Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual average between 2014 and 2023, according to data released last month by the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch.
It was the highest loss for the biome since annual records began in 2002. Sixty percent of that destruction was caused by fire—a record high. If all tree cover is counted, the toll climbs to nearly 6.2 million hectares. Brazil bore the brunt, losing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest. Bolivia saw a 586% increase over its 10-year average, as did Guyana.
In Brazil, deforestation has plunged under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who moved swiftly to reassert environmental governance. But nature had other plans. Blistering temperatures and the worst drought in 70 years—fueled by climate change and compounded by El Niño—turned routine agricultural burns into runaway infernos. Lula’s reforms proved no match for an accelerating climate crisis and the long tail of past mismanagement.
In Bolivia, policy choices stoked the fires. The government removed export quotas on beef and soy, cut import taxes on agrochemicals, and offered debt relief to those affected by fire—effectively incentivizing environmental destruction.
Elsewhere in the Amazon, only French Guiana and Suriname avoided a sharp uptick in primary forest loss. Collapsing governance in frontier regions opened the door to illegal logging, ranching, coca plantations, and mining. Soaring gold prices have only made matters worse.
The broader outlook is grim. Across Latin America, drought turned land-clearing fires into walls of flame. Though some leaders have tried to balance development with conservation, climate change is proving the more powerful force.
And it’s not just the climate. The Amazon is becoming increasingly flammable due to degradation. Selective logging, forest fragmentation, and livestock incursions expose once-humid interiors to drier air, wind, and sun. These disturbances strip the forest of its resilience, creating conditions for a self-reinforcing cycle of degradation and fire. Recent studies suggest that more vegetation is now lost to degradation than to outright deforestation in the Amazon.
The Amazon
At nearly 7 million square kilometers, the Amazon Basin spans an area roughly the size of the contiguous United States and stores vast amounts of carbon while generating rainfall that sustains much of South America’s agriculture and urban life. Its forests play a critical role in regulating the climate, recycling moisture through dense vegetation and driving precipitation patterns as far afield as the American Midwest.
Yet over 85 million hectares—about 13% of the original forest biome—have already been lost, and an additional 6% shows severe signs of degradation. Scientists warn that under current conditions, the Amazon could reach a tipping point if 25% of its forest is lost. In the eastern Amazon, where moisture recycling begins, 31% of the forest is already gone.
This matters because rainfall travels westward through the forest in a chain of evapotranspiration. As eastern forests are stripped, the system begins to falter, pushing the region toward a feedback loop of drying and tree death. In some areas of Brazil and Bolivia, this “savannization” is already underway—an ominous sign that the world’s largest rainforest may be closer to irreversible collapse than once thought.
What burns today is not only forest—it is also the hope that nature alone will heal. Without a concerted global response, the Amazon may soon pass the point of no return.
