Amazon Rainforest & Deforestation Watch Thread

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

^^^Here is an article that provides more background on that:

What Lula’s Stunning Victory Means for the Imperiled Amazon Rainforest
by Benji Jones
October 31, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) Brazil, the largest nation in South America and home of the iconic Amazon rainforest, will have a new leader come January 1: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In the runoff election Sunday, Lula, as he’s widely known, beat incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, earning just over 50 percent of the vote.

It was a historic defeat and a sensational comeback for Lula. After serving two terms as Brazil’s president, between 2003 and 2011, Lula went to jail for corruption, though he was later freed after the Supreme Court overturned his convictions. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is the first president to lose reelection in the 34 years of the nation’s modern democracy. (He has yet to concede. Bolsonaro administration officials have announced that they are preparing for the transition to a Lula administration - caltrek)

The results also represent a historic moment for the Amazon rainforest.

Under President Bolsonaro, deforestation accelerated, threatening not only wildlife and Indigenous communities but also the global climate. But Lula has promised to give the forest a second chance. “Let’s fight for zero deforestation,” Lula said Sunday night after his victory. “Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all our biomes, especially the Amazon forest.”

Lula often points to his track record to prove he can succeed: During his presidency, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by more than 80 percent, meaning there was less forest loss. An analysis by the climate website Carbon Brief suggests that under Lula’s next administration, annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon could be down by nearly 90 percent by the end of the decade.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022 ... ainforest

[wjfox]

[Tadasuke]

I very much recommend reading this about deforestation and the Amazon forest:
https://www.humanprogress.org/the-amazo ... disappear/

[wjfox]

I very much recommend reading this about deforestation and the Amazon forest:
https://www.humanprogress.org/the-amazo ... disappear/

A well-known fossil fuel disinformation site, funded by the Cato Institute. Please keep this propaganda off the forum.

[Tadasuke]

A well-known fossil fuel disinformation site, funded by the Cato Institute. Please keep this propaganda off the forum.

That's only your opinion. It's not a disinformation site. That's only the accusation of people don't know better. It's absolutely not a fossil fuel site. I'm sharing it, because I don't want climate-change alarmism to be unnecessarily propagated. I want good for the world.

[weatheriscool]

Amazon deforestation in Brazil remains near 15-year high
Source: AP

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday. The data was released by the National Institute for Space Research.

The agency’s Prodes monitoring system shows the rainforest lost an area roughly the size of Qatar, some 11,600 square kilometers (4,500 square miles) in the 12 months from August 2021 to July 2022.

That is down 11% compared to the previous year, when over 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) were destroyed.

For more than a decade it looked as though things were getting better for the Brazilian Amazon. Deforestation had declined dramatically and never rose back above 10,000 square kilometers. That was before the presidency of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, beginning in January 2019.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/jair-bolsona ... 68b305c3ea

[caltrek]

Brazilian Amazon Deforestation up 150% in Jair Bolsonaro’s Last Month
January 6, 2023

Introduction:

(AFP) — Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose 150 percent in December from the previous year, according to government figures released Friday, a final bleak report for far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro in his last month in office.

Satellite monitoring detected 218.4 square kilometers (84.3 square miles) of forest cover destroyed in Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest last month, according to the national space agency's DETER surveillance program.

The area -- nearly four times the size of Manhattan -- was up more than 150 percent from the 87.2 square kilometers destroyed in December 2021, according to the agency, INPE.

Bolsonaro, who was replaced on January 1 by leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, triggered an international outcry during his four years in office for a surge of fires and clear-cutting in the Amazon, a key resource in the race to curb climate change.

Under Bolsonaro, an agribusiness ally, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose by 75.5 percent from the previous decade.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/brazili ... st-month/

[caltrek]

Scientists Find Human Activity has Degraded More than a Third of the Remaining Amazon Rainforest
January 26, 2023

Introduction:

(EurekAlert Alert) Main points:
• Carbon emissions from degradation are equivalent to or greater than those from deforestation.
• Degradation does not just affect climate and biodiversity; it also has major socioeconomic impacts
• Projections for 2050 indicate that disturbances such as fire and illegal logging will continue to be among the main sources of carbon emissions from the Amazon

The Amazon rainforest has been degraded by a much greater extent than scientists previously believed with more than a third of remaining forest affected by humans, according to a new study published on January 27 in the journal Science.

