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Today’s newsletter focuses on the erratic weather patterns which have caused rising hunger rates in Guatemala and left communities vulnerable.
The weather extremes echo predictions by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of intensifying drought and its impact on agriculture and food security in a region called the Central American Dry Corridor, which Guatemala straddles.
The Dry Corridor is a strip of land across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua that is vulnerable to extreme climate events like long periods of drought, putting livelihoods at risk.
Over the past decade, countries in the Dry Corridor have been hit by longer and deeper droughts as well as a series of hurricanes, causing widespread crop damage.
Meanwhile, across the Pacific in South America, Chile braces for an impending El Nino-driven summer of record-breaking heat. Scientists have warned that climate change and El Nino are major drivers of extreme heat and said they are particularly worried about the impacts this year.
Chile has been suffering from a drought for over a decade and while El Nino brought intense rains in June and August, leaving thousands homeless and impacting mining operations and agriculture, it was not enough to alleviate the drought.
Over in Brazil, gray smoke has covered the Amazon region’s capital city Manaus due to dozens of wildfires in the Amazon, many of them illegally started – often deliberately set to clear trees for agriculture and urban development without permits.
Very dry conditions caused by a severe drought that the region is suffering, with record high temperatures, has helped ignite and spread the fires, according to Carlos Durigan, Brazil’s country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
