The Amazon endured the most intense fire season in almost a decade in August 2019. On August 19, smoke from the faraway fires blackened the skies over Sao Paulo. By the next day, the hashtag “#PrayforAmazonia” was sweeping across Twitter. The social media outcry brought world attention to the already dire scientific warnings, and world leaders offered aid and pressured Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to take action.

In September, after President Bolsonaro deployed the Brazilian army and the rains picked up, the fires in the Amazon abated. But this past season could mark an acceleration in long-term deforestation in Amazonia.

Deforestation on the Rise

The 2019 season’s fires were alarming because they suggest that recent progress in confronting deforestation in the Amazon is being undone.

Fires were significantly more common between 2002 and 2010, when Instituto Nacional Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), the Brazilian space agency, recorded an average of more than 300,000 forest fires per year in Brazil. Thanks to environmental reforms and private sector supply chain changes, the rate of fires fell and just over 177,000 fires were recorded annually from 2011 to 2018.

Deforestation began to slowly rise again in 2015, however, due to an economic slowdown and policy reversals. This past season suggests that rise is accelerating: 31,000 fires burned in August alone, the most that month since 2010.

Fanning the Flames

Intense fire seasons result from human intervention in the Amazon. Farmers and ranchers cut rainforest trees earlier in the year and allow the wood to dry before burning it in the dry season. It’s a way to fully clear the land and fertilize the soil with ash. While droughts make it easier for these fires to spread to nearby forests, they were not a factor in 2019’s fires.

What changed between 2018 and 2019 was the election of President Bolsonaro and farmers’ and ranchers’ response to his administration’s rhetoric.

Satellite data confirms that deforestation accelerated under President Bolsonaro. After the first few months of his presidency, deforestation rose rapidly in May and June 2019,  to the point where a soccer field and a half of forest were lost every minute. In response, President Bolsonaro called the data from his own space agency “lies” and sacked its head.

Farmers and ranchers have been clearing land in the Amazon since it opened to development in the 1970s, but have been emboldened under President Bolsonaro. On August 10, around 70 farmers in the state of Para organized a “day of fire,” a coordinated burning to show their support for the president. Federal prosecutors warned IBAMA, Brazil’s central environmental ministry, but they were not given the police support needed to stop it.

Opposition to enforcement and accountability is explicit in Bolsonaro’s administration. “If you see a nongovernmental organization working against Brazil, denounce it!” said Luiz Antonio Nabhan Garcia, Secretary of Land Affairs in the Ministry of Agriculture. When asked about government reports that many ranchers in Para illegally claimed land in protected areas, he called the reports a lie spread “by Brazil’s enemies.”

Fires, International Pressure, and Economic Consequences

The rhetoric and lack of enforcement set the stage for the worst fire season in years. Satellites recorded a spike in deforestation in May and June, followed by a spike in fires along major Amazonian roads throughout August. But only after international media took note and world leaders started applying pressure did the Bolsonaro administration take action.

Initially, President Bolsonaro said that Brazil did not have the resources to fight the fires and blamed, without evidence, NGOs working in the Amazon for starting them. After rising international criticism and the possible cancellation of a pending trade deal between the EU and the South-American Mercosur trading bloc, Bolsonaro’s government decided to mobilize the military to fight the fires. On August 29, Bolsonaro issued a 60-day ban on burning.

Dissecting the Government’s Response

At first glance, the government response to the fires, while delayed, appears to have been effective. The rate of burning fell in September, and the government said it arrested 63 people and issued $8.7 million in fines in connection with the fires.

A closer look reveals the limits of the crackdown. The total number of fires between January and September was still 43 percent higher than the same period in 2018, and forest fires in other vital areas of Brazil increased during September. Even in the first 48 hours after the ban on new burnings was announced, 2,000 new fires were started. The army was sent in to fight the fires themselves, not necessarily to arrest the people responsible for starting them, said Carlos Nobre, a Brazilian scientist, so the culprits may not be deterred. And the drop in Amazon burning did nothing to address the elevated deforestation that preceded the burning.

The effort to contain the fires has also not been accompanied by any changes to long-term plans to continue developing the Amazon. The Bolsonaro administration currently plans to repave the crumbling 900-km BR-319 highway that slices through the interior of the Amazon. Increased access to the interior will bring logging, mineral extraction, and land clearing for farming and ranching with it.

Bolsonaro’s administration has also undermined Ibama, the environmental agency charged with protecting the rainforest, by shrinking its budget by 25 percent. The agency’s field enforcement agents have been prevented from destroying illegal logging equipment they find in the field.

Without Continued Pressure, the Amazon Will Burn Again

Between Bolsonaro’s long-term policy plans and international attention moving on, last year’s devastating fire season could be a dangerous template for this year and years to come.

During the first half of the year, farmers and ranchers seeking to expand their land can cut trees and prepare them for burning. This deforestation will be visible to satellites, but without social media attention, it may not capture international attention. Having already seen how international pressure may be applied during an intense burning season, land-clearers can plan ahead by shifting their burning to earlier in the season. By the time the fires are intense enough to spur action, the damage will have been done. The army will help to stop the fires, addressing the immediate crisis so the global community can move on, and the cycle can continue the following year.

The good news is that this outcome is not inevitable. Internationally, while the media is no longer focused on clearing the Amazon, the issue still smolders. If scientists, journalists, and the indigenous communities that live in the Amazon can bring the issue back into the public consciousness before this year’s dry season, the international community may act preemptively to prevent another severe burning season.

Another possible pressure point is the trade deal between Mercosur and the EU. In the EU, trade deals must be approved by all 28 member states. France and Ireland are prepared to vote against the deal if Bolsonaro doesn’t live up to his environmental commitments. France is also bypassing Bolsonaro entirely by negotiating with Brazil’s Amazonian states to help fund their environmental efforts. Brazilian beef and soy exports, two of the primary products produced on land cleared in the Amazon, are also a potential source of economic pressure. At the height of the crisis, Nordic countries called for the EU to consider banning Brazilian beef imports.

The coming year will be crucial for the international community to take action, particularly as the ban on fires was lifted in late October. Continued international pressure, and Bolsonaro’s own flagging approval rate, could force longer-term policy changes and convince Brazilian farmers and ranchers that the Amazon cannot be burned with impunity. Otherwise, the more intense fire seasons could become the new normal.