Rainforest loss slows after a shift in climate

The rate at which the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed has fallen sharply after many years of logging, mining and fires.

Projects led by indigenous communities, and key changes of government in Brazil and Colombia, have ensured a less gloomy prognosis for a vital weapon in the battle against a changing climate.

“We are taking care of the virgin jungle; it is a lung for the planet ... we want to conserve [it] for our community,” said Abelardo Ayutap Orrego, 53, a conservationist with the charity Cool Earth and a member of Peru’s Awajun people.

Last year, an area of forest the size of Wales was destroyed in South America by logging and fire. Precious habitats, crucial for absorbing CO , disappeared for ever.

Three years after nations resolved to end deforestation by 2030 at COP26, this may seem clear evidence that the world is far off-track. But it could also be interpreted as a positive sign – a sign that fewer trees were destroyed in 2023 than the year before.

According to a study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) think tank, deforestation fell by 36% in Brazil and 49% in Colombia. In the Amazon, 39% less tree cover was lost in total last year than in 2022. At the heart of these promising figures are two nations and their recently elected leaders.

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro let deforestation rise to levels not seen since the early 2000s, but in 2022 his successor, Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, promised to reverse the damage. “There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” he told the COP27 summit.

The same year, Gustavo Petro became the new president of Colombia having campaigned on a promise “not to burn the Amazon rainforest any more, to recover it to its natural frontier, to give humanity the possibility of life on this planet”.

WRI’s research suggests that Lula and Petro’s pledges are coming to fruition, and that the continued loss of the world’s rainforests is not inevitable. This raises the questions “what are they getting right?” and “will it be enough to save the Amazon?”

“What is immediately obvious is that the No 1 determinant of whether countries are doing better or worse on deforestation is political will,” said James Deutsch, chief executive of the Rainforest Trust.

On his return to power in January last year, Lula quickly reinvigorated many of the environmental policies he had instated during his first two terms, from 2003 to 2010, which Bolsonaro had dismantled.

He restored the authority of environmental protection agency Ibama to combat illegal deforestation and revoked a decree that allowed mining in indigenous lands. He has also recognised more indigenous territories in the Amazon, granting protections against mining, logging and ranching.

The long road to ending deforestation is not without obstacles, however. Staff shortages at Brazil’s environment agency have left it with reduced manpower for policing the illegal gold-mining. – The Times