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| Photo /forest /Amazon |
In the last forty years, Brazil's Amazon rainforest has lost an area comparable to the size of Spain, edging closer to a perilous tipping point, as revealed by new monitoring data on Monday, September 15.
According to findings from the MapBiomas monitoring platform, the Amazon is approaching a "point of no return" after losing between 20 to 25 percent of its vegetation. Researchers have cautioned that crossing this threshold will render the rainforest incapable of sustaining itself.
Bruno Ferreira, a researcher at MapBiomas, stated, "When too much vegetation is lost, the rain cycle is disrupted, and vast areas tend to turn into drier savannas."
Brazil, which contains 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest that spans nine countries, is set to host the UN COP30 climate conference in Belem, a city located in the Amazon region, this November.
Satellite imagery analyzed by MapBiomas has shown that from 1985 to 2024, 49.1 million hectares (121 million acres) of rainforest have been lost. When considering other types of plant life, the Amazon has experienced a 13 percent reduction in its native vegetation during this timeframe.
The data also indicates that livestock farming has surged nearly fivefold over the past four decades, highlighting the strain from agricultural expansion.
Since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office again in 2023, deforestation rates had decreased, reversing years of relaxed protections implemented by his predecessor. However, a historic drought in the Amazon has sparked widespread forest fires, leading to a four percent increase in deforestation from August 2024 to July 2025.
The interplay of human activities and climate-related disasters has heightened concerns that the Amazon, often referred to as the "lungs of the Earth," may soon reach an irreversible point of environmental collapse.