Brazil launches AmazonFace CO₂ enrichment experiment in the rainforest

Brazil's Amazon rainforest will host the AmazonFace project, the first free‑air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) experiment in a tropical forest. Six 30‑metre‑diameter plots near Manaus will be equipped with towers that raise daytime CO₂ concentrations from 420 ppm to 620 ppm on three plots, while three control plots remain at current levels. Over a ten‑year period the study will monitor temperature, wind, gas fluxes, leaf photosynthesis, root dynamics and soil nutrients to assess how higher CO₂ affects tree growth, carbon storage and species composition. The initiative, costing roughly R$ 80 million and using technology developed in the United States, aims to clarify whether the Amazon can increase carbon uptake or will face ecological limits.

The experiment occurs alongside ongoing discussions in Brazil about sustainable forest management. Brazil possesses extensive legal and technical frameworks for selective timber harvest that maintains forest cover, yet public mistrust often conflates legal management with illegal deforestation, limiting market confidence and formal sector development.