Amazon rainforest faces fire threat—again

Fire doesn’t occur naturally as part of the deforestation process in the ultra-humid Amazon rainforest. But vegetation is cut down, put in the sun to dry and then burned to clear the area. With the area “cleaned,” the land is used for soy and other monocultures and for cattle grazing. The Amazon Rainforest near Sao Paulo, Brazil is pictured from a plane on October 3, 2019. (Dennis Jarvis on CC 2.0 License) Between January and November 2019, though, data from the National Institute for Space Research shows 43,929 miles of forest turned to ashes, an increase of nearly 80% over the previous year. By the end of this year, experts say, that number is likely to increase....