Amazon Rainforest News

New rainforest and indigenous reserve established in Peru

2012-02-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

February 07, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Aerial photo of Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

On February 4th, the Peruvian government and a small indigenous group created a new Amazon reserve, dubbed the Maijuna Reserve. Located in northeastern Peru, the 390,000 hectare (970,000 acres) reserve is larger than California's Yosemite National Park and over three times the size of Hong Kong.

Connected to the watersheds of Napo and Putumayo rivers, Maijuna reserve will not only protect primary rainforest in the Loreto Region, but also the culture of the Maijuna people who live in the area with a population of less than 200 people. The reserve—officially created by the Regional Government Program for the Conservation, Management and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Loreto (PROCREL)—also connects to two other existing protected areas, creating a total area of over 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres).

According to Nature and Culture International which works with the Maijuna people and has played a role in the creation of the reserve, the forest is home to a wide variety of Amazon wildlife, including giant river otters (Pteronura brasiliensis) and jaguars (Panthera onca), and large populations of widely hunted animals such as Brazilian tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and Salvin's currasow (Mitu salvini).

"This new conservation area protects a true jewel: a complex of Amazonian high terraces—a habitat unknown until recent biological inventories—that shelters a flora and fauna with a number of new, rare, and specialized species. These terraces and the adjacent lowland forests are underlain by diverse soil types and give rise to seven local drainages, whose waters support the flora and fauna of the area, as well as its human residents," states the Nature and Culture International website.

Chevron Allegedly Using Secret Panel to Avoid Paying up $18 Billion to Ecuador in Damages

2012-02-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2012
Source: International Business Times

After a U.S. appeals court rejected an injunction that Chevron Corp had won to avoid paying up $18 billion penalty to Ecuador over pollution to the country's Amazon region, the multinational energy giant has been accused of bringing in a secret panel of private lawyers to thwart the court judgments.

(Photo: REUTERS / Guillermo Granja)
Maria Eugenia Briceno and her son sit in front of her house which is just in front of an oil well in Lago Agrio January 25, 2011. Briceno lives in the affected area in the $27 billion suit brought against Chevron Corp by local farmers who say the U.S. energy giant polluted the rain forest with faulty drilling practices in the 1970s and 1980s. It is the biggest environmental damages suit ever tried. Picture taken January 25, 2011.

Several Latin American advocacy groups have alleged that Chevron is trying to use a controversial private enforcement arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to interfere with the judiciary of both nations.

Chevron, which operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992, under the Texaco brand, had admitted to having dumped more than 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the streams and rivers used by local inhabitants for drinking, which resulted in dramatically increased rates of diseases including cancer.

After an extended trial conducted over a period of eight years, the Ecuador court ruled against Chevron last year, ordering $18 billion in penalty to clean-up the mess and to restore the Amazon jungle. Chevron turned to the U.S. judiciary to evade penalty, which was granted in the form of an injunction by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan in March 2011.

However, a U.S. appeals court overturned that judgment in January this year, which prompted Chevron to exploit the ambiguity of the bilateral investment treaty signed jointly by the U.S. and Ecuador.

The U.S.-Ecuador BIT allows the U.S. investors to seek monetary damages from the government of Ecuador if they can show unfair treatment. In this case, Chevron has turned the treaty into a tool to try to immunize itself from liability in a private litigation, environment, advocacy groups allege.

Chevron, ranked as one of America's 5 largest corporations by Fortune 500, essentially wants government and people of Ecuador - where the per capita income is $4000 per annum - to fund the cleaning expenses.

Jose Daniel Amado, a specialist in international arbitration, has written a letter to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressing "alarm" about the "egregious misuse" BIT arbitration proceedings to deny dozens of indigenous farmer communities of the Amazonian rainforest their basic human rights.

"Despite its (Chevron's) previous stipulations to U.S. federal courts that it would respect any judgment from Ecuador, Chevron continues to use questionable litigation tactics to deny those injured any forum to seek justice and compensation for their injuries," the letter said.

Amazon Defense Coalition, an Ecuadorian non-governmental organization, has alleged that a secret panel of private lawyers, nicknamed "The Club," has been employed to help Chevron avoid paying anything for its deliberate poisoning of the rainforest.

The environment watchdogs have also claimed that Chevron's arbitration panel has no authority to use a bilateral treaty to direct Ecuador to block the enforcement of $18 billion judgment.

Public Citizen, Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network have announced a protest rally against Chevron's discreet lawyer panel hearing scheduled to be held over this weekend.

Discover the Incas and the Amazon in Peru

2012-02-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

03 Feb 2012
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

I stood with mouth agape as Machu Picchu finally came into view. Vast tracts of verdant terracing embraced a plaza of ruins in the shadow of Huayna Picchu, the mighty sugarloaf mountain that seemed so familiar from the pictures I’d collected before my holiday.

Machu Picchu, one of the most famous archaeological sites in all of the Americas, is the reason most visitors come to Peru, but there was so much more that I wanted to learn about this country. So I consulted an expert.

After living in Peru for four years, Luca Newbold returned to the UK and set up Llama Travel with the aim of making high-quality holidays to Latin America more affordable.

Llama Travel offers more time at each destination than other operators and you can design your own trip depending on which areas you want to visit.

My first choice was Cusco, the majestic capital of the Inca Empire, which was laid out in the form of a puma.

Cusco is small enough to navigate on foot, with Inca stone-walled alleys, great cobblestoned plazas and elegant colonial mansions, plus the added bonus of a vibrant bar and restaurant scene. Some eateries are carved out of the Inca rock.

Also on my wish-list was Arequipa, gateway to the Colca Canyon. It’s known as the White City because its grand colonial buildings were built from sillar, a white volcanic rock. In my view, the Plaza da Armas is one of the most beautiful squares in South America, but the Santa Catalina convent was a revelation. Opened to the public in 1970 after 400 years as a cloister, it is a colonial walled town in miniature.

I was amazed to discover the Colca Canyon, with its steep-sided agricultural terraces and traditional villages, is deeper than the Grand Canyon. This is the best spot in Peru for seeing the giant condors that swoop and glide on the thermals. They came so close I could almost feel their wing feathers brush my cheeks.

For beauty, peace and tranquillity, it’s hard to beat Lake Titicaca. At 12,500ft, it is the world’s highest navigable lake, though at 3,000 square miles it seems more like an ocean.

I took a boat ride across deep blue waters to visit its islands. The people of Uros live on floating bundles of reeds while handicrafts are the mainstay of Taquile. Gorgeous light and superb views helped to create some memorable photographs.

I rounded off my Peruvian adventure by staying in an Amazonian rainforest lodge, a surprisingly comfortable base from which to explore the largest expanse of jungle in the world.

Machu Picchu and the Inca ruins are what drew me to Peru. And while they are truly spectacular and worth the trip alone, there is so much more to intrigue and fascinate in this magical, mysterious land.

Group releases close-up photos of 'uncontacted' tribe in Peru

2012-02-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

February 01, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Survival International claims these are most detailed photos ever taken of the isolate Mashco-Piro tribe in Manu National Park, Peru. Photo courtesy of Survival International.

New photos provide visual evidence of just how close the long-isolated tribe of Mashco-Piro people in the Amazon rainforest are to being contacted by the outside world—a perilous moment for tribes highly susceptible to disease and likely to defend their people and territory with weapons. According to indigenous rights NGO Survival International, the Maschco-Piro tribe has been seen more frequently outside of their forest home in Manu National Park in recent years. Some experts blame illegal logging in the park and helicopters used in oil and gas projects for the sightings.

The photos, which were released by Survival International, were reportedly taken by an anthropologist and a tourist. Their release has led the Peruvian government to warn people not to approach the uncontacted tribe.

"They were known to be a peaceful tribe up until 2001 but there has been an increasing level of violence when they started shooting at people with bows and arrows because they started coming under increasing threat as their land became encroached upon," Rebecca Spooner with Survival International, told Al Jazeera.

To date there have been two reported attacks by the Mashco-Piro people. One wounded a forest ranger, while the other led to the death of an indigenous man, Nicolás "Shaco" Flores, who had been leaving food and gifts for a group of Mashco-Piro people for twenty years. He was found with a Mashco-Piro arrow wound. However, authorities have not confirmed this incident.

"In this tragic incident, the Mashco-Piro have once again expressed their adamant desire to be left alone," Glenn Shepard, an anthropologist wrote in Anthropology News [LINK?]. Leaving gifts, such as clothing for the tribe, is discouraged as it could spread disease and speed-up contact.

Last year, Survival International released video of the tribe taken by tourists. The tourists allegedly attempted to get close to the tribe in their motorboat as the tribe walked along a beach. At one point one of the tribal members prepares to fire at the boat with an arrow.

"First contact is always dangerous and frequently fatal—both for the tribe and those attempting to contact them. The Indians’ wish to be left alone should be respected," director of Survival International Stephen Corry said.

This Mashco-Piro man is holding a wooden-handled knife tipped with a capybara tooth. Photo courtesy of Survival International.

Tribe on riverbank. Photo courtesy of Survival International.

Amazon fungus eats polyurethane

2012-02-03T04:59:00.000-08:00

3 February 2012
Source: Plastics & Rubber Weekly

Students on a Yale University rainforest expedition have discovered a fungus with an appetite for polyurethane, offering the potential to solve the intractable problem of PU waste.

The Pestalotiopsis microspora fungus is the first to be found which can survive on a steady diet of polyurethane alone. A bonus is that it does this in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment similar to ambient conditions at the bottom of landfills.

The students were in the Ecuadorian jungle on Yale’s annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory with molecular biochemistry professor Scott Strobel. The mission was to allow "students to experience the scientific inquiry process in a comprehensive and creative way."

The group cultured the microorganisms found within the tissue of jungle plants they had collected, and assayed the bioactivity of the organisms.

The microbe’s remarkable behaviour was recorded by student Pria Anand, and Jonathan Russell isolated the enzymes by which the fungus degrades plastic as its food source. The Yale team conclude that the microbe is "a promising source of biodiversity from which to screen for metabolic properties useful for bioremediation." They speculate that in the future, waste compactors might be replaced by giant fields of voracious fungi.

Leave isolated Amazon natives alone, Peru says

2012-02-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

31 January 2012
Source: AFP

Partial view of a handout picture released by Survival International organization (AFP/Survival International, Diego Cortijo)

LIMA — Peruvian officials on Tuesday urged outsiders to stay away from isolated Amazon basin rainforest natives after pictures of "uncontacted" tribe members were published online.

Mariela Huacchillo with the Peru's office for Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP) told AFP that even indirect contact with the indigenous people could spread deadly viruses that do not exist in the region. The natives could also be hostile, she warned.

Huacchillo urged outsiders "to never attempt to enter in contact with these (isolated) communities," whose people "are trying to remain apart from the outside world."

The pictures, published on the website of pro-native NGO Survival International, shows a family of "uncontacted" Mascho-Piro people in the Manu National Park, in remote southeastern Peru on the border with Brazil.

The pictures were taken in late 2011 by an archeologist and Survival International sympathizer, the group said.

Huacchillo also urged people to not leave food, clothing or other gifts like locals or tourists sometimes do "with the goal of starting a contact with the isolated natives."

In October a park ranger was lightly wounded by a blunt arrow fired by a Mascho-Piro native for getting too close to the natives. "It was a warning," Huacchillo said.

A similar incident was recorded in 2010, when a teenager was wounded by a spear.

On their website, Survival International mentioned death late last year of one Nicolas "Shaco" Flores, a local resident who had been leaving food and gifts for a small group of Mashco-Piro natives for 20 years.

Flores was "shot by an uncontacted tribe's arrow," the group said.

The incident was never confirmed by Peruvian officials, including from Huacchillo's office.

One year ago Survival International published pictures of an isolated native groups living on the Brazilian side of the border in the same Amazon rainforest region.

There are some 15 uncontacted native groups in Peru's Amazon rainforest, according to government officials.

Survival International says there are 100 uncontacted native groups around the world.

Sightings of the Mashco-Piro have increased in recent months, according to Survival International.

"Many blame illegal logging in and around the park and low flying helicopters from nearby oil and gas projects, for forcibly displacing the indigenous people from their forest homes," the activist group said.

Bolivia march revives Tipnis Amazon road dispute

2012-02-01T05:19:00.000-08:00

31 January 2012
Source: BBC News

Clashes broke out as protesters tried to approach the presidential palace

Hundreds of protesters have arrived in Bolivia's main city, La Paz, to demand the government resume the construction of a controversial road through an Amazon reserve.

President Evo Morales cancelled the project last year after a similar protest march by indigenous tribes.

They said the road would destroy their rainforest homeland.

But other communities say the highway would bring much-needed economic development to the Bolivian Amazon.

The protesters in favour of the road through the Isiboro-Secure reserve - known as Tipnis - marched for more than 40 days from their home communities to demand the government change its position.

Clashes broke out as they tried to force their way through riot police blocking the approaches to La Paz's main square, where the presidential palace is located.

"The road means development for San Ignacio de Moxos, where we live in isolation, and development for Bolivia," protester David Ibanez told the AFP news agency.
Political motive?

Opposition groups say the march in favour of the road was instigated by supporters of President Morales.

Some of those marching are coca-growers from the Chapare region around Villa Tunari, where Mr Morales began his political career as a union leader.

They have been accused of backing the road project in the hope of occupying new lands in the Tipnis reserve to grow coca - the raw material for cocaine.

President Morales cancelled the highway last October in the face of a march by indigenous communities from Tipnis that gained widespread support nationwide.

He had previously insisted that it was vital for national development, but backed down as the protest gathered strength.

The road project was being funded by Brazil to link the Brazilian Amazon to ports on the Pacific coast of Peru and Chile.

Deforestation, climate change threaten the ecological resilience of the Amazon rainforest

2012-02-01T05:17:00.000-08:00

January 19, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Climatic gradient across the Amazon basin. The hydrologic Amazon basin is demarcated by a thick blue line; the mean daily precipitation during the three driest months of the year are overlain onto four land-cover classes. The arrow emphasizes the trend from continuously wet conditions in the northwest to long and pronounced dry seasons in the southeast, which includes Cerrado (savannah/woodland) vegetation. Image courtesy of NATURE and caption text excerpted and modified from Davidson at al. (2011)

The combination of deforestation, forest degradation, and the effects of climate change are weakening the resilience of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem, potentially leading to loss of carbon storage and changes in rainfall patterns and river discharge, finds a comprehensive review published in the journal Nature.

An international team of researchers examined 100 studies looking at the effects of disturbance and climate change on the functioning of the Amazon Basin. The found that while the Amazon may be resilient to individual disturbances, multiple interacting disturbances — including fire, logging, deforestation, fragmentation, and global and regional climate change — undermines its resilience.

The researchers warn that events like the droughts that affected vast areas of Amazon rainforest in 2005 and 2010 could worsen if deforestation, forest degradation, and climate change worsen. Both deforestation and forest degradation from fire and logging reduce forest transpiration, which accounts for roughly a third of the moisture that forms precipitation over the Amazon basin. Meanwhile warmer temperatures in the Atlantic reduce the amount of moisture that reaches the basin. Drought exacerbates the risk of fire, which further degrades the forest and releases smoke which disrupts rainfall.

The authors note that current development plans will greatly increase the risk of deforestation and fragmentation across much of the Amazon. Meanwhile a spate of dams could affect the discharge of rivers already impacted by drought.

The Amazon basin today and future fire risks. Image courtesy of NATURE and caption text excerpted and modified from Davidson at al. (2011)

The researchers conclude will a call for further study to better understand "the trade-offs between land cover, carbon stocks, water resources, habitat conservation, human health and economic development in future scenarios of climate and land-use change."

"Brazil is poised to become one of the few countries to achieve the transition to a major economic power without destroying most of its forests," they write. "However, continued improvements in scientific and technological capacity and human resources will be required in the Amazon region to guide and manage both biophysical and socioeconomic transitions."

Amazon may become greenhouse gas emitter

2012-02-01T05:15:00.000-08:00

February 1, 2012
Source: Science News

In the struggle against global warming, the Amazon rain forest may be about to switch sides.

Its dense vegetation has long helped cool the planet by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But mass tree deaths brought about by recent droughts and deforestation may be pushing the region to a point at which it will give off more of the greenhouse gas than it absorbs.

“The Amazon might still be a sink for carbon, but if it is it’s definitely moving towards being a source,” says Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Mass. Reporting in the Jan. 19 Nature, Davidson and 14 other researchers from the United States and Brazil weigh evidence that the world’s largest rain forest has become increasingly vulnerable to change.

Thanks to regular measurements of 100,000 trees, scientists estimate that the Amazon was sucking up about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually at the turn of the century. Plants absorb the gas during photosynthesis, storing the carbon component as leaves, wood and roots and injecting it into the soil. The entire rain forest is thought to contain about 100 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to 10 years of global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

It’s clear that much of this carbon is now being released at the Amazon’s southern and eastern edges, says Davidson, in places where forests have been cleared by loggers or burned to make room for cattle and crops.

Not only do these bald patches store little carbon, they also threaten remaining trees by reducing the amount of moisture that is released into the air and by pulling rain away from the surrounding forest.

Dry seasons in the southern and eastern fringes of the Amazon have gotten longer. And when the rains do come, precipitation that would have been captured by forest runs off into rivers instead. A 2003 study in the Journal of Hydrology found that water flowing through Tocantins River in southeastern Amazonia increased by nearly 25 percent as croplands spread to encompass almost half of the land draining into the river.

For now, the impact of this deforestation will probably remain confined to parts of the Amazon. One computer simulation suggested that a surge in deforestation that cleared 40 percent of the Amazon basin could trigger a tipping point, a runaway conversion of forest to savanna. But Davidson’s team argues that the uncertainties are too great to make such a prediction.

Climate change, rather than direct deforestation, may ultimately be the factor that threatens the Amazon as a whole. Rising global temperatures are predicted to warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean and stimulate the El Niño weather patterns that influence how much rain falls on the Amazon, making droughts more frequent and more severe.

“Our work suggests that as the planet gets warmer, places like the Amazon are probably going to lose carbon,” says Kevin Gurney, an atmospheric scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Trees in the Amazon’s interior are naturally resilient against drought. Their roots reach far below the surface, tapping deep water sources that provide sustenance during lean times.

But even deep-drinking trees have their limits. In a study reported in 2010 in New Phytologist, scientists channeled away up to half of the rain falling on small plots of land in eastern Amazonia for seven years. By the third year, tree growth had slowed substantially and tree death had nearly doubled.

A severe dry spell in 2005 pushed many trees beyond what they could handle even faster. Rainfall decreased over a third of the Amazon, by as much as 75 percent in some places. At the time, scientists estimated that the forest released more than 1.5 billion tons of carbon as trees died off, and labeled the devastation a once-in-a-century event.

Then an even worse drought hit in 2010, when an even larger area lost even more carbon. An analysis of satellite images reported last April in Geophysical Research Letters showed the forest turning brown.

“We’ve seen two climatologically unusual droughts in the last few years,” says Oliver Phillips, a tropical ecologist at the University of Leeds in England. But while these droughts are consistent with the expected consequences of climate change, Phillips is quick to point out that they could be just a statistical fluke, a couple of bad years brought on by natural variability. “Distinguishing a trend from a natural cycle is difficult,” he says.

As scientists continue to grapple with understanding what’s happening to the Amazon’s carbon, progress has been made in curbing deforestation in Brazil. Though setting fires to clear land remains a common practice, logging has decreased to less than a fourth of what it was in 2004. Ultimately, the scientists studying the region hope that human beings and the rainforest can find a way to remain allies.

“Brazil has the potential to move from an emerging-market country to a developed country without having destroyed its forests,” says Davidson. “That’s not something that most countries, including the United States, can say.”

Amazon rainforest mapped in unprecedented detail

2012-01-28T03:20:00.000-08:00

Friday 27 January 2012Source: guardian.co.uk

An aerial image of the Amazon rainforest taken by tropical Greg Asner and his team. Photograph: Carnegie Department of Global Ecology/Stanford University

Five thousand metres above the most biodiverse corner of the Amazon, tropical ecologist Greg Asner and his team see a kaleidoscope of colours among a mass of green.

Huddled in a twin-engine Dornier 228 aeroplane called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, the scientists are capturing multicoloured images of the Peruvian rainforest canopy that verge on the psychedelic.

Inside the plane, a machine known as a Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) bounces a laser beam off the forest canopy 400,000 times per second – the result is a three-dimensional map of the forest showing unprecedented detail.

In addition, a spectrometre, kept at a temperature of -131C (-204F), measures the biodiversity of the jungle in vivid colours by registering the chemical and optical properties of the forest canopy. The team can scan 360 sq km each hour.

"The technology that we have here gives us a first-ever look at the Amazon in its full three-dimensional detail, over very large regions," said Asner, who is conducting the research for the department of Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science, based at Stanford University, California.

"[It's] the critical information that's missing for managing these systems, for conserving them and for developing policy to better utilise the Amazon basin as a resource, while still protecting what it has in terms of its biological diversity."

As well as measuring how the forest ecosystem is responding to the 2010 Amazon drought – the worst ever recorded – the technology accurately monitors deforestation and degradation, and has revealed unexpectedly high levels of biodiversity in high forest on the Andean rim of the Amazon basin.

The data could prove critical to the United Nation's Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative, which will be the biggest future source of funding to protect the planet's tropical forest.

The programme is designed to compensate tropical countries for reducing deforestation and forest degradation.

"Redd cannot exist without scientifically monitored data on carbon stock," said Asner, who may have invented the most efficient way of measuring it to date.

Daniel Nepstad, director and president of the international programme at the Brazil-based Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam), and a leading expert on Redd programmes, described Asner as in "a league of his own in resolving the technical challenges that must be overcome for Redd to realise its potential."

Having scanned some of the Peruvian Amazon's most inaccessible places, Asner says the region has one of the "most incredible portfolios of biodiversity". But Asner said his initial research showed a radical increase of illicit alluvial gold mining in Peru's Amazon region of Madre de Dios since it was last mapped in 2009, making it the region's primary cause of deforestation – an area estimated to exceed 100 sq km.

Pioneering six-mile walkway to attract 'eco tourists' to Amazon rainforest

2012-01-28T03:18:00.000-08:00

23rd January 2012
Source: Daily Mail

A project to build a pioneering science centre with more than six miles of walkways will give tourists spectacular views in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The £6.4m centre will be built by a British charity and will act as a research base for scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, provide jobs for Brazilian tribes and attract eco-tourists, according to The Sunday Times.

Tourist high-light: The walkway will give visitors a stunning view of the rainforest from high above the jungle floor

The ambitious walkway will be located in Roraima, a remote province of northeast Brazil, and will be designed by the same architects who created the London Eye and Kew Gardens’ treetop walkway.

Researchers will use the walkway to study the rainforest canopy while tourists will be able to enjoy stunning views from high above the jungle floor.

The project is being co-ordinated by the Amazon Charitable Trust and is expected to take two years to construct.

Robert Pasley-Tyler, a managing partner of the Amazon Charitable Trust, said of the project: ‘It will employ the local river tribe, giving them a way of making a living without destroying the forest, and also boost awareness around the world.

‘Visitors will also get to see the nearby pink dolphins and the giant otters before spending a relaxing day on a riverside beach.’

Roraima is the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil. It borders Venezuela and Guyana and renowned for its challenging hiking routes.

In Brazil, Fears of a Slide Back for Amazon Protection

2012-01-28T03:15:00.000-08:00

January 24, 2012
Source: New York Times

Deforestation in Brazil, driven largely by clearing land for cattle, as in Mato Grosso, above, has lessened. But there has been a shift under President Dilma Rousseff.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestation and showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest.

The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years, as the government carved out about 150 million acres for conservation — an area roughly the size of France — and used police raids and other tactics to crack down on illegal deforesters, according to both environmentalists and the government. Brazil’s former environment minister, Marina Silva, became an internationally respected defender of the Amazon. She ran for president in 2010 on the Green Party ticket and won 19.4 percent of the votes.

But since Dilma Rousseff was elected president in late 2010, there have been signs of a shift in the government’s attitude toward the Amazon. A provisional measure now allows the president to decrease the lands already created for conservation. The government is granting more flexibility for large infrastructure projects during the environmental licensing process. And a proposal would give Brazil’s Congress veto power over the recognition of indigenous territories.

“What is happening in Brazil is the biggest backsliding that we could ever imagine with regards to environmental policies,” said Ms. Silva, who now devotes her time to environmental advocacy.

Now, a bill seeking to overhaul the 47-year-old Forest Code, a central piece of environmental legislation, is the most serious test yet of Ms. Rousseff’s stance on the environment.

The debate over the law has revealed the stark disconnect between a population that is increasingly supportive of conserving the Amazon and a Congress in which agricultural interests in the country’s rural north and northeast still hold sway. The furor comes as Brazil is set to hold a United Nations conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in June.

Before taking office last January, Ms. Rousseff promised to veto any revision of the Forest Code that granted amnesty to landowners who had previously deforested illegally. Then her government negotiated a version of the code, approved by the Senate in December, that would give amnesty to farmers who broke the law before 2008 — provided they agreed to plant new trees. The House is expected to debate the legislation once again in March, with Ms. Rousseff holding final veto power.

The fight over the Forest Code has stoked the age-old struggle over development versus conservation in Brazil, a country that bears the weight of international pressure to protect the Amazon from deforestation because its sheer scale could affect global climatic conditions. Ms. Rousseff, a former energy minister, has so far flashed a more pro-development stance, environmentalists say, shifting the balance from the administration of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who appointed Ms. Silva.

Agriculture represents 22 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product. The so-called ruralists in Congress say that the old code is holding back Brazil’s agricultural potential and that it needs updating to allow more land to be opened up to production. Environmentalists counter that there is already enough land available to double production and that the proposed changes would open the door to a surge in deforestation.

Last May, the House approved a more sweeping amnesty for those who had illegally deforested, outraging environmentalists and scientists. It did not help that the deputies refused to receive a group of respected Brazilian scientists that issued a report condemning the changes.

“In the House, there was very little consultation with scientists,” said Carlos Nobre, a scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research who specializes in climate issues. Still, he said, scientists “waited too long to realize that the House wanted to radically change the Forest Code, creating a broad and unrestricted license to deforest.”

Ms. Silva, who was raised in the Amazon, resigned in 2008 after a backlash by rural governors to restrictions on illegal deforestation she had put in place. But she left what environmentalists consider an effective policy to control Amazon deforestation. Among other tactics, Mr. da Silva’s government used satellite images to home in on deforesters, organized police raids and blacklisted the worst offenders.

