The world’s forests are shrinking . And increasingly, because for years, they have endured a multitude of impacts from human beings. Now, a new study published in the journal Science Advances claims that the forests of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, may be reaching a crisis point.
The research, led by Thomas E. Lovejoy of George Mason University in Virginia (USA) and Carlos Nobre of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, shows that if deforestation exceeds 20% of its original extension, the forest Amazon will have reached the “point of no return .” Not surprisingly, since 1970 more than 765,000 square kilometers of forest have been lost, with an annual loss that in recent times has been reduced to about 5,000 square kilometers (in the decade of the 1990-2000 the loss was more than 15,000 annual square kilometers) but that does not stop in its advance.
In the study, Thomas Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre set out to establish concretely the turning point of the Amazon, as well as to identify in a concrete way what must happen to reach that fateful moment. Basically, they wanted to know how far deforestation could progress before the rainforest’s water cycle stopped supporting the ecosystems that live within it.
“If the climate changes – due to deforestation or global warming – there is a risk that more than 50% of the Amazon forest will become a degraded savanna,” said Nobre, emphasizing that in the last 50 years, deforestation has reached about 17% of the vegetation of the Amazon .
According to their estimates, it would only take an additional 3% to make the forest unsustainable.
More threats
While deforestation poses an imminent and serious risk to the rainforest, it is not the only threat to these ecosystems.
Climate change and the use of fire also play an important role in this deadly course in this region.
In addition to potentially decimating what remains of the rainforest (and the wildlife that inhabits it), the degradation of the water cycle will also have a severe impact on the human population of South America.
Despite this grim prediction, we have not yet reached the point where there is no turning back. The Amazon rainforest may be close to the point of no return, but it hasn’t gotten over it yet.
“The fact that deforestation continues is a demonstration of the difficulty, or almost bankruptcy, of representative democracy in our South American countries. Representative democracy no longer works in Brazil due to the will of the majority of the Brazilian population to preserve The Amazon has no correspondence in the political actions that we see emanating from the Brazilian states, “says Nobre.
A proper form of human intervention could help steer the forest away from impending doom, but in light of the destruction that has already been done, and the speed of its continuation, ending it will not be easy.
Reference: Amazon Tipping Point. Thomas E. Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre. Science Advances 2018: Vol. 4, no. 2, eaat2340 DOI: 10.1126 / sciadv.aat2340
