Devastating fires that have scorched parts of the Amazon region and fueled global outrage have spurred Brazil’s government to ban most legal fires for land-clearing for at least 60 days.
The official decree prohibiting the fires was published Thursday in the wake of international criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the environmental crisis and coincides with the country’s dry season, when most fires are usually set.
Brazil’s forest code currently allows farmers and others to set some fires as long as they have licenses from environmental authorities, but there was a noticeable uptick in overall blazes this year.
So far in 2019, Brazil reported 83,000 fires, a 77 percent increase from the same period last year, according to the country’s National Institute for Space Research (Inpe). Many of those were set in already deforested areas by people clearing land for cultivation or pasture.
Bolsonaro, who has suggested environmental groups were setting illegal fires to try to destabilize his government, has had his military deploy troopsto fight the massive wildfires.