“The ruralists have pushed so much to change the Forest Code because the government actually started enforcing it under Marina Silva,” said Stephan Schwartzman, director for tropical forest policy at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington.

The vote in the House showed how heavily represented the less developed north and northeast are in Brazil’s Congress, a relic of the military dictatorship.

“The skewed proportional representation in Brazil has shown that the environmentalists have much less power in Congress than they have in public opinion,” said Gilberto Câmara, director of the National Institute for Space Research, which monitors Amazon deforestation.

Days after the House vote last May, a poll by Datafolha showed that 85 percent of Brazilians believed the reformed code should prioritize forests and rivers, even if it came at the expense of agricultural production.

After weeks of debate, the bill the Senate approved in December was somewhat more palatable to environmentalists. Rather than outright amnesty for past illegal deforestation, the Senate version lets farmers replant to avoid fines. The legislation now goes back to the House.

“We have to reconcile the generation of income with sustainability,” Izabella Teixeira, the current environment minister, said after the vote.

For Marcos Jank, president of the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, a major reason to change the code is to legalize countless Amazon properties lacking land titles that have complicated the tracking of illegal activity. “When you have a Forest Code that legalizes land titles, then that has the effect of reducing deforestation, not increasing it,” he said.

The government claims the code will reforest about 60 million acres, much of it in the Amazon, which the Environment Ministry calls “the largest reforestation program in the world.” But who will pay for all those new trees? And will the government enforce the replanting requirements?

“The small producers don’t have the money to replant,” Mr. Jank said. “You need to develop programs to help them.”

There are also questions about the size of lands being exempted from the legal requirement to preserve 80 percent of the trees in Amazon properties. The new law would exempt “small” properties of up to four “fiscal modules,” which in the Amazon are almost 1,000 acres combined.

“That is a large property in any part of the world,” Mr. Nobre said. “I see great risk here if this definition is maintained.”

Despite the concerns, there is no denying that deforestation in Brazil, driven largely by clearing land for inefficient cattle grazing, has been on a downward trend. Beyond that, a new generation of satellites over the next two years will give Brazil access to images from seven satellites, up from the current two.

If people abide by the law — a big if — Mr. Câmara and other scientists are predicting that the Brazilian Amazon has a chance by 2020 to become a “carbon sink,” in which the amount of forest being replanted is larger than the amount being deforested.

“President Rousseff is extremely aware of this,” Mr. Câmara said. “When I told her, she almost fell off her chair.”

But to make that happen, “there has to be very strong government financing and support for people to recover the forest,” he said.

Big trees, like the old-growth forests they inhabit, are declining globally

2012-01-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

January 26, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Already on the decline worldwide, big trees face a dire future due to habitat fragmentation, selective harvesting by loggers, exotic invaders, and the effects of climate change, warns an article published this week in New Scientist magazine.

Reviewing research from forests around the world, William F. Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, provides evidence of decline among the world's "biggest and most magnificent" trees and details the range of threats they face. He says their demise will have substantial impacts on biodiversity and forest ecology, while worsening climate change.

"To persist, big trees need a safe place to live and long periods of stability," he told mongabay.com via email. "But time and stability are becoming very rare commodities in our modern world."

Giant trees offer critical habitat and forage for wildlife, while transpiring massive amounts of water through their leaves, contributing to local rainfall. Old trees also lock up massive amounts of carbon — in some forests they can account for up to a quarter of living biomass.

But their ability to sequester carbon and render other ecosystem services is threatened by human activities. Some of the world's largest trees are particularly targeted by loggers. The oldest trees are among the most valuable and therefore the first to be cut in "virgin" forest areas.

Big trees are also sensitive to fragmentation, which exposes them to stronger winds and drier conditions. Laurance's own work in the Amazon has shown substantial die-off of canopy giants in small forest fragments. Their susceptibility seems counter-intuitive given big trees' life histories, which invariably include periods of drought and other stress.

"All around the tropics, big canopy and emergent trees are succumbing to strong droughts," Laurance said. "That's been a surprise to me and many other ecologists, because big, ancient trees would have had to survive many droughts in the past."

Forest giants may suffer disproportionately from climate change, writes Laurance in New Scientist, highlighting research in La Selva, Costa Rica by David and Deborah Clark.

"Trees are probably getting a double-whammy when the thermometer rises,' says David Clark. “During the day, their photosynthesis shuts down when it gets too warm, and at night they consume more energy because their metabolic rate increases, much as a reptile’s would do when it gets warmer.” With less energy being produced in warmer years and more being consumed just to survive, there is less energy available for growth.

The Clarks’ hypothesis, if correct, means tropical forests could shrink over time. The largest, oldest trees would progressively die off and tend not to be replaced. Alarmingly, this might trigger a positive feedback that could destabilize the climate: as older trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere, prompting a vicious circle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions.

Laurance notes climate change is having less direct impacts on forests, including creating conditions for exotic pathogens to thrive. For example, pathogens such as Dutch Elm Disease, introduced by trade or circumstance, can devastate native forests.

All told, the outlook for big trees is not good, according to Laurance.

"The decline of big trees foretells a different world where ancient behemoths are replaced by short-lived pioneers and generalists that can grow anywhere, where forests store less carbon and sustain fewer dependent animals, where giant cathedral-like crowns become a thing of the past."

Geology has split the Amazon into two distinct forests

2012-01-23T04:22:00.000-08:00

January 19, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Aerial photo of an Amazon rainforest tributary in Peru. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

The common view of the Amazon is that it is one massive, unbroken forest. This impression is given by maps which tend to mark the Amazon by a large glob of green or even by its single name which doesn't account for regional changes. Of course, scientists have long recognized different ecosystems in the Amazon, most especially related to climate. But a new study in the Journal of Biogeography has uncovered two distinct forest ecosystems, sharply divided, caused by million of years of geologic forces.

"We look at a boundary of over 300 kilometers between two geological formations, the Nauta Formation and the Pebas Formation," lead author Mark Higgins with Duke University told mongabay.com. "The forests of these two geological formations differ by almost 90 percent in their plant species and this turnover occurs in under two kilometers. So, we see an abrupt and almost complete change in plant species between the two formations."

The major difference in the two Amazonian forests, which split in northern Peru, is soil fertility: the Pebas Formation is 15 times more fertile than the Nauta. This means that the two forests support very different plant species.

"On the poor soils, the plants invest very heavily in roots and leaf defenses, to acquire and hold onto scarce nutrients; while on rich soils, the plants are free to invest heavily in height and competition for light," explains Higgins, who says the different ecosystems are easily identifiable.

"While the Pebas Formation forests look like your typical tall rainforest, the poor-soil Nauta Formation forests are a different matter completely. In these forests [...] the ground is often covered by a spongy mat of roots up to 10 centimeters in depth. Sprouting from this root mat you can find hundreds of tiny roots climbing up small palms and saplings, looking for nutrients in leaves caught above the ground. At times I felt that if I stood still long enough they'd start climbing me too. Due to their strong investment in roots and in leaf defenses, these trees invest much less in height and girth, and the forest is generally shorter with many small stems. Sometimes, the canopy in these forests opens up completely and the ground is dominated by massive ground-dwelling bromeliads. Really weird stuff."

The distinct nature of the forests is so strong that it can be viewed in satellite images. Higgins says their findings add a new layer to current understanding of Amazonian ecosystems.

"We propose that geology provides a framework over which variations due to climate are superimposed. In any case, the existence of large-area units in Amazonian forests strongly supports the ecoregion-based mapping and planning of the WWF, The Nature Conservancy, and others. However, our findings also suggest that these maps may need to be substantially redrawn to reflect these underlying divisions."

The identification of such broadly different ecosystems should also play a role in conservation efforts argues the paper. For example forests in the bizarre Nauta Formation have been largely ignored to date both by conservationists and researchers.

"These poor-soil forests are distributed across northern Peru, but are essentially unknown and severely underrepresented in existing protected areas," explains Higgins. "One of the most common plant species found on these poor soils was previously unreported in Peru prior to our work, and we have found populations of bird species that are otherwise unknown except for small patches in northern Peru. In short, we believe that many of these rare species will turn out to be widespread. The new Nanay River Protected Area in northern Peru is a good start, but our findings suggest there is much more to be done. Luckily, mapping and protecting these unique ecosystems could be achieved in months rather than decades given the tools we describe."

Higgins adds that conservation should be more focused on protecting the great variety of the world's ecosystems, instead of simply pursuing protection of charismatic habitats that draw considerably more attention and dollars.

"For me, the aim of conservation planning is to ensure that the full range of ecosystems are represented in protected area systems. Simply protecting the most species-rich, or the most tall and impressive forests will only protect one environment and one set of evolutionary strategies, and this is not the future I am aiming for," he says. "Instead, we should aim to include the full spectrum of ecosystems and evolutionary strategies in our protected areas. I think that this is also a much more compelling strategy than chasing hotspot after hotspot, or simply following political expediency."

Behind the curtain: the Andes

The research doesn't end there: Higgins and colleagues next sought determine how had this happened: how is it that the Amazon ecosystem could shift from one ecosystem to another in some cases within a few hundred meters?

"Based on our results, the geological and biological patterns we see in lowland Amazonia are the result of the uplift of the Andes mountain range, hundreds to thousands of kilometers away. The Andean uplift creates these patterns through its control of drainage patterns in the vast Amazon basin, alternately depositing and eroding massive geological formations. This has happened in three phases spanning 25 million years, all of which contribute to the patterns we see today," says Higgins.

The story begins around 25 million years ago when the Andes began to rise, the geologic uplift created a massive water body across parts of today's Amazon.

"Because these were very low-energy conditions, sediments were able to settle without too much leaching or removal, resulting in a very deep band of fertile sediments called the Pebas Formation," says Higgins. As the Andes continued to rise from 10-5 million years ago, swift-moving rivers appeared, including the Amazon River. But this was a high-energy environment and sediments lost their nutrients, causing "the Pebas Formation [to be] buried beneath a shallow band of low-fertility sediments called the Nauta Formation (in Peru) or the Ica Formation (in Brazil)."

Finally, erosion over the past five million years in western Amazonia has led to the exposure of the Pebas Formation in some regions.

"Put another way, we are looking at two geological formations: the older, underlying, and more fertile Pebas Formation; and the younger, overlying, and poor-soil Nauta Formation. The Nauta Formation sits on top of the Pebas Formation like layers in a cake. Cutting though the top layer (Nauta Formation) exposes the layer beneath (Pebas Formation). When this happens we get clear discontinuities between the two formations, and thus clear differences in soils and plants," explains Higgins.

Saving the Amazon Rainforest

2012-01-23T04:20:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2012
Source: The Scientist

Over $100 million in international donations means the Yasuní ITT Initiative, Ecuador’s plan to avoid drilling for oil beneath a pristine Amazonian rainforest, will go forward. The Yasuní project is designed to conserve one of Earth’s most biodiverse forests, above Yasuní National Park’s Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfields, while preventing 410 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, ScienceInsider reported.

Yasuní-funded projects are planned to head off global warming in several ways—by preventing the destruction of rainforest and through reforestation projects (because forests will absorb CO2 already in the atmosphere, and the burning of fossil fuels (which would reduce CO2 emissions). By conserving part of Ecuador’s rainforest, the initiative would also preserve the livelihoods and territory of two isolated indigenous tribes.

The Yasuní ITT Initiative relies on annual donations world-wide, and the recent $100 million means the project is on track for now. And the project now has a new goal of raising $219 billion in the next 2 years. Oil currently dominates Ecuador’s export revenue, and environmental observers hope that Yasuní could be one step toward helping wean Ecuador off its reliance on oil.

Amazon shifting to carbon emitter, says experts

2012-01-23T04:18:00.000-08:00

January 19 2012
Source: Independent Online

Paris - The Amazon Basin, traditionally considered a bulwark against global warming, may be becoming a net contributor of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of deforestation, researchers said on Wednesday.

In an overview published in the journal Nature, scientists led by Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts say the Amazon is “in transition” as a result of human activity.

Over 50 years, the population has risen from six million to 25 million, triggering massive land clearance for logging and agriculture, they said.

The Amazon's carbon budget - the amount of CO2 that it releases into the atmosphere or takes from it - is changing although it is hard to estimate accurately, they said.

“Deforestation has moved the net basin-wide budget away from a possible late 20th-century net carbon sink and towards a net source,” according to their paper.

Mature forests such as the Amazon are big factors in the global-warming equation.

Their trees suck up CO2 from the atmosphere through the natural process of photosynthesis.

But when they rot or are burned, or the forest land is ploughed up, the carbon is returned to the air, adding to the greenhouse effect.

The paper estimates that the biomass of the Amazon contains a whopping 100 billion tonnes of carbon - the equivalent of more than 10 years of global fossil-fuel emissions.

Global warming, unleashing weather shifts, could release some of this store, it warned.

“Much of the Amazon forest is resilient to seasonal and moderate drought, but this resilience can and has been exceeded with experimental and natural severe droughts, indicating a risk of carbon loss if drought increases with climate change.”

The paper also noted that there had been extreme droughts and floods on the Tocantins and Araguaia basins, whose rivers drain the heavily deforested Cerado region.

“Where deforestation is widespread at local and regional scales, the dry season duration is lengthening and wet season discharge is increasing,” it warned. - Sapa-AFP

Colonization program remains important driver of deforestation in Brazil

2012-01-16T05:13:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Government-subsidized colonization of the Amazon rainforest remains an important driver of forest loss in Brazil, but has mixed economic value, argues a paper published in Biological Conservation.

Carlos Peres and Maurício Schneider review the environmental and socioeconomic costs of Brazil's agrarian resettlement schemes, which have run from the 1970s as part an effort to to encourage migration from densely settled areas to low population regions. The largest, run by the Institute for Rural Settlement and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), has moved nearly a million families to settlements encompassing 85.8 million hectares of mostly forest land. The impact on forests has been substantial — by 2004 15 percent of all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had occurred in INCRA areas. The proportion has since climbed, with some INCRA settlements reaching 70 percent forest loss.

Settlers tend to clear forest because they "are typically unfamiliar with local farming practices and are often deprived of appropriate technical assistance, which contribute to the high rate of lot abandonment and turnover, and subsequent demand for new lots," according to Peres and Schneider. Furthermore the price of land typically increases after clearing, leading settlers "to to sell their land and move on, [which] helps perpetuate the uprooting cycle of ‘land disposal’ in which farmers fail to look after what will not be theirs for long."

But while the programs drive deforestation, the economic benefits for settlers are less than clear, according to the authors.

"The environmental and monetary costs associated with these resettlement schemes are rarely outweighed by the socioeconomic benefits accrued to translocated farmers," they write. "At an average start-up resettlement cost of at least US$12,000 per family, this is an expensive development program."

From a macroeconomic standpoint, this strategic investment policy is highly questionable. Brazil was the first tropical country to join the traditional 'big five' breadbaskets, but this 'agricultural revolution' was largely spearheaded by large rather than small properties. Only 8% of the country’s 5.2 million farms are relatively large landholdings (>100 ha) but they earn 52.5% of the overall farm income. This highlights the sociopolitical polarity between highly productive large corporate farms and myriads of relatively inefficient smallholdings.

In other words, the programs are failing to meet their policy goals, argue the authors, who say that instead of improving the lot of small farmers, they have "condemned thousands of smallholders to persistent rural poverty." Performance of the schemes is undermined by poor land-tenure governance and poor design and execution.

Thus Peres and Schneider conclude with a call to limit new agricultural settlements to previously deforested areas that are presently used for low-yield cattle pasture; improved law enforcement and forest monitoring programs; and a "truly integrated policy framework" that reconciles conflicting policy goals between different government sectors.

"Above all," write Peres and Schneider, "both a reorganization of land-tenure law enforcement in settler destination regions and curbing the outflow of migrants from source regions will be central to improving the dismal environmental record of land redistribution policy in Brazil."

Trees stolen from Brazilian Amazon

2012-01-16T05:12:00.001-08:00

03 Jan 2012
Source: Cool Earth

Huge rafts of cedar logs were captured by Brazilian authorities as they were being floated down the river Javari towards the main Amazon. According to Brazil's Federal Police, these logs had been cut illegally within Brazilian territory by Peruvian loggers.

The river Javari empties out into the Amazon itself (actually called the rio Solimões in this stretch) at a point known as the three-way frontier - where Brazil, Colombia and Peru meet. The police suggest that the lumber was destined for Islândia, a Peruvian frontier island outpost on the Solimões. Here, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the suggestion is that it would have been processed into timber for export. From here it would need to travel with the necessary paperwork.

The usual route for this illegal timber is reported by O Globo to be with Mexican boats into the northern hemisphere. Evidently, two such boats were discovered smuggling cocaine in recent months, so the police suspect that the illegal logging and the cocaine smuggling are a linked operation. If true, then the need for Peruvian gangs to find ways to smuggle cocaine is adding value to the trees and putting pressure on the forest.

Brazil's Amazon Fund bogs down, donors frustrated

2012-01-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

14 Jan 2012
Source: Reuters AlertNet

An aerial view of soy plantations flanking the Amazon forest in Mato Grosso September 8, 2011. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

BRASILIA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - An international fund to protect the Amazon forest launched by Brazil in 2008 has gotten bogged down in red tape and donors are frustrated their $466 million contributions are hardly put to use, a Norwegian official said.

The fund was designed to slow deforestation by stimulating sustainable economic alternatives to cattle ranching and farming, which have destroyed parts of the forests.

So far Brazil has only used $39 million on 23 sustainable growth projects, with another $53 million under contract. This poor performance has weakened Brazil's voice as a leading advocate for the protection of the developing world's forests with funding from rich nations.

A government official from Norway, the fund's largest donor, told Reuters in Brasilia that his country is unhappy with Brazil's slow pace in identifying new projects, which has raised questions about the use of the funds in Brazil, where they are managed by the state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).

The source, who asked not to be named, said the funds contracted by the BNDES dropped by half between 2010 and 2011. This has discouraged other potential donors from committing funds, the source said.

Rich from offshore oil, Norway has dominated projects to safeguard rainforests as part of a U.N.-led goal of slowing climate change. Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow and release them when they are burnt or rot.

Norway pledged $1 billion to the Amazon Fund and has donated $418 million to date. Unused funds are deposited in the Norwegian Central Bank.

Germany has donated $27.2 million and Brazil's state-owned oil giant Petrobras has given $4.2 million.

Conservationists say the BNDES has stymied projects with paperwork and endless meetings. Erika Nakazono, who runs a project for a social map of the communities living in the Amazon, said it took 19 months to get approval and some researchers quit because of the delay.

"The bureaucracy is very difficult. At one point I wondered whether all the effort was worth it," Nakazono said.

The BNDES official heading the bank's deforestation control department, Mauro Pires, admitted that the fund is not working as well as donors hoped.

"People wanted things done faster and to cover a wider range (of projects)," Pires told Reuters. He said the fund was a pioneering venture and procedures were still being worked out.

"We are working to create projects that go the heart of the deforestation problem," he said.

Destruction of the Brazilian portion of the world's largest rainforest fell to its lowest in 23 years in 2011, due to the adoption of a tougher stance against illegal logging, the Brazilian government said in December.

Deforestation dropped last year to less than a quarter of the forest area destroyed in 2004, when clear-cutting by farmers expanding their cattle and soy operations reached a recent peak.

Brazil's Senate passed a forestry law in December that environmentalists say would set back conservation efforts. (Editing by Anthony Boadle and Stacey Joyce)

As Amazon deforestation falls, food production rises

2012-01-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

January 9, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Soy and forest in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

A sharp drop in deforestation has been accompanied by an increase in food production in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, reports a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The research argues that policy interventions, combined with pressure from environmental groups, have encouraged agricultural expansion in already-deforested areas, rather than driving new forest clearing.

Marcia Macedo of Columbia University and colleagues analyzed trends in deforestation and soy production from 2001-2010 in Mato Grosso, a state on Brazil's agricultural frontier where more than a third of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon has occurred since the 1980s. They found that during the first half of the decade about 26 percent of increased soy production was the result of cropland expansion into forest areas, accounting for about 10 percent of total deforestation during the period. During the second half of the decade (2006-2010), soy expansion amounted to only 2 percent of deforestation. 91 percent of the production increase in the late 2000s occurred on previously cleared cattle pasture. Surprisingly, the researchers found little evidence of "leakage" whereby soy expansion was displaced from forest areas to the savanna-like cerrado.

The authors say the decline coincides with several trends and developments, including "fluctuations in commodity markets and the implementation of several high-profile policy initiatives aimed at restricting credit for deforesters, improving monitoring and enforcement, and excluding deforesters from the supply chains of major exporters." Notably, the 2005-2010 period included a prominent campaign by Greenpeace, an international environmental activist group, which pressured major soy crushers and traders to adopt a "moratorium" on new forest clearing for soybeans; the "blacklisting" of high deforestation municipalities, which restricted access to credit and subsidies; and the launch of a near-real-time satellite-based deforestation tracking system which facilitated a crackdown on corruption in the environmental enforcement agency IBAMA and other agencies.

The authors argue these factors helped mitigate forest clearing for soya once commodity prices recovered in the aftermath of the worst of the global financial crisis.

"The land-use transitions observed during the postboom period—and the case of 2009 in particular—suggest that when market conditions favored expansion, producers expanded into areas previously cleared for pasture rather than forest areas. These patterns are consistent with the outcomes expected by many of the recent policy interventions, providing some support for the hypothesis that they have helped to suppress deforestation."

The results seem to offer hope that the combination of private and public sector initiatives have the potential to disaggregate agricultural production from deforestation. But the authors nonetheless warn against complacency. They note that increased investment in infrastructure projects and new technologies will make larger areas of Amazon forests accessible for intensive agricultural production, while proposed reform of the Forest Code which limits how much land a property-holder is allowed to clear, could undermine some of the policy gains for forest conservation.

Macedo and colleagues suggest that policies which encourage more efficient use of degraded, non-forest land could help meet future demand for food, without destroying forests.

"Our results suggest that preventing deforestation over the long term will require parallel efforts to modernize the cattle sector and create strong new policy incentives that promote efficient use of degraded lands," they write. "Recent efforts to model Brazil’s low-carbon development alternatives indicate that the implementation of existing technologies to restore degraded lands and increase pasture productivity could free enough additional land to accommodate projected growth through 2030, although achieving this would be challenging and require substantial private and public investments."

Reversal of Fortune

2012-01-12T04:08:00.000-08:00

January 9, 2012
Source: New Yorker

Texaco managed oil extraction in the Oriente region of Ecuador for twenty-three years. When Chevron acquired the company, in 2001, it inherited a lawsuit over environmental damage. Photograph by Remi Benali.

The jungle outpost of Lago Agrio is in northeastern Ecuador, where the elevation plummets from the serrated ridge of the Andes to the swampy lowlands of the Amazon Basin. Ecuadorans call the region the Oriente. For centuries, the rain forest was inhabited only by indigenous tribes. But, in 1967, American drillers working for Texaco discovered that two miles beneath the jungle floor lay abundant reserves of crude oil. For twenty-three years, a consortium of companies, led by Texaco, drilled wells throughout the Ecuadoran Amazon. Initially, the jungle was so impenetrable that the consortium had to fly in equipment by helicopter. But laborers hacked paths with machetes, and, eventually, Texaco paved roads and built an airport.

Today, Lago Agrio feels squalid. The buildings look thrown together, as if no one had believed that the boom might last. Stray dogs prowl the dusty streets, and a slender oil pipeline snakes alongside each major road, elevated on stilts, waist high, like an endless bannister. The Colombian border is ten miles to the north, and drug traffickers and paramilitaries have infested the Oriente, as have sicarios—paid assassins—who post ads online and charge as little as twenty dollars. In 2010, in a single month, the bodies of thirty murder victims were found along a stretch of road near the border.

One day last February, a judge in Lago Agrio, presiding over a spare, concrete courtroom in a shopping mall on the edge of town, issued an opinion that reverberated far beyond the Amazon. Since 1993, a group of Ecuadorans had been pursuing an apparently fruitless legal struggle to hold Texaco responsible for environmental destruction in the Oriente. During the decades when Texaco operated there, the lawsuit maintained, it dumped eighteen billion gallons of toxic waste. When the company ceased operations in Ecuador, in 1992, it allegedly left behind hundreds of open pits full of malignant black sludge. The harm done by Texaco, the plaintiffs contended, could be measured in cancer deaths, miscarriages, birth defects, dead livestock, sick fish, and the near-extinction of several tribes; Texaco’s legacy in the region amounted to a “rain-forest Chernobyl.”

By the time the judge, Nicolás Zambrano, issued his decision, the case had been going on for eighteen years. It had outlasted jurists on two continents. Zambrano was the sixth judge to preside in Ecuador; one federal judge in New York had died before he could rule on the case. The litigation even outlasted Texaco: in 2001, the company was subsumed by Chevron, which inherited the lawsuit. The dispute is now considered one of the nastiest legal contests in memory, a spectacle almost as ugly as the pollution that prompted it.

Chevron, which operates in more than a hundred countries, is America’s third-largest corporation. Its annual revenue, which often tops two hundred billion dollars, is nearly four times as much as Ecuador’s economic output. The plaintiffs, who named themselves the afectados—the affected ones—included indigenous people and uneducated settlers in the Oriente; some of them initially signed documents in the case with a fingerprint. They were represented by a fractious coalition of American and Ecuadoran lawyers, most of whom were working for contingency fees. An environmental lawsuit against a major corporation can resemble a war of attrition, and in 1993 few observers would have predicted that the plaintiffs could endure as long as they did. But, on February 14, 2011, their persistence was rewarded. Judge Zambrano ruled that Chevron was responsible for vast contamination, and ordered it to pay eighteen billion dollars in damages—the largest judgment ever awarded in an environmental lawsuit.

It was an extraordinary triumph, particularly for one of the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers, a tenacious American named Steven Donziger, who had been a key figure in the case since its inception. Donziger speaks Spanish, and for years has shuttled between Ecuador and New York. “This trial is historic,” he has said. “This is the first time that a small developing country has had power over a multinational American company.”

Chevron categorically denies the charges made in the lawsuit, insisting that it bears no responsibility for pollution in the Amazon and that Texaco’s operations were “completely in line with the standards of the day.” A Chevron spokesman told me that “there is no corroborating evidence” of adverse health effects related to oil development in the Oriente, and blamed “trial lawyers” for “perpetuating false information.”

