The Madeira River is suffering from drought in Brazil.Keystone
More than 88 million hectares have been deforested in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana over the past forty years.
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The Amazon has lost an area almost as large as Colombia in less than four decades, according to a study seen by AFP on Monday. The forest plays a crucial role in combating global warming.
“Deforestation destroyed 12.5% of the plant cover of the largest tropical forest on the planet from 1985 to 2023”
Satellite data analyzed by the Amazonian Socio-Environmental and Geographic Information Network (RAISG), a collective of researchers and NGOs.
In most cases, deforestation is for the benefit of the expansion of mining or agricultural activities, according to the study.
Pasture, soy, monoculture
RAISG specialists report an “accelerated transformation” in the Amazon, identifying an “alarming increase” in the use of land previously occupied by forest for mining (+1063%), crops (+598%) or livestock (+297%).
“A large number of ecosystems have disappeared to give way to immense expanses of pastures, soybean fields or other monocultures, or have been transformed into craters for gold extraction,” they warn.
“With the loss of forests, we are emitting more carbon into the atmosphere and this is disrupting an entire ecosystem that regulates the climate and the hydrological cycle, clearly affecting temperatures.”
Sandra Rios Caceres, from the Institute of the Common Good, a Peruvian association that took part in the study.
This specialist believes that the loss of vegetation cover in the Amazon is directly linked to “the extreme events that we are currently experiencing”, in particular the severe drought and vegetation fires that are ravaging several South American countries.
A Switzerland in a year
Some tributaries of the Amazon are at their lowest levels in decades, threatening the way of life of some 47 million people who live on their banks.
Despite efforts by countries such as Brazil and Colombia to reduce deforestation in the Amazon, 3.8 million hectares of tropical forest were cleared in the region last year, the highest level in two decades, an area almost the size of Switzerland.
The “increasingly extreme and frequent” climatic events favored by deforestation “continue to affect an already weakened Amazon, both in its capacity for regeneration and in its role in regulating the planet’s climate,” the study summarizes. (sda/ats)
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Named after the Harpy, a winged creature from Greek mythology, Russia’s latest drone is apparently flying with help from China and a German engine.
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