It’s not enough that global warming is causing wildfires to break out faster than ever, doing horrendous damage around the planet.

Now we also have “climate terrorists” deliberately burning rainforests in Brazil.
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Some 30.8 million hectares (119,000 square miles) of vegetation were burned in Brazil in 2024, a 79% increase from 2023, monitoring platform MapBiomas has reported.

Fires in the Amazon, a crucial carbon sink for the rest of the world as well as a global hotspot of biodiversity, accounted for 58% of the damage.

The 2024 figures represent the largest area burned since 2019.

Some 8.5 million hectares of forest burned in 2024, compared to 2.2 million in 2023, and in the Amazon, fires took out more forest than grassland for the first time, according to the data.

"This is a terrible indicator, because, once forests are burned, they become more susceptible to future fires," said Ane Alencar, of MapBiomas.

In Brazil, the main driver of the fires are ranchers and farmers who clear land for pasture and agriculture — a crime the government struggles to contain.

The figures are discouraging news for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who in November will host the UN COP30 climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belem.

Lula admitted in September that the country was not prepared to face a wave of forest fires that his government attributed to "climate terrorism."
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FULL STORY -- france24.com/en/live-news/2025…

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