🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 99 (from laksa017)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa099.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction","crawl_time":1773904653,"first_indexed_time":1599045440,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,theguardian!www,\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction s443","src_root_hash":"4161074618625082499","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke | Brazil | The Guardian","meta_descriptions":["The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating fires and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Jair Bolsonaro\nsmiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.\nBut 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused\nglobal outrage\n– the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.\nThe entrance to Novo Progresso.\nPhotograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\nDuring a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below.\nElsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve.\n“The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s\nenfeebled environmental agency\n, Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts.\n“Under this government there will be no combating [of rainforest destruction],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.”\nUnder pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron\ncondemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon\n– Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive.\n“This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro\ninsisted\nearlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary.\nIn May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which\nsome claim is making things worse\n.\nIn July, as\npressure from international investors intensified\n, Brazil\nannounced a four-month ban\non burning designed to reassure the world something was being done.\nBut satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon –\nthe highest number since 1998\nand nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900.\nAn illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land,\nPhotograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\nGreenpeace\ncalculated\nthat despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year.\n“We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas.\nDuring a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation.\n“We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home [because of coronavirus],” he said.\n“Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that\ngovernment inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic\n.”\nA monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.”\nBep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance.\nKayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August.\nPhotograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n“What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection.\nHe called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.”\nThe chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”.\nEnvironmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing.\n“This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because\nthe president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric\n– and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.\n“The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.”\nFire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August.\nPhotograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\nBatista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to\nhis denialist handling of coronavirus\n, which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.”\nThe former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.”\nLast week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry.\nRittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”.\n“Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.”","attrs_markdown":"![](https:\/\/sb.scorecardresearch.com\/p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1&cs_ucfr=0&comscorekw=world)\n\n[Skip to main content](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#maincontent)[Skip to navigation](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#navigation)\n\nClose dialogue\n\n1\/5\n\nNext image\n\nPrevious image\n\nToggle caption\n\n[Skip to navigation](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#navigation)\n\n[Print subscriptions](https:\/\/support.theguardian.com\/subscribe\/weekly?REFPVID=mmx51jmf9bdgsfrua6d3&INTCMP=undefined&acquisitionData=%7B%22source%22%3A%22GUARDIAN_WEB%22%2C%22componentId%22%3A%22PrintSubscriptionsHeaderLink%22%2C%22componentType%22%3A%22ACQUISITIONS_HEADER%22%2C%22referrerPageviewId%22%3A%22mmx51jmf9bdgsfrua6d3%22%2C%22referrerUrl%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2020%2Fsep%2F02%2Famazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction%22%7D)\n\n[Search jobs](https:\/\/jobs.theguardian.com\/)\n\n[Sign in](https:\/\/profile.theguardian.com\/signin?INTCMP=DOTCOM_NEWHEADER_SIGNIN&ABCMP=ab-sign-in&componentEventParams=componentType%3Didentityauthentication%26componentId%3Dguardian_signin_header)\n\nEur\n\n- [Europe edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/eur)\n- [UK edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/uk)\n- [US edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/us)\n- [Australia edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/au)\n- [International edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/int)\n\n[The Guardian - 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Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nThis article is more than **5 years old**\n\n# Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke\nThis article is more than 5 years old\n\nFire and deforestation scar the Iriri national forest reserve near Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon. ‘This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,’ according to President Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nThe vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating fires and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility\n\nBy Lucas Landau in Novo Progresso and [Tom Phillips](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/profile\/tomphillips)\n\nWed 2 Sep 2020 18.20 CEST\n\nFirst published on Wed 2 Sep 2020 11.15 CEST\n\n[Share](<mailto:?subject=Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke&body=https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction?CMP=share_btn_url>)\n\n[Prefer the Guardian on Google](https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=theguardian.com)\n\n[Jair Bolsonaro](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/jair-bolsonaro) smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.\n\nBut 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused [global outrage](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/aug\/23\/amazon-fires-what-is-happening-anything-we-can-do) – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.