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UPI
15-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Amazon deforestation worsens in Brazil, Peru, data show
Activists protest in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in October in front of a mural painted with ashes from the fires ravaging the country. The mural, by Brazilian artist Mundano, was unveiled with a demand that agricultural companies stop deforestation in the Amazon. File photo by Isaac Fontana/EPA July 15 (UPI) -- The Amazon rainforest -- considered one of the world's most important climate regulators -- continues to face serious threats in 2025. New data show that pressure on the ecosystem has intensified in Brazil and Peru during the first half of the year, while Colombia reports progress in curbing deforestation. In Brazil, the National Institute for Space Research reported that 807 square miles of forest were lost between January and June -- a 27% increase compared to the same period in 2024. The spike was especially pronounced between April and June, coinciding with the dry season and a rise in illegal activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching. In May, the deforested area increased by a record 51% compared to the same month last year. "The loss of forest in May 2025 was largely due to wildfires. ... We are beginning to see a shift that confirms the warnings ... that the rainforest is being severely impacted by climate change," said João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary of Brazil's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. The trend threatens to reverse the gains made in 2023 and 2024, when deforestation fell to its lowest level in nearly a decade, driven by stronger enforcement and improved monitoring. In Peru, while official figures for the first half of 2025 have not yet been released, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project warns of ongoing primary forest loss in regions such as Ucayali and Madre de Dios, where illegal mining and wildfires have caused significant damage. Peru lost more than 140,000 hectares, or 346,000 acres, of forest in 2024, and active hot spots detected in early 2025 suggest the trend is continuing. According to the country's Ministry of Environment, deforestation in the first quarter of the year totaled 27,000 hectares, or about 67,000 acres -- a 33% decrease compared to the same period in 2024. The drop was even more pronounced in Amazonian national parks, where forest clearing fell by 54%. The reduction was driven by a government-led multisector strategy that combined satellite monitoring, community agreements and joint operations that involve the military, environmental agencies and prosecutors. However, a separate report by the Office of the Inspector General warned that forest clearing continues in remote areas, with more than 88,000 hectares, or 217,000 acres, affected between October 2024 and March. The upcoming COP30 summit, scheduled for November 2025 in Belém do Pará, Brazil, could be critical for setting commitments and securing concrete funding to protect the Amazon, which is essential for maintaining climate stability, not only for South America, but for the entire planet.
The Star
13-07-2025
- Science
- The Star
Greenwashed and growing
BRAZILIAN soy farmers are pushing deeper into the Amazon rainforest, threatening a landmark deal meant to slow deforestation. Many are capitalising on a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a voluntary pact signed in 2006 by the world's top grain traders, pledging not to buy soy grown on land deforested after 2008. The moratorium protects old-growth rainforest, but excludes secondary forests – vegetation that regrew after land was previously cleared. Though crucial to the Amazon's health, these areas can be legally razed and planted with soy, all without violating the deal's terms. The resulting crops can even be marketed as 'deforestation-free'. The most recent moratorium report, covering the 2022–2023 season, showed soy planted on virgin forest had nearly tripled since 2018 to reach 250,000ha – 3.4% of all soy grown in the Amazon. But the actual figure may be much higher. Xiaopeng Song, a University of Maryland geographer who has tracked soy expansion, found more than 1.04 million hectares – or 16% of soy-planted land in the Brazilian Amazon – had been deforested since 2008. His satellite data suggest four times the forest loss reported. 'I would like to see secondary forest and recovered forest included in the moratorium,' Song said. 'It creates loopholes if we only limit it to primary forest.' Abiove, the soy industry body overseeing the agreement, said the moratorium was designed to curb destruction of old-growth forests. Broader definitions used by other studies could lead to 'inflated interpretations', it added. The report's figures are based on data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which is internationally recognised and independently monitored. Abiove admitted some soy is planted on land where regrown forests had been cleared – but has defended the current framework. A chain, normally used connected to tractors to fell down trees at the last stages of clearing land, lying in a field. — Reuters Shrinking buffer The distinction between primary and secondary forests carries serious consequences. Secondary forests may be younger and initially less biodiverse, but they play a critical role in absorbing carbon and restoring damaged ecosystems. 