Fires in Bolivia: an unprecedented environmental disaster

According to the National Institute of Agriculture, an area of ​​6.3 million hectares burned last year. By October 8 this year, there were already 9.8 million hectares. Between 2019 and 2022, the destroyed area reached between four and five million hectares. For comparison: Austria's national territory extends over approximately 8.4 million hectares.

61 percent of the fires affected forests, and 39 percent affected grass and wastelands. The Bolivia government declared a state of emergency two weeks ago, making it easier to use additional financial resources to fight the fire.

Maximum number of fire sources

The number of fires in Bolivia has tripled compared to the same period last year. This emerges from data from the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE), which is responsible for monitoring satellites. According to INPE, there have been 85,500 fires so far this year, the highest number since records began in 1998. The NGO Fundacion Tierra describes 2024 as “the year of the worst environmental disaster in Bolivia’s history.”

The eastern area of ​​Santa Cruz was the most affected. There, volunteer firefighters have been battling flames for months in a small village inside the Valle de Tocavaca Nature Reserve. “There are very few professional firefighters here, and if it were not for volunteers, a lot of forests here would have burned,” German biologist Steven Reichl told the German news agency.

A devastating fire year in South America

South America has seen its most devastating fire so far this year. From January to mid-September, fires broke out in nearly 350,000 places in 13 countries on the continent – ​​a level never reached since records began in 1998. Many people were killed.

The worst fires in 14 years have broken out in Brazil. National Institute for Space Research data shows that 210,208 fires were recorded nationwide by the end of September, compared to 111,895 in the same period last year. This is an increase of 87 percent and is the highest value for this period since 2010.

Particularly affected were the Amazon rainforest, the humid savannah of southeastern Brazil, called the Cerrado, and the world's largest tropical wetland, the Pantanal. From January 1 to September 30, 2024, the number of fires recorded in the Amazon increased by 80 percent compared to the same period last year, in the Cerrado by 86 percent and in the Pantanal by up to 1,427 percent.

More than 10,000 fires have been recorded in Peru since the beginning of the year. The government declared a state of emergency. Conservation groups say the fires have caused devastating damage to various ecosystems; Thousands of wild animals are believed to have died. In Ecuador, forest fires swept through parts of the capital, Quito, in September. Colombia and Paraguay have also been severely affected in recent weeks.

The worst drought in decades

Many South American countries are suffering from the worst drought in decades. In Brazil, 60 percent of the country was affected by severe drought in September. For the first time, the drought extends from north to southeast, Ana Paula Cunha, a researcher at the National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Early Warning, told the Associated Press. “It is the most severe drought in history,” Cunha said.

The Amazon region has also been affected by significantly lower water levels in the border region between Brazil, Colombia and Peru. “Water levels have dropped by 80 to 90 percent in the past three months due to drought caused by climate change,” the Colombian Civil Protection Agency said. Bolivia's INRA head, Eulogio Nunez, said climate change is making the situation worse.

Because of drought, fires can spread quickly. The specific cause of fires is usually intentional burning to create livestock pastures or growing areas for animal feed such as soybeans. INRA Director Nunez called for greater focus on alternatives to the use of slash-and-burn agriculture in agriculture.

Fires release huge amounts of carbon

Wildfires in South America have caused unusually high carbon emissions so far this year. The European Union's Copernicus atmospheric monitoring service said that by September 19, 183 megatonnes of carbon had been released in Brazil alone. This was said to mean that emissions in 2024 would be similar to those recorded in the record year 2007.

In Bolivia, emissions from forest fires are already at their highest levels since records began: by mid-September, the previous emissions record for all of 2010 was 73 megatonnes;