The ongoing burning of the Amazon rainforest threatens to destroy a major reservoir of biodiversity in the region and release a large quantity of carbon locked in the forest biomass, Antonio Navarra, the president of Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, told Sputnik on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd September, 2019) The ongoing burning of the Amazon rainforest threatens to destroy a major reservoir of biodiversity in the region and release a large quantity of carbon locked in the forest biomass, Antonio Navarra, the president of Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, told Sputnik on Monday.The wildfires in the Amazonian region have been raging for several weeks and became the spotlight of the environmental agenda at the recent meeting of G7 leaders. Heads of the Amazon countries will meet in Colombia's city of Leticia on September 6 to discuss joint environmental policies.
"It is a very poetic statement, but it is true that the tropical forests, and especially the Amazon, are a major reservoir of biodiversity and carbon that is locked into the biomass. Mostly the risk is to destroy and make available to the planet the vast amount of carbon locked in the forest biomass," Navarra said.
The head of the Italy-based research center explained that the contribution of the Amazon rainforest to producing oxygen was "more complicated," since organisms living there both produce and consume oxygen.
"Oxygen concentrations have been going down historically, but the amount of oxygen is so large that probably is a minor issue," he added.
The Amazon rainforest in Brazil and neighboring states has been facing a record number of fires for several weeks. Environmentalists have accused pro-business President Jair Bolsonaro of encouraging farmers, miners and loggers to set fires in an effort to unlock natural reserves.
