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In the Amazon, there is extreme drought. Wildlife is perishing. Life for many humans is getting more difficult. The level of water in the region’s rivers continues to fall and the outlook for the year ahead is bleak. This, as scientists, researchers and policy makers from all over the world head to Dubai next week for COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Many of them will have an eye on the Amazon, trying to understand the causes and predict the consequences of the drought, but also to propose alternative approaches before it’s too late. Our new Brazilian edition of The Conversation is publishing a series of key commissions on the situation in the Amazon, a region that perhaps more than any other represents the health – and future – of the whole of humanity.
Among the articles produced by colleagues in recent weeks is this portrait – drawn by biologists Phillip Fearnside and Rosimeire Araújo, both from the Amazon Research Institute (INPA) – detailing the damage that the combination of unprecedented seasonal droughts and the El Niño phenomenon is bringing to the region’s riverside population. They look at what is likely to happen in the months, years and decades to come. And at what can change the course we are now on.
In the next few weeks we will have content in text and audio formats from our bureaux around the world, considering all aspects of COP28 and a climate emergency that is now a reality for communities across the planet.
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The largest tributary on the left bank of the Amazon, the Rio Negro is known for its paradisiacal landscapes, fresh, clean and abundant waters, where pink dolphins swim. Today, much of its riverbed around Manaus looks like this.
AP Photo/Edmar Barros
Philip Fearnside, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA); Rosimeire Araújo Silva, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)
The drought is expected to affect the region until mid-2024 at the earliest. Signs of its severity include the lowest water levels in the city of Manaus in 121 years.
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Argemiro Teixeira Leite Filho, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Diminishing forests reduces the capacity of the Amazon and Cerrado to regulate rainfall patterns. That’s bad for communities, but also bad for business and global food security.
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Ludovic Pascal, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR); Gwénaëlle Chaillou, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)
The waters of the St. Lawrence are running out of breath and bottom-dwelling organisms are already feeling the effects. Here’s how ecosystems are reacting.
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Cydney Thompson, Trinity College Dublin
Why this 1866 painting by French artist Auguste Toulmouche has become an online sensation.
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Gregory F. Treverton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas calls for the release of at least 50 hostages taken during the violent attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Ran Porat, Monash University
Despite mounting public anger, the veteran leader has proven time and again that it is not wise to bet against him.
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Tom Nyirenda, Stellenbosch University
Africa bears the heaviest burden of antimicrobial resistance, a phenomenon fuelled largely by poverty, But there are encouraging signs that the continent is taking action to fight it.
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Natalia I. Kucirkova, The Open University
In the academic world, researchers are rewarded for publishing frequently. Not only is this affecting research quality but it is also hindering female scientists.
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Anjana Susarla, Michigan State University
The explosion of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and fears about where the technology might be headed distract from the many ways AI affects people every day – for better and worse.
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Katherine Astbury, University of Warwick
A historian explains what the relationship between one of the most famous couples in history was really like.
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