The Amazon will reach tipping point if current trend of deforestation continues – news.mongabay.com
Alexandrapopescu
• A report by the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) claims that 26% of Amazon forests have transformed irreversibly and show high levels of degradation.
• The savannization of the Amazon is already visible in Brazil and Bolivia, while Ecuador, Colombia and Peru seem to be heading in the same direction.
• The report also seeks to make visible the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting the Amazon, and to ensure that Indigenous people are at the center of the fight against climate change.
Across the entire 847 million hectares of Amazonian territory, some 26% of its forests are showing evidence of deforestation and degradation — 20% have suffered irreversible loss and 6% are highly degraded. The tipping point for the Amazon is no longer a distant scenario, but a present reality in some parts of the region. Of the nine countries that make up the Amazon basin, Brazil and Bolivia have the largest amounts of destruction and, as a result, “savannization is already taking place in both countries.”