Brazil's Election On Sunday May Be The Last Chance To Avoid Amazon Forests' Tipping Point

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The fate of the Amazon rests on Brazil’s national election on Sunday, according to experts, who say a continuation of the rampant destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro could push the world’s biggest rainforest past an irreversible tipping point. In contrast, a victory for former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who oversaw a sharp decline in deforestation when in power, could lead to the razing of forests falling by 90%, scientists estimate.

The Amazon rainforest plays a vital role in the global climate as a vast store of carbon dioxide, but recent research showed that fires and tree felling have left the region emitting more CO2 than it absorbs. Researchers showed in March that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point, after which the forest would be lost, with profound implications for the global climate and biodiversity.

Bolsonaro became president of Brazil at the start of 2019 and has slashed environmental protections and promoted colonisation of the forest. New research shows that CO2 emissions doubled in 2019 and 2020 compared with the average over the previous decade, driven by soaring deforestation and fires as law enforcement collapsed. The latest data show that almost a million hectares of rainforest have been burned in the last year. In the month to 26 September, fires surged to their highest levels in a decade. Brazil’s national space research agency, INPE, reported 36,850 fire alerts in the region, more than double than in the whole month in 2021. The surge may be because of those illegally destroying the forest taking a final opportunity to grab land before the election, according to Amazon researchers.

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The research by Gatti’s team, under review by the journal Nature, is based on hundreds of air samples collected in small planes above the Amazon over the last decade and showed “alarming” results. CO2 emissions rose by 89% in 2019 and 122% in 2020, compared with the 2010-18 average. In 2020, the rise in emissions was mainly because of a 74% increase in deforestation and a 42% rise in the area burned by fires. In the same year, the number of fines paid for environmental crimes fell by 89% and the number of offences recorded by the authorities fell by 54%, with a similar situation in 2019. Gatti’s team also produced the earlier research showing the Amazon rainforest has been transformed from a carbon sink to a source, meaning it is accelerating global heating rather than slowing it down. Most Amazon destruction is the result of beef production, with soy growing and mining also factors.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/30/fate-of-the-amazon-brazil-election-bolsonanro-lula-da-silva

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1. the world needs to buy the Amazon forest

and let the remaining indigenous people live there but halt any more deforestation.

In fact, the world needs to reforest some of the land already cleared