Data on fires in the Amazon

- Researchers recorded thousands of hours of sounds in areas that had been logged, burned once and burned multiple times along the “arc of deforestation” in the Brazilian Amazon.- In the forests with repeated fires, animal communication networks were quieter, with less diversity of sound than in logged forests or forests burned only once. This type of acoustic monitoring can be used as a cost-effective way to check the pulse of the forest.- The authors were surprised to find that insects, not birds, were the most obvious signal of forest degradation. Additionally, they found that amount of biomass in a forest doesn’t correlate with the level of biodiversity.- There’s a major difference in the biodiversity of a forest after one burn versus multiple burns, one author said, so protecting forests from repeated fires is still worthwhile.

- Satellites have detected forest clearing within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area (APA) this year, a legally protected area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.- Despite its status, 35% of the primary (or old-growth) forest within the APA was lost between 2006 and 2021, making it one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.- The APA was created in 2006 to serve as a buffer for vulnerable surrounding areas, such as the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the massive Terra do Meio Ecological Station, but deforestation has spilled over into both.- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, but land grabbing and mining have also increased in recent years, with invaders emboldened by the rhetoric and policies of the current government.

- The world lost a Cuba-sized area of tropical forest in 2021, putting it far off track from meeting the no-deforestation goal by 2030 that governments and companies committed to at last year’s COP26 climate summit.- Deforestation rates remained persistently high in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s two biggest expanses of tropical forest, negating the decline in deforestation seen in places like Indonesia and Gabon.- The diverging trends in the different countries show that “it’s the domestic politics of forests that often really make a key difference,” says leading forest governance expert Frances Seymour.- The boreal forests of Eurasia and North America also experienced a spike in deforestation last year, driven mainly by massive fires in Russia, which could set off a feedback loop of more heating and more burning.

- The Amazon Rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study.- Researchers found that three-quarters of the Amazon has lost some resilience, or ability to regain biomass after disturbance. This loss of resilience is especially high in regions close to human activity and with less rainfall.- As the forest is slashed, burned and degraded, it’s left with less vegetation, which means less evapotranspiration, leading to less rain. And less rain leads to further droughts, fires, tree death and forest degradation — a feedback loop of destruction and loss of resilience.- The lead author describes the findings as “depressing” but also says that “having an early warning of this gives us a chance to do something about it … Rather than focusing on the trajectory the Amazon is on, we can instead try and change it.”

- A new study has found that the transition zone between the Amazon and Cerrado in the northeast of Brazil has heated up significantly and become drier in the past two decades.- The research points to deforestation in the Amazon and global climate changes as factors prolonging the dry season and warming up the region, leaving it susceptible to severe droughts and forest fires.- Ironically, the changes being driven by the intensified agricultural activity are rendering the region less suitable for crop cultivation.- The authors of the new study say there needs to be a balance of sustainable agricultural solutions and an environmentally focused political agenda to protect the region’s ecosystems, its economy, and its people.

- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.

- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station comprises some 3.37 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, and is home to hundreds of species – including some that are threatened with extinction.- But despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with satellite data showing deforestation doubling in 2021.- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land speculators spilling over from the neighboring Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become the most deforested slice of the Brazilian Amazon in recent years.- Pending legislation could make it even easier to legalize illegitimate land claims, providing hope to land speculators and cattle ranchers that they could soon receive land titles for land they have deforested and occupied illegally.

- Forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased this year, with much of the smoke generated concentrating in the state of Acre and disproportionately affecting the health of Indigenous people.- At the peak of the fires, in July and August, a total of 88,400 hectares (218,400 acres) of land burned, a 20% increase from the 76,400 hectares (188,800 acres) burned in the same period in 2020.- Recorded cases of respiratory disease increased by almost 8% from June to September 2021 over the previous year, according to data from the Acre state health department.- Indigenous people, who have lower immunity and a higher incidence of pre-existing medical conditions, are among the most at-risk groups to the smoke pollution, compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

- In the last two decades, the Amazon Rainforest has been impacted by increasingly intense and frequent droughts, the most severe occurring in 2005, 2010 and 2015.- A new study shows that stretches of forest affected by drought have taken between one and three years to recover their growth rate.- With droughts expected to worsen because of global warming, scientists warn that the Amazon’s capacity for carbon absorption will be increasingly compromised.- They highlight that efforts to stabilize the climate will depend on combating deforestation in the Amazon.

- In an interview with Mongabay, filmmakers Davi Kopenawa and Luiz Bolognesi talk about the production process of “The Last Forest,” a documentary that brings the current reality of Brazil’s Indigenous Yanomami people to theaters.- Located in Roraima state, the Yanomami Indigenous Territory is the largest reserve in Brazil, with 26,000 Indigenous inhabitants — but nearly as many illegal miners, spurred on by the anti-Indigenous rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro.- “People from the city don’t know the Yanomami; we live very far away, close to the mountains. It’s important to show who Brazilian Indigenous people are — those who first took care of our place, of our country,” says Davi Kopenawa about the decision to make the film.