Image:  The Guardian 

The Amazon is without a doubt one of the planet’s most valuable and important ecological resources; and not for logging. The rainforest contains approximately one tenth of the total carbon stored in land ecosystems, and recycles much of the rain that falls upon its leafy canopy.

Thus, any major change to its vegetation has massive implications for the global climate system.

During the 70’s and 80’s, sulphate aerosol particles being emitted from the burning of coal have contributed to partly reducing global warming in the northern hemisphere, by reflecting sunlight and making clouds brighter. As a result, this pollution has helped to limit the warming in the tropical north Atlantic.

This has kept the Amazon wetter, than had the global warming been allowed to increase the temperature in that part of the world as well. Chris Huntingford of CEH, one of the studies co-authors, explains: “Reduced sulphur emissions in North America and Europe will see tropical rain-bands move northwards as the north Atlantic warms, resulting in a sharp increase in the risk of Amazonian drought”.

A team from the University of Exeter, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Met Office Hadley Centre and Brazilian National Institute for Space Studies used a climate carbon model at the Met Office Hadley Center to simulate the impacts of 21^st century climate change on the Amazon. They then compared data from the 2005 drought – which had caused massive devastation to the Amazon basin – and found that by 2025, a drought on this scale could happen every other year, and by 2060 a drought could occur in nine out of every ten years.

There are a number of factors playing havoc with the Amazon, as co-Author Dr Carlos Nobre of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research explains: “Global warming, deforestation and increased forest fires are all acting in synergy to reduce the resilience of the Amazonian forests”.

While another of the co-authors, Dr Matthew Collins of the Met Office Hadley Centre, summed up the future: “The rainforest is under many pressures. Direct deforestation is the most obvious immediate threat, but climate change is also a big issue for Amazonia. We have to deal with both if we want to safeguard the forest.”

Image Courtesy of markg6 via Flickr

Source - Press Release

Asia

Two “Extinct” Species Discovered

First there was Swinshoe’s softshell turtle, and then the Javan Elephant. Is this more commonplace than we might believe?

Frankly, no. Despite the occasional hubbub over an animal science has lost track of– say, the Coelacanth– we’ve witnessed something extraordinary. Swinshoe’s turtle was previously believed to be extinct in the wild, with only three remaining in captivity, and therefore every one of these 300-pound turtles is a critical find.

Continue reading: Environmental Graffiti. Hot in media: Stumble Upon.

Building Ban for Beijing Olympics

All building sites in Beijing will be shut three weeks before the start of the Olympic Games, as the city tries to clear its skies of pollution.

Digging, pouring of concrete and outdoor spray-painting will also be banned under plans announced by the Environmental Protection Bureau.

The move follows mounting concern that athletes may suffer from Beijing’s noxious atmosphere.

Continue reading: BBC. Hot in media: Care2 News Network.

China ‘Now Top Carbon Polluter’

China has already overtaken the US as the world’s “biggest polluter”, a report to be published next month says.

The research suggests the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

The University of California team will report their work in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management.

Continue reading: BBC. Hot in media: Digg.

South America

Amazon Tribe Enlists Google in Battle with Illegal Loggers

You may know it as Google, but in bamboo-and-thatch roundhouses deep in the Amazon rainforest the iconic brand goes by another name. The Surui people, one of the most remote on Earth, call it ragogmakan – “messenger” – and they’re banking on the search engine to save them and their ancestral lands from extinction.

The tribe – whose first contact with the modern world was less than 40 years ago – are replacing their bows and arrows with hi-tech gadgets in their battle for survival. They have already begun using satnav on their traditional trails through the trees. And Google Earth has just agreed to provide high-resolution satellite images of their forest home.

Continue Reading: The Independent. Hot in media: Digg.

GOING, GOING, GONE? New Satellite Images Reveal a Shrinking Amazon Rainforest

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon may be on the rise, according to high-resolution images released by an agency of the Brazilian government. The images suggest an end to a widely hailed three-year decline in the rate of deforestation and have spurred a public controversy among high-level Brazilian officials, writes Tim Hirsch, author of “The Incredible Shrinking Amazon Rainforest” in the May/June 2008 issue of World Watch magazine.

Deforestation accounts for approximately one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for significant species loss worldwide. Recent anti-deforestation measures under the administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have led to a marked drop in the rate of forest loss over the past three years.

Continue reading: ENN. Take action: Petition to save the Amazon.

Africa

Dockers Refuse to Unload China Arms Shipment for Zimbabwe

South African dockers are refusing to unload a Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.

The arms, including three million rounds of ammunition suitable for AK47s and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, were ordered by the Zimbabwean military at the time of the March 29 election – which Britain and other Western powers have accused Robert Mugabe of trying to rig.

Continue reading: Times Online. Hot in media: Digg.

Middle East

Bahrain World Trade Center Activates Wind Turbines

You may remember that about a year ago we brought you news of the Bahrain World Trade Center, which was designed to have three giant turbines provide power to the building. Well, this past Tuesday, the project was finally completed, with the final testing and installation of the enormous wind turbines which power the building. This week, Bahrain WTC has, for the first time, activated all three 29m-diameter turbines at the same time!