\n\n![The entrance to Novo Progresso.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/11dc62946d5f5b5c7bf2e4f38827905b9811bf14\/0_187_5608_3365\/master\/5608.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\n[View image in fullscreen](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-2)\n\nThe entrance to Novo Progresso. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nDuring a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below.\n\nElsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve.\n\n“The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s [enfeebled environmental agency](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation), Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts.\n\n“Under this government there will be no combating \\[of rainforest destruction\\],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.”\n\nUnder pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron [condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/24\/macron-rallies-g7-to-fight-brazilian-amazon-fires-threatens-sanctions-bolsonaro) – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive.\n\n“This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro [insisted](https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-brazil-environment-fires\/brazils-bolsonaro-calls-surging-amazon-fires-a-lie-idUSKCN2572WB) earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary.\n\n[![A fire burns a tract of the Amazon jungle near the Xavante indigenous people's land in Pimentel Barbosa, Mato Grosso state, Brazil September 4, 2019. REUTERS\/Lucas Landau](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/37e2df67dca5a8223cee9bb1055e0bdedc5ef681\/0_158_3164_1899\/master\/3164.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=9d7ea1572761f234d02ebcefeed674a9)'Chaos, chaos, chaos': a journey through Bolsonaro's Amazon inferno Read more](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/sep\/09\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest)\n\nIn May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which [some claim is making things worse](https:\/\/apnews.com\/0ed3562a94f5b20b561adbbd11b20731).\n\nIn July, as [pressure from international investors intensified](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2020\/jun\/23\/trillion-dollar-investors-warn-brazil-over-dismantling-of-environmental-policies), Brazil [announced a four-month ban](https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/2020\/07\/brazil-bows-to-pressure-from-business-decrees-120-day-amazon-fire-ban\/) on burning designed to reassure the world something was being done.\n\nBut satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon – [the highest number since 1998](https:\/\/g1.globo.com\/am\/amazonas\/noticia\/2020\/08\/29\/com-mais-de-7-mil-registros-no-de-focos-de-queimadas-no-am-em-agosto-e-o-maior-dos-ultimos-22-anos.ghtml) and nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900.\n\n![Gold mining site called Coringa (garimpo do Coringa), located inside the Baú Indigenous Land. 13 August 2020.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2b413cf29d45246fc37c7996202b57e1373077eb\/0_472_7139_4286\/master\/7139.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\n[View image in fullscreen](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-3)\n\nAn illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land, Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nGreenpeace [calculated](https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/brasil\/blog\/moratoria-do-fogo-e-desrespeitada-e-queimadas-seguem-em-alta-na-amazonia\/) that despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year.\n\n“We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas.\n\nDuring a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation.\n\n“We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home \\[because of coronavirus\\],” he said.\n\n“Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that [government inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation).”\n\nA monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.”\n\nBep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance.\n\n![Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/99e9041cb43a359a7e6ec290ddda7e7769d45fb2\/0_258_7731_4639\/master\/7731.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\n[View image in fullscreen](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-4)\n\nKayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\n“What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection.\n\nHe called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.”\n\n[![0435-ATALAIA DO NORTE. BRASIL REUNION LIDERES Tumi Matis. TERMS OF USE: As agreed, they are free of charge for the exclusive use of Tom Phillips´ article, for further uses please advise for agreement.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5f9b9e6454e4292b988271b3fe33585a52393845\/0_179_6720_4032\/master\/6720.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=96b2ab670d305ce52baf53a823c52fb7)'He wants to destroy us': Bolsonaro poses gravest threat in decades, Amazon tribes say Read more](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jul\/26\/bolsonaro-amazon-tribes-indigenous-brazil-dictatorship)\n\nThe chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”.\n\nEnvironmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing.\n\n“This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because [the president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/oct\/24\/bolsonaro-backers-wage-war-on-the-rainforest) – and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.\n\n“The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.”\n\n![Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará. 25 August 2020.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/83d6df3c4d849a7b7142e539943d0086194d41fe\/0_170_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\n[View image in fullscreen](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-5)\n\nFire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nBatista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to [his denialist handling of coronavirus](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-brazil-governors-appalled), which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.”\n\nThe former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.”\n\nLast week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry.\n\nRittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”.\n\n“Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.”