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Rescue Brazil’s burning Pantanal wetlands

Climate extremes, poor management and lax laws are making this World Heritage Site prone to fierce fires. Researchers and governments must develop a plan to manage these risks together.
  1. Renata Libonati

    1. Renata Libonati is an adjunct professor of climatology and remote sensing at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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  2. Carlos C. DaCamara

    1. Carlos C. DaCamara is an associate professor of climate science at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

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  3. Leonardo F. Peres

    1. Leonardo F. Peres is an associate professor of atmospheric sciences and remote sensing at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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  4. Lino A. Sander de Carvalho

    1. Lino A. Sander de Carvalho is an adjunct professor of climatology and remote sensing at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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  5. Letícia C. Garcia

    1. Letícia C. Garcia is an adjunct professor of restoration ecology at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

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An aerial view of a plume of smoke rising from a burnt landscape

Smoke rises from a fire in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, in September. Credit: Buda Mendes/Getty

Brazil has changed. As well as the COVID-19 pandemic killing more than 170,000 of its citizens so far, 2020 has seen almost one-third of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, on fire. Four million hectares of forest, savannah and shrub-land (an area bigger than the US state of Maryland) have gone up in flames since January (see go.nature.com/2jtw6va). Almost all the Indigenous territories and conservation facilities were burnt, as was much private land. Conservation areas such as Encontro das Águas State Park have been devastated — it contained one of the largest populations of jaguars in the world.

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Nature 588, 217-219 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03464-1

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