WILDFIRES DEVASTATED THE AMAZON BASIN IN 2024 / THE ECONOMIST

A losing battle

Wildfires devastated the Amazon basin in 2024

They wiped away all progress governments had made to curb deforestation in recent years

Smoke choked Earth’s lungs last year. 

Of the 51,000 square kilometres (an area the size of Costa Rica) of mature tropical forest destroyed in Latin America in 2024, wildfires accounted for 60%, a record high. 

The area destroyed was 142% larger than in 2023, wiping out progress that Brazilian and Colombian governments had made in curbing deforestation.

These sobering data were published on May 21st by Global Forest Watch (GFW), a monitoring service run by an NGO called the World Resources Institute which uses satellite data to measure tree loss. 

Climate change is raising temperatures and drying the air, turning the rainforest into a tinderbox. 

Last year was the hottest on record, with the effects of warming compounded across the Amazon rainforest basin by the El Niño weather phenomenon. 

When farmers set fires to clear space for growing soyabeans or grazing cattle, the blazes often spiralled out of control. 

GFW calculates that fires released 1.15 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, more than all of South America generated by burning fossil fuels in 2023.

An aeroplane flies over an area devastated by a forest fire in the Pantanal / Photograph: Panos

Brazil, where most of the Amazon sits, lost more tropical forest than any other country, around 28,200 square kilometres. 

That was also the most Brazil had lost since 2016. 

The numbers are a blow to the environmentalist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula. 

Although critics point to contradictions in his green agenda, his efforts to protect the Amazon had been working. 

Deforestation had dropped by a third between 2022 and 2023.

But Lula’s policies proved to be less potent than climate change. 

Brazilians had been excited by recently published data suggesting that deforestation fell again in 2024, but those data do not account for fires as GFW data do. 

Last year Brazil suffered the deepest drought since records began. 

Wildfires were particularly ferocious and difficult to fight. 

They caused 60% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. 

Such conditions are likely to worsen in future.

Brazil’s search for economic growth is adding to the Amazon’s woes. 

States bordering the Brazilian Amazon have been rolling back protections in order to boost agricultural output. 

In October legislators in Mato Grosso removed tax breaks for companies that commit to trade soya without deforestation. 

Last month, lawmakers in neighbouring Rôndonia passed an “amnesty law” to forgive past deforestation. 

The message for ranchers is that land can be grabbed with impunity, all but encouraging slash-and-burn expansion.

To see what an unencumbered boom in beef and soya production looks like, Brazilian policymakers should look across their south-western border at Bolivia. 

Bolivia’s leaders have spurred industrial farming on deforested land for years through loan programmes and tax breaks. 

In 2019 the government lifted a ban on beef exports and approved legislation encouraging farmers to expand the agricultural frontier with fire. 

Beef exports and forest destruction surged in tandem. 

Deforestation in Bolivia has increased more than five-fold since 2019, according to GFW. 

Cattle-ranching was responsible for 57% of all deforestation in the country between 2010 and 2022, according to a recent study. 

Punishment is rare. 

Of the 136 cases authorities opened on illegal land-clearing in 2024, just six ended in a sentence.

Aerial view of a sandbank on the bed of the Negro River, tributaries of the Amazon River, are in a "critical situation" due to the historic drought / Photograph: Getty Images

As a result, Bolivia lost 14,800 square kilometres of forest in 2024, the second-most of any country, up 200% from 2023. 

It lost more than the Democratic Republic of Congo did, despite having just 40% of its forested area. 

Fires drove nearly two-thirds of the damage, according to GFW.

Bolivia’s leaders were not the only group who gave in to the lure of turning rainforest into cash. 

Peru’s government amended its forestry law in 2024 with a view to expanding agriculture, in effect offering amnesty to those who had cleared land illegally. 

Tropical forest loss in the country rose by 25% in 2024, partly as a result. 

In Colombia, rebel groups are cashing in on record-high gold prices by mining ore from beneath cleared forest. 

They are also expanding coca plantations. 

Loss of primary forest rose by 49% last year. 

The high level of deforestation is a consequence of deteriorating security.

Even the most pristine parts of the Amazon are threatened. 

Guyana, which has lots of untouched forest, wants the world to pay to keep its biodiverse, carbon-rich rainforests standing. 

Yet deforestation there rose by 275% in 2024 (albeit from a low base) owing to wildfires and illegal gold mining. 

Against climate change, even the best intentions can be easily dashed.