World Economic Forum

November 25, 2021
Throughout this past summer, wildfires ravaged forests from California to Siberia, devastating wildlife, and turning entire communities to dust. But as affected countries deal with the visible damage, the whole world will have to reckon with an unseen consequence for decades to come: a massive release of greenhouse gas.

It’s easy to forget that the ground beneath us contains far more than just dirt, even in some of Earth’s most rugged environments. All kinds of ecosystems — lush rainforest, muddy peatland, shady mangroves — contain eons of stored carbon, captured by photosynthesis. Worldwide, there are about 730 gigatons of manageable carbon locked away in nature; and if disturbed by fire, agriculture, or development, these stores can vanish, sending long-stored emissions right back into the air. As humanity works to prevent runaway climate change, this kind of unplanned expense could quietly bust our carbon budget.

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France 24

September 10, 2021
The world's most influential conservation congress passed resolutions Friday calling for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth's surface -- land and sea -- to be designated "protected areas" to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is meeting in Marseille, does not set global policy, but its recommendations have in the past served as the backbone for UN treaties and conventions.

They will help set the agenda for upcoming UN summits on food systems, biodiversity and climate change.

- Saving the Amazon -

An emergency motion calling for four-fifths of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025 -- submitted by COICA, an umbrella group representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations -- passed with overwhelming support.

"Indigenous Peoples have come to defend our home and, in doing so, defend the planet. This motion is a first step," said Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA and a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela.

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Reuters

July 14, 2021
More than 10,000 species of plants and animals are at high risk of extinction due to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest - 35% of which has already been deforested or degraded, according to the draft of a landmark scientific report published on Wednesday.

Produced by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), the 33-chapter report brings together research on the world's largest rainforest from 200 scientists from across the globe. It is the most detailed assessment of the state of the forest to date and both makes clear the vital role the Amazon plays in global climate and the profound risks it is facing.

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Mongabay

February 23, 2021
[…] A year has gone by since I first reported on an urgent plea from renowned Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre and U.S. conservation biologist Thomas Lovejoy, warning that the Amazon biome was teetering on its tipping point.

“We stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now.” they said. If the Amazon loses just 3% to 8% more of its tree cover, they wrote, it could trigger a rapidly unfolding domino effect turning more than half the towering rainforest into degraded grasslands. “We believe that negative synergies between deforestation, climate change, and widespread use of fire indicate a tipping point for the Amazon system to flip to non-forest ecosystems in eastern, southern and central Amazonia at 20-25% deforestation,” the pair wrote in a letter to Science Advances in 2018.

As a Brazilian journalist, observing the Amazon — one of Earth’s most biodiverse places, and the life source for millions of families in my nation — I’ve been hit close to home as nature’s bounty is exchanged for short-term profits from beef and soy exports.

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The Guardian

October 5, 2020
Much of the Amazon could be on the verge of losing its distinct nature and switching from a closed canopy rainforest to an open savannah with far fewer trees as a result of the climate crisis, researchers have warned.

Rainforests are highly sensitive to changes in rainfall and moisture levels, and fires and prolonged droughts can result in areas losing trees and shifting to a savannah-like mix of woodland and grassland. In the Amazon, such changes were known to be possible but thought to be many decades away.

New research shows that this tipping point could be much closer than previously thought. As much as 40% of the existing Amazon rainforest is now at a point where it could exist as a savannah instead of as rainforest, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

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The New York Times

August 29, 2020
The world's largest wetland is ablaze, but the fire is often invisible.

In Brazil's Pantanal, the vegetation compacted under the marshy flood water during the wet season dries out as ponds and lagoons evaporate, leaving flammable deposits underground that can continue to smolder long after visible flames die down.

Firefighters across Brazil are battling raging towers of flames from the Amazon rainforest to the Cerrado savannah, but the fires beneath their feet are a particular challenge in the Pantanal. The only way to combat an underground fires is to dig a trench around it, said state firefighter Lieutenant Isaac Wihby.

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Mongabay

August 28, 2020
Despite surging forest fires and deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest, Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment announced it will suspend all operations to combat illegal deforestation and fire in the Amazon and Pantanal on Monday, August 31.

In a statement published on its official web site, the ministry said it would demobilize staff and resources across two agencies: the environmental protection agency IBAMA and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). The suspension affects 1,805 firefighters, 401 inspectors, six helicopters, 144 vehicles, and ten aircraft.

The ministry said the decision is a product of a federal budget cut of 60.6 million Brazilian reais ($11.26 million).

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The Guardian

March 4, 2020
Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown.

The Amazon could turn into a source of carbon in the atmosphere, instead of one of the biggest absorbers of the gas, as soon as the next decade, owing to the damage caused by loggers and farming interests and the impacts of the climate crisis, new research has found.

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Mongabay

January 23, 2020
One of the most important questions Amazon scientists are asking today is, how much deforestation and global climate change can this tropical biome tolerate before rainfall is drastically reduced — forcing a rainforest-to-savanna conversion, and releasing huge amounts of stored forest carbon into the atmosphere in the process?

A recent study tried to answer that question. The findings: the Amazon basin could be less than 30 years from a catastrophic collapse that would turn it into a dry savanna, according to a study published in the journal One Earth.

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Phys.org

December 23, 2019
The critical tipping point for the Amazon rainforest has arrived, and an ecological disaster could be in the making if drastic actions aren't taken immediately.

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