Brazil: after three years and five attempts, scientists reach the tallest tree in the Amazon

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP).- After three years of planning, five expeditions and a two-week walk through the jungle, a team of scientists reached the tallest tree ever found in the Amazon rainforestan imposing specimen the size of a 25-story building. The giant tree, whose crown protrudes above the canopy in the Iratapuru River Nature Reserve, in northern Brazil, is a vermelho angelim (dinizia excelsa) that measures 88.5 meters in height and 9.9 meters in diameter. It is the largest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say. Researchers it was first seen on satellite images in 2019, as part of a 3D mapping project. A team of academics, environmentalists and local guides mounted an expedition to try to reach it that same year. But after a 10-day trek through difficult terrain, exhausted, low on supplies, and with one team member taken ill, they had to turn back. Three more expeditions to the remote Jari Valley region of the reserve, located in the border between the states of Amapá and Pará, they reached several other giant treesincluding the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon, at 66 meters. But the huge angelim vermelho remained elusive until the expedition from September 12 to 25, when the researchers they traveled 250 kilometers by boat up the river with treacherous rapids, plus another 20 kilometers on foot through mountainous jungle terrain to reach it.On the fifth expedition they were able to reach the tree that measures more than 80 meters Giant Trees of the Amazon Project One of the members of this 19-member expedition was bitten by what the team doctor believes was a poisonous spider. But it was worth it, he says forestry engineer Diego Armando Silva from the Federal University of Amapá, who helped organize the trip.“It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Simply divine.” Silva, 33, told the AFP agency. “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 years, Silva estimates) and to find out why the region has so many giant trees and how much carbon they store.The giant trees in this area weigh up to 400 tons, of which about half is carbon absorbed from the atmosphere, essential to help curb climate change, says Silva. But despite their remoteness, the region’s giants are under threat.In the fifth expedition they were able to reach the tree that measures more than 80 meters Giant Trees of the Amazon Project The wood of angelim vermelho is highly valued by loggers, and the Iratapuru reserve is being invaded by illegal gold miners, famous for causing ecological destruction, says Jakeline Pereira, of the environmental group Imazon, who helped organize the expedition. “We were very excited to make this find,” says Pereira. “It is very important at a time when the Amazon is facing such frightening levels of deforestation.”In the last three years, the average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.LA NACIONMeet The Trust Project