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Peruvian Amazon undergoing deforestation at accelerating pace
LIMA: The Peruvian Amazon lost nearly two million hectares (five million acres) of forest between 2001 and 2016, or more than 123,000 hectares (300,000 acres) a year, figures made public Tuesday by the ministry of the environment.
Agriculture, livestock raising, illegal logging, clandestine mining and drug trafficking were the main culprits, Cesar Calmet, the head of the ministry's forest preservation program, told AFP.
"Unless decisions are taken on the matter, forest loss could reach 300,000 to 400,000 hectares a year," he warned.
Satellite images show that deforestation continued apace in 2017, with 143,000 hectares of Amazon forest wiped from the map of Peru, "the equivalent of 200,000 football fields," according to the environmental website Mongabay.
Peru is one of 17 "mega diverse" countries on Earth, which together contain 70 percent of the world´s biodiversity, according to the UN´s environmental agency.
It also is the country with the second largest expanse of Amazon forest after Brazil.
Located in the country's east, the Amazon basin accounts for a third of Peru's territory, and is a precious resource for absorbing greenhouse gases, the cause of global warming.
Calmet's group at the environment ministry says the situation is particularly troubling in the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios where panning for gold is widespread and deforestation is advancing rapidly, from 5,000 hectares in 2001 to 17,000 in 2016.
Pope Francis traveled to the region in January and called for protection of the Amazon and its indigenous inhabitants.
Source: https://www.geo.tv/latest/194652-peruvian-amazon-undergoing-deforestation-at-accelerating-pace-official
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Brazil Revokes Order to Allow Mining in Amazon Reserve
The repealed decree would have allowed for the mining exploration of a 47,000 square kilometer reserve with deposits of copper, gold, manganese, and iron.
By Lise Alves
September 26, 2017
By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – After receiving heavy criticism from both Brazilian society and the international community, Brazil’s government announced on Monday it was repealing a decree which would have allowed for the exploration of a reserve, rich in minerals, in the Amazon region.
Brazil’s Amazon forest is rich in minerals and biodiversity, photo by Neil Palmer/CIAT/Flickr“The MME (Mines and Energy Ministry) reaffirms its commitment and of the entire government to the preservation of the environment, with the safeguards foreseen in the legislation of protection and environmental preservation,” stated the note released by the government, adding however that the debate surrounding the exploration of the area ‘should be resumed in another opportunity’.
The decree, signed by President Michel Temer at the end of August would allow for the mining exploration of the National Reserve of Copper and Associates (RENCA), a 47,000 square kilometer reserve located in the states of Amapá and Pará and believed to hold record deposits of copper, gold, manganese, and iron.
At the time officials said that the lifting of restrictions in the area would attract new investments, creating employment in the region. However, after a wave of criticism from environmentalists and international entities made headlines in papers around the world and a court order to suspend the command, the government felt obliged to revise the original decree.
“It was understood by most of society that we were loosening the rules against Amazon deforestation, that we would be abandoning the Amazon, and that does not correspond to reality,” said Environment Minister Sarney Filho at the time.
Nonetheless the MME said that reasons that led officials to call for the original decision are still present and the government will continue to look for a solution which would appease both sides of the controversy. “The country needs to grow and generate jobs, attract investments to the mineral sector, including to exploit the economic potential of the region,” concludes the note issued by the MME.
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Brazil Snubs Gisele Bundchen, Pushes Amazon Deforestation Bill
July 17, 2017, 5:23 PM GMT-3
- President Temer backs bill to lift environmental protections
- New proposal would affect 350,000 hectares of Amazon forest
Photographer: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for David Lynch FoundationBrazil’s President Michel Temer is ignoring pleas from both supermodel Gisele Bundchen and the Norwegian Prime Minister by submitting a bill to Congress that would reduce protections of a large national forest in the Amazon, just weeks after vetoing similar legislation.
The new bill would downgrade the legal protections governing around 27 percent, or close to 350,000 hectares, of the Jamanxim national forest in the northern state of Para. The original proposal, vetoed last month on the eve of the president’s trip to Norway, would have reduced the area under preservation by nearly 600,000 hectares, according to World Wildlife Fund. During Temer’s visit, Norway announced plans to cut its funding of Amazonian conservation projects due to Brazil’s failure to prevent a rise in illegal deforestation.
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Sign UpChanges to the status of the region will permit land there to be sold, cleared of forest, used for agriculture and livestock as well as for mining activities, according to the state news agency Agencia Brasil. Legislators from the country’s agriculture caucus, a key part of Temer’s base, lobbied for the downgrade. The president had vetoed the original bill not because disagreed with the spirit of the proposal but because lawmakers inflated the area to be downgraded, according to two aides who were not authorized to speak on record. Temer needs all the support he can muster at present as he battles to secure enough votes to avoid trial at the Supreme Court.
Environmental organizations, including the WWF, argued that the earlier bill would put biodiversity and water resources at risk. The rate of deforestation in the Amazon rose 29 percent in July 2016, compared with August 2015, according to the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE. Para was the Brazilian state with the highest rate of deforestation.
In June, Temer confirmed his decision to veto the original proposal in a tweet to Bundchen, who is also an environmental campaigner. It was not enough, however, to mitigate the concerns of the Norwegians, who announced their decision to cut their Amazon Fund contribution on June 23.
Mongabay Series: Global Forests, Amazon Infrastructure
Norway vexed as Brazil sends mixed message on Amazon forest protection27 June 2017 / Jenny Gonzales
Pres. Temer vetoed a measure slashing Amazon conservation units (CUs); then his administration floated a new bill to cut the same CUs. Norway wasn’t pleased.
- Last week, Brazil’s President Michel Temer fully vetoed MP 756, and partially vetoed MP 758, two provisional measures which he himself introduced and which Congress approved that would have cut conserved Amazon lands by 600,000 hectares (2,316 square miles).
- Almost simultaneously, Brazil’s environmental minister, José Sarney Filho, announced urgent plans for the administration to introduce a new bill to Congress to dismember the same conservation units described in the vetoed MP 756.
- Also last week, Norway gave a stern warning to Temer on his visit to Oslo, telling him that Brazil could lose millions of dollars from the Amazon Fund if Brazil’s deforestation rates continue rising.
- 7,989 square kilometers of Brazilian rainforest were lost between August 2015 and 2016. A rise in annual Amazon deforestation to 8,500 square kilometers would reduce Norway’s funding to Brazil to zero. Brazil defended itself, claiming preliminary annual data shows a recent leveling off of its deforestation rate.
A Press conference in March 2017 in Oslo between president Michel Temer and prime minister of Norway Erna Solberg. Last week, Solberg sternly warned Temer that Brazil must show a more serious commitment to preventing deforestation or lose millions in funding from Norway. Photo by Beto Barata/PR published on FlickrLast week saw a busy, but contradictory, stream of actions likely to impact Amazonian forests. Brazilian president Michel Temer — supposedly at the urging of supermodel and environmentalist Gisele Bündchen — killed measures to dismember a national forest and national park in Pará state. But the day before the veto, his administration quietly announced plans to send a new bill to Congress to dismember the very same conservation units (CUs).
At the end of last week, Temer traveled to Norway and met with that country’s prime minister. Oslo, citing a 29 percent increase in deforestation in Brazil between August 2015 and August 2016, warned Temer that his nation stands on the verge of losing millions of dollars in financial aid that Norway annually pays to Brazil to help rein in Amazon deforestation.
This week, China announced plans to supply Brazil with a $20 billion fund for infrastructure development, including railways, to move soy and other grains from Brazil’s interior to the coast. Past large scale transportation projects have resulted in significantly increased deforestation.
Wildlife in Jamanxim National Forest, Pará. Attempts by the agribusiness lobby to dismember this national forest in the Amazon would open vast now fully protected areas to private land ownership, large scale farming and mining. Photo by Assor Fuchs/ICMBio Collection
Read full story HERE
ECUADOR SETS TREE PLANTING WORLD RECORD WITH 647,250 TREES PLANTED
A record set by the people of Ecuador is one of the most impressive in the Guinness Book of World Records. In just one day, thousands of volunteers from around the country planted 647,250 trees in over 150 locations.
Deforestation: Ecuador is one of the country’s that’s been most significantly affected by deforestation. Oil exploration and the logging industry, as well as urban development, have resulted in cutting down of thousands of acres of forest.
Since the early 1970’s about 30% of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been deforested and/or polluted. Furthermore, over 70% of the coastal mangroves have been eliminated by the shrimp industry. (Source)
Despite this, it is still ranked eighth most biodiverse country in the world. This is why it is imperative that people do what they can to preserve the precious ecosystems of the rainforest.
Ecuador’s Tree Planting Effort As reported by ThingProgress.org, the tree planting effort was organized by a private-public initiative called Siembraton. It spanned 2,000 hectares of land across 150 different locations in Ecuador. Volunteers planted 216 different tree species.
The Ecuadorian government has set a goal of reforesting over 500,000 hectares long term. Their aim is to counterbalance the damage created by deforestation up to this point.
Global Reforestation EffortsSimilar to Ecuador, many other countries that have fallen victim to deforestation have started their own tree planting movements. Here are three examples:
- First, in 2011, the people of India planted over 1.9 million trees in their country.
- Next, in 2014, Perth, Australia, broke the record for most trees planted in a single location.
- Also in 2014, the people of the Philippines set a record with the most trees planted in one hour at multiple locations at nearly 2.3 million trees.
- Finally, the small country of Bhutan celebrated the birth of their prince by planting 108,000 trees in 2016.
The role that you want to play in reforesting our planet is up to you. If you cannot personally become involved in planting trees, helping financially is a great way to support groups such as Community Carbon Trees, be it that you make a personal donation or start a Tree Fundraiser.
If you decide to collaborate with an activist group such as Community Carbon Trees, make sure they focus on planting a variety of trees. Also, it is important that they focus on reforesting areas close to the equator. It is in these areas that trees sequester carbon dioxide 365 days a year and can have the most significant global impact.
Source:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/17/3659835/ecuador-reforestation-record/
Activists attempt to ESCAPE Ecuador after suffering shocking ordeal
Friday, May 26, 2017 by: Isabelle Z.
