Why in news?
Amazon rain forests had caught fire.
More information:
- The Amazon Biome spans approximately 6.7 million square kilometres, which is twice the size of India.
- The area’s rainforest generates more than 20% of the world’s oxygen and is home to 10% of the world’s known biodiversity.
- The Amazon is referred to as the “lungs of the planet” and plays a major role in regulating the climate.
- The basin is shared by eight countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname), as well as the overseas territory of French Guiana.
- Approximately 60% of the Amazon Basin is located within Brazil.
- Amazonian forests and other tropical rainforest regions were completely immune to fires because of the high moisture content of the undergrowth beneath the protection of the canopy tree cover.
- But poor farming practices have resulted in these forest fires.
- Many of the tens of thousands of fires that were detected in the Amazon in August 2019 were lit by farmers as part of slash-and-burn agriculture.
- As the number of fires increase, greenhouse gas emissions do too which makes the planet’s overall temperature rise.
