2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with massive wildfires and extreme drought devastating large parts of the biome that is a vital buffer against climate change.
The warming climate caused drought, resulting in the worst year of fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with officials suspecting that some of the fires were set to more easily clear land for cattle to run.
The Amazon is twice the size of India and spans eight countries and one region, storing huge amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It contains about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astonishing biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as a region to be exploited, with little respect for stability or the rights of its indigenous people, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is increasing at an alarming rate. Are.
“Fires and drought in the Amazon rainforest in 2024 could be ominous indicators that we are approaching a long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director of Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.”
There were some bright spots. Levels of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations Conference on Biodiversity agreed to give indigenous people more say in nature conservation decisions.
“If the Amazon rainforest is to survive tipping point, indigenous peoples will be a determining factor,” Miller said.
wildfires and extreme drought
Forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon – which is home to the largest area of this rainforest – decreased by 30.6% compared to last year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The recovery under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in contrast to deforestation, which had reached a 15-year high under Lula’s predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest conservation. and weakened environmental agencies.
In July, Colombia recorded a historic reduction in deforestation in 2023 due to a decline in environmental destruction. The country’s environment minister, Susannah Muhammad, warned that the 2024 figures may not be as promising as a significant increase in deforestation was recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a seasonal phenomenon that occurs in the central Pacific. Heats the. Illegal economies are fueling deforestation in the Andean nation.
“It is impossible to ignore the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Abus, Crisis Group advisor on Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is growing rapidly as global prices rise, and the revenues of illegal economies often exceed state budgets allocated to combating them.”
In Brazil, large swaths of rainforest were shrouded in smoke from fires in the Amazon, Cerrado Savanna, Pantanal wetlands and Sao Paulo state in August. Fire has traditionally been used for deforestation and pasture management, and those man-made fires were largely responsible for sparking wildfires.
For the second year running, the Amazon River has fallen to extremely low levels, causing some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most serious in Brazil, where one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River fell to its lowest level ever.
Cesar Ipeanza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believed people were becoming aware of the Amazon’s fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole.” But, like Miller, he is concerned about “no prospect of a return to the Amazon destruction.”
It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005. Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa – about 15.1 million hectares of the Brazilian Amazon – burned, according to the nonprofit Rainforest Foundation US. A record number of fires broke out in Bolivia in the first 10 months of the year.
“Wildfires have become a constant problem, especially in the summer months, and require special attention from authorities who do not know how to deal with them or respond to them,” Ipanza said.
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Guyana also saw an increase in fires this year.
Indigenous voices, rights advance
The United Nations Conference on Biodiversity – this year known as COP16 – was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and led to a historic agreement to give indigenous groups a greater voice on nature conservation decisions, a development that comes amid a growing movement to recognize the role of indigenous peoples in protecting lands and combating climate change. Is based on.
Both Ebus and Miller see promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new Secretary-General of the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16.
“As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts,” Ebus said. “If the political will is there, international backers can fund new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest.” Will proceed to do.”
Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether it’s in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat wildfires, or providing health care in remote Amazon border areas. But they need help from the wider world, he said.
“The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand around the world fuels the trade in goods that finances violence and environmental destruction,” he said.
Next year is an important moment for the Amazon, as Belém do Pará in northern Brazil is hosting the first UN COP in the region that will focus on climate.
“Leaders of Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand concrete support,” Ebus said.