Amazon Rainforest & Deforestation Watch Thread

[Yuli Ban]

'Biggest Story in the World Right Now': Humanity Has Flipped Amazon From Carbon Sink to Source

Following years of warnings and mounting fears among scientists, "terrifying" research revealed Wednesday that climate change and deforestation have turned parts of the Amazon basin, a crucial "sink," into a source of planet-heating carbon dioxide.

Though recent research has elevated concerns about the Amazon putting more CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it absorbs, the new findings, published in the journal Nature, were presented as a "first" by scientists and climate reporters.

From 2010 to 2018, researchers for the new study—led by Luciana Gatti of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research—conducted "vertical profiling measurements" of carbon dioxide and monoxide a few miles above the tree canopy at four sites in Amazonia.

The researchers found that "Southeastern Amazonia, in particular, acts as a net carbon source" and "total carbon emissions are greater in eastern Amazonia than in the western part." The former, they noted, has been "subjected to more deforestation, warming, and moisture stress" than the latter in recent decades.

Even with a decree banning fires, flames and clouds of smoke were seen near the city of Novo Progresso, in southern Pará, Brazil, on August 15, 2020. (Photo: Ernesto Carriço/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

[wjfox]

Next Brazilian election is October 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Braz ... l_election


There's a very good chance that Bolsonaro can be defeated. His approval rating has been steadily eroding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_p ... presidency

[Yuli Ban]

Amazon rainforest ‘will collapse if Bolsonaro remains president’
Brazilian academics and activists issue warning amid fresh assault on environmental protections

The collapse of the Amazon rainforest is inevitable if Jair Bolsonaro remains president of Brazil, academics and environmental activists have warned amid a fresh government assault on protections for the forest.

Despite evidence that fire, drought and land clearance are pushing the Amazon towards a point of no return, they say the far-right leader is more interested in placating the powerful agribusiness lobby and tapping global markets that reward destructive behaviour.

The onslaught on forest safeguards has picked up pace. On Wednesday the lower house was due to vote on legislation that would reward land grabbers by legalising ownership of property that had been illegally invaded and cleared before 2014.

[wjfox]

So sad.


Illegal logging reaches Amazon’s untouched core, ‘terrifying’ research shows

by Juliana Ennes on 15 September 2021

One of the main fears about the Brazilian Amazon is beginning to materialize: logging is starting to move from the periphery of the rainforest toward the core of the biome, groundbreaking new research shows.

Tracking cut trees through satellite mapping data, the research found that logging activities cleared 464,000 hectares (1.15 million acres) of the Brazilian Amazon — an area three times the size of the city of São Paulo — between August 2019 and July 2020. More than half (50.8%) of the logging was reportedly concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso, followed by Amazonas (15.3%) and Rondônia (15%).

“Around 20 years ago, we feared that the forest would be devastated in the so-called ‘deforestation arch’ and the movement would migrate from the peripheral areas toward the central region of the Amazon,” said Marco Lentini, senior project coordinator of Imaflora, a sustainable development NGO involved in the mapping project. “Our map shows this is happening now: logging is going toward the Amazon core.”

He said the logging pattern was that of “frontier migration,” adding, “This is something that terrifies us. We have to stabilize this frontier.”

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/illeg ... rch-shows/

[wjfox]

Amazon deforestation hits 15-year high

22nd November 2021

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has reached its highest level since 2006, according to new data released by the Brazilian government.

The National Institute for Space Research (NISR), part of Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, is responsible for monitoring the Amazon and has published a report showing its current status. According to the NISR, deforestation increased by 22% during the last year – from 10,851 sq km (4,190 sq mi) to 13,235 sq km (5,110 sq mi).

[...]

From the mid-2000s onwards, following decades of rampant deforestation, tree loss in Brazil began to undergo a dramatic slowdown. The country seemed to have turned a corner. However, after reaching a low in 2012, deforestation in the Amazon ticked up again. Since the election of Jair Bolsonaro on 1st January 2019, which soon led to a gutting of environmental protections, this trend has accelerated further. An area of rainforest the size of a football field is now being cleared in Brazil every 17 seconds. Over the span of a year, that amounts to 1,855,058 football field-sized losses.

Read more: https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... meline.htm

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

The Great Amazon Land Grab – How Brazil’s Government is Turning Public Land Private, Clearing the Way for Deforestation
by Gabriel Cardoso Carrero, Cynthia S. Simmons, and Robert T. Walker

https://theconversation.com/profiles/ro ... ker-667958

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Imagine that several state legislators decide that Yellowstone National Park is too big. Also imagine that, working with federal politicians, they change the law to downsize the park by a million acres, which they sell in a private auction.

