The Eonomist reports that in 2024 deforestation increased in the Amazon. A new contributor was fires caused by climate change drought, in addition to the old problem of illegal land clearing for farming and ranching. The article says:
Climate change is raising temperatures and drying the air, turning the rainforest into a tinderbox. Last year was the hottest on record, with the effects of warming compounded across the Amazon rainforest basin by the El Niño weather phenomenon. When farmers set fires to clear space for growing soybeans or grazing cattle, the blazes often spiralled out of control.
Brazil, where most of the Amazon sits, lost more tropical forest than any other country, around 28,200 square kilometres. That was also the most in Brazil since 2016. The numbers are a blow to the environmentalist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula. Although critics point to contradictions in his green agenda, his efforts to protect the Amazon had been working. Deforestation had dropped by a third between 2022 and 2023.
But Lula’s policies could not offset the effects of climate change.
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