The alarm bells were already ringing. Recent years have seen several scientific studies warn of the Amazon reaching a point of no return, due to high rates of deforestation and degradation. Now, another report has cautioned that, in less than three years, the world\u2019s largest tropical forest could reach an irreversible tipping point that will lead to its progressive death \u2013 and increasing releases of carbon emissions that could destabilise the planet\u2019s climate and efforts to mitigate global warming.<\/p>\n
26%<\/p>\n
In early September, as the Fifth Amazon Summit of Indigenous Peoples took place in Lima, a new report, \u201cAmazonia Against the Clock<\/a>\u201d, was released, providing a regional assessment on how to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025. And the results are worrying, even pessimistic.<\/p>\n An initiative of the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-environmental Information (RAISG), it revealed that deforestation and degradation have now touched 26% of the entire Amazon region, according to data from 1985 to 2020. Of that percentage, 20% \u2013 an area three times the size of France \u2013 has been transformed irreversibly, mainly into cropland or pastures for livestock.<\/p>\n Some observers, such as Ernesto R\u00e1ez Luna, an ecologist and executive director of the Instituto del Bien Com\u00fan in Peru, feel the deadlines for avoiding a tipping point may have already passed. \u201c2025 is not a deadline, but more a reflection of the urgency to take strong action,\u201d he told Di\u00e1logo Chino. \u201cThe \u2018point of no return\u2019 implies a gigantic release of emissions that will derail any human effort to stop catastrophic climate disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, some areas of the Amazon, particularly in Brazil, are already emitting more carbon than is sequestered, according to a study<\/a> published in Nature last year.<\/p>\n We need another economic model that respects life. If we don\u2019t do this, we are condemning ourselves to extinction<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In this context, the protection of the Amazon is more urgent than ever, according to the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA), which represents 511 indigenous groups from the nine Amazonian countries. The body has led calls to protect 80% of the forest and avoid the tipping point. This goal<\/a> was also echoed at last year\u2019s congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), from which the Amazon for Life<\/a> coalition emerged, with the express aim of protecting 80% of the biome by 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make a breakthrough because the governments are not going to meet the 2030 goals, then they will say 2060, and then there is no more time,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Gregorio D\u00edaz Mirabal, coordinator of COICA, told Di\u00e1logo Chino, referring to the sluggish pace of climate negotiations<\/a>. \u201cWe want to protect 80% of the Amazon and, for that, we need another economic model that respects and allows life. If we don\u2019t do this, we are condemning ourselves to extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n Brazil and Bolivia alone are responsible for 90% of Amazon deforestation and degradation, according to the \u201cAmazonia Against the Clock\u201d report. In both countries, there has been significant savannisation \u2013 the transformation of tropical forests into savannah-like environments \u2013 with 34% of the Brazilian Amazon and 24% of the Bolivian side having been transformed.<\/p>\n Adding to the degradation are fires. This August, Brazil registered a new record<\/a> for forest fires, with the highest number of blazes recorded in the month in the past 12 years, according to its National Institute for Space Research.The agony of the Amazon<\/h2>\n