2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change. A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle. The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the ri...
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The Amazon River fell to its lowest level in over a century on Monday at the heart of the Brazilian rainforest as a record drought upends the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and damages the jungle ecosystem. Rapidly drying tributaries to the mighty Amazon have left boats stranded, cutting off food and water supplies to remote villages, while high water temperatures are suspected of killing more than 100 endangered river dolphins. Boats and houseboats are seen stranded in a dry area of the Igarape do Taruma stream which flows into the Rio Negro river, as the water level at a major river port in Brazil's Amazon rainforest hit its lowest point in at least 121 years, in Manaus, Brazil, October 16. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly The port of Manaus, the region's most populous city, at th...
Read MoreBolivia's decision to open an alternate route to its historic 'Death Road' - a serpentine dirt path across the towering Andes hills known for its deadly cliffs - has led to a resurgence of wildlife in the area, according to an environmental group. The route was once a key road frequented by heavy trucks connecting Bolivia's capital La Paz to the country's Amazon rainforest. But its deadliness earned it the nickame the 'Death Road.' Between 1999 and 2003 hundreds of Bolivians died trying to navigate it. FILE PHOTO: A competitor runs during the Bolivia Sky Race on the "Death Road" from Yolosa to Chuspipata, near La Paz, Bolivia, July 29, 2018. REUTERS/David Mercado By 2007, Bolivia opened an alternate route, leaving the original road as mostly an attraction for cyclists. That not o...
Read MoreIndigenous groups urged world leaders on Sunday to back a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth's largest rainforest beyond a point of no return. Amazonian delegates launched their campaign at a nine-day conference in Marseille, where several thousand officials, scientists and campaigners are laying the groundwork for United Nations talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming next year. FILE PHOTO: Carlos Roberto Sanquetta, a forestry engineering professor at the Federal University of Parana, botanist Edilson Consuelo de Oliveira and Rioterra plant nursery worker Juciney Pinheiro dos Santos inspect a parcel of Amazon rainforest in Itapua do Oeste, Rondonia state, Brazil, November 4, 2020....
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