Troops redeployed by Brazil to save Amazon forests
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An order was published to redeploy the troops back to the Amazon to increase policing against logging and other illegal land clearance.
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Amid international criticism due to increase in deforestation and withdrawal of military mission from the area led President Jair Bolsonaro to redeploy troops in the Amazon forest.
Deforestation of Amazon rushed high since after 2018 when Jair Bolsonaro was elected President and he promised for the development of the rainforest. With pressure from US, Brazil President deployed two missions earlier. The last one ended in April 2021 but environmentalists have said that the military was not well prepared and had limited effectiveness. These missions were named as ‘Operation Green Brazil’.
In 2020 Amazon forests have fallen to great extent as to what was in 2008 and maximum deforestation had evidence of illegality, either done near springs, in protected areas or carried out without required authorization.
Brazilian government has sent the troops because of the intervention and pressure from US government to arrest climate change. Many feel that Bolsonaro has taken the step only to please US. Brazilian government also talks about lack of funds. US has promised to help only when it will see concrete signs of steps taken to save the forest.
The Amazon has experienced a more severe dry season in 2020 than in 2019, the reason scientists attribute in part to warming in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean pulling moisture away from South America.
The fires are not only burnt recently deforested areas and farmland, where ranchers set them to clear land, but are also increasingly burned virgin forest, an alarming trend that suggests the rainforest is becoming drier and more prone to fire.
Due to the warming of the North Atlantic drought is becoming a common phenomenon in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland. A study has also found that 23% of the wetlands that are home to the densest population of jaguars in the world have been burned.
