Over the past year, a record number of mass fires have occurred across the Amazon basin. Many of them, particularly those in the Brazilian Amazon – which accounts for over 60 per cent of the rainforest’s area – are deliberately set by illicit gold miners or land grabbers looking to clear swathes of forest, highlighting the role of criminal actors in driving the climate emergency. So far in 2024, these fires have destroyed over 11 million hectares of land in the Brazilian Amazon. The devastation has spread to the Peruvian Amazon, where the government declared a state of emergency in September.

The fires have intensified since June, following the onset of the region’s longest and most severe drought on record. Even the moisture-rich vegetation of the rainforest has dried out, allowing the fires to spread uncontrollably. Extreme drought has also caused many of the region’s largest rivers, including the Amazon and the Madeira, to reach historically low levels. Surrounding communities are bearing the brunt of the damage. The fires have stripped away livelihoods, disrupted food supplies and caused the worst air quality ever recorded in the region. Violence is also escalating as illicit actors encroach on their land.

Before this latest crisis, there had been some progress in the Brazilian Amazon’s conservation efforts. In 2023, the deforestation rate had dropped by almost 50 per cent, largely due to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s revival of environmental protection agencies that had been weakened by the policies of the Bolsonaro government. This progress helped slow carbon emissions, as the rainforest plays a vital role in absorbing CO₂. But the current wildfires have reversed these gains, leading to record carbon emissions. In just three months, from June to August 2024, the region is estimated to have released the equivalent of 31.5 million tonnes of CO₂, almost as much as Norway’s annual emissions – a 60 per cent increase from the same period in 2023.

Most of the fires have broken out in indigenous territories. The main hotspot is the Kayapó territory in the Brazilian state of Pará, which, not coincidentally, is one of the areas most affected by illicit gold mining. In early September 2024, Brazil’s environmental and federal law enforcement agencies launched a joint operation in the area that revealed that small-scale miners were starting fires in the area to clear sites for illegal mining. The operation uncovered five camps that were used as logistical bases for setting fires and launching gold excavations.

Indigenous communities have long used controlled fires on a small scale to sustain their agricultural practices. But in recent decades, criminals have repurposed and expanded these traditional practices to clear public land in the rainforest. They burn down areas of forest to make way for illegal mines, cattle ranches or plantations of high-value crops such as soybeans or palm oil. New highways have given criminals access to previously untouched areas of the rainforest.

The land grabbers have amassed enormous wealth from their clandestine land acquisitions and, with it, can exert political muscle. Many occupy influential positions in local governments and the judiciary in the region. In areas where they control large swathes of land, their influence over voters can be considerable. Politicians often turn a blind eye to their destructive activities, knowing they will help secure votes.

Land grabbers also use forest fires as a form of political mobilization. In August 2019, in what became known as the Dia do Fogo (the Day of the Fire), they orchestrated a mass outbreak of forest fires in south-eastern Pará to show their support for Bolsonaro’s anti-environmentalist agenda. Smoke from those massive fires spread throughout Brazil, becoming a symbol of the environmental destruction driven by criminal networks operating in the region – and with the blessing of political interests.

The Amazon’s climate crisis has therefore been part of a vicious cycle fuelled by criminal economies and sanctioned by elite corruption. Illicit activities lead to environmental devastation, which, in turn, opens up more opportunities for criminal markets to expand.

This now critical situation has spurred the Brazilian government into action. Recognizing that these fires are largely the result of human activities driven by illicit interests, Lula’s administration announced a number of policy measures to address the climate emergency. Among these measures is a decree that increases the fines for starting forest fires, acknowledging that previous lax regulations did little to deter environmental crimes.

However, not all of these measures align with the goals of conservation. Lula’s administration has also approved the construction of a new interstate highway that will connect the cities of Manaus and Porto Velho. The road will cut through the western part of the Brazilian Amazon, one of the last bastions of rainforest, less affected by deforestation. While the government claims the highway will aid humanitarian efforts to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency, this project has been a long-standing demand of politically influential land grabbers, who see it as a gateway to expanding cattle ranching and gold mining into protected rainforest areas.

Rather than achieving its intended purpose, the highway runs the risk of boosting the criminal ecosystem of the Amazon, which has already propelled the rainforest to its current state of ecological devastation. This policy measure illustrates the challenges of implementing conservation measures in a context in which environmental crime interests are rampant. Rather than heeding advice from political actors that defend an anti-environmentalist agenda, government responses to the mass fires should be informed by dialogues with indigenous, riverine and quilombola communities in the Amazon, voices that need to be heard not only because they are on the front line of the climate emergency, but also because they are the most effective stakeholders for conservation efforts in the rainforest.

Following the outbreak of the current fires, the federal government announced a small increase for environmental protection agencies in the 2025 budget. However, these agencies lack personnel and adequate equipment to fight fires across the vast expanse of the rainforest. They need more resources and sustained political support from the Lula administration in order to offset the damaging influence of land grabbers in environmental policy and effectively combat the illicit economies that are causing environmental devastation in the Amazon.

As the Amazon faces mounting threats from mass fires, resources are needed critically. To assist in this effort, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime has developed an open-source mapping tool that provides 15-day projections of wildfire spread, available here. The technology uses high-resolution satellite data and machine-learning techniques to forecast new wildfires based on data collected since 2016. The interactive tool also includes the option of overlaying a map of the Brazilian Amazon with its indigenous territories, helping users identify high-risk areas and prioritize responses.