After three years of planning, five expeditions and a two-week journey through the jungle, a team of scientists has reached the tallest tree ever found in the Amazon rainforest, an imposing specimen the size of a 25-story building.
The giant tree, the crown of which protrudes above the canopy in the Iratapuru River Nature Reservein the north of Brazil, it is a vermelho angelim (dynizia excelsa) that It measures 88.5 meters high and 9.9 meters in diameter.
It is the largest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say. Researchers first spotted it on satellite imagery in 2019, as part of a 3D mapping project.
A journey full of obstacles
A team of academics, conservationists and local guides organized an expedition to try to reach him that same year.
But after a 10-day trip over rough terrain, exhausted, out of supplies and with a sick crew member, they had to turn back.
Three other expeditions in the remote region of the Jari Valley reserve, located on the border between the states of Amapá and Pará, reached several other giant trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon, 66 meters.
But the huge vermelho angelim remained elusive until the September 12-25 expedition, when the researchers they traveled 250 kilometers by boat up the river with treacherous rapidsplus another 20 kilometers on foot through the mountainous jungle terrain to reach it.
One of the members of this 19-member expedition was bitten by what he believes was the team doctor a poisonous spider
But it was worth it, says forest engineer Diego Armando Silva of the Federal University of Amapá, who helped organize the trip.
“It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Simply divine,” Silva, 33, told AFP. “You are in the middle of this forest where humanity has never set foot before, with an absolutely exuberant nature.”
After camping under the huge tree, the group collected leaves, soil and other samples, which will now be analyzed to study issues such as the age of the tree (at least between 400 and 600 yearsestimates Silva) and to know why the region has so many giant trees and how much carbon they store.
About half the weight of the giant trees is carbon absorbed from the atmospheresomething essential to help curb climate change, says Silva.
But despite their remoteness, the giants of the region are in danger.
Angelim vermelho wood is highly prized by loggers and the Iratapuru reserve is underway overrun by illegal gold minersfamous for causing ecological destruction, says Jakeline Pereira of the environmental group Imazon, who helped organize the expedition.
“We were very excited to make this discovery,” says Pereira. “It is very important at a time when the Amazon is facing such appalling levels of deforestation.”
Over the past three years, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.
AFP
Source: Clarin
