UF Center for Latin American Studies
The ongoing fires could fundamentally change the world’s largest tropical rainforest.
September 12, 2019
Dr. Emilio Bruna was interviewed by The Verge regarding the environmental changes we could see in the Amazon if the fires continue.
Earlier this year, an international team looked at 56 sites spread across 10 countries in the Americas to study how these tropical forests, both burned and unburned, regrow over time. The results of the study suggest that they can recover about 80 percent of the tree species they lost within 20 years. “The thing is that [50] years later you still don’t have a regenerated Amazonian forest,” explains Bruna. Though after half a century, the number of tree species is the same as before, the study concludes, centuries will need to pass until the abundance of those species goes back to normal.
Read the full article: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/10/20858834/amazon-fire-brazil-forest-harm-recovery-century