\n\nExplore more on these topics\n\n- [Brazil](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/brazil)\n- [Amazon rainforest](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/amazon-rainforest)\n- [Americas](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/americas)\n- [Jair Bolsonaro](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/jair-bolsonaro)\n- [Deforestation](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/deforestation)\n- [Trees and forests](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/forests)\n- [features](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/features)\n\n[Share](<mailto:?subject=Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke&body=https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction?CMP=share_btn_url>)\n\n[Reuse this content](https:\/\/syndication.theguardian.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2020%2Fsep%2F02%2Famazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction&type=article&internalpagecode=world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction \"Reuse this content\")\n\n## Most viewed\n## Most viewed\n\n- [World](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world)\n- [Europe](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/europe-news)\n- [US news](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news)\n- [Americas](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/americas)\n- [Asia](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/asia)\n- [Australia](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news)\n- [Middle East](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/middleeast)\n- [Africa](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/africa)\n- [Inequality](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/inequality)\n- [Global development](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development)\n\n- [News](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Opinion](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree)\n- [Sport](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport)\n- [Culture](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture)\n- [Lifestyle](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle)\n\nOriginal reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning\n\n[Sign up for our email](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/2022\/sep\/20\/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email)\n\n- [About us](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/about)\n- [Help](https:\/\/manage.theguardian.com\/help-centre)\n- [Complaints & corrections](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/complaints-and-corrections)\n- [Contact us](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/contact-us)\n- [Tip us off](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tips)\n- [SecureDrop](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/securedrop)\n- [Privacy policy](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/privacy)\n- [Cookie policy](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/cookies)\n- [Tax strategy](https:\/\/uploads.guim.co.uk\/2025\/09\/05\/Tax_strategy_for_the_year_ended_31_March_2025.pdf)\n- [Terms & conditions](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/terms-of-service)\n\n- [All topics](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/index\/subjects\/a)\n- [All writers](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/index\/contributors)\n- [Newsletters](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?INTCMP=DOTCOM_FOOTER_NEWSLETTER_EUROPE)\n- [Digital newspaper archive](https:\/\/theguardian.newspapers.com\/)\n- [Bluesky](https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/theguardian.com)\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theguardian)\n- [Instagram](https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/guardian)\n- [LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/theguardian)\n- [Threads](https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@guardian)\n- [TikTok](https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@guardian)\n- [YouTube](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheGuardian)\n\n- [Advertise with us](https:\/\/advertising.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Search UK jobs](https:\/\/jobs.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Tips](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tips)\n- [Accessibility settings](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/accessibility-help)\n- [Work with us](https:\/\/workwithus.theguardian.com\/)\n\n[Back to top](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/02\/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#top)\n\n© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.\n\n(dcr)","attrs_readable_markdown":"[Jair Bolsonaro](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/jair-bolsonaro) smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”.\n\nBut 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused [global outrage](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/aug\/23\/amazon-fires-what-is-happening-anything-we-can-do) – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin.\n\n![The entrance to Novo Progresso.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/11dc62946d5f5b5c7bf2e4f38827905b9811bf14\/0_187_5608_3365\/master\/5608.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\nThe entrance to Novo Progresso. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nDuring a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below.\n\nElsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve.\n\n“The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s [enfeebled environmental agency](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation), Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts.\n\n“Under this government there will be no combating \\[of rainforest destruction\\],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.”\n\nUnder pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron [condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/24\/macron-rallies-g7-to-fight-brazilian-amazon-fires-threatens-sanctions-bolsonaro) – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive.\n\n“This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro [insisted](https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-brazil-environment-fires\/brazils-bolsonaro-calls-surging-amazon-fires-a-lie-idUSKCN2572WB) earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary.\n\nIn May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which [some claim is making things worse](https:\/\/apnews.com\/0ed3562a94f5b20b561adbbd11b20731).\n\nIn July, as [pressure from international investors intensified](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2020\/jun\/23\/trillion-dollar-investors-warn-brazil-over-dismantling-of-environmental-policies), Brazil [announced a four-month ban](https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/2020\/07\/brazil-bows-to-pressure-from-business-decrees-120-day-amazon-fire-ban\/) on burning designed to reassure the world something was being done.\n\nBut satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon – [the highest number since 1998](https:\/\/g1.globo.com\/am\/amazonas\/noticia\/2020\/08\/29\/com-mais-de-7-mil-registros-no-de-focos-de-queimadas-no-am-em-agosto-e-o-maior-dos-ultimos-22-anos.ghtml) and nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900.