covered by an unusual form of insurance bought by the government, which can pay out during severe droughts but risks becoming a substitute for direct aid to poor countries, Gautam Naik reports for Bloomberg.
Brazil has seen a dramatic rise of climate-fuelled disasters over recent years, compared to the two previous decades, the AFP reports based on a study by the Brazilian Alliance for Ocean Literacy.
🌱 On the environment
Global warming is changing how water moves around the Earth, leading to water-related disasters that claimed more than 8,700 lives, displaced 40 million people and caused some $550billion in economic damage, Damian Carrington reports for the Guardian.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by 30.6% in 2023, the highest decline in nine years, as a result of stronger environmental policies ushered in by a change in government, Jesse Chase-Lubitz reports for Devex.
In Mexico’s San Cristóbal city, home to 200,000 people, a Coca-Cola bottling plant is allowed to extract more than 1.14 million litres of water a day from a nearby basin, leaving the region’s rural residents water-deprived, Peter Yeung reports for Al Jazeera.
Plastic waste is polluting even the world’s remote Arctic regions, Johnny Langenheim reports for The National Geographic.
🦠 On global health
A surge in cases of meningitis in Africa is linked to sand and dust storms worsened by climate change and dry conditions, David Njagi reports for Devex. Sand can travel for miles south of the Sahara Desert, carrying meningitis spores with them.
One year after the glacial floods in the Himalayas, many local residents are suffering from mental health disorders such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress, Diwash Gahatraj writes for Think Global Health.
The Russian Ministry of Health has said it has developed and is ready to roll out a vaccine against cancer, but without giving specifics on evidence behind the claim or the types of cancer targeted, Hatty Willmoth reports for Newsweek.
Seeking solutions
💡 A Brazilian programme that launched two decades ago to provide cash to poor residents has cut TB cases and deaths by over 50%, adding to a growing body of evidence of the health benefits of receiving cash transfers, Gabrielle Emanuel reports for NPR Goats & Soda.
“Recipients can spend the money as they please. But they must meet certain requirements: sending their kids to school and regular check-ups for pregnant women and kids, including prenatal visits and childhood vaccinations.”
💡 A project in Trinidad is encouraging traditional ways of building homes using resilient construction styles and natural materials such as clay, grass, plastic and glass, rather than concrete or other imported materials, Amy Li Baksh reports for BBC Future.
“Every other structure has touches of the earth. Clay, harvested from the land nearby; timber from the trees further back on the farm; repurposed glass bottles of all colours that glitter as the light hits them; rounded formations that only hint at the old, upcycled tires buried underneath to provide structure; and textured walls containing patchworks of dried grasses.”
💡 Nine farmers have managed to grow fruits and vegetables through peak salinity at the end of the dry season in Bangladesh after training in specialised techniques by a multilateral public-private partnership, Rachel Parsons reports for Earth Island Journal.
“The collaboration has yielded a simple, replicable, low-tech method that has so far trained more than 30,000 farmers in this region, brought thousands of acres of land back into production, and boosted incomes for some of Bangladesh’s poorest citizens.”
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UPDATE | from the network
Forward planning: For BBC Future, Jocelyn Timperley and Isabelle Gerretsen lay out the seven big climate and nature moments coming in 2025. The most anticipated summits of the year are outlined by Ashley Ray and Julia Katsovich for the Council of Foreign Relations. The Stockholm Environment Institute is hosting a webinar this month to explore emerging trends and key issues shaping global sustainability agendas.
Critical data: The Asian Development Bank and the World Trade Organisation have launched a database on trade in critical minerals. It offers information on trade flows, networks, tariffs and more, and it does this for 250 critical minerals or related products across value chains, according to a press release.
Defending the Earth: In December, UNEP announced the recipients of its 2024 Champions of the Earth award, the UN’s highest environmental honour for people at the forefront of efforts to protect the planet. They are: Sonia Guajajara, Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples; Amy Bowers Cordalis, an Indigenous rights advocate; Gabriel Paun, a Romanian environmental defender; Lu Qi, a Chinese scientist; Madhav Gadgil, an Indian ecologist; and SEKEM, a sustainable agriculture initiative working in Egypt.
PLUS | in other editions
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