This publication shows that carbon prices exceeding US$ 20 per ton of CO2 captured by the natural regeneration of deforested areas in the Amazon would be truly transformative for the region’s landscape. Offsets for captured carbon would ensure forest integrity, inducing extensive forest restoration and the capture of 16 Gt …
Mapping the aboveground biomass of tropical forests is essential both for implementing conservation policy and reducing uncertainties in the global carbon cycle. Two medium resolution (500 m – 1000 m) pantropical maps of vegetation biomass have been recently published, and have been widely used by sub-national and national-level activities in …
With habitat destruction trends and interaction with climate change, things are not looking good for the Amazon rainforest. According to a new study, the southern portion of the Amazon rainforest is at a much higher risk of dieback due to stronger seasonal drying than projections made by the climate models …
Four years of scientific expeditions have found previously unknown animals and plants in world's largest tropical rainforest A purring monkey, a vegetarian piranha and a flame-patterned lizard are among more than 400 new species of animals and plants that have been discovered in the past four years in the Amazon …
Ecuador’s long-running spat with U.S. oil company Chevron Corp. over a polluted swath of Amazon jungle is the type of David-and-Goliath story President Rafael Correa uses to define his mandate. Correa has worked hard to convince the world that Chevron is bullying the Andean country in order to avoid paying …
Ecuador's parliament on Thursday authorized drilling of the nation's largest oil fields in part of the Amazon rainforest after the failure of President Rafael Correa's plan to have rich nations pay to avoid its exploitation. The socialist leader launched the initiative in 2007 to protect the Yasuni jungle area, which …
In a dispute stemming from a lengthy legal battle over Amazon rain forest pollution, arbitrators ruled that Chevron had already settled claims for damages in agreements with Ecuador despite a $19 billion award against the oil company. The international tribunal, acting under The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration, said in …
Preliminary data released Tuesday by Brazil's space agency suggests Amazon deforestation spiked by more than a third during the past year, reversing a steady decline in destruction of the world's largest rainforest. If substantiated by follow-up data typically compiled by the end of the year, the increase would confirm fears …
Toxic levels of mercury dumped in Amazon rivers gets into food chain, posing serious health risk to children, study finds Indigenous children in Peru's south eastern Amazon, an area where tens of thousands of illegal gold miners operate, have unsafe mercury concentrations over three times the level of their non-native …
Tree loss in one of the world's largest rainforests has slowed, a study suggests. Satellite images of Africa's Congo Basin reveal that deforestation has fallen by about a third since 2000. Researchers believe this is partly because of a focus on mining and oil rather than commercial agriculture, where swathes …
The world suffered unprecedented climate extremes in the decade to 2010, from heatwaves in Europe and droughts in Australia to floods in Pakistan, against a backdrop of global warming, a United Nations report said on Wednesday. Every year of the decade except 2008 was among the 10 warmest since records …
One in 10 people around the world will live in a place where climate change is damaging at least two major sectors such as crop yields, water, ecosystems or health, said an international study on Monday. These so-called climate “hotspots” will be most widespread in the southern Amazon, with “severe …
Many species of birds, amphibians and corals not currently under threat will be at risk from climate change and have been wrongly omitted from conservation planning, an international study said on Wednesday. The Amazon rainforest was among the places where ever more types of birds and amphibians would be threatened …
Climate change is likely to worsen floods on rivers such as the Ganges, the Nile and the Amazon this century while a few, including the now-inundated Danube, may become less prone, a Japanese-led scientific study said on Sunday. The findings will go some way to help countries prepare for deluges …
Tropical rainforest regions have large hydropower generation potential that figures prominently in many nations’ energy growth strategies. Feasibility studies of hydropower plants typically ignore the effect of future deforestation or assume that deforestation will have a positive effect on river discharge and energy generation resulting from declines in evapotranspiration (ET) …
Tribal groups in Earth's largest rainforest are already being affected by shifts wrought by climate change, reports a paper published last week in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The paper, which is based on a collection of interviews conducted with indigenous leaders in the Brazilian …
A consulting firm whose work helped lead to a $19 billion award against Chevron Corp for rainforest pollution in Ecuador has disavowed environmental claims used by local residents to obtain the 2011 court judgment, court documents show. Chevron on Friday released affidavits from two officials at Stratus Consulting Inc saying …
Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday. About 30 per cent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and …
Animals and plants brought to Europe from other parts of the world are a bigger-than-expected threat to health and the environment costing at least $16 billion a year, a study said on Thursday. More than 10,000 "alien" species have gained a foothold in Europe, from Asian tiger mosquitoes to North …
People are having to leave their homes, villages are being submerged, and worries are being expressed about damage to the biodiverse Amazon forest When it is completed in 2015, the Jirau hydroelectric dam will span 8km across the Madeira river and feature more giant turbines than any other dam in …
The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertilizer, a study showed on Wednesday. The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels blamed for causing climate …
