Amazon Basin Drought: "We've Never Seen Anything Like This"

The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world's biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return. As the cracked and baking river bank towers up on either side of us, Oliveira Tikuna is starting to have doubts about this journey. He's trying to get to his village, in a metal canoe built to navigate the smallest creeks of the Amazon.

Bom Jesus de Igapo Grande is a community of 40 families in the middle of the forest and has been badly affected by the worst drought recorded in the region. There was no water to shower. Bananas, cassava, chestnuts and acai crops spoiled because they can't get to the city fast enough. And the head of the village, Oliveira's father, warned anyone elderly or unwell to move closer to town, because they are dangerously far from a hospital.

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"When it was my first drought I thought, 'Wow, this is awful. How can this happen to the rainforest?'" says Flávia Costa, a plant ecologist at the National Institute for Amazonian Research, who has been living and working in the rainforest for 26 years. "And then, year after year, it was record-breaking. Each drought was stronger than before." She says it's too soon to assess how much damage this year's drought has done, but her team has found many plants "showing signs of being dead". Past dry seasons give an indication of the harm that could be done. By some estimates the 2015 "Godzilla drought" killed 2.5bn trees and plants in just one small part of the forest - and it was less severe than this latest drought. "On average, the Amazon stopped functioning as a carbon sink," Dr Costa says. "And we mostly expect the same now, which is sad."

As well as being home to a stunning array of biodiversity, the Amazon is estimated to store around 150bn tonnes of carbon. Many scientists fear the forest is racing towards a theoretical tipping point - a point where it dries, breaks apart and becomes a savannah. As it stands, the Amazon creates a weather system of its own. In the vast rainforest, water evaporates from the trees to form rain clouds which travel over the tree canopy, recycling this moisture five or six times. This keeps the forest cool and hydrated, feeding it the water it needs to sustain life. But if swathes of the forest die, that mechanism could be broken. And once this happens there may be no going back.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67751685