DEATH IN THE FOREST

...The Amazon is already believed to be at the precipice. If much more is lost, scientists warn, the forest could suffer destabilizing ecological changes that convert immense swaths into degraded open savanna. What has historically been a carbon sink could suddenly become a “carbon bomb,” upending the world’s efforts to avert catastrophic warming. Already, some regions of the Amazon are exploding — emitting more carbon gas than they absorb. The shift has been particularly acute in the most deforested sections of the Amazon’s degraded southeast, where in the past 40 years the average temperature during the annual dry season has risen more than 4 degrees.

The outcome of the emotional political clash, scientists say, has implications not only for the rest of the forest but the world. The Amazon is a crucial bulwark against global warming, helping to slow the inexorable march of climate change. But researchers warn that finishing the highway and subsequent state roads would open up its core to destruction. Scientists at the Federal University of Minas Gerais found in 2020 that paving the highway would quadruple deforestation here over the next three decades.

“That would be the end of the forest,” said Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist who focuses on the Amazon.

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