MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Scientists reach world's tallest tree, where did they find it?

The tree is believed to be between 400 and 600 years old

A group of scientists has found the world's tallest tree, a towering specimen the size of a 25-story building in the Amazon rainforest, it was reported this weekend.

It took the researchers After five expeditions and a two-week hike to find the tree in the Iratapuru River Nature Reserve in northern Brazil, which belongs to the dinizia excelsa species (known to locals as “angelim vermelho”) and is 88.5 meters tall and 9.9 meters in diameter, whose crown protrudes in the Amazon rainforest.

The researchers said it was first spotted in satellite images in 2019, as part of a 3D mapping project, after which a team of academics, environmentalists, and local guides mounted an expedition to try to reach it, but had to turn back after a failed 10-day trek. Three additional expeditions to the Jari Valley on the border between the states of Amapá and Pará reached several other giant trees, including the tallest Brazil nut tree ever recorded in the Amazon, at 66 meters.

But the huge angelim vermelho remained elusive until the Sept. 12-25 expedition, when researchers traveled 250 kilometers by boat upriver with treacherous rapids, plus another 20 kilometers on foot through mountainous jungle terrain.

“It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Simply divine,” forestry engineer Diego Armando Silva of the Federal University of Amapá told AFP. “You're in the middle of this forest where humanity has never stepped before, with absolutely exuberant nature,” he added.

After camping under the huge tree, the group collected leaves, soil, and other samples, which will now be analyzed to study questions such as the age of the tree and to learn why the region has so many giant trees and how much carbon they store.

The giant trees in this area weigh up to 400 tons, about half of which is carbon absorbed from the atmosphere, essential to help curb climate change, Silva says. But despite their remoteness, the region's giants are under threat.

Angelim Vermelho wood is prized by loggers, and the Iratapuru reserve is being overrun by illegal gold miners notorious for causing ecological destruction, says Jakeline Pereira of the environmental group Imazon, which helped organize the expedition. “We were very excited to make this find,” Pereira explained. “It's very important at a time when the Amazon is facing such frightening levels of deforestation.”

Over the past three years, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased 75% over the previous decade.