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 …
A pioneering project to study to carbon cycle over the Amazonian rainforest has been launched by the University of Leicester (UoL) in partnership with research institutions from the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. As part of the initiative, a new UK/Brazil institutional research network has been set up with funding …
Map of timber value in the Amazon. Click for larger image and detailed caption provided by authors. Illustration: Sadia Ahmed and Robert Ewers, Imperial College London Researchers exploring the value of different types of timber across the Amazon rainforest have produced a fascinating choropleth map to illustrate their findings. Shown …
President Dilma Rousseff is facing one of the defining moments of her presidency as pressure builds on her to veto a bill that would open vast protected areas of forests to ranching and farming, potentially reversing Brazil’s major gains in slowing Amazon deforestation. The Forest Code, which Congress approved in …
The Amazon is a globally important system, providing a host of ecosystem services from climate regulation to food sources. It is also home to a quarter of all global diversity. Large swathes of forest are removed each year, and many models have attempted to predict the spatial patterns of this …
The sound of chainsaws in the Amazon rainforest has faded in recent years as deforestation has slowed, last year dropping to less than one-third of its long-term average. But last week, the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress passed a bill that observers say could drastically reduce forest protection.
Peru became the latest developing country to enact a domestic climate change initiative in the absence of a binding global pact, adopting a resolution on Thursday to lower carbon emissions in its fast-growing economy. As one of the world's most geographically diverse places, Peru said it is already feeling the …
The nature and scale of pre-Columbian land use and the consequences of the 1492 “Columbian Encounter” (CE) on Amazonia are among the more debated topics in New World archaeology and paleoecology. However, pre-Columbian human impact in Amazonian savannas remains poorly understood. Most paleoecological studies have been conducted in neotropical forest …
Due to rising energy demands and abundant untapped potential, hydropower projects are rapidly increasing in the Neotropics. This is especially true in the wet and rugged Andean Amazon, where regional governments are prioritizing new hydroelectric dams as the centerpiece of long-term energy plans. However, the current planning for hydropower lacks …
Tropical forests in Africa may be more resilient to future climate change than the Amazon and other regions, a gathering of scientists has said. An international conference agreed that the region’s surviving tree species had endured a number of climatic catastrophes over the past 4,000 years. As a result, they …
President Evo Morales said Tuesday that he was rescinding a contract awarded to the Brazilian company OAS to build a road through the Amazon, casting further doubt on a project that set off fierce antigovernment protests last year. Mr. Morales partly halted work on the most controversial stretch of the …
The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday. Scientific estimates differ but the world's temperature looks set to rise by six degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are …
Fire has become an increasingly important disturbance event in south-western Amazonia. We conducted the first assessment of the ecological impacts of these wildfires in 2008, sampling forest structure and biodiversity along twelve 500 m transects in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Acre, Brazil. Six transects were placed in unburned forests …
The UN's International Labor Organization (ILO) has released a report stating that the Brazilian government violated the rights of indigenous people by moving forward on the massive Belo Monte dam without consulting indigenous communities. The report follows a request last year by the The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for …
A court in Ecuador has rejected an order by arbitrators that an $18 billion pollution ruling against Chevron should be frozen, but the judges referred an appeal by the U.S. oil company to the country's Supreme Court. A year after the landmark decision against Chevron, a panel working for The …
Chevron said Friday that it had no intention of apologizing for the environmental damage to the Amazon rain forest for which an Ecuadorean court ruled it responsible. Attorneys for both sides have said that if Chevron apologized, its legal liability of $18 billion would have been cut to $9.5 billion. …
Agricultural expansion and climate variability have become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon basin. Recent studies have demonstrated considerable resilience of Amazonian forests to moderate annual drought, but they also show that interactions between deforestation, fire and drought potentially lead to losses of carbon storage and changes in regional …
We show in climate model experiments that large-scale afforestation in northern mid-latitudes warms the Northern Hemisphere and alters global circulation patterns. An expansion of dark forests increases the absorption of solar energy and increases surface temperature, particularly in regions where the land surface is unable to compensate with latent heat …
A federal court judge on Friday denied a Chevron Corp bid to prevent Ecuadorean plaintiffs from collecting on an $18 billion damages award against the U.S. oil giant over pollution in the Amazon jungle. The oil company in November had asked Manhattan federal court judge Lewis Kaplan to freeze the …
