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Published : 20 Oct 2025, 09:20 PM
The deep timbre of bamboo flutes emerges from within a darkened Indigenous communal house in the Amazon rainforest, followed by dancers in body paint and musicians rhythmically stomping their feet under the scorching afternoon sun.
Variations of this scene have played out for generations in the Kalapalo people's Tanguro village in Brazil's Xingu Indigenous Park.
But instead of the traditional thatched roof, the communal house is covered with a white plastic tarpaulin, decorated with a brand logo and the words "for agriculture use only."
The roof is one of many signs of increased cattle and soybean farming on the Amazon's highly deforested Southeast fringes, the rainforest's fastest warming region where the dry season is several weeks longer than it was a few decades ago.
A drier and more flammable rainforest means communities in the vast territory, home to 16 ethnic groups and more than 6,000 people, are having to adapt ancient farming practices to protect the land and produce enough food to sustain themselves.
They live in Mato Grosso state, Brazil's soybean and beef heartland, surrounded by pastures and fields that underpin Brazil's exports, but they are running low on water and need government aid to make up for poor harvests of stable food crops.
Streams and springs are drying up as private landowners cut down trees and convert low-productivity pastures into water-intensive soybean cropland.
For Indigenous residents and the world at large, conservation of the Amazon is crucial. The rainforest absorbs and stores large amounts of climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and regulates rain patterns across South America and beyond.
As the Amazon is cut down, carbon is instead released into the atmosphere.
TIPPING POINT
Scientists often say the Southeast Amazon's high temperatures, longer dry season, deforestation and fire rates make it vulnerable to striking a "tipping point".
Once a tipping point is reached, there is no going back - nature is pushed to a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
The forest would die back into a degraded version or even a savannah - a dry, grassland ecosystem with clusters of trees - according to a theory from Brazilian climatologist Carlos Nobre.
With deforestation and warming temperatures sapping shade and moisture, large areas of the Amazon have become more likely to burn in wildfires, according to experts.
To what extent, and exactly where, the tipping point is in the Amazon is subject to ongoing scientific debate.
Research published in 2021 by Nature found the Southeast Amazon already emits more carbon than it absorbs, indicating that more vegetation is dying than thriving.
Farmers often take a different view, distancing their actions from the changes in climate.
"Humans have little influence over climate," said Endrigo Dalcin, a soybean farmer and councillor at the local branch of producers' association Aprosoja.
"Our rains are very reliant on the oceans," he added.
However, a September study published in the Nature Communications journal showed deforestation was responsible for 74% of rainfall reduction in the Amazon rainforest dry season since 1985.
Some scientists say local iterations of the tipping point might already be at play in the vulnerable Xingu territory.
Agriculture and fishing have become more difficult as water levels drop and forests heat up, residents say.
"We've never thought we'd reach this point, with the river so dry we have to push the boat to pass at some points," said Sikan Kalapalo, a nursing student who lives in Tanguro village.
"Nowadays, we're facing food scarcity, and some plants are not producing anymore," he said.
CONTROLLING FIRES
Indigenous people in Xingu have long used fires to clear land for small-scale agriculture, typically a low-impact intervention since plots are abandoned after some years, allowing the forest to regenerate.
Since the 2010s, communities have been taking more precautions to keep flames in check.
Fires now must be ignited with support from PrevFogo, a fire brigade run by Brazil's federal government, with the help of local residents.
One afternoon, farmer Yunak Yawalapiti watched as PrevFogo agents set fire to a 700 square-meter patch of forest to make way for his manioc root crop.
Within minutes, a firefighter blew a warning whistle, signaling that flames had spread into the forest and calling for agents to rush in with water pumps.
The farmer recalled that in the 1990s, the forest was so humid that flames would not spread even during the midday hours.
Now, he said, "it doesn't matter what time you set the fire, it spreads away. It's like there's gasoline all over."
Until the late 2000s, no more than 10,000 hectares of forest in the Xingu burned in one year, even under unsupervised slash-and-burn practices.
More recently, data from mapping consortium MapBiomas showed more than 60,000 hectares burned in Xingu in 2024, a sign it is more prone to fires and a shift predicted by scientists as forests approach tipping points.
Last year, fires burned twice as much forested land in the Amazon as in the previous record set in 2016, based on 40 years of data from MapBiomas.
Technical analysis presented in 2023 at Brazil's Symposium of Hydraulic Resources found a link between deforestation and lower discharges of water into the Xingu River basin.
Swimming in the Xingu River near Tanguro village, linguistics student Taliko Kalapalo pointed to children kicking up water near a sandy beach.
"It used to be really deep right there," he said, adding, "We've had to move the port as the river lowered."
Adeal Carneiro, city councillor in Querência municipality where part of the Xingu territory is located, said the use of water by agribusiness adds to the desiccation.
"Can you imagine irrigating 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) day and night? It's a ton of water," he said.
Rising temperatures and drought also have led to failing manioc root crops, used to produce tapioca, a staple in Xingu.
Sikan Kalapalo, who tends a small manioc crop outside his family's house, said communities are relying on government aid packages or cash remittances to buy food.
"We can't live like this forever, relying on assistance", he said.
"We will need to find new ways to produce our own food."
