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Brazil's Amazon rainforest has shrunk by an area as big as Spain over four decades and is nearing a dangerous tipping point, according to monitoring data released Monday.

The Amazon was approaching a "point of no return" of 20 to 25% vegetation loss at which it "ceases to sustain itself as a rainforest," said Bruno Ferreira, a researcher at the MapBiomas monitoring platform.

"When too much vegetation is lost, the rain cycle is disrupted, and large areas tend to transform into drier savannas."

Brazil, which will host the UN COP30 climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belem in November, is home to 60% of the rainforest which spans nine countries.

Satellite images studied by MapBiomas showed the loss of 49.1 million hectares (121 million acres) of rainforest between 1985 and 2024.

If other types of plant life are included, the Amazon has lost 13% of its native vegetation in that time, the data showed.

MapBiomas said that livestock farming had increased almost fivefold in the period studied.

Deforestation had slowed after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returned to office in 2023.

However, a historic drought fueled forest fires in the region, leading to a four-percent increase in deforestation between August 2024 and July 2025.

© 2025 AFP