Huge depressions within the Amazon rainforest left by gold mining are full of muddy water in Cachoeira, 230 kilometers west of Belém, Brazil, the place the UN local weather talks had been being held, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
Because the UN local weather convention was happening with an emphasis on the significance of the Amazon rainforest because the “lungs of the Earth” — storing carbon whereas offering a habitat for numerous species — the forest itself was being burned, excavated and minimize down.
Whereas host nation Brazil was stressing the necessity to shield the forest, the grim scene was one the place even the forest surrounding the summit venue was being broken by deliberate fires. The Hankyoreh witnessed the fact firsthand from the skies over the Amazon, the place it was visiting with the worldwide environmental group Greenpeace as a consultant of the Asian press.
Whereas COP30 — the thirtieth convention of the events to the UN Framework Conference on Local weather Change — was in full swing on Thursday, Nov. 13, a light-weight plane departed from the host metropolis of Belém and flew over the plush rainforest surrounding the winding Guamá River, a key waterway flowing into the mouth of the Amazon.
Smoke rises from the Amazon rainforest close to a soybean farm in Paragominas, Brazil, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025, because the COP30 convention went on elsewhere within the nation. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
Inside 10 minutes of the aircraft’s takeoff, the scene that offered itself confirmed areas of land the place each final tree had been minimize down. Within the São Miguel do Guamá area to Belém’s east, over half the virgin forest had been felled to make means for farms.
Additionally clearly seen was Avenida Liberdade, a four-lane freeway underneath development within the space. Its development concerned chopping down forest within the Utinga environmental safety space, which the federal government of the state of Pará defined as a part of its preparations for COP30.
“The nearer you might be to the town middle, the extra extreme the forest destruction is,” defined Greenpeace Brazil campaigner Rômulo Batista as he appeared out over the patches of cleared virgin forest.
“The identical vicious cycle is occurring all around the Amazon, the place individuals flock to the place the roads have been cleared and forests which can be tens of 1000’s of years outdated are turned to mines and farms, driving out the encircling vegetation, animals and indigenous individuals,” he mentioned.
Small villages had appeared across the roads touring by way of the plush forest. Like most cancers cells, they swallowed up the encircling bushes, leaving a wider swath of devastation.
Areas of the Amazon within the Brazilian state of Pará, about an hour’s aircraft journey from Belém, have been burned and transformed into fields for livestock. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
The three-hour gentle plane flight from Belém over the Amazon forest provided a vivid image of what’s occurring to the “lungs of the Earth.”
The dense broadleaf bushes of the Paragominas area southwest of Belém had been being decreased to ash and grey smoke. The world in query is dwelling to one million sq. meters of farmland the place soybeans are cultivated. Batista defined, “It seems to be like they intentionally set hearth to the forest to extend the farmland.”
The acrid odor of smoke was piercing even at a top of 300 meters above the bottom. The very forest that needs to be absorbing CO2 was being remodeled right into a supply of huge portions of greenhouse gases.
Certainly, an evaluation by Brazil’s Nationwide Institute for Area Analysis concluded that for the reason that 2010s, the Amazon forest had gone from being a greenhouse fuel sink to an emissions supply. The Amazon is able to absorbing 500 million tons of carbon yearly, whereas the emissions attributable to logging and burning of forests quantity to almost 1.5 billion tons.
A latest Greenpeace report discovered that within the Porto Velho and Lábrea areas of the western Brazilian Amazon, concentrations of fantastic particulate matter (PM2.5) on the time of fires in 2024 and 2025 had been over 10 occasions larger than in world cities corresponding to Beijing or London.
Destruction of the forests accelerated with Amazon improvement insurance policies underneath the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), generally known as the “Brazilian Donald Trump.” In response to a examine by Greenpeace, an space amounting to 45,586 sq. kilometers of Amazon forest was destroyed in the course of the 4 years of Bolsonaro’s time period — equal to 75 occasions the realm of Seoul.
Huge swaths of the forest have been left burnt and black within the neighborhood of bean farms in Paragominas, Brazil, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
Huge swaths of the forest have been left burnt and black within the neighborhood of bean farms in Paragominas, Brazil, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
Insurance policies selling agriculture and mining improvement ignited a frenzy of fires set by builders. Ecosystems the place one million indigenous residents coexisted with 3 million plant and animal species had been regularly stripped away.
Gold mines, the embodiment of our insatiable lust for improvement, are poisoning the natural world of their neighborhood. Upon approaching the Cachoeira gold challenge in Pará, situated 230 kilometers west of Belém, we had been welcomed by cliffs of uncooked sienna, which appeared as if the forest had been carved out of them.
Muddy water, the colour of ochre, crammed the hollowed-out holes, and the particles from development was scattered haphazardly across the space. These gold excavations are principally unlawful, however proceed nonetheless, destroying the forest and the indigenous communities that inhabit it.
A gold mine in Brazil’s Cachoeira on the sting of the forest, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
“The big quantities of mercury used within the excavation course of circulation into rivers, poisoning the natural world whereas additionally inflicting extreme neurological harm to close by indigenous individuals,” Batista shared.
The Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration at present in energy in Brazil, which has pledged to finish deforestation, had positioned forest safety as an vital agenda merchandise for COP30. The day of Greenpeace’s tour additionally occurred to be the day that Brazil proposed that the events to the UN Framework Conference on Local weather Change take part within the “Tropical Forest Ceaselessly Facility,” or TFFF, a worldwide fund to answer the local weather disaster.
The TFFF is an initiative that might make funds to nations with tropical and subtropical forests that select to protect and restore such forests as a substitute of speeding to develop them. Nonetheless, the forests burning a stone’s throw from the COP30 host metropolis present how, in actuality, the Amazon is being trampled on within the identify of financial improvement. The Lula administration has just lately come underneath hearth for approving state oil agency Petrobras to conduct exploratory oil drilling on the mouth of the Amazon.
Regardless of the hypocrisy proven by Brazil, consultants are in settlement on the necessity for the institution of the TFFF.
“If entities obtain cash for preserving pure forests, it provides governments an financial incentive to cease neglecting or encouraging deforestation and as a substitute concentrate on stopping it,” mentioned Andy Murch, a senior researcher at Greenpeace specializing in Brazil.
Nonetheless, the underwhelming variety of nations pledging to take part within the fund has forged doubt over Brazil’s capability to win the help it wants to determine the TFFF within the remaining week of the local weather convention. Brazil is capturing excessive for the worldwide fund, aiming to lift US$125 billion. Nonetheless, it has solely secured US$5.5 billion to this point.
The US, the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, didn’t attend the convention, and China, the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, has turn out to be reluctant to take part within the fund, betraying earlier predictions. South Korea can also be cautious of taking part.
An enormous bean farm in Paragominas, Brazil, seen from a aircraft on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
An aerial view of the tributaries to the Amazon River, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. Deforestation alongside the river is primarily executed for the aim of farming, be it cattle or produce. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
Columbia, one other nation wherein the Amazon rainforest makes up a considerable amount of territory, garnered a lot consideration on Friday by changing into the primary nation on the planet to declare its Amazon biome a “renewable pure assets reserve zone,” and prohibiting large-scale mining and hydrocarbon exploitation actions.
The area that the Colombian authorities has promised to guard is greater than 483,164 sq. kilometers, which corresponds to round 7% of the overall Amazon and 42% of Colombia’s nationwide territory.
An aerial view of the farmlands of Pará made on land that after homed the Amazon rainforest, as seen on Nov. 13, 2025. (Ock Kee-won/Hankyoreh)
By Ock Kee-won, workers reporter
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