This is an intersting subject to me and I do have friends in Brazil devoted to forest regeneration of degeraded land.
One interesting fact which is mostly overlooked is that
recent deforestation has decreased a lot in the past ten years, when compared on a longer scale. Compare this graph which ends at 2013 to the one previously posted by giorgosgr which begins in 2013:
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/11/annual-rate-of-legal-deforestation-in-the-amazon-in-km2-per-year-197788-2013-inpe0.pngSo as bad as it is now, on a longer scale deforestation rates have improved.
Ironically, in some pre-colombian Amazonian forests, indigenous small scale agroforestry practices used fire especially in an understory to clear land. This pattern was in certain areas and not across the whole of Amazonia, but a look at those areas has some important lessons.
The fire appears to have been used in the understory and is believed to have left much of the overstory intact while changing the species composition towards human used plants. Rsearchers can determine what grew by looking at pollen species and abundance. In the mid 1800's- 1920's, there was a rubber boom time in which fire was suppressed to maintain fire intolerant rubber trees. After that time, management includes fire suppression which alters the flammable wood load such that mega fires capable of caopy destruction takes place.
Here is the graphic:
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/380121/fevo-06-00111-HTML/image_m/fevo-06-00111-g010.jpgLastly, while discussion recently has focused politically on Brazil which has the largest forest, 60% of the Amazon is in Brazil. The second largest portion of deforestation takes place in socialist Bolivia and other countries.
This shows deforestation
other than Brazil (site has much more data):
https://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/rainforests/photos/amazon_annual_deforestation_no_brazil.jpgThere is a lot of pressure across the world to make incomes and food for people. There are ways to reforest degraded land which are regenerative of forests. Have a look at what agroforestry can do. I follow their agroforestry techniques closely and am using some of them here in Florida. here is an introductory video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPNRu4ZPvE&t