\n\n![Gold mining site called Coringa (garimpo do Coringa), located inside the Baú Indigenous Land. 13 August 2020.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2b413cf29d45246fc37c7996202b57e1373077eb\/0_472_7139_4286\/master\/7139.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\nAn illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land, Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nGreenpeace [calculated](https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/brasil\/blog\/moratoria-do-fogo-e-desrespeitada-e-queimadas-seguem-em-alta-na-amazonia\/) that despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year.\n\n“We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas.\n\nDuring a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation.\n\n“We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home \\[because of coronavirus\\],” he said.\n\n“Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that [government inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation).”\n\nA monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.”\n\nBep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance.\n\n![Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/99e9041cb43a359a7e6ec290ddda7e7769d45fb2\/0_258_7731_4639\/master\/7731.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\nKayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\n“What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection.\n\nHe called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.”\n\nThe chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”.\n\nEnvironmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing.\n\n“This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because [the president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/oct\/24\/bolsonaro-backers-wage-war-on-the-rainforest) – and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.\n\n“The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.”\n\n![Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará. 25 August 2020.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/83d6df3c4d849a7b7142e539943d0086194d41fe\/0_170_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)\n\nFire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau\/The Guardian\n\nBatista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to [his denialist handling of coronavirus](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/27\/jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-brazil-governors-appalled), which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.”\n\nThe former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.”\n\nLast week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry.\n\nRittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”.\n\n“Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.”","meta_canonical":null}

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Meta Title	Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke \| Brazil \| The Guardian
Meta Description	The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating fires and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility
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Boilerpipe Text	Jair Bolsonaro smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”. But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused global outrage – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin. The entrance to Novo Progresso. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian During a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below. Elsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve. “The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s enfeebled environmental agency , Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts. “Under this government there will be no combating [of rainforest destruction],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.” Under pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive. “This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro insisted earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary. In May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which some claim is making things worse . In July, as pressure from international investors intensified , Brazil announced a four-month ban on burning designed to reassure the world something was being done. But satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon – the highest number since 1998 and nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900. An illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land, Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Greenpeace calculated that despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year. “We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. During a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation. “We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home [because of coronavirus],” he said. “Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that government inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic .” A monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.” Bep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance. Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian “What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection. He called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.” The chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”. Environmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing. “This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because the president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric – and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. “The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.” Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Batista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to his denialist handling of coronavirus , which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.” The former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.” Last week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry. Rittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”. “Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.”
