Fires in the Amazon Rainforest: Global Emergency Demands Immediate Action

The Amazon rainforest, its peoples and biodiversity are burning, as the number of fires has been increasing over the past weeks, exacerbating the socio-environmental crisis in the region. Despite claims of leadership in the global climate agenda, mobilization for the Amazon at national and international level at this time of extreme urgency has been insufficient and slow.

While the combination of low levels of rainfall and high temperatures –consequences of climate change– creates conditions for forest fires to spread rapidly and uncontrollably, most fires are not spontaneous. The Amazon rainforest is a humid environment where natural fire occurs only rarely. Scientists warn that fire is most often the result of human activity, often driven by extractive industries, monoculture, illicit activities – all human-driven actions that cause deforestation.

To a large extent, the public calamity that the Amazon is currently experiencing could have been avoided with concrete actions to stop its destruction, and investments for climate adaptation. These fires are the consequence of ignoring the warnings of Indigenous Peoples, environmental experts, and scientists.

In Peru, the government recently attempted to shift blame, falsely attributing fires to “ancestral practices”. Scandalously, instead of urgently responding to the emergency, on September 14, it announced $1.75 billion in financing for the state oil company Petroperú, which has a long history of oil drilling and impacting Indigenous Territories in the Amazon. With this financing, the total cost of the Talara Refinery, owned by Petroperú, will represent almost 10% of the country’s federal budget.

At the same time, big banks continue to finance oil and gas extraction in the Amazon. Stand’s 2023 Capitalizing on Collapse report tracked, from 2019 to 2023, over $20 billion dollars in direct financing from just eight banks to oil and gas companies operating in the region. The recently launched Greenwashing the Amazon report further revealed that, on average, 71% of the Amazon is not effectively protected through the environmental and social risk management frameworks of the five top financiers of Amazon oil and gas – Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Santander, and Bank of America. 

Those who suffer the most from the lack of strong commitment to the Amazon are Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities. Already burdened by intersecting inequalities –of gender, age, sexual orientation, disability and socioeconomic status–, they bear the weight of a disaster they did not cause. In Brazil, a recent investigation by Infoamazonia revealed fires on Indigenous lands have reached record highs in 2024. Between July 1 and September 10 this year, the country registered 8,164 hot spots on Indigenous lands, an increase of 221% compared to the same period over the past two decades. 

This emergency affects not only those who live in the Amazon, but the whole world. Last week, the region was the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses on the planet. Several cities have been hit by the smoke from the fires –which has reached even non-Amazonian countries in South America like Argentina and Paraguay– severely affecting air quality and saturating public health systems. The destruction of the world’s largest rainforest threatens global food security, as it disrupts rainfall and impacts food production. 

There is no room for climate crisis denial. As the UN Summit of the Future and Climate Week begin, we stand in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities of the Amazon, and call for global action now. We urge governments to declare a state of emergency in the Amazon, and strengthen regional and international cooperation to combat fires, expedite investigations, punish environmental crimes, and establish stronger enforcement mechanisms. This is the time for countries to establish a global pact to permanently protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025. Banks and international financial institutions must stop financing the destruction of the forest, and instead, direct resources toward Indigenous Peoples- and local communities-led solutions for its conservation.

Photo: Vinícius Mendonça/Ibama