In recent years, Chevron has invested millions of dollars in remolding its public image. Elegant television commercials, narrated by the actor Campbell Scott, emphasize that the company aims to “practice and espouse conservation.” A print advertisement features a photograph of two smiling African women, and the caption “Oil Companies Should Support the Communities They’re a Part Of.” This fall, at a breakfast discussion on “Business and Human Rights,” in New York, Chevron’s manager for global issues, Silvia Garrigo, said that the company makes “social investments” wherever it operates, noting, “We’re in countries for the long haul.”

In the courtroom, however, Chevron has been far less conciliatory. Not long ago, after the company successfully defeated a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for the shooting deaths of protesters on an offshore oil platform in Nigeria, it tried to compel the impoverished Nigerian plaintiffs, some of whom were widows or children, to reimburse its attorneys’ fees. (No fees were awarded, and a judge admonished Chevron for trying.) “That’s how they litigate,” Bert Voorhees, one of the Nigerians’ lawyers, told me. “The point is to scare off the next community that might try to assert its human rights.”

Chevron has been especially defiant in the face of the Lago Agrio accusations, which its lawyers have labelled “a shakedown.” In addition to defending itself in Ecuador, it has fought the case in more than a dozen U.S. federal courts, hiring hundreds of lawyers and producing what its own attorneys have called “an avalanche of paper.” Donziger has maintained that Chevron is motivated not merely by fear of an adverse judgment but by a desire “to destroy the very idea that indigenous people can bring an environmental lawsuit against an oil company.” In 2008, a Chevron lobbyist in Washington told Newsweek, “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this.” One Chevron spokesman has said, “We’re going to fight this until Hell freezes over—and then we’ll fight it out on the ice.”

The fight to stop deforestation in the Amazon

2012-01-05T03:56:00.000-08:00

04 January 2012
Source: Radio Times

I met up with the special ops team in a sultry town on the southern edge of the Amazon. A group of officers, men and women, in black fatigues were relaxing in the shade of a majestic mango tree outside their offices.

They were smoking, chatting and, I noticed with a shiver of apprehension, carrying heavy black pistols slung casually on their thighs. Not what you’d imagine environment agents to carry, but these weren’t bureaucrats carrying clipboards – they were soldiers on the front line in what Brazil regards as a war, a war to protect the Amazon rainforest.

On a map pinned to the wall three commanders were working out strategies and logistics, just like a military operation. I was starting to feel anxious. “Are the loggers likely to be armed?” I asked, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

“Don’t worry about guns,” Evandro Selva, the lead officer, told me dismissively. “They’re only likely to have hunting rifles. Nothing serious.”

Nothing serious?

Tide of destruction

For decades pretty much the only story we’ve heard from the Amazon is about the remorseless tide of destruction sweeping through the forest. The received wisdom has always been that it is unstoppable. It is certainly true that the economic logic of deforestation is powerful – land in the Amazon is worth far more if the trees are cut down. But I was here to discover the remarkable progress Brazil has made in silencing the chain saws.

My journey was to take me across the southern Amazon, the area the Brazilians call “the arc of destruction”. It is one of the last frontiers left on the planet: a grey area between civilisation and one of the world’s last true wildernesses.

For years it was a vision of hell. Vast fires swept through the forest while the chain saws whined, and the armoured tractors that loggers use to clear land roared as they grubbed up the roots of the great Amazonian trees.

As I set off with Evandro and his team, we could see the fruits of all this labour from our helicopter. We flew over vast open fields – some of them many kilometres square – that have been carved out of the virgin forest in the last decade or so.

Loggers flee the scene

An hour into our flight and Evandro signalled that we were nearing the target. Even I could tell the trees had been freshly cut. There were some still standing – tall, fragile-looking Brazil nut trees – but on the ground were great rough mounds of branches and brush. I could see open scars in the red earth where the machines had gouged their passage.

One of the officers pointed down. I saw a truck piled high with tree trunks and a tractor in front of it. Beside it were two, possibly three men.

The helicopter kicked up a storm of dust and dry leaves. The rotors seemed perilously close to the trees. I hung on tight. Then we were on the ground and running. The truck and tractor were still there but, of course, the culprits had fled. “They’ll be back,” said Evandro confidently. “We’ll just hide here and wait for them.”

The three officers hid among the logs and branches. I did the same. Meanwhile the helicopter flew off in another flurry of leaves and red earth.

Making progress

How can this possibly stop the onslaught, I thought to myself. In the decade between 1996 and 2005 19,500km2 of jungle was lost every single year. I know the comparison is overused but that really is an area the size of Wales. It reached a peak in 2003 when more than 27,000km2 was lost. Then, in 2004, Brazil declared war: it said it would cut deforestation by 80 per cent by 2020.

Seven years later and it has almost reached its goal. The latest figures, released just weeks ago, show the year ending July 2011 had the lowest rates of deforestation since records began three decades ago – just over 6,200km2 was cut. That’s 78 per cent down on 2004: still an area about the size of Devon, but a huge improvement.

Of course the Brazilian government cannot claim all the credit. On my journey across the arc of destruction I met a bizarre cast of characters, all of whom are playing a role.

Allies

I went on patrol with the indigenous Amazonian Indians who have been recruited as “smoke jumpers”: forest fire-fighters. I was taken on a tour of one of the most efficient agricultural enterprises on the planet – an Amazonian soya farm – by the multibillionaire they call the “King of Soya” who now claims to be an environmentalist.

I even visited a condom factory in the jungle. It makes the world’s first rainforest-friendly rubbers – tens of millions of them – and is helping to create a sustainable industry from the forest by using latex harvested from wild rubber trees.

And I met John Carter, the Texan crocodile-wrestling ex-US Special Forces soldier turned Amazonian rancher, whose alliance of farmers is using the politics of persuasion to improve land management. John is very persuasive. I’m still amazed he managed to get me to swim with the crocodile in the river beside his ranch.

The crocodile in question was at least 6ft long, a black cayman, the largest predator in the Amazon. It was floating very still a dozen feet away but he assured me it would not attack. It was only once we were in the water that I thought to ask what we should do if the beast dived. “Get out quick,” he said.

Arrests

Back at the logging site I was still hunched in the bushes. We’d been waiting half an hour when I heard a branch snap and suddenly the officers were up and running. “Para ai, para ai,” they shouted [stop right there].

In all, the officers arrested five men and impounded three trucks and two tractors. I’d been so nervous about confronting these guys but they seemed rather pathetic smoking roll-ups in their scruffy clothes. The agents, however, seemed very content with their haul.

The fact that there is still an illegal logging operation just an hour’s helicopter ride from a major Brazilian city shows that the huge pressure on the forest continues. But, extraordinary as it sounds, it really does seem as if the war to stop the destruction of Amazon rainforest – the greatest ecosystem on the planet – is being won.

What’s more, this is happening before it is too late, because what most people don’t realise is just how much of the forest is still standing. Satellite images confirm that almost 80 per cent of the Amazon remains intact. What an inspiring thought to begin the new year.

Chevron ordered to pay for Amazon damage

2012-01-05T03:54:00.000-08:00

January 04, 2012
Source: ABC Online

A court in Ecuador has upheld a 2011 ruling requiring US oil giant Chevron to pay $US9.5 billion for environmental damage in the Amazon rainforest.

The landmark ruling for environment management costs dates back to a 1993 suit against Texaco, a firm later acquired by Chevron.

Ecuador alleges that Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest.

The top regional court in Sucumbios province, in north-eastern Ecuador, fully upheld the February 2011 ruling against Chevron of $US8.6 billion ($8.3 billion) with an additional 10 per cent for environment management costs, a judicial source said.

The original ruling also ordered Chevron "to publicly apologise to the victims" or pay twice the stated amount.

Chevron, the second-largest energy company in the United States, has not apologised.

In the south-western city of Guayaquil, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa said he was satisfied by the ruling.

"I believe justice has been done - the damage that Chevron did in the Amazon basin region is undeniable," Mr Correa said.

'Corrupt and fraudulent'

In a statement, Chevron lashed out at the ruling.

The decision was "another glaring example of the politicisation and corruption of Ecuador's judiciary that has plagued this fraudulent case from the start," Chevron said.

The company attacked the judgment as "illegitimate" and "procured through a corrupt and fraudulent scheme".

Chevron "does not believe that the Ecuador ruling is enforceable in any court that observes the rule of law. The company will continue to seek to hold accountable the perpetrators of this fraud."

The firm said it was also attempting to prevent enforcement of the ruling at an international tribunal and in US courts.

The lawsuit on behalf of Ecuadoran Amazon communities was originally filed in New York in 1993.

Separately, some of the original plaintiffs also are appealing, claiming that the amount Chevron was ordered to pay was insufficient.

Chevron has long claimed the Ecuadoran legal process was tainted.

Is the Russian Forest Code a warning for Brazil?

2011-12-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

December 19, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Recent deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

Brazil, which last week moved to reform its Forest Code, may find lessons in Russia's revision of its forest law in 2007, say a pair of Russian scientists.

The Brazilian Senate last week passed a bill that would relax some of forest provisions imposed on landowners. Environmentalists blasted the move, arguing that the new Forest Code — provided it is not vetoed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff next year — could undermine the country's progress in reducing deforestation.

Based on Russia's recent experience, scientists Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva say there may be justification for the concern.

Although one deals with tropical rainforests and the other boreal forests, both nations manage some of the largest forest areas in the world, and one has implemented large-scale changes— Russia— while the other— Brazil— is on the verge of doing so.

At the start of 2007, Russia's new Forest Code went into effect. The new code was meant to move control over forests from federal government to regional governments. Development could now occur without any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) with forests viewed largely as commodities rather than ecosystems.

"[The] forest code was meant to take power over forest from the old 'owners' (those officials who inherited forest control from the Soviet Union) and give it to the new Russian businessmen who arranged themselves into a force in the end of the 1990s. Members of our present political elite are said to have had shares in some of the largest forest companies in early 90s. Neither the old or the new managers actually cared much about forest conservation, but in comparative terms the old ones were better," Russian scientists Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva, who openly opposed the changes, told mongabay.com.

The transition between the old Forest Code and the new one has proven rocky in Russia as many issues were left vague in the new law, allowing what Gorshkov and Makarieva describe as a free-for-all forest policy.

"In practice [the Russian Forest Code] came to mean that everyone could locally log anything without bearing any responsibility about the consequences or sustainability. [...] The chaos that followed when this raw law was adopted caused illegal logging to spike. [...] The North-European Russia was affected most severely, because it has a richer system of roads than say Siberia," Gorshkov and Makarieva say.

During plans to enact new Forest Code legislation Gorshkov and Makarieva, both with the B.P. Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, wrote two open letters to their government "warning against the new forest code." Gorshkov and Makarieva are known as the authors of a revolutionary, and contentious, theory that forests act as a pump for precipitation, bringing rainfall from coastlines to continental interiors. According to them, forests, and not temperatures, drive wind due to condensation. While the theory has received much push-back from some meteorologists, it has also piqued interest among conservationists and other scientists.

In their letters to the government the researchers warned that "enhanced forest exploitation will disrupt the hydrological cycle in the continental Russia and predicted drastic droughts among other climatic extremes."

Three years after the implementation of Russia's New Forest Code, record-breaking heatwave, droughts, and fires struck Russia, leaving Moscow under a shroud of smoke, consuming a fifth of Russia's globally-important wheat harvest, and likely killing thousands.

To some it seemed that Gorshkov and Makarieva's warnings had come true, making the two physicists appear like modern-day Cassandras, the always-right Trojan prophetess doomed to be ignore.

"When in 2010 the disastrous heat wave struck the European part of the country, our letters were widely cited in the Russian Internet. We are convinced that the climate anomalies in Europe are due to massive Russian deforestation, which disrupts the normal west-to-east moisture flow from the Atlantic over Eurasia," Gorshkov and Makarieva say.

Still, the causes behind the record heatwave are under debate: two recent studies conflicted over the role climate change may have played in the heatwave and drought.

But one issue that is not contentious is how Russia's new Forest Code undercut fire management during the 2010 disasters. Responsibility for managing forest fires had passed from the federal government to regional governments, yet few had picked up the slack.

"There were no organized bodies to prevent [the fires'] spread. In the result, we lost lives, property and a great forest area was damaged," Gorshkov and Makarieva say.

In Russia's case, loosening regulations on forests led to large-scale destruction, a situation that was made worse by a vague law, which made little reference to public and community rights over forests. In addition, people took advantage of the uncertainty to cut down forests for short-term profit. While there specific regulations are different, Brazil this March saw a sudden spike in Amazon deforestation, which many observers have linked to the mere possibility of the new Forest Code becoming law, though deforestation was down in total for the year.

Given Russia's experience, one has to ask, if the new Forest Code should become law, how will Brazil rein-in those who would take advantage over temporary government uncertainty?

A more fundamental question may be: is this the time to loosen regulations in the Amazon or strengthen them? Gorshkov and Makarieva argue through their theory that the on-going loss of the Amazon rainforest will lead to widespread drought, a problem that has already plagued the Amazon in recent years.

"Regarding the consequences of enhanced deforestation for Brazil, the biotic pump concept predicts drastic fluctuations and a growing instability of the hydrological cycle with a trend towards desertification. Recent studies (e.g. Espinoza et al. 2009) confirm the decline of precipitation in the Amazon basin which is particularly well manifested since early 1980. In line with this trend, the Amazon basin saw several outstanding droughts in a short term from 1998 to 2010," they say.

Many environmentalists warn that it could become worse, warning that Brazil's proposed code strips longstanding (even if widely flouted) regulations: WWF estimates that the revised Forest Code will reduce forest cover in Brazil by 76.5 million hectares (295,000 square miles), an area larger than Texas. Such a loss could be devastating for freshwater sources, biodiversity, and indigenous people. But according to Gorshkov and Makarieva it will also exacerbate drought conditions, perhaps undermining the entire Amazon ecosystem and leaving Brazil agriculture high and dry.

Image of Russia and nearby areas from August 4th, 2010 by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer during the Russian heatwave in 2010, which sparked drought and fires. Especially intense fires are outlined in red. Smoke from peat and forest fires lead to dangerous levels of pollution throughout Moscow and surrounding areas. Photo by: NASA. Click to enlarge.

Mystery Of Amazonian Tribe's Head Shapes Solved

2011-12-22T04:34:00.000-08:00

19 December 2011
Source: LiveScience.com

Culture may trigger rapid evolution of various human features, suggests new research into the marital practices of a tribe from the Brazilian rainforest.

Evolution is often thought to be driven by environmental factors, including climate, or geographical obstacles such as rivers and mountains. Still, cultural factors — that is, groups of traditions and behaviors passed down from one generation to another — can have profound effects on behavior and also possibly lead to evolutionary changes.

To learn more, scientists analyzed genetic, climatic, geographic and physical traits of 1,203 members of six South American tribes living in the regions of the Brazilian Amazon and highlands. Their research found that one group, the Xavánte, had significantly diverged from the others in terms of their morphology or shape, possessing larger heads, taller and narrower faces and broader noses. These characteristics evolved in the approximately 1,500 years after they split from a sister group called the Kayapó, a rate that was about 3.8-times faster than comparable rates of change seen in the other tribes.

The major changes the investigators saw apparently occurred independently of the effects of climate or geography on the Xavánte. Instead, cultural factors appear responsible. For instance, in the Xavánte village of São Domingo, a quarter of the population was made up of sons of a single chief, Apoena, who had five wives. The tribe's sexual practices allow successful men in that group to father many offspring, which in turn means that any traits of theirs can quickly dominate their population.

"We have been working with the Xavante for about half a century, and from the beginning their morphology showed differences from the classical Amerindian pattern," researcher Francisco Salzano, a geneticist at Brazil's Federal University of the Rio Grande do Sul, told LiveScience. "We verified that the Xavante experienced a remarkable pace of morphological evolution."

The researchers suggest that assembling databases of cultural and biological data could help uncover other examples of how culture might influence human evolution.

"This specific piece of research is related to a long-term project of investigation involving not only the group responsible for this paper, but many others internationally," Salzano said.

Salzano and his colleagues detailed their findings online Dec. 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Over A Million People Sign Petition Against Brazil's 'Pandora Dam'

2011-12-22T04:32:00.000-08:00

12/20/2011
Source: Forbes

Some 1.3 million people signed a petition calling for an end to the construction of Brazil’s massive Belo Monte dam in the Amazon. A delegation of Brazilian celebrities and activists delivered the petition Tuesday to the country’s President Dilma Rousseff and called — yet again — for the immediate suspension of the controversial hydroelectric dam in Para state, located in Brazil’s north.

The dam will be the third largest in the world one built, second to China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Three Gorges has installed capacity to power 22,000 megawatts of electricity, while Belo Monte has the installed capacity to produce around 11,200 megawatts. Brazil’s Itaipu dam, the world’s second largest, has the installed capacity to generate around 14,000 megawatts.

The Belo Monte dam pits environmental activists, native tribes and clean energy wonks against Brazil’s government and large mining interests like Vale (VALE), which acquired a 9% stake in Norte Energia, the consortium of mostly Brazilian electric power companies that won a bid to own and operate the dam for around 30 years.

Activists say that the dam will destroy a large swath of land in the pristine Amazon rainforest and disrupt the livelihood of at least 20,000 people who will be forced to move because of the flooding that will take place to build the dam’s reservoir. Branches of the Xingu River will be diverted, and this could cause low water levels during the dry season, killing off certain species of fish and making the Bacajá River, a Xingu tributary, unnavigable.

The petition comes after the highly popular “Drop of Water Movement”, a web-based viral video campaign led by actor Sergio Marone with a host of well-known Brazilian celebrities inspired by the “Don’t Vote” video spearheaded by actor Leonardo DiCaprio in 2008. The campaign has prompted significant debate in Brazil about the Belo Monte dam, though it has not been the first attempt to derail the power plant.

James Cameron brought Belo Monte to the attention of global Amazon activists in August 2010 with his short anti-Belo video called “Message to Pandora”. In the video, Cameron compares the construction of the dam to the fight portrayed in his hit movie “Avatar” — only instead of the alien natives being attacked by a massive Earthling mining corporation, the indigenous natives are being ousted off their land by the Brazilian government and a Brazilian mining corporation.

The petition was delivered by Marone and Antonia Melo, coordinator of the grassroots alliance Xingu Alive Forever Movement that has opposed construction of Belo Monte and other dams on the Xingu River for over 20 years. The group met with Gilberto Carvalho, a high-level presidential advisor, Edson Lobão, the Minister of Energy, and Isabella Teixeira, the Minister of the Environment and delivered a letter to President Rousseff calling for a moratorium on the construction and licensing of new dams in the Amazon, activist group Amazon Watch said in a press release on Tuesday.

“We were very satisfied to have opened dialogue,” said Marone after the meeting. “We took one more important step. While the government has proven unyielding, we will continue our campaign demanding the immediate paralyzation of the dam’s construction and push for a debate on energy policy that involves true dialogue where the concerns of the population are heard and taken into consideration,” Marone said in the statement.

Saving the rest of the rainforests

2011-12-19T04:48:00.000-08:00

17 December 2011
Source: New Straits Times

Schoolchildren taking part in an outdoor class that teaches them about native Amazon trees in a park in Paragominas, Brazil. AP pic

SINCE the 13th round of climate change talks in Bali in 2007, the issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries has moved from laggard to leader in the international climate change negotiations.

Major efforts have been carried out by the international community, donor countries and rainforest countries. This is an area where we truly have a reason to be both proud and optimistic.

Nonetheless, significant challenges remain. The economic drivers of deforestation are strong. Global demand for timber, palm oil, sugar, soya and beef, increasing in light of population growth and higher standards of living, will continue to yield pressure on the forests.

Successfully reducing global deforestation rates will rest on our ability to offer significant incentives to actors making land-use decisions. Business-as-usual is no option -- the consequences would simply be too devastating.

Firstly, the destruction of tropical forests could cause as much as one sixth of all global greenhouse gas emissions. The two-degree target will be impossible to reach without significant reductions in tropical deforestation.

Secondly, forests are the home of indigenous peoples, and constitute a safety net for some of the world's poorest people. One billion people depend directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihoods.

Thirdly, tropical forests contain half of the world's terrestrial species on only seven per cent of the world surface area. Biodiversity is the natural capital for sustainable development.

The value of the earth's natural capital losses has been estimated to be US$2 trillion to US$4.5 trillion (RM6.3 trillion to RM14.3 trillion); in other words, greater than the losses from the financial crisis. Today, 17,000 plant and animal species are endangered globally.

You may say that life's library is in flames. And make no mistake -- extinction is forever.

The loss of biodiversity in our age can be compared to previous mass extinctions, but this time, human beings are the ones responsible. Degradation of ecosystems combined with climate change may lead to so called "tipping points" -- self-reinforcing mechanisms, for example, the release of massive amounts of methane as a result of the melting of the Siberian tundra -- that could make negative developments spin out of human control altogether.

A loss of 20 to 30 per cent in the Amazon combined with an average two-degree rise in the temperature may lead to collapse of the Amazon rainforest. In short: it is time the world's tropical forests get bailed out.

The good news: although challenging, the prospects of saving the world's remaining rainforests have never looked better. Significant progress has been made under the climate change negotiations.

At the recent UN climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, the international community further detailed a framework to work collectively to slow, halt and reverse emissions from forests in developing countries. Although several details remain, we are moving forward.

There are important risks involved with Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, internationally known as REDD+. However, business-as-usual spells certain disaster. Therefore, we must address the risks of REDD+ head on: developing countries will have to improve forest governance to deliver lasting results in deforestation; groundbreaking levels of transparency will be required to verify the results qualifying for REDD+ finance; and financial mechanisms must be established that balance sovereignty over development spending priorities with the demonstrated application of high international safeguards standards.

A broad constituency of forest countries has emerged, eager to get REDD+ started on the ground. The multilateral and bilateral initiatives, as well as a plethora of academic institutions and civil society organisations, are creating a global community to support REDD+ action. We are learning and sharing valuable lessons every day.

All in all, developments are truly remarkable. Some developing countries -- Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana and the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular -- are leading the way.

For instance, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was 64 per cent lower last year than between 1996 and 2005. This equals 850 tonnes of reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Indonesia, the world's third largest emitter after the United States and China, has committed to reduce emissions by 26 per cent out of their own funds and 41 per cent with international assistance. Almost 80 per cent of the emissions in Indonesia come from deforestation and conversion of peat lands.

If Indonesia succeeds by 2020, one billion tonnes of carbon emissions will be saved, equalling as much as seven per cent of what is needed on a global basis to reach the two-degree target. To support these remarkable efforts, Norway has pledged US$1 billion to each country, to be paid based on verified results in reaching their goals.

Tremendous progress has been made since Bali to prepare the world for a global mechanism to reduce tropical deforestation. An integrated multilateral architecture is being created that supports all committed forest countries in their "readiness" efforts.

National strategies are being prepared and monitoring systems and institutional capacities built. Key countries are pushing rapidly ahead.

Now, adequate, predictable and sustainable medium and long term funding is needed to deliver and reward large scale verified results in reducing tropical deforestation. In Bali, the Government of Norway made the pledge to spend up to US$500 million annually for REDD+.

Since then, more commitments for action and financing have been put on the table. Around US$4 billion has been pledged for REDD+ next year and a multitude of developing countries are willing to step up their efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. There is every reason to be optimistic. This is an area where we can, and where we already are, achieving significant results -- even before a final international climate agreement is settled.

Little headway on deforestation - experts

2011-12-16T03:42:00.000-08:00

December 15 2011
Source: Independent Online

Brasilia - The UN's Durban conference on climate change failed to make enough headway in efforts to curb deforestation, experts warned, saying forest preservation plays a central role in the global warming debate.

After 14 days of marathon talks in the South African city, the conference on Sunday approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time will bring all major greenhouse-gas emitters under a single legal roof.

If approved as scheduled in 2015, the pact will be operational from 2020 and become the prime weapon in the fight against climate change.

“Durban has failed to deliver progress on fundamental issues like social and environmental safeguards, and on strict rules to ensure that global deforestation is reduced,” said Lars Lovold, head of Norway's Rainforest foundation.

One of the main decisions taken at the 2010 Cancun climate conference in Mexico was to include forests in the fight against climate change through a UN mechanism called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

Known as REDD+, it aims to secure financial and technical support to help curb deforestation in the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Brazil and Guatemala.

It also includes a role for conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Deforestation, which releases large quantities of CO2 when forests are destroyed, represents around 17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that causes global warming, more than the total global emissions from transport.

The issue is particularly acute in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, dubbed the lungs of the Earth.

Protected areas of the Amazon in Brazil cover more than 2.1

million square kilometres and the government's environmental protection agency IBAMA is playing a key role in deterring deforestation.

An environmental crimes law passed in 1998 gave IBAMA new enforcement powers, which it has used, albeit selectively according to environmentalists, in raids aimed at arresting and fining the most blatant violators of the law.

And experts believe that 40 to 60 percent of the timber extracted from the Amazon is illegal, compared with more than 80 percent 10 years ago.

In 2009, Amazon lumber represented a $2.5 billion market, according to a study by the Imazon institute and the Brazilian forestry agency.

But Durban made only modest headway on REDD+, opening the way to a future carbon market and stressing the need for rules to guarantee emission curbs and protect indigenous communuties and biodiversity.

“We do not have progress on the 'politics behind the money' and without this we cannot talk about sustainability of REDD,” said Louis Verchot, a scientist at the Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“REDD was overshadowed in Durban by larger issues,” said Bruce Cabarle, head of WWF's Climate and Forests initiative.

“All of the global analyses show that we have to have reductions in emissions from the forests fairly soon or else we cannot meet the 2050 goal of keeping (climate-temperatures) increasing more than 2 degrees Celsius.”

“For our countries with wide forest coverage, REDD is critical. This requires technical support and resources which is a global responsibility which we have not seen,” Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador's Cultural Patrimony Minister, told AFP.

Deforestation destroys more than seven million hectares every year in the world's main forests where more than one billion people live.

As scientists slammed increasing deforestation rates in Africa, Rachel Kyte, vice president of the Sustainable Development Network at the World Bank, said: “Forests cannot be sustained if people are hungry.”

“By far the countries where action on deforestation is required are Brazil and Indonesia,” Verchot told AFP. “Together these countries account for more than 70 percent of the deforestation emissions.”

