Three Tropical Forest Science Panels Unite to Confront Deforestation Crisis

The world's three largest tropical forest research bodies — covering the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Borneo — convened together for the first time under the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network to coordinate a shared scientific and policy response to accelerating forest loss. The session, moderated by Lee White of the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, surfaced alarming data from all three basins and produced concrete proposals for joint action, from biome-wide financing to a south-south student exchange program.

• Amazon declared "very close" to irreversible tipping point, with 18% of forest lost, 38% degraded, and deforestation driving 75% of the risk
• Congo Basin monitoring infrastructure has collapsed from 500 hydrometric stations to just 10, even as the basin stores 30 billion tons of carbon in peatlands alone
• Borneo assessment report covering seven sustainability clusters set for COP31 launch in Antalya, Turkey, in November 2026
• GEF acknowledges $6 billion in fragmented forestry investments over 30 years, pivots to biome-wide knowledge platforms
• Scientists propose a "Tropical Erasmus" student exchange and unified Science Panel Network for the Tropics

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Amazon at the Brink: Deforestation, Fire, and a $250 Billion Criminal Economy

The basics: Carlos Nobre, Co-chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, presented the panel's second assessment report, "The Connectivity of the Amazon for a Living Planet," released at COP30 in Belém. The Amazon spans nine countries and recycles 40% of its own rainfall, exporting massive water vapor flows that sustain agriculture across South America.

Why it matters: The numbers describe a system under siege. More than 1 million square kilometers — 18% of the biome — have been deforested. Another 38% is degraded by selective logging, fire, and edge effects. The dry season in the southern Amazon is 4–5 weeks longer than it was 45 years ago, and the southeastern Amazon has already flipped from carbon sink to carbon source.

Where things stand: Nobre was blunt about the hierarchy of threats. "This tipping point is not only global warming. It's the synergistic combination of global warming, but mostly deforestation," said Carlos Nobre, Co-chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, attributing 75% of the tipping-point risk to deforestation and only 25% to global warming. He placed the Amazon's vulnerability just below coral reefs globally: "The Amazon is very close to tipping point, very close. Number 1 in the world is coral reefs, but Amazon is almost number 2."

The assessment also documented a dimension rarely discussed in climate forums: organized crime. Nobre described a $250 billion annual illicit economy spanning drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, wildlife trafficking, and land grabbing — all interconnected and enabled by 1.5 million kilometers of illegal roads in the Brazilian Amazon, with 95% of deforestation occurring within 5.5 kilometers of a road. Mercury contamination from illegal gold mining and fire-induced air pollution cause an estimated 20,000–30,000 deaths annually.

Fire compounds the crisis. Nobre cited MapBiomas data showing that in 2024, 55% of fires on cattle ranches escaped and burned surrounding forest.

What's next: The assessment calls for zero deforestation by 2030, 5% biome restoration, cross-border collaboration among the Amazon's nine nations, and large-scale financial mechanisms for conservation.

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Congo Basin: 30 Billion Tons of Carbon, 10 Monitoring Stations

The basics: The Congo Basin rainforest is larger than the continental United States. It holds 13% of global freshwater, recycles an estimated 40–70% of its own rainfall, and transports water vapor to the Ethiopian Highlands — supporting food production, hydroelectric power, and transportation for hundreds of millions of people.

Why it matters: Unlike the Amazon, the Congo Basin remains a net carbon sink. But scientists cannot say for how long, because the monitoring infrastructure needed to detect change has effectively vanished.

Where things stand: Elsa Audrey, Panelist with the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, delivered the session's starkest infrastructure warning: "In the Congo Basin, there used to be about 500 hydrometric stations in the 1950s. Today there are 10, only 10." Only one eddy covariance flux tower exists in the entire basin, compared to roughly 12 in the Amazon.

Audrey detailed the basin's carbon wealth — "there's about 30 billion tons of carbon stored just in the soils, the peatlands underground" — noting that the full extent was only mapped about five years ago. The water recycling capacity may be even more tightly coupled than the Amazon's, she added: "If you put uncertainty bounds around the water recycling capacity of the Congo Basin, it's anywhere from 40 to 60 to potentially upwards of 70%."

Early Warning From Gabon's Forest Floor

Lee White, Moderator and panel member of the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, introduced troubling long-term data from a single research site. "In Lopé in Central Gabon, which is a fairly dry Congo Basin forest, the 40-year phenology record shows that fruit production is down over 80%, 8-0%," he said. Elephants at the site are significantly thinner and having fewer babies — possible early signals of broader ecosystem degradation that the decimated monitoring network cannot track elsewhere.

A Tipping Point Before 2050?

Maximiliano Ferro, Panelist with the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, traced 2,500 years of human transformation through agriculture, mining, colonialism, and post-independence governance challenges. Denis Sonwa, also a Panelist with the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, warned that without a "just transformative pathway" integrating diverse knowledge systems, time is running out. "I think without that, you may have a chance of, I would say, losing the Congo Basin before 2050," Sonwa said, noting that the basin receives far less climate finance than either the Amazon or Borneo.

