At COP30 in the Amazon, the world is grappling with a stark question: can the destruction of vital rainforest ecosystems ever truly be offset? Brazilian President Lula da Silva has placed deforestation front and centre at the UN climate conference, underscoring just how critical these forests are to the fight against climate change.
Satellite tools such as the Global Forest Canopy Height model — which operates at 10 m spatial resolution — highlight where the earth’s tallest, densest, and often most ancient rainforests remain. These lie not only in Brazil’s Amazon, but also in Africa’s Congo basin, parts of Southeast Asia, and within India, in regions like the northeast, the Western Ghats, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, certain forest stretches reach canopy heights of 25–30 m — comparable to the Amazon — a scale of vertical complexity that satellites often underestimate. According to a 2023 Nature Ecology & Evolution study, existing canopy-height estimation tools saturate around 25–30 m, meaning very tall trees may not be fully accounted for. That underestimation weakens estimates of biomass and carbon stored, because those towering giants hold a disproportionate share of the ecosystem’s carbon.
Joice Nunes Ferreira of Embrapa Eastern Amazon describes old-growth Amazon forests as remarkably diverse, both structurally and in species — with some trees growing up to 60–80 m and densities exceeding 500 stems per hectare. In contrast, estimates for Great Nicobar suggest tree densities of 500–800 per hectare for trees of at least 30 cm girth. Ecologists say that amid such density, it’s sometimes impossible to glimpse the sky from beneath the canopy.
There are striking functional similarities between rainforests across continents: in Amazon and Southeast Asia alike, large tree species dominate; palms, climbers, and flooding traits emerge in different forests; and despite geographical distance, parallel patterns prevail.
Yet both the Amazon and Great Nicobar are under serious threat. In the Amazon, climate change, road construction, and mining loom over even the most intact parts of the basin. On Great Nicobar, four major infrastructure projects — including a port, airport, power plants, and township — put about 130.75 sq km of forest in jeopardy, of which 47.75 sq km may be felled. Experts warn that clearing these forests, especially tall, mature trees, would take decades to reverse; younger trees simply do not match in biomass or ecological value.
The Northeast of India also faces pressure from hydropower, mining, logging and agriculture. The proposed Etalin Hydropower Project alone threatens to fell 270,000 trees and divert over 1,100 hectares of high-conservation forest that is home to rare species such as the Himalayan Serow, Golden Cat and King Cobra.
Beyond trees, rainforest loss imperils indigenous populations and endemic wildlife. In the Nicobars, tribal groups like the Shompen depend on the forest for food. Researchers stress that monoculture plantations — often proposed as “compensatory afforestation” — fail to replicate the structural complexity and biodiversity of native rainforests. Primary forests, ecologists argue, are irreplaceable: they provide unique biodiversity that plantations cannot match.
In ecological terms, afforestation in other areas simply does not make up for the loss of old-growth rainforest. As one expert put it, the mismatch is “staggering”: planting trees in Haryana cannot offset the carbon or biodiversity value of what is lost in Great Nicobar. On these islands, rare species like the Nicobar Tree Shrew, Crab-eating Macaque, Dugong, Serpent Eagle and Reticulated Python face existential risks.
Yet global efforts are being made. In November, Brazil launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which will pay tropical forest nations annually to conserve their standing forests. The initiative was endorsed by over 50 countries, though India has joined only as an “observer.”
While TFFF underscores the intrinsic value of ecosystems like the Amazon, Congo and Mekong basins, experts caution that the model may be fragile. Since it relies on private investors, funding could be volatile — putting dependence on such payments at risk if financial markets sour.
Still, Brazil remains optimistic. At COP30, President Lula invoked the symbolic power of the Amazon: a living heritage teeming with rivers, species, and indigenous communities, but caught in a “false dilemma” between prosperity and preservation. On November 12, over 200 indigenous and riverine leaders held a massive protest in Guajará Bay, calling for an end to oil drilling and forest diversion. Chief Raoni Metuktire asserted: “If they remove the people, the forest will die with them.”
Luciene Kaxinawa, an indigenous journalist from Acre, spoke of climate change firsthand — her community is already suffering from scorching rivers, contaminated water, droughts, floods, and declining food production.
Meanwhile, institutional pressure is building: a coalition of investors managing nearly US$3 trillion in assets has backed the Belém Investor Statement on Rainforests, urging governments to enact strong, enforceable policies to halt deforestation by 2030. Their call aligns with international pledges, such as the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and the outcome of COP28’s global stocktake.
Still, the magnitude of 2024’s forest loss is alarming: roughly 6.7 million hectares of tropical forest disappeared — equivalent to losing 18 football fields every minute. Civil society warns that unless fossil fuel emissions are slashed, ending oil exploration in the Amazon is impossible.
Carlos Nobre, co-chair of the Amazon Scientific Panel, issued a stark warning: if global warming hits 2 °C and deforestation exceeds 20%, the Amazon could cross a “point of no return,” triggering irreversible ecological collapse.
