Between 1985 and 2020, the Amazon rainforest lost more native vegetation than in the last 500 years since European colonization. If current deforestation trends continue,
the amazon rainforest could reach its tipping point later this decade, changing from a carbon sink to a carbon emitter

Access the report launched at COP27

A new report launched on Friday (November 11) at COP27 shows that an area of native vegetation larger than Somalia has been lost in the last two decades in South America and Indonesia. Using artificial intelligence tools and satellite images, the researchers found that important biomes in South America and Indonesia have lost 68 Mha of native vegetation in the last two decades, representing 5.8% of their native vegetation. These changes have led to combined emissions of more than 27.4 gigatons of CO2, which represents half of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020. Most of the native vegetation has been converted into pasture and agricultural land. The survey of the most threatened biomes in South America, as well as Indonesia, was carried out by MapBiomas - a collaborative network of local institutions that map land use and land cover annually, making knowledge about land use accessible for the pursuit of conservation and the fight against climate change.

"Large-scale conversions, mainly from natural vegetation to anthropogenic areas, are increasing GHG emissions due to changes in land use, affecting the climate resilience of ecosystems and depleting carbon stocks, which is worrying in a climate change scenario," says Tasso Azevedo, general coordinator of MapBiomas. "This trend, which can be observed in two of the world's greenest regions - South America and Indonesia - highlights the importance of restoring and maintaining protected areas to mitigate the effects of climate change."

Covering 47% of South America, the Amazon biome occupies a prominent place in conservation priorities: it lost more native vegetation (9.6%) between 1985 and 2020 than in the last 500 years since European colonization (8%). The remaining native vegetation of 83% is close to the tipping point (20-25% of forest loss) for the provision of ecosystem services in the Amazon. "If we continue with this trend of deforestation, the tipping point could be reached within this decade, turning the largest tropical forest on Earth into a GHG emitter," says Julia Shimbo, MapBiomas' Scientific Coordinator.

In 35 years, between 1985 and 2020, the Amazon rainforest lost 74.6 Mha of native vegetation, an area equivalent to Zambia. More than 45 gigatons of CO2 have been emitted since 1985 due to deforestation. "Deforestation and fire threaten the forest's resilience to climate change, as well as its role as one of the world's most important carbon sinks," explains Sandra Rios, co-coordinator of MapBiomas Amazônia.

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is the most deforested, accounting for 81% of the loss of native vegetation in the Amazon, or 60.6 Mha between 1985-2020. In Brazil, the Amazon rainforest lost 12.9% of its native vegetation, while French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname lost less than 1% of their native vegetation cover in the same period.

But the most deforested biome in South America - and a tropical biodiversity hotspot - is the Atlantic Forest. It occupies 142.3 Mha, or 8% of the region, and lost 6.6 Mha, or 11.3%, of its native vegetation between 1985 and 2021, resulting in 3 Gton CO2e of GHG emissions, equivalent to almost one year of all CO2 emissions in South America. Currently, vegetation covers only 37% of the biome, with the highest rate of secondary vegetation and fragmented landscapes. Thus, the protection and primary restoration of forests is fundamental in the context of climate mitigation.

Brazil's Atlantic Forest had the largest area of loss of native vegetation in the biome (3.8 Mha). In Brazil, the biome is home to 70% of the human population and 80% of the economy. However, in recent years, Paraguay has lost proportionally more, almost 40% of its native vegetation (2.5 Mha). Argentina lost 17.1%, or 0.3Mha.

The Chaco - a semi-arid plain covered by mixed dry forests, pastures and swamps in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia - covers 6.1% of South America, or 107.8 Mha. With just under 80% of its native vegetation still preserved, it nevertheless has one of the highest conversion rates in the world, due to the expansion of large-scale livestock farming and soy. A total of 9.5 Mha of native vegetation were lost between 2000 and 2021, or 10% compared to 2000, which corresponds to 3.8 giga tons of CO2 emitted since 2000 due to deforestation.

Argentina has the largest portion of the Chaco: 60.3%, or 65.1 Mha, but it is in Bolivia that we find 90% of the Chaco's native vegetation. The native vegetation of the Paraguayan and Argentine Chaco has lost more than 8 Mha in the last two decades to agricultural expansion. Paraguay lost 16.3% (4.4 Mha); Argentina, 8% (4.4 Mha); and Bolivia, 5.2% (0.6 Mha).

Between Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay we have the Pampa, a vast region previously dominated by natural grasslands. Almost half of it has already been converted to agriculture, mainly for large-scale agricultural production, which has grown by 17.4% in the last two decades. At the same time, protected areas represent less than 0.5% of the biome. Between 2000 and 2019, the Pampa saw 8.5 Mha of native vegetation disappear - a loss of 16.3% compared to 2000, equivalent to 0.7 Gton CO2.

While Brazil had the greatest proportional loss of native vegetation in the Pampa (19.6%, or 2.1 Mha), mainly due to the expansion of soybeans, Argentina suffered the greatest loss of native vegetation in absolute terms (5.1 Mha, or 17.6%). The loss of native vegetation in the Uruguayan part of the Pampa amounted to 1.2 Mha (10.1% compared to 2000).

The Cerrado, the most biodiverse savannah on the planet, located for the most part in Brazil, has already lost half of its original vegetation, mostly due to the expansion of agriculture, mainly for pastures and soybeans. Almost 28 Mha were lost between 1985 and 2021, which corresponds to 4.2 giga tons of CO2. The Matopiba agricultural frontier region (in the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) concentrated 60% of the loss of native vegetation in the period.

In Asia, the Indonesian archipelago comprises more than 17,000 islands with diverse habitat types, encompassing two of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Of the 12.9 Mha of forest lost in the last two decades, 60.4% has been converted to agriculture, oil palm, silviculture and, more recently, mining expansion. The loss of native vegetation between 2000 and 2019 was 10.2%, or 13 Mha. Since 1985, 5.9 gigatons of CO2 have been emitted due to deforestation.

Sumatra is the region with the greatest loss of native vegetation in the last two decades - 6.1 Mha, mainly converted to agriculture. This loss made it the region with the highest agricultural land cover in 2019 (65%), surpassing the Jawa-Bali-Nusa region (59% of agriculture). In the latter, the loss of native vegetation was 5.5%, or 0.4 Mha - well below Borneo, where 13.9% of native vegetation was lost between 2000 and 2019, or 5.4 Mha.

Protection 

One of the conservation strategies, the establishment of national parks and indigenous lands, is still weak in some biomes, or insufficient to stem the loss of native vegetation. Only the Amazon has 63% of its native vegetation under some level of protection; in the other biomes, less than 20% of native vegetation is protected.

The success of this strategy is reflected in the figures: in the Amazon, 90% of deforestation occurred outside indigenous lands or other protected areas between 1985 and 2020. Indigenous lands are the most protected areas in the Amazon: only 1.2% (2.9 Mha) of their native vegetation has been lost since 1985.