But he also stressed the need for progress in the Congo Basin as well as in Malaysia and Myanmar.

In Latin America, Verchot cited some progress in Central America, but said more was needed there as well as in Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia.

Peru's Cocha Cashu biological station changes management

2011-12-15T04:50:00.000-08:00

December 08, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Cocha Cashu lab as viewed from lake. Photo by: Ken Bohn of San Diego Zoo Global.

The San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy is taking over management of the productive Cocha Cashu field station in Manu National Park, Peru. To date, nearly 600 scientific papers have come out of research conducted at the station, making it among the five most productive research stations in the Amazon and Andes. Located in a part of the Amazon rainforest that has seen little human impact, the station was founded in 1969, four years before Manu National Park was gazetted.

"I remember my first visit to Cocha Cashu clearly. And I knew of the Stationís reputation long before that. So when I finally walked the half kilometer from the Manu River to the field site I did so with mixed feelings of awe and curiosity," Jessica Groenendijk, Cocha Cashu's Education and Outreach Coordinator for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, told mongabay.com. "I was about to meet a bunch of top tropical ecology researchers in a location which is renowned for its ground-breaking science; would I feel out of place? I need not have worried. As I neared the end of the winding, root-strewn trail, I was greeted by someone washing her clothes in a sun-lit clearing. In front of me were two small buildings with thatched roofs. One was filled with laughing people (I had arrived at lunch time), the other I later learned was known as the bath house. I was invited for a cup of coffee, and found myself face to face with John Terborgh, director of the Center of Tropical Conservation and a professor at Duke University."

Groenendijk says John Terborgh has been instrumental to Cocha Cashu's success as a field station, including supporting Peruvian students, 21 of whom conducted PhD research at the station.

"Over four decades, John turned a small station, built jointly by the La Molina National Agrarian University and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, into a giant: 'giant' not in terms of size, but in terms of its contribution to knowledge and conservation of tropical ecology," she says.

At the beginning of the year, the San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy signed an agreement with SERNANP, Peru's Protected Areas Service, to manage the facility.

"Together with SERNANP, we intend to build on the reputation of Cocha Cashu as a premier field research site and training facility for conservation scientists, while maintaining its uniquely simple flavor," says Groenendijk. "Immediate priorities for the station are to establish a reliable power supply, and a more efficient internet, radio, and phone communication with the outside world. We will upgrade infrastructure, including new toilets and showers. Logistics and transportation to and from the site will also be improved with the purchase of another boat and two 4-stroke engines. We are actively recruiting students and scientists to come to the station, in the hope of maximizing its potential. And, in the longer term, we will initiate a capacity-building training course for Park guards and administrators, involve local school children and communities in conservation education initiatives, and develop our own research program."

The San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy currently runs a number of additional field stations, including ones in Cameroon, Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada, and San Clemente Island.

Of all the reasons to do research at Cocha Cashu, the stand-out is the rich wildlife of what is often debated as the most biodiverse place in the world.

"It is a place of superlatives: the world record for the number of bird species seen in a single day (14 hours to be exact), without the help of motorized vehicles, was established here by Ted Parker and Scott Robinson in 1982 and is yet to be surpassed ñ they recorded a mind boggling 331 different bird species. Others have discovered a similar diversity amongst the fish, amphibians, mammals, and plants of the area."

Groenendijk says that despite having such a presence in tropical forest research, the Cocha Cashu field station has not lost sight of its roots.

"When I visited Cocha Cashu again recently, I found it had not changed one iota since that first visit of mine in 1999. It has retained its rustic, informal charm, the low thatched buildings, the friendly atmosphere, the pizza night tradition. The giant otters are still on the lake and pass by the lab every day. Researchers still sleep in tents in the forest and are woken by the epic roars of howler monkeys early in the morning. Here, you not only study nature, you are surrounded by it at all times, you live and breathe nature. Very few people who stay at Cashu leave without feelings of regret. Many, even decades later, long to return. Cocha Cashu is a very special place and we intend to keep it that way."

Cocha Cashu bath house. Photo by: Ken Bohn of San Diego Zoo Global.

Urge Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to save the Amazon rainforest

2011-12-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

14th December 2011Source: The Ecologist

The new Brazilian Forest Code proposes to relax land regulation in the Amazon rainforest which will increase logging, cattle ranching and other destructive activities. Tell President Dilma to veto the decision before it is too late

The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest covering half of Brazil. It has been described as the lungs of our planet producing about 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen and may house half of all plant and animal species.

More than 20 per cent of the Amazon has been destroyed or deforested for cattle ranches, mining operations, logging or agriculture. Dating back to 1965, the Brazilian Forest Code restricts the amount of forest that can be cleared, establishes general regulations of land use, and determines valid areas for farming and timber exploitation. A New Forest Code agreed by the Brazilian Senate last week (6th December) could see regulation relaxed, opening up an additional 55 million hectares, the size of France, for logging, cattle ranching and other destructive activities. Additionally, it creates an amnesty for illegal deforestation that occurred prior to 2008.

The mandate came about amidst the United Nations climate talks in Durban where Brazilian delegates agreed to a 2020 target to cut its green house gas emissions by 40 per cent and reduce deforestation levels in the Amazon by 80 per cent (from a 1996-2005 baseline). Many environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and the WWF see the New Forest Code as undermining global efforts to combat climate change and regressive to Brazil’s environmental achievements.

There is still hope. The mandate must be passed to and accepted by President Dilma Rousseff. Greenpeace have set up a campaign to urge president Dilma to veto the New Forest Code and to 'protect this irreplaceable resource.’

Western Amazon becomes Ground Zero for Logging

2011-12-15T04:44:00.000-08:00

13 Dec 2011
Source: Cool Earth

The rainforest charity Cool Earth is aiming to triple the amount of rainforest they are protecting in Peru to tackle increasing deforestation levels.

The Western AmazLogging in Peru on is fast becoming ground zero for deforestation as logging shifts from Asia to the Amazon to satisfy the increasing timber demands of Korea and China.

Recent announcements by the Brazilian government have highlighted the success of Brazil in curbing their deforestation levels. Deforestation rates dropped 10.9 per cent on the previous year to 6,238 square kilometres between August 2010 and July 2011.

However, Brazil's success in curbing their deforestation levels has added increasing pressue to other rainforest countries to the North and South of Brazil. Guyana has seen deforestation rates triple in the last year whilst Peru has seen a sharp increase in deforestation levels since 2005.

Working on the arc of deforestation in the Western Amazon, Cool Earth is forming a protective shield to halt the advancement of logging into the pristine rainforest behind. In the next eighteen months Cool Earth is working to triple its projects in Peru to bring the escalating deforestation rates under control.

Brazil cracks down on illegal logging in Amazon

2011-12-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

9 Dec 2011
Source: AFP

A municipal brigade member watches logs at an illegal sawmill in Valdinei Ferreira Jango (AFP/File, Lunae Parracho)

Brazilian authorities on Thursday wrapped up a major operation against illegal logging in the Amazon, seizing thousands of tons of precious timber amid growing frictions over land conflicts in the region.

Operation "Captain of Forest 2" involving federal police, the military as well as experts from several forest protection agencies began on November 18 in this municipality of the northern state of Para.

Authorities said they seized 3,000 cubic meters (105,944 cubic feet) of timber logs worth $2.5 million and six tractors. An illegal lumber yard was also shut down.

More than 90 percent of the logs seized were of ipe wood, a large tropical hardwood tree prized for its durability, strength and natural resistance to decay and insect infestation, they added.

Ipe, an endangered species with the alluring nickname "Amazon gold," is worth more than $1,300 per cubic meter.

The Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest, and its protected areas in Brazil cover more than 2.1 million square kilometers (814,000 square miles).

Valdinei Ferreira, the man suspected of large-scale illegal logging in the area, is still at large and was fined only $1 million.

"A large part of the timber illegally logged is for export and leaves from the port of Belem," the capital of Para state, said Davi Rocha, head of IBAMA, the Brazilian government's environmental protection agency, in Itaituba in the southwest of Para.

IBAMA, established in 1989, has played a key role in deterring deforestation.

An environmental crimes law passed in 1998 gave the agency new enforcement powers, which it has used, albeit selectively according to environmentalists, in raids aimed at arresting and fining the most blatant violators of the law.

Experts believe that 40 to 60 percent of the timber extracted from the Amazon is illegal, compared with more than 80 percent 10 years ago.

Ghilherme Betiollo, an expert at public forest protection agency ICM Bio who coordinates the anti-logging operation, explained that protected areas are now swarming with illegal loggers who are blocking access to prevent control operations by authorities.

In 2009, Amazon lumber represented a $2.5 billion market, according to a study by the Imazon institute and the Brazilian forestry agency.

But the government presence in the area is largely insufficient. In Trairao national park, just two officials of ICM Bio must monitor 257,000 hectares (635,000 acres), and in the Riozinho do Anfrisio park two other must keep an eye on 736,000 hectares.

Last October a community leader protesting illegal deforestation was shot to death, the eighth environmentalist farmer to be killed since May in Para state.

Joao Chupel Primo, 55, was killed "because he condemned illegal deforestation in Itaituba," according to pastoral Land Commission spokesman Gilson Rego.

The alleged killer, identified as Carlos Augusto, was arrested.

Yet the local population appears divided over the issue. Some back the official campaign against deforestation.

But others fear reprisals from the illegal loggers, who are armed with guns and global positioning satellite locators, and others see the activity as their only source of income.

"We get involved in logging because the enemy is stronger than us. Here we don't even have a police station," said 41-year-old Moises Rodrigues, who lives in Areia, near Trairao.

But Maria Silva, 60, says logging means work for many local residents.

"Without the loggers, we don't know what we would do," she added.

Why deforesters could soon have freer rein in the Amazon

2011-12-12T03:31:00.000-08:00

December 9, 2011
Source: Christian Science Monitor

The Código Forestal or Forest Code now being debated in Congress will determine the future of Brazil’s forests, including the world’s last great rainforest, the Amazon. In order to make good on a 1965 forest code that was rarely if ever enforced, President Dilma Rousseff introduced strong legislation in 2010. Legislators in the Lower House then weakened the bill substantially, and after being approved with minor alterations in the Senate, it is now heading back to the Lower House for congressional sanction.

The bill “constitutes one of the worst regressions for environmental legislation in Brazil,” according to Marina Silva, the rebellious Minister of the Environment under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the third place candidate in the last presidential election. The Forest Code’s policy example illustrates how representational democracy is not translating citizen interests into law, a universal problem that travels far beyond Brazil.

What Brazilians Want Done

One the country’s leading pollsters surveyed 1,268 citizens across Brazil about the Forest Code in early 2010. They found high public approval for harsh measures against illegal forestry, as reflected by the bill President Rousseff sent to Congress in early 2010. An overwhelming 98 percent of respondents supported the President’s measures and rejected a proposed amendment in the Lower House to grant amnesty for offending deforesters. It is estimated that amnesty for those who deforested between 1998 and 2009 will disclaim 8 billion reais, according to Greenpeace – a huge loss for tax payers.

Yet despite overwhelming public opinion in favor of stricter environmental measures, a huge loss in tax revenue, and the principle of accountability – making lawbreakers pay for their actions – legislators chose to favor the interests of big agro-business. No wonder – the Folha de São Paulo recently reported that agro-interests spent over 15 million reais (nearly $9 million) to stuff the party coffers of 50 representatives deliberating on the bill. Donating companies spent 42 percent more on lobbying in the past two years than they contributed to candidates during the entire 2006 presidential election. The largest donor was the cellulose industry (paper), which donated 4.7 million reais. Influential governors, such as Bahia’s Jacques Wagner (PT), received 4 million reais.

A Weaker Forest Code

In addition to the blanket amnesty for deforesters, the bill as it now stands has substantially weakened the original presidential proposal. Whereas deforested river banks had to be re-planted 30 meters back from the edge of ‘peak’ water levels, the new bill stipulates 15 meters from ‘average’ river heights. To comply with the legal forest reserve quotas – 80 percent forested in Amazon, 35 percent in the Amazon highlands, and 20 percent in the rest of the country – land owners may now use 50 percent ‘exotic’ trees for re-plantation, which opens up the possibility of mono-culture fruit orchards.

Given the way that representatives take action contrary to the expressed public interest, i.e. that business interests trump public interests, news that deforestation in the Amazon has ‘slowed’ this year by more than 10 percent gives us little reason to be hopeful for the future of Brazil’s forests. Brazil needs to adopt and enforce mechanisms to ensure greater accountability – such as lobbying regulation – if true representational democracy is to take hold and do what is right for the country and the planet.

Brazil's Para state rejects three-way split: official

2011-12-12T03:29:00.000-08:00

11 Dec 2011
Source: AFP

Para state inhabitants line up to vote at a primary school (AFP, Lucivaldo Sena)

Voters in the Amazonian state of Para on Sunday rejected a proposal to split Brazil's second biggest state in three, authorities announced.

With 4.37 million votes -- 90 percent of the total -- counted in the landmark referendum, more than 67 percent rejected creation of a new state of Carajas and nearly 67 percent opposed establishment of a new state of Tapajos, they said.

The official results were jointly announced by the president of the Higher Electoral Tribunal, Ricardo Lewandowski, and by Ricardo Nunes, head of Para's Regional Electoral Tribunal, the official Agencia Brasil reported.

Speaking earlier in the state capital Belem, Lewandowski hailed the plebiscite as "a historic moment."

"It shows that Brazilian democracy is mature and strengthened," he told reporters.

Under the breakup plan, a truncated Para with Belem as its capital would have been left with 17 percent of the territory but 64 percent of the population.

Tapajos, home to large protected indigenous and forest areas, would have ended up with nearly 59 percent the territory and only 15 percent of the population.

Carajas would have been awarded 24 percent of the territory and 21 percent of the population.

The Brazilian media had portrayed the referendum as a feud between Belem, the state capital, and the Para hinterland, which feels marginalized.

Critics of the division, concentrated in the Belem area, argue that a split would saddle the new states with deficits and would create new expenses for the federal government.

If the yes vote had won, dividing the state -- which has a population of more than seven million -- would have still required approval by both chambers of Congress and President Dilma Rousseff.

Spread across an area more than twice the size of France, Para ranks second only to Amazonas, the country's largest state, and includes more than 74 million hectares (183 million acres) of protected areas.

Both are part of the Amazon region, the world's largest tropical rainforest and one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water.

In 1988, Tocantins, also located in the Amazon region, became the newest Brazilian state when it was created out of the northern part of Goias state.

Brazil, with a total population of more than 191 million people, has 26 states and one federal district which contains the capital, Brasilia.

Saving the Amazon, from forest floor up

2011-12-12T03:26:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 10, 2011
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Just three years ago, the manmade fires here were so fierce smoke would blot out the Amazon sky, turning the days dark. Towering rainforest trees exploded in flames, their canopies cleared to let pasture grow for cattle.

The ash that snowed down onto this jungle town was shin-deep. Dirty layers hid red-hot timber chunks, glowing coals that burned the bare feet of children walking through the cinder drifts.

Paragominas was losing forest faster than nearly any other place in the Amazon.

Today, the town has risen from those ashes to become a pioneering "Green City," a model of sustainability with a new economic approach that has seen illegal deforestation virtually halted. Experts say the metamorphosis is the best hope for showing the 25 million people who live in the Amazon that the forest is worth more alive than dead.

The transformation came after Brazil cracked down on 36 counties responsible for the worst deforestation in the Amazon. A resulting economic embargo left the town with two options. It could fight against change, or it could embrace a new path and promote development with minimal harm to the environment.

Mayor Adnan Demachki is the unlikely environmental warrior driving the change, a plump 46-year-old bespectacled lawyer who grew up here, and was mayor when his town was one of the worst deforesters.

"Our city was on the government's 'black list,'" Demachki said. "There was no way out other than the new path we had chosen."

His "Green City" plan aims to halt all illegal deforestation through a mix of enforcement, the creation of the Amazon's only local environmental police force, and promotion of an economy that doesn't rely on clearing jungle. Instead, the focus is on sustainable development — using managed forestry for a wood industry, and introducing modern farming techniques to increase production while using less land.

In the past year Demachki's success has earned him high praise from environmental authorities that once harshly criticized his town. He's been featured on Brazil's biggest TV news programs and traveled around the country to spread the gospel of his Green City.

"Paragominas is an example of how to successfully overcome deforestation and begin the transition to an economy that conserves the forest," said Mauro Pires, head of the Environment Ministry's department that fights Amazon destruction. "They changed their stance and followed their leaders down an alternative path, one that coexists with the forest."

The Amazon rainforest is arguably the biggest natural defense against global warming, acting as a giant absorber of carbon dioxide.

As it's cut, the world not only loses this defense, but the destruction itself adds to the problem. About 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from rainforest clearing, as vegetation burns and felled trees rot. That releases an estimated 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, making Brazil at least the sixth biggest emitter of the gas.

Nearly 20 percent of Brazil's Amazon has been cleared.

The destruction began in force five decades ago, when Brazil's government gave away free land to those who agreed to clear 50 percent of their plot, and incentives didn't end until the 1990s. Endless waves of migrants followed, carving a livelihood out of the jungle. Wood cutters, ranchers and grain farmers chewed up virgin jungle along the Amazon's southern border, a yawning 2,600-mile upside-down arc stretching between Brazil's western and eastern borders, the distance between New York and San Francisco.

The global economy's growing demand for hardwood timber, soy and beef pushed deforestation into overdrive, hitting a peak in 1995 when 11,220 square miles (29,060 square kilometers) were razed. The vast majority of the deforestation was against the law. But less than 5 percent of the land is deeded, and enforcing environmental laws is difficult when authorities cannot prove who owns it.

The Amazon is the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River, and much of it is wild, ruled by the gun in the absence of governmental and legal institutions. More than 1,150 rural activists have been murdered in the last 20 years by gunmen hired by loggers to silence voices decrying illegal cutting. Only a handful of those responsible are in jail.

Its massive expanses and wild nature make it impossible to uniformly enforce environmental laws. Under pressure from the nation's agricultural lobby, Brazil's Senate passed a bill last week that would loosen those laws. The bill is expected to pass both houses within weeks.

The Paragominas experiment is significant, experts say, because it shows it's possible to convince people at the local level that saving the forest is in their best interest.

In 2008 the Brazilian government for the first time set a concrete goal to decelerate rainforest destruction, aiming to reduce it to 1,900 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) by 2017. Armed field agents targeted Paragominas and others on a blacklist of 36 counties, handing out massive fines, confiscating cattle herds and shutting sawmills.

In Paragominas, home to about 100,000 people, federal agents closed nearly 300 illegal sawmills. The town lost 2,300 jobs within a year and the federal government cut off agricultural credits.

Paragominas leaders knew they had to change. So they took an unheard-of leap of faith in the Amazon: they asked the very environmental groups that had been castigating them to help them go green.

Brazil passes controversial Forest Code reform environmentalists say will be 'a disaster' for the Amazon

2011-12-08T04:34:00.000-08:00

December 06, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, 1988-2011. Photos by Rhett A. Butler.

The Brazilian Senate tonight passed controversial legislation that will reform the country's 46-year-old Forest Code, which limits how much forest can be cleared on private lands. Environmentalists are calling the move "a disaster" that will reverse Brazil's recent progress in slowing deforestation in the world's largest rainforests.

The revised Forest Code — which passed the Senate 58-8 — reduces the amount of forest cover landowners are required to maintain and grants amnesty for farmers and ranchers who illegally cleared forest prior to July 2008. Those landowners — provided their properties are less than 400 hectares (988 acres) — won't be required to replant forest to bring their land up to the legal requirement. Larger properties will have 20 years to come into compliance or can offset deforestation by renting or buying a nearby parcel of forest.

The new Forest Code maintains pre-existing forest cover requirements, which range from 20 percent in the drier cerrado to 80 percent in the Amazon rainforest, but landowners are now allowed to count compulsory forest cover along rivers and hillsides as part of their legal reserve. The revision also reduces the required margin along waterways from 30 meters (100 feet) to 15 meters (50 feet).

The revision is not yet law however. It still needs to be approved by lower house of Congress — where it is expected to pass easily — and President Dilma Rousseff who is under intense pressure from environmentalists to keep a campaign promise not to grant amnesty for past deforestation or let rainforest destruction rise. Rousseff however is likely to approve the measure next year, putting Brazil in an awkward position as host of Rio+20, a major environmental conference to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June. Environmentalists are planning to make the Forest Code a top campaign target ahead of the conference.

Accordingly, green groups immediately decried the changes.

"We're at a time in history when the world seeks leadership in smart, forward-thinking development," said WWF International Director-General Jim Leape. "Brazil was staking a claim to being such a leader. It will be a tragedy for Brazil and for the world if it now turns its back on more than a decade of achievement to return to the dark days of catastrophic deforestation."

WWF estimates that the revised Forest Code will reduce forest cover in Brazil by 76.5 million hectares (295,000 square miles), an area larger than Texas.

But the powerful agricultural lobby that pushed the bill through the Senate claimed the new Forest Code would help protect the environment, while facilitating rapid agricultural expansion.

"Approval of this project ends the dictatorship represented by a half-dozen non-governmental organizations controlled by the Ministry of Environment and makes clear that the environmental question is for everybody," Senator Katia Abreu, one of the strongest voices in supporting the bill, was quoted as saying by ABC.es.

"The environment is an essential part of agriculture. We are more dependent on nature than any other economic activity, and we want our forests to remain standing," she added in a press release.

In making their case for reform, supporters of the bill said that because the Forest Code has been so widely flouted—more than 90 percent of landowners in the Amazon are operating illegally—a large component of the Brazilian economy is effectively “illegal”, undermining governance and efforts to improve land management.

But governance is predicated on the political will to enforce the law, which is largely lacking across much of the Amazon. Claudio Maretti, leader of WWF’s Living Amazon Initiative, doubts that the new code will be accompanied by sufficient law enforcement.

"The new draft does not make enforcement any easier," he told mongabay.com prior to the passage of the bill. "It is more complicated, and has far too many exceptions. Nothing now seems to suggest that this version of the law will be better enforced."

Language in the bill that passed today does seem to strengthen enforcement capacity, at least on paper, giving more power to the country's environmental agency Ibama to investigate commodities produced in the Amazon.

The momentum to reform the Forest Code seemed to gather pace in part due to stepped-up law enforcement, including raids by Ibama and "blacklisting" of municipalities where deforestation was high. Blacklisted zones lost preferential access to credit until they complied with environmental laws. Facing with increased regulation, ranchers and farmers — especially in the state of Pará — launched a push to change the Forest Code. Now environmentalists fear the tide is turning against them, despite what they say is strong support from the public on stopping deforestation.

"80% of Brazilians are against the Code promoted by the rural sector - a project approved by 80% of the Chamber for Deputies," said Greenpeace Amazon team leader Paulo Adario. "Dilma will need to choose between 80 percents - those of the Brazilian population or those of the Brazilian Congress."

Roberto Smeraldi, the Director of Amigos da Terra - Amazônia Brasileira, added that the next 180 days would prove crucial in determining whether how the new Forest Code will impact forests in Brazil.

"One step backwards, with the amnesty, one step into the future, with an innovative package of economic instruments," he told mongabay.com. This legislation will lead to a number of judicial conflicts as far as implementation is concerned: a clear example is the rural registry [that has] just one georeferenced coordinate. The next steps include monitoring how government will detail, in 180 days, the plan for economic instruments: unless they are solid and significant, the chances of meaningful implementation would be much reduced."

The vote to reform the Forest Code came a day after the Brazilian government released preliminary data showing that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon for the year ended July 2011 fell to the lowest level since annual record-keeping began in 1988. In 2009 then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva set a target to reduce deforestation 80 percent by the end of the decade under a national climate plan that would cut greenhouse gas emissions 39 percent from a projected 2020 baseline. Brazil is presently ahead of its deforestation-reduction goals, although some question how much of the reduction is due to government action, and how much is due to macroeconomic factors.

"Deforestation in Brazil remains a serious problem despite the fall in rates between 2005 and 2010. Only part of this decrease was the result of government programs or stricter enforcement of environmental laws," eminent Amazon scientist Philip Fearnside wrote in an op-ed published last week in The Financial Times. "The main reason was that the international price of beef and soya fell from 2003 to 2007, and this was followed by the global economic collapse that began in 2008. Over that period, the Brazilian real almost doubled relative to currencies such as the US dollar. This cut the profits of commodity exporters deeply, as all their expenses remained in reals while their revenues were in diminished foreign currencies."

"Such macroeconomic 'windfalls' can help contain deforestation, but they are only temporary."

Brazilian bill weakens Amazon protection

2011-12-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

07 December 2011
Source: Nature.com

The Brazilian Senate passed a bill yesterday that could affect global climate change as well as Brazil’s credibility as a nation committed to reducing deforestation. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a new forest code, which eases regulations on how private landowners must preserve native forest.

The code has further polarized the country into 'ruralist' and environmentalist camps. It also has placed intense pressure on President Dilma Rousseff, who has pledged to veto the legislation. She is not considered an environmentalist, and has been generally pro-development, but she has honoured the pledge that her predecessor, Lula da Silva, made at the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen that Brazil would slash deforestation by 80% by 2020. If Rousseff does veto the bill, she risks losing already tenuous support from the powerful agriculture lobby.

Some 70 amendments that were fixed to the bill must still be voted on, but sponsors of the legislation are expected to prevent any further changes to the bill’s central points. The measure will return to the lower house, which passed a version with even fewer restrictions on deforestation last May.

The country’s law governing forestry dates back to 1965 and made more stringent in the 1990s, with dramatic results. Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is now far lower than it was in 1995 (see Amazon deforestation declines to record low). Deforestation accounts for about 15% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 75% of Brazil’s.

Restrictive and rigorous

Katia Abreu, a senator from the state of Tocantins and president of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) — a lobbying organization representing more than 5 million Brazilian farmers, calls the updated forest code “undoubtedly the most restrictive and rigorous land-ownership legislation in the world”. She says that the final text is not ideal but “is a step forward, especially given Brazil’s need to regulate food production and avoid deforestation”.

Most scientists, however, disagree. They argue that the new bill is too complicated to elicit compliance and doesn’t go far enough to protect the Amazon. Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist who works with the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) in Brasilia, says that the new forestry measure could “unleash a wave of impunity” to wipe out forests and woodlands. The law would pardon landowners who illegally deforested before 2008, in effect granting them amnesty to try and encourage them to farm or ranch more sustainably in the future.

