Amazon burning: how indigenous tribes use fire to help the rainforest

Sep 10, 2019

A member of the Yawalapiti tribe member plays a Urua flute as part of aritual of "good energies," at their village in Alto Xingu in the lowerAmazon, May 12, 2002. Four tribe members go from hut to hut, performingthe ritual the during year leading up to a Quarup festival, or 'ritualof the dead'. Once on the border of extinction, the Yawalapiti havebuilt their tribe up to 180 members from just seven some 50 years agothrough inter-marriage with other Xinguano tribes in the same culturalarea. The tribe lives almost exclusively from fishing and are famousfor their "Quarup" festival, which takes place in the year followingthe death of a tribe member of chieftan family lineage. SECOND OF SIXPICTURES REUTERS/Gregg NewtonGN/HB - RP3DRHZARYAA

Fires are used sustainably across the Amazon for things such as forest farming and cultural practices. Image: REUTERS/Gregg Newton

Jayalaxshmi Mistry

Professor of Environmental Geography, Royal Holloway

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August 2019 fire monitoring data for the Indigenous territory of Capoto Jarina (where the tortoise example comes from). Fires within the Indigenous territory (centre-right) occurred in savanna areas (top of image) that have not affected the forest, whereas fires outside the territory are a result of deforested lands (light coloured areas with sharp edges). Image: INPE

Pemón people live in south-east Venezuela, and parts of Brazil and Guyana. They are not pyromaniacs. randomvariableintheuk / flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Pemón people live in south-east Venezuela, and parts of Brazil and Guyana. They are not pyromaniacs. Image: randomvariableintheuk / flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

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