Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon dropped by 22.3% in the 12 months through July, government data showed Thursday, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made progress on a pledge to rein in rainforest destruction.
The issue with the Amazon rainforest is that the soil isn’t fertile enough to sustain a forest by itself. It heavily relies on the already existing plant mass to die and give up nutrients to new plants (and some complicated air currents that include desert minerals).
If you remove enough trees, you kill this nutrient cycle and when you try to plant new ones, they will not grow.
That’s ignoring all the other living beings that would get disrupted in this process, and that we couldn’t feasibly achieve this due to the insane amount of different species interdependent in a forest like the Amazon - we can’t just select three or four native trees and replant everything.
There are different models that predict the so-called “point of no return” at different points in time given the current parameters. Some do indeed presume we are already there, but they’re not the majority.
Keep in mind we are not talking about “species lost forever” as this is already true. We are talking about the point where the forest can no longer sustain itself.
Hi, Brazilian biologist here!
You’re correct that the current deforestation rate is still positive, meaning, we are still losing forest area daily.
You’re incorrect about us being past the point of no return - we are dangerously close to it though.
The post is correct about a massive reduction in the deforestation rate in the last 5 years.
what if we replant the trees? we’ll lose species we didn’t even know existed let alone could save but we can save what’s left, right?
The issue with the Amazon rainforest is that the soil isn’t fertile enough to sustain a forest by itself. It heavily relies on the already existing plant mass to die and give up nutrients to new plants (and some complicated air currents that include desert minerals).
If you remove enough trees, you kill this nutrient cycle and when you try to plant new ones, they will not grow.
That’s ignoring all the other living beings that would get disrupted in this process, and that we couldn’t feasibly achieve this due to the insane amount of different species interdependent in a forest like the Amazon - we can’t just select three or four native trees and replant everything.
Tomato, tomatoe… https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/05/new-study-warns-swaths-amazon-have-already-passed-key-tipping-point
I appreciate you taking the time to respond though 👍 :)
There are different models that predict the so-called “point of no return” at different points in time given the current parameters. Some do indeed presume we are already there, but they’re not the majority.
Keep in mind we are not talking about “species lost forever” as this is already true. We are talking about the point where the forest can no longer sustain itself.