After three years of planning, five expeditions and a two-week trek through dense jungle, scientists have reached the tallest tree ever found in the Amazon rainforest, a massive specimen the size of a 25-story building.
The giant tree, with its top soaring high above the canopy in the Iratapuru River Conservation Area in northern Brazil, is an Angelim Vermelho (scientific name: Dinizia excelsa), measuring 88.5 meters (290 ft) tall and 9.9 meters (32 ft ) wide — the largest ever identified in the Amazon, scientists say.
Researchers first spotted the giant tree in satellite imagery in 2019 as part of a 3D mapping project.
A team of academics, environmentalists and local guides undertook an expedition to try to reach it later that year. But after a 10-day trek through difficult terrain, they were forced to turn back exhausted, short on supplies and with a team member who was ill.
Three other expeditions to the reserve’s remote Jari Valley region, which lies on the border between Amapa and Para states, reached several other giant trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon – 66 meters.
But the giant Angelim Vermelho remained elusive until the Sept. 12-25 expedition, when researchers boated 250 kilometers (155 miles) up rivers with treacherous rapids and walked another 20 kilometers through mountainous jungle terrain to find him reach.
One person from the 19-strong expedition was bitten by what the team doctor believes was a venomous spider.
But it was worth it, says forest engineer Diego Armando Silva of Amapa Federal University, who helped organize the trip.
“It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Just divine,” Silva, 33, told AFP.
“You are in the middle of this forest that mankind has never entered before, with an absolutely exuberant nature.”
After camping out under the massive tree, the group collected leaves, soil and other samples, which are now being analyzed to explore questions about how old the tree is — at least 400 to 600 years, Silva estimates — and why it’s in the region how many are giant trees and how much carbon they store.
The region’s giant trees weigh up to 400,000 tons, about half of which is carbon absorbed from the atmosphere — a fundamental contribution to mitigating climate change, says Silva.
But despite their remoteness, the giants of the region are under threat.
Angelim Vermelho timber is prized by loggers, and the Iratapuru Reserve is being invaded by illegal gold miners known for wreaking ecological destruction, says Jakeline Pereira of environmental group Imazon, who helped organize the expedition.
“We were so excited to make this find,” says Pereira.
“It’s super important at a time when the Amazon is facing such staggering levels of deforestation.”
In the past three years, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent over the previous decade.