Tags: Activists, Amazon rainforest, Ecuador
7,790VIEWS
(Natural News) When activist Carlita Shaw first headed to Ecuador six years ago, she had no idea what was in store for her. She went to the South American country to work on biodiversity conservation projects in conjunction with Amazon indigenous groups, and while she accomplished a great deal, her stay there has recently been marred with harassment, torture, and kidnappings. [Note: Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.]
When Ecuador recognized the rights of nature in its constitution in 2008, it became the first Latin American country to do so. However, the same respect has not been shown to the indigenous people that live there and their desire to see an end to the rampant exploitation of the natural resources found in the rainforest, which is their ancestral land. Since then, the government has approved countless “mega-projects,” mostly for Chinese businesses, that include hydroelectric dams and large-scale mines.
Things have been getting progressively worse for the indigenous people there because of the mining and oil extraction. Shaw has written numerous works on these problems, one of which is a piece called “Ecocide in Ecuador” that was published in The Ecologist. In the article, she draws attention to the exploitation of the rainforest in the name of oil drilling and how it is affecting the thousands of species that live there. She has also addressed these matters in her book, Silent Ecocide.
Going into HidingIn November 2014, indigenous activist Jose Isidro Tendetza was murdered ahead of a trip to the Peru climate talks, where he was planning to denounce the actions of the Chinese mining companies that were ravaging his ancestral home. He was an outspoken critic of the government of President Rafael Correa, accusing government agents of going back on their promise to respect indigenous lands and nature. He started receiving threats against his home and his life. Eventually, his crops and home were set on fire. His family last saw him boarding a bus for the protest meeting. His body was found in a river with signs of being tortured and tied up. Many believe the mining company he spoke out against so vocally was behind his murder, but little was done by officials to investigate his death.
This incident prompted Shaw to go into hiding, spending a year in voluntary solitude in the coastal jungle. She eventually decided to take a step back from writing about the petrochemical and mining companies there, and it’s hard to blame her given the horrific crimes they are all too willing to carry out to protect their interests.
When she took a job at an English school, she met her partner, Andre Piedro Leone, a like-minded activist who was also looking for a quieter life. He had worked with Newman, a South African professor who had been raising awareness about vaccines. He served as Newman’s interpreter, giving high-profile interviews warning the public about vaccines on Ecuadorian TV, particularly the H1N1 vaccine.
Early last month, Andre failed to return home one day after work. Shaw found him unconscious and drugged in the school where he worked. Blood tests showed he had been drugged with the mind control substance scopolamine. Also known as Devil’s Breath, this dangerous drug is derived from the pollen of the Datura tree and is known for wiping its victims’ memories and making them compliant. The pollen can be blown into victim’s faces, rendering them completely programmable.
A week later, Andre was kidnapped again. After the police proved unhelpful, he eventually showed up on Shaw’s doorstep four days later early in the morning donning hospital clothes, covered in torture marks and signs of electric shock. He said he managed to escape captors who he believes targeted him because of his anti-vaccine work.
Trying to EscapeNow, Shaw is seeking help for her and her partner to get out of Ecuador as the situation has become untenable. Everywhere they go, they are followed by military and police, who threaten and film them. The embassies don’t want to get involved. Andre is having trouble obtaining a passport, which they believe is another attempt by the Ecuadoran government to keep him under control. Past attempts to help him reach a safe house across the border proved to be unsuccessful, and the couple is now destitute.
She is seeking donations on GoGetFunding.com to help them fly out of the country to safety in an unspecified European Union location. Complicating matters is the fact that she also wants to bring her pets along. A self-proclaimed animal lover, Shaw says she has helped to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome nearly 30 dogs and cats during her six years in Ecuador. The only airline that will accommodate her two dogs and two cats on a flight from Ecuador to the EU is expensive, and she’ll also need to cover expenses related to their travel, such as blood tests, health certificates, and crates.
In the meantime, they are trying to stay safe and get all their paperwork in order as they wait for all the pieces to fall into place. In addition to financial help, they are also seeking assistance from lawyers and therapists who specialize in trauma.
Sources:
GoGetFunding.com
TheGuardian.com
NaturalNews.com
TheEcologist.org
Amazon Land Battle Pits Indigenous Villagers Against Might of Ecuador State
Only a bridge separates the Shuar village of El Tink from threat of military and mining interests in high-profile dispute resulting in death and displacement
- MARCH 19, 2017
- JONATHAN WATTS
- THE GUARDIAN
Aerial surveillance is the only way the authorities can monitor this cloud forest enclave because residents have blocked the sole entrance to their home: a bouncing plank-and-cable bridge suspended 15 metres above the brown torrents of the Zamora river.
Some wear masks to hide their faces. Others appear so casual, they could be out for an afternoon stroll. But together, they take it in shifts to guard the crossing 24 hours a day. Friendly vehicles are allowed through. Government forces are turned back, but the siege is exacting a humanitarian toll on the villagers.
"The river protects us. The military can't cross the bridge because we guard it day and night. If they come, we'll set fire to it," said Alfonso Chinkiun. "But we feel like we are captives. We can't leave this place because we fear we will be arrested. That means we can't work so we have to forage deep into the forest for food. Some days our children go to sleep without eating a single meal."
Chinkiun is one of a few dozen people who recently sought sanctuary in El Tink after a bloody confrontation with security forces sparked by a dispute with a Chinese mining company Explorcobres SA (EXSA), in their previous home of Nankints on the other side of a mountain ridge in the Cordillera del Condor.
How did the 20th century fur and skin trade impact Brazil's Amazon?
Scientists find that commercial hunting caused “basin-wide collapse” among aquatic species
Scientists have conducted what they call the first systematic, historical account of the impacts on wildlife in the Amazon basin of the 20th century international trade in furs and skins. The conclusion: “basin-wide population collapse” for aquatic species, but much greater resilience shown by terrestrial species.
The study focuses on four states in Brazil - Acre, Amazonas, Rondonia and Roraima - and draws on a wide range of historical records including those belonging to the Amazonas state government and the concession owner of the Manaus port. It was published in Science Advances in late 2016, but is reported now to mark UN World Wildlife Day. Here are 10 of the most fascinating - and sometimes horrifying - take-aways:
1 The numbers. Between 21.6 million and 26.8 million terrestrial, aquatic and semiaquatic mammals and reptiles from at least 20 species are estimated to have been commercially hunted from 1904 to 1969.
2 Top terrestrial mammals. The most commonly-hunted were collared peccaries, red brocket deer, white-lipped peccaries, ocelots, margays and jaguars. The number of jaguars killed was over 180,000 - a conservative estimate. All three species of cats were put on Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1975.
Read More
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Amazon burns as Brazil signs Paris pledge
September 9, 2016, by Jan Rocha
A thick blanket of smoke rises from fire in the Amazon rainforest.
Image: BBC World Service via Flickr
Forest fires in the Amazon region are reaching record levels as Brazil’s government fails to tackle the deforestation that fuels the country’s high rate of emissions.
SÃO PAULO, 9 September, 2016 – Brazil’s new president, Michel Temer, will next week sign up to the Paris Agreement on climate change by committing Brazil to a reduction of 37% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and of 43% by 2030.
But critics say that the commitment glosses over the government’s failure to address the legal and illegal forest clearance that is adding to global warming.
Brazil’s emissions are the seventh highest in the world, and they come mostly from what is called land-use change − in other words, deforestation.
The government has promised that all illegal deforestation will be ended by 2030 – which, as critics point out, allows for it to continue for another 14 years − and sidesteps the thorny question of legally-permitted deforestation.
Scientists from the US space agency NASA and the University of California, Irvine, warn that lower rainfall in the Amazon basin because of the 2015-2016 El Niño phenomenon’s climate effects means that the region is now even drier than it was in 2005 and 2010, which were years of unprecedented drought.
Amazon biome
It is heading for a very bad fire season, fed by dieback − a process in which the forest dries out, storing less carbon, producing less rainfall, and worsening global warming.
The dry season in Brazil now extends from July to November, and a record number of 53,000 forest fires – mostly in the Amazon region − had been detected by the beginning of this month.
The largest number of fires − around 15,000 − were detected by Brazilian scientists, using satellite images, in the state of Mato Grosso, which contains part of the Amazon biome − a region sharing similar climate, animals and plants. Most of them had been started deliberately.
The result is a drastic change in the landscape. The state takes its name from the dense forest – mato grosso roughly translates from Portuguese as “thick bushes” – that once covered it. But large swaths are now turning into savannah.
Environment journalist Sucena Shkrada Resk, who has just travelled to the region, described seeing a “gradual but accentuated process of savanna-isation”, which she blamed on monoculture practices, extensive cattle farming, illegal logging, and degradation caused by wildcat mining:
“In many places the soil is sandy,” she reported. “Few farmers worry about restoring degraded areas, and you even see hilltops cleared of vegetation. Official reserves and APPs [areas of permanent protection] are more and more fragilised.”
She described groups of cows seeking shade under a single remaining tree, while the ashes and soot from the fires cause breathing difficulties, forcing many people to seek help at the under-equipped health posts and hospitals.
“Few farmers worry about restoring degraded areas, and you even see hilltops cleared of vegetation”
Resk said the level of big rivers such as the Teles Pires and Juruena, and their tributaries, is well below normal levels.
One area of dense rainforest remains in the north of the state: the Xingu national park, one of Brazil’s largest indigenous territories, covering 12,000 square miles.
It was created in 1961 by the explorers and protection agents Orlando and Claudio Vilas Boas to save indigenous tribes threatened by the advance of Brazil’s road network, and it is home to 6,500 indigenous people from 16 different ethnic groups.
But the Xingu park is now entirely surrounded by big ranches and farms, which have cleared all the rainforest for their cattle and crops of soya and maize. The result is a noticeable change in temperature and rainfall within the park.
In a documentary called Where have all the swallows gone? − produced by two Brazilian environmental organisations, the Socioambiental Institute and the Catitu Institute – one of the Xingu residents says: “When the crickets begin to sing, we know that in three days’ time it will begin to rain. Then it is the time to plant sweet potatoes, squash, peanuts, yams, chili peppers.
