Since the beginning of the year, gigantic fires have ravaged the province of Corrientes, in the northeast of Argentina. 800,000 hectares of crops and pastures, or 9% of the area of this agricultural province of 1.1 million inhabitants, have already gone up in smoke. Seventeen fronts were active on Tuesday. In addition to heavy economic losses, there is serious damage to the environment and biodiversity. The authorities are powerless to stop the fires and place all their hopes in the expected rains, according to the meteorological services, from this Thursday.
The main damage concerns crops of rice and yerba mate, an infusion consumed at all times by millions of Argentines, and of which Corrientes is, with its neighbor the province of Misiones, the only production area. The fires have so far spared inhabited areas, but many heads of cattle have perished.
Disturbed satellite measurements
The drought that has plagued the north of the country since 2019 worsened further in November. Fires are common in the region during the austral summer, when temperatures rise to 35 degrees, and are often burns intended to clean and fertilize land before cultivating it. But the current situation is unprecedented. The fire progresses every day and the black smoke released disturbs the satellite measurements.
The first major fires were reported in early January, and spread due to extreme drought. The province of Corrientes, located between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, has been recording rainfall for three months of 10 to 15 millimeters per square meter per month, while the average for the season is 200 millimeters per month. The humidity in the air is only 15% whereas, traditionally, it is around 70%.
Escape of the yacarés
On social networks, the defender of the environment Luis Martínez multiplies the alarming videos and draws attention to the damage in the natural reserve of the ponds of Iberá, a network of swamps very rich in fauna and flora. It is, with the Pantanal, which extends to Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the main humid natural zone of South America. A fifth of the reserve has already burned, and Luis Martínez broadcast images of charred animals, or fleeing the disaster. Like the troop of yacarés (small crocodiles) visible on a video worthy of Jurassic Park. Several endangered species are concerned.
The environmental activist, quoted by AFP, questions “deforestation, desertification and misuse of land, which today combine with a new rainfall pattern due to climate change”. According to Luis Martínez, the province of Corrientes has already lost 60% of its wetlands, 40% of its grasslands and some 23,000 hectares of native forests.
Another reason for the disaster is the chaotic management of water resources, especially rivers. The Paraná, the second largest river in South America after the Amazon, and once the tenth in the world by flow, is drying up day by day, in particular due to the deforestation of the regions it crosses, which results in less evaporation. Thus, watercourses and wetlands no longer play their role as firewalls.