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[Tips](https://www.theguardian.com/tips) - - [Search jobs](https://jobs.theguardian.com/) - [Holidays](https://holidays.theguardian.com/?INTCMP=holidays_int_web_newheader) - [Digital Archive](https://theguardian.newspapers.com/) - [Guardian Licensing](https://licensing.theguardian.com/) - [Live events](https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-live-events?INTCMP=live_eur_header_dropdown) - [About Us](https://www.theguardian.com/about) ![Fire and deforestation scar the Iriri national forest reserve near Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3399b1e9c3dce6eeb1ca7f1a98ff50f002ca3fc8/0_0_8256_5504/master/8256.jpg?width=480&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-1) Fire and deforestation scar the Iriri national forest reserve near Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon. ‘This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,’ according to President Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian This article is more than 5 years old # Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke This article is more than 5 years old Fire and deforestation scar the Iriri national forest reserve near Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon. ‘This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,’ according to President Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian The vast rainforest is experiencing a repeat of last year’s devastating fires and critics say Bolsonaro bears ultimate responsibility By Lucas Landau in Novo Progresso and [Tom Phillips](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tomphillips) Wed 2 Sep 2020 18.20 CEST First published on Wed 2 Sep 2020 11.15 CEST [Share](<mailto:?subject=Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke&body=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction?CMP=share_btn_url>) [Prefer the Guardian on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=theguardian.com) [Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/jair-bolsonaro) smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”. But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused [global outrage](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/23/amazon-fires-what-is-happening-anything-we-can-do) – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin. ![The entrance to Novo Progresso.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/11dc62946d5f5b5c7bf2e4f38827905b9811bf14/0_187_5608_3365/master/5608.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-2) The entrance to Novo Progresso. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian During a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below. Elsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve. “The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s [enfeebled environmental agency](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation), Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts. “Under this government there will be no combating \[of rainforest destruction\],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.” Under pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron [condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/macron-rallies-g7-to-fight-brazilian-amazon-fires-threatens-sanctions-bolsonaro) – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive. “This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro [insisted](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-fires/brazils-bolsonaro-calls-surging-amazon-fires-a-lie-idUSKCN2572WB) earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary. [![A fire burns a tract of the Amazon jungle near the Xavante indigenous people's land in Pimentel Barbosa, Mato Grosso state, Brazil September 4, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Landau](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/37e2df67dca5a8223cee9bb1055e0bdedc5ef681/0_158_3164_1899/master/3164.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=9d7ea1572761f234d02ebcefeed674a9)'Chaos, chaos, chaos': a journey through Bolsonaro's Amazon inferno Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/09/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest) In May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which [some claim is making things worse](https://apnews.com/0ed3562a94f5b20b561adbbd11b20731). In July, as [pressure from international investors intensified](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/23/trillion-dollar-investors-warn-brazil-over-dismantling-of-environmental-policies), Brazil [announced a four-month ban](https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/brazil-bows-to-pressure-from-business-decrees-120-day-amazon-fire-ban/) on burning designed to reassure the world something was being done. But satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon – [the highest number since 1998](https://g1.globo.com/am/amazonas/noticia/2020/08/29/com-mais-de-7-mil-registros-no-de-focos-de-queimadas-no-am-em-agosto-e-o-maior-dos-ultimos-22-anos.ghtml) and nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900. ![Gold mining site called Coringa (garimpo do Coringa), located inside the Baú Indigenous Land. 13 August 2020.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2b413cf29d45246fc37c7996202b57e1373077eb/0_472_7139_4286/master/7139.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-3) An illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land, Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Greenpeace [calculated](https://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/blog/moratoria-do-fogo-e-desrespeitada-e-queimadas-seguem-em-alta-na-amazonia/) that despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year. “We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. During a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation. “We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home \[because of coronavirus\],” he said. “Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that [government inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation).” A monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.” Bep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance. ![Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/99e9041cb43a359a7e6ec290ddda7e7769d45fb2/0_258_7731_4639/master/7731.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-4) Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian “What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection. He called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.” [![0435-ATALAIA DO NORTE. BRASIL REUNION LIDERES Tumi Matis. TERMS OF USE: As agreed, they are free of charge for the exclusive use of Tom Phillips´ article, for further uses please advise for agreement.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5f9b9e6454e4292b988271b3fe33585a52393845/0_179_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=96b2ab670d305ce52baf53a823c52fb7)'He wants to destroy us': Bolsonaro poses gravest threat in decades, Amazon tribes say Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/26/bolsonaro-amazon-tribes-indigenous-brazil-dictatorship) The chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”. Environmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing. “This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because [the president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/24/bolsonaro-backers-wage-war-on-the-rainforest) – and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. “The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.” ![Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará. 25 August 2020.