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Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin

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  • 01 September 2021

Policy, drought and fires combine to affect biodiversity in the Amazon basin

Analysis of the ranges of nearly 15,000 plant and vertebrate species in the Amazon basin reveals that, from 2001 to 2019, a majority were affected by fire. Drought and forest policy were the best predictors of fire outcomes.
  • Thomas W. Gillespie

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  1. Thomas W. Gillespie

    1. Thomas W. Gillespie is in the Department of Geography and at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

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The Amazon basin contains the largest continuous area of tropical rainforests in the world, and has a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate1. Rates of tropical-rainforest deforestation and the impacts of fire and drought there are well established2,3. Less is known, however, about how these factors might interact to affect biodiversity, and about the role that forest policy and its enforcement have had over time. Writing in Nature, Feng et al.4 address these issues.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02320-0

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

  • Read the paper: How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity

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