Outrageous? Yes. Unheard of? No. It happens routinely and with increasing frequency in the Brazilian Amazon.

The most widely publicized threat to the Amazonian rainforest is deforestation. Less well understood is that public lands are being converted to private holdings in a land grab we’ve been studying for the past decade.

Much of this land is cleared for cattle ranches and soybean farms, threatening biodiversity and the Earth’s climate. Prior research has quantified how much public land has been grabbed, but only for one type of public land called “undesignated public forests.”

Our research provides a complete account across all classes of public land. We looked at Amazonia’s most active deforestation frontier, southern Amazonas State, starting in 2012 as rates of deforestation began to increase because of loosened regulatory oversight. Our research shows how land grabs are tied to accelerating deforestation spearheaded by wealthy interests, and how Brazil’s National Congress, by changing laws, is legitimizing these land grabs.

[wjfox]

January deforestation in the Amazon highest in 14 years

by Mongabay.com on 11 February 2022

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon last month was the highest of any January dating back to 2008, reports Brazil’s national space research agency INPE.

According to data released today, 430 square miles of rainforest was chopped down in January, a 400% rise over January 2021 when 86 square kilometers was lost. The average extent of deforestation in January for the past 15 years has been 171 square kilometers.

https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/janua ... -14-years/

[caltrek]

Amazon Rainforest is Losing Resilience: New Evidence from Satellite Data Analysis
March 7, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/945425

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) The Amazon rainforest is likely losing resilience, data analysis from high-resolution satellite images suggests. This is due to stress from a combination of logging and burning – the influence of human-caused climate change is not clearly determinable so far, but will likely matter greatly in the future. For about three quarters of the forest, the ability to recover from perturbation has been decreasing since the early 2000s, which the scientists see as a warning sign. The new evidence is derived from advanced statistical analysis of satellite data of changes in vegetation biomass and productivity.

“Reduced resilience – the ability to recover from perturbations like droughts or fires – can mean an increased risk of dieback of the Amazon rainforest. That we see such a resilience loss in observations is worrying,” says Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Technical University of Munich, who conducted the study jointly with researchers from the University of Exeter, UK.

“The Amazon rainforest is a home to a unique host of biodiversity, strongly influences rainfall all over South America by way of its enormous evapotranspiration, and stores huge amounts of carbon that could be released as greenhouse gases in the case of even partial dieback, in turn contributing to further global warming,” Boers explains. “This is why the rainforest is of global relevance.”

“When the tipping itself will be observable, it would be too late”

The Amazon is considered a potential tipping element in the Earth system and a number of studies revealed its vulnerability. “However, computer simulation studies of its future yield quite a range of results,” says Boers. “We’ve therefore been looking into specific observational data for signs of resilience changes during the last decades. We see continuously decreasing rainforest resilience since the early 2000s, but we cannot tell when a potential transition from rainforest to savanna might happen. When it will be observable, it would likely be too late to stop it.” The research is part of the project 'Tipping Points in the Earth System' (TiPES) funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.

[Time_Traveller]

Banks and UK supermarkets accused of backing deforestation in Brazil

Fri 24 Jun 2022

Global financiers, UK supermarkets and an Italian leather supplier have supported deforestation, land-grabbing and the use of slave labour in Brazil by funding and stocking products from the Brazilian meat giant JBS, an investigation claimed on Friday.

Financial institutions mentioned in the investigation’s report were HSBC, Barclays, Santander, Deutsche Bank, BlackRock and JP Morgan. The report said the institutions had “for years funnelled billions of dollars to JBS and continue to do so – while at the same time pledging to remove deforestation from their portfolios”.

The report noted that Barclays facilitated a bond deal for JBS worth almost $1bn last year and said the bank “has continually done business with [JBS] over multiple years despite numerous Global Witness reports on the company”. The report further found that between “September and October of last year, investment companies controlled by Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Santander, BlackRock and JP Morgan” held shares worth more than $293m in JBS.

The supermarkets selling products that used JBS beef, which were checked in February this year, were named as Sainsbury’s, Iceland and Asda. The report named the Italian leather supplier, Gruppo Mastrotto, as a buyer of JBS skins.

