Why does the Amazon matter?

Why does the Amazon matter?

Up next

Can China build its way out of climate change?

Huge construction projects are transforming China - think enormous dams, giant solar power farms and a vast high-speed rail network. Will Beijing's "engineering mindset" help it deal with climate change? China's senior leadership is dominated by engineers, starting with President ...  Show more

How will melting glaciers change Nepal?

As shown by the recent flash floods, Nepali mountain communities are on the front line of climate change. Can they adapt?Host Jordan Dunbar talks to two Sherpas who have become climate researchers. They are glaciologist Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, and Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, who resea ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Saving the Amazon with economics
Business Daily

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest but this crucial carbon sink is facing increased deforestation. Land clearing for mining or agriculture has increased under Brazil's president Jair Bolsanaro. But the world needs the Amazon jungle to keep absorbing carbon if more ambit ...  Show more

The Sunday Read: ‘Has the Amazon Reached Its “Tipping Point”?’
The Daily

In the past half-century, 17 percent of the Amazon — an area larger than Texas — has been converted to croplands or cattle pasture. Less forest means less recycled rain, less vapor to cool the air, less of a canopy to shield against sunlight. Under drier, hotter conditions, ev ...

  Show more

Time is still ticking for the Amazon
BBC Inside Science

After decades of exploitation, time is running out for the Amazon rainforest. Eight South American nations came together this week for the first time in 14 years in an attempt to draw up a plan for a more sustainable future. The BBC’s South America correspondent Katy Watson sends ...  Show more

Saving the Brazilian Amazon
Crossing Continents

The Amazon rainforest is perhaps the world's greatest single environmental asset. For years the accepted wisdom has been that the remorseless tide of destruction there is unstoppable. Justin Rowlatt travels to Brazil to question this conventional account and finds that over the l ...  Show more