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/83d6df3c4d849a7b7142e539943d0086194d41fe/0_170_8256_4954/master/8256.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#img-5) Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Batista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to [his denialist handling of coronavirus](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-brazil-governors-appalled), which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.” The former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.” Last week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry. Rittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”. “Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.” Explore more on these topics - [Brazil](https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil) - [Amazon rainforest](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/amazon-rainforest) - [Americas](https://www.theguardian.com/world/americas) - [Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/jair-bolsonaro) - [Deforestation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/deforestation) - [Trees and forests](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/forests) - [features](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/features) [Share](<mailto:?subject=Amazon tragedy repeats itself as Brazil rainforest goes up in smoke&body=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction?CMP=share_btn_url>) [Reuse this content](https://syndication.theguardian.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2020%2Fsep%2F02%2Famazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction&type=article&internalpagecode=world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction "Reuse this content") ## Most viewed ## Most viewed - [World](https://www.theguardian.com/world) - [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) - [US news](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news) - [Americas](https://www.theguardian.com/world/americas) - [Asia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/asia) - [Australia](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news) - [Middle East](https://www.theguardian.com/world/middleeast) - [Africa](https://www.theguardian.com/world/africa) - [Inequality](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality) - [Global development](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development) - [News](https://www.theguardian.com/) - [Opinion](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree) - [Sport](https://www.theguardian.com/sport) - [Culture](https://www.theguardian.com/culture) - [Lifestyle](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle) Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning [Sign up for our email](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/sep/20/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email) - [About us](https://www.theguardian.com/about) - [Help](https://manage.theguardian.com/help-centre) - [Complaints & corrections](https://www.theguardian.com/info/complaints-and-corrections) - [Contact us](https://www.theguardian.com/help/contact-us) - [Tip us off](https://www.theguardian.com/tips) - [SecureDrop](https://www.theguardian.com/securedrop) - [Privacy policy](https://www.theguardian.com/info/privacy) - [Cookie policy](https://www.theguardian.com/info/cookies) - [Tax strategy](https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/05/Tax_strategy_for_the_year_ended_31_March_2025.pdf) - [Terms & conditions](https://www.theguardian.com/help/terms-of-service) - [All topics](https://www.theguardian.com/index/subjects/a) - [All writers](https://www.theguardian.com/index/contributors) - [Newsletters](https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?INTCMP=DOTCOM_FOOTER_NEWSLETTER_EUROPE) - [Digital newspaper archive](https://theguardian.newspapers.com/) - [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/theguardian.com) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/theguardian) - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/guardian) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/theguardian) - [Threads](https://www.threads.com/@guardian) - [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@guardian) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGuardian) - [Advertise with us](https://advertising.theguardian.com/) - [Search UK jobs](https://jobs.theguardian.com/) - [Tips](https://www.theguardian.com/tips) - [Accessibility settings](https://www.theguardian.com/help/accessibility-help) - [Work with us](https://workwithus.theguardian.com/) [Back to top](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/amazon-fires-brazil-rainforest-bolsonaro-destruction#top) © 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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Readable Markdown	[Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/jair-bolsonaro) smiles down from a propaganda billboard at the entrance to this scruffy Amazon outpost, welcoming travelers to his “route to development”. But 20 months into Bolsonaro’s presidency – and a year after a devastating outbreak of Amazon fires caused [global outrage](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/23/amazon-fires-what-is-happening-anything-we-can-do) – the fires are back, and many fear Brazil’s leader is instead steering his country towards environmental ruin. ![The entrance to Novo Progresso.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/11dc62946d5f5b5c7bf2e4f38827905b9811bf14/0_187_5608_3365/master/5608.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) The entrance to Novo Progresso. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian During a two-hour monitoring flight through the skies around Novo Progresso the Guardian saw giant columns of white and grey smoke rising from supposedly protected forests below. Elsewhere, illegal goldmines could be seen within the Baú indigenous territory – a chaotic tapestry of muddy pools and makeshift encampments where pristine forest once stood. Newly deforested areas of fallen and charred trees were visible within the Iriri forest reserve. “The Amazon is condemned to destruction,” despaired one former top official at Brazil’s [enfeebled environmental agency](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation), Ibama, accusing the far-right populist of overseeing a wholesale “demolition” of protection efforts. “Under this government there will be no combating \[of rainforest destruction\],” the ex-official said. “The future looks dark.” Under pressure from foreign investors, governments and Brazilian business leaders to avoid a repeat of last year’s scandal – when celebrities and world leaders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron [condemned Bolsonaro’s treatment of the Amazon](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/macron-rallies-g7-to-fight-brazilian-amazon-fires-threatens-sanctions-bolsonaro) – Brazil’s government has gone on the offensive. “This story that the Amazon is going