Global Witness, which conducted the investigation, said its findings came “as deforestation reaches record levels” and while the “dismantling of environmental policies and the weakening of environmental agencies under [Brazil’s president, Jair] Bolsonaro have been highlighted as key risks that may push the Amazon to an irreversible tipping point, with devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples and local communities, the global climate and biodiversity”.

The investigation highlighted two different types of JBS supply chain issue, direct and indirect. In the direct supply chain the report found JBS sourcing cattle “from 144 ranches in the Amazon state of Pará that contained over 10,000 football pitches of illegal Amazon clearance, contrary to its legal no-deforestation obligations”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... brazil-jbs

[caltrek]

'Tipping Point of No Return' Feared as Amazon Rainforest Fires Surge
by Jake Johnson
July 3, 2022

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) The Brazilian government published data Friday showing that more than 2,500 fire hotspots were recorded in the Amazon rainforest last month, the highest number for June since 2007—one of the worst years ever for the critical ecosystem.

The latest report from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research estimates that the Brazilian Amazon has lost 1,450 square miles of jungle since the start of 2022.

Greenpeace Brazil said in response to the alarming figures that the far-right Bolsonaro government's systematic rampage against basic environmental protections is responsible for the surge in rainforest fires and overall deforestation, which have helped transform parts of the Amazon—long known as a key carbon "sink"—into sources of planet-warming greenhouse gas.

"Agribusiness is hitting new records for forest destruction as the dry season arrives in the Amazon," said Cristiane Mazzetti, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil. "Illegal burnings and deforestation have accelerated over the last three years as a direct result of the Brazilian government's anti-environmental agenda that encourages the destruction of the forest."

"If this trend does not change," Mazzetti added, "we will approach the tipping point of no return in which the Amazon could fail as a rainforest."

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... res-surge

[Time_Traveller]

Push for post-Brexit trade deals may threaten UK pledges on deforestation

Mon 18 Jul 2022 15.13 BST

The UK government may be undermining its commitments to end deforestation overseas because of conflicts over trade policy, the Guardian has learned.

A war of words is raging within the government over deforestation and trade, with green campaigners warning that a proposed policy could have dire consequences for efforts to stop illegal logging.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, is believed to want to relax tariffs for goods including palm oil from Malaysia, a country of top concern over deforestation. The relaxation would be part of a broader push for trade deals with developing countries that the government is pursuing in the wake of Brexit.

The UK wants to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which includes Malaysia, by dropping generic trade tariffs. Negotiations began under the former trade secretary Liz Truss, who is running as a Tory leadership candidate.

However, the removal of tariffs without any green strings attached would undercut the UK’s parallel efforts to end illegal deforestation overseas, one of the centrepieces of the deal that ministers forged at the UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... a-palm-oil

[caltrek]

New Study Finds Global Forest Area Per Capita Has Decreased by Over 60%
August 1, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Over the past 60 years, the global forest area has declined by 81.7 million hectares, a loss that contributed to the more than 60% decline in global forest area per capita. This loss threatens the future of biodiversity and impacts the lives of 1.6 billion people worldwide, according to a new study published today by IOP Publishing in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

A team of researchers, led by Ronald C. Estoque from the Center for Biodiversity and Climate Change, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) in Japan, have found that the global forest area has declined by 81.7 million hectares from 1960 to 2019, equivalent to an area of more than 10% of the entire Borneo Island, with gross forest loss (437.3 million hectares) outweighing gross forest gain (355.6 million hectares).

The team used global land use dataset to examine how global forests have changed over space and time. Consequently, the decline in global forests combined with the increase in global population over the 60-year period has resulted in a decrease of the global forest area per capita by over 60%, from 1.4 hectares in 1960 to 0.5 hectares in 2019.

The authors explain, “the continuous loss and degradation of forests affect the integrity of forest ecosystems, reducing their ability to generate and provide essential services and sustain biodiversity. It also impacts the lives of at least 1.6 billion people worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, who depend on forests for various purposes.”