White drew a direct parallel to the Amazon's trajectory: "The Congo Basin is following the trajectory of the Amazon. More and more roads. Illegal gold, mercury, roads, fires."

What's next: The Congo Basin panel is working to establish its scientific foundation, but speakers emphasized that restoring basic monitoring infrastructure is a prerequisite for any meaningful management strategy.

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Borneo Report Targets COP31 Launch Amid Peatland Fires

Why it matters: Indonesia is relocating its national capital to Borneo — a decision that makes the island's development trajectory a matter of global consequence. Meanwhile, peatland fires in Kalimantan are already crossing international borders, affecting air quality in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei.

Where things stand: Mazli Muhtar, Co-chair of the Science Panel for Borneo, previewed the Borneo Assessment Report, organized into seven interconnected clusters: geology and geography, flora, fauna, sustainable agriculture, social well-being and cultural diversity, water and minerals, and economic development. The report emphasizes diversification away from hydrocarbons toward renewables, tourism, and innovation, while highlighting indigenous knowledge as a sustainability asset.

"The book will be launched at COP31 UNFCCC in Antalya, Türkiye, somewhere either on the 13th or 14th of November 2026 at the Malaysia Pavilion," Muhtar said.

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GEF Reckons With Three Decades of Fragmented Investments

Why it matters: The Global Environment Facility has spent $6 billion on forestry across 173 countries over 30 years. A senior GEF representative told the session those investments were undercut by a country-by-country approach that ignored the integrity of entire biomes.

Where things stand: Mohammed Bakr, Representative of the Global Environment Facility, described the shift in thinking: "We have to take a biome approach, because without a biome approach, it's almost like trying to cure a sore by putting medicine on little parts of it when the whole thing is blowing up."

GEF now operates "knowledge platforms" in major biomes — a 10-year Amazon platform with the World Bank and a Congo Basin platform led by UNEP — designed to bring countries together with scientists to validate national investments against biome-scale science. Bakr noted the contradiction of creating more protected areas while ignoring illegal mining elsewhere, and argued for training scientists deeply embedded in local contexts rather than disconnected from them: "We need to train experts that are much more embedded within local realities so that their career becomes intertwined with the system."

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A Network for the Tropics: Joint Messaging, Shared Infrastructure, Student Exchange

MapBiomas Model

Tasso Azevedo, Coordinator of MapBiomas, proposed formalizing the collaboration as a "Science Panel Network for the Tropics." "Maybe we can have something like the Science Panel Network for the Tropics, which means the 3 initiatives together make something else, which is we can fundraise together, think about programs," Azevedo said.

He shared MapBiomas' communication approach: a matrix crossing territories with audience segments — banks, businesses, governments — releasing the same dataset in multiple themed packages to sustain media attention year-round. MapBiomas now maps 33 land-use classes over 41 years in Brazil and operates in all three tropical basins, with local organizations leading in each country. Azevedo urged all three panels to adopt minimum shared monitoring infrastructure, such as flux towers, as "digital public infrastructure."

Bridging Conservation and Finance

Felipe Stoch, Member of the Youth Advisory Committee for the Science Panel for the Amazon and Advisor to Brazil's Ministry of Environment, identified a critical disconnect. "The panels really need to make more effort to synthesize information on finance because your audience is a strategic conservation audience, but you really need to train the strategic audience also on more and various finance instruments and economic instruments for enabling that societal change that we all want," Stoch said. He cited the Tropical Forest Finance Facility, launched at COP28, as an example of science influencing financial mechanism design through iterative collaboration.

Stoch also urged a shift in how the panels relate to journalists: "Think of journalists not as those persons who might destroy this work, but rather help to take key messages on to the wider public."

His 12-member Youth Advisory Committee conducted workshops with more than 200 indigenous and local leaders, contributed to the COP synthesis report, created podcasts, and served as chapter reviewers.

Tropical Erasmus

Damas Kaza, Panelist with the Science Panel for the Congo Basin, proposed a south-south student mobility program between the three basins — a "Tropical Erasmus" — along with joint cross-basin research projects, citing the Amazon's LBA program, the Congo Basin Strategic Initiative, and Pangea as models.

Corinne Vresendo, Researcher with Conservación Amazónica, reinforced the need for coordinated action across the panels: "At the highest scale, we need to be acting like that. We need to make sure that we're not all as individuals or individual organizations trying to give our message and not thinking about what is our joint message."

What's next: Emma Torres, SDSN Coordinator, committed to expanding youth advisory committees to the Congo Basin and Borneo panels and developing MOOCs through the SDG Academy. "I will work with them so we will have it like one of the MOOCs that they create," Torres said.

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Looking Ahead

The Borneo Assessment Report launches at COP31 in Antalya in November 2026. SDSN will develop open online courses from the session's content and work to establish youth advisory committees for all three panels. The proposed Science Panel Network for the Tropics, biome-wide GEF knowledge platforms, and Tropical Erasmus exchange remain in early stages — but the session marked the first time all three panels were in the same room, making the case that fragmented national efforts cannot match the scale of the crisis unfolding across the tropics.