'Who pays?' asks Brazil Greenpeace protest on climate impact in the Amazon

MANACAPURU, Brazil (Reuters) - A team of Brazilian Greenpeace environmental activists on Friday placed a protect banner on a sandbank that has emerged in the middle of one of the major rivers of the Amazon basin that is suffering from the worst draught on record.

"Who Pays?" it said of the environmental damage brought to the Amazon by climate change and global warming that Greenpeace blames on the continued use of fossil fuels.

The drought has lowered the water level of the Solimoes River to unprecedented lows, exposing the riverbed opposite the town of Manacapuru just upriver from the city of Manaus where it joins the Rio Negro to form the mighty Amazon.

It is the second year in a row of critical drought that has parched the tropical forest fueling extensive wildfires and stranding riverine communities for lack of transport as rivers become too shallow for boats to pass.

"We want to send a message that climate change is already affecting even the world's largest rainforest and drying up its rivers,” said Greenpeace Brazil spokesperson Romulo Batista.

He added vulnerable communities are paying for the consequences of climate change in the Amazon, such as Indigenous people, the fishermen and other residents whose floating houses no longer float on rivers that are drying up.

"It is the people who live outside the cities of the Amazon that are the ones paying the biggest price for this extreme climate event caused by the oil and gas industries around the world," Batista said.

The drought has heated up water temperatures on the rivers and lakes, killing fish and endangered freshwater dolphins.

On Wednesday, by the sandbank in the Solimoes river, the water was measured at 40 degrees Celsius, an unbearable temperature for the fish and the dolphins. Dying fish or skeletons of fish were found on the sandbank.

(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto and Jorge Silva in the Amazon; Writing by Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by Aurora Ellis)