The paper was led by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions such as Brazil’s University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and UK’s Lancaster University. It shows that up to 38% of the remaining Amazon forest area – equivalent to ten times the size of the UK – has been affected by some form of human disturbance, causing carbon emissions equivalent to or greater than those from deforestation.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/977394

Edit: Of related interest https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/977341

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Amazon Mammals Threatened by Climate Change
February 15, 2023

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) From jaguars and ocelots to anteaters and capybara, most land-based mammals living in the Brazilian Amazon are threatened by climate change and the projected savannization of the region. That’s according to a study published in the journal Animal Conservation by the University of California, Davis.

[Leia esse artigo em português: https://ucdavis.app.box.com/s/bmgyw8s5 ... 0i3a1ls1zx]

The study found that even animals that use both forest and savanna habitats, such as pumas and giant armadillos, are vulnerable to such changes. It also illustrates how species and lands protected through local conservation efforts are not immune to global climate change.

“We’re losing Amazon forest as we speak,” said lead author Daniel Rocha, who conducted the research as a doctoral student in the UC Davis Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. “The Amazon’s biodiversity is very susceptible to climate change effects. It’s not just local; it’s a global phenomenon. We cannot stop this just by law enforcement, for example. These species are more susceptible than we realized, and even protected areas can’t protect them as much as we thought.”

What is ‘savannization?’

Pristine savanna is a unique biome that supports a diverse array of life. But “savannization” here refers to when lush rainforest gives way to a drier, open landscape that resembles savanna but is actually degraded forest. Local deforestation and global climate changes in temperature and precipitation favor this conversion along the southern and eastern edges of the Brazilian Amazon.

Read more of the EurekAlert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/979770

Read a presentation of the results of the study as published ZSL publications here: https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary. ... 2853?af=R

[wjfox]

Indigenous youths use tech as 'weapon' to protect Amazon

MAY 5, 2023

Her grandfather defended native lands in the Brazilian Amazon with bows and arrows. Today, the weapon of choice for Txai Surui and many young Indigenous activists like her is technology.

The 26-year-old Brazilian is one of the stars of Web Summit Rio, the world's biggest annual technology conference, which was held for the first time outside Europe this week, gathering more than 20,000 entrepreneurs and investors in Brazil.

"Today, technology is like a weapon for us... We use technology and ancestral knowledge as a form of resistance, to protect our land" against illegal logging and mining, Txai told AFP on the sidelines of the conference in Rio de Janeiro.

Using video cameras, drones, GPS, cell phones and social networks, a group of young people from her community monitors land invasions, using an application to report them, says Txai, who stands out in the high-tech conference venue with her feather headdress and traditional face paint.

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-indigenou ... mazon.html

[caltrek]

Secret Behind Amazonian 'Dark Earth' Could Help Speed Up Forest Restoration Across the Globe
May 5, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Between approximately 450 BCE and 950 CE, millions of Amerindian people living in today’s Amazonia transformed the originally poor soil through various processes. Over many human generations, soils were enriched with charcoal from their low-intensity fires for cooking and burning refuse, animal bones, broken pottery, compost, and manure. The result is Amazonian dark earth (ADE) or terra preta, exceptionally fertile because rich in nutrients and stable organic matter derived from charcoal, which gives it its black color.

Now, scientists from Brazil show that ADE could be a ‘secret weapon’ to boost reforestation – not only in the Amazon, where 18% or approximately 780,000 km2 has been lost since the 1970s – but around the world. The results are published in Frontiers in Soil Science.

“Here we show that the use of ADEs can enhance the growth of pasture and trees due to their high levels of nutrients, as well as to the presence of beneficial bacteria and archaea in the soil microbial community,” said joint lead author Luís Felipe Zagatto, a graduate student at the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture of São Paulo University, Brazil.