“But they are no longer singing. The heat has dried up their eggs.”
Herald the rains
The film shows how climate change induced by forest clearing is affecting life in the Xingu park. The swallows, which used to fly in bands to herald the rains, have also disappeared.
Fires that once were used in a controlled way for clearing land now spread very easily, affecting big areas of the park. The intense heat is killing fruit and food crops, and the local people fear that future generations will have to depend on white people’s food.
Marina Silva, a former environment minister, says: “They are besieged by the model of economic production that Brazil adopts and gives incentives to.”
Other factors driving deforestation are the revised Forest Code of 2012, which gave amnesty to farmers who had illegally cleared land. It also reduced protected areas, and weakened environmental management and control in the state of Amazonas, which was once largely untouched by fires and deforestation but is now one of the states most affected.
So while Brazil is officially signing up to the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions overall, the reality is that the Amazon − the source of most of the deforestation-linked emissions − is at risk as never before. And at the same time, emissions from energy, agriculture and industry continue to rise. – Climate News Network
Shock Report: Big Beef is Hiring Hitmen to Murder Activists — 185 Murders Last Year Alone
Claire Bernish June 21, 2016 2 Comments
Environmental activists, in particular, those attempting to halt illegal logging for Big Beef, are being killed in alarming numbers, with 185 killings in 2015 — averaging three per week — a 60 percent increase over the previous year.
Last year, a new report titled “On Dangerous Ground,” from London-based advocacy group, Global Witness, states, “was the deadliest year on record for killings of land and environmental defenders — people struggling to protect their land, forests, and rivers.”
As Global Witness notes, conflicts over logging, hydroelectric dams, mining, and agribusiness saw the highest number of killings — but Brazil was the most impacted, losing 50 activists to the fight against illegal logging in the Amazon.
According to the report, “the Amazon states of Brazil saw unprecedented levels of violence in 2015, where communities are being encroached on by ranches and agricultural plantations or gangs of illegal loggers. The rainforest has given way to thousands of illegal logging camps whilst the agricultural frontier is pushing further into previously untouched indigenous reserves. It’s estimated that 80% of timber from Brazil is illegal, and accounts for 25% of illegal wood on global markets. Much of this is being sold on to buyers in the US, Europe and China.”
Perhaps the most alarming finding is a continuance of impunity for those pillaging the land in conjunction with increased criminalization of activists.
“Across the world,” the report continues, “collusion between state and corporate interests shield many of those responsible for the killings. In cases that are well-documented we found 16 were related to paramilitary groups, 13 to the army, 11 to the police, and 11 to private security — strongly implying state or company links to the killings. There was little evidence that the authorities either fully investigated the crimes or took actions to bring the perpetrators to account.”
Though Global Witness highlights countries in Africa for this trend, in the U.S., the FBI has prioritized environmental activists and land defenders as terrorists — and was responsible for illegal surveillance and infiltration of groups fighting the Keystone XL Pipeline.
“Governments and companies are using inflammatory language to denigrate activists and publicly brand them as ‘anti-development.’ At the same time, they are turning a blind eye to corruption, illegalities and environmental degradation. Impunity reigns in many cases, and the suspected perpetrators behind the violence — corporate and state interests — are not being investigated.”
Sadly, indigenous peoples were most frequently killed for defending their land, accounting for 40 percent of the total.
Activists combating illegal deforestation from both agribusiness and the high-value timber industry are most often killed for their efforts, but the palm oil industry — particularly in the Philippines — also saw a high number of killings.The top five most deadly countries for environmental activists and land defenders were Brazil, with 50 deaths; the Philippines, with 33; Colombia, with 26; and Peru and Nicaragua, with 12 fatal attacks each.Global Witness urged increased protections for activists, including support of their right to speak out and full investigations of those responsible for the killings.Below is a powerful video highlighting the murder of one incredible environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, who was murdered just three months ago.Click here for Video
Read more at HERE
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Humans Have The Opportunity To Save The Amazon In A Big Way And We Need To Act Fast
We can do big things.
Lisa Winter
Nov 23, 2015
A new study has looked at the fate of tree species in the Amazon rain forest and the results demands our action.
The research, published in the journal Science Advances, has found that roughly half of all tree species in the Amazon are currently being threatened with extinction. While this sounds immensely disastrous (and it very well could be), the study also points to a clear solution: human involvement.
The danger the trees are facing isn't some new virus or fungus; it's the same mass deforestation that environmentalists have been decrying for decades. The Amazon currently expands well beyond 2 million square miles, though it was much larger before the Industrial Revolution. Since then, immense swaths of the forest have been cleared for agricultural use. At its current rate, between 37% and 52% of the 15,000 species of trees in the Amazon will be considered threatened.
"We aren't saying that the situation in the Amazon has suddenly gotten worse for tree species," Nigel Pitman, co-author of the paper, explained in a statement. "We're just offering a new estimate of how tree species have been affected by historical deforestation, and how they'll be affected by forest loss in the future."
Though the Amazon may often seem infinitely expansive, the reality is that we have used its resources in a wholly unsustainable way. But the study also suggests that just as human activity is putting these tree species at risk, we can come together to save them, too. All we need to do is reduce deforestation by putting bigger sections in protected parks and nature preserves.
It sounds simple, but there are certain difficulties, as a large amount of deforestation is done illegally. There needs to be increases in resources for those combatting this illegal behavior as well as heightened consequences for those who get caught. The sheer enormity of the Amazon makes it difficult, but international assistance could make it more feasible.
"This is good news from the Amazon that you don't hear enough of," lead author Hans ter Steege continued. "In recent decades Amazon countries have made major strides in expanding parks and strengthening indigenous land rights," he said. "And our study shows this has big benefits for biodiversity."
The Amazon is one of the most biodiverse locations on the planet. It's home to more than 2.5 million species of insects and several thousands of species of reptiles, birds, mammals, and amphibians. The trees serve as sources of food and shelter for these animals, so protecting the trees does wonders for animals by extension.
"It's a battle we're going to see play out in our lifetimes," co-author William Laurance cautioned. "Either we stand up and protect these critical parks and indigenous reserves, or deforestation will erode them until we see large-scale extinctions."
Want to get involved? Contact your congressmen and tell them to support initiatives that benefit the preservation of the Amazon, one of the world's most unique treasures.
Cover Image: iStockphoto
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Why are Brazil Environmental activists being Killed?
Between 2002 and 2013, at least 448 environmentalists were killed in Brazil, according to Global Witness. That equates to roughly half of all the environmentalists murdered worldwide during that period.
According to local watchdog CPT, the grim tally is even worse: More than 1,500 Brazilians have been killed over the past 25 years fighting deforestation, and another 2,000 have received death threats, Men’s Journal reported in 2012.
Last year, 29 Brazilian environmentalists were murdered, again more than any other country, according to Global Witness.
Read Full Story at The Washington Post
SPECIES WATCH: FIGHTING BACK AGAINST 'THE NOTHING'Deforestation is an insidious, biodiversity-sucking void.
BY JASON BITTEL | @BITTELMETHIS | 16 hours ago
For those of us who grew up in the 1980s, there are few things more terrifying than the Nothing, the antagonist of The NeverEnding Story.
What is the Nothing? It’s a howling maelstrom of darkness that threatens to swallow up the universe and everything good within it. “It’s the emptiness that’s left,” as the wolfish G’mork puts it. “It is like a despair destroying this world.”
Now for the bad news: Something very like the Nothing—an absence that endangers the life around it—is here in the real world, from the rainforests of Brazil to the pine plantations of Australia. It’s called forest fragmentation. A new study published inScience Advances shows that it doesn’t just diminish wooded areas—it also weakens the forest’s remaining ecosystems that were supposedly left intact.
Read More at OneEarth.org
How Brazilian beef industry became latest ally in fight against deforestation
Once criticized for mowing down tropical rainforests to make way for pasture, the world's largest meatpacking company now shuns cattle raised on deforested land.May 12, 2015
Once seen as one of the biggest threats to the Amazon rainforest, large meatpacking companies can become important players in slowing the rate of deforestation.Preserving tropical forests, which store enormous amounts of carbon, is widely seen as vital to combating global warming and maintaining the planet's biodiversity.
One way to accomplish that is to get companies to pledge to buy their raw materials or agricultural products from sources that don't contribute to deforestation. But relatively few follow-up studies have been made to see how effective those pledges are, researchers say.
Recommended: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.
Now, a team of US and Brazilian researchers has found that zero-deforestation agreements can quickly reduce the pace of deforestation – in this case, on ranches in the Brazilian Amazon that supply cattle to the world's largest meat-processing company, JBS S.A.
Full Story on Yahoo News
Can Peru stop ‘ethical chocolate’ from destroying the Amazon?
The Tamshiyacu plantation in northern Peru where it is alleged a United Cacao subsidiary illegally cleared primary rainforest. Photograph: Environmental Investigation Agency
Cattle-ranching, logging, mining, highways, hydroelectric dam projects, oil and gas, soy, oil palm. . . These are what first come to mind to many people when thinking about how the Amazon is being destroyed, but what about chocolate too?
NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released a report on 7 April mainly about monoculture oil palm plantations, which it describes as a “major new threat to Peruvian forests.” The report, Deforestation by Definition, focuses on the Romero Group, Peru’s “largest economic actor”, and what it calls the “Melka Group”, a network of 25 companies recently established in Peru and controlled by businessman Dennis Melka, a major player in the destructive oil palm industry in Malaysia.
According to EIA, two “Melka Group” companies have illegally deforested an estimated “nearly 7,000 hectares” of mainly primary rainforest in Peru over the last three years, and others have acquired at least 456 “rural properties” and requested the government set aside another 96,192 hectares.
April 18, 2015: Read More: Source The Guardian
Desert dust breathes life into Amazon
09 March, 2015 00:11
DESERT STORM: A sandstorm off northwest Africa stretches more than 1600km over the Atlantic
Image by: NASAHuge dust clouds swirling across the Atlantic from northern Africa to South America are pictured in stunning new images released by the US space agency Nasa, illustrating how Earth's largest tropical rainforest relies on its biggest, hottest desert to flourish.
