Amidst growing concerns that the Amazon rainforest is slipping towards a point of no return in its degradation, a recent study published in Science has shown that human activity and drought may have contributed about a third of that.
The authors warned of “mega-fires” in the future as fires, land conversion, logging and water shortages, have weakened the resilience of up to 2.5m sq km of the forest, thereby making this area drier, more flammable and more vulnerable than before.
The paper observes that between 5.5% and 38% of what is left of the world’s biggest tropical forest is also less able to regulate the climate, generate rainfall, store carbon, provide habitat to other species, offer a livelihood to local people, and sustain itself as a viable ecosystem.
Read also: TotalEnergies under investigation over allegations of greenwashing
Although the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to change direction with a zero-deforestation policy, the authors say work also needs to be done on degradation if mega-fires are to be avoided in the future.
“There is hope now, but our paper shows it is not enough to resolve deforestation. There is much more work to be done,” said Jos Barlow, of Lancaster University.
Water deprivation accounts for most of the increase in Amazon degradation compared with the previous estimate of 17%. Drought is also an area of increasing concern because it raises the forest’s vulnerability to fire and diminishes by up to 34% its ability to regenerate itself through evapotranspiration – the generation of rainclouds by trillions of plants.
This has varying effects across a wider region, including in food-producing areas that depend on the Amazon’s “flying rivers” to water crops. Most worryingly it raises the spectre of a destructive feedback loop in which drought makes the forest less able to pump water which leads to more drought.
The findings are based on a review of existing studies, recent satellite data, and a new assessment of drought impacts by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions including Brazil’s University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and the UK’s Lancaster University.
Story was adapted from The Guardian.
