Amazon fires: 5 things you can do now to help the lungs of the planet

The Amazon is burning - and has been for almost one month.

The lungs of the planet have been on fire since the beginning of August, an ongoing destruction that could reach detrimental levels if enough of the rainforest isn't preserved. In 2019 alone, more than 70,000 fires have been reported across the Brazilian landscape with the majority of them occurring in the Amazon basin. This is an 83 percent increase on the same period last year. The Amazon is vital to the entire planet's ecosystem. Housing millions of animals, it is widely seen as one of the major contributing factors to slowing down climate change due to its sheer scale and impressive biodiversity. Since the beginning of this month, social media has been awash with images of the charred, burned rainforest - but how can we actually help beyond posting on our Instagram Stories? 1. Sponsor an area of the land Since 1998, The Rainforest Trust has saved over 23 million acres of land in the rainforest. The group uses donations to help save the planet's ecosystem by buying up the vulnerable land before deforestation can begin. Last year alone, they saved 1.28 billion trees, protected 125 threatened animal species, and safeguarded 189 million Mt of co2 equivalent. The Rainforest Trust have saved forests and habitats around the globe, but their focus has now - understandably - switched to the Amazon rainforest. You can protect your own acre of the rainforest here.  2. Donate to Rainforest Action Network  The Rainforest Action Network has been affecting change since the 1980s. The groups has run grassroots campaigns concerning deforestation and climate change since its inception, and is one of the most high profile charities currently working to save the Amazon. Other notable charities and NGOs include The Amazon Conservation Association, The World Wide Fund for Nature, Amazon Watch, and The Rainforest Foundation U.S. 3. Reduce your paper and wood consumption  An obvious one here, and yet still something that a lot of us are struggling to do. While plastic has been very much deemed the villain of the sustainable fight - and rightly so - that has almost left wood in the clear. Or so we think. In actual fact, a lot of the paper and wood products we use aren't rainforest safe, meaning that they have failed to meet environmental, social, and economic sustainability standards. A lot more of them are simply wasteful and unnecessary, so next time you're picking up something that uses wood or paper, consider whether you actually need to take that packaging, or product, with you. A full list of rainforest safe products as certified by the Rainforest Alliance can be found here.  4. Reduce your beef intake Since we all started becoming more aware of our consumption habits, reducing our meat intake has been at the top of everybody's sustainability list. It has already been shown that avoiding meat and dairy is the most effective way to reduce a person's carbon footprint and, as it turns out, eating less beef is a decent way to do your bit for the rainforest too. The global demand for beef has been detrimental to the Amazon due to the expansion of Brazilian cattle herds. More cattle means more land to graze, and more grazing means the removal of the trees through deforestation and, of course, fires. 5. Search on Ecosia Use Google 45 times and you get 45 answers. Use Ecosia 45 times and you get to plant a tree. The eco-friendly search engine uses its profits to plant trees benefitting communities, people, and the environment. Their servers run on 100 percent renewable energy too, so you can be sure that all of your searches are going somewhere good - to the trees.