Thousands of people on Twitter shared the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia in conjunction with the blackening of the city of Sao Paulo as a result of smoke from the Amazon forest fires in the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Rondonia, more than 1,000 miles from Sao Paulo.
Many tweets are shocked that parts of the Amazon rainforest have been burning for three weeks. More than 700,000 tweets have been sent with the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia over the past 30 days, after the Amazon wildfires hit a record this year.
Why is the Amazon forest burning?
According to preliminary data compiled by the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE), about 870 square miles of Amazonian forests were destroyed by human-induced fires in July and exacerbated by drought caused by climate change caused by human activities. This represents a 278% increase in the amount of forest destroyed during the same period in 2018.
The largest forest in the world, the Amazon rainforest accounts for more than 60% of the remaining rainforests, providing 20% of the oxygen we breathe. These forests play a major role in mitigating climate change because of their ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Their loss puts living animals and plants at great risk. Thus, damage to biodiversity and soil makes it difficult for the rainforests to regenerate after these fires.
Some of the sad images are finally spreading about the Amazon fires
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