Spanning 670 million hectares and housing 10% of all species on Earth, the Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate, supporting biodiversity, sustaining local economies, and providing for millions of people, including numerous Indigenous communities. The Amazon is one of our planet’s most vital ecosystems but its increasingly threatened state represents an alarming symbol of the climate crisis. Massive deforestation, driven by extractive industries such as commercial logging, mining, and industrial agriculture, as well as infrastructural projects, continues to threaten the region, raising alarm bells among scientists, activists, and people who call the Amazon home.
Why is Amazon so important?
The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world and has a massive impact on global carbon emissions and clean air, making it an essential ecosystem for all living beings on Earth. Known as one of the world’s lungs, the Amazon produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere via photosynthesis. Because of its sheer size, it is a massive carbon sink, effective at storing 1-2 billion tons of carbon annually and sequestering more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits.
The Amazon is also essential for ecological and societal functions at the local level. Millions of species, including humans, living in the rainforest rely on the natural resources at their disposal for survival as well as spiritual and cultural practices. For many Indigenous Peoples, such as the Yanomamo, the Waiapi, and the Waorani, the Amazon is their home and a part of their identities. “She [the rainforest] is also like our mother, who gives us attention, sustenance, [and] takes care of our health. We don’t need to deforest her to survive because she already gives us sustenance,” said Genilson Guajajara, an Indigenous photographer who lives in Piçarra Preta, a village in the Maranhão state of the Brazilian Amazon. They have thrived in the rainforests for millennia, producing their own agricultural products, clothes, and even medicine. It is also a reciprocal relationship—studies have found that Indigenous-managed lands support more threatened vertebrate species and have higher biodiversity levels than existing protected or non-protected areas in Brazil.
Magnitude and Causes of Deforestation
Deforestation threatens this equilibrium. It is estimated that the Amazon lost over 54.2 million hectares, or about 9% of its forests, between 2001 and 2020 due to deforestation. Unfortunately, the Brazilian Amazon's destruction rate increased to more than 4,600 square miles per year, nearly double the amount in 2012.
Human extractive use is the leading cause of Amazonian deforestation, motivated by commercial cattle ranching, soy production, and gold mining—both legally and illegally. Deforestation occurs when trees are cut down by logging or intentional burning to clear land for extractive uses. Infrastructure also plays an important role in promoting further deforestation, by stimulating “disorderly occupation” of the land and placing pressure on Indigenous Territories (ITs) and Protected Natural Areas (PNAs) in the Amazon; roads allow the transportation and outflow of Amazonian merchandise (ie. lumber, agricultural products) to easily leave the land. This also incentivizes land grabbing, which is the invasion of ITs and PNAs by using forged documents certifying possession and other intimidation tactics to force Indigenous communities to give up their land.
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The Consequences of Deforestation
Cutting down forests releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that have been trapped in trees and soil for years. Fires used to clear forest can also emit additional carbon dioxide besides the amount from removing the actual trees. The resulting tree loss leads to a decreasing level of carbon dioxide absorption in the Amazon, minimizing its effectiveness at acting as a carbon sink. Researchers have found that the Amazon may only be “absorbing half as much carbon dioxide as it did 20 years ago” due to deforestation.
Additionally, this loss in vegetation can negatively affect water cycles and trigger a cycle of desertification at the regional and global levels, causing a decrease in transpiration and evaporation of rainfall. A 2014 study found that widespread destruction of the Amazon can cause less rain and snowpack in certain parts of North America, among other continents.
Indigenous Land Rights As a Solution to Deforestation
Indigenous communities have good reason to protect the Amazon and they possess a potential solution to prevent further destruction if they have the legal rights to manage and live in the land. A report from the World Resource Institute found that deforestation in Indigenous community forests was less than 1%, compared to 7% outside them from 2000 to 2012, leading to more stored carbon per hectare than other areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
Currently, the Brazilian Constitution recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ “sociopolitical and original right to land” and guarantees they have access to “the lands they traditionally occupy” upon the Union’s demarcation of these territories. Per Article 231 of the Constitution, Indigenous communities are not granted full property rights to their territories unless they go through a legal process called demarcation. This process ensures that third parties cannot contest Indigenous land rights, and extractive activities cannot be done within the land without approval from the Indigenous communities and the National Congress of Brazil. A study found that territories with full property rights show a significant decrease in deforestation, especially from illegal activities.
Barriers to Indigenous Land Rights
Legal protections for Indigenous land rights exist on paper, but enforcement often falls short in practice. Despite their role in conserving one of Earth’s most essential ecosystems, Indigenous communities have faced threats of displacement for years as deforestation has increased by 129% inside ITs from 2013 to 2021. This is often due to weakened legal protections from the government, as a result of changing political leaders that reverse pre-existing environmental regulations and weaken policies that protect Indigenous land rights. Without government support, Indigenous communities have taken to patrolling their land against land grabbers, often leading to violent conflicts and further vulnerability to threats of degradation of their home and livelihood. These communities’ way of living—and thus, their commitment to managing and protecting the Amazon—will be compromised without substantial political backing from the countries where the Amazon resides and from international support.
However, political action must be based on the knowledge of Indigenous communities to create effective and meaningful results. The halting of deforestation in the Amazon is more than a climate change dilemma; it is also a dilemma that determines the survival of their people and culture. “When you destroy [...] this forest, you also destroy the life of the people who depend on it,” said Guajajara. They will continue the fight because their lives depend on it—and so must we.
About the author:
Esther Duong (she/her) is a Vietnamese-American storyteller and activist from the Bay Area, California, USA. She has an interest in environmental policy and environmental justice issues within conservation and urban planning. She’s been involved in city and regional advocacy for five years and has experience in youth-led grassroot lobbying and environmental science education. She received a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning at UC Davis, with a minor in Landscape Restoration.
1 Zanon, S. (2023). Deforestation in the Amazon: past, present and future. (M. Rinaldi, Trans.). InfoAmazonia.
2 Baragwanath, K. & Bayi, E. (2020). Collective property rights reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117 (34) 20495-20502, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917874117
3 Adams, E. et al. (2020). Deforestation Hits Home: Indigenous Communities Fight for the Future of Their Amazon. Center for Strategic & International Studies Journalism.
4 Adams, E. et al. (2020). Deforestation Hits Home: Indigenous Communities Fight for the Future of Their Amazon. Center for Strategic & International Studies Journalism.
5 Ibid
6 Zanon, S. (2023). Deforestation in the Amazon: past, present and future. (M. Rinaldi, Trans.). InfoAmazonia.
7 Adams, E. et al. (2020). Deforestation Hits Home: Indigenous Communities Fight for the Future of Their Amazon. Center for Strategic & International Studies Journalism.
8 Zanon, S. (2023). Deforestation in the Amazon: past, present and future. (M. Rinaldi, Trans.). InfoAmazonia.
9 Wegrowski, B (2019). Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest. Ballard Brief.
10 Ibid
11 Ibid
12 Baragwanath, K. & Bayi, E. (2020). Collective property rights reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117 (34) 20495-20502, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917874117
13 Ibid
14 Silva-Junior, C.H.L., Silva, F.B., Arisi, B.M. et al. (2023). Brazilian Amazon indigenous territories under deforestation pressure. Sci Rep 13, 5851. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32746-7
