burned (an area roughly the size of Virginia) mals perished. “It’s such a big number, you forget tinental U.S. By one estimate, over a billion ani-a smoke plume large enough to cover the con-and at least 30 people dead, and had produced how much suffering is involved,” says Gerardo he numbers are difficult to left more than 27 million acres nation’s latest fire season had of Australia still ablaze, the January, with many sections even comprehend. By late
reduction worldwide for the global nonprofit fires, and they can’t escape them by climbing into Wfurther through lightning strikes. One such strike traveled to Australia to provide technical assis-tance). “Animals can’t necessarily outrun the Huertas, who leads disaster operations and risk trees. Koalas, for instance, live in eucalyptus trees, which catch fire like they’re made of gasoline.” Some wildfires were so hot they generated their own storm systems, which then spread fire even was responsible for the fire tornado on Kangaroo orld Animal Protection (and who recently
of biodiversity it’s been likened to Noah’s Ark—the intensity of these particular fires is unprece-where half the island’s koala population, which numbered around 50,000, was feared dead. And the fires there are just the latest in a series the country began keeping records 109 years ago. Island—a wildlife sanctuary with such a high level dented, and while poor land management plays a role, so does human-caused climate change. Last year was the hottest and driest in Australia since of uniquely intense wildfires around the world. Wildfires have always occurred naturally, but
fornia, then Borneo, and now Australia—the scale “There were the fires in the Amazon, then Cali-of these fires is much worse than it has ever been,” says Sebastian Troëng, executive vice president of the environmental nonprofit Conservation International. “It makes you wonder where will be next.” sustain an additional 2.25 billion acres of forest One potential way forward was suggested by a study in the journal that there is enough vacant land on the planet to It also makes you wonder what can be done. Science last July, which found
forests matured, they could store more than 200 and launched a program to restore 70,000 acres, gigatons of carbon, helping counteract roughly two-thirds of all man-made carbon emissions. In 2017, Conservation International made refor-estation a key part of its climate change strategy without shrinking cities or farms. Once these or about 73 million trees, in the Brazilian Amazon. “To avoid the climate tipping point, we have to cut our emissions in half by 2030,” says Nikola Alex-andre, a restoration fellow at the organization. (Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
the world has warmed by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit;T
SUMMER’S AMAZON WILDFIRES, MANY OF WHICH OCCURRED IN AREAS THAT HAD BEEN SMOKE RISES FROM LAST RECENTLY DEFORESTED.
Fashioning Change |PERSPECTIVES
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