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.
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| Fires between the cities of Miranda e Corumbá. Image by Chico Ribeiro/Governo MT. |
A fire has been burning in the world’s largest tropical wetlands, the Pantanal, since mid-July. The Pantanal wetlands, situated in west-central Brazil, sprawls over more than 1,50,000 sq km and also extends into Bolivia and Paraguay. The Pantanal derives its name from the Portuguese word for 'swamp'.
The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its northern sibling. 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, caymans, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws.
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| Indigenous people warn that, aside from destroying vegetation and killing animals, fires affect rivers and leave them vulnerable to silting up. Image by Gustavo Figueiroa/SOS Pantanal. |
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, acting as carbon sink helping to stabilize the climate.
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| Pantanal - the world's largest tropical wetlands. |
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.
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