ENVIRONMENT:  Australian fires reach every corner

Australia is 16 thousand kilometers from Panama. That does not mean that the gigantic plant mass fires that have destroyed millions of hectares do not affect us. On the contrary, Australian forest destruction follows what a few months ago punished the Amazon. In Australia, more than twenty people have lost their lives, as have more than one billion wild animals. Species that we may lose forever have perished. It is easy to blame climate change and bad land-use practices. However, the fires in Australia, in the Amazon and even in Darien, have the same cause: the policy of myopic governments that want to do business with natural resources at all costs, making the little matter what happens in the future, become a disaster now. The burning of Australia pollutes the atmosphere with the air we breathe and the rain we need. We all live on the same planet. What happens in any corner, benefits us or hurts equally.- LA PRENSA, Jan.12