Despite hundreds of years under a system that profited from dispossession of Indigenous lands, waters, and culture, perhaps the tides have truly turned in Brazil. These actions bring new hope for desperately needed conservation projects in the country that holds 60% of the Amazon.
Global warming accelerates destruction of the Amazon. Deforestation and climate change could damage or destroy as much as 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest by 2030, according to a new report from environmental group WWF.
More than half of the world's tropical forests are not old growth but naturally regenerating forests. They found that soil fertility takes less than 10 years to recover to old-growth forest values. Plant functioning takes less than 25 years, and species diversity takes 60 years.
By 2050, up to 47 percent of the Amazon could hit critical ecological tipping points, researchers say, transitioning into savanna grasslands or other degraded ecosystems because of deforestation and human-driven global warming.
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — 2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that's a critical counterweight to climate change. A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005.
This precious ecosystem is under increasing threat from huge-scale farming and ranching, infrastructure and urban development, unsustainable logging, mining and climate change. Just three quick facts to give you an idea of what's at stake here: 1) The Amazon has more species of primate than anywhere else on Earth.
Tree clearing in the Amazon leaves behind a patchwork of rainforest fragments that are too small on their own to sustain healthy populations of wildlife. We are working to reconnect forest fragments so that plants and animals are able to disperse again aross the landscape and keep the rainforest functioning.
Destroying the Amazon rainforest would mean losing a biodiversity hotspot. Its absence would lead to increased carbon in the air and oceans, the loss of medically and culturally significant species, and worsening drought and flooding. Additionally, millions of people would lose their homes and livelihoods.
The cost of restoring the Amazon forest
Considering only the area deforested between 2019 and 2022 in the Brazilian Amazon, which adds up to more than 4 million ha, the cost of restoration would be around $190 million (if restoration were done only through natural regeneration).
Many in Brazil's agriculture industry say ranching and farming, which have contributed to wide-scale deforestation in the Amazon, have helped reduce hunger in the country. Millions of people rely on cleared land for their livelihoods, yet others depend on the rain forest's preservation for their economic well-being.
Imagine the entire Amazon rainforest as barren, dry savanna, stripped of lush vegetation and tropical trees. Well, illegal logging, agriculture, and the intensifying effects of the climate crisis mean that the threat of “savannization” (the Amazon turning into savanna) is a very real possibility.
Breathe for the world.
The Amazon is also the most important dense forest area for the global good, containing 90-140 billion tons of carbon. If the forests were cut down, they would release the equivalent of 10-15 years of global man-made emissions into the atmosphere.
Climate change and deforestation could convert the majority of the Amazon rainforest into savanna, with massive impacts on the world's biodiversity and climate.
2024 Marks the Worst Year for Amazon Fires since 2005
The area lost to fire in the Amazon grew by at least 114% compared to 2023. In September alone, 13.7 million acres of forest burned—an area comparable to the size of Costa Rica—according to MapBiomas.
The Amazon is called the “lungs of the Earth” and for good reason — around 20 percent of the planet's oxygen originates in the Amazon. The vast rainforest also absorbs carbon dioxide and lowers the amount of greenhouse gases, therefore regulating global temperatures and, in effect, slowing the rate of climate change.
Left alone, Amazon plants will typically return to this land. Seeds and roots in the soil can sprout from the ash. But where fires are very severe, the buried seeds and roots of some species may die, too. Now lacking these species, the forest that grows back often will have fewer species than before.
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More than 30 million people of 350 different ethnic groups live in the Amazon, which are subdivided into 9 different national political systems and 3,344 formally acknowledged indigenous territories. Indigenous peoples make up 9% of the total population, and 60 of the groups remain largely isolated.
The Amazon has proven resilient to natural changes in the climate for 65 million years, but deforestation and the human-caused climate crisis have brought new levels of stress and could cause a large-scale collapse of the forest system within the next three decades, the study said.
The specific mechanics of restoration vary. The simplest scenario is to release land from nonforest use, such as growing crops or damming a valley, and let a young forest rise up on its own. Protective measures can keep pressures such as fire, erosion, or grazing at bay.
By the time this piece was published in portuguese, on November 5, it showed 470 million deforested trees in 2021. According to INPE alerts, deforestation in the Legal Amazon approaches 800 thousand hectares (8 thousand km²) so far in 2021.
The ever-growing human consumption and population is the biggest cause of forest destruction due to the vast amounts of resources, products, services we take from it. Half the world's rainforests have been destroyed in a century, at this rate you could see them vanish altogether in your lifetime!
Burning away the Amazon would condemn millions of living species to extinction and destroy their habitats. Many of these plants, animals, and other forms of life haven't even been identified by science yet.
The new study, published in Nature, finds that by 2050, between 10 and 47% of the Amazon forest will be exposed to “compounding disturbances” that “may trigger unexpected ecosystem transitions”. This could result in large swathes of lush rainforest shifting to dry savannah.