By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.comOctober 06, 2010 A new global assessment of forest stocks by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows a sharp acceleration of primary forest loss since 2005 despite gains in the extent of protected areas. FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 reveals some 13 million hectares of forest were cleared […]
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Sept 15, 2010 – A severe drought parching northern Brazil this year has shrunk the mighty Amazon River — the world’s longest river — to its lowest level in 47 years, officials said Wednesday. The waterway’s depth at Manaus, the main city in the Amazon region, was just 19.34 meters (63.45 […]
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite detected 148,946 fires in this image on August 23, 2010. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires are concentrated in Bolivia, where the governments of two states had declared a state of emergency because of widespread fires three days earlier. Scores of […]
By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.comAugust 31, 2010 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is down significantly since last year, according to preliminary estimates released by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and Imazon, a Brazil-based NGO that tracks forest loss and degradation across the Amazon. Analysis of NASA MODIS data by Imazon found some 1,488 […]
www.mongabay.com August 30, 2010 The decision last week by the Brazilian government to move forward on the $17 billion Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu river will set in motion a plan to build more than 100 dams across the Amazon basin, potentially turning tributaries of the world’s largest river into ‘an endless series of […]
www.mongabay.com August 27, 2010 The number of fires burning in Brazil has more than doubled compared with the same period last year. Surprisingly, the news has sparked a Twitter sensation, with more than 120,000 users “tweeting” messages with the hashtag “#chegadequeimadas” about the fires in a 48 hour window. The phenomenon emerged after analysis of […]
BBC26 August 2010 Brazil’s government has given the formal go-ahead for the building on a tributary of the Amazon of the world’s third biggest hydroelectric dam. After several failed legal challenges, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the contract for the Belo Monte dam with the Norte Energia consortium. Critics say the project will […]
BBC3 August 2010 Last updated at 00:35 ET Demand for shark fin soup in Asia has been blamed for the illegal killing of nearly 300,000 sharks off Brazil, an environmental group has alleged. The Environmental Justice Institute in Brazil has accused a seafood exporter (Siglo do Brasil Comercio) of illegally killing nearly 300,000 sharks. It […]
Scientists suspect starvation from changing water temperatures or overfishing after 500 birds found in 10 days Associated Press in São Paulo, www.guardian.co.ukWednesday 21 July 2010 07.41 BST Hundreds of penguins that have apparently starved to death are washing up on the beaches of Brazil, worrying scientists who are investigating what exactly killed them. About 500 […]
Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Cynthia OstermanSun Jul 25, 2010 5:45pm EDT BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian native Indians on Sunday took 100 workers hostage at the construction site of a hydroelectric plant in the southern Amazon region, local media reported. As many as 400 Indians from several different tribes occupied a power plant they […]
