the lungs of the world go up in smoke

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Amazon Rainforest Suffers Worst Drought in Decades

 

October 11, 2005 — By Terry Wade, Reuters

MANAQUIRI, Brazil — The worst drought in more than 40 years is damaging the

world's biggest rainforest, plaguing the Amazon basin with wildfires, sickening

river dwellers with tainted drinking water, and killing fish by the millions as

streams dry up.

 

" What's awful for us is that all these fish have died and when the water returns

there will be barely any more, " Donisvaldo Mendonca da Silva, a 33-year-old

fisherman, said.

 

Nearby, scores of piranhas shook in spasms in two inches of water -- what was

left of the once flowing Parana de Manaquiri river, an Amazon tributary.

Thousands of rotting fish lined the its dry banks.

 

The governor of Amazonas, a state the size of Alaska, has declared 16

municipalities in crisis as the two-month-long drought strands river dwellers

who cannot find food or sell crops.

 

Some scientists blame higher ocean temperatures stemming from global warming,

which have also been linked to a recent string of unusually deadly hurricanes in

the United States and Central America.

 

Rising air in the north Atlantic, which fuels storms, may have caused air above

the Amazon to descend and prevented cloud formations and rainfall, according to

some scientists.

 

" If the warming of the north Atlantic is the smoking gun, it really shows how

the world is changing, " said Dan Nepstadt, an ecologist from the

Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Research Institute, funded by the U.S. government

and private grants.

 

" The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the earth. As we enter a warming

trend we are in uncertain territory, " he said.

 

Deforestation may also have contributed to the drought because cutting down

trees cuts moisture in the air, increasing sunlight penetration onto land.

 

 

 

DRIVING CARS WHERE THEY ONCE SWAM

 

In the main river port of Manaus, dozens of boats lay stranded in the cracked

dirt of the riverbank after the water level receded. Pontoons of floating docks

sit exposed on dry land. People drive cars where only months ago they swam.

 

An hour from where it joins the Rio Negro to form the Amazon River, the Rio

Solimoes is so low that kilometers of exposed riverbank have turned into dunes

as winds whip up thick sandstorms. Vultures feed on carrion.

 

Another major Amazon tributary, Rio Madeira, is so dry that cargo ships carrying

diesel from Manaus cannot reach the capital of Rondonia state without scraping

the bottom. Instead, fuel used to run power plants has to be hauled in by truck

thousands of kilometers from southern Brazil.

 

Dry winds and low rainfall have left the rainforest more susceptible to fires

that farmers routinely start to clear their pastures.

 

In normal dry seasons, rains arrive often enough to put out blazes that escape

from farms and spread to the forest. This year, the forest is catching fire and

staying aflame.

 

In Acre state, some 100,000 hectares of forest have burned since the drought

started and thick black smoke has on occasion shut down airports.

 

" It's illegal to burn but everyone around here does it. I do it to get rid of

insects and cobras and to create fresh grass for my cows, " a man who would only

identify himself as Calixto said while using bundles of green leaves to smother

flames and control fires near a highway.

 

RIVER COMMUNITIES SUFFER

 

The drought has also upset daily life in communities scattered throughout the

basin's labyrinth of waterways.

 

" We closed 40 schools and canceled the school year because there's a lack of

food, transport and potable water, " said Gilberto Barbosa, secretary of public

administration in Manaquiri. People whose wells have dried up risk drinking

river water contaminated by sewage and dead animals.

 

Sinking water levels have severed connections in the lattice of creeks, lakes

and rivers that make up the Amazons motorboat transportation network.

 

Many people in Manaquiri's 25 riverine communities are now forced to walk

kilometers to buy rice or medicines.

 

Cases of diarrhea, one of the biggest killers in the developing world, are

rising in the region. Many fear stagnant water will breed malaria. In response,

the state government has flown five tons of basic medicines out to distant

villages.

 

It will be two more months before the river fills again during the rainy season.

Even then, residents fear polluted water will float to the top, causing sickness

and economic plight.

 

" I've never seen anything like this, " said Manuel Tavares Silva, 39, who farms

melons and corn near Manaquiri, a town 149 km from Manaus, the capital of

Amazonas state.

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

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