The new code could also legalize the clearing of more than 220,000 square kilometres — nearly the size of the United Kingdom — with no penalties, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of Sao Paulo. Brazil’s Amazon spans 5 million square kilometres, of which roughly 3 million square kilometres is intact forests, according to Luiz Antonio Martinelli, an ecologist at the University of São Paulo in Piracicaba who has analysed the legislation for senators.

Landowners will be required to keep between 20% and 80% of their land forested, with the largest set-aside applying to the Amazon rainforest. But the updated code exempts small properties of up 200 hectares from this rule. Those small farms account for 90% of properties in Brazil, although less than half of the surface area, according to Claudio Maretti, head of Washington DC-based conservation group WWF’s Living Amazon Initiative.
Rivers at risk

Another change weakens the status of Permanent Preservation Areas (APP), the ecologically sensitive areas along rivers and streams, on steep slopes and hilltops throughout Brazil. Conservationists are concerned that the pending law would reduce the width of preserved forested areas along rivers, for instance, from 30 to 15 metres. “These are areas of extreme importance,” says Maretti. “They protect soils from erosion, they keep floods from becoming more harmful, and they keep rivers flowing with some quality. They’re very sensitive and they’re under risk.”

The bill’s critics argued that it could not only accelerate climate change and further threaten the Amazon’s fragile ecosystems, but also erode Brazil’s reputation as a global leader in cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. One key test of Brazil's resolve will come next June, when the country hosts the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20.

“I think Brazil will lose a lot of political bargaining power internationally,” says Martinelli. “On one side we’re doing a heck of a good job curbing Amazon deforestation. But at the same time we’re sending the wrong message by changing the forest code in a way that will increase deforestation again.”

Brazil forest code reignites Amazon fears

2011-12-08T04:27:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2011
Source: Financial Times

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Brazil’s senate has passed a landmark forest code that had caused a heated debate between environmentalists and landowners over the future of the Amazon rainforest.

Environmentalists say the new law amounts to an amnesty for illegal clearing by ranchers, while proponents say it provides much-needed legal certainty for farmers in the world’s largest producer of coffee, sugar, beef and orange juice.

“I would like to tell you something: this is not the code of my dreams. This is was what was possible and I believe this is as good as we could get,” said Jorge Viana, the senator from the Amazonian state of Acre who oversaw the passage of the law through Brazil’s upper house.

The bill, which has yet to be signed by President Dilma Rousseff, updates a 1965 law that severely restricted the amount of land farmers can clear in Brazil but which was widely flouted.

The fierce debate over the issue in Brazil comes as the world’s big economies are discussing a global deal to combat climate change at United Nations-backed talks in Durban, South Africa, this week.

Brazil has made strides to reduce the destruction of the Amazon, seen as one of the world’s main bulwarks against climate change, with deforestation falling to its lowest levels since state monitoring began in 1988 in the 12 months until the end of July.

But environmentalists warn that the forest faces multiple threats, ranging from logging, ranching and degradation from fires to climate change itself in the form of higher frequencies of floods and droughts.

An earlier version of the law, which was passed by the lower house, offered a sweeping amnesty for farmers who had illegally deforested before July 2008.

The Senate version has revised this but, out of about 55m hectares – an area the size of France – that would have had to have been reforested according to the old code, farmers will now have to restore only 24m ha, according to Mr Viana.

Farmers who illegally deforested before 2008 will not be required to pay billions of dollars of fines and will instead have time to allow regeneration of some of the areas that should have vegetation.

The law must now go back to the lower house, or Congress, where it is expected to pass virtually unchanged, before it goes to Ms Rousseff, who has veto power.

People familiar with her position say that while she opposed the earlier draft, which offered a fuller amnesty, she is unlikely to oppose this version, arguing that the amnesty has been removed.

“The people who talk about an amnesty are not speaking the truth,” said Mr Viana. “Farmers will have to reforest 24m hectares. If they do that, we will have the greatest reforestation programme in the world.”

But former environment minister Marina Silva, who during her term was credited with cracking down on illegal clearing, said the law amounted to carte blanche for landowners to continue clearing in the expectation of future amnesties.

“There is an amnesty. Why? If you have a tax bill, the fiscal authorities might give you a 10 or 20 per cent discount but a discount of more than 50 per cent is a different thing,” she said.

Amazon rainforest loss in Brazil drops to lowest ever reported

2011-12-06T05:51:00.000-08:00

December 05, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, 1988-2011. Photos by Rhett A. Butler.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to the lowest level on record between August 2010 and July 2011 according to preliminary data from Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (INPE).

Forest clearing during the period amounted to 6,238 square kilometers (2,408 square miles), down about 10.9 percent from a year earlier when 7,000 square kilometers were chopped down. 78 percent of deforestation occurred in Pará, Mato Grosso, and Rondônia, the states where the bulk of agricultural expansion is concentrated.

The numbers are based on Brazil's deforestation monitoring system called PRODES, which can detect clearing in patches down to 6.25 hectares (15.4 acres). The figures are preliminary — last year's deforestation data was revised upwards 8.5 percent this past October.

The data shows deforestation continues to decline in the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the entire Amazon rainforest. Annual deforestation last peaked in 2003 and 2004 when more than 25,000 square kilometers of forest were destroyed in both years.

The Brazilian government says enforcement efforts, combined with conservation initiatives and sustainable development programs, have contributed to the decline, but analysts contend that macroeconomic trends, including a strong currency, which reduces profits for Brazilian commodity producers, play a bigger role. Research published in 2010 attributed 37 percent of the drop in deforestation between 2002 and 2009 in the Brazilian Amazon to new protected areas.

Brazil did not release data showing forest degradation, which can be an indicator of future deforestation.

Deforestation near the BR-230 highway in Brazil. Courtesy of Google Earth.

Forest Code vote

Brazil's announcement came a day before the Senate planned to vote on a controversial bill that will revise the country's Forest Code, which limits how much forest can be cleared on private lands. The revision, which has been pushed by agroindustrial interests, would grant amnesty for past illegal deforestation (up until mid-2008), while reducing requirements for legal forest reserves and setbacks along waterways. Green groups fear the changes could spur an immediate increase in deforestation.

But another threat looms large over Earth's biggest rainforest: climate change. Scientists have repeatedly warned that higher temperatures in the tropical Atlantic will trigger rainfall shifts that leave much of the Amazon drier and more vulnerable to drought. And there are already signs these warnings should be heeded: in the past five years the Amazon experienced the two worst droughts ever recorded. Researchers say that deforestation and forest degradation will worsen the impacts of climate change by disrupting the hydrological functions of the forest. Such changes could have impacts on agricultural production in regions that currently rely on the Amazon for rainfall, including souther Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Roughly 70 percent of South America's GDP is produced in areas within the rain shadow of the Amazon.

Britain spends £10m to stop deforestation in Brazil

2011-12-06T05:48:00.000-08:00

04 Dec 2011
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Britain is spending £10 million to stop deforestation in Brazil Photo: ALAMY

The money was announced by Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, at the latest UN climate summit in Durban South Africa.

She said the money will stop illegal logging in the Cerrado, scrub forest in central Brazil that is rapidly being cleared to make way for food crops for the rich world.

It is part of a £2.9 billion climate change fund put aside by the UK Government to help poor countries adapt to global warming and cut carbon emissions up to 2015.

Environmentalists welcomed the cash but said if the UK really wants to save the forests then consumers have to stop eating cheap factory-farmed meat.

Much of the Cerrado is being destroyed to grow genetically modified soya, which is fed to pigs, chickens and cattle in the UK.

Traditionally the Amazon has been the frontline for battled over deforestation. But in recent years big farmers have moved into the Cerrado.

The huge forests, as big as the UK, France, Italy and Spain combined, is not as lush as the rainforest but contains one 20th of the world’s species including the rare giant armadillo and blue and yellow macaw.

Peasants and indigenous people are being cleared off the land to make way for the massive plantations.

Mrs Spelman said the money will support environmental registration of rural properties so that small farmers can stop the loggers coming in. It will also help peasant farmers restore vegetation on illegally cleared land and help them to prevent and manage forest farmers.

“The Cerrado is rich in biodiversity and yet, alarming, it has almost halved in size since, because of wild fires and the demand for agricultural products. If we’re going to stop the loss of biodiversity, we need to protect our forests – which house the majority of the world’s wildlife. We won’t succeed in tackling climate change unless we deal with deforestation,” she said.

The UK is pushing for a global agreement on climate change in Durban that would force all countries to reduce emissions.

The deal would include a new mechanism Reducing Emissions from Deforestation known as REDD.

The fund will hand out money to poor countries to stop deforestation.

The goal is to see global deforestation halved by 2020 and net global deforestation halted by 2030.

The UK has already handed out £300 million on top of the £2.9 billion for climate change to stop deforestation.

However there is already concern that Brazil, one of the main supporters on climate change, is reducing its targets on deforestation and other rainforest countries are plagued by corruption.

Friends of the Earth claim genetically modified soy grown on illegally cleared land is being fed to pigs and chickens on UK factory farms.

The charity say the only way to stop the problem is to reform subsidies so that farmers are encouraged to feed animals grass or locally sourced grains. Also consumers must eat less meat and cut out cheap factory farmed products.

Brazil Amazon deforestation 'at lowest level in years'

2011-12-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

6 December 2011
Source: BBC News

Rainforest is cleared for timber or to make way for farming

The National Institute for Space Research said 6,238 square km (2,400 square miles) of rainforest disappeared between August 2010 and July 2011, a drop of 11% from the previous year.

The government says the fall is due to its tougher stance on illegal logging.

But in at least two states, Rondonia and Matto Grosso, rainforest clearance rose considerably in the past year.

The research institute has used satellite technology to monitor the rainforest since 1988.

Destruction peaked in recent years at 27,700 square km (10,700 square miles) in 2003-4.

The main causes of illegal clearing of the rainforest are cattle farming and agricultural crop production, as well as logging for timber.

Brazil's congress is due to debate a reform of land laws in the next few days which would reduce the conservation area.

The farming lobby says reform is needed as current regulations are a burden on production. But environmentalists say it would be a setback for efforts to preserve the rainforest.

Peruvian Amazon could become global centre of 'carbon piracy': report

2011-12-05T04:52:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 30 November 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk

The Peruvian Amazon could become the global centre of 'carbon piracy' a report warns. Photograph: Ricardo Beliel/Alamy

The Peruvian Amazon is the new global centre of "carbon piracy", as banks, conservationists and entrepreneurs rush to snap up the legal rights to trade carbon, according to a report published today at the UN climate talks in Durban.

More than 35 major projects covering around 7m hectares of Peruvian rainforest have been set up to profit from the global voluntary carbon offset market and a proposed UN forestry scheme, say the report's authors, Peruvian group Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP).

A UN scheme called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd) allows countries that can reduce emissions from deforestation to be paid for doing so.

World leaders hope to conclude Redd negotiations at Durban next week, potentially opening up a vast new global carbon market for forest-rich countries.

But in a report that suggests that developing countries are not ready for Redd and communities are being pressured to sign agreements against their interests, indigenous leaders say companies, NGOs and individuals are are abusing illiterate communities and are only consulting people after projects have started.

The rush to sign up communities for carbon offsetting has so far been mainly seen in Papua New Guinea, Africa and Indonesia. But Peruvian indigenous leader say the rush in the Amazon has been like a "new fever", comparable to earlier attempts by international companies to find oil and grow rubber in the Amazon.

"NGOs, carbon consultants and investors are roaming the jungle in search of communities with carbon offsetting potential. In one case this even involved an effort to convince communities to sign away their rights to carbon in a contract with no defined end point," said Alberto Pizango Chota, the head of AIDESEP.

"Several of these deals are being conducted using strict confidentiality clauses and with no independent oversight or legal support for vulnerable communities. Some of these peoples are not yet fully literate in Spanish but are being asked to sign complex legal agreements in English," he said.

"At a local level many projects are shrouded in mystery. Information is guarded secretively by project developers, especially from indigenous organisations," says the report.

Of the 35 known projects, at least 11 are planned in officially recognised indigenous lands, but millions more hectares of tribal land that has not been recognised by governments could be the target of "a potential mass land grab" and conflict, says the report.

"In Loreto province alone there are hundreds of requests for environmental concessions by NGOs and private investors while thousands of hectares of indigenous territory applications remain unresolved."

Several British-based companies are said to be linked to offset deals, says the report. WWF and Cool Earth are seen by the authors as representing the more acceptable face of the rush, but others "involve long-term commercial contracts with communities whose terms are extremely favourable to external commercial interests and NGOs," says the report.

"The companies, NGOs and brokers are breeding, desperate for that magic thing, the signature of the village chief on the piece of paper about carbon credits, something that the community doesn't understand well but in doing so the middle-man hopes to earn huge profits on the back of our forests and our ways of life but providing few benefits for communities," said Chota.

People quoted in the report fear that carbon-offsetting and Redd might even be more dangerous to the communities depending on the forest than oil and gas exploration or logging because it will affect the whole Amazon.

"In the communities almost nobody knows what Redd is and there is a risk that the NGOs and the companies will arrive in the communities to cheat and enslave us. Many communities do not know their rights or the laws and are tricked. This is what happens with loggers," said one community leader .

Deforestation and forest degradation slows in Brazil's Amazon since August

2011-12-05T04:50:00.000-08:00

December 02, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Deforestation and forest degradation are down moderately from August through October 2011 relative to the same period a year ago, reports a satellite-based assessment released today by Imazon, a Brazilian group.

Imazon's near-real time system, which tracks change in forest plots 25 hectares (62 acres) or larger, found that 512 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared between August 2011 and October 2011, the first three months of the deforestation calendar year, which runs from August 1 through July 31 to coincide with the dry season when it is easiest to measure forest cover. The figure represents a 4 percent decline from the 533 square kilometers cleared in 2010.

Imazon's system also tracks forest degradation — including logging and fire damage — that often precedes outright deforestation. It recorded a 52 percent decline in degradation from 2,599 sq km to 1,246 sq km.

Overall Imazon estimated that deforestation and degradation in the Brazilian Amazon during the period committed 32 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Satellite monitoring

The short-term systems used by Imazon and Brazil's National Space Research Agency INPE, which has its own platform, are less accurate than the systems used for tracking annual change in forest cover. These rapid systems are used mostly to identify deforestation hotspots so authorities, provided they have funds and political backing, to take immediate action to stop illegal clearing. The annual systems can identify areas of clearing down to 6.25 hectares (15.6 acres).

Critics of these deforestation tracking systems 𔄆 which are generally considered the best and most transparent national systems in the world 𔄆 complain that ranchers and farmers, wise to the limitations of satellite monitoring, have adapted their clearing practices to evade detection. As such, they contend that deforestation rates may be higher than reported. But researchers are working on more precise monitoring capabilities that would better reflect realities on the ground.

Trends in Amazon deforestation

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has slowed significantly since last peaking in 2004. The Brazilian government says enforcement efforts, combined with conservation initiatives and sustainable development programs, have contributed to the decline, but analysts contend that macroeconomic trends, including a strong real, which reduces profits for Brazilian commodity producers, play a bigger role. Research published in 2010 attributed 37 percent of the drop in deforestation between 2002 and 2009 in the Brazilian Amazon to new protected areas.

The decline in deforestation rates in other Amazon countries has not kept pace with Brazil. For example, Peru has seen a sharp jump in deforestation since 2005 due to the paving of the Transoceanic highway, which has spurred conversion for cattle ranches and large-scale agriculture, mining, and logging. Guyana's deforestation rate more than tripled last year.

Commodity production — including cattle, soybeans, minerals, and timber — is the biggest direct driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Industries seeking to expand production are now exerting considerable political pressure to relax environmental laws. In Brazil, the agroindustrial lobby is pushing hard for an overhaul of the country's Forest Code, which limits the amount of forest landowners are permitted to clear. The proposed revision — which the Senate is expected to vote on next week — would grant amnesty for past illegal deforestation (up until mid-2008), while reducing requirements for legal forest reserves and setbacks along waterways. Green groups fear the changes could spur an immediate increase in deforestation.

But another threat looms large over Earth's biggest rainforest: climate change. Scientists have repeatedly warned that higher temperatures in the tropical Atlantic will trigger rainfall shifts that leave much of the Amazon drier and more vulnerable to drought. And there are already signs these warnings should be heeded: in the past five years the Amazon experienced the two worst droughts ever recorded. Researchers say that deforestation and forest degradation will worsen the impacts of climate change but disrupting the hydrological functions of the forest.

The Golden Curse of the Peruvian Amazon

2011-12-05T04:47:00.000-08:00

November 30, 2011
Source: The Epoch Times

A gold miner uses a high-pressure hose to wash away the earth and get gold particles, inside a huge crater near Delta Uno, department of Madre de Dios, southeast Lima, Peru. (Dan Collyns/AFP/Getty Images

Madre de Dios, the name of a region in southeastern Peru bordering Brazil and Bolivia, is a very common designation for the Virgin Mary, meaning Mother of God in Spanish. In real life, however, Mother of God, used as an oath and not a name, expresses what intense and unregulated gold exploration and extraction are doing to this up-to-now privileged area in Peru.

Madre de Dios is a region rich in cotton, coffee, sugarcane, cacao, Brazil nuts, and palm oil. However, plentiful gold has attracted tens of thousands of illegal miners whose activities are having a deleterious effect not only on precious species in the environment but also on the health and quality of life of both native and new populations in the region.

Alluvial gold mining in Peru’s Amazon rainforest has rapidly spread in recent years, driven by the high price of gold. Although many jungle-mining concessions have been granted by the energy and mines ministry, the informal sector has grown out of control.

It is estimated that almost a quarter of the gold produced in Peru, the world’s sixth largest producer, is illegal. The majority of this illegal gold comes from the Madre de Dios region. Local nongovernmental organizations believe that there are up to 30,000 miners in the area.

Gold deposits are mined by both large-scale operators and small-scale miners who use hydraulic mining techniques and heavy machinery to expose potential gold-yielding gravel deposits. Gold is extracted by a sluice box, a piece of gold prospecting equipment that has been in continuous use for over a hundred years. The sluice box is used to separate heavier sediment and mercury is also used for amalgamating the precious metal.

Several studies have shown that small-scale miners are less efficient in their use of mercury than industrial miners. As a result, 2.91 pounds of mercury are released into waterways for every 2.2 pounds of gold produced. It is estimated that more than 40 tons of mercury have been absorbed into the rivers of Madre de Dios, poisoning the food chain.

Mercury not only contaminates waterways and becomes a serious threat to human health but is also a dangerous toxin to fish. Fish in the area contain three times more mercury than the safe levels permitted by the World Health Organization.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, “After fossil fuel burning, small-scale gold mining is the world’s second largest source of mercury pollution, contributing around one-third of the world’s mercury pollution.”

Mercury contamination is not the only drawback of small-scale mining, however. Another significant problem is the significant amount of deforestation it produces while clearing forests for the construction of roads to open remote areas to transient settlers and land speculators.

In addition, deforestation is the result of cutting trees to obtain building material and fuel wood.

The enormity of the damage has been documented in a study by American, French, and Peruvian researchers published in the peer-reviewed magazine PLoS ONE. According to the study, Using satellite imagery from NASA, researchers were able to assess the loss of 7,000 hectares (15,200 acres) of forest due to artisanal gold mining in Peru between 2003 and 2009. This is an area larger than Bermuda.

Jennifer Swenson, the lead author of the study, says that such enormous deforestation is “plainly visible from space,” and suggests that Peru should limit the importation of mercury.

In addition to these problems, illegal gold mining has significantly increased the number of 12-to-17-year-old girls and young women drafted by prostitution rings. These young women are brought from all over the country to brothels that have sprung up in mining camps. Many of the women that fall into these prostitution rings eventually disappear, and are never seen again. Miners also bring diseases to local indigenous populations.

While Peruvian authorities have sent almost 1,000 security forces to destroy river dredgers used by illegal gold miners in the Madre de Dios region even more drastic measures are needed, such as stricter vigilance and regulation. At stake is the survival of what has been recognized as one of the most biologically rich areas in the world.

Biologist explores $25M renovated Rainforest

2011-12-05T04:45:00.000-08:00

November 30, 2011
Source: Daily News

GALVESTON — Rain forests are hot and wet. The sun beats down for 12 hours a day, and rainfall averages at least 160 inches each year. Not exactly the climate you’d expect to find on the Texas coast.

But you won’t have to travel to the Amazon to explore this unique forest. Inside a glass pyramid at Moody Gardens, the perfect mix of light, warmth and moisture supports an assemblage of 1,000 plants and animals moved from rain forests around the world.

The Rainforest Pyramid has been a fixture at Moody Gardens for years, but the recent $25 million renovation following Hurricane Ike has remade it into a jewel.

The renovated exhibit takes visitors to a whole new level, literally. Upon entering, visitors climb stairs and pass through glass doors to a warm, humid tropical paradise surrounded by tree and palm leaves. The elevated 300-foot walkway, called the Tree Top Trail, offers a birds-eye view of the rain forest.

A canopy of six enormous ficus trees, some reaching halfway up the 10-story pyramid, envelops the walkway. Cascades of 30-foot fibrous roots dangle from the limbs, while an arsenal of aerial roots arise from their trunks, penetrating soil and grabbing rock.

These trees are some of the few survivors of Hurricane Ike’s saltwater surge that flooded the rain forest floor in 2008. Unlike many of the other tropical plants and animals that perished in a salty brew, these ficus trees survived and now provide much of the green canvas for the new exhibit.

From the walkway, you can spot white-faced Saki monkeys, cotton-top tamarins and two-toed sloths — those hairy tree lovers who spend a lot of time hanging upside down from limbs.

There are exotic birds and butterflies, deadly snakes, poison dart frogs and big-eyed fruit bats that enjoy munching on fruits and nectar from flowers.

Then there are rain forest residents most likely to be heard before seen. The colorful — and loud — macaws stand guard on perches above the freshwater fish exhibit.

But some of the world’s most dreaded animal species also call the rain forest home. The green anaconda is the world’s heaviest snake, weighing as much as 550 pounds. It delights in squeezing its prey to death.

Tiny in comparison, but just as fearsome, are the red-bellied piranhas. With powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth, they can clean flesh from bone within seconds.

There’s an emperor scorpion, a large black-colored beauty with a venom-filled tail barb. And vampire bats hang upside down, digesting their diet of fresh animal blood.

Amid the animal activity are hundreds of tropical plants — colorful pink orchids, bromeliads, carnivorous pitcher plants, palms, bamboo, spider plants, African violets, bird of paradise and plants that are sources of products we consume every day, like coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla and bananas.

One exhibit, however, left me wondering. At the leaf cutter ants display, the sign says these little creatures cut leaves into pieces they use to cultivate fungi, the principal part of their diet.

But the exhibit was empty. Had they escaped into their own little heaven, a world of leaves?

This recreated rain forest delivers a simple conservation message — Rainforests support a vast array of plants, many useful to man, and animals found nowhere else. But even so, these unique ecosystems are in danger, being lost at an alarming rate to deforestation.

Near the exit, the take-home message reads: “We need to save this precious living laboratory for ourselves and for future generations.”

Steve Alexander, a retired marine scientist, is a Texas Master Naturalist and president of Friends of Galveston Island State Park.

Five Peruvian regions team up to promote Amazon attractions

2011-11-28T04:45:00.000-08:00

November 27, 2011
Source: Andin a

The Peruvian departments of San Martin, Amazonas, Ucayali, Loreto and Madre de Dios will develop a major tourism circuit to promote the Amazon macro-region's attractions.

Cesar Villanueva, governor of San Martin, said the aim is to increase tourist arrivals following the designation of the Amazon River/Rainforest as one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

"Authorities of the five regions are holding talks with the export and tourism promotion agency [PromPeru] to determine the route of the tour," Villanueva stated.

He told Andina that a group of Peruvian officials recently met with representatives from the U.S. Forest Service to work on a forest management project.

"The U.S. Forest Service has great experience in the field of forest management, so we can learn from them and achieve successful results," he added.

Early this month, the Amazon rainforest, Vietnam's Halong Bay and Argentina's Iguazu Falls were named among the world's new seven wonders of nature, according to organisers of a global poll.

The other four crowned the world's natural wonders are South Korea's Jeju Island, Indonesia's Komodo, the Philippines' Puerto Princesa Underground River and South Africa's Table Mountain, said the New7Wonders foundation, citing provisional results.

8 Amazon countries pledge more coordination in rainforest conservation

2011-11-28T04:43:00.000-08:00

November 27, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Eight Amazon countries pledged greater cooperation in efforts to protect the world's largest rainforest from deforestation and illegal mining and logging, reports AFP.

Meeting in Manaus last week, signatories of the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA) — Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela — focused on the Amazon Fund, an initiative launched by the Brazilian government in 2008 to finance conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon rainforest. Representatives coordinated a position for next June's Rio+20 conference and discussed existing agreements signed to protect the Amazon.

Brazil expressed a desire to strengthen OTCA.

"The Brazilian government is committed to revitalizing the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA)," said Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota. "A stronger OTCA is in the interest of member states."

According to AFP, Brazil also indicated an interest in "expediting the process to implement the Amazon Fund," which has been slow to progress. To date the fund has only received donations of $58 million, well short of the one billion dollar target.

Deforestation in some parts of the Amazon has slowed in recent years, including a sharp drop in Brazil, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest. But deforestation monitoring remains poor in neighboring countries. One of the priorities for the Amazon Fund is establishing satellite-based monitoring systems outside of Brazil, which has the world's most advanced system and has recently trained technicians in Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Mexico, Gabon, Guyana, and Papua New Guinea, among others, in developing their own deforestation tracking platforms.

The world’s original scientists’ observations of climate change

2011-11-28T04:40:00.000-08:00

28 November 2011
Source: Survival International

The Innu of northeast Canada say climate change has affected wildlife

As the UN’s climate change conference begins in Durban, Survival calls for the ecological knowledge and insights of tribal peoples to be heeded in global decisions concerning climate change.

From the Amazon to the Arctic, tribal peoples typically have the smallest ecological footprints, having practiced sustainable ways of life for thousands of years, but they are also more vulnerable to climate change than anyone on earth, and bear the brunt of mitigation measures such as biofuels, hydroelectric dams and conservation projects. (Download report, pdf, 3.2MB)

Most tribal peoples have developed an intimate knowledge of their surroundings, and observe minute changes in their ecosystems.