'Secondary forests are crucial to limiting global warming,' said Viola Heinrich, a researcher at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. 'We cannot achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement without actively increasing the carbon sink.' While they store less carbon than primary forests, secondary forests absorb it faster, making them vital in slowing the Amazon's drift towards a tipping point – when deforestation, heat and drought could trigger its irreversible transformation into a dry savannah. Most scientists now argue that stopping deforestation alone isn't enough; reforestation is essential. 'Stolen again' Late last year, under blistering heat on the edge of Santarem, a port city on the Amazon River, farmers were clearing land – stacking tree trunks in neat rows, ready to burn. Satellite images showed this was once cattle pasture that had regrown into secondary forest over three decades. 'What can be stolen once can be stolen again,' said Gilson Rego, of the Pastoral Land Commission, a church-linked group that works with locals impacted by deforestation. He pointed to nearby soy fields that had been planted in the past five years. The area's rapid transformation is largely due to the Cargill grain terminal, which offers easy export access – cutting logistics costs and fuelling the soy boom. Cargill did not respond to requests for comment. The surge helped Brazil overtake the United States in 2020 as the world's top soy exporter. About two-thirds of Brazil's soy goes to China, where major buyer Cofco, a signatory to the moratorium, claims it remains committed to the deal. Nearly all the soy is used as animal feed for global meat production. Still, Song estimates that without the moratorium and related conservation efforts, an additional six million hectares of forest might have been lost to soy in Brazil. By comparison, neighbouring Bolivia, which lacks such controls, has become a deforestation hotspot. A rural cemetery surrounded by a soy field where soybean farming expanded in the Amazon. — Reuters Pressure to backslide Brazilian farmers have long opposed the moratorium, arguing it unfairly penalises them. Even minor infractions can lead traders to block purchases from entire farms – a policy Abiove is considering relaxing. Roughly 10% of Amazon soy farmland is currently blacklisted. 'It's not fair that countries in Europe can deforest to grow, and now we're held back by laws that aren't even ours,' said Adelino Avelino Noimann, vice-president of the soy farmers' association in Para state, which includes Santarem. Farming groups allied with right-wing politicians have ramped up legal and legislative attacks on the moratorium in Brasilia and across several agricultural states, seeking to dilute its protections. In April, a Supreme Court justice said Brazil's largest soy-growing state, Mato Grosso, could withdraw tax breaks from companies that honour the moratorium – a move yet to be confirmed by the full court. Abiove president Andre Nassar told senators that the agreement's rules might need to be watered down to placate growers: 'The solution is not ending the moratorium or keeping it as it is. Something needs to be done.' Global traders – including ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco and Louis Dreyfus Company – have remained tight-lipped. But Greenpeace, which takes part in some discussions, said there's pressure behind the scenes to weaken the deal. Even so, environmentalists say the moratorium remains vital. 'We still see the expansion of soy in the Amazon,' said Andre Guimaraes, executive director of IPAM, an environmental research group. 'But it could be worse.' Soy vs schools The rich soil and ample water of the Amazon have drawn farmers from across Brazil, particularly from Mato Grosso, the soy heartland. 'Here, we can have as many as three harvests,' said Edno Valmor Cortezia, head of the local farmers' union – rotating soy, maize and wheat on the same plot in a single year. In Belterra, near Santarem, soy fields have crept up to a school and even a cemetery. Raimundo Edilberto Sousa Freitas, the school principal, showed court records from two pesticide incidents last year that affected 80 students and teachers. One farmer was fined, but soy continues to sprawl through the area. Occasionally, a few lone trees – protected by law – stand in vast expanses of soy, the last hints of the vibrant biome that once covered the region. — Reuters
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
‘We are perilously close to the point of no return': climate scientist on Amazon rainforest's future
