A deadly cycle of destruction: how greed for land is fuelling Amazon fires

The Guardian follows firefighters in the state of Pará to reveal the loopholes that allow deforestation to be legitimisedWe found the first fire without looking, crackling and roaring on farmland beside the busy Amazon highway, the flames consuming a road sign with its name - BR-163 - lying in the grass. Trucks thundered past, ferrying soya and corn from the agricultural heartlands of Brazil's central-west to the ports of Santarém and Miritituba. Nobody was around.Every year fires roar across the Amazon, and in just a few months they will be here again. But last August the number of blazes reached a 10-year high, and sparked an international crisis for Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. Months later, their traces hung over the forests in the Amazon state of Pará, leaving blackened logs and charred tree stumps where there was once rainforest. Continue reading...