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 …
International development finance institutions (DFIs) invested heavily in large-scale infrastructure projects that triggered significant deforestation in the Andes Amazon especially within the nations of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia between 2000 and 2015, according to recent research published by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Using satellite data, the study analyzed …
For the past four years, the indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya has battled for state recognition of its right to ancestral forests in a remote pocket of the Peruvian Amazon. The push began in 2014, when a palm oil company, Plantaciones de Pucallpa, bought 200 parcels of land …
Data from a Brazilian forest monitoring group suggests deforestation is surging in the world’s largest rainforest, with last month’s rate of forest loss in the Amazon hitting the highest level since monthly tracking began in 2007. Imazon, an NGO that independently tracks forest trends in Brazil, this week released its …
Ancient communities transformed the Amazon thousands of years ago, farming in a way which has had a lasting impact on the rainforest, a major new study shows. Farmers had a more profound effect on the supposedly "untouched" rainforest than previously thought, introducing crops to new areas, boosting the number of …
Timber harvest from tropical regions generates seven billion dollars annually in exports and is estimated to occur across 20% of the area of remaining tropical forests. This timber harvesting is estimated to account for more than one in eight of all greenhouse gas emissions from tropical forests. Yet there is …
Tropical rainforests play a critical role in regulating the global climate system—they represent the Earth's largest terrestrial CO2 sink. Because of its broad geographical expanse and year-long productivity, the Amazon is key to the global carbon and hydrological cycles. Climate change could threaten the fate of rainforests, but there is …
It was a letter of unity and solidarity. “Our forest, our rivers, our land are sacred to us,” wrote the Ka’apor tribe, from Maranhão in north-eastern Brazil, to the Munduruku, who live hundreds of miles away on the Tapajós river deep in the Amazon rainforest. Both tribes are under threat …
Colombia’s supreme court granted protections, filed by 25 children and other young people, that affirm that deforestation in the Colombian Amazon violates their rights to health and life. In the ruling, the supreme court ordered the president of Colombia and environmental authorities to create an action plan to protect this …
Obligate river dolphins occur only in the rivers of Asia and South America, where they are increasingly subject to damaging pressures such as habitat degradation, food competition and entanglement in fishing gear as human populations expand. The Amazon basin hosts two, very different, dolphins—the boto or Amazon river dolphin (Inia …
Approximately one fifth of the Amazon rainforest has already been cut down, and nearly 80 percent of this deforestation is attributable to the cattle industry, says a new nearly hour-long documentary, “Grazing the Amazon.” Many ranchers are outspoken in their justification for deforestation, possibly because they feel safe from prosecution …
Precise descriptions of forest productivity, biomass, and structure are essential for understanding ecosystem responses to climatic and anthropogenic changes. However, relations between these components are complex, in particular for tropical forests. We developed an approach to simulate carbon dynamics in the Amazon rainforest including around 410 billion individual trees within …
Although Plasmodium vivax infection is a frequent cause of malaria worldwide, severe presentations have been more regularly described only in recent years. In this setting, despite clinical descriptions of multi-organ involvement, data associating it with kidney dysfunction are relatively scarce. Here, renal dysfunction is retrospectively analyzed in a large cohort …
Deforestation of the Amazon is about to reach a threshold beyond which the region's tropical rainforest may undergo irreversible changes that transform the landscape into degraded savanna with sparse shrubby plant cover and low biodiversity. This warning derives from an editorial published in the journal Science Advances. The article was …
The world’s greatest forests could lose more than half of their plant species by the end of the century unless nations ramp up efforts to tackle climate change, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming on biodiversity hotspots. Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds are also likely …
Up to half of plant and animal species in the world’s most naturally rich areas, such as the Amazon and the Galapagos, could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change if carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked. Even if the Paris Climate Agreement 2°C …
Yaguas National Park is home to more than 3,000 species of plants, 500 species of birds and 160 species of mammals Andes Amazon Fund The rainforests in Peru’s remote north-west corner are vast – so vast that the clouds that form above them can influence rainfall in the western United …
Longtime residents of one of the country’s thousands of Quilombo communities have been given land titles for the first time. Quilombo communities are Brazilian peoples of African descent whose ancestors were slaves – they have long lived in rural communities throughout Brazil. The Cachoeira Porteira quilombo community of 500 people …
Despite a 76 percent decline in deforestation rates between 2003 and 2015, the incidence of forest fires is increasing in Brazil, with new research linking the rise in fires not only to deforestation, but also to severe droughts. El Niño, combined with other oceanic and atmospheric cycles, produced an unusually …
Carbon emissions from the Brazilian Amazon are increasingly dominated by forest fires during extreme droughts rather than by emissions from fires directly associated with the deforestation process, according to a study in Nature Communications. The authors suggest that recurrent 21st century droughts may undermine achievements in reducing emissions from deforestation …
One of the most important anthropogenic influences on climate is land use change (LUC). In particular, the Amazon (AMZ) basin is a highly vulnerable area to climate change due to substantial modifications of the hydroclimatology of the region expected as a result of LUC. However, both the magnitude of these …
