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Report: Amazon Fires Drive Unprecedented Global Forest Loss in 2024

A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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Report: Amazon Fires Drive Unprecedented Global Forest Loss in 2024

A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
A firefighter sets the forest ablaze as part of a controlled plan to prevent wildfires in the Cerrado region, at a national park in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Massive fires fueled by climate change led global forest loss to smash records in 2024, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

Loss of tropical pristine forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres), an 80% spike compared to 2023 and an area roughly the size of Panama, mainly because Brazil, the host of the next global climate summit in November, struggled to contain fires in the Amazon amid the worst drought ever recorded in the rainforest. A myriad of other countries, including Bolivia and Canada, were also ravaged by wildfires.

It was the first time the annual report, issued by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland, showed fires as the leading cause of tropical forest loss, a grim milestone for a naturally humid ecosystem that is not supposed to burn, Reuters reported.

"The signals in these data are particularly frightening," said Matthew Hansen, the co-director of a lab at the University of Maryland that compiled and analyzed the data. "The fear is that the climate signal is going to overtake our ability to respond effectively."

Latin America was hit particularly hard, the report said, with the Amazon biome hitting its highest level of primary forest loss since 2016.

Brazil, which holds the largest share of the world's tropical forests, lost 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), the most of any country. It was a reversal of the progress made in 2023 when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office promising to protect the world's largest rainforest.

“This was unprecedented, which means we have to adapt all our policy to a new reality,” said Andre Lima, who oversees deforestation control policies for Brazil’s Ministry of Environment, adding that fire, which was never among the leading causes of forest loss, is now a top priority for the government.

Bolivia overtook the Democratic Republic of Congo as the second country with the most tropical forest loss despite having less than half the amount of forest as the African nation, which also saw a spike in forest loss last year.

Bolivia's forest loss surged by 200% in 2024, with a drought, wildfires and a government-incentivized agricultural expansion as the leading causes. Across Latin America, the report noted similar trends in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Conflicts in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo also boosted deforestation rates, as armed groups used up natural resources.

Outside the tropics, boreal forests, which evolved with seasonal fires, also posted record-high tree loss in 2024, with Canada and Russia each losing 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) in 2024 as wildfires got out of control.

Southeast Asia bucked the global trend with Malaysia, Laos, and Indonesia all posting double-digit decreases in primary forest loss, as domestic conservation policy, combined with efforts by communities and the private sector, continued to effectively contain fires and agricultural expansion.

Another outlier was the Charagua Iyambae Indigenous territory in southern Bolivia, which was able to keep the country's record fires at bay through land-use policies and early warning systems.

Rod Taylor, the global director for forests at the WRI, said that as leaders descend on the Amazonian city of Belem for the next climate summit, he would like to see countries make progress in introducing better funding mechanisms for conservation.

"At the moment," he said, "there's more money to be paid by chopping forests down than keeping them standing."

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Varieties

Iron Age Teeth Fossils Reveal Diet Diversity of Italians 2,500 Years Ago

The fresco on the wall of a house in Pompeii that dates back 2,000 years (AFP)
The fresco on the wall of a house in Pompeii that dates back 2,000 years (AFP)
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Iron Age Teeth Fossils Reveal Diet Diversity of Italians 2,500 Years Ago

The fresco on the wall of a house in Pompeii that dates back 2,000 years (AFP)
The fresco on the wall of a house in Pompeii that dates back 2,000 years (AFP)

Italians began exploring a varied diet sometime between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, according to a new analysis of ancient teeth from Iron Age Italians.

Unravelling details about the lifestyles of ancient cultures is a challenging task, as it requires specific, well-preserved fossils of long-deceased individuals, The Independent reported.

Fossil human teeth are an excellent resource to understand ancient diets, acting as archives of each individual’s life history.

However, collecting information from teeth across different eras remains a challenge.

In the new study, researchers combined multiple analyses of teeth remains from the Italian archaeological site of Pontocagnano to interpret the health and diet of people in the region during the 7th and 6th centuries BC.

Scientists assessed the dental tissue of 30 teeth from 10 individuals, obtaining data from canine and molar teeth to reconstruct each ancient person’s history during the first six years of their lives.

Researchers found that the Iron Age Italians had a diet rich in cereals, legumes, abundant carbohydrates, and even fermented foods and drinks.

“We could follow childhood growth and health with remarkable precision and identify traces of cereals, legumes, and fermented foods in adulthood, revealing how this community adapted to environmental and social challenges,” said Roberto Germano, an author of the study.

Emanuela Cristiani, another author of the study said, “In the case of Pontocagnano, the analysis of dental calculus revealed starch granules from cereals and legumes, yeast spores, and plant fibres, providing a very concrete picture of the diet and some daily activities of these Iron Age communities.”

The findings offer strong evidence of this ancient Italian population regularly consuming fermented foods and beverages, researchers said.

Their diets likely diversified at the time as their contact with Mediterranean cultures increased, they added.

The researchers noted that while the study may not be completely representative of the broader Italian population, it provides a “very concrete picture” of the diet and some daily activities of Iron Age communities in the Italian region.

“This and other modern approaches represent a major technological and disciplinary advancement that is revolutionizing the study of the biocultural adaptations of past populations,” said Alessia Nava, another author of the study from Sapienza University of Rome.
 

Varieties

Sharks Are Famous for Fearsome Teeth, but Ocean Acidification Could Make them Weaker

In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)
In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)
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Sharks Are Famous for Fearsome Teeth, but Ocean Acidification Could Make them Weaker

In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)
In this undated handout photo provided by Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in January 2026, a blacktip reef shark swims at Sealife Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany. (Maximilian Baum/Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf via AP)

Sharks are the most feared predators in the sea, and their survival hinges on fearsome teeth that regrow throughout their lives. But changes in the ocean's chemistry could put those weapons at risk.

