Why the battle to save the Amazon is the world's most dangerous war

• Video report by ITV News Correspondent Emma Murphy

We could smell the destruction long before we could see it.

The pervasive stench of smoke filling the tiny cabin.

Beneath there was just a beautiful green canopy.

But then through the grey skies it emerged: the Earth’s frontline.

The place where humans have inflicted such harm that we and generations beyond will suffer the consequences.

A blaze of orange amidst the green.

• Fires in the Amazon rainforest: Why are they happening and why should you care?

• G7 leaders pledge $20m to help Brazil fight Amazon fires and repair damage to 'lungs of the Earth'

• Boris Johnson pledges £10m to help protect Amazon rainforest

• Brazil’s leader to send army to fight huge fires in the Amazon

Flames on the land like wounds on a body.

They are flames ignited by humans for economic gain, flames from some of the 40,000 fires which have burned since January.

Some 1,330 square miles of the Amazon have been destroyed in eight months.

That’s an area three times the size of Greater London.

When the Brazilian President talks of making the Amazon a thriving industrial powerhouse this is the consequence.

When the fires are set to clear the land they burn without respite, those who set them do so without reprimand.

Fires are up 80% on last year.

Hardly surprising when one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign promises was to relax environmental protection around the Amazon.

Business is emboldened.

Economics are overpowering the environment.

The G7 have pledged £16 million and that will help but humans' indifference to the treasures of our natural world means that what is already lost is gone forever.