![]() First, connect the Amazon rainforest’s economic policies with Brazilian climate goals.īrazil could show the international community it takes the Amazon deforestation problem seriously by strengthening its NDC. Here are four strategies that the country can put in place to protect the Amazon rainforest and, at the same time, provide an economic path to green recovery, creating jobs, generating incomes, and moving the region to a low carbon economy. However, given that 60% of the forest is within Brazil’s borders and the country has proven expertise in dramatically reducing deforestation in the past, Brazil is key to protecting the Amazon. Colombia, for example, has stepped up its already ambitious climate action plan (otherwise known as an NDC, or Nationally Determined Contribution), and convened the Leticia pact aimed at protecting the Amazon. Photo by GuenterManaus/shutterstock What Can Brazil Do to Help Protect the Amazon Rainforest?Īvoiding these dire scenarios is in the interest of all nine Amazonian countries - Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. In the picture, a man delivers a banana load at the market in Manaus, Brazil. Green infrastructure investments will be crucial on the transition to a low carbon economy in the Amazon and must be done without sacrificing biodiversity. ![]() The coronavirus crisis has deepened these historical challenges - driving the need for new deforestation-free, sustainable development opportunities and economic diversification for local communities. However, recent changes in Brazil’s regulations have reportedly encouraged illegal extractive activities, which has incited a cycle of degradation and violence in the countryside, including recurrent invasions of indigenous reserves. The conflict between forestland and other forms of land use has been a problem for the region since colonial times. It is also an exceptionally socially diverse and impoverished part of Latin America, and current economic dynamics have increased the pressure on its natural resources.ĭeforestation has reached historic levels, with timber, soy, cattle and mining sectors pushing the forest’s limits. Socio-economic crisis: The Amazon rainforest is a vast and difficult region to access.This would accelerate climate change and disrupt weather patterns throughout the continent, affecting agriculture in other regions of South America. Transitioning from forest to savanna: New studies suggest ongoing deforestation could lead the Amazon rainforest to a tipping point, where it no longer sustains itself and large portions would instead transition to a Savanna-like ecosystem.Logging and illegal mining also pose a risk to the functions the forest environment can provide. And deforestation, which has been increasing considerably in the last four years, also plays a part in biodiversity loss. Estimates suggest fires have already impacted the vast majority of the biome’s species. Biodiversity loss: Ongoing fires and deforestation remove large parts of the natural habitats so vital to maintain biodiversity in tropical forests like the Amazon, according to a study published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science.A recent study conducted over the last decade shows that important parts of the forest have already become a source of CO2. Becoming a net emitter: Deforestation and degradation directly emit greenhouse gases, threatening to turn the Amazon region from a carbon sink into a net emitter of carbon dioxide.The Amazon region currently faces four simultaneous crises that could compromise its capacity to help keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees C. Unfortunately, the forest and its ability to be part of the solution are in danger. ![]() ![]() In the current climate emergency, the rainforest plays a central role in constraining the effects of climate change by absorbing carbon. The largest tropical rainforest in the world, its trees support not only one of the richest biomes, but also regulate the weather patterns that are key for agriculture in the region and provide water across South America. The Amazon rainforest is of vital importance to the planet.
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