Green to Brown: Story of Moribund Amazon, World’s Largest Rainforest

No matter how much scientists warn about climatic changes, environmental degradation, global warming and the dangerous impact they can have on Earth’s lives, the plunder of the natural resources continue unabated. So much so, that some crucial ecosystem of Earth, crucial for the survival of the lives are also not spared. Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, a crucial and delicate bio system for the maintenance of Earth’s and therefore of the living beings’ health, has become the sight of environmental devastation by human kind. Amazon rainforest is so important that it is often called the “Earth’s Lungs”. But alas! Continuing the rate of its deforestation might lead us to witness permanent disappearance of this natural wonder.

In the month of July itself, the Amazon has lost 519 square miles (1,345 square kilometers) of rainforest, as reported in the Guardian. This area is more than double the size of Tokyo. Well, this sets a record of deforestation in the Amazon in a single month. The data from Brazilian satellites reveal that Amazonian trees amounting the area of almost three football fields are disappearing every minute. From July 2018 the total area of deforestation is up by over 39%.

In last 50 years, one-fifth of Amazon’s forest has already been cut and burned to make the way for logging, ranching and or mining. The area deforested spans some 3,00,000 square miles according to Intercept, and amounts an area larger than Texas, US.

But the devastations have accelerated once Bolsonaro took charge of Brazil. Bolsonaro’s administration has worked out to loosen protections on natural land reserves. One of the first things that Bolsonaro’s administration had done in terms of changes at the policy level, was the transfer of the authority to certify indigenous lands as protected areas from Brazil’s FUNAI (the National Indian Foundation) to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, this change had to be reversed due to huge protests by native communities.

What is disturbing is at the current trend of deforestation, there is the possibility of Amazon rainforest’s permanent disappearance. If another 20% of the Amazon were to disappear, there would be the triggering of a feedback loop known as a dieback. The dieback is the condition where the forest dries and burns. Once this dieback starts, the forest would enter the loop where any human intervention will become “beyond the reach”. What will happen in such a condition is that Amazon would turn into a savanna like landscape.

So, this is the tipping point as far as the Amazon forest is concerned. This tipping point will not only lead the humanity to witness the end of Amazon, but would expose all of us to more and more dangers. If the Amazon is gone, then some 140 billion tons of carbon that are stored in the woods and forests will be get released into the atmosphere. The global warming, when this happens, will get a further uptick. Can lives on earth further bear this kind of a warming when it is already under immense environmental pressure due to global warming? Probably, Bolsonaro, a climate skeptic and many others in world’s political and scientific fields in the same fray, have failed to perceive this threat.

Being world’s largest rainforest, Amazon plays a crucial role in keeping world’s carbon-dioxide level at a check. Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the atmosphere through the process they live—the process of photosynthesis. Amazon, which covers 2.1 million square miles, is referred to as the lungs of the planet for it being the densest forest. Undoubtedly, this is the reason Amazon’s health is so important when climate change and global warming have reached the peak.

More so, Amazon is the home to 400 indigenous tribes; their livelihoods, their cultures are intimately linked with the state of the Amazon. The lion’s share of Amazon happens to be under the control of Brazil. But Bolsonaro, who declares that protecting the Amazon is one of his utmost priorities, supports development projects such as highway building and hydroelectric dam construction in the Amazon. This only adds to the destruction of the rainforest. Bolsonaro’s government, between January and May this year has lowered the number and amount of fines that were used to be levied for illegal deforestation and mining.

It’s high time the Amazon is saved from losing its green and turning into brown, the open swathes of lands with no big trees or forests.