In the Amazon, today's environmental problems become tomorrow's catastrophe.
In the Amazon, today's environmental problems become tomorrow's catastrophe.
Every Place Under Threat
ByYaryna SerkezOct. 2, 2020
In the Amazon, today’senvironmental problems become tomorrow’s catastrophes.
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The Amazon has been inhabited and cultivated for centuries. But as climate change disrupts the planet’s natural balance, and development of the region continues at the whirlwind pace of recent decades, it’s more important than ever to protect the most biodiverse place on Earth.
The rate of deforestation over the last few decades has been extraordinary. This map shows wherenatural foresthas been replaced byfarms, urban developments or degraded into dry sandy areasfrom 2000 to 2018.
Anatural forestthe size of Ohio waswiped outin Mato Grosso, Brazil, one of the country’s agricultural powerhouses. The land was cleared to help meet the growing global demand for beef. Scientists believe it will take at least50 years for the trees to grow back.
More wildfiresare tearing through the Amazon each year during thedry seasonfrom July through October.
Last year wasn’t a particularly dry year in Amazonia. Yet the number ofwildfireswas unusually high. Most of them burned along the highways and on the fringes of the Amazon biome, where ranch ownersintentionally set thousands of firesto clear land for cattle pastures and agriculture.
Fires not only degrade the Amazon’s ability to absorb carbon pollutants by destroying trees; those trees also release an enormous amount ofblack carbonand carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they burn.
This sets off a dangerous cycle, as those pollutants heat up the atmosphere andreduce the amount of moisture in the air. With less moisture, plants need more water to cool themselves, which further drains the soil, leaving the forest susceptible to wildfires and droughts.
The tropical rainforest is also clear-cut for mining by companies seeking — legally and illegally — gold, diamonds, oil and natural gas. President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has called for loosening environmental regulations, and in recent years the number ofexploration requestsfor these resources has skyrocketed. Earlier this year, he proposed a bill allowing mining onIndigenous lands.
Illegal mining is also on the rise. Illegal mining of precious minerals such as gold, diamonds and coltan affects at least2,300 sites, many of them in protected areas andIndigenous territories, according to the environmental groupRAISG. In addition to the deforestation and other ecological damage that results, small-scale, rudimentary artisanal gold mining also brings violent crime and novel diseases to isolated communities.
Another dangerous byproduct of the Amazonian gold rush is mercury poisoning. Mercury is used to separate gold from ore but makes its way into the nearby waterways, which are the primary sources of food for local communities. In some villages of the Yanomami region, for instance,an estimated92 percentof residents’ hair samples had elevated levels of mercury, which can damage the central nervous system and cause sensory impairment.
Then there are the dams. Energy-producing hydroelectric dams built on rivers and tributaries disrupt the ecosystem and destroy natural habitats. There arealready more than 100 hydropower developmentsin the Amazon andhundreds more are planned or being consideredfor the future.
The damage was particularly evident at the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, one of the world's largest hydropower dams by capacity. This is what it looked like in 2011, just as construction was starting.
This is the same region in 2019, a few months until the last of its 18 turbines was installed. Controversial from the very beginning, this project altered 80 percent of the river flow, increased deforestation rates in the region, displacedmore than 20,000 people, devastated aquatic and land fauna, including hundreds of rare species, and deprived Indigeneous communities of their fishing livelihood.
Layer climate change on top of human-caused destruction and the future of the Amazon looks grim. In the best-case scenario, with limited global warming and better forest regulations,scientists predictone-fifth of the forest will be lost.
And in a “business as usual” scenario, where emissions continue climbing, Amazonia is expected tolose up to 40 percent of its forest by 2050, with tree biodiversity declining by more than half. The eastern, southern, and southwest areas will suffer the most where deforestation may range from 78 percent to staggering a 95 percent.
The rapid, ongoing disruption of the Amazon Basin will accelerate changes in the weather and climate worldwide. The consequences will be hard to ignore by anyone calling this planet home.
This article is part of the Opinion seriesThe Amazon Has Seen Our Future.
Sources: MapBiomas (land classification 2000-2018); University of Maryland (wildfires anomaly); MERRA-2 analysis (black carbon density); Jet Propulsion Laboratory (vapor pressure deficit); RAISG (legal and illegal mining, indigenous territories, Amazon biome); “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions of Amazon hydropower with strategic dam planning” by Rafael M. Almeida et. al. (existing and planned dams); “Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation and climate change” by Vitor H. F. Gomes et. al. (deforestation projections)
Contributions by Nathaniel Lash.