- More than two million hectares of the world’s largest wetland, Brazil’s Pantanal, have burned this year as agribusiness drains it, and climate change is drying it out, restricting river flows and allowing fires to spread.
- Many species depend on a healthy pantanal for their survival, including 2,000 species of plants, 580 species of birds, 271 species of fish, and 174 species of mammals and 57 amphibians, many of which are threatened or endangered.
- “To truly protect it, we need an immediate halt to further agricultural expansion, large-scale projects to restore land that has already burned, and bold global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the new paper argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Mongabay.
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The Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, is burning. This valuable ecosystem, full of unique flora and fauna, should be valued. Instead, it is being driven to extinction by the climate crisis and agribusiness.
This year alone, more than two million hectares of the Pantanal have turned to ash. The ancestral lands of the Kadiwéu and Guató indigenous people, where they had lived sustainably for generations, went up in flames. Hundreds of unique animals have been killed and once vibrant wetlands are drying up.
It’s part of a terrifying pattern of recent wildfires. In 2020, a third of the biome burned, killing 17 million vertebrates and releasing 115 million tons of carbon dioxide, the same amount as Belgium emitted in an entire year. Since then, the ecosystem has been struggling to recover, and the situation this year is even worse, with double the damage compared to the same period in 2020.
Many species need a healthy Pantanal to survive: over 2,000 plants, 580 birds, 271 fish, 174 mammals and 57 amphibians, many of which are threatened or endangered. It is usually a sanctuary for charismatic wildlife. It is home to jaguars, giant anteaters, hyacinth macaws, tapirs, marsh deer and many others. But the fires turned what should have been a refuge into an inevitable death trap.
Recently, jaguars suffering from second- and third-degree burns on all four paws were rescued in the southern Pantanal in Mato Grosso do Sul. Photo via Flickr: Álvaro Rezende / Governo de Mato Grosso do Sul.
Rescuers and veterinarians worked tirelessly to save these animals. The photos they sent us show helpless animals burned alive, others still alive with horrific injuries, while rescuers are desperately trying to save them. As of September 15, the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment reported that 619 animals had been rescued from the flames. However, the number of animals that died in the fires will obviously be orders of magnitude greater.
The Pantanal needs more firefighters, more funding and more support on the ground to deal with emerging fires. However, this is only a short-term solution and we need to address the root causes. Although the fires that are ravaging the land are often started by individual farmers, they are being intensified by a toxic mix of drought and extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, land clearing for cattle ranching and monoculture farming, mining, road building and hydropower. It is also largely unprotected – approximately 93% of the Pantanal is private land and 80% of it is used for cattle ranching.
International leaders must step up. Between 2012 and 2021, an area of native vegetation in the Pantaniel, four times the size of Paris, was destroyed on properties linked to the EU market. But even now, as the Pantanal burns every year, the agriculture ministers of South America and the EU, as well as the leaders of some Member States, are reportedly halting the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which aims to eliminate deforestation from EU supply chains.
Brazilian civil society organizations oppose this delay, making it clear that they do not represent their views. On the contrary, they call on European leaders to implement the rules quickly and then extend them to protect other ecosystems as well.
In addition to EUDR, the EU must quickly mobilize wetland funds. We cannot end the climate crisis without protecting them, and in the run-up to COP30 in Brazil, there is new funding for wetland partnerships.
Agribusiness and our global addiction to coal are drying up these wetlands, turning mighty rivers into corridors that further spread fires. Meanwhile, rich, high-emitting countries do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions, ensuring ideal conditions for more fires. These failures directly lead to animals being burned alive, the dispossession of local and indigenous communities from their ancestral lands, and even more greenhouse gas emissions from burning wetlands.
If we don’t act now, the Pantanal could effectively disappear by 2050, literally going up in smoke. To truly protect it, we need an immediate halt to further agricultural expansion, large-scale restoration projects on land that has already burned, and bold global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a net-zero global economy by 2035. These fires were a choice: we can and must create a better one now.
Steve Trent is the CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Banner image: Fire in the Pantanal. Photo courtesy of Gustavo Figueiroa via the Environmental Justice Foundation.
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