Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests
Photo by Illuminati Filmes.
Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests
A new study published in Nature estimates that forests in Indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon have the potential to absorb over 7,000 tons of noxious fumes from forest fires every year, preventing about 15 million cases of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases annually, which would otherwise cost $2 billion to Brazil’s public health system.
The effect on the health of populations adds to the environmental impacts of fires in the Amazon forest, which are mainly caused by deforestation and contribute to increased emissions.
What was not yet known was the level of those damages, the costs and the ability of the Amazon forests in Indigenous lands to absorb the pollutants, said the study’s authors.
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