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 …
According to Survival International, fires are “raging” in Awá territory on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon and “threatening to wipe out uncontacted members of the Awá tribe.” Small groups of Guajajara Indians, the Awá’s neighbors in the Amazon, reportedly battled the blaze for days without the assistance of government …
A fresh oil spill in the Peruvian Amazon was detected from the country's four-decades-old pipeline on Thursday, operator Petroperu said, bringing the number of leaks this year to four. Petroperu, the country's state-owned energy company, did not provide an estimate for how much oil was released and said emergency workers …
BVRio’s analysis found that more than 40 percent of the forest management operations in the Brazilian states of Pará and Mato Grosso between 2007 and 2015 were at medium to high risk of having involved severe breaches of the law. Only 10 percent of the cases examined by BVRio showed …
Although the Amazon Jungle may appear to be perpetually green, a University of Illinois researcher believes there are actually seasonal differences of photosynthesis, with more occurring during the dry season and less during the wet season. Understanding how a rainforest that occupies 2.7 million square miles of South America functions …
Dry conditions, Brazil’s weak currency, and political instability may be creating conditions that could reverse the country’s historic progress in curbing rainforest destruction. Nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil, making it the biggest component in the region's deforestation rate. New data from Imazon, indicates that deforestation …
Using genomic data from three lizard species, researchers gleaned insights not available before on the impact of climate change on the distribution of animal populations in South American forests. The findings improve ways of modeling the distribution of biodiversity in the past and future. Using genomic data from three lizard …
Recent analysis finds cattle ranching is quietly and quickly deforesting huge swaths of rainforest in the heart of Peru. Despite having some of Peru's highest levels of deforestation, its Central Amazon is often overlooked by conservationists and NGOs. Cattle grazing in the area has ramped up over the past decade, …
Conditions created by the strong El Niño event that warmed up Pacific waters in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon basin, that meant reduced rainfall during the wet season, plunging some parts of the region into severe drought. According to NASA, the Amazon …
The Brazilian Amazon is home to 17 turtle species, all of which are under pressure from overexploitation, the illegal wildlife trade, widespread hydropower dam construction, and mercury contamination. Deforestation, agricultural development and climate change are other looming threats. The Brazilian government’s Amazon Turtle Program focuses its conservation efforts on the …
There are more different kinds of trees in the Amazon rainforest than anywhere else on earth, but the exact number has long been a mystery. In 2013, scientists estimated that the number of species was around 16,000--no one had ever counted them all up, though. In a new paper in …
Researchers are increasingly concerned that the Amazon rain forest — the world’s largest tropical forest, a huge repository of carbon and a vital cycler of water into rainfall across much of South America — will soon burn in a way that has not been seen in many years. The reason …
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 and one of …
The Amazon Basin has experienced more variable climate over the last decade, with a severe and widespread drought in 2005 causing large basin-wide losses of biomass. A drought of similar climatological magnitude occurred again in 2010; however, there has been no basin-wide ground-based evaluation of effects on vegetation. We examine …
The head of Peru state-owned energy company Petroperu has resigned following the third oil spill this year due to pipeline ruptures, Energy and Mines Minister Rosa Maria Ortiz said on Thursday on local broadcaster RPP. The latest rupture detected in the four-decades-old pipeline that Petroperu operates was detected in the …
RIO DE JANEIRO – Selective logging, road building and fires are threatening biodiversity in Brazil’s Amazon despite a requirement that rural landowners maintain at least 80 percent of their forest cover in the world’s largest rain forest, researchers said on Wednesday. In 2012, Brazil enacted a law to protect forests …
Up to now, attempts to protect the Amazon have largely focused on preventing deforestation — historically one of the greatest threats the vast South American region has faced. And while efforts in recent years have been successful at slowing or halting deforestation in many places, especially in Brazil, the fight …
Human disturbances are making the Amazon rainforest more flammable, according to researchers. This is one of the conclusions of a two-year study of the Brazilian Amazon, which revealed that even protected forest is degraded by human activity. This activity includes selective logging and forest fragmentation, which increase the likelihood of …
The Amazon is ready to burn. After an unusually dry rainy season, the southern section of the rainforest is heading into winter with the largest moisture deficit since 1998. This has set the stage for an unusually intense fire season, according to a forecast issued on 29 June that is …
RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A proposed dam in the heart of the Amazon will lead to a wave of deforestation as remote areas of the world's largest rainforest are opened to agriculture, said a study from Brazilian researchers published on Tuesday. Local businesses with contracts to help …
Washington, DC-- It turns out that forests in the Andean and western Amazonian regions of South America break long-understood rules about how ecosystems are put together, according to new research led by Carnegie's Greg Asner and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their findings could help …
