[There is a vicious cycle at work: While wildfires are destroying
biodiversity, biodiversity loss may contribute to increased
susceptibility to wildfires.]
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WILDFIRES AND THE THREAT TO EARTH’S BIODIVERSITY  
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Reynard Loki
September 6, 2023
Socialist Project: The Bullet
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_ There is a vicious cycle at work: While wildfires are destroying
biodiversity, biodiversity loss may contribute to increased
susceptibility to wildfires. _

,

 

In early August 2023, a succession of wildfires ignited within the
state of Hawaii, primarily affecting the island of Maui. It
is considered
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of the worst natural disasters in Hawaii’s history, and the
nation’s deadliest wildfires since 1918.” Driven by powerful
winds, these fires sparked urgent evacuations, inflicted extensive
devastation, and tragically claimed
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lives of at least 115 individuals – though the final confirmed death
toll may never be known due to the severity of the fires and the lack
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DNA evidence to identify the victims. In the town of Lāhainā, as
many as 850 people were reported
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by Hawaii officials as of August 21. The rapid spread of these
wildfires was linked to the arid, gusty weather conditions generated
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a robust high-pressure system located north of Hawaii, combined with
the influence of Hurricane Dora from the southern region. This
nightmare scenario in Hawaii is not unique.

In 2020, the catastrophic wildfires that raged across California,
Oregon, and Washington state
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around 5 million acres of dry forest. “I drove 600 miles up and down
the state, and I never escaped the smoke,” Senator Jeff Merkley
(D-Or) said
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the ABC News television show “This Week” on September 13, 2020.
“We have thousands of people who have lost their homes. I could have
never envisioned this.”

The firefighters on America’s West Coast were battling the deadly
blazes as the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly
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in September 2020 at the UN headquarters in New York. One of the
high-level meetings as part of the session was the Summit on
Biodiversity
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the hot-button issue of wildfires was not mentioned in the event
program, even though wildfires continue
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pose a direct threat to biodiversity across the planet. According to
the Living Planet Report 2020
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the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), populations of monitored mammals, fish,
birds, reptiles, and amphibians have collectively dwindled by nearly
70 percent worldwide from 1970 to 2016. The underlying cause:
humanity.

Wildfires’ Impact on Biodiversity

The Hawaiian rainforests of Kauai once teemed with ‘akikiki, small
songbirds cloaked in gray plumage. But when humans came to the island,
they inadvertently introduced mosquitoes carrying avian malaria.
“With no immunity to the disease, ‘akikiki and other native
songbirds began to die off. The species’ population crashed in the
early 2000s, and today, the situation is so dire that scientists
estimate just five ‘akikiki exist in the wild
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Kauai,” stated
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August 2023 article in the Smithsonian Magazine.

The species’ survival is in the hands of scientists on a nearby
island, at the Maui Bird Conservation Center, which houses
approximately 40 ‘akikiki and actively encourages them to breed in
captivity, according to the article
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This facility also provides shelter to around 40 ‘alalā, the
Hawaiian crow, which has vanished from its natural habitat.
Thankfully, the center’s avian residents were rescued
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the August wildfires. Still, the episode highlights the increasing
risk wildfires pose to the survival of wildlife, particularly the
danger they cause to species already on the brink of extinction.

Cataclysmic wildfires – the intensity and frequency of which have
increased due to human-caused climate change
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are not just an American phenomenon. In the summer of 2023,
catastrophic wildfires swept
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Maui, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Tunisia, and Canada.
And wildfires impact far more than human life, trees, and the built
environment; Countless wild animals have perished in the flames.
“[A]s many as 1.25 billion animals
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including iconic Australian species such as koalas, kangaroos,
wallabies, and gliders – have been killed or displaced by the
fires,” Earth | Food | Life (EFL) reporter Robin Scher wrote
on Truthout
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April 2020 about Australia’s “Black Summer
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the colloquial name of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season, which
was unusually intense. “In some instances, certain species may have
even gone extinct,” Scher reported
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Writing about the Amazon wildfires for Truthout, EFL reporter Daniel
Ross noted
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June 2020 that the “illegal logging, encroachment from
agribusinesses, and profit-driven government policies,” that
underpin Brazil’s wildfires, impacted
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communities, and created an air pollution-related health crisis
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the nation’s urban areas. The fires even spread into virgin forests
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the country.

Wildfires Linked to Cattle Farming

In addition, the fires – many of which are illegally started
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create pasture for cows that supply Brazil’s multibillion-dollar
beef industry – have created a dangerous situation for the global
climate. “[R]esearch
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some deforested regions of the rainforest are exhaling more carbon
dioxide than they’re taking in,” Ross reported
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And make no mistake, a rapidly and unnaturally changing climate is a
direct threat to the planet’s biodiversity, and to the variety of
life on Earth that provides the foundation for a host of
life-supporting ecological services – such as clean air, clean
water, healthy soil, and crops, plant pollination, pest control,
wastewater treatment, and outdoor recreation.

