On one hand, an atmospheric phenomenon of natural cause prevented the entry of moist air masses over the Pantanal, causing the worst drought in decades in the region. On the other hand, a deliberately destructive political environment to promote cattle ranching took advantage of the drought to burn the grasslands and natural savannas with the aim of increasing the pasture area destined for extensive cattle breeding.

According to José Marengo, a researcher at CEMADEN, the 2020 drought in the Pantanal was caused by a phenomenon called “meteorological blocking, characterized by the emergence of an area of high pressure that prevented rainfall formation throughout the South American Midwest region. Consequently, the temperature became very high, and the relative humidity very low”. In an interview with Agência FAPESP, the scientist stated that “this phenomenon is natural and occurred similarly during the drought in São Paulo, between 2014 and 2016” and that it is not necessarily an event related to climate change. However, he points out that this event is different from past droughts because the planet is now warmer and the population in the Pantanal exposed to these phenomena is larger.

The pressure from agriculture and livestock to expand its dominion over the Pantanal is also greater. Livestock farming has a centuries-old tradition well adapted to the Pantanal plains, where there are traces of human occupation dating back at least 8,000 years. However, under a federal government with an openly anti-conservationist agenda in favor of extensive cattle ranching, landowners criminally took advantage of the drought to use fire to replace natural grasslands and savannas with pastures of non-native grasses to the Pantanal, but very well adapted and even invasive, harming the local flora. The expansion of extensive cattle ranching is one of the reasons why all endemic plant species of the Pantanal are threatened, “Endangered” or “Critically Endangered” and was the main cause of so much burned area in the spring of 2020.

As a direct result of these fires, around 17 million non-human vertebrates died. Furthermore, the ecosystem as a whole weakens, and its resilience to future fires also decreases. This directly impacts the lives of the Pantanal population, who, like a handful of landowners, also depend on cattle ranching, but practiced on a scale compatible with the cycles of floodplains ecosystems.

In this scenario, photographer Lalo de Almeida was one of those who worked to document the destruction of the Pantanal and denounce the action, or rather, the inaction, of the federal government in combating the criminal fires of 2020. This project earned him first place in the environmental category of the 2021 World Press Photo contest. The following year, he won the Long-Term Photographic Project award from the World Press with his essay on the destruction of the Amazon. The power of his photos, from the epicenters of tragedies, speaks much more than numbers.