Are we running out of time to save the Amazon rainforest? | Environment

With deforestation on the rise, scientists are raising the alarm about a looming ecological catastrophe.

The planet’s most biodiverse region is under threat and its destruction would have dire consequences for the entire planet, according to scientists and environmentalists.

Deforestation has picked up pace in recent years, and at one point the Amazon was losing the equivalent of three football fields every minute, according to a report based on satellite imagery. Critics have blamed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies for the increased threat to the rainforest, and in recent months have started a campaign to hold him criminally responsible for the destruction of the Amazon.

“The fact is that our president doesn’t see any value in the forest, and the people of the forest or in nature itself,” says Brazilian agronomist Luis Fernando Guedes Pinto.

This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks with Leila Salazar-López, executive director at Amazon Watch, and Luis Fernando Guedes Pinto, professor at the Institute for Ecological Research (IPÊ) and senior fellow of Ashoka.