Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flew to the Amazon region because there is growing concern about droughts and forest fires in the rainforest region and other parts of Brazil.

During a visit to a riverside community near the city of Tefé, the Brazilian president said the Amazon was suffering from its worst drought in over 40 years and that he had come to find out “what is going on with these mighty rivers,” which in some places already resemble deserts.

Lula expressed concern about the often criminally started fires that are destroying three of Brazil’s six biomes: the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal wetlands.

“It seems to me that the situation is getting worse every year,” Lula said as he visited drought-hit communities in Amazonas state, where all 62 municipalities have declared a state of emergency. More than 340,000 people are reportedly affected.

“In the Pantanal we have experienced the worst drought in 73 years… We must solve this problem, otherwise humanity will destroy our planet,” Lula added. “We cannot destroy what we depend on for our lives.”

The president’s visit came at a time when much of South America’s largest country, as well as neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Peru, are grappling with the effects of extreme climate events that have led to record temperatures and raging wildfires.

In Rio Branco, the capital of the Amazon state of Acre, schools were closed and flights diverted after smoke enveloped the city and pollution levels soared. In the city of Porto Velho, capital of the state of Rondônia, the level of the Madeira River has fallen to its lowest level since the late 1960s.

The effects of the forest fires and drought are being felt as far away as Rio and São Paulo, where air quality has also dropped sharply in recent days. On Monday, an expert from Brazil’s space institute Inpe said smoke from the fires had covered an area of ​​5 million square kilometers – about 60 percent of the country.

“We have reached a historic moment like we have never experienced before,” said Danicley de Aguiar, an Amazon activist with Greenpeace Brazil who is monitoring the situation.

“We have had severe droughts in Brazil before, but not on this scale. I don’t think we have ever had a drought that affected not only the north, but also the Midwest, the South and the Southeast, and also part of the Northeast.

“We are facing a gigantic drought… and a drought that is accompanied by fire.”

Aguiar said there were fires in at least five indigenous territories in the Amazon this week.

The activist said that in one of these areas, Sararé, near Brazil’s western border with Bolivia, 59 percent of the total area had burned down. Fires were also raging in the indigenous Kayapó area to the northeast. “And after drought comes hunger,” warned Aguiar, who fears that the crisis could jeopardize the crops on which indigenous communities depend for their survival.

Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva attributes the situation, which is expected to worsen in the coming weeks, in part to the effects of global warming and the El Niño climate pattern.