Deforestation and extreme blazes threaten the region’s biodiversity, risk transforming the rainforest into a semi-arid savannah and expose people to zoonoses that could spur new pandemics.
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.
Destruction of rainforests through wildfires or deforestation may harm human health. As these forests disappear, we may be losing precious medicinal plants that hold treatments for various diseases.
Brazilian evangelicals are politically conservative, but they still believe in climate change. Turning them into climate activists, however, will be a challenge for the environmentalist movement.
Hundreds of bishops, priests, missionaries and tribal leaders are at the Vatican for the Synod of the Amazon, a three-week meeting focused on the environmental crisis threatening Amazonian peoples.
Reversing the damage from fires in Brazil’s rainforest is not as simple as allowing trees to grow back. Decades of research shows how fires degrade their long-term health and utility.