“This means that knowledge of the ‘ingredients’ that make ADEs so very fertile could be applied to help speed up ecological restoration projects.”
Mimicking reforestation in miniature.

The researchers conducted controlled experiments to mimic the ecological succession and changes to the soil that happen when pasture in deforested areas is actively restored to forest. Their aim was to study how ADEs, or ultimately soils of which the microbiome has been artificially composed to imitate them, can boost this process.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/988029

For the article in Frontiers in Soil Science: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 27/full

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[wjfox]

Amazon Deforestation Down 40 Percent So Far This Year

May 12, 2023

So far this year, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is down 40 percent from the same period in 2022, according to government data. The drop comes as a win for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has promised to curb forest less.

In April alone, deforestation was down 68 percent from last year. The region saw 127 square miles (329 square kilometers) of forest destroyed, running below the historical April average of 176 square miles (456 square kilometers), Reuters reports.

It is unclear, however, if the downward trend will continue into late summer, when forest loss typically peaks. “The numbers are at a very high level, and the dry season, which is favorable to deforestation, has not yet started,” Mariana Napolitano of WWF-Brazil, said in a statement.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/amazon-def ... -down-2023



Neil Palmer / CIAT via Flickr

[caltrek]

Amazon Deforestation Down 40 Percent So Far This Year

...

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/amazon-def ... -down-2023

More on that by Kenny Stancil at Common Dreams

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) The finding reflects positively on the administration of leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to make the destruction of the crucial ecosystem "a thing of the past."
…
Parts of the Amazon, often referred to as the "lungs of the Earth" due to its unparalleled capacity to provide oxygen and absorb planet-heating carbon dioxide, recently passed a key tipping point after Bolsonaro intensified clearcutting of the tropical rainforest during his four-year reign. Bolsonaro's regressive policy changes pushed deforestation in Brazil to a 15-year high last year, helping to drive the country's greenhouse gas emissions to their highest level in almost two decades.
…
Lula has taken important steps toward fulfilling his pledge to halt deforestation by 2030, though Reuters reported that the president "has faced continued challenges since taking office as [the] environmental agency IBAMA grapples with lack of staff," one lingering consequence of his predecessor's funding cuts.
…
Earlier this month, Lula secured "an 80 million-pound ($100.97 million) contribution from Britain to the Amazon Fund, an initiative aimed at fighting deforestation also backed by Norway, Germany, and the United States," Reuters noted. Last month, he "resumed the recognition of Indigenous lands, reversing a Bolsonaro policy, while announcing new job openings at the environment ministry and [the] Indigenous agency FUNAI."

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/braz ... pril-2023

[wjfox]

Amazon deforestation down by a third in 2023, says Brazilian government

2 hours ago

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon fell by 33.6% in the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's term compared with the same period in 2022, the government says.

Its suggests the rainforest shrank by 2,649 sq km this January-June, down from 3,988 sq km in those six months last year under President Bolsonaro.

The released government satellite data has not been independently verified.

Lula has pledged to end deforestation, or forest clearance, by 2030.

But he faces a huge challenge to achieve this target, as the area of rainforest still reported to be lost under his rule is more than three times the size of New York City.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66129200

[caltrek]

Amazon deforestation down by a third in 2023, says Brazilian government

...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66129200

More on that from Mother Jones:

Extract:

Lula’s administration has attempted to thwart illegal logging by seizing illegally raised cattle and imposing financial sanctions on forest-destroying landowners. But some loggers and cattle ranchers are still chopping away at the erstwhile carbon sink. Experts say that to end deforestation Brazil will need to reorient its economy away from cattle farming, which requires land to graze, and toward goods like acai and the fish pirarucu. That will be a big transformation, but putting a dent in the rate of rainforest loss is a solid start.

Last month, Lula announced his plan for Brazil to end illegal deforestation by 2030, three years after the end of his term. For the plan to work, a like-minded individual would have to succeed Lula—and, as The New Republic reported, Lula might have to make some environmental concessions to promote the country’s economic interests and stave off a right-wing resurgence. For now, the Amazon is gearing up for a severe fire season, and deforestation continues, albeit at a slower rate than before.

Source: https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... -a-third/

[wjfox]