Rainforest

“Degradation means that you still have standing forest, but you are losing some of the structure, some of the functioning,” says Armenteras Pascual. “You might even look and think it’s really a beautiful forest, but it’s not so healthy.”Being degraded also makes a forest more prone to wildfire. And once a part of the Amazon burns, it’s more likely to catch fire again. “When a forest burns, trees die, releasing organic matter above the soil and opening the canopy,” says Flores. “Hence, more fuel is available and more…

Satellite image of smoke streaming from several fires southwest of Boa Vista (the capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima) captured on February 22, 2024, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite.Huge understory fires are spreading throughout the state in northern Brazil as drought and heat turn the rainforest into tinder.Roraima—Brazil’s northernmost state—has a wet climate, which helps rainforests thrive and suppresses the natural occurrence of forest fires, even during the dry…

A new study reveals critical stressor thresholds in the Amazon rainforest, suggesting that combined threats could push the ecosystem to a tipping point.Global warming may be interacting with regional rainfall and deforestation to accelerate forest loss in the Amazon, pushing it toward partial or total collapse.Research published on February 14, 2024, in the journal Nature, has identified the potential thresholds of these stressors, showing where their combined effects could produce a ‘tipping point’ – in which the forest…

The Amazon rainforest is facing a barrage of pressures that might tip it into large-scale ecosystem collapse as soon as 2050, according to new research Wednesday warning of dire consequences for the region and the world.The Amazon, which holds more than 10 percent of the world's biodiversity, helps stabilize the global climate by storing the equivalent of around two decades of emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide.But stress from deforestation, drought, fire and rising temperatures have eroded the ability of the…

Escalating human pressure has transformed the Southeastern Amazon into a carbon source, with significant implications for global climate and regional precipitation patterns. Urgent measures are required to mitigate this trend and safeguard the Amazon’s ecological and climatic functions.The Amazon rainforest could approach a tipping point, which could lead to a large-scale collapse with serious implications for the global climate system. A new Nature study by an international research team including scientists from the…

The Current16:20Huge ancient city discovered in Amazon"Wow" was all archaeologist Stéphen Rostain could say when LiDAR (light detection and ranging) laser technology revealed several ancient cities hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest."It's a gift for an archaeologist," he told The Current's Matt Galloway. Using the laser-scanning technology, researchers have uncovered a complex network of farmland, roads and neighbourhoods in Ecuador's Upano River Valley.The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old,…

A new report by the U.S. branch of the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency says that investment interest and government tax incentives are fuelling intense mining exploration in remote northern B.C. — raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the work and its financial implications.The report focuses on the transboundary region, which falls along the border between the Alaska panhandle and the province of B.C. Much of this exploration is focused on the so-called Golden Triangle, which in many areas is…

A recent discovery by a team led by Stéphen Rostain is reshaping how researchers think about the pre-Columbian Amazon.The scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research were able to use a type of laser-sensor technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to map a number of earthen mounds they had found in the Upano River Valley in Ecuador in 2015. This allowed them to create a 3D model of the structures that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye due to the jungle’s thick vegetation,…

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This weekly newsletter is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.This week: Electric garbage trucks clean up in a variety of ways Hot enough for ya? 2023 shattered planetary heat records Carbon offsets are helping protect B.C.'s Great Bear Rainforest. Is that sustainable?…

Laser technology is continuing to prove its worth in the Amazon: A team of archaeologists in Ecuador just used the tech to discover thousands of earthen mounds hidden under the forest’s canopy.Would Peter Capaldi Return to Doctor Who?The 2,000-year-old site contains some 6,000 earthen platforms connected by ancient roads, also visible to the laser technology, called lidar. Though some of the structures were noticed as early as 20 years ago, the Associated Press reports, the recent findings show the true scale of the…