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 …
At least 185 environmental activists were killed last year, the highest annual death toll on record and close to a 60% increase on the previous year, according to a UK-based watchdog. Global Witness documented lethal attacks across 16 countries. Brazil was worst hit with 50 deaths, many of them killings …
A team led by an Indian-origin air pollution expert has found an emerging risk to the environment from wood burning stoves in pizza restaurants and charcoal in steakhouses. A recent study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, has shown emissions in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. This work was …
The World Travel and Tourism Council predicts that travel and tourism’s “total contribution” to Peru’s GDP will exceed 11% by 2026, but how well, in the long-term, is Peru protecting its best tourist assets? Among foreign tourists easily the most popular destination in the country’s lowland Amazon region is the …
How ambitious is the world? The Paris climate conference last December astounded many by pledging not just to keep warming “well below two degrees celsius,” but also to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C. That raised a hugely important question: What’s the difference between a two-degree world and a …
Brazil's Amazon region is under threat because of the construction of 40 major dams in the Tapajós river basin, a report by Greenpeace says. The report suggests that unrestrained economic exploitation could destroy the area. Supported by the government and global engineering companies, the construction of five large dams, along …
Construction of 40 dams in the Tapajós river basin would severely affect indigenous people and is not justifiable economically, says new report Construction of 40 major dams in the Brazilian Amazon would destroy the heart of the world’s largest rainforest, severely affect indigenous people and is not economically justifiable, says …
The Amazon is under pressure from unsustainable economic activities and is undergoing unprecedented change, according to WWF’s Living Amazon Report 2016. The report highlights the regional and global realities that are impacting the Amazon and demonstrates why cooperation is so critical to the area’s future. The Amazon spans eight countries …
U.S. agents searched the offices of a California-based wood importer this week as part of a broadening government crackdown on imports of illegally harvested timber, according to a previously unreported federal search warrant seen by Reuters. The Department of Homeland Security agents are probing whether privately held Global Plywood & …
River dolphins, giant otters, turtles, fish, birds and monkeys are all at risk if 246 Amazon dams go forward — mostly in the Tapajós basin and Andes headwaters. An international team of biologists has studied the past and current impacts on biodiversity of 191 existing Amazon dams, and the potential …
The major mosquito vectors of human diseases have co-evolved with humans over a long period of time. However, the rapid growth in human population and the associated expansion in agricultural activity and greater urbanisation have created ecological changes that have had a marked impact on biology of mosquito vectors. Adaptation …
After years of delay, Brazil has approved the creation of a sprawling reserve that would protect a highly vulnerable tribe of isolated nomads along one of the most volatile frontier regions in the Amazon rain forest. Tribal rights activists are hailing the decision, which will set in motion the labor-intensive …
While currently more than half of the world’s coral reefs are potentially threatened by humans, scientists just made an incredible discovery: a coral reef the size of Delaware flourishing near the mouth of the murky and Amazon River in Brazil. Coral reefs don’t typically thrive in murky waters, which makes …
After trekking nearly two hours through dense jungle, Brazilian environmental special forces burst into a clearing where the trees had been sawn and a muddy crater dug: an illegal gold mine on indigenous land in the heart of the Amazon. The miners and gold were already gone, scattered by the …
(WINSTON-SALEM, NC, April 25, 2016) - Wake Forest University has received nearly $10 million in support to establish The Amazon Center for Environmental Research and Sustainability (ACERS). The new center, established through the University's Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES), aims to develop transformative solutions to promote sustainable use …
Large rivers create major gaps in reef distribution along tropical shelves. The Amazon River represents 20% of the global riverine discharge to the ocean, generating up to a 1.3 × 106–km2 plume, and extensive muddy bottoms in the equatorial margin of South America. As a result, a wide area of …
Robust appraisals of climate impacts at different levels of global-mean temperature increase are vital to guide assessments of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The 2015 Paris Agreement includes a two-headed temperature goal: “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 ◦C above pre-industrial levels …
The Observations and Modeling of the Green Ocean Amazon (GoAmazon2014/5) Experiment was carried out in the environs of Manaus, Brazil, in the central region of the Amazon basin for 2 years from 1 January 2014 through 31 December 2015. The experiment focused on the complex interactions among vegetation, atmospheric chemistry, …
Brazil’s Amazon region, which includes most of the world’s largest remaining area of rainforest, is under attack by uncontrolled economic exploitation. Mainly as a result of industrial agriculture, cattle ranching, mines and infrastructure projects such as hydropower dams, and the illegal loggers and settlers that follow in their wake, over …
The Amazon has it bad, but the Cerrado may have it even worse. After all, at least you’ve actually heard of the Amazon. The Cerrado isn’t as big, but it is still one of the largest and most important ecosystems in one of the largest and most environmentally rich countries …
Evidence from ecological studies, eddy flux towers and satellites shows that many tropical forests ‘green up’ during higher sunlight annual dry seasons, suggesting they are more limited by light than water. Morton et al. reported that satellite-observed dry-season green up in Amazon forests is an artefact of seasonal variations in …
