The goal of the Deforestation Clock is to describe what happens inside and outside the rainforest, and to understand that it’s a chain reaction, where the absence or excess of any link affects the entire system. Deforestation occurs year after year, and its consequences accumulate over time.

The Deforestation Clock isn’t a clock that tells the time, nor do its 12 digits represent the 12 months of the year. We chose it for practical and visual reasons, to explain the sequence of events involved in the massive deforestation of forests and jungles, and its consequences.

In the early hours of Thursday, July 10, 2025, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved a controversial bill that relaxes environmental licensing regulations—a veritable environmental lynching—amidst harsh criticism from environmental organizations.

Before continuing, we would like to note the following text by Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy, two exceptional authorities on the AMAZON RAINFOREST, written seven years ago. (Science Advances 2018).

“The intensive, uncontrolled, and illegal advance of deforestation in the Amazon is pushing the Amazonian ecosystem to a point of no return where the rainforest would lose its capacity to function”, as stated in their work, “Amazon Tipping Point.”

Carlos Nobre is a Brazilian scientist, and Thomas Lovejoy, now deceased, was an American scientist and former president of the Amazon Biodiversity Center. We owe the concept of biological diversity to Lovejoy.

According to both, the Amazon Tipping Point means that the rainforest would cease to function as a carbon sink and would become a net emitter of CO2 into the atmosphere, with severe consequences for global warming and climate change. This could transform the rainforest from a tropical rainforest into a dry, degraded tropical plain, a point at which the Earth’s temperature would rise to unpredictable levels.

Fifteen days after the controversial bill was passed, we read a news article in DW, dated July 25, 2025, titled: “Environmental protection in Latin America, in freefall,” written by Sandra Weiss, a political scientist and former diplomat. As a freelance journalist, Sandra writes articles about Latin America for several German newspapers.

Her article is subtitled: “Many Latin American countries are rapidly dismantling their environmental legislation. The promise of development based on extractivism is an illusion, experts warn.”

“The intensive, uncontrolled, and illegal advance of deforestation in the Amazon is pushing the Amazonian ecosystem to a point of no return where the rainforest would lose its ability to function”, as stated in their work, *Amazon Tipping Point*.

Carlos Nobre is a Brazilian scientist, and the late Thomas Lovejoy was an American scientist and former president of the Amazon Biodiversity Center. Lovejoy is credited with coining the very concept of biological diversity. According to both authors, the Amazon Tipping Point means that the rainforest would cease to function as a carbon sink and would become a net emitter of CO2 into the atmosphere, with severe consequences for global warming and climate change. This could transform the rainforest from a tropical rainforest into a dry, degraded tropical plain, a point at which the Earth’s temperature would rise to unpredictable levels.