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Amazon Burns: Researcher Fights Fires Decades Later
22 Nov, 2025
Summary
- Researcher returns to Amazon to combat escalating fire crisis.
- Climate change and human activity fuel devastating Amazon fires.
- Efforts focus on modest farmer behavior shifts to prevent fires.
Daniel Nepstad, who began studying the Amazon by setting fires in the 1980s, has returned to combat a growing environmental crisis. Climate change and human land-clearing practices have made the rainforest highly susceptible to fires, with last year seeing record tropical forest burn globally. Nepstad's initiative, through the Earth Innovation Institute, focuses on encouraging farmers toward sustainable practices, such as alternative crops and collaborative machinery use, to prevent fires.
Fires in the Amazon have intensified, impacting biodiversity, livelihoods of over 40 million people, and accelerating global warming by releasing stored carbon dioxide. Once a carbon sink, parts of the Amazon now emit more carbon than they absorb. Scientists warn of irreversible changes, potentially turning vast areas into grasslands and further increasing global temperatures if fires continue unchecked.