For more than three decades, Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre has warned that deforestation of the Amazon could push this globally important ecosystem past the point of no return. Working first at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research and more recently at the University of São Paulo, he is a global authority on tropical forests and how they could be restored. In this interview, he explains the triple threat posed by the climate crisis, agribusiness and organised crime. What is the importance of the Amazon? As well as being incredibly beautiful, the world's biggest tropical rainforest is one of the pillars of the global climate system, home to more terrestrial biodiversity than anywhere else on the planet, a major influence on regional monsoon patterns and essential for agricultural production across much of South America. You were the first scientist to warn that it could hit a tipping point. What does that mean? It is a threshold beyond which the rainforest will undergo an irreversible transformation into a degraded savannah with sparse shrubby plant cover and low biodiversity. This change would have dire consequences for local people, regional weather patterns and the global climate. At what level will the Amazon hit a tipping point? We estimate that a tipping point could be reached if deforestation reaches 20-25% or global heating rises to 2.0-2.5C [above preindustrial levels]. What is the situation today? It is very, very serious. Today, 18% of the Amazon has been cleared and the world has warmed by 1.5C and is on course to reach 2.0-2.5C by 2050. How is this being felt now? The rainforest suffered record droughts in 2023 and 2024, when many of the world's biggest rivers were below the lowest point on record. That was the fourth severe drought in two decades, four times more than would have been expected in an undisrupted climate. Every year, the dry season is becoming longer and more arid. Forty-five years ago, the annual dry season in the southern Amazon used to last three to four months and even then there would be some rain. But today, it is four to five weeks longer and there is 20% less rain. If this trend continues, we will reach a point of no return in two or three decades. Once the dry season extends to six months, there is no way to avoid self-degradation. We are perilously close to a point of no return. In some areas, it may have already been passed. In southern Pará and northern Mato Grosso, the minimum rainfall is already less than 40mm per month during the dry season. Aren't those the areas where the most forest has been cleared for cattle ranching and soy plantations? Yes. Livestock grazing is a form of ecological pollution. The areas that have been most degraded by pastures are at, or very close to, a tipping point. That is all of the southern Amazon – more than 2m sq km – from the Atlantic all the way to Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Scientific studies show degraded pastures recycle only one-third or one-fourth as much water vapour as a forest during the dry season. There is so much water in the Amazonian soil. Trees with deep roots bring it up and release it into the air, mostly through transpiration by the leaves. In this way, forests recycle 4-4.5 litres of water per square metre per day during the dry season. But degraded land, like pastures, recycles only 1-1.5 litres. That helps to explain why the dry seasons are growing one week longer every decade. Why isn't an Amazonian savannah a good idea? It would be less humid and more vulnerable to fire. The tropical forest generally has 20-30% more annual rainfall than tropical savannahs in Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil. The Amazon also has fewer lightning strikes because the clouds are lower than in the savannah. But the most important difference is the fact that a rainforest has a closed canopy so only 4% of solar radiation reaches the forest floor. This means there is always very little radiated energy for the evaporation of the water so the forest floor vegetation and soil are very wet. Historically, this means that lightning strikes only start very small fires that kill only one or two trees but do not spread. In evolutionary terms, this is one reason why there is so much biodiversity in the rainforest; it is resilient to fire. But once it starts to dry and degrade, it is easier to burn. How would an Amazon tipping point affect the global climate? The forest in the south-eastern Amazon has already become a carbon source. This is not just because of emissions from forest fires or deforestation. It is because tree mortality is increasing tremendously. If the Amazon hits a tipping point, our calculations show we are going to lose 50-70% of the forest. That would release between 200 and 250bn tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2050 and 2100, making it completely impossible to limit global warming to 1.5C. Brazil is one of the world's biggest agricultural exporters. How would a tipping point affect global food security? Almost 50% of the water vapour that comes into the region from the Atlantic through trade winds is exported back out of the Amazon on what we call 'flying rivers'. I was the first to calculate the huge volume of these flows: 200,000 cubic metres of water vapour per second. My former PhD student, Prof Marina Hirota, calculated that tropical forests and Indigenous territories account for more than 50% of the rainfall in the Paraná River basin in the far south of Brazil, which is a major food-growing area. These flying rivers also provide water for crops in the Cerrado, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraguay, Uruguay, and all that northern Argentina agricultural area. So if we lose the Amazon, we are going to reduce the rainfall there by more than 40%. Then you can forget agricultural production at today's levels. And that would also contribute to converting portions of the tropical savannah south of the Amazon into semi-arid vegetation. What would be the consequences for nature and human health? The devastation of the most biodiverse biome in the world would also affect hundreds of thousands