The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is on fire. Huge stretches of land resemble the aftermath of a battle, with thick green shrubbery now a carpet of white ash, and chunks of debris falling from the sky.
Stretching across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Pantanal covers 16.9m hectares (42m acres) and harbours rich biodiversity. It is one of the world’s main refuges for jaguars and houses a host of vulnerable and endangered species, including giant river otters, giant armadillos and hyacinth macaws. Its ecosystem is also unique. Every year its “flood pulse” sees it swell with water during the rainy season and empty throughout the dry months. But the climate crisis, droughts and weak rains have disrupted this seasonal pattern, turning the land into a tinderbox.
With the blazes starting unusually early this year – in late May and early June, before the annual fire season between July and September – experts predict 2024 will be the most devastating in decades.
More than 760,000 hectares (1.8m acres) have already burned across the Brazilian Pantanal in 2024, as fires surge to the highest levels since 2020, the worst year on record. From January to July, blazes increased by 1,500% compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Institute for Space Research.
While naturally occurring blazes take place in the Pantanal, including those sparked by lightning, humans start the vast majority of wildfires. Ranchers use fires to clear land for their cattle – as they have for centuries – but those that were once contained by the wetland’s abundant water now rage out of control.
More than 90% of the Pantanal is privately owned, of which 80% is used for cattle ranching. Almost 95% of outbreaks in the first half of 2024 started in private areas, according to the National Institute for Space Research.
The wetlands have also lost 68% of their water area since 1985, and suffered a lack of rainfall over the past six months.