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Latin America—the crown jewel of culture, biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystems—is Earth’s most environmentally rich region. However, because of climate change and human-driven environmental issues, the region has developed a precarious and threatening environmental standing.  

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Climate change, as the name implies, is a change in climate on a regional or global scale. This event is a natural phenomenon that normally happens every decade or century; however, what makes today’s climate change particular is the rate at which it is happening, sustained and accelerated by human activity.

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It is important to emphasize that climate change is caused by various factors and manifests in different ways, and its potential also varies from one region to another. 

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Notably, climate change impacts the Latin American region distinctively violently, in addition to the numerous environmental issues that aggravates the region’s environmental condition.

Latin America is one of the most diverse regions on Earth. Its physical geography ranges from mountains, coastal plains, highlands, and river basins (National Geographic, n.d.); and its climate from tropical wet and dry regions, semiarid zones, deserts, humid-subtropical regions, marine west coasts, mediterranean zones, and highlands (Geography, n.d).

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However, what makes the region stand out is its unique and copious range of vegetation and biomes. The region is home to rainforests, tropical montane forests, wetlands, mangroves, beaches, deserts, grasslands, savannas, páramos, and the unique Brazilian Pantanal. 

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According to Emilio Sempris (n.d.), director of the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean, about 30% of the planet's freshwaters flow through the Amazon, the Parana-Plata and the Orinoco watershed. Conversely, South America also has the driest desert on Earth—the Atacama. It is also a subregion with tropical and sub-tropical glaciers. 

 

That is to say, the Latin American region simply encompasses a unique diversity of ecosystems that makes it stand out among the rest of the world; yet, it is one that needs great protection from the jarring effects of climate change and human activity. 

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Because of climate change’s powerful impact over the region, temperatures are rising, rain and precipitation patterns are shifting, weather phenomenons are becoming more extreme and frequent, there are longer dry seasons and shorter wet seasons, terrains are eroding, biodiversity is declining, and more. 

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Climate change’s impact in Latin America can also be observed in the high rate of biodiversity loss in South America. Despite the region compromising 3% of the planet’s biodiversity, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) 2020 Living Planet Report, Latin America registers the greatest loss of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish in almost five decades worldwide due to climate change. 

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Considering that these effects are perpetrated not only by global climate change, but regional as well, it is a ravaging combination that puts in jeopardy Latin America’s environment, biodiversity, and even its population. 

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The alarming shifts in the region’s climate and deterioration is also chiefly due to numerous human-driven environmental issues that prevail in Latin American communities such as the livestock industry, deforestation, agricultural expansion, forest fires, palm oil production, illegal mining, industrial water and air pollution, and more.  

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For instance, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Latin America is home to 57% of the world's primary forests, which are the most important from the viewpoint of biodiversity and conservation. Notwithstanding, the annual loss of forests in Latin America due to deforestation during the period 2000-2005 was 65% of global losses. This type of behaviour endangers the precious biomes and biodiversity of the region. 

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Moreover, the WWF 2020 Living Planet Report also highlights that human activities such as deforestation and other industrial activities have increasingly destroyed and degraded forests, grasslands, wetlands and other important ecosystems. To illustrate, the most significant direct driver of biodiversity loss in terrestrial systems in the last several decades has been food production, primarily the conversion of pristine native habitats into agricultural systems, according to WWF.

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Consequently, the overwhelming impact of climate change and the many environmental issues in Latin American spurs concern, as the region is the leading producer for numerous essentials, such as: food (ex. beef, poultry, wheat), natural resources (ej. copper, iron), species, vegetation and biomes, oxygen, carbon absorption, and more. 

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Namely, the threatening situation in Latin America puts at risk regional and international food security, as the region accounts for 14% of global agricultural production and 23% of agricultural and fisheries commodities exports, according to a FAO (n.d.) article. 

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Whether it’s because of climate change or environmental issues, the production of goods and food in Latin America may suffer a great decline in the coming years, which may result in a decrease of agricultural yields, and increase in food prices, and inaccessibility to food security. 

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Another important note is Latin America’s significant role in absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, for solely the Brazilian Amazon rainforest absorbs 2 billion tons of CO2 per year (or 5% of annual emissions), making it a vital part of preventing climate change, according to Jean Kaiser (2019). 

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Earth follows a balance of accurate temperatures and conditions that allow ecosystems to thrive and living things to successfully exist; however, because of climate change’s natural process and society’s harmful appendage on it, much of Earth’s balance is being lost, therefore progressively causing great adversity in crucial yet vulnerable regions such as Latin America.