{
  "id": 9591978,
  "title": "New firefighting fund launches but funding gap remains as wildfires worsen worldwide",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/new-firefighting-fund-launches-but-funding-gap-remains-as-wildfires",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-24T17:17:08.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Winnipeg Free Press",
    "slug": "winnipeg-free-press",
    "url": "https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/greenpage/2026/09/24/new-firefighting-fund-launches-but-funding-gap-remains-as-wildfires-worsen-worldwide"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A United Nations report released on Thursday revealed that there remains a substantial funding shortfall for safeguarding tropical forests, crucial in the fight against climate change. A new fund seeking to raise $100 million for firefighting in South America, home to the Amazon rainforest, was introduced at New York Climate Week and the U.N. General Assembly. However, the initiative does not cover extensive forest areas in Africa and Southeast Asia.\n\nWildfires are currently ravaging the Amazon during its peak dry season, with smoke engulfing the city of Manaus, Brazil, and pushing air quality to unhealthy levels, according to IQAir. Kumar Garg, president of Renaissance Philanthropy, one of the organizations spearheading the new fund, warned that the Amazon could be lost permanently, emphasizing that the next few years are critical.\n\nSoutheast Asia was absent from the fund's scope despite the worsening climate change, driven by burning fuels and an intensifying El Nino, which has exacerbated fires in the region. The Indonesian wildfires have burned vast areas and raised public health concerns over toxic haze.\n\nForest fires are a global concern, according to Bhima Yudhistira, executive director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies in Jakarta. He criticized the exclusion of Southeast Asia, stating that many tropical forest regions, facing fires and needing international support, were overlooked.\n\nSouth America experienced one of its most severe fire seasons in 2024, breaking records across the Amazon, Pantanal, and Chiquitano dry forest. Authorities, researchers, and donors are striving to prevent a similar occurrence this year and next, when El Nino is anticipated to exacerbate drought and heat across the region. The new fund seeks to enhance wildfire detection and response in South America, inspired by existing initiatives like a 15-year-old Indigenous fire brigade program in Bolivia and a fire-detection camera network in Brazil.\n\nLed by the non-profits Renaissance Philanthropy and Conservation X Labs, the fund is supported by a $30 million contribution from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a $5 million commitment from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. It represents the latest expansion of global financing to preserve tropical rainforests, which absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.\n\nA study published last year by the University of Maryland found that wildfires now consume more than twice the tree cover per year compared to two decades ago, and more than three times the amount in tropical forests. Unlike other ecosystems, rainforests are not naturally adapted to fires, as they have not evolved to withstand such conditions. The Amazon does not naturally ignite; nearly every fire is set by humans, indicating that the crisis is a result of human decisions. Consequently, if humans created the systems fueling the fire crisis, they also possess the means to rectify it.\n\nAccording to a U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network report, nearly 80% of the world's remaining rainforests reside in South America's Amazon Basin, Africa's Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia's Borneo. Despite their significance in biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and moisture production, these forests are \"chronically underfunded,\" the report stated. By 2030, conserving and restoring tropical forests, alongside fostering sustainable agroforestry systems, would necessitate an additional $66.8 billion, with global funding only reaching $14.6 billion as of 2023. The distribution of existing funds is uneven and poorly coordinated, with the Congo Basin, the world's largest net carbon sink, receiving only 11% of international assistance. Foreign aid is projected to decline.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [
    "Amazon wildfires at peak dry season, air quality in Manaus unhealthy, according to IQAir.",
    "Southeast Asia excluded from fund despite worsening climate change and intense El Nino."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}