A year ago, the world awoke to one of the worst environmental disasters in a generation, as São Paulo's afternoon sky was plunged into darkness from the fires that raged across the Brazilian Amazon. The devastation of the rainforest was met with unprecedented global concern, placing immense pressure on the Brazilian government and raising questions for the global interests implicated in the catastrophe.

This year, as our societies grapple with the all-encompassing COVID-19 pandemic, the  Amazon has begun to burn yet again, with June's fires at a 13-year high. This season's fires promise to be considerably worse, while potentially passing largely unnoticed in the context of our planet's many other crises.

This scenario must not come to pass. Every hectare of Amazon forest that burns brings the biome ever closer to a catastrophic tipping point, in which it will cease to function as the world's largest store of biodiversity, home to hundreds of ancestral cultures, and a vital buffer against runaway climate change.