Tribal peoples’ observations include:

Inuit hunters of northwest Canada report thinning sea ice, shorter winters and hotter summers, change to the permafrost and rising sea levels.
Innu people of northeast Canada report observing birds in Northern Labrador such as blue jays that are typically only found in southern Canada or the U.S., less snow during the coldest months of the year and fewer mosquitoes during the summer.
Nenet reindeer herders of Siberia report that frozen rivers are melting earlier in the season, which hinders their reindeer’s spring migration, forcing them to swim instead of walk across the ice. They also report fewer mosquitoes.
Tsaatan reindeer herders of Mongolia report that the growth of lichen and moss that nourish their reindeer is being adversely impacted.
Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon report a change in the pattern of rainfall in the rainforest. They urge the world to recognize the vital role of the Amazon in the regulation of the world’s climate, and the contribution of deforestation to global warming.

’Climate change has started in our country,’ says Davi Kopenawa, spokesman for the Yanomami people. ‘The rich countries have burned and destroyed many kilometers of Amazon forest. If you cut down big trees and set fire to the forest, the Earth dries up. The world needs to listen to the cry of the Earth, which is asking for help.’

Brazil's Yanomami have noticed different rainfall patterns.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Inuit activist, said, ‘Hunters have fallen through the sea ice and lost their lives in areas long considered safe. The Arctic is considered the health barometer for the planet. If you wish to see how healthy the planet is, come and take its pulse in the Arctic.’

‘Traditional weather reading skills can’t be trusted any more,’ said Veikko Magga, a Saami reindeer herder. ‘In the olden times one could see beforehand what kind of weather it will be. These signs and skills hold true no more.’

‘Tribal peoples are the world’s original scientists,’ said Stephen Corry, Director of Survival. ‘It’s self-evident: where they have been allowed to continue living on their lands, forest cover and biodiversity can be much higher than in other kinds of protected areas. And without their ecological knowledge, many vital medicines might never have been developed.

‘Now it is vital for us all that their knowledge and views are seen as legitimate. Tribal peoples should have a far greater role in policy decisions regarding climate change mitigation, and their right to the ownership of their land needs to be recognised.’

Amazon countries vow to enhance conservation efforts

2011-11-26T04:50:00.000-08:00

Friday, 25 November 2011
Source: Ceylon Daily News

Eight South American countries pledged Tuesday to boost cooperation to protect one of the planet’s largest natural reserves from deforestation and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Representatives of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela gathered in Manaus, northern Brazil, also vowed to speak with one voice at next June’s UN conference on sustainable development in Rio.

The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water.

Tuesday’s meeting involving signatories of the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA), focused on the Amazon Fund, a joint initiative launched in 2008 to combat deforestation and support conservation and sustainable development.

“The Brazilian government is committed to revitalizing the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA),” said Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota as he opened the one-day meeting. “A stronger OTCA is in the interest of member states.”

Also present were his counterparts Ricardo Patino of Ecuador, Suriname’s Winston Lackin, Venezuela’s Ricardo Maduro as well as representatives of other OTCA parties.

They reviewed agreements signed to protect the Amazon and discussed navigation rules on the Amazon river and a joint stance at next year’s Rio conference.

Earlier a Brazilian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Brazil, which has the largest tract of Amazon rainforest, was keen on “expediting the process to implement the Amazon Fund.”

The initiative has received donations of nearly $58 million (42 million euros) over the past two years, well short of the initial target of one billion dollars.

It notably seeks to improve satellite tracking of forest deforestation and environmental plans in border areas.

“Sharing forest data among Amazon countries will facilitate the adoption of coordinated policies to combat deforestation and will ensure that we are better prepared for international discussions on sustainable development,” Patriota said.

Last year the Amazon lost 7,000 square kilometers (2,702 square miles), down from the historic peak of 2003-2004, when more than 27,700 square kilometers were deforested.

Officials say Amazon logging mainly results from fires, the advance of agriculture and cattle farming as well as illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Ecuador is meanwhile pushing an innovative proposal to combat global warming under which it would not exploit its oil reserves in the Amazon in exchange for international compensation of $3.6 billion dollars over 12 years.

Covering an area of seven million square kilometers, the Amazon is home to 40,000 plant species, millions of animal species and some 420 indigenous tribes, including 60 who live in total isolation.

According to OTCA, 38.7 million people live in the region, roughly 11 percent of the eight Amazon countries’ population. AFP

Mysore zoo to create Amazon habitat for anacondas

2011-11-26T04:48:00.000-08:00

November 26, 2011
Source: The Hindu

Mysore zoo is trying to simulate the conditions of an Amazon rainforest in a 40 ft X 20 ft area to house the five anacondas, received as gift from Sri Lanka National Zoo in Colombo.

The non-venomous snakes, which can reach up to a length of 30 ft, have been put up for public display in a temporary enclosure that earlier housed pythons.

More visitors

As the Mysore zoo is the only zoological garden in the country to house the anacondas, the authorities are expecting more visitors in the coming days .

Construction of a permanent enclosure was delayed owing to non-availability of sand followed by the recent sand transporters' strike, and the work has gained pace now.

Sources in the zoo said the enclosure was specially designed to house the creatures, and the civil works were nearing completion.

Conditions

B.P. Ravi, Conservator of Forests and Zoo Executive Director, toldThe Hinduthat the work on simulating the conditions of an Amazon forest, the habitat of the anacondas, in the new enclosure would begin soon. Natural environmental conditions such as water pond and greenery would be provided to make the snakes feel comfortable and move around freely, he added. “It is tough to recreate the natural conditions of Amazon, but we are making efforts to design and develop the enclosure to suit the needs of the reptiles,” Mr. Ravi said.

As Amazon is hot and humid, proper humidity and temperature (not below 20 degrees Celsius) should be maintained in the enclosure.

Mr. Ravi said some plant varieties were being introduced in the enclosure to generate humidity.

Bulbs to be fixed

The zoo plans to fix high voltage bulbs to maintain temperature. There are two separate enclosures, and two viewing points with glass panelling. “By December-end, the new enclosures will be ready,” he added.

The anacondas are 15 months old and 4 to 5 ft long. The snakes attain monumental size when they are four to five years.

Length

In the wild, the snake can reach up to a length of 30 ft (nine metres) and weigh up to 550 pounds (227 kg).

“In captivity, the snake may grow to to a length of 18 to 20 ft because of restricted physical activity inside the enclosure. We are creating a water pond for their swimming needs. The enclosure will be enriched with tree stumps, plants and other flora to create a condition similar to its habitat,” Mr. Ravi explained.

Their lifespan in the wild is about 10 years, and they can live up to 20 years in captivity.

Time to keep promises on protecting the Amazon

2011-11-26T04:46:00.000-08:00

25 November 2011
Source: Greenpeace

Deforestation in the Amazon will increase if changes to the Forest Code are passed

Copenhagen, December 2009: amidst the general feeling of disappointment due to the lack of leadership at the UN climate conference, Brazil is responsible for one of the very few rays of hope: the chief of cabinet announces a set of very ambitious environmental targets, including a commitment to a 80 per cent reduction in deforestation by 2020. The chief of cabinet's name? Dilma Rousseff. Her job today? President of Brazil.

Fast-forward to 2011: although only two years have passed, this year has seen the biggest spikes in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in recent history. The latest data shows that between August 2010 and April 2011, deforestation increased by 27 per cent compared to the previous year. Unfortunately, it seems like this is only the beginning of an even more disturbing trend: satellite data for March and April 2011 shows that almost 600 sq km of forest (an area larger than the Isle of Man) was lost. This is an increase of 470 per cent compared to the same period in 2010.

Why is this happening now? For years, Brazil has proven that it can grow substantially while at the same time fighting deforestation. President Dilma herself has argued that Brazil does not need to cut down any more trees to increase its agricultural output. She has support from the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (pdf) which both point out that Brazil can grow economically without more deforestation.

In addition, a study published in Science has shown that areas prone to deforestation do not show sustained levels of human or economic development. It therefore makes sense for Brazil to curb its deforestation levels, and its efforts had begun to pay off. All this has somehow been reversed in 2010.

In July 2010, a special commission voted in favour of changes to the law that regulates the use of forests in Brazil. As it stands that law, the Forest Code, requires landowners to set aside 80 per cent of their lands as legal reserves that cannot be deforested. The proposed changes would reduce the area which means much more forest could be cleared. Although the final vote on the changes has not been passed yet, deforestation has spiked since it was introduced.

One of the reasons for this might be that the new bill also includes a clause granting amnesty to environmental crimes like illegal deforestation which occurred before July 2008.

According to Fabio Alves - a scientist working for the Brazilian government’s own research body, the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) - this has led to some farmers illegally clearing more forest because they hope that the government will simply not be able to find out which parts of the forest were cut down before 2008 and which parts were destroyed afterwards.

On top of that, former environment minister Marina Silva argues that many farmers assume that if they are not charged for their illegal deforestation now, they will be granted another amnesty later.

This is deeply concerning, and threatens Brazil’s commitment to become a world leader on environmental issues. IPEA estimates that if the proposed changes to the Forest Code are passed, an additional 47 million hectares (an area the size of Sweden) could be lost.

With the law getting very close to a final vote in the Brazilian senate, the spotlight is on President Dilma who can still veto the bill. Now is the time for her to speak up and live up to her promises to refuse any law granting amnesty to those who have illegally destroyed pristine Amazon rainforest.

And the Brazilian public is behind her. In a recent poll, an overwhelming 79 per cent supported a presidential veto of the Forest Code revision; 84 per cent even said they would not vote for anyone who had voted in favor of “pardoning illegal deforestation”.

In Copenhagen, Dilma promised to protect rainforest - it's time she lived up to that promise.

Ecotourism isn't bad for wildlife in the Amazon

2011-11-26T04:45:00.000-08:00

November 23, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Ecotourism doesn't hurt biodiversity, and in some cases may even safeguard vulnerable areas, concludes a new study from the Amazon in Mammalian Biology. Surveying large mammals in an ecotourism area in Manu National Biosphere, the researchers found that ecotourists had no effect on the animals. However, the researchers warn that not all ecotourism is the same, and some types may, in fact, hurt the very animals tourists come to see.

Still in the Amazon researchers saw only benefits to ecotourism, cataloging 85 percent of large mammals in the ecotourism area as are found in the entire park.

"We could not find any way in which the richness of species has been affected," explains lead author Salvador Salvador in a press release. "No species sensitive to the presence of humans was lacking and although we were unable to calculate population density, species like the tapir (Tapirus terrestris) or the [white-lipped peccary] (Tayassu peccary) were abundant, even compared to virgin forest areas."

In addition, ecotourism could even support wildlife populations. According to Salvador, ecotourism in the Amazon tends to focus on areas near rivers, preserving some of the forest under the greatest pressure from settlers.

"These areas are home to species that are attractive, spectacular and easily visible such as the alligators, the giant otter and macaw clay licks," explains Salvador.

Salvador cautioned, however, that this study should not be seen to cover other ecotourism options, saying "a [photographic] safari in Kenya is not the same as what we studied in the Amazon rainforest." Most ecotourism in the Amazon is conducted by hiking or in boats.

Amazon countries vow to enhance conservation efforts

2011-11-24T04:37:00.000-08:00

22 Novenber 2011
Source: AFP

Ecuardor's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino (L) and his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota (AFP, Evaristo Sa)

MANAUS, Brazil — Eight South American countries pledged Tuesday to boost cooperation to protect one of the planet's largest natural reserves from deforestation and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Representatives of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela gathered in Manaus, northern Brazil, also vowed to speak with one voice at next June's UN conference on sustainable development in Rio.

The Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, is one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water.

Tuesday's meeting involving signatories of the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA), focused on the Amazon Fund, a joint initiative launched in 2008 to combat deforestation and support conservation and sustainable development.

"The Brazilian government is committed to revitalizing the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (OTCA)," said Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota as he opened the one-day meeting. "A stronger OTCA is in the interest of member states."

Also present were his counterparts Ricardo Patino of Ecuador, Suriname's Winston Lackin, Venezuela's Ricardo Maduro as well as representatives of other OTCA parties.

They reviewed agreements signed to protect the Amazon and discussed navigation rules on the Amazon river and a joint stance at next year's Rio conference.

Earlier a Brazilian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Brazil, which has the largest tract of Amazon rainforest, was keen on "expediting the process to implement the Amazon Fund."

The initiative has received donations of nearly $58 million (42 million euros) over the past two years, well short of the initial target of one billion dollars.

It notably seeks to improve satellite tracking of forest deforestation and environmental plans in border areas.

"Sharing forest data among Amazon countries will facilitate the adoption of coordinated policies to combat deforestation and will ensure that we are better prepared for international discussions on sustainable development," Patriota said.

Last year the Amazon lost 7,000 square kilometers (2,702 square miles), down from the historic peak of 2003-2004, when more than 27,700 square kilometers were deforested.

Officials say Amazon logging mainly results from fires, the advance of agriculture and cattle farming as well as illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Ecuador is meanwhile pushing an innovative proposal to combat global warming under which it would not exploit its oil reserves in the Amazon in exchange for international compensation of $3.6 billion dollars over 12 years.

Covering an area of seven million square kilometers, the Amazon is home to 40,000 plant species, millions of animal species and some 420 indigenous tribes, including 60 who live in total isolation.

According to OTCA, 38.7 million people live in the region, roughly 11 percent of the eight Amazon countries' population.

Brazilian dam-builder quits Peru project after indigenous protest

2011-11-24T04:33:00.000-08:00

November 23, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

A large Brazilian construction company has pulled out of a Peruvian dam project citing opposition from indigenous communities, reports International Rivers.

In a letter addressed to the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines, Odebrecht said it was withdrawing from the 1278-megawatt Tambo-40 Dam on the Tambo River in the Peruvian Amazon. The company said it would "respect the opinion of local populations" in pulling out of the project, which would have affected some 14,000 indigenous people along the Tambo and Ene Rivers.

Odebrecht reached its decision after meeting with the Ashaninka of the Tambo River.

The move, which leaves the dam without a developer, was welcomed by Manuel Leon, an Ashaninka leader.

"We welcome this decision by Odebrecht to respect our rights," he said. "We hope that other Brazilian dam builders will follow Odebrecht’s lead and make a similar decision."

The Ashaninka will now focus their efforts on Electrobrás — another Brazilian company — which is hoping to build another dam on the Tambo River.

Brazilian dam-builders are targeting dozens of rivers across the Amazon Basin. Much of their funding comes from Brazil's development bank BNDES.

Amazon reclaims site of U.S. cult tragedy

2011-11-24T04:31:00.000-08:00

Tue Nov 22, 2011
Source: Reuters

Wilfred Jupiter clears foliage from an oversized gravestone on a site deep in the Guyanese rainforest where more than 900 Americans died.

The 80-year-old is one of few locals in the remote Amazonian nation who recalls the commune set up here by Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple cult in 1974.

Four years later, the cult ended in a mass murder-suicide that was one of the largest ever losses of civilian U.S. life.

"I was shocked," said Jupiter, who had helped clear the thick jungle so Jones and his followers could set up their self-styled Utopia.

"I worked with these people every day ... then they all killed themselves."

Jones took his followers to this remote corner of Latin America, sandwiched between Suriname, Venezuela and Brazil, as U.S. authorities and the media began to scrutinize his activities, threatening the organization's existence.

Just a few rusty remnants remain at the site, which Jones billed as a socialist idyll complete with hospital, workshops and dormitories for the roughly 1,000 followers.

It was left to decay after Jones persuaded almost all his members to kill themselves in the tragedy that also took the life of a U.S. congressman in November 1978.

California representative Leo Ryan had traveled there following reports members of the cult were held against their will, according to media accounts from the time. He had wanted to offer them a chance to return to the United States.

As Ryan arrived at the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip with several defectors in tow, he was killed by Jones' security guards along with four others, according to witnesses, some of whom played dead until the gunmen drove off.

"It was the most horrific thing you'll ever see in your life," said Gerry Gouveia, then a young army pilot who loaded Ryan's body into a bag and flew it to the country's coastal capital Georgetown.

Gouveia had previously flown Jones to the commune and knew it well.

"These people had gone into the jungle and cleared it to create a beautiful living space," he said during an interview in the Guyanese capital Georgetown. "To me, it represented a kind of Utopia."

On November 18, 1978, that dream came to an end as, according to media reports, Jones forced followers to drink cyanide-laced "Flavor Aid" in a "revolutionary suicide" that Jones had forced them to rehearse many times before.

Those who resisted were shot or stabbed to death, according to the reports.

FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY

Local resident Carlton Daniels was present as U.S. troops came to collect the decaying bodies three days later.

"You can tell the (ethnicity) of people from the texture of their hair," said Daniels, 65, as he looked down at the ground where he had seen the bodies, their faces unrecognizable due to the effects of cyanide poisoning.

"The skin was transparent and covered in a grey fluid. Their features weren't there."

In all, according to U.S. authorities, 918 people died that day, 909 in Jonestown, five at the landing strip and a family of four in the country's capital Georgetown, having received orders to commit suicide.

Cheap corrugated plastic signs poke out of the jungle now in a feeble attempt to show the site's layout, pointing out the playground, kitchen and hospital. Despite only having been erected two years ago by local authorities, they are in tatters as the jungle rapidly takes over.

The memorial that Jupiter so fondly clears was built in 2009 though its white paint is already peeling under a relentless sun.

The site is now unrecognizable as that of a massacre.

"It would be nice to remind people of the dangers of cults," said Daniels. "You have to be more careful when you enter these organizations. They tell you one part of it but you've got to think for yourself and see if the truth is there."

Brazil 'risks loss of forest area equal to Germany, Italy and Austria'

2011-11-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

23 Nov 2011
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

WWF said studies suggest the new legislation could see 175 million acres of forest cleared or not restored following illegal deforestation

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined steadily since 2004 and fell to the lowest level on record in the year from August 2009 to July 2010 following improved satellite monitoring and tougher enforcement.

But this year has already seen signs of a resurgence in several areas and environmental groups believe proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code will exacerbate the problem in the Amazon and beyond.

They warn that the legislation would open up vast swathes of the world's biggest rainforest to uses such as cattle ranching and soy production and end hopes of replanting many illegally cleared areas.

According to WWF, Brazil's efforts to position itself as a "global environmental leader" risk being severely damaged before it hosts the UN Conference on Sustainable Development – known as Rio+20 – in Rio de Janeiro in June next year.

Maria Cecilia Wey de Brito, WWF-Brazil's CEO, said: "We are watching, just before Brazil hosts Rio+20, a clear attempt to dismantle Brazil's environmental legislation. This is something unprecedented in our history." She warned that "input from scientists, researchers, family farmers and social groups has been systematically ignored" by Brazil's upper and lower houses of parliament.

WWF said studies suggest the new legislation could see 175 million acres of forest – an area roughly equivalent to Germany, Italy and Austria together – cleared or not restored following illegal deforestation.

The laws would "likely make it impossible" for Brazil to meet its commitment of reducing deforestation by 80 per cent by 2020 compared to its average rate from 1996 to 2005, the charity said.

The new bill will update the Forest Code, which dates back to 1965 and applies to the nearly 5.2 million farmers and owners of rural land in Brazil, around 90 per cent of whom are considered small landowners.

The current code requires them to keep a certain percentage of their land as untouched forest, varying from 20 per cent in some areas to 80 per cent in the Amazon.

But around nine out of 10 landowners are believed to fall short of full compliance.

The new laws, already passed by Brazil's lower house in May, would see an amnesty from heavy fines granted to landowners who cleared forest illegally between 1965 and July 2008.

They would also see rules on the clearing of hills relaxed and safeguard forest areas bordering rivers to between 100 and 330 feet from the river bank – figures criticised as insufficient by scientists and conservationists.

Agriculture has played an important role in Brazil's economic rise. The country is now the world's leading producer and exporter of coffee and sugar cane, the biggest beef exporter, largest producer of oranges and second largest producer of soy.

Senator Katia Abreu, president of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock, has led an aggressive campaign for a reduction in environmental regulations on agricultural producers to help further boost food output.

She claimed in a recent interview that Brazil's farmers could lose $100bn if the deforestation amnesty is not passed and they were forced to reforest large areas.

Brazil's Senate is due to vote on the bill before the end of November and it will then be sent back to the lower house before going to President Dilma Rousseff for approval.

Despite minor amendments Ms Rousseff will come under pressure to honour a 2010 election campaign pledge to veto legislation likely to increase deforestation, amid growing concern from conservationists that the bill could become law this year.

Marcio Astrini, of Greenpeace's Amazon Campaign, said: "The president has respected the progress of the bill without commenting, letting it follow its course of destruction.

"In the next phase, she will have to keep her word to veto or break her campaign promises."

Brazil indigenous Guarani leader Nisio Gomes killed

2011-11-21T05:21:00.000-08:00

19 November 2011
Source: BBC News

An indigenous leader in southern Brazil has been shot dead in front of his community, officials say.

Nisio Gomes, 59, was part of a Guarani Kaiowa group that returned to their ancestral land at the start of this month after being evicted by ranchers.

He was killed by a group of around 40 masked gunmen who burst into the camp.

Brazil's Human Rights Secretary condemned the murder as "part of systematic violence against indigenous people in the region".

In a statement, Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosario Nunes said the region in Mato Grosso do Sul state was "one of the worst scenes of conflict between indigenous people and ranchers in the country".

She said those responsible must not be allowed to escape with impunity.

Mr Gomes was shot in the head, chest, arms and legs and his body was then driven away by the gunmen, community members said.

His son was reportedly beaten and shot with a rubber bullet when he tried to intervene.

Unconfirmed reports say two other Guaranis were abducted by the gunmen and may also have been killed.

Many of the community's 60 residents fled the camp to hide in the surrounding forest

Tribe defiant

The incident happened near the town of Amambai near the border with Paraguay.

Federal Police and representatives of Brazil's main indigenous organisations have travelled to the area to investigate the killing.

"The people will stay in the camp, we will all die here together. We are not going to leave our ancestral land," one of the Guaranis told the Roman Catholic Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) .

CIMI said the community wanted to recover Mr Gomes's body so he could be buried in the land he tried to defend throughout his life.

The group had been camping on a roadside following their eviction until they decided to return to their land at the beginning of November.

The killing has been condemned by the campaign group Survival International, which campaigns for indigenous rights.

"It seems the ranchers won't be happy until they've eradicated the Guarani," Survival's director Stephen Corry said.

"This level of violence was commonplace in the past and it resulted in the extinction of thousands of tribes," he added.

The Guarani are Brazil's largest indigenous minority, with around 46,000 members living in seven states.

Many others live in neighbouring Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.

The group suffers from a severe shortage of land in Brazil, which has worsened as a boom in agriculture has led farmers and ranchers to extend their holdings.

Indigenous activists say farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul frequently use violence and threats to force them off their ancestral territory, and that the local authorities do little to protect them.

Ecuador's Amazon 'amazing destination'

2011-11-21T05:20:00.000-08:00

17 November 2011
Source: Year Out Group

Those in the process of gap year planning should consider visiting Ecuador and seeing the Amazon for themselves.

Isabel Choat has picked the destination as one of the seven wonders of the natural world and advised travellers to make the trip to see the site.

She warned that the rainforest is disappearing "at a mind-boggling and terrifying rate", meaning that the sooner a journey is made the more likely it is that a visitor will be able to experience the site in all of its glory.

Ms Choat said that those who are concerned about the impact of illegal logging and oil companies' behaviours is to visit the yachana Lodge on the Napo river's banks.

The site works with young people from tribal communities in order to give people the skills to protect the forest through sustainable tourism.

Those doing their gap year planning were recently advised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to do their research and to learn local customs before taking their trip, enhancing their experience and ensuring they earn respect in their destination.

Review: Amazon exhibition at Somerset House

2011-11-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

18th November, 2011
Source: The Ecologist

Sebastião Salgado and Per-Anders Pettersson’s work offers a compelling insight into a threatened way of life, says The Ecologist's Green Living Editor Ruth Styles

The statistics are shocking. Three football pitch sized areas of pristine Amazon rainforest are lost every minute thanks to logging and the land grabs of local farmers. That’s over a million acres per day. What’s more, industrial scale deforestation is responsible for a staggering 15 percent of global emissions – more than ship, air and car transport combined. But worst of all, deforestation – both in the Amazon and elsewhere – is taking an unacceptable toll on biodiversity and indigenous peoples. Malaria, a non-native disease introduced via human exploration, has killed an estimated 20 per cent of the Yanomani tribe in the Amazon Basin, while at least 26 bird and animal species have been lost altogether thanks to habitat loss and poaching. And it’s statistics such as these that make Somerset House’ new Amazon exhibition all the more poignant, focusing, as it does, on the little that’s left.

Featuring the work of two photographers, Sebastião Salgado and Per-Anders Pettersson, the exhibition offers a pictorial insight into the contemporary realities of the Amazon Basin. Salgado’s works concentrating on the lives of the Alto Xingu and Zo’é tribes are strangely depressing; depicting a threatened way of life in stark black and white. The images are wonderful but their beauty is overshadowed by the precariousness of a lifestyle under threat from the modern world. In some respects, the photos resemble Gauguin’s Tahitian works, with the last gasp of a fading way of life held up for all to marvel at. The stunning aerial shot of the Anavilanhas archipelago in the Negro River is epically beautiful but like its human inhabitants, it is also endangered. The stark beauty of the photos, bringing the tribes’ harmonious relationship with their surroundings into clear focus, is in many ways, an early epitaph for a dying culture and a dying landscape.

By contrast, Pettersson’s work looks at the charity and conservation efforts being made to protect the region’s people, plants and animals in eye-wateringly bright colour. If Salgado’s work is a hauntingly beautiful tribute, Pettersson’s photos are a technicolour documentary looking at the efforts being made by locals with a little help from the WWF, Sky Rainforest Rescue and celebrity champion, Gemma Arterton. ‘This trip gave me a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the work that is being done first hand and help showcase it,’ comments Pettersson in the exhibition guide. The Swede’s collection is almost relentlessly upbeat, with plenty of shots of smiling locals, wild rubber tapping in action and one of Arterton staring wistfully out the window of a plane. Some are irritatingly cheesy – how many times have we seen images of celebs getting involved with locals only to return home and carry on as usual – but many others have real power and slam home the message that many of us miss: without getting local people on side, conservation can’t happen. It’s to the WWF and Sky Rainforest Rescue’s credit that they have recognised this and are directing much of their efforts at the forest’s human occupants.

