Amazon destruction endangering stability of the world's climate

As delegates, scientists and environmentalists from nearly 190 countries continue to thrash out a new climate change agreement in Bali, a new WWF report warns that destruction of the Amazon rainforest has now reached an ecological tipping point.

Unless they develop a strategy to decrease emissions and break the cycle of deforestation then logging, agriculture, livestock expansion, fire and drought will destroy 60 per cent of the Amazon by 2030. And its vital role in regulating the world's temperature, influencing ocean currents, providing freshwater and storing carbon will be drastically reduced, accelerating the process of global warming.

Uncontrolled slash and burn methods and logging is releasing carbon stored by the trees back into the atmosphere. WWF estimates that if this is allowed to continue unabated, anywhere between 55.5 to 96.9 billion tons of CO2 could be released between now and 2030. The Amazon stretches across nearly 60% of Brazil and contains 30% of the world's plant and animal species, many of which are still undiscovered. It also contains one-fifths of the world's fresh water in its 1.6 million square miles expanse.

The only way in which to prevent future climate catastrophes is by asking rich countries to decrease emissions in order to restrict global warming, according to Karen Suassuna, a climate change analyst at WWF-Brazil. Even once slash and burn policies are scrapped, the Amazon would still take up to 15 years to regain closed-canopy forest cover and regain its status as 'the lungs of the planet'.