of species and raise the risks of zoonotic diseases crossing the species barrier. For the first time since the Europeans came to the Americas, we are experiencing two epidemics: Oropouche fever, and Mayaro fever. In the future, the degradation of the Amazon forest will lead to more epidemics and even pandemics. How can an Amazonian tipping point be prevented? In 2019, [the American ecologist] Tom Lovejoy and I recommended nature-based solutions, such as large-scale forestry restoration, zero deforestation, the elimination of monocultures, and a new bioeconomy based on social biodiversity. We argued that it is possible to build back a margin of safety through immediate and ambitious reforestation particularly in areas degraded by largely abandoned cattle ranches and croplands. This prompted a lot of research and new thinking. Is the Brazilian government adopting these ideas? Progress fluctuates depending on who is in power. In August 2003-July 2004, we had about 27,000 sq km of deforestation – a huge number. But the first Lula government, with Marina Silva as environment minister, brought the figure down and it reached 4,600 sq km by 2012. Later, during Bolsonaro's government, it went up to 14,000 sq km. And now, with Lula and Marina back, it is fortunately going down again and there are several beautiful new reforestation projects. This is progress, but not enough. Now I'm saying to Marina Silva, 'Let's get to Cop30 with the lowest deforestation in the Amazon ever, less than 4,000 sq km.' Who knows? But anyway, Brazil is working hard. You have warned that criminal activity is a major new risk. Why? Last year, we had a record-breaking number of forest fires in all biomes in tropical South America – from January to November 2024, the Amazon had more than 150,000. Studies by INPE (The Brazilian Space Agency) show something very, very serious is happening. More than 98% of the forest fires were man-made. They were not lightning strikes. This is very worrying. Because even when we are reducing deforestation, organised crime is making it worse. In my opinion, more than 50% of forest fires were arson. All Amazonian countries are trying to reduce deforestation. That is wonderful, but then what to do to combat organised crime? They control a $280bn business – drug trafficking, wildlife trafficking, people trafficking, illegal logging, illegal gold mining, illegal land grabbing. It is all connected. And these gangs are at war with the governments. That's one of the main reasons I'm becoming concerned because I know reducing deforestation is doable, so is forestry restoration. But how to combat organised crime? How have your feelings about this problem changed? I am worried that we are not acting with sufficient urgency. Thirty-five years ago, I thought we had plenty of time to get to zero deforestation and to combat the climate problem. Back then, deforestation was 7% and global warming was a little bit above 0.5C. I was not pessimistic because I felt we could find solutions. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, many people were saying that the world should aim for zero emissions by the year 2000. Unfortunately, nobody moved. Emissions continued to rise and they hit another record high last year. We now face a climate emergency. I am very, very concerned. Tipping points – in the Amazon, Antarctic, coral reefs and more – could cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically, irreversibly and with devastating effects. In this series, we ask the experts about the latest science – and how it makes them feel. Tomorrow, Louise Sime talks about Antarctic tipping points Read more
Sharjah 24
07-06-2025
- Science
- Sharjah 24
INPE: Record wildfires fuel sharp rise in Amazon deforestation
INPE reports rise in deforestation Figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which uses satellite data to monitor forest cover, showed that deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1% compared to the same period the previous year. Sharp spike in May 2025 The data also revealed a staggering 92% increase in Amazon deforestation during May 2025 alone, compared to May 2024. This surge threatens to undo the progress made in 2024, when deforestation slowed across all Brazilian ecological biomes for the first time in six years. Contrasting trends in other biomes According to AFP, while the Amazon saw alarming deforestation figures, other Brazilian biomes showed improvements. In the Pantanal wetlands, for example, deforestation dropped by 77% during the same period. Drought and human activity blamed Joao Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary at Brazil's environment ministry, attributed the rise in deforestation to an unprecedented number of wildfires across Brazil and neighboring South American countries. These fires, intensified by severe drought conditions, were often started to clear land for agriculture or cattle but quickly spiraled out of control.
Al Etihad
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Etihad
Brazil fires drive acceleration in Amazon deforestation
7 June 2025 14:48 SAO PAOLO (AFP)A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that the deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes acrossBrazil, host of this year's UN climate change the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought. Many of the fireswere started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.
