Scientists have finally reached the Amazon rainforest’s tallest tree after three years of planning and five expeditions. It took two weeks to trek through dense jungle.
The angelim vermelho is a giant tree whose top rises high above the canopy of the Iratapuru River Nature Reserve, northern Brazil. Dinizia excelsa) measuring 88.5 meters (290 feet) tall and 9.9 meters (32 feet) around – the biggest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say.
The tree was first discovered by researchers in 2019 in the 3D mapping project.
It was later that year that a group of local guides, environmentalists and academics organized an expedition to try and reach it.
They had to return after a difficult 10-day trek, which saw them exhausted and low on supplies. One of their team members was also taken ill.
Three more expeditions to the reserve’s remote Jari Valley region, which sits at the border between the states of Amapa and Para, reached several other gigantic trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon – 66 meters.
However, the huge angelim vermelho remained undiscovered until the September 12-25 expedition. The researchers traveled 250km (155 miles), by boat, up treacherous rapids-filled rivers, and 20 kilometers on foot, through dense jungle terrain, to reach the giant angelim versmelho.
One of the 19 members of the expedition was bitten, according to the team doctor.
The trip was worthwhile, according to Diego Armando Silva (Amapa Federal University), a forest engineer who helped organize it.
It was one of my most memorable experiences. Silva, 33, described the experience as “just divine.”
“You’re in the middle a forest, where no humankind has ever set foot before. You have an absolutely exuberant natural beauty.”
After camping under the massive tree, the group collected leaves, soil, and other samples, which will now be analyzed to study questions including how old the tree is – at least 400 to 600 years, Silva estimates – why the region has so many giant trees, and how much carbon they store.
Around half of the weight of the region’s giant trees is carbon absorbed from the atmosphere – fundamental in helping curb Climate ChangeSilva:
However, the region’s giants remain at risk despite its remoteness.
Loggers love Angelim vermelho wood, and illegal gold miners are threatening the Iratapuru Reserve, Jakeline Pereira, of the environmental group Imazon, who helped organize the expedition.
Pereira says, “We were so excited to make this discovery.”
It is super important in a time where the Amazon is facing such alarming levels of deforestation.
The average annual deforestation rate in Brazil’s Amazon has increased by 75 percent over the last three years, compared to the previous decade.
