More than 85 percent of the Atlantic Forest has been destroyed, as agriculture, development and practices like logging encroach upon its land. In Minas Gerais, experts estimate, less than eight percent of the forest remains.
“When I was a kid, there was lots of forest,” said Lúcio Flávio Maxakali, a schoolteacher and a master’s degree student at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. “There were lots of animals and we planted food — corn, beans, sugarcane — in the middle of the woods.”
But over the centuries, colonial settlers used fire to clear vast tracts of the Atlantic Forest. Farmers often seeded the burned areas with guinea grass, brought from Africa, to feed their cattle.
“The farmers changed the landscape,” said Manuel Damásio Maxakali, the 52-year-old leader of Pradinho village.
His wrinkled hands drawing makeshift maps in the dusty earth, Damásio was eager to communicate the destruction that the farmers wrought. “They burned everything. They added fences. They added cattle. They cut down everything. Each time, the farmers took more land.”
Brazil’s dictatorship, from 1964 to 1985, set the stage for even greater destruction of the region’s tropical forests.
Governed by the motto “integrate to not surrender”, the military leadership cut roadways through dense forest and pushed for development projects in remote regions to stimulate economic growth.
Deforestation ultimately hit a peak in the period between 1995 and 2004, when as much as 27,772 square kilometres (10,723 square miles) of forest in Brazil were destroyed per year.
That, in turn, increased temperatures across the country. In the region of the Atlantic Forest in particular, one study found that the surface temperature of a hectare increased by one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) whenever a quarter of its tree cover was razed.
If the entire hectare of forest was demolished, the study said, temperatures could spike by four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
Without the moist tree cover, experts say the Maxakali territory has grown hotter and drier. That increases the likelihood of wildfires sparking.
Last year even broke a record for the number of wildfires in Minas Gerais. In less than nine months, 24,475 wildfires were tallied — far exceeding the previous record high in the whole of 2021.
Scarce rainfall also heightens the risk of fires, as does the seemingly endless guinea grass, which creates a thick carpet of flammable material across the landscape.
Grass fires can spread four times as quickly as forest fires, leading the Maxakali to nickname the invasive plant “kerosene”.
Some blazes are started accidentally within the Maxakali communities themselves.
Fire, after all, is a frequent part of Maxakali death rites, which often involve the burning of the deceased’s clothing, tools and house, and it is also used for cooking and to clear areas of snakes.
But wildfires are not the only consequence of the changing climate. The river in the village of Pradinho has shrunk so much that villagers are unable to bathe.
“There’s no water. The water has dried up,” Damásio explained. “We normally use water from the river, but there’s nothing now.”