Maria Moraes de Souza said: “All that is Paradise, looking at the many towns that she lives along one of the most important waterways in the Amazon.
But recently life in this so-called Arcadian city has taken a fatal turn, because the waters of the Madeira River have fallen to their lowest level since the 1960s and the sky is full of smoke from the wildfires in Brazil.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” said Souza, a 44-year-old farmer, as his boat drifted into his smoke-filled living room, populated by baby river dolphins, which The water house grows during the day.
To get to Souza’s tree house in Paraíso Grande (Big Paradise) – a former rubber plantation town near the port of Humaitá – visitors must now be in the warm sun of the water. the flow unfolded. A large sand like desert like red sand is between some people who live in the river and their water depends on food, transportation, education and work. Some of the rivers are hundreds of meters wide.
“In ancient times, we understood the rise and fall of the river… But in recent times man has begun to influence nature so much that we no longer know how things work,” said local leader José Francisco Vieira dos Santos, complained, explaining how Amazon works. The rainy and dry seasons are carefully monitored each year for reasons that the community struggles to understand.
Santos, 42, added: “Even animals can make that change. The Amazon fish called “bodó” lays its eggs in January. Now the locals say it’s like October. “Everything has gotten out of hand,” said Santos, who suspects the construction of two dams in Madeira has added to the problem.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – whose administration has faced criticism for what some consider a weak response to the crisis – has described his country’s suffering as part of a global emergency that is increasing due to climate change.
“Storms in the Caribbean, hurricanes in Asia, droughts and floods in Africa, and heavy rains in Europe have left death and destruction,” Lula told the UN General Assembly last week, adding to the record of floods, fires and droughts in Brazil. the list. “The world is not waiting to make the next generation pay the price and be satisfied with the unfulfilled climate agreement.”
This year’s drought – which authorities have called the most severe and widespread in Brazil’s history – has affected residents along the Madeira River and other Amazon basins, including the Solimões and Negro.
In Porto Velho, the largest town in Madeira, passenger boats have found themselves high and dry because the water is no longer deep enough to navigate. 50-year-old sailor Aurean Guimarães, whose wooden boat is anchored in a sunny port called Cai N’Agua (literally “Fall in the Water”), said: We have been stuck here for two weeks.
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“The river has dried up a lot. A lot of sand. A lot of rocks… This is the first year we face something like this,” complained Guimarães as Madeira fell to its lowest level since 1967. A flag hanging on the deck of the ship said: “SOS”.
The indigenous village was badly damaged, with many waterways drying up and the grass carrying the fire ravaging their ancestral homes. Megaron Txucarramãe, an indigenous leader from the Amazon state of Mato Grosso, said that at least four regions in his region are rising in smoke, including in the region of Capoto Jarina where a firefighter died in the fire.
“I have lived here since I was born, and I have never seen a bush that burns like this…A bush that burns. Animals burn. The wood is burning. Everything is burning,” he said, lamenting how indigenous sages who understood the rain system were no longer alive to help. “Firefighters are not able to put out these fires – only rain can do this.”
Erika Berenguer, a forest expert from the University of Oxford who studies the Amazon, said she fears climate change will mean that in 2024 “an apocalyptic landscape” and a “dystopian west” may be an understatement. of the future is bad.
“It’s scary to think that this could be the worst drought we’ve had in the next 20 years. Because … in the case of the Amazon, we’ve already had a 1.5 degree increase in temperature [since the 1970s]. Part of the watershed has a dry season that lasts a week [than before]. Parts of the basin have a dry season that is 34% dry,” he said.
Scientists say the 2023 drought has hit the Amazon due to the natural El Niño climate. But Berenguer said the strongest El Niño on record – the so-called “King Kong” event of 1998 – “didn’t have the impact it has now, either in terms of drought or in terms of light”.
“Why is that?” he added. Because from 1998 to 2024, the climate has changed… every drought is happening on the surface. [that]. So the effect of drought is getting worse and everything is becoming really dry. “
Speaking at the UN, Lula acknowledged the need to take action to stop fires and droughts and promised to continue fighting the growing number of environmental criminals. increased by destroying nature.
In Paraíso Grande, where many residents declare that they are supporters of the politician they affectionately call “Papai Lula” (Papai Lula), the community hopes that the president is fulfilling his words and urged him to come to their aid by sending humanitarian aid.
“This heat is so crazy – and it’s because these people set everything on fire,” said Maria Delcy Barros de Moraes, accusing the farmers, who hunters and hunters, whose use of clearing fire spread the fire. He was thinking: “Why should righteous people always pay for sinners?”
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