What is the Amazon and why is it important?
The Amazon Basin is the world’s largest tropical forest and watershed, spanning about 7 million km² and almost 40% of South America across the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela, and the overseas territory of French Guiana. It comprises a mixture of more than 50 interconnected aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including flood plains and upland forests, and is home to over 10% of known global biodiversity (including ~34% of mammals and 20% of birds found nowhere else in the world), with still much left to be discovered. Amazonian biodiversity is, therefore, unique and irreplaceable.
The Amazon is also a critical element of the Earth’s climate system, lowering land surface temperatures, generating rainfall, storing 150-200 billion tons of carbon in its soils and vegetation, and exerting a strong influence on the atmosphere and circulation patterns, both within and outside the tropics. The Basin produces about 16% of all the photosynthesis in the biosphere, while providing the largest river discharge on Earth, corresponding to 16-22% of the world’s total river input to the oceans.
Beyond its climate and ecological significance, the Amazon is home to around 47 million people, including nearly 2.2 million Indigenous people belonging to 410 ethnic groups (80 of which remain in voluntary isolation), and vibrant local communities, including maroons, quilombolas, and ribeirinhos. Amazonian people are culturally diverse as reflected by the 300 languages spoken in the region that embody the diversity of their experiences, knowledge systems, and deep connections to the Amazon. Indigenous peoples and local communities have also played a critical role in the conservation, and management of Amazonian biodiversity.
What threats is the Amazon facing?
Despite the Amazon’s regional and global importance, the region faces accelerating threats to its ecosystems and communities. Currently, approximately 18% of the Amazon has been converted to other land uses, mainly for unsustainable agriculture and cattle ranching. Similarly at least an additional 17% of the region is degraded, due to fire, unsustainable extraction practices (e.g., timber), and fragmentation. Deforestation and global climate change are increasing biodiversity loss and putting human health and livelihoods at risk. Extreme weather events––such as droughts––are becoming more frequent and intense, leading to higher frequency of wildfires, and leading to an increase in tree mortality, and a decrease in evapotranspiration. All these changes are converting the Amazon forest from a carbon sink to a source, as more carbon is being released to the atmosphere.
If current trends continue, the Amazon will be pushed closer to crossing a point of no return, or “tipping point,” a state where continuous forests can no longer exist and are replaced by more open vegetation or degraded forests. Crossing a tipping point would unlock potentially irreversible, cascading effects with tremendous impacts on climate by accelerating global warming and extreme temperatures, reducing moisture flow across South America, and causing mass species extinctions, in turn, impacting agriculture, hydropower generation, and human health and well-being in the region and globally.
What solutions are available to achieve #TheAmazonWeWant?
The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) advocates for a broad portfolio of science-based solutions supported by decades of research informed by the Amazon’s socio-economic, cultural, and ecological diversity and complexity. These solutions are centered around the “Living Amazon Vision,” a framework that aims to transform business-as-usual economic development in the region into a sustainable model based on values and principles of mutual benefit, in which both people and the Amazon rainforest and rivers can flourish.
The strategies and solutions to achieve a Living Amazon Vision include:
(i) The conservation, sustainable management, restoration, and remediation of ecosystems;
(ii) Developing an inclusive and just socio-bioeconomy of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers; and
(iii) Strengthening governance and Amazonian citizenship, including expanding participatory intercultural education, aligning policies at multiple scales, and coordinating transboundary activities.
The SPA convenes leading Amazonian scientists and global partners to synthesize existing scientific knowledge on the region, and promote knowledge dialogue initiatives among different knowledge systems, to advance sustainable development pathways in the Amazon. Further, by disseminating this information and engaging key constituencies, governance can be strengthened, policies enacted and enforced, and transformative sustainable pathways in the region be implemented.
See our publications for more information and science-based policy recommendations on emerging priority issues for the Amazon, and take action by joining our Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).