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 […]

15 fire-linked firms escape prosecution in Indonesia’s Riau – ‘The clearing of land for oil palm plantations is still ongoing to this day’

By Philip Jacobson28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – On July 23 the local police headquarters in the Sumatran province of Riau released SP3 notices related to 15 companies that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had listed in connection with last year’s fires. A SP3 is an official police document that confirms a case has been […]

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 […]

Amazon forest degradation increased by 5,785 percent over May 2015 estimate

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo16 June 2016 (Imazon) – In May 2016, 34% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, less coverage than May 2015 (39%). States with larger cloud coverage were Amapá (70%) and Roraima (61%). In the analyzed […]

Another Amazon oil spill puts Peruvian communities at risk – ‘We don’t drink river water any more. It gives us diarrhea and stomachaches’

By Barbara Fraser and Milton López Tarabochia26 June 2016 (mongabay.com) – A new oil spill from the pipeline that carries crude oil from the northern Peruvian Amazon across the Andes Mountains to the Pacific coast has raised fears of yet more pollution of the water and fish on which indigenous villages and riverside communities depend. […]

This chart shows what’s at stake in the quest to stop global warming

By Chris Mooney 23 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Here at the Energy and Environment blog, we cover, regularly, the tipping points of climate change — how, for instance, the glaciers of West Antarctica may already have passed a key threshold that leads to unstoppable melt. We cover the history of the Earth’s climate — […]

2015 was the worst year on record for murders of land and environmental defenders – ‘We get threatened, vilified, and killed for standing up to the mining companies on our land and the paramilitaries that protect them’

20 June 2016 (Global Witness) – Para la versión española, clique aquí. More than three people were killed a week in 2015 defending their land, forests and rivers against destructive industries. For our new report On Dangerous Ground we documented 185 killings across 16 countries – by far the highest annual death toll on record […]

At 1,066 feet above rainforest, a view of the changing Amazon

By Daniel Grossman6 June 2016 (Yale e360) – We set off before dawn with my guide, Elton Mendes, steering a battered pickup through the Amazon jungle. He reached a hand out of the window and tugged on a stick tied to the wipers, squeegeeing drizzle off the windshield. After a short drive, he parked by […]

Amazon deforestation increases by one third over 2015 – Forest degradation up 733 percent

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo31 May 2016 (Imazon) – In April 2016, 42% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, a lower coverage than April 2015 (55%). States with larger cloud coverage were Roraima (86%) and Amapá (84%). In the […]

Gold mining ramps up, pushes deeper into Peruvian Amazon rainforest

By Morgan Erickson-Davis22 April 2016 (mongabay.com) – The quest for gold has been stripping rainforest from around rivers in the Amazon Basin, with not even protected areas immune from mining. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the Peruvian government launched an intervention in January, destroying a slew of mining equipment and more […]

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