James Stewart

In an article published in Science in 2017, Levis and colleagues compared distributions of domesticated woody species with archaeological sites and environmental data, and the link they established between them was mind-blowing.

They reported that domesticated tree species are far more likely to be hyperdominant, where a small subset of species makes up a disproportionately large percentage of the total individuals or biomass in an ecosystem, and that the richness and abundance of domesticated species increases near archaeological sites.

Now, this doesn't mean every single hectare of the Amazon forest was designed, but it does mean the old binary of pristine versus human is too simple.

The Amazon can be wild and historical at the same time.

And in a cruel twist of irony, all of that carbon that the soil locks in is the very thing that's most under threat.

The Amazon holds roughly 150 to 200 billion metric tons of carbon in its forests and in its soils, an amount comparable to the last four to five years worth of global CO2 emissions.

Intact Amazon forests work as carbon sinks, helping reduce the impact of emissions on our atmosphere.

But that sink has weakened.

And in 2019, parts of the Amazon actually released more carbon than they absorbed.

This means that if the Amazon continues to shrink or indeed was lost entirely, the impact would be catastrophic, essentially releasing in the order of hundreds of billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and dramatically altering regional and international climates.

Recent data shows Amazon deforestation soared to more than 10,000 km2 per year between 2019 and 2021, before enforced efforts to drive it down again in 2023 to 2025.

Severe wildfires in drought years have also released large amounts of carbon.

For example, satellite-based measurements found Amazonia emitted between 28 and 62 billion kilograms of carbon monoxide in 2024 from wildfires alone, approximately four times the average.

These trends underline that the Amazon's carbon bank account is being depleted, increasing risks of future climate impacts if not urgently addressed.

Which raises one big question, doesn't it?

What does the future look like?

So far, we've only really covered the ancient hidden human elements in this gargantuan rainforest.

But what about what else might live there?

The Amazon's biodiversity is so rich, it feels almost endless.

One in 10 known species on earth lives here.