Scientists have now, for the first time, calculated how much dust makes this transatlantic journey from the Sahara to the Amazon basin where it fertilises depleted soils.
Some 27.7million tons of the dust carrying about 22000 tons of phosphorus makes the journey from one of the planet's most desolate places to one of its most fertile.
The same amount is washed away in flooding each year.
"This is a small world and we are all connected," said Hongbin Yu, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland who works at Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre.
Source
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Brazil's soy moratorium dramatically reduced Amazon deforestation
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
January 23, 2015
Deforestation for soy in the Brazilian Amazon and cerrado. Data from Gibbs et al 2015, photo by Rhett A. Butler. Click image to enlarge.
The moratorium on forest conversion established by Brazilian soy giants in 2006 dramatically reduce deforestation for soy expansion in the Amazon, and have been more effective in cutting forest destruction than the government's land use policy in the region, finds a study published today in the journal Science.
The paper, led by Holly Gibbs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is based on spatial analysis across thousands of farm in the Brazilian Amazon and cerrado, a woody grassland. The researchers compared forest loss before and after the moratorium was established.
Like other research, they found that the moratorium was highly effective in reducing deforestation for soy production in the Amazon rainforest.
"Before the moratorium, 30 percent of soy expansion occurred through deforestation, and after the moratorium, almost none did; only about 1 percent of the new soy expansion came at the expense of forest," said Gibbs in a statement.
But despite the drop in soy's role as a driver of rainforest conversion, the crop more than doubled in extent across the region since 2006 as a farmers planted already deforested lands. In other words, food production increased even as deforestation decreased.
Read more:
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Bianca Jagger: Amazon tribes “under siege” from developers
Last updated on 31 December 2014, 9:02 am
By Ed King
Latin America’s remaining indigenous peoples are “under siege” from rapacious mining, ranching and energy companies, actress turned human rights activist Bianca Jagger has warned.
Earlier this month eight leaders from across the continent announced plans to replant 20 million hectares of forests by 2020, a sign they said of their commitment to protect the region’s precious rainforests from further degradation.
But Jagger said recent history indicated these were likely to be “empty promises”, and would not protect the rights or the future of the 385 indigenous Amazon tribes who rely on the health of their traditional lands to survive.
“My problem is that many of these leaders are talking the talk but not walking the walk. There are a lot of empty promises,” Jagger told RTCC in an interview.
“What I’m seeing in Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil and Nicaragua, it is not a response from Latin American leaders towards their indigenous people. What I see is an irrational course to get more drilling, mining and hydroelectric.”
- See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/
São Paulo running out of water as rain-making Amazon vanishes
BY ADRIANA BRASILEIRO
Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:34pm IST
SAO PAULO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - South America’s biggest and wealthiest city may run out of water by mid-November if it doesn’t rain soon.
São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year.
One of the causes of the crisis may be more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the growing deforested areas in the Amazon region.
“Humidity that comes from the Amazon in the form of vapor clouds - what we call ‘flying rivers’ - has dropped dramatically, contributing to this devastating situation we are living today,” said Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist at INPE, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute.
The changes, he said, are “all because of deforestation”.
Read More at Reuters
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Who Deserves Credit for protecting Brazil's Amazon Rainforest? It's not even close.
At a conservative estimate, Marina, not Dilma, protected an area of forests nearly the size of France on the Amazon frontier.
Indigenous Territories and Amazon Protected Areas Officially Designated 1995 – 2014
Government Indigenous Territories Officially Designated (#)Indigenous Territories Officially Designated (Million Hectares)Amazon Protected Areas Created (#)Amazon Protected Areas Created (Million Hectares)MILLION HECTARES — TOTAL
Dilma Rouseff (2010 – 2014)2135N/A3
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003 – 2010)168324926.358.3
Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995 – 2003)263773814.891.8
Source: Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) (Note: The table does not include the five Amazon protected areas Dilma created in the last leg of the election campaign, but they wouldn’t change the picture much.)
Read Full story at EDF.org Blog
Marina Lost the Presidential Election October 5, 2014.
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“What happens to Brazil, home of the planet’s great green lungs, matters on a global scale.”
-Marina Silva Here's how Brazil's new presidential candidate could help save the planet
Marina Silva has a chance at becoming the first environmentalist to lead a major world economy. Here is what that might look like.
A blaze in March 2013 in Rio Grande do Sul state, southern Brazil. (Lauro Alves/AFP/Getty Images)
LIMA, Peru — When Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos’ plane went down near Sao Paulo this month, one of the most improbable consequences may have been to thrust the Amazon center stage in the race.
Yet that’s what is happening now that Campos’ running mate, environmentalist Marina Silva, has taken his place on the ballot for the October vote.
Silva, who learned to read and write only at age 16 after growing up in poverty on a remote jungle plantation, has a certain appeal with disgruntled voters. She even won praise from Greenpeace during her five years as environment minister.
Now a poll predicts 56-year-old Silva will squeeze into the second round of voting and narrowly beat President Dilma Rousseff. It is the first time that Rousseff, 66, has been behind in the polls.
“What happens to Brazil, home of the planet’s great green lungs, matters on a global scale.”This could make Silva the first environmentalist to lead a major world economy. And what happens to the environment in Brazil, home to the planet’s great green lungs, matters on a global scale.
More from GlobalPost: Calamity Calling: What if we lost the Amazon?
It would also make her the first Afro-Brazilian president, in a country with a huge black population.
(Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
Full story at GlobalPost.com
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27 August 2014 Last updated at22:52 GMT
Brazil dismantles 'biggest destroyer' of Amazon rainforest
The group is accused of logging and burning large areas of public land in the Amazon
Continue reading the main storyRelated Stories
- Amazon tribe fights Brazil dam projectWatch
- Amazon destruction up by 28% in year
- Rancher convicted over US nun murder
The gang is accused of invading, logging and burning large areas of public land and selling these illegally for farming and grazing.
In a statement, Brazilian Federal Police said the group committed crimes worth more than $220m (£134m).
A federal judge has issued 14 arrest warrants for alleged gang members.
Twenty-two search warrants were also issued and four suspects are being called in for questioning.
The police operation covers four Brazilian states, including Sao Paulo.
Five men and a woman have already been arrested in Para state in the north of the country, Globo news reported.
Read More at BBC.com
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Brazil's "Dalai Lama of the Rainforest" Faces Death Threats
Monday, 18 August 2014 11:19 By Fabiola Ortiz, Inter Press Service | Report
Rio De Janeiro - Davi Kopenawa, the leader of the Yanomami people in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, who is internationally renowned for his struggle against encroachment on indigenous land by landowners and illegal miners, is now fighting a new battle – this time against death threats received by him and his family.
“In May, they [miners] told me that he wouldn’t make it to the end of the year alive,” Armindo Góes, 39, one of Kopenawa’s fellow indigenous activists in the fight for the rights of the Yanomami people, told IPS.
Kopenawa, 60, is Brazil’s most highly respected indigenous leader. The Yanomami shaman and spokesman is known around the world as the “Dalai Lama of the Rainforest” and has frequently participated in United Nations meetings and other international events.
Read More at Truth-Out.org
More uncontacted Indians emerge in Brazil – fleeing attacks in Peru 14 August 2014
Several weeks after seven uncontacted Indians emerged near the Brazil-Peru border, more uncontacted Indians have made first contact with Brazilian government agents, reportedly fleeing attacks in Peru.
© FUNAIPeru criticized for failing its most vulnerable citizensA second wave of highly vulnerable uncontacted Indians has made contact with outsiders in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, just weeks after Brazilian experts warned of “genocide” and “extermination” of the tribe. The group of around two dozen Indians is believed to include men, women and children who reported fleeing attacks by invaders in Peru.
Read more and see fantastic video footage at Survivalinternational.org
Act now to help the Uncontacted Indians of BrazilYour support is vital if the Uncontacted Indians of Brazil are to survive. There are many ways you can help.
- Writing a letter to Brazil’s President about the threats faced by uncontacted Indians is a quick and simple way to let the government know of your concern.
- Donate to the campaign for the Uncontacted Indians of Brazil (and other Survival campaigns).
- Write to your MP or MEP (UK) or Senators and members of Congress (US).
- Write to your local Brazilian high commission or embassy.
- If you want to get more involved, contact Survival…
______EDITORIAL: It’s a jungle (aka rain forest) out there. The key to preserving them is taking it away from the government
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - - Tuesday, August 12, 2014Environmentalists have sounded the alarm, warning that the rain forests will soon disappear. These unique ecosystems, which include half of the plant and animal species found on Earth, are on the verge of extinction, they say.
Fortunately, deforestation rates in many of the world’s rain forests are dropping dramatically. It’s not government ownership of the jungle keeping more trees standing but increased private-property rights.
Read more at the Washington Times
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Biggest fish in Amazon is on the brink of extinction
Unique giant fish that can breathe out of water faces extinction risk in the Amazon River basin. The arapaima can grow 10 feet long, weigh 400 pounds.
(Photo : Sergio Ricardo de Oliveira/Virginia Tech)
Read full article at TechTimes
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Fires could turn Amazon rainforest into a desert
The Amazon rainforest is becoming increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic forest fires due to a combination of droughts, climate change and human activities such as deforestation, farming and habitat fragmentation, a major study has concluded. Read more HERE.
Ref: http://selvavidasinfronteras.wordpress.com/
New Website Tracks Deforestation in Near Real-Time
NACHO DOCE / REUTERS FILE
An aerial view shows a tract of Amazon rainforest which has been cleared by loggers and farmers for agriculture near the city of Santarem, Para state in this April 2013.Forests around the world are disappearing at an astonishing rate. But now, these trees won't fall without a sound.
A new map and website called Global Forest Watch provides the first near-real-time look at the planet's forests, using a combination of satellite data and user-generated reports. The website's developers hope that Global Forest Watch will help local governments and companies combat deforestation and save protected areas.
