Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Researchers said Thursday that more than one-third of the Amazon rainforest might have been degraded by human activity and drought. The study said urgent action is needed to protect the critically important ecosystem.
The researchers in a study published in the journal Science said the damage done to the forest, which spans nine countries, is significantly more significant than previously known. They examined the impact of fire, drought, logging, and changes to habitat along the forest borders called edge effects, according to the AFP.
Primarily, research into the forest’s ecosystem has focused on deforestation’s consequences. The study found that timber extraction, fire, and edge effects degraded 364,748 square kilometers, or at least 5.5% of all remaining forest vegetation, between 2001 and 2018.
Extreme droughts have become more frequent in the Amazon
However, when drought effects are considered, the degraded area rises to 2.5 million square kilometers or 38% of the remaining Amazonian forest. According to the researchers, “extreme droughts have become more frequent in the Amazon as land-use change and human-induced climate change advance, affecting tree mortality, fire occurrence, and carbon emissions to the atmosphere.”
Their statement highlighted the dangers of “far larger mega flames” in the future, which stated that “forest fires worsen during drought years.”Satellite photos and data from 2001 to 2018 were used by researchers from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil and other organizations to draw their results.
Researchers at the University of Louisiana Lafayette and other institutions urged action in a different study on the effects of humans on the Amazon that was published in Science. “Under the combined pressures of global climate change and regional deforestation, the Amazon is set to transition rapidly from a mostly natural to damaged and changed landscape,” they added.
They said the changes were occurring far too quickly for Amazonian ecosystems, wildlife, and populations to adapt. “Policies to avert the worst scenarios are understood and must be implemented immediately. They declared, “We fail to act at our peril. To fail the Amazon is to fail the planet.”
Leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new president, has promised to stop deforestation in the Amazon by 2030.