At least 141 workers fired at site for Brazil's Amazon dam

2011-11-19T04:21:00.000-08:00

18 Novenber 2011
Source: AFP

Brazilian workers (L-R) Jose Evaldo Dutra, Valter Almeida, Josivam Alves and Antonio Cardoso (AFP/File, Lunae Parracho)

BRASILIA — At least 141 workers have been fired at the construction site for Brazil's controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon following a dispute over working conditions, one of them said Friday.

Jose Antonio Cardoso, a representative for the workers, said the consortium in charge of the $11 billion project had promised to help resolve the dispute but instead announced that 134 workers were being fired "without explanation."

"First they fired 134, then four others, including myself, then three more," he added.

Cardoso said the workers were demanding better pay as well as improved working conditions.

Police then escorted the fired workers to the bus station, where they were driven back to the northeastern state of Maranhao from they had been recruited, he added.

A spokesman for the CCBM consortium in charge of the project said only 120 workers were let go.

Last month more than 400 activists occupied the site of what would be the third biggest dam in the world -- after China's Three Gorges dam and the Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

Construction of the Belo Monte dam -- which would produce more than 11,000 megawatts, or about 11 percent of Brazil's current installed capacity -- has been the subject of legal wrangling for decades.

The project also has drawn international criticism, including from Oscar-winning movie director James Cameron of "Avatar" fame, who said rainforest indigenous tribes could turn to violence to block dam construction.

But President Dilma Rousseff's government has insisted the project should be allowed to go ahead, making it the centerpiece of government efforts to boost energy production in the rapidly growing economy.

The project is expected to employ 20,000 people directly in construction, flood an area of 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) along the Xingu river and displace 16,000 persons.

The government had pledged to minimize the environmental and social impact of the dam and asserted that no traditional indigenous land was to be affected.

Amazon rainforest splits along geological lines

2011-11-19T04:18:00.000-08:00

18 November 2011
Source: Planet earth

From above the Amazon rainforest may look like an endless, uniform sea of greenery, but it turns out there are sharp lines through it separating very different ecosystems with distinct inhabitants. And these lines are drawn by the region's geology.

An innovative study published in Journal of Biogeography and led by Mark Higgins of Duke University is the first to combine large-scale data from satellites with painstaking work on the ground, sampling the plant types found in particular areas.

It shows an abrupt boundary between two distinct kinds of forest, running some 300km through northern Peru. The method also reveals a similarly sharp disjunction in western Brazil, running from north to south for more than 1500km. The researchers suggest this effectively marks the boundary between western and central Amazonia.

The earth is very different on either side of these boundaries. On average the soil on one side contains 15 times as many cations - tiny particles that plants need for nourishment - as that a short distance away on the other side. The plant communities living in these different kinds of soil are almost completely distinct.

'It's a profound difference in soil and plant species,' says Professor Oliver Phillips, a specialist in rainforest ecology at Leeds University and one of the paper's authors. 'We used to think the ecology of the Amazon varied gradually with the climate across the whole basin. But now we can see that it's not a matter of gradual variation - there are really dramatic changes over a few hundred metres.'

Scientists have known for some time that the Amazon isn't as uniform as it looks at first glance, and that it hosts many distinct regions with their own plant and animal communities. Before now, there have been various theories as to why this is - some have argued it's to do with rivers acting as barriers to species' spread, for example. But it now looks like the true causes may operate on an even larger scale.

The research suggests the Andes mountain range strongly influences the plants growing in the Amazon far away, by lifting the ground very slightly. The difference is so subtle you'd barely notice it at ground level, but it means water flows across the raised area more quickly, increasing erosion.

Over hundreds of thousands of years this wears away the relatively nutrient-poor surface soil and exposes the much richer deposits buried underneath. So the areas that are raised up slightly by the distant Andes have more fertile soil and end up with a different mix of plants and animals.

'It's amazing to think that the Andes are driving the ecology of the Amazon forest more than a thousand kilometres away,' says Phillips.

Satellite data meets fieldwork

The scientists looked first at the Peruvian rainforest. They took information from two satellites - Landsat, which senses the visible light and infrared radiation reflected by the forest canopy, providing information on the chemical activity there and how much moisture is present; and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which uses radar to create a very accurate picture of the contours of the landscape below.

Combining these two sets of data - one showing different kinds of plant; the other revealing the fine details of the landscape - let the researchers see a line running through the forest that seemed to correspond both to a shift in topography and to a different set of plants.

To check this information against the facts on the ground, they drew both on fieldwork from the 1990s in Peru where Phillips' NERC Fellowship concentrated on sampling different species of forest trees and on newer research sampling ferns and another group of understorey plants called melastomes.

They focused on these plants because trees are so big and so varied that to get a representative sample you need to survey an extremely large area - and also because when they're not flowering or fruiting, rainforest trees can be hard to identify. The ground-level data came from 138 sites distributed along more than 450km of road and river.

The scientists applied the same remote-sensing methods to the rainforest of western Brazil, finding an even longer geological boundary that seems to have caused the forest on either side to diverge.

Phillips says it's striking that as so often, painstaking scientific research has ended up backing up the knowledge of the people who live in the area. 'The locals are well aware of these differences - they know that some areas are much more suitable for farming, so they use various indicator species like particular understorey palms to identify the most fertile areas and clear the forest there,' he says.

Indeed, a map of the results from Peru shows strong similarities to aerial images of local deforestation - the fertile areas are usually the ones cleared for farmland.

Phillips explains that these insights will be important in devising strategies to conserve the Amazon rainforests - it will be important to conserve both types of rainforest, as they are both unique ecosystems and if one is destroyed it won't be repopulated by the plants and animals that live in the other. More fertile areas may need more protection against clearance.

He adds that many of the areas these geo-ecological thresholds run through are so remote that biologists have never got there to do research on the ground. The study predicts that any who went and looked would find similar sharp ecological boundaries here to those described in the studies, but more fieldwork is needed to confirm this.

Amazon rainforest named as one of seven nature wonders

2011-11-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

November 14, 2011Source: mongabay.com

Amazon rainforest in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

The Amazon rainforest has been named one of the "New 7 Wonders of Nature of the World", according to the Swiss group that organized the competition.

The New7Wonders Foundation named Halong Bay in Vietnam; Iguazu Falls in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay; Jeju Island in Korea; Komodo island in Indonesia; Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Philippines; and Table Mountain in South Africa as the other six.

The winners emerged after months of voting. Originally some 447 were candidates for the title.

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest and provides critical services for mankind: 70 percent of South America's GDP is produced in the region fed by Amazon rainfall. Another one of the "New 7 Wonders of Nature of the World" is also powered by the Amazon rainforest: Iguazu Falls.

Iguazu falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Despite the Amazon's importance, its forests continue to fall. While Brazil has made great progress in reducing deforestation in recent years, scientists fear that climate change, combined with continuing forest loss, could put much of the Amazon at risk, leaving it at greater risk of fire and drought. Already some of the forecasts are looking prescient: in the past five years the Amazon experienced the two worst droughts over recorded.

Uncontacted Indians emerge from forest

2011-11-14T06:48:00.000-08:00

12 Nov 2011Source: Cool Earth

Over the last few months there have been several sightings of previously "uncontacted" Indians in Manu National Park and Biosphere Reserve located in the Peruvian Amazon an area which borders The virgin forests between Manu and the Brazilian frontier, between 150 and 200 miles to the east, is one of the last regions of the planet where indigenous communities have been able to live in relative peace and isolation during the last 50 years.

According to Roger Rumrill, a Peruvian specialist on the Amazon region and consultant advisor to that country's Ministry for the Environment, the increased sightings are most likely a consequence of pressure from loggers, gold prospectors, and seismic teams exploring for oil and gas. This kind of exploitative pressure has been on the rise over the last 10 years, frequently pushing the voluntary isolated groups from the core of their traditional territory.

Peru's newly appointed government, led by President Ollanta Humala, has a much more positive approach to the so-called "uncontacted" indigenous groups than the previous government which essentially tried to auction off around 70% of the Peruvian Amazon to multinational companies, in most instances, without even attempting to properly consult the legal owners such as indigenous communities. Alan Garcia, the previous President, even dismissed the existence of isolated indigenous groups, suggesting instead, that they were an invention of environmentalists to deter "development" in the region.

This new approach was reflected last month when the Ministry for the Environment released a video shot by tourists showing their close encounter with a group of "uncontacted" Indians on a riverbank in Manu. Ministry of the Environment officials explained that these tourists were irresponsibly tracking the Indians with a motorised canoe. This "game" stopped when the Indians pointed their bow and arrows at the tourists.

The video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYaqGiCgoWc) shows the tourists debating among themselves whether to approach the Indians and whether or not they should leave gifts of food or clothing for the Indians to take. The officials issued a strong warning to tourists and others travelling in Peru's rainforests to avoid any contact with isolated groups, including leaving cloths or other items which could very easily transmit illnesses to people who, because of their long term isolation, are immunologically defenceless even against basic ailments like influenza.

Soothsaying the Amazon's fires

2011-11-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Thu, 10 Nov 2011
Source: The Earth Times

A deforestation fire in Mato Grosso, Brazil during the 2006 fire season. (Photo credit: Guido van der Werf)

The last decade has been a tumultuous one for the Amazon rainforest, the green lung of the planet. On the one hand, the hand that wields the ax has been stayed somewhat - with the rates of deforestation last year at their slowest pace in 20 years. On the other, fierce 'once-a-century' droughts have gripped the lush basin not once, but twice. Some see the lurking shadow of global warming behind such an ill-starred run of searing dry seasons. What is for certain is that the planet can ill-afford for this global gobbler of man's CO2 to dry, shrivel and shrink - whether by ax or fire.

Fire season severity for selected years and their relationship to sea surface temperatures in the Pacific and the Atlantic. [Image © Science/AAAS]

But while scientists can't step in to banish these twin threats, they can hold out the promise of foretelling signs of the next gathering drought. That's according to the results of a new study by climate scientists, published in Science today. With advance warning, those tasked with conserving the Amazon may be able to prevent the worst effects of such droughts, by putting a damper on their potential for wildfires.

In order to act as modern-day augurs of these devastating droughts, the team - led by University of California, Irvine (UCI) - cast their eyes far afield, to the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. By watching the tremors of temperature over some three decades, in waters thousands of miles from the Amazon basin, they were able to pick up subtle signs that predicted the droughts - up to five months before they struck.

In the years when then the temperature of the central Pacific rose by a degree Celsius - and those in the Atlantic by a quarter of a degree - wildfires bloomed across the South American rainforests several months later. The researchers were able to produce models that accurately predicted the devastating fires of the 2010 Amazonian dry season. "We predicted a massive spike in fires in 2010, and it occurred," said James Randerson, one of the paper's authors from UCI.

Because there is a reasonable lead-time for their omen-casting, it gives those on the ground a fighting chance to take action. For example, fire-fighting teams can be placed in known flash points; or controlled burning of conflagration-prone areas can be undertaken - hopefully preventing raging wildfires from taking hold across wider swathes later. "During the 21st century, there are expectations that drought may intensify, and forests may become even more vulnerable. Understanding in advance whether you're going to have an exceptionally bad year will become critically important for managing them."

Given the desperate importance of holding onto those parts of the globe, such as the Amazon, that absorb much of our rising CO2 emissions, the need for such climate-oracles has never been greater. But with the bones also speaking loudly of a wider, more globally-ominous future, are we actually listening?

Google Street View Cameras Map The Amazon

2011-11-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

Thursday November 10, 2011
Source: Sky News

Google mounted its panoramic cameras on a modified tricycle

Google has used a pedal-powered tricycle to start photographing the vast Amazon rainforest as part of its global Street View facility.

As a result internet users around the world will only be clicks away from travelling through rivers and remote inhabited areas of Brazil.

The project used a white tricycle equipped with panoramic 3D cameras and a boat to take snapshots of a small stretch of the world's biggest tropical forest.

Navigating down the Rio Negro river, a boat with the tricycle on top took thousands of shots of the jungle and its residents.

Although the pictures will only show a small slice of the gigantic forest, members of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS) which helped Google carry out the project, hope it will help spread environmental awareness.

Google spokesman Emmanuel Evita said the local communities were receptive towards their photo team.

"Entering these communities we spent a lot of time talking to the people in the communities and making sure that these communities understood what we were doing and agreed with what we were doing.

"I think that in those areas a lot of them feel that even in Brazil, even in the nearer cities, there is not a lot of knowledge about the fact that they exist there and that they live there.

"So they are seeing a lot of the attention that they are receiving as an opportunity to show that they have a local culture and they have many things they can share with potential visitors and tourists."

The Google camera tricycle was taken by boat along the river

Google left their image-capturing gear behind and have trained some local residents to take photos themselves.

He said Google understood that the best people to show their forest were the people who lived there.

The head of FAS in Brazil, Virgilio Vianna, said the foundation decided to support the project because they believe more knowledge of the forest will help save it.

"This is the purpose of this project, this partnership with Google, to allow people to get to know a little more about the forest, the rivers, the communities without leaving their home.

"And who knows, upon this first look at the Amazon they might become interested in getting involved in some way, maybe by visiting or joining projects and other positive initiatives."
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Ocean temperatures can predict severity of Amazon fires

2011-11-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

11 November 11
Source: Wired.co.uk

A Nasa-funded research team at the University of California has created a model that can successful predict the severity and distribution of fires in the Amazon rainforest months in advance by analysing satellite data.

Previous research has shown that human settlement patterns are the main factor driving the distribution of fires in the Amazon. However, the new research shows that environmental factors -- including small variations in ocean temperatures -- intensify human influence and help explain the variability in the number of fires in the region from one year to the next.

Researchers analysed nine years of fire activity data collected by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Instruments (Modis) on Nasa's Terra and Aqua satellites. They compared these to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's records of sea surface temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns measured by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission -- a satellite co-managed by Nasa and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

According to the study -- published in Science -- temperature changes as little as 0.25°C in the North Atlantic and 1°C in the Central Pacific can be used to forecast how severe the fires are will be across the region. Higher-than-normal temperatures tend to precede a severe fire season four to six months later.

The team believes that unusually warm sea surface temperatures cause regional precipitation patterns to shift north in the southern Amazon during the wet season. Co-author of the study James Randerson explains: "The result is that soils don't get fully saturated. Months later, humidity and rainfall levels decline, and the vegetation becomes drier and more flammable."

The findings build on a Columbia University-led study published in July 2011 that showed how sea temperatures in the Northern Atlantic could forecast fire severity across a small section of the western Amazon. The new study considers a broader area of South America and takes into account the temperatures of the Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

The team successfully predicted that there would be a prolonged drought and severe fires in the 2010 fire season, but will have to wait to see whether the model's predictions for 2011 (which haven't yet been published) were also accurate, since the activity peaks in September and November.

They also noticed a pattern emerging: fires in the southern and south-western part of the Amazon were most strongly influenced by sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic, while fires in the eastern part of the Amazon were affected by sea temperatures in the central Pacific.

The team hopes that the findings may be used to build an early warning system for fires to aid South American authorities prepare for fire seasons.

Amazon Rainforest one of New 7 Wonders of Nature

2011-11-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

November 11, 2011
Source: PeruthisWeek.com

Amazon River

The Amazon Rainforest has been named as one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature of the World, said the organizer on Friday.

The other 6 are: Halong Bay, Vietnam; Iguazu Falls, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay; Jeju Island, Korea; Komodo, Indonesia; Puerto Princesa, Philippines; and Table Mounta, South Africa.

Organizers said the results were provisional, and based on a first count of votes.

A final list of the New 7 Wonders of Nature will be released in 2012.

In Iquitos, the regional president of Loreto, Yván Enrique Vásquez Valera celebrated with local people.

Vásquez said the title meant “thousands of dollars more for the humble people, because the benefit of a tourist's trip is money that goes everywhere: to the taxi driver, the motorcycle taxi driver, the guide in the small boat in the Amazon River, to everyone," he said to local radio RPP.

"The voting calculation is now being checked, validated and independently verified, and the confirmed winners will be announced starting early 2012," organizers said.

"It is possible that there will be changes between the above provisional winners and the eventual finally confirmed winners," they added.

The top 7 were chosen from 28 finalists, that made it to the final round from an initial 477 nominees.

Brazil court refuses to stop work on Amazon dam

2011-11-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

10 Nov 2011
Source: AFP

Representatives of indigenous tribes and environmental activists carry out a demonstration against the Belo Monte dam (AFP/File, Yasuyoshi Chiba)

BRASILIA — A federal court on Wednesday rejected an appeal for suspending construction of Brazil's controversial $11 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Amazon until after indigenous people have been consulted.

The court, based in Brasilia, upheld a legislative decree that authorized construction, which is opposed by environmentalists and Amazon Indian tribes who say the dam will cause massive destruction of fauna and flora in the area.

Maria do Carmo Cardoso, a court judge, held that while the indigenous communities are entitled to being consulted, the law does not say that this must be done before approval of the work.

"The consultations are not binding, they are merely informative," she added in remarks carried by the state Brazil agency.

Authorities of the western Para state, who back the call for suspending the work until after the indigenous communities have been consulted, announced that the court ruling would be appealed in the federal Supreme Court.

Last month more than 400 activists occupied the site of what would be the third biggest dam in the world -- after China's Three Gorges dam and the Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

Construction of the Belo Monte dam -- which would produce more than 11,000 megawatts, or about 11 percent of Brazil's current installed capacity -- has been the subject of legal wrangling for decades.

The project also has drawn international criticism, including from Oscar-winning movie director James Cameron of "Avatar" fame, who said rainforest indigenous tribes could turn to violence to block dam construction.

But President Dilma Rousseff's government has insisted the project should be allowed to go ahead, making it the centerpiece of government efforts to boost energy production in the rapidly growing economy.

The project is expected to employ 20,000 people directly in construction, flood an area of 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) along the Xingu river and displace 16,000 persons.

The government had pledged to minimize the environmental and social impact of the dam and asserted that no traditional indigenous land was to be affected.

Peruvian authorities raid illegal gold mining operations

2011-11-09T04:41:00.000-08:00

November 07, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Gold mining in Peru's Tambopata region, Department of Madre de Dios. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

Peru's Defense Ministry destroyed at least 75 illegal dredges and seized 15 vehicles from gold miners operating illegally in one of the most biodiverse parts of the Amazon rainforest.

The dredges were destroyed along the Inambari, Madre de Dios, Tambopata and Malinowski rivers, tributaries of the Amazon River in Peru's Madre de Dios Department. Illegal gold mining in rampant in the region and has been associated with water pollution, bioaccumulation of toxic mercury in fish, social conflict, deforestation, and bushmeat hunting. Illegal mining has even expanded into protected areas.

The recent action was coordinated with the Public Ministry, the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Interior. The operation, conducted under Emergency Decree 007-2011, involves 1,500 troops and is expected to last 30 days, according to the Defense Ministry. Authorities plan to take control over rivers where illegal mining is occurring.

Two dazzling, yet discrepant sides of the Amazon [AMAZING PHOTOS]

2011-11-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

Tue, Nov 8, 2011
Source: ZME Science

A recent art photography exhibition, dubbed Amazon, is currently on display at Somerset House in London, which brings together two remarkable, distinct bodies of photography to highlight the plight of the Amazonian rainforest and the people living within it. Thus, the work of Brazilian Sebastião Salgado depicts the virgin beauty of the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world, while Swedish photographer Per Anders Pettersson chose to show the less serene side.

Salgado’s photo from below shows a largely unspoiled region in the state of Amazonas in north-west Brazil, part of his ongoing project called Genesis, in which he tries to capture the pristine beauty of the Amazon and its inhabitants in black and white.

In total opposition, yet still of a retched beauty, Pettersson’s photograph shows a huge heavily deforested area of the rain forest. The photographer captured the sight on 21 June this year,when he flew over the Amazonian rainforest. What’s sad, maybe even stupid if you will, is that much of the deforestation was made to clear way for farmland. The problem is that the soil there is practically unusable, which results in poor crops.

Amazon rainforest photo exhibition

2011-11-07T03:51:00.000-08:00

Nov 3, 2011
Source: Cool Earth

A new, stimulating and free photographic exhibition opens today and runs until December 4th at Somerset House, London. Organised by Sky together with the WWF, the exhibition is called Sky Rainforest Rescue.

It was opened by actress Gemma Arteton dressed up as Princess Leia from the Star Wars movies. Photos were taken by the award winning photographers Sebastiao Salgado and Per Anders Pettersson to domument the Amazon rainforest and present threats.

According to Arteton: “It is easy to deforest, it's quick money, so this is about giving people other means to make a living by using the rainforest.”

The photographer Pettersson added: “Some of the images will help visitors understand the deforestation first hand. Others show the reality of life in poor communities of the region. And some show the innovative solutions to deforestation that WWF and Sky are using.”

Most of Petterssons photos were taken recently in the Acre region of Brazil's Amazon which is suffering extreme levels of deforestation and has opened a new trade route road via Peru to the Pacific ocean in the last couple of years.

GM crops cover area larger than Amazon rainforest — 3 billion acres

2011-11-07T03:48:00.000-08:00

Nov. 4, 2011
Source: Western Farm Press

As winter approaches in the United States and the rest of the northern hemisphere, here in the southern hemisphere it’s springtime. That means we’ve started planting. And sometime on Friday, Nov. 4, a farmer will put a seed in the ground and make agricultural history: He (or she) will plant the world’s 3 billionth acre of GM crops.

We don’t know exactly where it will happen, so there won’t be any fireworks or parades. It could be in my country of Brazil. It will almost certainly be in South America where an early planting season is now underway. We’re confident about the timing because Truth about Trade & Technology, an American non-profit group, has kept track of the world’s biotech-crop acreage for years, based on official reports from governments around the world.

All this counting up has produced a very, very large number.

How big is 3 billion acres? It’s bigger than the Amazon rainforest. It’s bigger than all of Brazil. It’s big enough to say with absolute certainty that biotechnology is now a thoroughly conventional variety of agriculture.

Brazil Faces $100 Billion Hit If Forest Farming Bill Fails, Senator Says

2011-11-07T03:46:00.000-08:00

Nov 3, 2011
Source: Bloomberg

Brazil would lose about $100 billion in agricultural output if the senate rejects legislation that forgives farmers for illegally clearing protected rainforest, said Senator Katia Abreu.

Failure to approve the bill would force farmers to reforest about 70 million hectares (173 million acres) of land currently under coffee, oranges and other commodities, said Abreu, 49, who is president of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock.

“We would have a brutal reduction in the country’s food production,” she said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York on Nov. 1. “The legal uncertainty we are living in is deeply worrying.”

The Senate vote, scheduled for this month, comes as deforestation increases in the world’s biggest rain forest amid surging demand for agricultural and wood exports, according to the National Institute for Space Research. Environmental campaigners say the amnesty may encourage formers to flout regulations that limit deforestation.

The bill will update the 1965 Forest Code, which requires farmers to keep a certain percentage of their land as forest. That percentage varies from 80 percent in parts of the Amazon to 20 percent in the swampy Pantanal region in western Brazil.

The new legislation would make the current percentages law, eliminating the risk that they may be changed by presidential decree.

Agricultural Giant

Since the 1960s, farmers have helped transform Brazil from a food importer to one of the world’s largest exporters of soft commodities, and they should be allowed to remain competitive, Abreu said.

Brazil is now the world’s top producer and exporter of coffee and sugar cane, the biggest beef exporter, the largest producer of oranges and the second-largest producer of soy after the U.S.

Much of that expansion has been made possible by cutting down the rain forest, not always legally.

The proposed bill would grant farmers amnesty and exempt them from being required to replant areas illegally deforested before 2009. That is fair because many farmers complied with the limits on deforestation, only to see those restrictions then tightened by decree, making them outlaws, Abreu said.

The legislation was approved by the lower house in a 410-63 vote on May 24. Since then, the bill has been altered to address concerns expressed by President Dilma Rousseff, said Abreu, a member of the Social Democratic Party who represents the state of Tocantins. She expects a vote by Nov. 23.

‘Lost Opportunity’

Opponents of the bill say it doesn’t take the opportunity to adapt 1965 rules to current global environmental standards.

“It is a lost opportunity,” said Roberto Smeraldi, founder and director of Amigos da Terra - Amazonia Brasileira, a Sao Paulo-based public interest group that focuses on the Amazon region. “After so many years discussing the Forest Code reform, this proposal doesn’t look to the future.”

Smeraldi, 51, said the focus on forgiving landowners will lead to further logging.

“One thing is to regularize, another totally different thing is to give amnesty,” he said in a phone interview from Sao Paulo. “When the citizen sees there is no difference between who acted in one way or another, he loses interest in the rule.”

Deforestation doubled to 267.9 square kilometers in May from 109.6 square kilometers a year earlier, led by destruction in the central state of Mato Grosso, the National Institute for Space Research said.

While environmental protection is a concern for farmers, the burden shouldn’t lay only with them, Abreu said.

“In Brazil, the environment is a collective good with an individual burden to the landowners,” said Abreu. When the environmental discussions started, in the 80s, “we went to sleep as heroes and woke up as villains,” she said.

Enjoy the Amazon rainforests... from your armchair

2011-11-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

2 Nov 2011
Source: Bizcommunity.com

The armchair traveller can now mosey through the Amazon rainforest, looking at the magnificent sites captured by Google, which has mounted a camera on a boat to capture images from the rivers and waterways. This is according to a report on IOL and on News24.

This is Google's latest Street View venture and it has enlisted the help of local residents to use a trike to cycle through villages alongside the river, taking pictures of different parts of the remote diverse rainforests.

For the first phase of the project, Google teams are floating down a 48km sector of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus to Terra Preta before heading into the Amazon itself.

Google says its cameras have been welcomed in the Amazon, unlike in Germany, India and Austria that have all sought to ban the Street Views on the basis that it invades the privacy of private individuals.

TNK-BP moves deeper into Amazon basin

2011-11-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

Nov 1, 2011
Source: UPI

Russian-British oil joint venture TNK-BP announced it bought a 45 percent stake in a Brazilian oil company working in the Amazon River basin.

TNK-BP Chief Executive Officer at Mikhail Fridman said the company was looking forward to a sustained partnership with Brazilian company HRT O&G.

"The project will give us access to significant new resources in one of the world's fastest growing markets," he said.

Independent audits put the total resource capacity of the 21 oil and gas exploration blocks owned by HRT at around 789 million barrels of oil equivalent. The blocks cover roughly 18,725 square miles.