Continue Reading: Inhabitat. Hot in media: Digg.

North America

Canada Leads Way with Ban on Baby Bottles Containing Bisphenol A

The government announced Friday that Canada will be the first country to ban plastic baby bottles with bisphenol A after concluding the chemical is toxic.

Health Minister Tony Clement unveiled the “precautionary and prudent” move while trying to calm fears with a limited ban of the widely used chemical, also found in hard plastic sports bottles and tin cans of food and infant formula. Most Canadians “need not be concerned” about the health effects of bisphenol A, but Clement said “this is not the case for newborns and infants.”

Continue reading: The Gazette.

Europe

Biofuel Rule Will Do More Harm Than Good, Oxfam Says

U.K. fuels for cars and trucks must contain biofuels starting today, a move that may do more harm than good to the environment and drive food prices higher, charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace said.

Under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, suppliers must ensure that 2.5 percent of fuel sold at U.K. pumps consists of biofuels, which are made from crops and grasses. The requirement will rise to 5 percent by 2010. The Department for Transport says the plan will cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 2.5 million metric tons a year.

Continue reading: Bloomberg. Hot in media: Digg.

Global

Millions Of Pounds Of Trash Found On Ocean Beaches

Ocean Conservancy released its annual report on trash in the ocean with new data from the 2007 International Coastal Cleanup the most comprehensive snapshot of the harmful impacts of marine debris. The mission of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup is to engage people to remove trash from the world’s beaches and waterways, to identify the sources of debris and to change the behaviors that cause pollution.

This year, more than 378,000 volunteers participated in cleanups around every major body of water around the globe. Volunteers record the trash found on land and underwater allowing Ocean Conservancy a global snapshot of the problem.

Continue reading: Science Daily. Hot in media: Care2 News Network.

The event held in Berkeley (where else?) gave Tad Patzek, Professor of Geoengineering at UC Berkeley, Miguel Altieri, Professor of Agroecology at UC Berkeley, Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Judith Mayer, Project Coordinator of the Borneo Project a chance to educate or frighten the audience into what’s happening with agrofuels, whether it’s ethanol, B20, or something else that makes our cars go.

Although the four speakers came at the topic from various angles ranging from food for fuel which causes food prices to rise to the big corp. ethanol monopoly, the program offered an educating, yet frightening look at where the alt fuels will take us. The speakers showed off power points and sometimes confusing slides to get us to realize how serious the situation is in places like the Amazon or Borneo where vast hectares of soybeans or oil palms continue to replace rainforest. Patzek pointed out how the supposed fuel du jour crop (swatch grass) actually needs to be fertilized like conventionally grown corn.

A lot of government and media rhetoric surrounds the notion that we need to become less reliant on foreign sources of fuel. It appears that the southern hemisphere supplies about half our corn used for ethanol. And that number continues to rise. Oh, and so does the price of corn for eating. Last time I checked a map, the southern hemisphere didn’t include the USA.

Gimenez pointed out the win-win for ethanol. Yes, win-win if your name happens to be Monsanto or BP. With ethanol subsidies standing at $1.38 per gallon (one-half the wholesale market price, which doesn’t exactly scream fair market value) Monsanto, ADM and Cargill, and others are creating what he calls a “Green Desert” of poverty in Brazil, Argentina and other South American countries, while they clean up with big profits. But let’s not just blame the chemical, petroleum, and pharmaceutical companies. I loved Miguel Altieri’s “Green Fuel Mafia” slide which displayed many of the usual suspects (Monsanto, BP, etc) but also WWF and Conservation International who have been paid lots of money to promote biofuel and a green fuel.

With all the gloom and doom and 1984 biolfuel talk, I’m glad that I could sip on some Petite Syrah from Parducci winery, which represents the first winery in the US to achieve carbon neutrality and won the Governor’s Environmental & Economic Leadership Award from the State of California just to help me enjoy the evening.

Related Posts:
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We’re all familiar with the statistic: every minute, an area of forest the size of five football fields is clear-cut in the Amazon. But a report just released from Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) reveals unparalleled deforestation in the last part of 2007. To make things worse, this follows three years of some of the heaviest clear-cutting ever. Despite world-wide attention, the Amazon rainforest is disappearing faster and faster.

In the wake of the report, Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called an emergency meeting to formulate a plan for saving what’s left of the Brazilian rainforest.

The plan introduces a number of measures that will hopefully succeed in saving one of the greatest natural wonders on Earth. It includes a 25% increase of federal police and environmental protection officers to prevent illegal logging and clear-cutting. In addition, farmers on cleared land will be asked to prove that the land was not illegally cleared and will be forbidden from any further deforestation.

On top of these measures, the government plans to publish a blacklist of companies and landowners who have illegally cleared land.

If the plan does not work, Brazil may fear economic as well as ecological devastation. At the same time, how can Brazilians be convinced to forgo the profitable development of the country’s most vast natural resource?

