Amazon wildfires and droughts are ‘ominous indicators’ of a long-feared tipping point
Governments have historically viewed the Amazon as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.
2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change.
A warming climate fed drought that, in turn, fed the worst year for fires since 2005.
Those fires then contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some blazes were set to more easily clear land to run cattle.
Fires and droughts in the Amazon are ‘ominous indicators’ of a tipping point
The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet.
It has about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species.
But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organised crime is rising at alarming rates.
“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” says Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organisation that works to protect the rainforest.
“Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.”
There were some bright spots, however. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations that gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions.
“If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor," Miller says.
El Niño and illegal economies are driving Amazon deforestation
Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon - home to the largest swath of this rainforest - dropped 30.6 per cent compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years.
The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula's predecessor. The far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro prioritised agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies.
In July, Colombia reported historic lows in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction.
The country's environment minister, Susana Muhamad, warned that 2024's figures may not be as promising as a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Niño, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific.
Residents transport drinking water from Humaita to the Paraizinho community, along the dry Madeira River, a tributary of the Amazon River, amid a drought, Amazonas stateEdmar Barros/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved
Illegal economies also continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation.
“It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organised crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” says Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America.
“Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.”
In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were draped in smoke in August from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo.
Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and managing pastures, and those manmade blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires.
‘The point of no return of Amazon destruction’
For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows, leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents.
The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River's main tributaries dropped to its lowest level ever recorded.
Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, says he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon's fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole." But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.”
Amazon fires at record high for last 20 years
It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation US. Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa - 37.42 million acres, or about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon - burned.
Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first ten months of the year.
“Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months, and require particular attention from the authorities who don't know how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said.
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year.
Indigenous voices and rights made headway in 2024
The United Nations conference on biodiversity - this year known as COP16 - was hosted by Colombia.
The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight, and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of a voice in nature conservation decisions. This development builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people's role in protecting land and combating climate change.
Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16.
“As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus says.
Ebus says Amazon countries must cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he adds.
“The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he says.
Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belém do Pará in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region.
“Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase [climate] strategies and demand tangible support," Ebus says.
