By William Laurance “THE best thing you could do for the Amazon is to bomb all the roads.” That might sound like an eco-terrorist’s threat, but they’re actually the words of Eneas Salati, one of Brazil’s most respected scientists. Thomas Lovejoy, a leading American biologist, is equally emphatic: “Roads are the seeds of tropical forest […]
Despite violent protests by indigenous groups over plans to expand oil and gas exploration in the Peru’s Amazon rainforest, energy investments in the South American country are expected to increase to $1.5 billion in both 2009 and 2010, reports Reuters. Daniel Saba, president of Perupetro, Peru’s energy agency, told Reuters that the government will auction […]
Though Brazil has pledged to slow Amazon deforestation, and several groups are making headlines trying to tackle the leading cause of that deforestation, cattle ranching, AFP reports new data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research that shows the area of trees chopped down in June was four times that of May: In June some […]
By now I’m sure you know that deforestation is a major source of carbon emissions — in fact more than all the fuel burned for transportation — which would be enough to worry about, except that when it comes to emissions from chopping down trees in the Amazon, those emissions are actually increasing as […]
Commentary by Hambone Littletail Barely six weeks after dozens of Amazon natives were gunned down in cold blood by the Peruvian Army in the oil town of Bagua for protesting the cozy relationship between Big Oil and the government of President Alan Garcia, I find myself on the banks of the Mother of God River […]
By Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro July 31 (Bloomberg) — For four decades, Edimar Bentes and his family have survived by farming tiny clearings in the jungle near their dirt-floor shack in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon. On this April afternoon, Bentes, 56, squats in the driving rain and dips a glass […]
Researchers are starting to make sense of a severe drought that ravaged the Amazon rainforest four years ago. Their findings are terrifying. By Paul Brown In the summer of 2005, the Amazon rainforest suffered the worst drought it had seen in a century. Whole tributaries of the Amazon River dried up, leaving ferries stranded on […]
By Tim Hirsch Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has approved a controversial bill allowing Amazon farmers to acquire an area of public land larger than France. But the president vetoed some of the most contentious clauses that would have enabled absentee landlords and companies to benefit from the measure. Smaller parcels of public […]
By CARLA SALAZAR LIMA, Peru (AP) — Riot police used tear gas to turn student protesters away from Peru’s Congress on Thursday as thousands marched to back Amazon Indians resisting oil and natural gas exploration on their land. At least 20,000 students, labor union members and indigenous Peruvians from the country’s Andean highlands to […]
Brazil moved a step closer to passing a controversial law that would allow landowners who illegally deforested land in the Amazon to get legal title to these holdings. Environmentalists say HB 458 — which now only needs the signature of President Lula, an avid supporter — will legitimize years of illegal colonization and may promote […]
