Cattle, cleared forests, and climate change: Scoring global companies on their deforestation-free beef commitments and practices

13 September 2016 (UCS) – Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 10 percent of global warming emissions—and no product contributes more to tropical deforestation than beef. Each year, millions of hectares of forest are cleared for beef pasture, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and destroying habitat of endangered species. The deforestation impact of beef is […]

The alarming rise of fires in the Brazilian Amazon

By Natália Girão Rodrigues de Mello8 September 2016 (mongabay.com) – From the speeding boat, the jungle was a single block of green, its shades recycled across the riverbank and reflected on the thick, black water. The steam rolling from the trees was as foamy as the tracks we were leaving. Birds cut the clouds with […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, July 2015-June 2016

[Translation by Bing Translator.] 6 September 2016 (Imazon) – Forest mega-degradation by burning detected in June 2016 by SAD was confirmed with more detailed analyses of satellite images. Degraded area is greater than double the average of deforestation detected by satellite from 2010 to 2015: 15,043 km² of accumulated forest degradation area detected by SAD […]

Illegal gold mining threatens tropical forest in Peruvian Amazon

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Francesca Garcia Delgado3 September 2016 (El Comercio) – Between October 2015 and July 2016, illegal gold mining deforested 238 hectares of forest (equivalent to 326 soccer fields) in the buffer of the Bahuaja Sonene National Park (USD35) zone, located between Madre de Dios and Puno regions. This protected area is […]

Rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon rises to rate not seen since 2009

By Rhett A. Butler3 September 2016 (mongabay.com) – Newly released data suggest that rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has reached the highest level since 2009. In the past week, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) and Imazon, a Brazilian NGO, have independently released data from their near-real-time deforestation monitoring programs. Both show a steep […]

China’s trans-Amazon railway stokes forest fears

By Jan Rocha29 August 2016 SÃO PAULO (Climate News Network) – China’s fast-rising population and its burgeoning economy make steep demands on natural resources, so steep that Beijing is searching constantly for supplies from overseas. And it wants to obtain them, naturally, as cheaply as it can. Now in prospect is China’s trans-Amazon railway – […]

In Latin America, environmentalists are an endangered species – ‘There is an increase in pressure to exploit resources that have not been exploited yet’

By Lindsay Fendt11 August 2016 (mongabay.com) – On a Tuesday in March, indigenous activist Nelson García was shot in the face in northwest Honduras. The next day, in Guatemala, unknown attackers found environmentalist Walter Méndez outside his home and filled his chest with bullets. Two weeks earlier gunmen killed Berta Cáceres, an internationally renowned environmental […]

Amazon rainforest degradation up 185 percent over last year

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo22 August 2016 (Imazon) – In July 2016, SAD detected 539 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon, with a cloud cover of 7% of the territory. This represented a decrease of 1% compared to July 2015 when deforestation totaled 542 […]

June deforestation in Brazilian Amazon doubled over same period in 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] 22 July 2016 (Imazon) – In June 2016, SAD detected 972 square kilometers of deforestation (the total destruction of forest for other alternative uses of the soil) in the Amazon, with a cloud coverage of 16% of the territory. This represented an increase of 97% over June 2015 when deforestation amounted […]

Drought stalls tree growth and shuts down Amazon carbon sink

6 July 2016 (University of Exeter) – A recent drought completely shut down the Amazon Basin’s carbon sink, by killing trees and slowing their growth, a ground-breaking study led by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Leeds has found. Previous research has suggested that the Amazon – the most extensive tropical forest on Earth […]

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