New Delhi: Bollywood celebrities are voicing concerns over the raging fire in the lush rainforests of Amazon, home to a variety of flora and fauna.
Brazil has witnessed 72,843 fires in this year, half out of which were reported in the Amazon itself, according to CNN.
A host of celebrities are taking the lead to draw people’s attention towards the blaze which has swallowed rainforest, famed for its biodiversity.
Alia Bhatt voiced her concern on Twitter and wrote, “The ‘lungs of our planet’ are burning! The Amazon Rainforest is home to about 3 Mn species of plants & animals and 1 Mn indigenous people. It plays an important role in keeping the planet’s carbon dioxide levels in check. We won’t exist without it! #SaveTheAmazon #PrayforAmazonas.”
Anushka Sharma who is also an animal lover urged world media to pay more attention to the issue.
“The Amazon rainforest has been burning for weeks and we are only just finding out this!! This is such scary news! Amazon forests are the lungs of this already suffering planet and they are on fire now! I wish this got more importance from world media!!” she wrote on Instagram story.
The rich and dense forests in Amazon are known to supply about 20 per cent of oxygen to the Earth’s atmosphere and seeing this source of life ablaze, actor Dia Mirza who is also a UN Goodwill Ambassador also expressed worry.
“Earth’s lungs have been on fire for the last 16 days. 72000 have been recorded only this year in the Amazon. Climate Change in REAL,” she wrote.
“We’ve lost our home to corporate greed… a phrase like ‘climate change’ which didn’t feature in anyone’s dictionary till a few decades ago, will now be responsible for our extinction,” Richa Chaddha tweeted.
Other celebrities including Sonam Kapoor, Esha Gupta, Ishaan Khatter, Kajal Aggrawal, Bipasha Basu also asserted that ‘Climate Change is real!’
The wildfires took Twitter by storm with users sharing images of a heavy smoke arising out of the forest with the hashtag #PrayForTheAmazon.
Proving that the situation is serious, a user from Sao Paulo which is a little over 1700 miles away from the forests, shared a picture of a glass filled with rainwater which was dark and dirty.
