Climate change a threat to Amazon rainforest, warns WWF

Climate change and deforestation could convert the majority of the Amazon rainforest into savannah, with massive impacts on the world’s biodiversity and climate, WWF said today at the 8th UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Presenting a review of scientific research on the Amazon and climate change, WWF says that climate-modelling studies are projecting a warmer and drier environment for the region, which will likely lead to a substantial decrease in precipitation over much of the Amazon. Such changes would result in significant shifts in ecosystem types – from tropical forest to dry savannah – and loss of species in many parts of the Amazon.

..“Both the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation must be urgently and significantly reduced in order to save the world’s biodiversity and people from catastrophic climate change,” said Giulio Volpi, coordinator of WWF’s Climate Change Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean.

WWF – also offers a review of scientific literature on the subject.