UN, France call for the protection of fire-plagued Amazon rainforest

United Nations and France has called for the protection of the fire-plagued Amazon rainforest. The extent of the area damaged by fires has yet to be determined, but smoke has choked Sao Paulo and several other Brazilian cities in the past week. 

Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year, the highest number for any year since 2013. UN chief Antonio Guterres said that he was deeply concerned by the fires. In a tweet yesterday, he said, in the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity and the Amazon must be protected.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said, the wildfires were an international crisis and called on the globe’s most industrialized nations to address it at G-7 this weekend. Paraguay and Bolivia are battling separate wildfires that have devastated large areas of their rainforests. 

The Hindu