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The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland
Has Become an Inferno
This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland
in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned
in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich
and unique biome when so much is destroyed?
The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less
attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and
the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the
Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know
flock there because it is home to exceptionally high
concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs,
endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a
vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season
and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has
a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.
The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches
over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen
gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water
cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons
and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts.
They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the
climate.
For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and
new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change
turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of
control.
Catrin Einhorn, Maria Magdalena Arréllaga, Blacki Migliozzi
and Scott Reinhard. Oct. 13, 2020.
Internet: <www.nytimes.com> (adapeted)