"More than half a billion people depend on [forests] for their jobs, their food, their clean water," said Andrew Steer, the CEO of the World Resources Institute (WRI), which launched the website today (Feb. 20). "More than half of all terrestrial biodiversity lives in forests."
But humans are failing to preserve these crucial ecosystems, Steer told reporters before the launch. The equivalent of 50 soccer fields each minute have fallen every day of the past 13 years. [See Images of the New Deforestation Map]
WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE
Global Forest Watch, launched Feb. 20, 2014, provides a near real-time update of forest loss around the globe. Read the full article at NBC News HereGuarani leader and film-star murdered 3 December 2013
In 2008 Ambrósio attended the premiere of 'Birdwatchers' at the Venice Film Festival.
© SurvivalGuarani Indian leader and film-star Ambrósio Vilhalva was murdered on Sunday night, after decades of campaigning for his tribe’s right to live on their ancestral land.
Ambrósio was reportedly stabbed at the entrance to his community, known as Guyra Roká, in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. He was found dead in his hut, with multiple knife wounds. He had been repeatedly threatened in recent months.
Ambrósio starred as the main character in the award-winning feature film Birdwatchers, which portrays the Guarani’s desperate struggle for their land. He traveled internationally to speak out about the tribe’s plight, and to push the Brazilian government into protecting Guarani land, as it is legally obliged to do.
Read more at Survivalinternational.org
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Brazil President Dilma Rouseff Must Take a Stand to Save Amazon Rainforest
With deforestation unstoppable, now is the time for the Brazilian leader to decide where she standsBy RICHARD GEORGE : Subscribe to Richard's RSS feed | November 22, 2013 2:51 PM GMT
Rainforest deforestation is rising again
The Amazon, like the Arctic, is one of those special places. Yet when I was growing up, the story of the Amazon was always one of unspeakable loss, of the felling of ancient mahogany trees and the industrial destruction of forest. This was no accident: for decades, the Brazilian government had encouraged people to settle in the region, converting the rainforest to vast farms and cattle ranches. Those who ventured north were pioneers, bringing light to the darkness and the Amazon to heel.
Read More at ibtimes.co.uk
How Fast Is The Rainforest Disappearing? Brazil Confirms 28 Percent Increase In Amazon Deforestation RateBy Amanda Schiavo, Nov 15, 2013 11:52 AM EST
(PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes) Furnaces used to make charcoal from wood discarded by the illegal logging and lumber industries are seen from a police helicopter during the "Hileia Patria" operation against sawmills and loggers who trade in illegally-extracted wood from the Alto Guama River indigenous reserve in Nova Esperanca do Piria, Para State, Sept. 29, 2013. The Amazon rainforest is being eaten away at by deforestation, much of which takes place as areas are burnt by large fires to clear land for agriculture. Initial data from Brazil's space agency suggests that destruction of the vast rainforest -- the largest in the world -- spiked by more than a third over the past year, wiping out an area more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles. If the figures are borne out by follow-up data, they would confirm fears of scientists and environmental activists who warn that farming, mining and Amazon infrastructure projects, coupled with changes to Brazil's long-standing environmental policies, are reversing progress made against deforestation. Environmental issues will be under the spotlight as a United Nations Climate Change Conference opens in Warsaw, Poland on Nov.r 11. Picture taken on Sept. 29, 2013.
Following years of decline the Brazilian government has announced the rate of deforestation in the Amazon has increased 28 percent between August 2012 and July 2013. Brazil's Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira announced that the government is looking to reverse what she called the "crime" of deforestation. Environmental activists are blaming the rise in deforestation on a controversial reformation made to Brazil's forest protection law. According to the BBC, the statistics show that the area suffering from the most deforestation was 2,225 square miles in August 2012 compare with the 1,765 square miles it currently spans.
The Amazon rainforest is able to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide which makes it a useful tool in the fight against global warming. Last year it was reported that the Amazon was in the midst of its lowest deforestation year since monitoring of the decline began. The decline in deforestation began in 2009 and has been steady until last August. Blame for the rise in deforestation can be placed on the vast farming and soybean production coming out of the northern state of Para and the western state of Mato Grosso.
Teixeira also blamed the rise on what she called ineffective monitoring of the Amazon by federal authorities. Teixeira will be meeting with senior environmental officials in the Amazon region to try to determine what needs to be done in order to preserve the shrinking forest. "The Brazilian government does not tolerate and does not accept any rise in illegal deforestation," Teixeira said. The minister was sure to show her insistence that the Brazilian government is committed to reducing deforestation. "Our commitment is to overturn any increase in in deforestation; our goal is to eliminate deforestation."
Ref: Latin Times
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Rainforest treasures – aҫaí berries and caja fruit
t. E. Mississauga, Ontario 905-276-7555
HybridSIDEBARVisit our Profile Page
Mississauga NewsPreserving rainforests continues to grow in importance every day! Not only for the sake of our climate and the environment as a whole, but also because of the many discoveries coming to light as we learn more about the gifts these ecosystems contain.
RELATED STORIESBooster Juice MississaugaT
The South American rainforest is home to edible treasures that are turning out to be nutritional “super foods”! Two such foods are the aҫaí berry and caja fruit.
Aҫaí berries are the fruit of Aҫaí palm trees (Euterpe oleracea). While indigenous tribes in the Amazon Rainforest flood plains have been aware of the fruit for thousands of years, they only became known to the Western world in the late Twentieth Century. Gathered from the top of the trees, these dark reddish-purple berries about the size of a grape contain a large seed, but the pulp of the aҫaí berry contains most of its nutrients. Containing high levels of antioxidant properties and omega fatty acids, including these berries in your diet can be a healthy menu choice.
When eaten raw, the aҫaí berry has been described as having an aftertaste that is comparable to unsweetened dark chocolate. When blended with naturally sweet fruit like pomegranates, oranges, strawberries or bananas, and combined with fresh and frozen yogurt, the result is a delicious and healthy taste experience.
Caja fruit, an orange fruit similar in size and shape to a small mango, can also be found in South American rainforests. Packed with iron, phosphorous, and Vitamin C, South Americans have long used this fruit to boost immune systems, especially when warding off common colds.
A wonderful addition to drinks and foods, caja fruit is low in fat and cholesterol free. As an added bonus, the flavourful pulp of fruit provides a naturally sweet alternative to honey or sugar.
Stop in to your local Booster Juice on Dundas Street East in Mississauga or any of the seven locations in Mississauga to enjoy low-fat superfood smoothies, shakers or yogurts packed full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Join Booster Nation to receive up-to-date news and to enjoy a free smoothie on your birthday!
REF: http://www.mississauga.com/shopping-story/4046041-rainforest-treasures-a-a-berries-and-caja-fruit/
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Video of Amazon gold mining devastation goes viral in Peru
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
September 26, 2013
Video of illegal gold mining operations that have turned a portion of the Amazon rainforest into a moonscape went viral on Youtube after a popular radio and TV journalist in Peru highlighted the story.
Last week Peruvian journalist and politician Güido Lombardi directed his audience to video shot from a wingcam aboard the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), an airplane used by researchers to conduct advanced monitoring and analysis of Peru's forests. The video quickly received more than 60,000 views on Youtube.
The attention generated by the broadcast is significant because the issue of gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon isn't well known, despite its widening impact.
Read more
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Brazil protects Amazon area as big as Lebanon
September 9
The Associated PressBRASILIA, Brazil — The Brazilian government has designated nearly 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) of land in the Amazon rainforest as a protected area.
That's an area slightly smaller than the nation of Lebanon, and the Brazilian environment ministry said Monday that expanse is now under its protection in a bid to halt deforestation in the area.
The ministry says it will allow sustainable development in the area, as it does in many other parts of the Amazon.
That means letting mostly subsistence farmers use the forest in ways that won't destroy it. Among those are managed forestry for selling timber and modern farming techniques that increase production using less land, ending the need to clear more forest for fields.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/09/4469896/brazil-protects-amazon-area-as.html#storylink=cpy
Ecuador dumps the Amazon's most biodiverse reserve
By Dave Armstrong - 17 Aug 2013 11:22:0 GMT
Phyllomedusa camba, the monkey tree frog, is so far unaffected by loss of habitat, but with chytrid fungus threatening, who knows how long even the common species will last, when industry takes over their environment; Monkey tree frog image Credit: Shutterstock
Rafael Correa is the Ecuadorean president. It was his political decision on Thursday to suddenly dismantle the flagship ITT Initiative whereby 200,000 hectares of the Amazon rainforest of the Yasuni is kept pristine and governments can pay in donations as part of their carbon mitigation measures. In 2007, this was a magnificent gesture of reducing the environmental maintenance costs of a relatively poor country. The Yasuni Reserve is said to have the world's most renowned biodiversity. The President's plan hoped to raise $3.6bn because of this, but only $116 million was pledged and a mere $13 million actually paid out.
Apart from paying for industrial carbon emissions by other countries, the fact that oil wold remain in the ground is important. If taken, the equivalent of 410 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide would be emitted from the estimated 846 million barrels of heavy crude. This is a big industry and a big loss to the environment. Oil provides 33% of Ecuador's GNP and these 3 new oil fields would account for 20% of its reserves. On the other hand, the loss of such biodiversity could prove a death blow to the whole Amazon's ability to resist more and more drilling and mining.
There has been a kind of hostage situation in terms of these unique forests. The Waorani, Tagaeri and the Taromenane tribes live in the Yasuni area as well as the Waorani reserve itself. Some of these native peoples have never been contacted from the outside, so there is further concern about the preservation of delicate human systems as well as the ecosystems. If money were given to Ecuador alone, to spend as they thought fit, the oil industry was to be kept out. If any organisation wanted to spend or invest in some other way, then the oil companies would also be let in. The President seemed to be saying we should pay or he would drill!
The Amazon as a whole is the earth's greatest supplier of oxygen to us and, sensibly. It also disposes of more carbon dioxide than any other "sink." Italy, with $51 million is the only developed country that so far has donated to the president's governing group rather than the Yasuni people, who have been receiving German aid. According to the President, "The world has failed us with the great hypocrisy of nations who emit most of the greenhouse gases. It was not charity that we sought from the international community, but co-responsibility in the face of climate change."
