Amazon Reaches Record Lows
Major tributaries of the Amazon River have fallen to shockingly low levels as the rainforest grapples with intense and destructive drought conditions. The port in Manaus, Brazil, where the Amazon River meets the Rio Negro, this week recorded water levels that are the lowest in 121 years of record-keeping, causing boats to run aground. The Madeira River also logged severely low water levels that halted the operation of Brazil’s fourth-largest hydroelectric dam. Experts say that deforestation and climate change are causing a widespread crisis in the rainforest, which holds one-fifth of the world’s freshwater, as record wildfires and intense temperatures are transforming the region into something unrecognizable. “There’s just dirt now where the river used to be,” Ruth Martins, a leader of riverside village Boca do Mamirauá, told the New York Times. “We’ve never lived through a drought like this.” (New York Times $, AP, Reuters, CNBC)
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