An initiative focused on reducing the impact of forest fires in the Pantanal will be launched in Brazil with the aim of protecting 2.5 million hectares of biome area through early detection of the fire, rapid response with the action of highly equipped and qualified forest brigades and generation of analytical, operational and community impact data – with an estimated CO2 reduction of 15 million tons throughout the project.

Called Embrace the Pantanal, the task force will have its official launch on Wednesday (8), at 15:30, at the head of the Instituto Homem Pantaneiro (IHP), strategically in the pre-season of fires in Brazil. The novelty presents itself as one of the world's largest environmental preservation projects through rapid detection and better fire fighting.

The initiative brings together companies and organizations with different specialties and areas of activity and is articulated between umgrauemeio, Aliança Brigade, Instituto Homem Pantaneiro (IHP) and Polo Socioambiental Sesc Pantanal, with financial support from JBS. For its creators, it is an important action to design the resilience plan and monitoring strategy for the Pantanal, bringing together a group of representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office, scientists and researchers, non-governmental organizations and the private sector with the common objective of supporting local institutions that historically fight fires in the biome.

"In 2020, it was unsettling to see 26% of the Pantanal, one of the world's leading biosphere reserves of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Science and Culture Organization), being consumed by fire, compromising more than 4 million hectares, killing about 17 million vertebrates emitting millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere,"  highlights, in a statement, the co-founder of the stepando Osmar Bambini.

Union of forces

The rapid response of action must happen through the interaction between the different expertise and technologies, such as the detection system of the step and the communication, mobilization and planning capacity of fire fighting of the three independent management centers: Aliança Brigade, IHP and Socioenvironmental Pole Sesc Pantanal.

The integration of information such as location of brigades, resources and equipment available, time of activation, time of locomotion to the site of fire focus, time of combat and extinction of the focus and contact with the owners of land in the surrounding area allow, assure those responsible, a rapid response to the fire. Educational actions to prevent fires are also planned among the surrounding communities.

The president of the IHP, Ângelo Rabelo, explains that, given the particularities of the region - which has mountain areas that reach more than 3,000 meters high - there is a great challenge, not only in combat, but especially in monitoring preventive actions and installing monitoring cameras that will ensure the protection of these regions,  mainly of the Serra do Amolar, which, along with the National Park, makes up the site of the World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO.

"In Serra do Amolar, we already had the Alto Pantanal Brigade working since 2020. It was created amid the fires that hit the region. With this initiative, we will have more clarity in identifying the outbreaks, which will allow an even faster response of our brigadists. With more accurate information, the work of the Alto Pantanal Brigade will be even more efficient and we have achieved our goal: to preserve the fauna and flora of pantanal", says Rabelo.

Fire fighting happens in the dry season, but prevention actions need to happen earlier, in the rainy season. In 2021, the partner Brigade Aliança registered and monitored 150 properties in the Southern and Northern regions of the Pantanal and transition zone. There were more than 330,000 hectares of farms registered in an area of activity of more than 9 million hectares in the five bases it maintains in the Pantanal.

Source: Um só Planeta