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Fire risk mitigation underpins durable Nature-based Climate Solutions in the Amazon
Observed trends show that declining clear-cut deforestation does not necessarily imply declining forest carbon loss: fire-related degradation is becoming a rival source of carbon emissions to the atmosphere. According to Brazil’s official monitoring reports, gross deforestation in the legal Amazon fell by roughly half between 2022 (11,600 km2) and 2025 (5800 km2, preliminary), with smaller declines in neighbouring countries. Yet fire-conditioned degradation has advanced: alerts from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research’s (INPE) near-real-time deforestation and degradation monitoring system, DETER (Detecção do Desmatamento em Tempo Real), together with complementary analyses, indicate that in recent years forest-fire degradation has affected an area on the order of ten times annual clear-cut deforestation6. Emissions from fire‑conditioned degradation now approach those from deforestation (roughly 0.05–0.20 Pg C year–1 versus 0.06–0.21 Pg C year–1), because of the cumulative effects of understory fires: they directly reduce live carbon stocks as well as open canopies; suppress dry‑season evapotranspiration; and lock landscapes into low‑biomass attractors that recover slowly, if at all7. The slow recovery threatens the resilience of the Amazon Basin to act as a carbon sink and potential source of Nature-based Climate Solutions8,9. The scientific rationale for Nature-based Climate Solutions rests on large standing carbon stocks,...
