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Conservation’s Greatest Challenge and Opportunity: The Brazilian Amazon
The Amazon is the world’s largest and most important tropical rainforest, originally spanning 1.7 billion acres—nearly the size of the continental U.S. It is a refuge for a third of Earth’s terrestrial species and stores 100 billion metric tons of CO 2 equivalents, more than four times the combined annual emissions of the top 10 CO 2 emitting nations. The Amazon is also the ancestral territory and current home to many of the world’s Indigenous Peoples.
The Brazilian Amazon is under imminent threat from profit-seeking outside interests that are destroying a vital ecosystem that is critical to maintaining the health of all life on Earth. Rare and endemic species are rapidly losing forests necessary for their survival. Likewise, traditional communities living on undesignated, unprotected public lands struggle against growing pressures.
Amazonas and Pará, Brazil
2,262,878
Wattled Curassow (EN), Ariel Toucan (EN), Eastern Red-necked Araçari (EN), Olive-winged Trumpeter (EN), Black Rail (EN), Giant Otter (EN), Black-faced Black Spider Monkey (EN)
Designation
Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil
648,507,695 mT*
*(metric tonnes of CO2 equivalents)
Approximately 18% of the Amazon has been deforested, mostly to create pasture for commercial beef rearing or large-scale soya farms to feed cattle. In 2007, Rainforest Trust’s board member Tom Lovejoy (1941-2021) hypothesized that deforestation, if left unchecked, would interrupt the recycling of rainwater and cause a positive feedback loop between less forest and less rain. Accumulated evidence since then indicates Lovejoy was right. The Amazon is nearing the tipping point where much of the remaining forest will degrade to savanna woodland, altering the climate across South America and beyond.
Some 60% of the rainforest lies in Brazil. There, strategies to reduce deforestation—including the creation of protected areas and safeguarding of Indigenous territories—under then-President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva led to an 80% decline in deforestation between 2005-2012. But since Lula’s term ended, deforestation has rebounded, with 2.9 million acres of forest destroyed in 2022 alone.
The proposed protected areas safeguard watersheds and rivers. Rivers are the highways of the Brazilian Amazon and are used by logging companies and illegal loggers to move timber to downriver ports. By helping local and Indigenous communities secure these lands around the rivers, these areas with low deforestation will be able to maintain their rich rainforest.
These territories play an important role in mitigating climate change both locally and globally. Their wetlands and forests store 648,507,695 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, an amount comparable to the emissions from nearly 73 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.
Rainforest Trust’s goal in the Brazilian Amazon is to permanently safeguard 20 million acres of intact forest—an expanse the size of South Carolina—over the next four years as new protected areas and Indigenous territories. By doing so, we will:
• Pull the Amazon back from the tipping point
• Safely lock up 6 billion metric tons of CO 2 equivalents (more than the U.S.’s annual total CO 2 emissions)
• Provide a permanent home for at least 70 species currently listed by IUCN’s Red List as threatened and countless species not yet listed
• Secure the territories, cultures and livelihoods of 150,000 Indigenous people
The protection of this project helps participate in several of the United Nations Sustainability Goals
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
The protection of this project helps participate in several of the United Nations Sustainability Goals
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.
Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.
One Tribe enables businesses to be more sustainable by funding rinforest protection projects that store carbon from being released into the atmosphere. By enabling customers to protect rainforest when they shop online we also empowers consumers to drive positive change
One Tribe is a Climate Action Platform enabling businesses and their customers to make a positive environmental impact.
