Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he will end land clearance in Brazil’s Amazon region. But powerful forces profit from rainforest destruction.
Remains of deforested mangroves in Malaysia.
NOOR RADYA BINTI MD RADZI / shutterstock
More than 100 world leaders have pledged to end the destruction of forests by 2030 as a way to slow climate change. That will require changing how the world produces four widely used commodities.
A stand of red mangroves in the calm, calcium-rich, fresh waters of the San Pedro Mártir River, Tabasco, Mexico.
Ben Meissner
Mangroves grow in saltwater along tropical coastlines, but scientists have found them along a river in Mexico’s Yucatan, more than 100 miles from the sea. Climate change explains their shift.
We are logging more than can be sustained by tropical forests.
Plinio Sist
Observations collected since the 1980s in the Amazon, Central Africa and Southeast Asia show we are not giving tropical forests enough time to recover after logging.
Oil palm fruit in North Aceh, Indonesia.
Fachrul Reza / Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Palm oil is responsible for widespread deforestation and labor abuses, but it’s also cheap and incredibly useful. That’s why many advocates call for reforming the industry, not replacing it.
There are more than 3,600 territories in Brazil that are home to Quilombola, descendants of escaped slaves, but few hold titles to the land.
(Elielson Pereira da Silva)
Mining strips nitrogen from the soil and means the forest struggles to grow back even after mines are abandoned.
An Amazon forest in Brazil’s Para state after deforestation and wildfires March 9, 2019. Unlike in some tropical forests, the animals of the Amazon are not adapted to survive fire.
Gustavo Basso/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A new study finds 70% of Amazonian dung beetles were killed by the severe fire and droughts of 2015 to 2016. By spreading seeds and poop, dung beetles fertilize forests and aid regrowth of vegetation.
Collecting firewood on the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state, Brazil, Oct. 13, 2017. A new bill could open Brazil’s Native lands to development.
APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images
Native Brazilians are among the Amazon’s most effective defenders against logging and mining, because they’re fighting not just for the environment but for their people’s very survival.
A Brazil nut tree in Jaú National Park, Amazonas, Brazil.
Victor Caetano-Andrade
If the Amazon rainforest functions as our planet’s lungs, what do raging wildfires threaten? An atmospheric scientist explains why the fires, though devastating, won’t suffocate life on Earth.
The impact of deforestation for oil palm plantations is well known – and now research has found the replanting process could be additional harm to biodiversity.