The Amazon forests will soon be replaced by an arid plain. It’s not just the climate that’s to blame. Local farmers are cutting down and burning the forests.
The tropical forests of the Amazon could turn into a dry plain with only sparse shrubs by 2064. It will happen not only because of the climate but also will have a hand, predicted Professor Robert Walker of the University of Florida, writes ScienceAlert.
Unique forests in the region are threatened with extinction because of the climate crisis, as well as due to large-scale logging. Not only that, but local farmers very often set forests on fire to turn the areas into farmland.
“People don’t really care about biodiversity and the environment when they have to think about how not to go hungry,” Walker noted.
Amazon’s tropical forests don’t have time to recover from periods of drought and fire.
“Southern Amazonia could reach the tipping point sometime before 2064 at the current rate of lengthening dry season,” Walker stressed.