The results also revealed that the change in the spatiotemporal pattern of global forests supports the forest transition theory, with forest losses occurring primarily in the lower-income countries in the tropics and forest gains in the higher-income countries in the extratropics. Ronald C. Estoque, the lead author of the study, explains, “despite this spatial pattern of forest loss occurring primarily in the less developed countries, the role of more developed nations in this said forest loss also needs to be studied more deeply. With the strengthening of forest conservation in more developed countries, forest loss is displaced to the less developed countries, especially in the tropics.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960337

[caltrek]

Less Rain in the Rainforest: Amazon Even More Vulnerable than Previously Thought
August 4, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) For every three trees dying from drought in the Amazon rainforest, a fourth tree – even though not directly affected – will die, too. In simplified terms, that’s what a new study published in PNAS this week shows. The research team, led by Nico Wunderling at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Action Research, used network analysis to understand the complex workings of one of Earth’s most valuable and biodiverse carbon sinks. The parts most at risk of turning into savannah are located on the forest’s southern fringes, where continuous clearing for pasture or soy has already been weakening the forest’s resilience for years.

Ripple effect

The rainforest in South America may be losing its rain and with it, its moisture supply as climate change sends more frequent and more severe drought spells to the Amazon Basin. That lack of rain threatens the forest, because it breathes water: Once rained down, the soil takes it up as much as the plants, and both release a great amount back through evaporation and transpiration. In this atmospheric moisture recycling, the forest creates much of its own weather, generating up to half of the rainfall over the Amazon Basin. And while it is highly efficient, at the end of the day the moisture recycling system relies on how much water is initially put into the system.

The research team has now found that even if a dry spell affects only one specific region of the forest, its harm stretches beyond that region by a factor of one to three. As lack of rain strongly decreases the water recycling volume, there will also be less rainfall in neighbouring regions, hence putting even more parts of the forest under significant stress.

“More intensive droughts put parts of the Amazon rainforest at risk of drying off and dying. Subsequently, due to the network effect, less forest cover leads to less water in the system overall, and hence disproportionately more harm,” Wunderling explains. “And while we’ve investigated the impact of drought, that rule also holds for deforestation. It means essentially, when you chop down one acre of forest, what you actually are destroying is 1.3 acres.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960954

[caltrek]

Study Quantifies Impact of Human Activity on Atlantic Rainforest’s Carbon Storage Capacity September 13, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) The countless benefits of native forests include the capacity of tree biomass to store large amounts of carbon, which can counterbalance greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. A paper published in the journal Science Advances reports on an innovative analysis of a large dataset designed to clarify the concept of carbon sequestration, a strategic issue in the discussion of global climate change.

“We still know little about the factors that can lead forests to store more or less carbon,” said Renato Augusto Ferreira de Lima, one of the paper’s ten authors. Lima is affiliated with the Ecology Department at the University of São Paulo's Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil and is currently a researcher at the Center for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB) in Montpellier (France).

“We used a large forest inventory database to see which factors are uppermost in explaining current levels of carbon storage in the Atlantic Rainforest. We found that factors relating to the different types of human impact on the forest are key, with two to six times the significance of factors such as climate, soil and the characteristics of the tree species in the forest,” he said.

Reversing the effects of human activity on Atlantic Rainforest remnants would therefore be the best strategy to increase forest carbon stocks. About 50% of the Brazilian population currently live in areas originally occupied by the biome.

According to Marcela Venelli Pyles, first author of the paper and a PhD candidate in applied ecology affiliated with the Ecology and Conservation Department of the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) in Minas Gerais, Brazil, conservation of carbon stocks in the Atlantic Rainforest is highly dependent on forest degradation, which can lead to carbon losses that are at least 30% worse than any future climate change. Moreover, emissions from forest degradation can hinder conservation efforts pledged in climate change mitigation agreements, such as REDD+ and the Aichi targets.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/964584

Read lengthy description of study here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl7968

[caltrek]

Forest Islands in The Amazon Host Unique Ecosystems, But Lack Biodiversity
by Ana Filipa Palmeirm et.al.
September 14 , 2022

Introduction:

(Science Alert) Built in the 1980s, the Balbina Dam is one of dozens of large dams across rivers in the Amazon Basin. Such dams might leave behind seemingly green patches of forest, but our new research has shown these disconnected patches of forest are no longer able to support thriving ecosystems.

The dam created one of the largest reservoirs in South America which stretches for almost 100 kilometers northwards through largely undisturbed rainforest.

As this is a relatively hilly part of the Amazon basin, more than 3,500 islands formed as the reservoir filled up. What were once ridges or hilltops became insular forest patches.

For rainforest ecologists like us, the new landscape was an astonishing living lab – a way to test theories of what happens when a forest and its many animals are increasingly restricted to smaller and smaller patches.

We know that one of the main drivers of the ongoing biodiversity crisis is the loss of habitat and the fragmentation of the remaining areas. And we know that hydroelectric dams are one of the primary ways humans are disturbing these habitats, and that many developing countries (including those in the Amazon) are due to build many more dams.

Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/forest-is ... re-doomed

For a lengthy discussion of the study: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm0397

[caltrek]

Indigenous Leaders Beg U.S. Firms to Stop Supporting Deforestation
by Oliver Milman
September 22, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Indigenous leaders from the Amazon have implored major western brands and banks to stop supporting the ongoing destruction of the vital rainforest through mining, oil drilling, and logging, warning that the ecosystem is on the brink of a disastrous collapse.

Representatives of Indigenous peoples from across the Amazon region have descended upon New York this week to press governments and businesses, gathered in the city for climate and United Nations gatherings, to stem the flow of finance to activities that are polluting and deforesting large areas of the rainforest.

A new report by the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB) alleges that brands such as Apple, Microsoft and Tesla all have products that may be tainted by gold illegally mined in Amazon Indigenous territories.

These companies are supplied by two refineries—Chimet and Marsam—that are under investigation by Brazilian authorities for their ties to illegal mining. The total area occupied by illegal mining in the Amazon has increased drastically in the past decade, according to the APIB report, growing 495 percent to nearly 6,000 acres in 2021.

Illegal gold mining has soared in Brazil since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, whose allies are currently attempting to push a bill through the country’s congress that would allow mineral extraction in Indigenous lands. The mining is blamed for mercury poisoning of water, deforestation, and conflicts with local Indigenous people.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... -leaders/

[caltrek]

University of Nebraska Study Shows Brazil Can Grow More Soybeans Without Deforesting the Amazon
October 10, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Developing countries around the globe face a challenge that pits economic growth against environmental protection. As they expand their agricultural production, they often convert forest into cropland and pasture. But the large-scale removal of trees weakens the world’s ability to prevent further climate deterioration and biodiversity loss.

Brazil presents a key example. The country is home to the world’s largest area of rainforest — some 1.2 million square miles, an area more than 16 times the size of Nebraska. The Amazon contains large tracts of rainforests that, when converted to agriculture, release a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change.

Increasing agricultural production is a national priority for Brazil, the world’s largest soybean exporter. Since the 1990s, agricultural encroachment has eroded major areas of the country's rainforest. During 2015-19, the Amazon basin accounted for a third of the land converted for Brazilian soybean expansion.

A newly released four-year study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its research partners in Brazil identifies a path forward that would allow Brazil to strengthen its agricultural sector while safeguarding the rainforest. The scientists’ recommendations have broad applicability to other developing countries facing a similar challenge.

"In the current context of high grain prices and food supply disruptions, we believe there is a critical need for major crop-producing countries to reassess their potential to produce more on existing cropland," the authors wrote in an article published Oct. 10 in the journal Nature Sustainability. "Without an emphasis on intensifying crop production within the existing agricultural area, coupled with strong institutions and policies that prevent deforestation in frontier agricultural areas, it would be difficult to protect the last bastions of forests and biodiversity on the planet while being sensitive to the economic aspirations of countries to develop."

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/967285

[caltrek]

'Not a Single Global Indicator Is on Track' to Reverse Deforestation by 2030: Analysis
by Kenny Stancil
October 25, 2022

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Although halting and reversing deforestation by 2030 is key to averting the worst consequences of the climate and biodiversity crises, the world is off course to achieve these critical targets and urgent international action is needed, an analysis warned Monday.

During the United Nations' COP26 climate summit last November, 145 nations signed the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration "to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation" by the end of the decade.

One year later, "not a single global indicator is on track to meet these 2030 goals of stopping forest loss and degradation and restoring 350 million hectares of forest landscape," according to the annual Forest Declaration Assessment.

"To be on course to halt deforestation completely by 2030, a 10% annual reduction is needed," the report notes. "However, deforestation rates around the world declined only modestly, in 2021, by 6.3% compared to the 2018-20 baseline. In the humid tropics, loss of irreplaceable primary forest decreased by only 3.1%."

"Tropical Asia is the only region currently on track to halt deforestation by 2030," thanks to the "exceptional progress" made by Indonesia and Malaysia, which reduced clear-cutting by 25% in 2021, states the report. "While deforestation rates in tropical Latin America and Africa decreased in 2021 relative to the 2018-20 baseline, those reductions are still insufficient to meet the 2030 goal."

Read more of the Common Dreams article here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... -analysis

For the full analysis: https://forestdeclaration.org/resource ... ent-2022/