That is the takeaway from a study performed by a group of German scientists who tested the effects of a more acidic ocean on sharks' teeth. Scientists have linked human activities including the burning of coal, oil and gas to the ongoing acidification of the ocean, The Associated Press reported.

As oceans become increasingly acidic, sharks' teeth could become structurally weaker and more likely to break, the scientists found. That could change the big fishes' status at the top of the ocean's food chain, they wrote.

The ocean will not become populated with toothless sharks overnight, said the study's lead author, Maximilian Baum, a marine biologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. But the possibility of weaker teeth is a new hazard to sharks that already face pollution, overfishing, climate change and other threats, Baum said.

“We found there is a corrosion effect on sharks' teeth,” Baum said. “Their whole ecological success in the ocean as the rulers of other populations could be in danger.”

The researchers, who published their work in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, performed their study as ocean acidification has become an increasing focus of conservation scientists.

Acidification occurs when oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from the air, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The ocean is expected to become almost 10 times more acidic than it currently is by the year 2300, the German scientists wrote.

The scientists performed their study by collecting more than 600 discarded teeth from an aquarium that houses blacktip reef sharks, a species of shark that lives in the Pacific and Indian oceans and typically grows to about 5.5 feet (1.7 meters) long. They then exposed the teeth to water with the acidity of today and the projected acidity of 2300.

The teeth exposed to the more acidic water became much more damaged, with cracks and holes, root corrosion and degradation to the structure of the tooth itself, the scientists wrote.

The results “show that ocean acidification will have significant effects on the morphological properties of teeth,” the scientists wrote.

Still the ocean's top predator Shark teeth are “highly developed weapons built for cutting flesh, not resisting ocean acid,” Baum said. Sharks will go through thousands of teeth in a lifetime, and the teeth are critical for allowing sharks to regulate populations of fish and marine mammals in the oceans.

Many sharks are also facing extinction jeopardy, as more than a third of shark species are currently threatened with extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Thankfully, sharks have a number of factors that can help them stave off the negative effects of ocean acidification, said Nick Whitney, senior scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

Whitney, who was not involved in the study, said the scientists' work on the shark teeth was sound. However, because shark teeth develop inside the mouth tissue of sharks, they will be shielded from changes in ocean chemistry for a time, he said.

And history has taught us that sharks are survivors, Whitney said.

“They've been around for 400 million years and have evolved and adapted to all kinds of changing conditions,” he said.

Ocean acidification could be a concern, but overfishing remains the biggest threat to sharks, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Acidification will bring many changes Naylor and others cautioned that ocean acidification is indeed going to pose many threats to the ocean beyond just sharks. Ocean acidification is expected to be especially harmful to shellfish such as oysters and clams because it will make it more difficult for them to build shells, NOAA has said.

It could also make fish scales weaker and more brittle. It's tough to say now whether that could ultimately benefit the sharks that feed on them, Naylor said.

For now, ocean acidification can't be disregarded as a threat facing sharks, Baum said. Some shark species could come close to extinction in the coming years and ocean acidification could be one of the factors causing that to happen, he said.

“The evolutionary success of sharks is dependent on their perfectly developed teeth,” Baum said.

Varieties

Mummified Cheetahs Found in Saudi Caves Shed Light on Lost Populations

This undated image provided by Communications Earth and Environment shows the mummified remains of a cheetah. (Ahmed Boug/Communications Earth and Environment via AP)
This undated image provided by Communications Earth and Environment shows the mummified remains of a cheetah. (Ahmed Boug/Communications Earth and Environment via AP)
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Mummified Cheetahs Found in Saudi Caves Shed Light on Lost Populations

This undated image provided by Communications Earth and Environment shows the mummified remains of a cheetah. (Ahmed Boug/Communications Earth and Environment via AP)
This undated image provided by Communications Earth and Environment shows the mummified remains of a cheetah. (Ahmed Boug/Communications Earth and Environment via AP)

Scientists have uncovered the mummified remains of cheetahs from caves in northern Saudi Arabia.

The remains range from 130 years old to over 1,800 years old. Researchers excavated seven mummies along with the bones of 54 other cheetahs from a site near the city of Arar.

Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies. Egypt's mummies are the most well-known, but the process can also happen naturally in places like glacier ice, desert sands and bog sludge.

The new large cat mummies have cloudy eyes and shriveled limbs, resembling dried-out husks.

“It’s something that I’ve never seen before,” said Joan Madurell-Malapeira with the University of Florence in Italy, who was not involved with the discovery.

Researchers aren’t sure how exactly these new cats got mummified, but the caves’ dry conditions and stable temperature could have played a role, according to the new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

They also don't know why so many cheetahs were in the caves. It could have been a denning site where mothers birthed and raised their young.

Scientists have uncovered the rare mummified remains of other large cats, including a saber-toothed cat cub in Russia.

It's uncommon for large mammals to be preserved to this degree. Besides being in the right environment, the carcasses also have to avoid becoming a snack for hungry scavengers like birds and hyenas.

Cheetahs once roamed across most of Africa and parts of Asia, but now live in just 9% of their previous range and haven't been spotted across the Arabian Peninsula for decades. That’s likely due to habitat loss, unregulated hunting and lack of prey, among other factors.

In a first for naturally mummified large cats, scientists were also able to peek at the cheetahs' genes and found that the remains were most similar to modern-day cheetahs from Asia and northwest Africa. That information could help with future efforts to reintroduce the cats to places they no longer live.