The Amazon rainforest could be reaching an irreversible tipping point beyond which it will decline until “we’re just left with scrub”, conservationists have warned.
WWF’s biennial Living Planet report said the world’s largest rainforest has been ravaged by deforestation, extreme drought and catastrophic wildfires to such an extent that the ecosystem could now collapse.
It also warned that UK consumers are contributing to the destruction, and called on the Government to bring forward legislation that bans the sale of commodities linked to global deforestation.
Known as the lungs of the earth and home to 10% of the world’s species, the Amazon helps regulate the global climate and its collapse would also lead to worldwide shockwaves that would impact food security and livelihoods.
Mike Barrett, WWF’s chief scientific adviser, said that without drastic and systemic change, this loss “is going to affect us all”.
“What we’re seeing there at the moment are certainly the warning signs that we may be approaching this tipping point across the entirety of the Amazon and that would have catastrophic consequences,” he said.
“We could pass a tipping point where we’re just left with scrub, and that would impact weather patterns and rainfall in the tropics and beyond.
“It would impact agriculture across the world, and it would make it impossible to avoid runaway climate change as huge amounts of carbon are released and the ability to absorb it is lost.”
WWF said the thinning number of trees means they can no longer effectively recycle the moisture that maintains the ecosystem, leaving large areas dry and further susceptible to fire – a risk that is then further compounded by climate change.
This year, an extreme drought across South America has contributed to five million hectares of the Brazilian Amazon being burned – an area twice the size of Wales, it said.
Experts predict that if 20-25% of the Amazon is lost, it could go into irretrievable decline but even before this year’s wildfires, up to 17% of the Amazon rainforest was estimated to have already been destroyed.
Mauricio Voivodic, executive director at WWF-Brazil, said the situation is having devastating impacts on people’s lives on the continent, with 15 million people affected by the fires in Brazil this year alone and indigenous communities facing existential threats.
“It’s difficult to imagine, because they live in the largest fresh water system in the world, but now they have no access to water,” he said.
“As always, the most vulnerable people suffer more the impacts of climate change, and in this case, it is indigenous peoples, the local communities, who did not contribute to the problem, but are now changing their lives due to the impacts of deforestation and climate change.”
And that is not all, the report said, as it warned of other ecosystems approaching tipping points.
These include the mass die-off of coral reefs, the collapse of ocean currents, melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the thawing of Arctic permafrost and pine forests in western North America.
The report said developed countries are “offshoring” the destruction of nature to other parts of the world through actions such as importing livestock feed and other commodities produced on formerly wild lands.
Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF-UK, said the UK cannot think of these tipping points as a “far away problem”.
“Here in the UK, we may not realise it, but we are inadvertently driving deforestation and nature loss through what we eat and through what we buy,” she said.
“To produce just seven agricultural commodities that we import into the UK that are linked to deforestation, we need an area almost as big as the UK, again, overseas.
“So beyond the butterflies and the wasps here at home, what’s happening in the Amazon, indeed what is happening all around the world, we have to acknowledge that it may feel far away, but actually that nature loss is being driven by us and by other developed countries, and indeed, it is on us to stop and look to protect and restore nature.”
WWF is calling on the UK and EU to expedite planned legislation that would ban the sale of deforesting products such as palm oil, cocoa, beef, leather and soy, which face delays.
On the UK, Ms Steele said: “The last government promised the necessary legislation on this in the Environment Act in 2021.
“Nothing has happened, and we need the new Government to step up and bring forward this legislation immediately.”
WWF is also urging the UK government to introduce a Living Planet Act, and announce an ambitious plan to protect and restore nature in the UK and around the world.
On what actions British consumers can take, Ms Steele said: “There’s no doubt that we can all take a series of steps ourselves to live a more sustainable lifestyle.”
But she added that it is “incredibly unfair” to put the weight of the issue on the public who are often unwittingly buying products that contribute to deforestation.
“I do think that we need to turn the focus to government, to financial institutions and to business,” she said.
An Environment Department spokesperson said: “We cannot address the urgency of the nature crises without co-ordinated global action.
“This is why we will put climate and nature at the heart of our foreign policy, including appointing a new nature envoy, and are working with our partners across the world to build global ambition on nature – accelerating delivery of the global biodiversity framework, meeting our 30×30 commitment and showing leadership by reversing biodiversity loss.”
