Ravaged first by drought and then by fire, Brazil's rain forest have suffered enormous ecological damage this past winter. Phil Ponce and guests discuss the recent fires and its impact upon the rain forest.
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PHIL PONCE: For almost four months this winter fires burned in part of the world's
largest rain forest. The Amazon Forest and savannas in Northeast Brazil were
ravaged first by drought and then by the worst fires in history. Last week,
rains finally came to Brazil's state of Roraima, allowing residents of the area
to start assessing the damage. Government officials estimated more than a fifth
of the state had burned. Reporter Monica Yant and photographer Peter Tobia of
the Philadelphia Enquirer were there last week on assignment, and they
join us now. Welcome, Peter and Monica. Monica, first of all, what did you see?
"...a land that had really been ravaged both by drought and by fire."
MONICA YANT, Philadelphia Enquirer Reporter: Well, not the rain forest that you see in picture books by any means. I mean, this part of the Amazon Basin is not quite as lush or green or wet as the typical sense of the rain forest that we learn of, but what we saw was even drier and burned
and charred than you could really imagine. I mean, before we left, we couldn't fathom that there would be fires in the rain forest. And what we saw was just a land that had really been ravaged both by drought and by fire.
PHIL PONCE: Peter, what did it look like on the ground?
PETER TOBIA, Philadelphia Inquirer Photographer: On the ground was
a lot of charred area, a lot of very dry area, area that was usually very
damp and got a lot of moisture and could support some crops. When we got there,
it was really pretty much dried over, and there wasn't much vegetation or
crops growing when we got there.
PHIL PONCE: People talk about the thickness of the smoke in this area. How thick was it?
MONICA YANT: Well, when we got there, it wasn't that thick because the fires had come about a day before. But throughout several months that the fires were burning airports were closed, hospitals were filled with children that had been--had smoke inhalation problems, and they said respiratory problems were up 40 percent throughout many portions of Northern Brazil. But from what we could tell, even after the rains coming, to get an idea of how strong these fires were, even after rains that supposedly put out about 90 percent of the fires, when we went up on a plane four days later, you could still--there were still parts of the forest that were inaccessible by plane or by foot that were just clouded by smoke. And those--those are going to burn until they burn out.
PHIL PONCE: Peter, you took an aerial shot of the savannas. Tell us what we're looking at now and describe it.
PETER TOBIA: This is a picture taken leaving Boa Vista by airplane into the
Yanomami Reservation. And the only way to get to the reservation was by taking
an airplane because it was totally inaccessible. This picture shows the fires
that just caught on the savanna and would just burn trails and would just
grow rampant, and making their own path of fire.
PHIL PONCE: So that black band that we're looking at is the--is the path the fire took?
PETER TOBIA: That's correct.
PHIL PONCE: As far as the total amount of land that was involved, how much, Monica?
87,000 square miles burned.
MONICA YANT: Well, about 20 percent of the entire state of Roraima they say
was burned, and it's about 87,000 square miles total. We were able to tell
for our readers it's about half the state of Pennsylvania. Now, there aren't--this
fire didn't get as much attention initially as let's say the fires in Indonesia
last year, because those were in areas where they clogged major metropolitan
areas, you know, entire cities in Indonesia and Malaysia airports, where there
were, you know, millions of people. Roraima is a very rural part of Brazil.
There aren't that many people who live there; even its capital city has about
a hundred and seventy thousand people. When you get out into the savannas
and into the forest, I mean, you're talking about really remote villages with
just scattered groupings of farmers, so it didn't necessarily get that much
attention right away. Even Brazil's capital government is several thousand
miles away. It's sort of an out of sight, out of mind mentality, and until
you get in the thick of it, you can't really imagine or see how much damage
has been done.
PHIL PONCE: And what is the speculation? What are the experts saying caused the fires? How did they get started?
MONICA YANT: Well, we're talking about really subsistence level farming here.
These are folks who don't have a lot of experience with agriculture. 
They don't have very much technology, and they slash and burn farming. They
believe that setting fire will rejuvenate the land. In some forests it does.
In some pine forests, for instance, fire can help spread seeds. The heat can
help release nutrients in the soil. It doesn't happen in a rain forest, however.
And what typically happens is while the savanna grasslands that these folks
normally farm on, they might see some benefit for a couple of years--usually,
the ground will go bad after a few years, and then they'll move on. And every
year--I mean, these are folks who've learned this generation after generation.
They have a controlled fire. They set the fire on their land. It usually doesn't
progress beyond the savannas because you have to imagine this area, the sort
of the humid barrier around the savannas is the edge of the rain forest. It's
usually so wet, it's so moist, and there's so much moisture in the air that
it would be inconceivable that a fire could reach into it. But this year you
have a drought. They didn't see rain from about August on in many portions
of the state. You had winds that they typically don't see, and the combination
of the drought and the winds and the heat--here are these folks starting their
fires like they always do, and they just--they went out of control. I mean,
most of the farmers we talked to had no idea what had happened as soon as
it happened. And there was just nothing they could do to fight them.
PHIL PONCE: Peter, was there a story that was particularly compelling to you?
PETER TOBIA: The first group of people that we met--Francesca Alvarez and her husband, Romando--they had 12 children that they relied on the crops to grow to feed their family. And when Monica and I drove two hours into the village of Apiau, we met this family, and they were very gracious and very open to us and invited us in, and they showed us that there was pretty much nothing left of their 25 acres.
