Gisele Bündchenis shining a light on the impact therecord-breaking Amazon rainforest fireshave on the world, as well as calling out all the “opportunists” who have had a hand in devastating the region over the years.
“The forest plays a key role inbalancing the Earth’s climateand consequently in our lives,” Bündchen, 39,wrote on Instagram. “We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in the Amazon.”
“The increased burnings have been destroying in days, what nature takes years, centuries to build,” the supermodel added. “I’ve spent a lot of time there and was able to see closely how everything happens, especially how opportunists take advantage of the dry season to destroy and clear the forest. Deforestation in the Amazon has to stop…for our health and the health of our planet!”
There have been 72,843 fires in Brazil this year (with more than half in its Amazon region), and satellite images have spotted 9,507 new forest fires in the county — mostly in the Amazon basin — since Aug. 15,CNNandReuterspreviously reported, citing the INPE.
Corpo de Bombeiros de Mato Grosso/AP/Shutterstock; Inset: Steve Granitz/WireImage
“The vast majority of these fires are human-lit,” Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organizationAmazon Watch, previously told CNN.
“This year’s fires fit into an established seasonal agricultural pattern,” added CNN meteorologist Haley Brink. “[Farmers] wait for the dry season and they start burning and clearing the areas so that their cattle can graze. And that’s what we’re suspecting is going on down there.”
Fires in the Amazon rainforest from space.NASA
Bündchen, a Brazil native who has been vocal about the need to protect the Amazon for years, also shared a clip from theNational GeographicseriesYears of Living Dangerously, which focuses on climate change.
“The rainforest is doing us a huge service for free,” she says in the clip. “We’re not walking around thinking, ‘Okay heart, do your function, pump the blood.’ We’re just walking around like nothing is happening while our body is doing so much work to keep us alive. And that’s exactly what the rainforest is doing. It’s doing so much work for us to keep us alive.”
“I want to do something now before it’s too late,” she adds.
The Amazon, known as “the planet’s lungs,” produces 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen and is a key factor in combating climate change, according toCNN.
In a 2016 op-ed for theWashington Post, which was written just days after the Rio Olympics, Bündchen encouraged people around the globe to keep Brazil, and the Amazon rainforest, in their minds.
“We are all connected; what happens in the Amazon affects not only Brazil but everyone across the world,” she wrote. “Population growth and greed are putting the Amazon under intense pressure. But we must remember that natural resources are finite, and if we exhaust them, we will change life on Earth forever.”
“We cannot afford to put Brazil in the rearview mirror after the Rio Olympics. Even if there aren’t athletes to cheer on or medals to be won, we all have a stake in what happens in Brazil. This is the only home we have,” she added. “Unlike the races in Rio this past month, the race against climate change is not winner takes all — it will take all of us working together to win.”
source: people.com
