Amazon fires: how celebrities are spreading disinformation
A TV grab shows wildfire near Robore, Santa Cruz region, eastern Bolivia on August 21, 2019. Up to now, wildfires in Bolivia have devastated about 745,000 hectares of forests and pasturelands. Neighboring Peru, which contains much of the Amazon basin, announced it was "on alert" for wildfires spreading from the rainforest in Brazil and Bolivia. PHOTO | AFP
Many high-profile figures seeking to denounce the fires in the Amazon—from Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo to Leonardo DiCaprio and Emmanuel Macron—have unwittingly ended up misleading millions on social media, either sharing photographs of the region that are years old or images taken in other parts of the world.
Official figures show nearly 73,000 forest fires were recorded in Brazil in the first eight months of the year, the highest number for any year since 2013. Most were in the Amazon.