up in flames is a lie,” Bolsonaro [insisted](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-fires/brazils-bolsonaro-calls-surging-amazon-fires-a-lie-idUSKCN2572WB) earlier this month, despite growing evidence to the contrary. In May thousands of troops were deployed to the Amazon as part of a military mission supposedly designed to cut environmental crime – but which [some claim is making things worse](https://apnews.com/0ed3562a94f5b20b561adbbd11b20731). In July, as [pressure from international investors intensified](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/23/trillion-dollar-investors-warn-brazil-over-dismantling-of-environmental-policies), Brazil [announced a four-month ban](https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/brazil-bows-to-pressure-from-business-decrees-120-day-amazon-fire-ban/) on burning designed to reassure the world something was being done. But satellite imagery being gathered by Brazil’s own space agency, Inpe, suggests those efforts are falling short. In August it detected more than 7,600 fires in Amazonas – one of nine states making up the Brazilian Amazon – [the highest number since 1998](https://g1.globo.com/am/amazonas/noticia/2020/08/29/com-mais-de-7-mil-registros-no-de-focos-de-queimadas-no-am-em-agosto-e-o-maior-dos-ultimos-22-anos.ghtml) and nearly 1,000 more than last year. On Tuesday Inpe announced that across the entire Amazon region it had detected more than 29,307 fires in August – the second highest number in a decade and only slightly less than last year’s figure of 30,900. ![Gold mining site called Coringa (garimpo do Coringa), located inside the Baú Indigenous Land. 13 August 2020.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2b413cf29d45246fc37c7996202b57e1373077eb/0_472_7139_4286/master/7139.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) An illicit goldmining site called Coringa, located on Baú indigenous land, Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Greenpeace [calculated](https://www.greenpeace.org/brasil/blog/moratoria-do-fogo-e-desrespeitada-e-queimadas-seguem-em-alta-na-amazonia/) that despite the military mobilization and burning ban there had been only an 8% reduction in fires between mid-July and mid-August compared with last year. “We are watching last year’s tragedy repeat itself,” said Rômulo Batista, a Greenpeace campaigner in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. During a recent surveillance flight over four Amazon states – Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Pará – Batista also witnessed shocking scenes of devastation. “We saw tracts of pasture that were burning, deforested areas that were burning, areas of forest that were burning. And it was obvious that down there in the forest below us nobody was staying at home \[because of coronavirus\],” he said. “Everyone – illegal loggers, land grabbers, illegal miners – they’re all up and running, and even more so than usual, safe in the knowledge that [government inspections have been scaled back because of the pandemic](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation).” A monitoring official from the indigenous NGO Instituto Kabu, which organized the Guardian’s single-engine flight over Pará state, said: “There has been a flagrant increase in illegal mining and logging activities in the last two years. The lack of inspection operations by Ibama and the federal police in this region has ended up encouraging environmental crimes in indigenous territories.” Bep Protti Mekrãgnoti Re, a chieftain for the indigenous Kayapó people, said its communities were paying a heavy price for the government’s anti-environmental stance. ![Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/99e9041cb43a359a7e6ec290ddda7e7769d45fb2/0_258_7731_4639/master/7731.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Kayapó protest that blocked the BR-163 road near Novo Progresso, Pará, on 17 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian “What Bolsonaro’s development means is destruction within our reserve,” said Bep Protti who recently led a week-long blockade of the Amazon highway cutting through Novo Progresso to demand protection. He called for urgent action to monitor and protect the region’s forests and the wildlife within: “It’s with the forest and the rivers that I feed myself.” The chieftain said two models of development were currently facing off in the Amazon: “the development of destruction” and the sustainable “development of construction and knowledge”. Environmentalists are clear which model Bolsonaro – who took office in January 2019 vowing to open the Amazon and its indigenous reserves to development – is pursuing. “This is without doubt the worst moment in more than 30 years that we are facing in Brazil. And unfortunately it was entirely expected because [the president was elected thanks to his anti-environment rhetoric](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/24/bolsonaro-backers-wage-war-on-the-rainforest) – and now he is making good on those promises,” said Carlos Rittl, a Brazilian environmentalist who works at Germany’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. “The feeling is one of desolation,” Rittl said, adding: “2020 is going to be a terrible year.” ![Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará. 25 August 2020.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/83d6df3c4d849a7b7142e539943d0086194d41fe/0_170_8256_4954/master/8256.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Fire on a farm in the region of Novo Progresso, Pará, on 25 August. Photograph: Lucas Landau/The Guardian Batista compared Bolsonaro’s approach to the forest fires to [his denialist handling of coronavirus](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/jair-bolsonaro-coronavirus-brazil-governors-appalled), which has now killed more than 120,000 Brazilians. The far-right populist hoped to deny satellite images and science and project “an air of normality” to the world “just as he did with Covid-19”. “Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.” The former Ibama official was similarly pessimistic, claiming its operations were “completely paralyzed” and Brazil’s environmental policies in tatters. The organization, reeling from years of cuts, had only six helicopters to police the Amazon’s 2.1m square miles, with plans to take two more of those out of service. “If you ask me, to fight deforestation we would need at least 12.” Last week Brazil’s environment minister announced that all anti-deforestation operations were to be halted, although that was reversed after an outcry. Rittl called the latest fires – which are likely to continue until October – “a tragedy foretold” and the consequence of “a government with absolutely no commitment to the environment”. “Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is becoming perhaps the greatest global enemy of the environment. It is so sad to see,” he said. ”A tiny number of people grow very rich with this – and all of us lose.”
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