- VOX
- This year has seen some of the most catastrophic wildfires in world history, from Australia to the Amazon rainforest to the western United States. But the world’s largest tropical wetland, covering parts of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, has been on fire for several months. [CNN / Ivana Kottasová, Henrik Pettersson, and Krystina Shveda]
- The Pantanal wetlands, home to many endangered species, burned at a faster rate in October than any previous month since such records began being kept in 1998. The blazes have scorched an area larger than all of Belgium. [Bloomberg / Simone Preissler Iglesias]
- Conditions in the region were ripe for fires this year. The Pantanal is the world’s largest floodplain, and in April, at the end of the rainy season, the area normally floods more than two feet off the ground. This year, likely due in large part to climate change, the floods never came. [Reuters]
- Roughly a quarter of the wetland has burned in 2020, with devastating effects for an area that stores huge amounts of carbon, which helps stabilize the climate. The area is also home to a huge variety of rare animal life, from jaguars to otters to large parrots. [NYT / Catrin Einhorn, Maria Magdalena Arréllaga, Blacki Migliozzi, and Scott Reinhard]
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