Amazon nearing tipping point as climate change and illegal mining intensify pressures

The Amazon is facing escalating threats from deforestation, environmental degradation and climate change, with scientists warning the region is approaching a dangerous tipping point that could trigger irreversible collapse.

According to the Amazon Assessment Report 2025 – Connectivity of the Amazon for a Living Planet, the world’s largest rainforest is being rapidly destabilised by a combination of forest loss, climate extremes, land grabbing and illegal mining. Unless urgent action is taken, the report says, the Amazon’s ecological and sociocultural systems could break down.

The Amazon generates an estimated 30-50 per cent of the world’s rainfall and discharges nearly 20 per cent of global river freshwater into the oceans. Its forests store the equivalent of 15-20 years’ worth of global carbon emissions. 

The region is also home to more than 47 million people, including 2.2 million Indigenous peoples across more than 400 ethnic groups, as well as Afro-descendant and other traditional communities, the report underlined.

The rainforest holds nearly 13 per cent of all known species, including 50,000 plant species, 3,000 freshwater fish, and hundreds of mammals, reptiles and amphibians. But this biodiversity is under growing strain from illegal timber extraction, fire, hunting, land grabbing and unregulated mining.

Climate change is compounding these threats. The report warns that rising deforestation, wildfires, droughts and heatwaves are increasing the risk of large-scale forest dieback. Already, nearly a quarter of lowland forests, rivers and wetlands have been affected.

“The Amazon River has experienced four ‘once-in-a-century’ droughts in 2005, 2010, 2015-2016, and 2023-2024, and two “once-in-a-century” floods in 2012 and 2021, each progressively more severe than the previous one,” it said.

Between 1985 and 2023, the Amazon lost 12.4 per cent of its forest cover due to anthropogenic activities such as commercial agriculture, cattle ranching, logging, mining and infrastructure expansion. A further 38 per cent of the remaining forest has been degraded by logging, fire, drought and fragmentation.

Climate change is also delaying the onset of the wet season and intensifying fire conditions. Extreme fire weather days have tripled since 1971 and could double the area burned by 2050. Brazil experienced its worst forest fires in 2024, with 62 per cent of the affected area burned.

Smoke from these fires is altering cloud formation and deepening drought conditions. “Fire-related smoke is responsible for almost 16,800 deaths each year,” the report says.

Hydrological systems are also under strain. The Amazon River network has become increasingly fragmented, with a 40 per cent rise in chipping over the past decade, largely driven by dam construction. The Balbina Dam alone has contributed to the loss of 12 per cent of floodplain forest, with 29 per cent of areas showing signs of tree mortality, by disrupting downstream Uatumã River-floodplain connectivity.

During high-water seasons, 89 per cent of non-Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon live within 5km of a major water body, but many become isolated during severe droughts. During the 2023-24 drought, water levels in several central Amazon lakes dropped by up to 80 per cent, severing connections with surrounding rivers.

The integrity of the Amazon Basin is increasingly threatened by the combined impact of legal, informal, illegal, and criminal activities. The report says illicit deforestation, land grabbing, illegal gold mining, drug trafficking and wildlife trade form “cohesive expanding networks” that exploit weak governance and operate across borders with detailed knowledge of local terrain.

These activities are also driving increased contact between humans and wildlife, heightening the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. “For example, the opening of the BR-319 highway in the Brazilian Amazon has caused a 400 per cent increase in malaria cases, and the paving of the Peruvian section of the Interoceanic Highway caused at least an additional 9,826 dengue cases in 2022-23. Roads are also associated with increased atmospheric pollution and exposure to smoke from fires,” it said.

The authors argue that safeguarding the Amazon will require an integrated, transdisciplinary approach spanning geological systems, climate, ecosystems, local communities and governance. Only a holistic strategy, they say, can secure the region’s future and avert its collapse.