Smoke from the wildfires burning in the Amazon plunged São Paolo, 1,700 miles from the scenes of destruction, into an eerie darkness last Monday afternoon. The temporary blackout made it impossible for residents of Brazil’s largest city to ignore the ecological carnage taking place on the other side of their country. But the ruin of rainforest we are currently witnessing will reverberate far beyond the borders of Brazil in decades to come.
Home to 3m species – one in 10 of all known plants and animals on Earth – the Amazonian rainforest is the most biodiverse place on the planet. Three-quarters of plant species there are unique to the rainforest. The Amazon is also home to a million indigenous people, thousands of whom have lost their lives in recent decades defending the forest against commercial interests.
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