Grief and Gratitude in a New Mexico Fire
Shortly before midnight on May 3, we directly and personally entered the growing multitudes of climate evacuees. Such an event was not unexpected. Our forests had become drier than kiln-finished lumber. If you struck 100 matches and dropped them to the ground, 90 to 94 of them would ignite a fire. Precipitation had become a long-lost friend. The link of a warming climate to such a cataclysmic event was evident throughout the region long before the fire drew its first breath.
Ecocide in the Bolivian Chiquitanía
As a new round of forest fires gained momentum in the tropical Bolivian forests of Chiquitanía, the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature placed the blame for last year’s 5 million-hectare “ecocide” on the Bolivian government and the agribusiness industry. And now, as the government gears up for another election season, it has declared a state of emergency in the Chiquitanía.
The Devastation of the Chiquitanía in the decline of Evo Morales
The year that is coming to an end will be remembered in Bolivia not only for the hurricane winds that drove the fall of Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president; but also because of the fires those winds brought with them. They burned forests, ecological reserves, indigenous territories and national parks in eight of […]
Field Notes from the Santa Rosa Fire
The call came a little before 5 am, the morning of Monday, October 9. I stumbled toward the phone and retrieved the message.
Amazon Uprising: Defunding the Destruction
The media coverage may have subsided, but the fires haven’t stopped. In fact, when the global outrage about the fires burning in the Amazon began, there had been 43,500 fires recorded in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019. It’s now at more than 67,000 and the dry season will continue until at least the end of November. Some of this is part of the natural cycle, but many more are fires deliberately set and most of those are to clear land for beef and soy production.
Bolivia is on Fire, Too — And You’re Part of the Problem
Esperanza Project collaborator Kayla Mi-kyung Vandervort has been working with indigenous leaders in Bolivia to create a campaign to support their work. These tribal peoples on the front lines of the devastation have not been getting the support they need and are desperate need of supplies and help for the communities that are being displaced, […]
Saving the Amazon: 10 Things You Can Do Now
1. Fund Forest Protection Let’s start with the most direct route. One of the most effective organizations to contribute to is the Rainforest Trust. Their project in the Peruvian Amazon supports the local indigenous communities to getting recognised as having land rights and is seeking to give the title for more than 6 million acres to […]
Restoring Paradise: Permaculture Meets Disaster Response
As permaculture educator and community organizer Matthew Trumm was evacuating from the raging Camp Fire in Northern California last November, his mind turned to a video he’d seen recently with one of his heroes, the ecosystem restoration expert and filmmaker John D. Liu. Just the week before, Liu had invited him to serve on a […]
Mamos of Colombia Issue Call for Help
An unprecedented wave of wildfires has devastated communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Three deaths have been reported, two victims from the Kogi and one from the Wiwa communities. Many animals have died, especially the sheep that produce wool used to make traditional bags, several mules, and horses. The costs of the damages […]
Recently I had the chance to sit down with Michael Kodas, the author of Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame. The context was a story about the increasingly intense fires in the American West and the impact this might have on our National Parks. Michael, a former firefighter in addition to […]
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