Amazon Basin Drought Puts 420,000 Children At Risk; Cut Off From Schools, Water, Medical Services

[hatrack]

Two years of severe drought in the Amazon rainforest have left nearly half a million children facing shortages of water and food or limited access to school, according to a UN report. Scant rainfall and extreme heat driven by the climate crisis have caused rivers in what is usually the wettest region on Earth to retreat so much that they can no longer be traversed by boats, cutting off communities.

The effects are being felt most by children, with more than 1,700 schools and 760 health centres in the Amazon having become inaccessible or out of reach, according to the report from the children’s agency Unicef. “For the most remote communities it really is a life-threatening situation,” said Antonio Marro, a Unicef manager. “Children are contracting dengue fever, malaria and other serious diseases and there is no way they can reach a health centre for treatment.”

Deforestation and a warming climate in tandem with weather phenomena such as El Niño have scorched the rainforest and left vast sandbanks where rivers once flowed. In October, the Solimões and the Rio Negro – some of the Amazon’s largest tributaries – reached their lowest levels since records began in 1902.

Riverside communities rely on travelling by boat to towns for everything from food and water to medical treatment and schools but the water levels have dropped so much that travel has been paralysed. Half of families surveyed in 14 communities in the southern Amazon in Brazil said their children were currently out of school due to dry conditions.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/nov/07/severe-drought-children-food-water-school-amazon-climate-rivers-transport-unicef

[LisaM]

1. And yet, the environment was a complete back burner issue in the campaign.

Especially the debates. I don't recall any questions.on the environment, ostensibly the biggest concern of Gen Z.