Now we have to work out whether we were all right to doubt the President. Or should we have backed him and made him appear to be the great environmentalist?
Read more at http://www.earthtimes.org/politics/ecuador-dumps-amazon/2422/#clsIHrm51DV8OKJe.99
Protection of the Ashaninka Reserve sets important new precedent Date: 14/06/2013
For the first time in Peru, a large forest area will be protected according to plans which indigenous forest people have helped to draw up. The ‘Master Plan’ for the Ashaninka Communal Reserve, which covers nearly half a million acres of mostly pristine rainforest, has been approved by the Peruvian government. This follows several years of work and a lengthy process of consultation with the Ashaninka people, which has been supported by the Rainforest Foundation. Hopefully, this advance will be a precedent to be followed by other Communal Reserves which are now at various stages of development in Peru.
Full Story at http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/Pope urges respect, protection of Amazon rainforestX
Published: Sat, July 27, 2013 @ 7:03 p.m.RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)
Pope Francis took on the defense of the Amazon and the environment near the end of his weeklong trip to Brazil, as he donned a colorful Indian headdress Saturday and urged that the rainforest be treated as a garden.
The pontiff met with a few thousand of Brazil’s political, business and cultural elite in Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Theater, where he also shook hands with Indians who said they were from a tribe that has been battling ranchers and farmers trying to invade their land in northeastern Bahia state.
In a separate speech to bishops, the pope called for “respect and protection of the entire creation which God has entrusted to man, not so that it be indiscriminately exploited but rather made into a garden.”
He also urged attention to a 2007 document by Latin American and Caribbean bishops that he was in charge of drafting, which underscored dangers facing the Amazon environment and the native people living there. The document also called for new evangelization efforts to halt a steep decline in Catholics leaving for other faiths or secularism.
“The traditional communities have been practically excluded from decisions on the wealth of biodiversity and nature. Nature has been, and continues to be, assaulted,” the document reads.
Several of the indigenous people in the audience hailed from the Amazon and said they hoped the pope would help them protect land designated by the government as indigenous reserves but that farmers and ranchers illegally invade for timber and to graze cattle. In fact, grazing has been the top recent cause of deforestation in Brazil.
“We got credentials for his speech and attended so we could tell the pope what’s happening to our people,” said Levi Xerente, a 22-year-old member of the Xerente tribe in Tocantins state in the Amazon, after he attended the pope’s speech. “We hope that he will help intervene with the government and stop all the big public works projects that are happening in the region.”
Xerente, speaking in broken Portuguese, said the biggest threats to Indians in the region were big agribusiness invading land and the government’s own massive infrastructure projects, including the damming of rivers for hydroelectric power generation and roads being carved out of the forest, often to reach giant mines.
Francis thanked Brazilian bishops for maintaining a church presence in the rugged and vast Amazon, which is about the size of the United States west of the Mississippi River. But he pushed church leaders to refocus energies on the region.
“The church’s work needs to be further encouraged and launched afresh” in the Amazon, the pope said in prepared remarks, urging an “Amazonian face” for the church.
He cited the church’s long history of working in the region.
“The church’s presence in the Amazon basin is not that of someone with bags packed and ready to leave after having exploited everything possible,” he said. “The church has been present in the Amazon basin from the beginning ... and is still present and critical to the area’s future.”
Catholic priests and nuns have taken up the causes of Indians and of poor subsistence farmers in the Amazon, often putting themselves in danger. Violent conflicts over land rights are common in the region, where wealthy farmers and ranchers are known to hire gunmen to intimidate people into leaving land the government has often set aside as reserves for their use.
In 2005, U.S. nun and Amazon land-rights defender Dorothy Stang was murdered by one such gunman in the state of Para. Two ranchers were later convicted of ordering her murder so they could control a parcel of land the government had ceded to a subsistence farming group Stang worked with.
Ref: http://Vindy.com
Deforestation rate doubles in the Amazon rainforest
Deforestation rate doubles in the Amazon rainforest, says group
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
July 19, 2013
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is up 103 percent over this time last year, reports the latest assessment by Imazon, a Brazil-based NGO.
Imazon's near real-time deforestation tracking system recorded 1,838 square kilometers of forest clearing between 2012 and June 2013, up from 907 sq km a year earlier.
The Brazilian government has also reported a significant rise in deforestation this year.
Imazon has attributed the increase to last year's revision of the Forest Code, which governs how much forest a private landowner must preserve. Under pressure from the agricultural lobby, Congress relaxed some aspects of the code to the dismay of environmental groups. Macroeconomic trends, including a weakening Brazilian real which makes agricultural exports more profitable for Brazilian farmers, might also be contributing to rising forest loss.
Final figures based on analysis of higher resolution satellite images will be released at the end of the year.
Brazil has experienced a sharp decrease in the annual rate of forest loss since 2004. Increased monitoring and law enforcement, new protected areas, private sector initiatives, and financial incentives for greener agricultural production have been cited for the drop in deforestation.
Info Amazonia's analysis also looked at deforestation at a subnational level, including states, departments, and municipalities as well as protected areas, indigenous reserves, and ecosystems. Loreto, Peru had the largest forest loss in 2012 — 25,544 ha. Caquetá, Colombia saw its deforestation rate jump 193 percent.
Among parks, Pacaya Samiria (3,325 ha) in Peru, Imataca (1,356 ha), the Upper Orinoco-Cassiquiare (819 ha) in Venezuela, and Noord Saramaccan (581 ha) in Suriname saw the highest forest loss. The Iquitos várzea — floodplain forest along the main stem of the Amazon — lost the largest area of forest among eco-regions both in 2012 (24,094 ha) and over the nine-year period (151,675 ha).
Ref: Mongabay.com
Amazon Jungle sees rise in deforestation: report
File photo showing an illegal deforestation project for soy production, in Brazil's State of Mato Grosso.
Mon Jul 8, 2013 3:31PM GMT
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The reason is unknown, but experts attribute the deforestation to government infrastructure projects, environmental policy, and a rise in demand for soybeans and other Brazilian farm exports, which encourage ranchers to clear private land in the Amazon."
New data show an increase in the rate of deforestation of the Amazon Jungle, a trend nearing a full year’s reversal of progress in the fight against the destruction of the world's largest rainforest.
Satellite images showed 465 square kilometers (180 square miles) of deforestation taking place in May, an almost five-fold increase in forest loss relative to May 2012, Brazil's National Space Research Institute, INPE, stated in a report on Friday.
Brazil accounted for most of the clearing, with 59 percent of the loss in the southern state of Mato Grosso known for its industrial-sized farms and cattle ranching.
The study also revealed a 14-percent increase in deforestation compared to last year.
Scientists and environmentalists said the trend marks a reversal in gains against deforestation in Brazil, though other Amazon countries also witnessed a rise in deforestation since 2011.
The reason is unknown, but experts attribute the deforestation to government infrastructure projects, environmental policy, and a rise in demand for soybeans and other Brazilian farm exports, which encourage ranchers to clear private land in the Amazon.
The Amazon rainforest covers territory belonging to nine nations, with more than 60 percent located in Brazil, followed by Peru with 13 percent, Columbia with 10 percent, and minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
GMA/SS
REF: PressTV
Amazon Wildlfires Lead Cause of Rainforest Destruction: A Study
By Tamarra Kemsley
Jun 08, 2013 03:21 PM EDT
NASA scientists have determined via an innovative satellite technique that a certain type of wildfire in the Amazon rainforest is responsible for destroying several times more forest than that lost through deforestation in regards to recent years. (Photo : Reuters)NASA scientists have determined via an innovative satellite technique that a certain type of wildfire in the Amazon rainforest is responsible for destroying several times more forest than that lost through deforestation in regards to recent years.
Called “understory fires,” they have long remained hidden because of their location far below the forest treetops; however, using a new method, researchers have developed the first regional estimate of understory fire damage across the southern Amazon.
X"Amazon forests are quite vulnerable to fire, given the frequency of ignitions for deforestation and land management at the forest frontier, but we've never known the regional extent or frequency of these understory fires," Doug Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the study's lead author said in a press release.
The study, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, demonstrates that, in years with the most understory fire activity, such as 2005, 2007 and 2010, the area of forest affected was several times greater than the area affected by deforestation for expansion of agriculture.
Moreover, the study goes further, pointing to climate conditions - not deforestation - as the most important factor in determining fire risk in the Amazon at a regional scale.
Fires in the Amazon's savanna areas can burn quickly, spreading up to 330 feet per minute, according to the researchers, with grasses and shrubs in these ecosystems typically surviving low-intensity surface fires.
In contrast, understory fires appear "unremarkable when you see them burning," given that the flames reach on average only a few feet high. Capable of lasting for several weeks, they spread only a few feet per minute.
Despite this seemingly low-key presence, however, understory fires can damage large areas because Amazon trees are not adapted to fire and the long, slow burn can claim anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of the burn area's trees. Furthermore, the recovery that follows is a long, slow process.
In all, the study shows that between 1999 and 2010, understory forest fires burned more than 33,000 square miles (85,500 square kilometers), or 2.8 percent of the entire forest.
Meanwhile, results showed no correlation between understory fires and deforestation; in fact, as the pressure for clearing led to the highest deforestation rates ever seen from 2003 to 2004, adjacent forests had some of the lowest rates of fires.
"You would think that deforestation activity would significantly increase the risk of fires in the adjacent forested area because deforestation fires are massive, towering infernos," Morton said. "You make a bonfire that is a square kilometer in size, throwing ash and live cinders and preheating the adjacent forest. Why didn't we have more understory fires in 2003 and 2004, when deforestation rates were so high?"
As an answer, the researchers point to climate as the reason that fire-driven deforestation didn;t burn more surrounding forests in these years as frequent understory fire activity coincided with low nighttime humidity, as measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite.
"You can look within an indigenous reserve where there is no deforestation and see enormous understory fires," Morton said. "The human presence at the deforestation frontier leads to a risk of forest fires when climate conditions are suitable for burning, with or without deforestation activity."