About the plan, the director of Friends of the Earth’s Brazilian Amazon program, Roberto Smeraldi, sums up, “The main action that the government can take is not to stop deforestation - which is beyond its control - but to stop stimulating deforestation, with credit, infrastructure, settlements, land offers and impunity.”

The current emergency plan follows Lula’s 2005 conservation attempt. Then, 90 people–half of them forest protection officials–were arrested in connection with illegal logging.

Blame it on Multinational Agrobusiness?

The battle for Brazilian farmland is a violent one. Indigenous people are losing land to farming, the world’s greatest biodiversity treasure is going up in smoke, and some of Brazil’s poor are finding themselves working at gunpoint in remote soy and cattle farms. The effects of this battle are being felt throughout the global food market.

Despite some moves to change suppliers, multinational fast food chains, for one, are still at partial fault for the Amazon’s rapid destruction. Soy and corn from the Amazon is an abundant food source for animals sold to these companies.

Two years ago, many multinational soy traders caught that deforestation in the press was bad for business. Most Brazilian soy passes through the hands of US commodities moguls Cargill, ADM, and Bunge, as well as French-owned Dreyfus, and Brazilian-owned Amaggi. The companies signed an agreement–set to expire this July–that placed a moratorium on buying soy from newly deforested land. It’s a step in the right direction.

On a down note, there’s a chance that Lula’s emergency plan will also impact the Landless Peasant Movement, or MST. Two-thirds of Brazil’s arable land is owned by just 3% of the population. About 1.5 million strong, the MST takes a stance against poverty and slave-like conditions on some of Brazil’s large farms. They try to win back farmland from big business by forming co-ops and building schools on land that’s sometimes squatted.

Take Action

Write to your favorite supplier of soy products asking them where their soy comes from. Express your concern over deforestation and human rights. Politely ask that they work to ensure fair trade prices for farmers as well as sustainable farming methods.

Also, write to your fast food chain of choice to ask if and of their animal feed comes from newly deforested areas of Brazil. They may not know the answer. Politely express your concern over deforestation and human rights. Ask that they record your opinion as a customer and suggest that they closely inspect their supply chains to ensure that farmers used sustainable growing methods and were paid fair prices.

References and Resources

Brazil to act over acceleration in deforestation | Telegraph, UK

Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rises sharply | MSNBC

The 7,000km journey that links Amazon destruction to fast food | Guardian

Soya Traders Agree to A Moratorium On Amazon Deforestation Following Customer Pressure | Organic Consumers Association

The Amazon Can’t Be a Soy Farm | The Christian Science Monitor

Soybean Production Threatens Rainforests and Indigenous People | Rainforest Relief

About Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement | Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

Despair in the soy plantations | World Wildlife Fund

The 30-minute documentary, produced by the social justice-minded media organization Mofilms, follows the powerful movement of indigenous peoples in eastern Ecuador who have taken on ChevronTexaco in what could be one of the biggest legal environmental battles ever.

The confrontation centers on a class-action lawsuit first filed in U.S. federal court in New York in 1993. Launched on behalf of 30,000 indigenous peoples in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, the suit charges that Texaco (since acquired by Chevron) poisoned the region and spilled 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater while drilling for oil between the 1960s and 1990s. Since shifted to trial in Ecuador (at Chevron’s request), the lawsuit (Aguinda vs. ChevronTexaco) is seeking an environmental cleanup whose estimated cost is $10 billion.

The suit is expected to come to a conclusion sometime next year.

Directed by Martin O’Brien and Robbie Proctor, “Justicia Now” documents the street protests and activism of the local people. They claim the legacy of Texaco’s oil drilling is a landscape fouled by oil-slicked streams and rivers, poisoned wildlife and lethal doses of carcinogens. The filmmakers, occasionally accompanied by actress Daryl Hannah, travel with indigenous activists to view the environmental damage first-hand, and to meet and speak with locals who describe miscarriages, cancer and other impacts.

Investigators tracking the case say communities close to old Texaco wells suffer from childhood leukemia rates four times the national average. The amount of oil spilled in the region, they add, is 30 times that released in the Exxon Valdez accident. Ecuadorian locals have dubbed the situation the “Rainforest Chernobyl.”

Mofilms has made “Justicia Now” available for free download, and it’s not only worth viewing but passing along to others on your mailing list. The film packs powerful visuals, haunting music and an inspirational punch from seeing poor and disadvantaged people engaged in a true David vs. Goliath battle.

Under a memo of understanding signed earlier in the day by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Brazil Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, the two nations pledged closer cooperation on researching alternative energy production, promoting alternative fuels in the region and developing industrywide standards and codes that could lay the groundwork for a global biofuels market. . . . . .The United States and Brazil expect to support feasibility studies and technical assistance in partnership with the Inter- American Development Bank, the United Nations Foundation, and the Organization of the American States.
"If we fund projects to produce biodiesel and ethanol in poorer countries, and then the richer countries buy biodiesel that's produced there, then we'll see that investments put into those countries have produced results, and even more important, generated jobs," President Lula said.

Have we heard this one before or what?