Amazon Monitoring

- Dutch researcher and tree expert Hans ter Steege is the founder of the Amazon Tree Diversity Network, which brings together hundreds of scientists studying the rainforest to map and understand the region’s biodiversity.- Ter Steege says the rainforest is in danger of collapse: If the deforestation in Brazil’s Pará state continues at the rate of the year 2000, he warns, “then our models show there will be hardly anything left by 2050.”- Large trees are dying faster in the Amazon, he said, as they face a greater evaporation demand, which they can no longer meet with the water they extract from the soil, as there are more droughts and less rainfall.- If the forest collapses, Brazil’s aerial water supply system — and its agriculture — will collapse, Ter Steege says.

- Nov. 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and the attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon; the suspects haven’t been tried yet.- Between 1991 and 2023, 38 Indigenous Guajajara were killed in Arariboia; none of the perpetrators have been brought to trial.- Paulo’s case will be a legal landmark as the first killing of an Indigenous leader to go before a federal jury; as Mongabay reported a year ago, the start of the trial was contingent on an anthropological report of the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes.- However, the report has yet to be made, given several issues that delayed the trial, including the change of judge, the long time to choose the expert to prepare the report and get the expert’s quote, and the reluctance from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU) to pay for the report.

- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by 30.6% over the past year, reaching its lowest level since 2015, with 6,288 square kilometers cleared by July 31, 2024.- Despite the drop in deforestation, fires surged nearly 18-fold in September due to severe drought, with fire hotspots up 70% from the previous year.- Fires impacted ecosystems across South America, especially in Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado. But deforestation also dropped in the Cerrado, falling 25.7%.- The Amazon faces increasing threats from climate change, deforestation, and degradation, raising concerns about destabilizing rainfall patterns and biodiversity loss.

- Brazil is trying to resume its role as a protagonist in the environmental arena by hosting COP30 in 2025 and urging other countries to present ambitious targets to cut emissions.- However, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration failed to openly discuss the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) and allocated small budgets for climate transition.- Experts state that zeroing out deforestation, recovering thousands of hectares of native vegetation and stepping back from oil expansion plans are crucial to meeting Brazil’s commitments.- UPDATE (11/11/2024): The Brazilian government released its NDC on the evening of Nov. 8, hours after the publication of this story.

- For more than a decade, Potássio do Brasil, a Canadian-backed mining company, has tried to exploit the Brazilian Amazon’s potash reserves, despite legal challenges.- In April, the Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute (IPAAM) granted the company several installation licenses, which authorized the project’s implementation as well as the construction of a road and shipping port.- According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) and Funai, the issuance of these licenses by the Amazonas government was illegal, as the project overlaps with Indigenous lands and many communities were not consulted.- Many Mura residents, most of whom are concerned about the impact the project will have on the environment and their livelihoods, say the company did not consult them and instead co-opted leaders and falsified documents.