Death toll rises to 207 in Colombia avalanche – Night’s rainfall was almost half the amount Mocoa normally receives in the entire month of March

By Christine Armario2 April 2017 MOCOA, Colombia (Associated Press) – The Latest on the deadly river overflow in southern Colombia (all times local): 12:15 p.m. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says that at least 207 people have been killed in a water and mud avalanche in the country’s south, but the death toll is changing […]

Photo gallery: Floods and landslides across Peru, March 2017

By David Sim24 March 2017 (International Business Times) – At least 84 people have been killed been killed in floods and landslides caused by El Niño storms wreaking havoc across Peru. About half of the country is in a state of emergency to expedite resources to the hardest hit areas, mostly in the north where […]

Vicious circle of drought and forest loss in the Amazon – “Frequent extreme drought events have the potential to destabilize large parts of the Amazon forest”

13 March 2017 (Potsdam Institute) – Logging that happens today and potential future rainfall reductions in the Amazon could push the region into a vicious dieback circle. If dry seasons intensify with human-caused climate change, the risk for self-amplified forest loss would increase even more, an international team of scientists finds. If however there is […]

Image of the Day: Map of protected Amazon forest and encroaching deforestation, February 2017

24 February 2017 (Imazon) – This map of protected areas in the south of the Amazon shows the deforestation pressure that already happens around conservation units that will be reduced, if the Provisional Measure is adopted. [Translation by Facebook.] Original text: Mapa de Áreas Protegidas do Sul do Amazonas aponta a pressão (desmatamento) que já […]

Reduction in Brazil’s Jamanxim Forest protection benefits recent squatters, study says

By Eduardo Pegurier20 February 2017 (o Eco) – [Translation by Google.] A new analysis published by the NGO Imazon, based in Belém do Pará, rekindles the accusations against the reduction of the Jamanxim National Forest (Flona), made by the government through a Provisional Measure at the end of December 2016. Created only ten years ago, […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of forest fires in Chile, 24 January 2017

By Pola Lem1 February 2017 (NASA) – Wildfires continued to ravage Chile’s countryside in early February 2017, weeks after they flared up in mid-January. The blazes have thwarted firefighters’ efforts to control them, with new hot spots emerging daily. Satellite data and scientific analysis suggest the fires are among the worst the country has seen […]

Documenting the consequences of palm oil production beyond Southeast Asia – “Guatemala was probably the scariest”

6 February 2017 (Mongabay) –  Most of the attention around palm oil production has focused on where the crop has the largest footprint: Southeast Asia. Yet oil palm plantations are rapidly mushrooming throughout the tropics, from the species’ ancestral home in West and Central Africa to Pacific islands to Latin America. A new film, Appetite […]

Millions of sardines wash up dead on beach in Chile

27 January 2017 (Soy Chile) – A new natural phenomenon associated with the stranding of millions of dead sardines was exposed Thursday afternoon on the beach in the village of Aucho in Quemchi. The finding has powerfully attracted the attention of the inhabitants of this coastal sector which did not hesitate to go to the […]

60 percent of primate species face impending extinction, and 75 percent have declining populations globally

By Russell A. Mittermeier and Anthony B. Rylands24 January 2017 (mongabay.com) – The Year of the Monkey has just ended, and won’t come around again for another 12 years. In the meantime, what is happening with our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates? A recent paper in Science Advances by 31 of us indicates that […]

Brazil President Temer reduces preservation in Pará forest and legalizes squatters – Protection removed from 305,000 hectares (754,000 acres)

By Fabiano Maisonnave; translation by Thomas Muello22 December 2016 MANAUS (Folha de S. Paulo) – In an action criticized by environmentalists and commemorated by squatters, the President of Brazil, Michel Temer, ratified a provisional measure that paves the way to legalize dozens of rural proprieties inside the National Forest (Flona) of Jamanxin, in the southwest […]

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