woodelf68:

silverscreenbabushka:

I know we’re all preoccupied with the pandemic but another tragedy is happening in my country and I just wanted to alarm y'all

Basically, The Polish Amazon is burning and thousands of species are dying because of human carelessness.

On Sunday wildfires started in Biebrza National Park because people from surrounding villages were burning grass on their fields and the wind brought sparks to the park, which has huge areas of flammable peat bogs.

The fires are being exacerbated by an unprecedented drought in Poland, which the meteorological office is saying is worse than any in the last 100 years. Even our main and biggest river is drying out.

What’s worse firefighters cannot get to most of those areas by car so they have to carry all of their equipment for many kilometres by foot. Firefighting planes belonging to the State Forest Authority are dropping water on the area covered by the fire but the thing with peat bogs is that even if you put out the fire on their surface, the heat stays inside and moves underground. So the fires can last for a month or more especially with this awful drought.

The area affected by the fires is unique and is one of the best-preserved peat bog sites in Europe. More than 280 bird species have been recorded here, including many rare and otherwise disappearing birds such as the great snipe, black grouse or aquatic warbler and is also home to the largest number of elk in the country, as well as, lynx, deer, wild boar and wolves etc Not to mention all the plant that grow only here!

The reason why I’m writing all of this is that I know you probably don’t care about some forest in some godforsaken country but it’s not the first “Earth’s lung” that’s being destroyed. Just a few months ago it was Australia and Amazon. The drought isn’t a unique polish problem eighter.

I know that with the pandemic and all we may be too busy to think about anything else but if you can, check what your local authorities are doing about climate change and try not to forget that the world didn’t stop with the lockdown and we still need to fight for change so we have a world to come back to after the quarantine ends.

WHY WOULD ANYONE BURN GRASS IN A DROUGHT? SMH.