Endangered Amazon - Why the Earth's lungs are dying | DW Documentary

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at the mercy of political interests and global greed. Arson, illegal deforestation, and organized environmental crimes have been tolerated for decades.

Every year, at the end of the dry season, the Amazon is ablaze. This has not stopped under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Even though the 2025 wildfire season was less dramatic, in 2024, there were more fires than at any time in the past 20 years. The main driver behind these fires is money. The soy, gold, and beef industries generate billions — including for mayors, members of Congress, and banks. Indigenous people fighting for their homeland are threatened, while politicians stand idly by.

This is a film about fire and drought, crime and responsibility. The filmmakers travel to the fire-affected areas of Porto Velho, into the heart of the rainforest. They speak with Indigenous activists fighting for their rights and with courageous scientists under police protection.
The documentary shows why even protected areas are burning, and how high-ranking government officials have helped defraud the country of hundreds of millions of dollars using emissions certificates. The film looks at why even President Lula fails in the face of the agricultural lobby’s interests, what role Europe plays in this, and what Donald Trump’s shutdown of the most important satellites for monitoring global warming means.

The Amazon is dying — the appeal from Brazil’s former Environment Minister Marina Silva sounds almost desperate: "Our planet is finite, but our greed is infinite. In the 500 years of our colonization, ‘having’ has become more important than ‘being.’”

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