A Vicious Cycle

There is a vicious cycle at work: While wildfires are destroying
biodiversity, biodiversity loss may contribute to increased
susceptibility to wildfires. According to a 2016 study
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in the journal Animal Conservation, the extinction of medium-sized,
ground-dwelling mammals in Australia could be a factor that primes the
bush to burn more easily.

“Australia has seen the extinction of 29 of 315 terrestrial mammal
species in the last 200 years and several of these species were
ecosystem engineers whose fossorial actions may increase the rate of
leaf litter breakdown,” wrote
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Hayward, the lead author of the report, and his co-authors, in the
report’s abstract. “Thus, their extinction may have altered the
rate of litter accumulation and therefore fire ignition potential and
rate of spread.”

Hayward argued
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restoring biodiversity could help reduce the likelihood of wildfires
starting and spreading rapidly.

Advocacy Groups Call for Action

Some organizations are fighting against the indiscriminate
deforestation resulting from cattle farming activities that have
fueled the wildfires in the Amazon forest. Amnesty
International reported
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“63 percent of the [Brazilian Amazon] deforested from 1988 to 2014
has become pasture for cattle – a land area five times the size of
Portugal.” The group has called for ending illegal cattle farming in
the Amazon. “Illegal cattle ranching is the main driver of Amazon
deforestation. It poses a very real threat, not only to the human
rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples who live there but also
to the entire planet’s ecosystem,” said
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Pearshouse in 2019, when he was the head of crisis and environment at
Amnesty International.

Care2 launched a public petition
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Brazilian government to stop allowing these human-created fires
destroying the Amazon rainforest. As of July 2023, the petition has
garnered more than 122,000 signatures.

In 2020, Brazilian meat giant JBS pledged it would introduce, by 2025,
a new system to monitor
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its direct and indirect cattle suppliers. However, Amnesty criticized
the announcement, saying
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“timeline [was] too far removed.” The group pointed out that
“JBS has been aware of the risks that cattle illegally grazed in
protected areas may enter its supply chain since at least 2009,
and previously pledged to monitor its indirect suppliers by 2011
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Sustainable Environment Named a ‘Human Right’

In October 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council
(UNHRC) recognized
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“that having a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a
human right.” The proposed text, put forth by Costa Rica, the
Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia, and Switzerland, was approved with 43
votes in favor and four abstentions. The abstaining countries were
Russia, India, China, and Japan.

Michelle Bachelet, who was at the time the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, had long supported the move. After the vote, she said
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‘gratified’ that the decision ‘clearly recognizes environmental
degradation and climate change as interconnected human rights
crises,’” adding that “Bold action is now required to ensure
this resolution on the right to a healthy environment serves as a
springboard to push for transformative economic, social and
environmental policies that will protect people and nature.”

BirdLife International, a global partnership of non-governmental
organizations working to conserve birds and their habitats, while
seeking a resolution by the UN General Assembly reaffirming the rights
recognized by the UNHRC, said [[link removed]] that
“to emerge from [the climate and biodiversity]… crises, to ensure
our future and that of the planet, we need to entirely transform
humanity’s relationship with nature. This human right helps make
that happen.”

Wildfires Predicted to Increase

“The choking smoke cast a dark pall over the skies and created a
vision of climate-change disaster that made worst-case scenarios for
the future a terrifying reality for the present,” reported
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New York Times about the wildfires that blazed across the Western
United States in 2020. That terrifying reality could go on for
generations if we don’t get a handle on the climate crisis.

In September 2022, climate journalist and native Oregonian Emma
Pattee wrote
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the New York Times that “[c]limate scientists estimate that the
frequency of large wildfires could increase
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over 30 percent in the next 30 years and over 50 percent in the next
80 years, thanks in large part to drought and extreme heat caused by
climate change.” That is a frightening prospect not just for humans
but for the countless nonhuman animals with whom we share this
planet. 

_Reynard Loki is a co-founder of the Observatory
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fellow at the Independent Media Institute
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_This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life
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the Independent Media Institute._

_The Bullet is an online publishing venue for the socialist Left in
Canada and around the world. It solicits, publishes and republishes
articles that advance socialist ideas and analysis of important
events, topics and issues. It publishes articles by socialist thinkers
and activists, movement builders and organizers, workers and trade
unionists, and all those seeking to go beyond capitalism._

_ The Bullet is produced by the SP, but its editorial collective
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To subscribe to The Bullet, click here
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* wildfires
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* biodiversity
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* Climate Change
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