PHIL PONCE: And this is their field that we're looking at here?
PETER TOBIA: This is the picture that shows Francesca pausing in front of
a tree that's charred. And in the background is the rain forest. And, again,
people knew nothing about El Niño. So here you have a picture that pretty
much captures what it was like there, showing all the environment.
PHIL PONCE: Monica, how do you--what do experts tell you about the significance of the Amazon to the world's ecosystem and why it should matter to people in the United States?
"We try to think of the rain forest as ...the lungs and the kidneys of the universe."
MONICA YANT: Oh, it's of grave concern to people in the United States. I mean, sort of at its most rudimentary level we try to think of the rain forest as sort of functioning around the world as the lungs and the kidneys of the universe. Forests every day take in carbon gases, gases that we don't really want to breathe, take in gases and through the process of photosynthesis, you know, send back out oxygen. Well, when a forest burns, that process is reversed, and instead of absorbing those harmful gases, the forest sends back more of those greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. And essentially the forest begins to, you know, contribute to the world's environmental problems instead of helping it. And certainly it's tough to envision how this affects people, but it impacts the air that I breathe in Philadelphia as much as it would impact the air that the people are breathing down in Roraima.
PHIL PONCE: Peter, we talked about the impact on farmers. How about the impact on the Indian population?
PETER TOBIA: The Indian population was impacted in that--one of the first
things that I really noticed was that--the way they rely on the animals that
they hunted for food--because of the fires, a lot of the animals left, which
made it very hard for them to find food, which they had to go to relying on
vegetation instead of, you know, hunting the animals that they usually relied
on. Another way they were impacted was having never seen smoke. I mean, this
was a very primitive tribe that is in the rain forest.
PHIL PONCE: Not having seen smoke on that scale. I mean, obviously, they have small fires and that sort of thing.
PETER TOBIA: It affected them and their respiratory systems, like Monica was saying before. The leader of the group, Paulo, said that, you know, his eyes hurt. And he prayed to God that He would take the smoke away.
PHIL PONCE: How did the smoke and everything that's happening to their land fit in with their belief system?
The reaction of the native population.
MONICA YANT: Well, it was interesting. We were able to talk to a couple of
different groups of the Yanomami, and there are some that--there is a myth
within the tribe that long ago, before time, the forest had burned once before,
and there were no white men then; there were no other people encroaching on
them, and the forest had burned once before. 
And so when these fires came, again, the Yanomami were afraid this was the
end of the world. They believed that once the smoke would clear the sky would
fall, and they would all die. And their shamans got together to try to assess
how to deal with the situation. But because they don't have smoke and they've
never experienced this before, they didn't have a regular ritual to try to
send the smoke away. So they improvised. They explained to us that they used
a lot of rituals that they would normally perform to aid someone who was sick,
and the shamans got together and there's a hallucinogenic bark that they snort
essentially to put themselves in a trance so that they could communicate with
the spirits of the universe. And, you know, very methodically they went through
several different types of ceremonies, and their singing and dancing and chanting,
to try to both get rid of the smoke, stop the fires, and finally bring the
rain on their own villages and throughout this state. And, you know, you don't
necessarily have to be too much of a believer, but if you do the math and
the days that they say they did those ceremonies, the next day the rains came,
and they had not seen rain in those parts for six/seven months.
PHIL PONCE: And, Peter, you got a shot of the first rain as it was happening. What was the reaction of the people who were enjoying the rain?
PETER TOBIA: The children just were overjoyed. And I was really fortunate
and probably pretty lucky just to be in a village that was just outh of the
Venezuela border, and it rained, and children just ran out and celebrated.
Although that rain was good for them to come, the leaders of that village
said, you know, that's a good start but we need a lot more because our wells
are dry.
PHIL PONCE: How about the long-term impact, what are experts telling you about that, Monica?
"...it could take 100 years before this forest would heal itself if left completely alone."
MONICA YANT: There are a lot of facets to the concern. I mean, yes, the rains
came in the immediate--and the immediate fears are over. But, I mean, for
instance, in the rain forests this is not a forest that is adapted to fire,
and most of the environmental experts I talked to said, you know, it could
take 100 years before this forest would heal itself if left completely alone.
Now,
you get into then some political concerns that folks in Brazil are very concerned
that well, now there has been another layer of deforestation, could this lead
to more, more timber exporting from the forest, could this lead to more development
in a land that was very pristine before? You've got health concerns. Because
of the drought a lot of creeks and rivers have dried into just mosquito-infested
puddles. Outbreaks of malaria are up 30 percent in many of the Indian villages,
and, again, these are people whose immune systems are wholly different than
ours, and not at all, and they're not at all prepared to deal with these things.
So you have longer-term issues of food. I mean, these animals have run--we
talked to some people who were actually competing with animals. A young woman
said monkeys and jaguar have come down from the mountains, and they're fighting
for the same food. She has lost all of her crops, and she's out looking for
the same food that these wild animals are because they have run from the fires;
they have run from areas where there is no water to drink. So the rains may
have come temporarily but there are seriously some long-term concerns that
are left in this region.
PHIL PONCE: Monica, Peter, thank you both very much.
