Failed economic development policies drive deforestation in Andean Amazon

By Mike Gaworecki20 October 2016 (mongabay.com) – Cultivation of coca, the plant from which the drug cocaine is extracted, has long been considered a “deforestation multiplier” in the Andean Amazon rainforests of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. For instance, a 2001 report by the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy stated: “Coca cultivation and processing […]

Global coral bleaching event might become new normal, expert warns

By Michael Slezak22 September 2016 (The Guardian) – The worst global bleaching event on record could simply be the new normal, according to one of the foremost experts on coral reefs and their response to warming oceans. Mark Eakin, head of the Coral Reef Watch program at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has […]

Significant deforestation in Brazilian Amazon goes undetected – ‘Landowners deforest in ways and places that evade the monitoring and enforcement system’

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, 12 October 2016 (Brown University) – Efforts by the Brazilian government over the past 15 years to curb deforestation have been a widely celebrated success, but a new study finds that there’s more deforestation happening in Brazil than official accounts suggest. The study, led by researchers from Brown University, compared data from […]

One billion trees felled in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest now 10 million hectares of abandoned pasture

  [Translation by Google.] By Alexandre Mansur5 October 2016 (Época) – One of the strongest arguments to end deforestation in Brazil is the existence of abundant land already cleared and abandoned. The area already deforested and abandoned in Brazil is equivalent to the states of Parana, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina added. That […]

Amazon rainforest degradation increased 272 percent in September 2016 compared with 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo20 October 2016 (Imazon) – In September 2016, Imazon’s Deforestation Alert System (SAD) detected 387 square kilometres of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. This represented an increase of 69% compared to September 2015, when deforestation totaled 229 square kilometers. In September […]

Grassland tuned to present environmental conditions suffers in a hotter future – Study finds no CO2 fertilization effect

STANFORD, California, 5 September 2016 (Carnegie Science) – One of the world’s longest-running, most comprehensive climate change experiments produced some surprising results. The extensive experiment subjected grassland ecosystems to sixteen possible future climates and measured many aspects of ecosystem performance and sustainability. This study, appearing in the September 5, 2016, Early Online Edition of the […]

Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 will require 4 million hectares of new land each year: UN

18 October 2016 (UN) – The head of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification told delegations gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to assess the treaty’s implementation, the impacts of land degradation affect the sustainability of the entire world, so a global effort is needed to tackle it, including through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable […]

In new ozone alert, a warning of harm to plants and to people – ‘We are on track to return to the maximum ethane levels we saw in the 1970s in only about three more years’

By Jim Robbins17 October 2016 (Yale e360) – For the last four years Jack Fishman, a professor of meteorology at St. Louis University, has guided the planting of five gardens in the Midwest, gardens that have a distinct purpose: to show the impacts of an invisible gas that is damaging and contributing to the premature […]

Tasmania’s disappearing underwater forests – ‘All those years ago it was everywhere. Now it’s just gone’

By Karl Mathieson 16 October 2016 (Mercury) – It was one of the world’s great marine ecosystems. Stretching hundreds of kilometres along the eastern coastline of Australia, it provided shelter to a multitude of fish, algae and crustaceans and for many divers was considered a must-see spectacular. But this year a massive underwater heatwave smashed […]

Uncharted waters: Mega-cruise ships sail the Arctic

[cf. As the world burns, the rich cruise in luxury through a melting Arctic] By Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Toby Chopra 10 October 2016 SVALBARD, Norway (Reuters) – A surge in Arctic tourism is bringing ever bigger cruise ships to the formerly isolated, ice-bound region, prompting calls for a clamp-down to prevent Titanic-style accidents and […]

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