Good morning! Today, fire alerts skyrocket in the Amazon. More on yesterday’s controversial crackdown on businessmen engaging in coup chats. And Brazil’s baby bust.
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A new ‘Fire Day’
Between August 10 and 11, 2019, landowners in the northern Brazilian state of Pará banded together to set a wave of illegal fires on their properties, illegally destroying natural vegetation in a coordinated effort dubbed “Fire Day.” Over the two days, the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) tallied 1,457 fire outbreaks in the state — and that record was beaten yesterday.
The Amazon is burning. In the state of Pará alone, Inpe recorded a total of 2,238 fires between Sunday and yesterday. For the Amazon as a whole, there were 3,358 alerts on Monday alone.
Fire season. An increase in fires across Brazil’s Amazon region is to be expected in the month of August, as the climate becomes dry and fires spread more easily. However, according to Ane Alencar, science officer at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam), Monday was “the worst...