Just three minutes after a fire broke out on the roof of the historic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, news outlets around the globe were already starting to cover the story.
But three weeks after hundreds of fires have raged through the Amazon rainforest, the situation described as an international crisis is only just starting to gain coverage from mainstream media outlets.
That disparity has come under fire as environmental activists and politicians struggle to bring attention to the fires. As News.com.au reported, many have pointed to the disparity in media attention between the Notre Dame fire that broke out earlier this year and the ongoing blazes in the Amazon. The report noted that the fire at Notre Dame cathedral brought an immediate worldwide reaction and close to $1 billion in pledges from those helping to rebuild the historic landmark.
“The world hasn’t stopped [like it did for the Notre Dame fire],” the report noted. “In fact, it’s only just started to get some attention, despite more than one-and-a-half soccer fields’ being destroyed every minute. For three whole weeks, the single largest tropical rainforest in the world is being destroyed.”
Other news outlets have noted the relative lack of media attention for the Amazon fires, which only this week started to gain attention from mainstream media outlets despite having raged for three weeks. Mic also noted how images of the burning rainforest were already shared several days before media outlets started to take notice.
“Last week, NASA produced photos from space showing smoke coming from the Amazon like a hazy cloud leaving burned forest in its wake,” the report noted. “Within the next couple days, news outlets like CBS and CNN slowly began churning out the cause: The Amazon rainforest was on fire.”
Many have taken to social media in an effort to bring attention to the Amazon rainforest fires and point out the disparities in coverage when compared to the Notre Dame fire.
When #NotreDame , an old building in France caught on fire, every major media outlet was covering it.
Right now the #AmazonRainforest , the LUNGS of our planet, are burning, I don’t see any mainstream coverage at all.
Where are our priorities? https://t.co/smNlWxeQwW
— Jamie Sarai Margolin (@Jamie_Margolin) August 21, 2019
Environmentalists have characterized the Amazon fires as an international and man-made crisis. As CNN noted, environmental researchers and organizations say that the wildfires were set by ranchers and loggers who have set fires to clear the land so that they could harvest trees. Loggers have long used this method to prepare land for deforestation, the report noted. Plus, there has been a sharp uptick under new Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned on a promise to better open up the Amazon for development as a boost to the country’s economy.
