Wildfires Are Destroying Amazon Rainforest; Conservationists Blames Brazil's Government

According to environmental organizations and researchers, there is a good reason to believe

cattle ranchers and loggers set the Amazon on fire to take over the land and use it. As reported by CNN, Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organization Amazon Watch, the Amazonia​ doesn't catch on fire easily, unlike the bushland in California or Australia because a moist broadleaf forest. "The vast majority of these fires are human-lit," said Poirier.

The National Institute for Space Research — a research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation — informed that the number of fires in Brazil are 80% higher than last year. Alberto Setzer, a senior scientist at INPE, said that 99% percent of the fires are result from human actions and the reason can be as a small-scale agricultural practice, or

due to a modern agribusiness project.

CNN meteorologist Haley Brink also agrees that the fires are "definitely human-induced," adding that "it's the best time to burn because the vegetation is dry. [Farmers] wait for the dry season and they

start burning and clearing the areas so that their cattle can graze. And that's what we're suspecting is going on down there."

"Because the use of fire is a traditional part of tropical agriculture to clean agricultural land, grazing land, it is very difficult to stop it," said Lincoln Muniz Alves, a researcher at INPE's Earth System Science Centre.

With the hashtag #PrayForTheAmazon organizations, environmentalists, activists, and social media users reacted to the wildfires and demanding accountability from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.