UNDER FIRE While expansion of cattle ranching in the Pantanal itself has been slower than in the surrounding plateaux,133 the cattle industry is implicated in one of the most acute current threats to the region’s ecology – the destruction of large expanses of natural vegetation by fire.134 Fire is a natural part of the Pantanal’s ecology, with many plant species, for example, needing extreme heat to stimulate seed germination.135 Every year, usually towards the end of the dry season, there are small wildfires, often started by lightning. However, these tend to burn out quickly due to lack of fuel and the wetness of the terrain; fires of human origin in the peak of the dry season typically cause the vast majority of the burning.136 With the area’s vulnerability to the uncontrolled spread of dry-season fires already heightened by a severe drought in 2019,137 in 2020 the Pantanal saw its worst drought for nearly half a century.138 This made the biome particularly vulnerable to the uncontrolled spreading of fires lit deliberately by ranchers, either to encourage germination on exhausted pastures139 or to clear forest for pastures or arable agriculture.140 According to a scientist from Brazil’s National Institute for Science and Technology in Wetlands, the recent expansion of cattle ranching in the Pantanal is contributing to the
MAKING MINCEMEAT OF THE PANTANAL
5 October 2020, Baía dos Guató Indigenous Land: Guató Indigenous leader, medicine woman and member of the community’s health council Sandra Guató Silva collects feathers and water hyacinths to make traditional headdresses in the dried bay. © Maria Magdalena Arréllaga
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