The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, has lost an area equivalent to Germany and France combined due to deforestation in four decades, a study released on Monday showed.
The South American forest, spread across nine countries, is seen as vital in the fight against climate change because of its ability to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
According to RAISG, a group of researchers and NGOs, deforestation, mainly for mining and agricultural purposes, is expected to lose 12.5 percent of the Amazon’s vegetation area from 1985 to 2023.
This means that 88 million hectares (880,000 square kilometres, 339,773 sq mi) of forest area was lost in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
RAISG experts report “accelerating transformation” in the Amazon, with an “alarming increase” in the use of previously forested land for mining, crops or livestock.
“A huge number of ecosystems have disappeared and been replaced by pastureland, soybean fields or other monocultures, or converted into pits for gold mining,” he said.
“By losing forests we emit more carbon into the atmosphere and that disrupts entire ecosystems that regulate the climate and the water cycle, which obviously impacts temperatures,” Sandra Ríos Cáceres of the Institute of the Common Good, a Peruvian organisation that participated in the study, told AFP.
He said he believed vegetation loss in the Amazon was directly linked to the severe droughts and wildfires affecting several South American countries.
Climate change is increasing the risk and severity of fires in the Amazon and Pantanal wetlands, which are emitting “massive amounts” of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, scientists’ World Weather Attribution Network said on Sunday.
“Endless heat and diminished rainfall have combined to turn these precious ecosystems into highly flammable tinderboxes,” said study researcher Claire Barnes of Imperial College London.
“As long as the world continues to use fossil fuels, the risk of devastating wildfires in the Amazon and Pantanal will continue to increase,” he said.
The drought has caused water levels in some Amazon rivers to drop to their lowest levels in decades, threatening the livelihoods of some 47 million people living along the riverbanks.
Drought has caused fires to rage out of control in Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru — often set to clear land for farming.
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