A new $100 million philanthropic fund aimed at preventing wildfires in South America, home to the Amazon rainforest, has been launched during New York Climate Week. This comes as wildfires continue to rage across the Amazon during its peak dry season. A recent United Nations report highlighted a significant funding gap for tropical forest preservation, which plays a crucial role in combating climate change. The new fund, announced at both New York Climate Week and the U.N. General Assembly, focuses on improving firefighting efforts in South America, but it excludes large areas of forests in Africa and Southeast Asia. At the time of the fund's launch, smoke from wildfires blanketed the city of Manaus in Brazil, causing air quality to reach unhealthy levels, according to IQAir, an air quality monitoring service. Kumar Garg, president of Renaissance Philanthropy, one of the groups leading the new fund, warned that the Amazon could be lost permanently if action is not taken soon. He emphasized that the next few years will be critical in determining the future of the region. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia has also faced severe wildfires, driven by climate change and the effects of El Niño, a climate pattern that brings drier conditions. Fires in Indonesia, for instance, have caused toxic haze and raised public health concerns across the region. Bhima Yudhistira, executive director of the Jakarta-based Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), criticized the exclusion of Southeast Asia from the fund, calling it "a big mistake" and stressing the need for international support in these regions. South America is currently experiencing one of its most severe fire seasons, with record-breaking wildfires in the Amazon, Pantanal, and Chiquitano dry forest. Officials and researchers are working to prevent a repeat of this in the coming years, as El Niño is expected to increase drought and heat in the region. The new fund aims to improve early detection and response to wildfires, drawing on existing programs such as an Indigenous fire brigade in Bolivia and a fire-detection camera network in Brazil. The initiative is led by non-profits Renaissance Philanthropy and Conservation X Labs, with major financial backing from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Wildfires are increasingly linked to rising global temperatures, creating a dangerous cycle: burning trees releases carbon dioxide, which contributes to further warming, making forests more susceptible to fires. A 2023 study by the University of Maryland found that wildfires now burn more than twice as much tree cover annually compared to two decades ago. Unlike savannas, which are more adapted to fire, rainforests are highly vulnerable to burning due to drought and heat. Alex Dehgan, CEO of Conservation X Labs, emphasized that human activity is the primary cause of wildfires in the Amazon, and therefore, solutions must also come from human action. According to a recent U.N. report, the world's remaining rainforests—primarily in the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin, and Borneo—remain significantly underfunded, despite their vital role in biodiversity, climate regulation, and weather patterns. The report estimated that an additional $66.8 billion is needed by 2030 to conserve and restore these forests, but as of 2023, only $14.6 billion has been secured. International funding is unevenly distributed, with the Congo Basin receiving only 11% of available resources. Meanwhile, recent efforts like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, launched at last year’s U.N. climate summit, have struggled to meet their fundraising goals. Lee White, a former Gabonese environment minister and co-author of the U.N. report, criticized this as a failure of political systems, where short-term election cycles discourage long-term investment in environmental protection.