This summer in Italy, wildfires destroyed about 70,000 hectares of land, an area equivalent to approximately 100,000 soccer fields.
ANSA reported this, citing a report published on August 5 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), according to Ukrinform.
The WWF noted that this figure is 133% higher than the average for the past 20 years. In addition, nearly one-third of the fires affected protected areas.
The situation is even worse in other parts of Europe: 219,000 hectares were burned in Spain, and 91,000 in France, resulting in dozens of casualties and forcing more than 300,000 people to evacuate.
“Europe is on fire, but while firefighters are desperately battling raging wildfires, our leaders are debating how much to weaken EU climate laws. The real question is how to strengthen them to avoid future disasters,” said Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhov, manager at WWF EU.
She added that the worst possible response would be to roll back policies aimed at reducing emissions and restoring the natural defenses of ecosystems.
As reported by Ukrinform, damages from the wildfires and heatwaves that swept through France, Spain, and other European countries have reached 3.1 billion euros.
