THIS year has been brutal for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that is a critical counterweight to climate change, the Associated Press agency reports.

A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle.

The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet.

It has about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species.

But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organised crime is rising at alarming rates.

“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organisation that works to protect the rainforest.

“Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.”

For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows, leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River’s main tributaries dropped to its lowest-level ever recorded.

Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon’s fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole.”

But, like Mr Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.”

It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to non-profit Rainforest Foundation US.

Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — 37.42 million acres, or about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first 10 months of the year.

“Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don't how to deal with or respond to them,” Mr Ipenza said.

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year.