These human sources could include cooking, camping, cigarettes and cars, among other things.
Going forward, this new understanding regarding the scope of understory fires could have implications for estimates of carbon emissions from disturbed forests, according to the scientists.
"We don't yet have a robust estimate of what the net carbon emissions are from understory fires, but widespread damages suggest that they are important source of emissions that we need to consider," Morton said.
Currently, researchers are looking into the climate mechanisms that, given an ignition source from humans, predispose the southern Amazon to burn.
Among the leading suspects is soil moisture, report scientists at the University of California, Irvine, who are using new information derived from satellite-based measurements of the region that indicate that the amount of water in the ground may be a leading cause for flammability.
Heading the search is Yang Chen and his colleagues who, in a recent study, were able to show that water storage estimates from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites allow monitoring of the evolution of dry conditions during the fire season.
Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the study shows how low water storage in the soil leads to a drier near-ground atmosphere, resulting in drier, more flammable vegetation alongside increases in plant litter and fuel availability.
"A severe fire season in the Amazon is often preceded by low water storage in the soil, and this water deficit in the soil can be detected by the satellites several months before the fire season," Chen said.
REF: NatureWorldNews.com
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Speed of Amazon deforestation increased by 88% in 2012
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 By Emma Websdale
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has continued to increase, accelerating by 88% in 2012 according to satellite analysis.Brazilian NGO Mongabay’s deforestation tracking system, SAD, detected that 1,570 square kilometres (sq km) of forest was lost between August 2012 and April 2013.
However, SAD, which is operational in Google Earth, also detected a decline in forest degradation by almost a quarter.
Earlier this month, Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) released figures estimating forest loss within the same period. Results showed a much lower rate of deforestation, with 1,864 sq km lost in 2012 – 14% higher than the previous year.
If deforestation continues to rise, by the end of this year, Brazil will fail in limiting forest clearing to 8,000 sq km – a target set for 2013 to conserve the 5.4m sq km that was left of the Amazon in 2012.
A recent study by NASA suggested that rapid degradation of the Amazon rainforest in 2005 could be attributed to climate change.
Mongabay’s satellite analysis follows research by scientists that links rainforests to the productivity of hydroelectricity generation. The study warned that if deforestation continues, the amount of energy produced by Belo Monte – one of the world’s biggest dams – could be reduced by over a third.
Further reading:Brazil hydropower potential linked to Amazon conservation
NASA study links climate change with Amazon degradation
Healthy forests ‘crucial for economic development’
Buying sustainable Easter eggs can save the rainforest
Indonesian paper firm stops deforestation after decade-long protest
REF: Blueandgreentomorrow.com
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‘Lost’ report exposes Brazilian Indian genocide
25 April 2013
Umutima shaman in 1957. In 1969 most of the Umutima were wiped out by a flu epidemic.
© José Idoyaga/SurvivalA shocking report detailing horrific atrocities committed against Brazilian Indians in the 1940s, 50s and 60s has resurfaced – 45 years after it was mysteriously ‘destroyed’ in a fire.
The Figueiredo report was commissioned by the Minister of the Interior in 1967 and caused an international outcry after it revealed crimes against Brazil’s indigenous population at the hands of powerful landowners and the government’s own Indian Protection Service (SPI). The report led to the foundation of tribal rights organization Survival International two years later.
The 7,000-page document, compiled by public prosecutor Jader de Figueiredo Correia, detailed mass murder, torture, enslavement, bacteriological warfare, sexual abuse, land theft and neglect waged against Brazil’s indigenous population. Some tribes were completely wiped out as a result and many more were decimated.
The report was recently rediscovered in Brazil’s Museum of the Indian and will now be considered by Brazil’s National Truth Commission, which is investigating human rights violations which occurred between 1947 and 1988.
One of the many gruesome examples in the report describes the ‘massacre of the 11th parallel’, in which dynamite was thrown from a small plane onto the village of ‘Cinta Larga’ Indians below. Thirty Indians were killed – just two survived to tell the tale.
A Karajá couple with their baby, who has died of flu.
© Jesco von Puttkamer/ IGPA archiveOther examples include the poisoning of hundreds of Indians with sugar laced with arsenic, and severe methods of torture such as slowly crushing the victims’ ankles with an instrument known as the ‘trunk’.
Figueiredo’s findings led to an international outcry. In a 1969 article ‘Genocide’ in the British Sunday Timesbased on the report, writer Norman Lewis wrote, ‘From fire and sword to arsenic and bullets – civilisation has sent six million Indians to extinction.’ The article moved a small group of concerned citizens to set up Survival International the same year.
As a result of the report, Brazil launched a judicial enquiry, and 134 officials were charged with over 1,000 crimes. Thirty-eight officials were dismissed, but no-one was ever jailed for the atrocities.
The SPI was subsequently disbanded and replaced by FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation. But while large swathes of Indian land have since been demarcated and protected, Brazil’s tribes continue to battle the invasion and destruction of their lands by illegal loggers, ranchers and settlers and the loss of land from the government’s aggressive growth program which aims to construct dozens of large hydroelectric dams and open up large-scale mining in their territories.
Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘The Figueiredo report makes gruesome reading, but in one way, nothing has changed: when it comes to the murder of Indians, impunity reigns. Gunmen routinely kill tribespeople in the knowledge that there’s little risk of being brought to justice – none of the assassins responsible for shooting Guarani and Makuxi tribal leaders have been jailed for their crimes. It’s hard not to suspect that racism and greed are at the root of Brazil’s failure to defend its indigenous citizens’ lives.’
Note to editors:
- Extracts from the report are available on request.
Photos available for download:
Umutima shaman in 1957. In 1969 most of the Umutima were wiped out by a flu epidemic.
Download hi-res image
Credit: © José Idoyaga/Survival
Atrocities against the Cinta Larga tribe were exposed in the Figueiredo report.
After shooting the head off her baby, the killers cut the mother in half.
Download hi-res image
Credit: © Survival
A Karajá couple with their baby, who has died of flu.
Download hi-res image
Credit: © Jesco von Puttkamer/ IGPA archiveREF: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9191__________________
Ecuador to China Oil Barons: Amazon Rainforest for SaleINDIGENOUS GROUPS NOT HAPPY
By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff
Posted Mar 27, 2013 4:50 PM CDT
THIS UNDATED PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE YACHANA FOUNDATION SHOWS THE YACHANA LODGE IN ECUADOR. (AP PHOTO/YACHANA
FOUNDATION)(NEWSER) –
Tree-huggers will be really displeased to hear this: Ecuador is planning to auction off more than 7 million acres of the Amazon ... to Chinese oil companies. Politicians pitched bidding contracts to oil company reps in Beijing on Monday, theGuardian reports. Needless to say, indigenous groups living on the land are not happy. Seven of the groups say they haven't consented to the plan, which they say would destroy their way of life.
The groups have protested previous meetings between Ecuadorean politicians and oil companies, and are demanding oil companies not take part in the bidding process. But Ecuador's secretary of hydrocarbons says the groups just have a "political agenda" and "are not thinking about
development or about fighting against poverty." The deal may have more to do with national debt than anything else: Ecuador owes China more than $7 billion.
Protected areas prevent deforestation in Amazon rainforest
by Staff Writers
Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Mar 13, 2013
File image.Strictly protected areas such as national parks and biological reserves have been more effective at reducing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest than so-called sustainable-use areas that allow for controlled resource extraction, two University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues have found.
In addition, protected areas established primarily to safeguard the rights and livelihoods of indigenous people performed especially well in places where deforestation pressures are high.
The U-M-led study, which found that all forms of protection successfully limit deforestation, is scheduled for online publication March 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The lead author is Christoph Nolte, a doctoral candidate at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment. Co-authors include Arun Agrawal, a professor of natural resources at SNRE.
"Perhaps the biggest surprise is the finding that indigenous lands perform the best when it comes to lower deforestation in contexts of high deforestation pressure," Agrawal said.
"Many observers have suggested that granting substantial autonomy and land rights to indigenous people over vast tracts of land in the Amazon will lead to high levels of deforestation because indigenous groups would want to take advantage of the resources at their disposal.
"This study shows that - based on current evidence - such fears are misplaced," he said.
Preventing deforestation of rainforests is a goal for conserving biodiversity and, more recently, for reducing carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon, which covers an area of nearly 2 million square miles.
After making international headlines for historically high Amazon deforestation rates between 2000 and 2005, Brazil achieved radical reductions in deforestation rates in the second half of the past decade.
Although part of those reductions were attributed to price declines of agricultural commodities, recent analyses also show that regulatory government policies - including a drastic increase in enforcement activities and the expansion and strengthening of protected-area networks - all contributed significantly to the observed reductions.
In their study, the U-M researchers and their colleagues used new remote-sensing-based datasets from 292 protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, along with a sophisticated statistical analysis, to assess the effectiveness of different types of protected areas. They looked at three categories of protected areas: strictly protected areas, sustainable use areas and indigenous lands.
Strictly protected areas - state and national biological stations, biological reserves, and national and state parks - consistently avoided more deforestation than sustainable-use areas, regardless of the level of deforestation pressure. Sustainable-use areas allow for controlled resource extraction, land use change and, in many instances, human settlements.
"Earlier analyses suggested that strict protection, because it allows no resource use, is so controversial that it is less likely to be implemented where deforestation pressures are high - close to cities or areas of high agricultural value, for example," Nolte said.
"But we observed that recent designations of the Brazilian government placed new strictly protected areas in very high-pressure areas, attenuating this earlier argument," he said.
Hundreds of millions of people in the tropics depend on forests for their subsistence. Forest products that households rely on include firewood, fodder for livestock and timber for housing.
Co-authors of the PNAS paper are Kirsten M. Silvius of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Britaldo S. Soares-Filho of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil.