The reserves in the Solimoes Basin of the Amazon are relatively unexplored because of concerns about the environmental impact of oil and gas exploration in the region. Brazil, the Financial Times reported, is on pace to become of the largest oil producers in the world.

TNK-BP in July announced a similar deal for exploration blocks along the Amazon River through a partnership with Brazil's Petro Energia.

Scientists using historic satellite data determined changing climate and altered rainfall patterns could result in rainforests transitioning to grasslands or woody savannas. This, researchers found, could limit the amount of carbon stored in the rainforest.

Amazonas 2030: Indicators For The Climate Crisis

2011-11-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

October 31, 2011
Source: Eurasia Review

“It is great news” that the Colombian government is studying the cancellation of mining titles that have been granted in protected areas and in border zones declared national security areas, anthropologist Martín von Hildebrand, director of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation, told Tierrramérica.

In the Amazon region of Colombia, national parks comprise around seven million hectares of land. The national security areas designated by the Ministry of Defense on the country’s borders encompass another 4.8 million hectares, although they could be redemarcated.

In the Amazon region as a whole there are currently valid mining titles for 138,571 hectares of land. Requests are being processed for titles that would cover a further 5.4 million hectares, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

“Unfortunately,” warned Von Hildebrand, “we also have to keep in mind that while certain areas are being defended, such as national parks and national security areas, the people who are there now looking for minerals will move to other areas without this kind of protection.”

This is why there is a need for strict policies for monitoring and control of other parts of the rainforest, he added.

Sixty percent of the Colombian Amazon is forested area with a certain degree of protection. Mining titles can be granted in these areas, but require an environmental license.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy’s announcement that it is studying the cancellation of mining concessions was made on Oct. 26 at the presentation of the Amazonas 2030 Index, developed by an alliance of the same name which collects social, environmental and economic data on the Colombian portion of this rainforest that constitutes the heart of South America.

The study is innovative in that it grants the same importance to the dimensions of the environment and indigenous communities as it does to economic, social and institutional dimensions. Each has a weight of 20 percent. The lowest possible value for the index is zero (the worst scenario) and the highest is 100 (the best).

The result is a balanced strategic analysis: just the vision required in the face of the environmental crisis and climate change, in contrast to typical studies that emphasize economic considerations.

The key lies in measuring the quality of life of ecosystems. If this were measured in the Amazon according to the index of unsatisfied basic needs, the result would be that Amazon indigenous communities live in extreme poverty, and this is not the case.

By taking into account the environmental component and indigenous communities’ ancestral knowledge of and ties with their territories, it can be objectively verified that the rainforest and culture provide quality of life.

Meanwhile, through dozens of variables that could be classified as “conventional” – such as educational level and public services – the index measures the effects of public policies, in the first place, and private management, secondly.

“The idea is that, for better or worse, this is what the state is dealing with in the Amazon. And then, it is a matter of making it understood that these indicators for the Amazon are developed on other bases,” biologist Natalia Hernández, who coordinated the initial design of the Amazonas 2030 study, told Tierramérica.

“Simply taking into account the cultural, social and environmental dimensions to the same degree as economic and institutional dimensions paves the way for a vision of development from the perspective of the Amazon,” she added.

Amazonas 2030 is an alliance of non-governmental organizations, the private sector and the media aimed at promoting sustainability and quality of life in the Colombian Amazon and positioning the region on national and global agendas.

Its name refers to the fact that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, if the current rate of deforestation continues, by 2030 more than half of the Amazon rainforest will be severely damaged.

Official figures on the Colombian Amazon region are so lacking that the researchers specified that “it was difficult to obtain a large part of the data, especially figures on timber transport permits, ethnic education and the legalization of extractive activities in forest reserves, among others.”

Moreover, the statistics gathered and included in the index correspond only to urban settlements. “The index does not reflect the cosmovision of indigenous peoples, due to the lack of data that could capture it,” the methodological notes indicate.

Perhaps the variables for which the lack of data is most significant are those related to health, which do not take into account the work of shamans, whose impact has never been measured.

The departments assessed are Amazonas, Putumayo, Caquetá, Guaviare, Vaupés and Guainía, which together cover 403,348 square km in south and southeast Colombia.

The Sinchi Amazonic Institute of Scientific Research includes nine municipalities in the department of Meta, one in Vichada, three in Cauca and four in Nariño in its definition of the Colombian Amazon region, leading to a total of 483,164 square km, or 42 percent of Colombia’s entire continental area of 1.1 million square km.

Colombia is home to 17 percent of the rivers in the entire Amazon region, which in turn is the source of 20 percent of the planet’s fresh water. Because of its huge size, the Amazon also contributes significantly to regulating the global climate.

But the geographic size of the Amazon varies, depending on three different ways of defining this area of extraordinary biological and cultural diversity.

One views the Amazon as a region or biome, and includes the Amazon River basin and parts of the basins of the Orinoco and Paraná Rivers. Another encompasses the basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries. And finally there is the political-administrative Amazon region in each individual country, used in terms of planning and development.

Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, like Colombia, are referred to as “Andean” countries. In reality, however, almost half of their territories falls within the Amazon rainforest region.

Venezuela defines its Amazon region as including only the Amazon River basin, on the southern edge of the southern state of Amazonas. The rainforests in the rest of the state of Amazonas and much of the state of Bolívar, south of the Orinoco River, are officially defined as the Venezuelan Guayana.

The overall result of the Amazonas 2030 Index is 51.4, although it is an average formed out of marked contrasts.

In the department of Caquetá, close to one half of the rainforest has been destroyed, in Putumayo, one quarter, and in Guaviare, one third. These three departments of the northwest Amazon region are characterized by a high proportion of European settlers, very few indigenous communities and reserves (territories under indigenous administration), numerous large cities and highly developed road infrastructure.

On the other hand, the departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía have very little deforestation, greater ethnic diversity, smaller urban centers, large reserves and national parks, and no road infrastructure.

The differences between these two sub-regions of the Colombian Amazon are clearly reflected in a perception survey conducted among the region’s inhabitants, also released by Amazonas 2030 but only covering urban centers so far.

Bolivian president vetoes Amazon road

2011-11-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

Oct 29th 2011
Source: Gadling

Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a law on Tuesday that forbids the construction of a new road through the Amazon Rainforest. The road was seen as a threat to the ecosystem of one of Bolivia's more popular national parks and a tribe of indigenous people that live there.

The new road was to be funded by Brazil and would have been approximately 177 km (109 miles) in length. But the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia, and a number of environmental groups spoke, out against the plans, and as a result, Bolivia's Legislative Assembly created a law halting construction on the project. The road would have passed through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, but Morales' signature ensures that will never happen.

This story is similar to the plans to build a road across the Serengeti in Tanzania, which drew heavy criticism from conservationists and scientists alike. The government in that country said the route was necessary to promote economic development, but it was also seen as a major threat to the wildlife as well. Eventually the plans were abandoned in order to leave the Serengeti's ecosystem intact, but unlike Bolivia, it took months for the Tanzanian government to change their plans.

The road through the Amazon would have likely brought an economic boost to Bolivia as well, and that country could sure use one. But the government there recognized the value of their natural resources and didn't want to do anything to put those resources, or their people in danger. As a result, they made the hard, but correct, choice to resist the easy money in favor of protecting their environment for the future.

New book on uncontacted Indians published

2011-11-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

1 November 2011
Source: Survival International

The Javari Valley is home to many uncontacted tribes, including a large group of Korubo. A small group of Korubo including this woman was contacted in 1996.

Scott Wallace’s new book, ‘The Unconquered- In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes’, describes an arduous three-month journey deep into the Amazon rainforest of the Javari Valley, one of the largest indigenous reserves in Brazil, and home to one of the greatest concentrations of uncontacted tribes in the world.

In 2002 he was invited by Sydney Possuelo, the founder of Brazil’s uncontacted Indians unit in the government’s Indian affairs department FUNAI, to document an expedition to gather information on an uncontacted tribe, nicknamed the ‘Flecheiros’ or ‘Arrow People’ on account of their long curare coated arrows.

Although little is known about them, the Flecheiros are at the heart of the book, which eloquently argues for their right to remain uncontacted and live as they choose on their land.

It’s a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the uncontacted Indians department, revealing the painstaking task facing the ‘sertanistas’ (fieldworkers) as they search for signs that the tribe is still alive and thriving, and try to map their gardens and hunting trails, whilst ensuring they never encounter them to avoid transmitting potentially lethal diseases.

Lurking in the background are a multitude of dangers: heavily armed drug traffickers, gold miners destroying the rivers with massive dredges, and settler families, all seeking to take over the Flecheiros’ lands.

Uncontacted Indians' houses, Javari Valley, Brazil

’The Unconquered’ is a gripping read: Scott Wallace captures the beauty and hostility of the rainforest, the tensions between the members of the expedition’s motley crew, and the powerful presence of the elusive Flecheiros.

Interspersed with observations on the situation of uncontacted tribes he paints the extraordinarily rich diversity of the Amazon and its indigenous inhabitants past and present, who have contributed so much to human knowledge and diversity.

Occasionally however, there are references to ‘taming’ and ‘pacifying’ ‘wild’ tribes, language which jars with the author’s evident admiration for uncontacted peoples and their ability to survive the onslaught of a hostile and violent frontier society.

Public opinion in support of the world’s uncontacted tribes has never been so vital, as the pressures on their resource-rich territories are mounting. This book is a ‘wake-up call’, and aptly ends with a stark warning from Sydney Possuelo: ‘There will be no pardon for us if we allow them to disappear’.

Occupy Belo Monte: indigenous stage "permanent" protest against Amazon dam in Brazil

2011-11-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Indigenous people in front of the road that leads to the Belo Monte Dam construction site. All photos courtesy of Amazon Watch.

Hundreds of people are participating in a protest against the controversial Belo Monte dam in Altamira, Brazil, reports Amazon Watch.

Indigenous leaders, fishermen, and others dependent on the Xingu River have gathered to occupy the Monte Dam construction site. The protesters say they will stay until the $11-17 billion project is canceled.

"Belo Monte will only succeed if we do nothing about it. We will not be silent. We will shout out loud and we will do it now," said Juma Xipaia, a local indigenous leader, in a statement. "We only demand what our Constitution already ensures us: our rights. Our ancestors fought so we could be here now. Many documents and meetings have already transpired and nothing has changed. The machinery continues to arrive to destroy our region."

The protesters are reportedly blocking the Trans-Amazon Highway (BR-230) near Santo Antônio village, where it passes the proposed construction site, according to Amazon Watch.

Belo Monte is extremely controversial, raising widespread outcry from environmentalists, indigenous groups and their advocates. The project would block most of the flow of the Xingu River and inundate thousands of hectares of rainforest. Critics say the dam will operate well below capacity for much of the year when river levels are low. It will also disrupt fish migration patterns, affecting local livelihoods.

Indigenous ceremony after the occupation of the Belo Monte Dam construction site

An indigenous man observes the occupation of the Belo Monte Dam construction site

Brazilian Minister Notes Appreciable Deforestation Reduction

2011-11-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

Nov 1, 20112
Source: Prensa Latina

Brasilia, Nov 1 (Prensa Latina) The Brazilian Minister of Environment, Izabella Teixeira, highlighted an appreciable reduction in deforestation in the Amazon in September, when the loss of trees was the lowest in that month since 2004.

Agricultural activity continues to be the main factor contributing to the demise of the Amazon forest, Teixeira told reporters on Monday during a conference on the results of illegal logging in the world's largest rainforest, released by the National Space Research Institute.

According to the Instiute, in September, the Brazilian Amazon lost 253.8 square kilometers of forest, 43 percent less than in September 2010, when the forest lost 448 square kilometers of vegetation.

After reiterating that these data reflect strong agricultural pressure, Teixeira noted that although winter is over, when vegetation decreases more than in the rainy season (summer), the monitoring to prevent indiscriminate logging will continue.

Brazil boycotts OAS meeting after sharp human rights rebuke over giant Amazon dam

2011-10-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

October 27, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Brazil refused to attend a hearing convened by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) over the the controversial Belo Monte dam, reports Amazon Watch, a group campaigning against the hydroelectric project.

The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, "was intended to foster dialogue toward resolving conflict and discuss failures in protecting the rights of indigenous peoples threatened by the proposed Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon Basin's Xingu region of Brazil", says Amazon Watch, which said the snub sets a "chilling precedent for human rights and sustainable development throughout the Americas."

IACHR has requested explanation as to why the Brazilian government failed to show up at the meeting.

Jacob Kopas, an attorney with the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) which is representing affected communities, said Brazil's action could cast a pall over the anticipated Rio+20 biodiversity conference to be held next June.

"This flies in the face of the image Brazil promotes of a regional leader and host of important international environmental events like Rio +20 next year," he said in a statement.

Sheyla Juruna, a leader of the Juruna indigenous people who would be affected by the proposed dam and traveled for days from the Xingu region to voice her concerns at the closed hearing, expressed disgust.

"The government's constant refusal to dialogue and its undiplomatic posturing shows its negligence as it sidesteps the law and ignores the rights of local peoples," she was quoted as saying. "I am appalled by the way in which we are treated in our own land without even the right to be consulted on this horrific project."

Belo Monte has proven extremely controversial. The $11-17 billion project, which would block most of the flow of the Xingu River and inundate thousands of hectares of rainforest, has been fiercely opposed by indigenous groups and environmentalists. Critics say the dam will operate well below capacity for much of the year when river levels are low. It will also disrupt fish migration patterns, affecting local livelihoods.

The concerns have triggered two legal setbacks in the past month. Last week a federal judge ruled the dam's environmental license violates the constitutional rights of indigenous communities and is therefore illegal. Last month another judge ordered a halt to construction activities due to concerns over the impact on local fisheries.

Belo Monte is funded by Brazil's development bank BNDES as well as a consortium of private companies, including mining behemoth Vale and meat processing giant Bertin.

The Last Tribes Standing

2011-10-29T05:40:00.000-07:00

October 29, 2011
Source: Wall Street Journal

SEARCH PARTY A thatch-covered canoe heading downriver during the 2002 expedition to the Javari Valley Indigenous Land.

For the native peoples of the Amazon, the beginning of the end arrived one day early in 1500, when Spanish explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón eased his small ship into the mouth of the great river. The waterway was so incomprehensibly grand that Pinzón sailed 200 miles upstream before realizing he had left the ocean.

Forty-one years later, conquistadors Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana dared the rainforest in search of El Dorado, the fabled land of gold, only to encounter starvation and violence at the hands of the indigenous tribes. Then, beginning in the 18th century, European scientists such as Charles Marie de La Condamine and Alexander von Humboldt ventured into the Amazon, taking only measurements and specimens.

All these outsiders kept to the principal rivers, and most of Amazonia remained a vast unknown. But that began to change in the late 1800s, when the demand for rubber lured outsiders deeper into the forest, where they terrorized and enslaved the native peoples (and prompted a British diplomat to coin the expression "crime against humanity"). Early in the next century came explorers such as Teddy Roosevelt and Percy Fawcett, bent on discovering and mapping, and anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Napoleon Chagnon, keen to contact and study far-flung tribes.

From the start, the most dangerous baggage carried by these invaders wasn't guns or metal axes but microbes. With no resistance to European diseases, the Indian populations plummeted, and the survivors abandoned their traditional lands and fled farther into the rainforest.

In the 1970s, Brazil, which has the lion's share of the Amazon basin, began building the Trans-Amazon Highway to spur economic development. Loggers and farmers rushed in, and the ensuing 40 years have seen more destruction of the forest than the previous 500.

The people of the forest have also suffered. For much of the 20th century, Brazil sought to incorporate the tribes into mainstream society. But the rising economic tide never lifted the Indian canoes, and fresh contact with outsiders continued to kill. The government relocated some indigenous groups to more remote areas, but by the late 1980s it was clear something more was needed.

In 1987, the Department of Isolated Indians, under its founder, Sydney Possuelo, began to create and police large reserves surrounding uncontacted tribes. Though the policy was resisted by those who sought to exploit the Amazon's riches, Mr. Possuelo was tireless. "I fight for the human rights of those who do not even know that human rights exist," he said. His attempt to gauge the success of his strategy with an expedition deep into the Amazon is the subject of Scott Wallace's "The Unconquered."

Mr. Possuelo's mission penetrated the vast Javari Valley Indigenous Land, 33,000 square miles of dense forest in the Upper Amazon where aerial reconnaissance showed at least 18 uncontacted tribes. Very little is understood about these people, including what ethnic groups they belong to and what languages they speak. One mysterious band is known by neighboring Indians as the flecheiros, Portuguese for "arrow people," for their rumored mastery of that weapon and their supposed ferocity.

Unlike the anthropologists, Mr. Possuelo didn't want to study the flecheiros, since contact would only begin the process of their destruction. But he did want to know that his isolationist policy was working, and he wanted the political and financial support that such a demonstration would bring. So in summer 2002, he led his expedition into the valley to check for signs of outside encroachment and to probe the flecheiros' well-being—without making contact. Mr. Wallace, a writer for National Geographic, went along.

The expedition would consume three grueling months in some of the most dangerous territory in the world, so thickly wooded and remote that satellite phones were often useless and helicopter rescue was impossible. And so Mr. Wallace's book is above all a rousing adventure tale, told in vivid, day-by-day detail. Not only do we experience the miseries of gnats, mosquitoes and ants and the perils of snakes, caimans and jaguars, but we see how quickly one becomes inured to filthy clothes and hands and how a steady diet of monkey meat can make even electric eel seem a delicacy. No wonder Mr. Wallace shed 33 pounds over the course of the journey.

We also see the internecine scheming that can arise on a long, Conradian slog through hostile territory, especially when aggravated by the leader's erratic discipline and mercurial moods. And, as the expedition begins to encounter signs of the flecheiros—a hastily abandoned village, human figures melting into the woods—we realize the risks posed by the very people the enterprise is meant to protect: Having come to associate outsiders with danger, the flecheiros have a reputation among the other tribes for shooting their curare-tipped arrows first and asking questions later.

From all evidence, the flecheiros are thriving in their protected homeland, as are other isolated Amazon groups. But nearly 10 years after Mr. Possuelo's expedition, they are still besieged, not only by loggers and farmers but also by gold miners, oil drillers and drug traffickers, who erode the margins of the reserves. Mr. Possuelo implores: "The isolated Indians must live. They are our purest essence, out most vital impulse." But it is uncertain how much longer the native peoples, and the rainforest itself, can survive the long slide to oblivion instigated by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón half a millennium ago.

600 activists clear huge Brazilian dam site

2011-10-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

28 October 2011
Source: AFP

Activists have left the site of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam after occupying it to demand a stop to construction (AFP/Illuminati Films, Ivan Canabrava)

Hundreds of indigenous people and environmentalists have left the site of Brazil's $11 billion Belo Monte hydroelectric dam after occupying it to demand a stop to construction.

"We left peacefully, just like we came in. It was a peaceful action to bring attention on this deadly project for the Amazon," Eden Magalhaes, spokesman for Indigenous Missionary Council linked to the Catholic Church, said Friday.

Some 600 activists at the site of what would be the third biggest dam in the world -- after China's Three Gorges dam and the Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay -- had vowed to stay indefinitely.

But late Thursday, prosecutors in western Para state ordered the activists off the site following their day-long occupation and roadblock, in response to a request by the Norte Energia consortium that is building the dam.

"A judge arrived with shock troops. After consulting with one another, we decided to leave, but we are now more united than before in our opposition to the dam," Magalhaes told AFP.

"This project benefits big business. Local populations are suffering from the consequences and they are making a sacrifice of the forest."

The occupation sought a total halt to work on the project in Para, or at least a suspension of construction until local residents can be consulted.

A spokesman for the Xingu Forever Alive movement grouping indigenous peoples and locals of the Xingu basin vowed to plan more protest actions.

Construction on Belo Monte -- which would produce more than 11,000 megawatts, or about 11 percent of Brazil's current installed capacity -- has been the subject of legal wrangling for decades.

A federal court ordered construction halted last month, a decision hailed by the project's opponents as a "partial victory" pending a government appeal.

Environmentalists and Amazon Indian tribes say the dam will cause massive destruction of Brazilian fauna and flora in the area.

The project also has drawn international criticism, including from Oscar-winning movie director James Cameron of "Avatar" fame, who said rainforest indigenous tribes could turn to violence to block dam construction.

But the administration of President Dilma Rousseff has insisted the project should be allowed to go ahead, making it the centerpiece of government efforts to boost energy production in the rapidly growing economy.

Google to map Amazon rainforest in 3D

2011-10-28T04:36:00.000-07:00

25 October 2011
Source: Pocket-lint.com

For some time now we've all had the benefits of the controversial Google Streetview, giving us instant access to streets all over the world. And now Google has announced that it will be mapping the Amazon hamlet of Tumbira to hopefully educate as well as inform.

The remote village has been visited by some of the Google team, invited by the Foundation for Sustainable Development who help families within its reserves develop sustainable industries, like tourism and managed lumbering.

"One thing we always want people to know is that the Amazon is not only about trees and biodiversity," says Raquel Luna, FAS's education coordinator. "OK, this is a lot and this is huge, but it's also about people, and communities here and sustainable living of these communities."

And this is where Google comes in, by recording images the project will raise awareness of some of the challenges of conservation.

Once taken, the images will be placed together and be posted on Google Earth Outreach, offering a wide range of viewpoints and panoramas of endangered ecosystems around the planet.

Let's just hope that they haven't underestimated the impact and reach of a Google backed initiative - there can be such a thing as too many tourists.

Amazon time as Eilidh swaps Kirky for the rainforest!

2011-10-28T04:34:00.000-07:00

Friday 28 October 2011
Source: Kirkintilloch Today

IT’S not every day that you meet a one-eyed monkey called Chico in one of the most amazing places on earth.

But that’s what happened when art student Eilidh Morris swapped Kirkintilloch for the Amazon Rainforest in Peru.

The life-changing experience was the first time the 20-year-old had been away so far without her family. She spent just under two months in Peru in June and July.

Eilidh, from Kirkintilloch, had always wanted to go to the South American country and with a passion for nature and an interest in animals it was the perfect opportunity.

Planting trees to tackle de-forestation and looking after animals in a rescue centre were just two of the tasks Eilidh got involved with.

She also helped with plant and tree monitoring, ventured into the jungle, and became friends with a monkey with a missing eye called Chico.

Despite living in basic accommodation, including sharing a dorm with other volunteers and having no electricity and hot water, Eilidh loved the experience.

The former Lenzie Academy pupil said: “I had a fantastic time and met some amazing people. I grew really attached to Chico, I always held and cuddled him.

“I was given the nickname Pajarillo by the other volunteers, because they thought I was very shy and quite inquisitive. It means ‘Little Bird’.

“One of my favourite birds was an oropendolas. It’s a brown bird with yellow wings and its call sounded like a video game.”

The amazing experience also opened Eilidh’s eyes to the ongoing threat to the Amazonian rainforest.

She said: “People are abusing the resources. Big food companies are cutting down trees to create grazing land for animals, and many native tribes have been kicked off their land to make way for a dam.

“We planted palm trees, which are good for monkeys, and cleared the bamboo which grows over areas.”

Eilidh’s visit to Peru wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site.

The fourth-year University of Dundee student hopes to return to Peru at some point in the future. She is also keen to visit a rainforest in India, after winning flight tickets to Delhi in a competition.

Another anti-logging activist killed in Brazil

2011-10-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

October 28, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Another opponent of logging in the Brazilian Amazon was gunned down in the state of Pará, reports AFP.

Joao Chupel Primo, 55, was shot and killed Saturday after receiving death threats due to his outspoken advocacy against illegal clearing of rainforests in Itaituba, a region in southeastern Pará. The Pastoral Land Commission says that Primo was shot in the head as he worked in a machine shop.

Primo became the eighth illegal logging activist killed since May in Pará and Rondonia. Few of the perpetrators have been brought to justice.

Conflict over land in the Brazilian Amazon is common. According to the Pastoral Land Commission, 383 people were killed in land conflicts between 2000 and 2010.

Tensions are especially high in the Brazilian Amazon due to high commodity prices, which boost land values and make land-grabbing — and associated deforestation — more profitable. Nevertheless deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is expected to be below normal for the 2010-2011 year.

Colombia declares tracts of Amazon protected from mining

2011-10-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 27 October 2011
Source: Colombia Reports

Extensive tracts of the Amazon rainforest were declared National Security Zones by Colombia's Institute of Geology and Mining (Ingeominas) on Thursday in an attempt to control mining operations.

Oscar Paredes, the president of Ingeominas, made the announcement during the launch of the Great Survey on the Perception of the Amazons in Bogota.

According to the current land registry, only 0.26% of the Amazon territories coincide with mining titles, however, that figure rises to 10.13% if all mining requests not yet granted are taken into account.

Paredes acknowledged that there is a complex problem of overlapping titles and applications in national parks, indigenous reservations and "paramos," neo-tropical ecosystems above 10,000 feet where mining is prohibited.

"The idea is that Colombia will not have one centimeter of overlapping titles in areas of biological interest," Paredes said.

Overlapping mining titles, however, have been identified in 37 instances in national parks, and 160 titles have been applied in paramos areas.

Ingeominas has met with mining company representatives, and together they have made between 80 and 90 title cuts to protect the paramos.

Breakthrough technology enables 3D mapping of rainforests, tree by tree

2011-10-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

October 24, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

This image shows a small deforested patch with individual trees, colored by height. The densest biomass is red, while deforested areas — with low biomass — are shades of blue. Image courtesy of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory. Click picture to enlarge.

High above the Amazon rainforest in Peru, a team of scientists and technicians is conducting an ambitious experiment: a biological survey of a never-before-explored tract of remote and inaccessible cloud forest. They are doing so using an advanced system that enables them to map the three-dimensional physical structure of the forest as well as its chemical and optical properties. The scientists hope to determine not only what species may lie below but also how the ecosystem is responding to last year's drought—the worst ever recorded in the Amazon—as well as help Peru develop a better mechanism for monitoring deforestation and degradation.

The system—conceived by Greg Asner, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science—has the potential to transform how tropical research is conducted. It could also help alleviate uncertainty about carbon emissions from deforestation and different forms of forest management, both of which are critical to REDD, a U.N. program designed to compensate tropical countries for reducing deforestation and forest degradation. Finally, the system may substantially improve understanding of tropical ecosystems.