Two of the industries involved in the infernos consuming the Amazon rainforest and drawing the attention of global powers gathered at the G7 meeting in France are familiar to diners worldwide: soy and beef.

The Living Planet Report documents the state of the planet—including biodiversity, ecosystems, and demand on natural resources—and what it means for humans and wildlife.

Something is wrong in the lungs of the world. Decades of burning, logging, mining and development have tipped the scales, and now the Amazon Basin may be emitting more greenhouse gases than it absorbs.

Let’s start by getting some grounding on where we are today.

Here’s Why the Amazon is So Important for Global Food Security

The South American monsoon, which determines the climate of much of the continent, is being pushed towards a “critical destabilisation point”, according to a study that links regional rainfall to Amazon deforestation and global heating.

Our love affair with chocolate is much older than we thought, and newly discovered traces of cocoa on ancient pots suggest it started in the rainforests of what is now Ecuador some 5300 years ago.

The Amazon is facing an unprecedented drought that is projected to continue affecting the region at least until mid-2024.

Since 2015, the Amazon has been slower to recover from increasing drought events, but, overall, the rainforest still shows a remarkable resilience. New international research led by KU Leuven Earth and environmental scientists shows that forest degradation due to drought has been most pronounced in the southern Amazon, where human impact is greatest.

The rainforest in the Amazon basin transpires vast amounts of gaseous isoprene. Until now, it was assumed that this molecule is not transported far up into the atmosphere, as it rapidly declines when exposed to light conditions.

 Between November 2023 and October 2024, the Amazon rainforest faced yearly average temperature increases above 2° Celsius.