REF: TerraDaily.com
Rancher Mindset Key to Saving Amazon
"Finding a balance between environmental preservation, social justice, and economic development requires better understanding the perspectives of all groups living on the land in Amazonia, especially those with the most land, money, and power—the ranchers," says anthropologist Jeffrey Hoelle. "It also means asking why cattle raising now makes sense to a poor rubber tapper, instead of blaming the ranchers for deforestation. It is complicated, really, and this study is just the beginning." (Credit: A C Moraes/Flickr)
See Full Story at Futurity.org
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Amazon Rainforest Under PressureWritten by Latinamerica Press
December 17, 2012
X
The Amazon Network of Socio-Environmental Geo-Referenced Information, or RAISG, comprised of 11 environmental organizations from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela, presented on Dec. 4 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, the atlas “Amazon rainforest under pressure,” which warns of the dangers the South American Amazon region faces that in the near future could lead to the disappearance of half of the current Amazonian forests.
The RAISG has identified a set of six threats to the Amazon rainforest in the last decade: roads, oil and gas, hydroelectric dams, mining, forest fires, and deforestation.
“If all of the economic interests [projects] that are planned for the upcoming years occur, the Amazon rainforest will become a savanna with spots of forest,” warned the general coordinator of the RAISG, Beto Ricardo, from the Socio-Environmental Institute of Brazil.
The Amazon region covers 7.8 million square kilometers (3 million square miles) shared by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. About 33 million people live in this region, including 385 indigenous communities.
The atlas bases its analysis on 55 maps, 61 charts, 23 graphics, 16 tables, and 73 pictures, which show “the pressures and dangers the Amazon rainforest faces.”
“The forest sceneries, socio-environmental diversity and fresh water are being replaced by degraded sceneries turned into savannas, drier and more homogeneous zones,” says the atlas. “The largest and most complex rainforest on the planet — with at least 10,000 years of human activity — continues to be a place for extraction and/or production of agro-industrial supplies and nonrenewable raw materials (commodities of low aggregate value), for national and international markets, which compromises [the rainforest’s] future potential for sustainable development and affects the conservation of living spaces.”between 2000 and 2010 nearly 240,000 square kilometers (92,000 square miles) of Amazonian forest were deforested. This is equivalent to twice the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The document recommends “to deepen the prospective analysis of the Amazon rainforest, starting with the information generated by the RAISG, to identify the future situation in the topics of: the capture and storage of forest carbon emissions according to the use of the land (protected areas, indigenous territories, and others); new frontiers to extractive economies around water sources (hydroelectric dams or systems for irrigation and drinking water); promotion of regional integration and its implications on infrastructure, energy security, or the movement of populations; strategies for adapting to climate change to reduce socio-environmental vulnerability in the high forests and flood zones of the Amazon rainforest.”
Likewise, the document points out “the necessity to adopt other topics of a positive agenda, linked to governance (of environment, forest, water or energy), effective measures for the integrated management of water basins in the adaptation to extreme variability and climatic changes, and good practices and sustainable productive chains, among others.”
About Latinamerica Press
Comunicaciones Aliadas is a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Lima, Peru, specializing in the production of information and analysis about events across Latin America and the Caribbean with a focus on rights, while strengthening the communications skills of local social leaders.
View all posts by Latinamerica Press →
REF: http://www.albanytribune.com/17122012-amazon-rainforest-under-pressure/_______
How Genetically Engineered Soy Threatens Ecological Stability
11/01/2012 11:55:00
By Dr. MercolaSoybeans are touted by the food industry as the answer to world hunger. But very few pieces of propaganda could be more misleading. Not only does soy consumption lead to a number of health problems, but its production is leaving a trail of ecological devastation beyond belief.
While most people know the Amazon is under threat, few know that one of the principal perpetrators is soy.
One of the regions hardest hit by soy monoculture is Brazil, home of the largest expanse of precious Amazon rainforest. For several years, Greenpeace has been involved in an intense investigation of Amazon soy production using satellite images, aerial surveillance, previously unreleased government documents and on-the-ground monitoring, to expose the links in the soy chain.
Many of their findings are presented in the documentary "Soy: In the Name of Progress," which you can watch in its entirety in the link above. For more information, you can also read their final report, Eating up the Amazon1.
Agricultural multinational bullies are rushing into Brazil to flatten forests into massive soy farms, expelling native peoples from their land by any means possible, legal or otherwise.
Peaceful community protests are met with violent beatings from large soy producers and their hired thugs, and individuals speaking out the loudest have been assassinated. The Brazilian government is sadly absent, uninvolved, and ineffective on this issue.
Not only is the soy takeover harming the Brazilian people and their native culture, but it's having a devastating ecological impact that could potentially affect the rest of the world.
Soy Monoculture Could Alter Global Climate PatternsThe Amazon is the largest expanse of tropical rainforest on the planet, but deforestation is occurring at an alarming rate. An area the size of France has been destroyed thus far. Not only does the Amazon contain some of the richest biodiversity in the world, but it's being destroyed before it can even be studied — so we don't even know what treasures have been lost.
The rainforest is tied into climatic patterns worldwide and provides a major source of the water vapor that ends up falling on your garden as rain. Some estimate that, if trends continue, the entire Amazon rainforest could be gone in 30 to 40 years. Consequences would be far reaching to the world's climate, including the U.S. and Europe — a climate that is already undergoing significant stress.
Soy's Cycle of Destruction in the AmazonBetween 2007 and 2008, almost three million acres of Brazilian rainforest were lost to illegal logging, soy plantations, and cattle ranching2. Soy traders encourage farmers to cut down forest vegetation and plant massive soy monocultures. The traders then take the soy and ship it to Europe where it's fed to animals like chickens and pigs. The animals are then turned into fast food products.
Before soy can be planted, soy farmers have to remove the most valuable timber from areas they illegally occupy. According to Greenpeace2 :
"As one of the first steps in the cycle of destruction, land grabbers build logging roads into pristine rainforest. Once accessible, these roads open the door to further devastation of the forest ecosystem through clearing for agricultural operations, fuel wood gathering, and mining."
The illegal timber trade supports the cheap sale of once-valuable tree timber. Then deforested lands are set on fire to clear any remaining debris. So not only is the rainforest destroyed, but tons of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere by these burnings. Profits from this illegal logging are then used to seed soy plantations and line the pockets of a few select multinationals.
Three major companies account for 60 percent of the total financing of soy production in Brazil: ADM, Bunge and Cargill3. These enormous corporations build soy silos and terminals at the rainforest edge and buy soy from illegally cleared and operated farms, including those implementing slave labor.
As if this cycle of destruction is not bad enough, most of the soy crops are genetically engineered, which introduces an entire new set of dangers to you and the food chain. Genetically engineered crops come with serious risks, including resistant super weeds and super pests, uncontrollable cross contamination and serious health hazards, including allergies, infertility, birth defects, bizarre mutations and cancer, just to name a few.
Brazil Sees Fastest Climb in GE Soybean ShareThe United States is the world's top soybean producer (33 percent), with Brazil running a close second (27 percent), followed by Argentina (21 percent)4. As of 2007, more than half of the world's soybean crops (58.6 percent) were genetically engineered (GE).
GE soybeans contain a gene that confers herbicide resistance, engineered by Monsanto. "Roundup ready soy" is being cultivated on a massive scale across the globe, having devastating effects in many countries, such as Argentina, where people are being sickened daily by massive herbicide spraying. According to GMO Compass5, at one time, GE soybeans were not permitted in Brazil, but that isn't the case today. GE seed was smuggled in from neighboring countries and planted illegally.
Unfortunately, the GE soybean share has risen faster in Brazil over the past decade than in any other major soy-producing country, as you can see in the following graphic illustrating GE soybean share trends over time.
GE Soybean Share: From GMO-Compass
Strategies for Avoiding GE FoodsThere are some measures you can take to make sure the foods you select are not genetically engineered. Soy is one of only nine common GE food crops, but their derivatives are in over 70 percent of supermarket foods, particularly processed foods. So, the more fresh, organic and local foods you eat, the less likely you'll be consuming GE ingredients. Also, look for the USDA Certified 100% Organic seal: This green or black seal assures the product is certified organic by the USDA, which means it contains at least 95 percent organic ingredients that are free of genetically engineered ingredients.
URGENT ACTION NEEDED: Support California's Ballot Initiative to Label GMO's!One of the best strategies for reducing or eliminating GE foods is to force food manufacturers to list them on the label. You have a right to know if the foods you're eating contain GE ingredients. As it stands now, there is no labeling law.
For timely updates, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
REF: Foodconsumers.org
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Special report Revealed: how our shoes are linked to deforestation and slavery in the AmazonIda Dalgaard Steffensen, DanWatch
26th October, 2012
XEurope is the world's largest importer of leather shoes but much of the leather itself comes from cattle farms deep in the Brazilian Amazon, where farms use slave labourers and where slaughterhouses do not respect workers' safety. Ida Dalgaard Steffensen reportsThe air surrounding the 17 men at SENAI's school of construction in Cuiabá, capital of the state Mato Grosso in Western Brazil, is thick with dust. The work is done with a mixture of concentration and smiles as jokes are traded back and forth. Two months ago none of the men here had reason to smile. Why? Because they were working as slave labourers on Brazil’s cattle farms. As former slave, 27-year-old Daniel Moraes Ferreira, says: ’This is a new beginning.’
Daniel Moraes Ferreira came to Cuiabá a few weeks ago with his friend, Rodrigues Gomes Guimarães. They worked at the same farm in Mato Grosso, where they were kept in slave-like conditions. Mato Grosso is the biggest cattle producing state in Brazil, and as a result, the place where the most slaves are to be found. Daniel is nervous. His eyes flicker and he laughs nervously while telling his story. ‘This story needs to be told to the world,’ he says. ‘Many workers are afraid to talk about their experiences, [so] this is why I talk. I don’t wish for anyone to go through the same.’
The two men escaped from a cattle farm where they worked clearing the Amazon forest to prepare new grassland for the cattle. They were taken hundreds of miles from civilisation. They slept on the ground in self-made shacks. There was no toilet. They had to hunt for their own food, as their employer did not provide them with any, and soon they realised that they were drinking out of the same muddy puddles as the cows. They did not have any protective equipment. And they did not get paid.
Cattle ranching in Brazil has been linked to modern day slavery practices.
Read more: TheEcologist.com
AmazonRewards.org