Suspects named for assassination of husband and wife activists in Brazil

July 21, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva speaking at TEDx Amazon in 2010

Brazilian authorities have fingered three men for the killing of environmental activist, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, in May. The grisly murders received international attention, since José da Silva was a well known activist against illegal logging in Pará, a state in Brazil that is rife with deforestation and violence.

According to officials, Jose Moreira ordered the assassination of the couple because they had spoken out against Moreira evicting three families from his land. Allegedly Moreira hired his brother, Lindon Johnson, and another man, Alberto Lopes do Nascimento, to gun down the activist couple. After being shot dead the two men reportedly cut off the ears of the couple to prove to Moreira that they had been killed, a common practice in Brazilian assassinations.

José da Silva had received countless death threats for over a decade and had publicly warned that he could be killed at any time, however he was refused protection by Brazilian officials.

"I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment...because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers, and that is why they think I cannot exist," da Silva said in a TED Talks last November, adding "but my fear does not silence me. As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest."

Jose da Silva's sister, Claudelice, told the Globo: "There were a lot of people who wanted them dead because they consistently denounced environmental crimes. Many ranchers, farmers and loggers wanted my brother and his wife to stop bothering them with their denunciations against deforestation and land grabbing."

Police are now asking a judge to order arrest warrants for the alleged murderers.

The Silvas worked as a community leaders in an Amazon reserve that sold sustainably harvested forest products.

Small-Scale Land Speculators Contribute to Amazon Deforestation

Jul 28, 2011Source: Inter Press Service

Many migrants from southern Brazil who clear forests in Brazil’s state of Amazonas are making their living as small-scale land speculators and not as farmers or as cattle ranchers, new research has found.

This on-the-ground reality and the proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code are likely to ramp up deforestation rates again, despite the country's commitment to reduce deforestation 80 percent by 2020, experts say.

The Forest Code (Law 4771) was adopted in 1965 and has undergone numerous reforms, the most recent in 2001. This past May 24, an overwhelming majority in the Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of a bill to relax its requirements with regard to forest conservation. The bill is currently under study in the Senate.

A detailed study conducted in the municipality of Apuí along the Transamazon Highway in Amazonas found that many families in the region earned little income from cattle.

Instead, they were clearing the land in order to claim land titles to sell the land to large corporate ranchers, according to the study "Forest Clearing Dynamics and the Expansion of Landholdings in Apuí, a Deforestation Hotspot on Brazil’s Transamazon Highway", published in the journal Ecology and Society in June.

From the early 1990s the population of Apuí has tripled, and the municipality has had some of the highest rates of deforestation in all of the state of Amazonas. Approximately 90 per cent of the area has been converted into pasture, the study found.

"These families are always moving into new forest areas to deforest so they can claim land title. And after a few years they sell it for a much higher price," said study co-author Gabriel Carrero of the Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development of Amazonas (IDESAM).

Carrero's co-author is noted tropical forest expert Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA).

Under Brazilian law, land title can be given to those who "improve" unclaimed lands. Those families clearing forests in Apuí are "just trying to make a better life for themselves," Carrero told Tierramérica from Manaus in Amazonas.

They do have cattle, but it is more of a hobby that can raise some cash, he said, based on detailed interviews with 83 households who owned more than 300 properties in the region.

"The real incentive is to sell their property to large farmers who have sold their lands in southern Brazil or Paraguay and are looking to buy large consolidated tracts of land," said Carrero.

Then the families move away from the frontier, go up the road into untouched forest and do it again, he explained. "This is just their way of life."

Access to the unclaimed forest land follows roads. When roads and other infrastructure improve, land values jump, facilitating speculation, he said.

"Our study proves that roads are the most important driver of deforestation," he added.

Globally, deforestation puts an astonishing 2.9 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, according to the first detailed calculation published 15 July in the journal Science.

For comparison, total yearly emissions from all fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) plus production of cement are just under 8 billion tons.

There is a "huge influx of carbon from deforestation and it is much larger than previously thought," said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project in Canberra, Australia and co-author of the study published in Science.

The potential benefits of the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon credit scheme – which would pay communities and countries to conserve forests – could be even more important than anyone thought, Canadell told Tierramérica in an interview.

"I'm much more familiar with Indonesian forests, and REDD has had no effect on deforestation so far," he said. However, large donations from Norway, Australia and the United States totaling close to 1.5 billion dollars are having an impact on the ground in that country.

The U.N.-backed REDD is likely years away from putting cash in the hands of families in Amazonas or Indonesia or anywhere else, Canadell said.

"Families struggling to make a living aren't going to wait years to see if the international community gets its act together on REDD," he commented.

No one in Apuí is making money from carbon credit programmes like REDD, said Carrero. "Land speculation is more profitable," he added.

Deforestation and land sales will be even more profitable with proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code, Carrero warned.

Those changes will allow landholders with less than 400 hectares to deforest all of their land in the "legal" Amazon region, as well as granting an amnesty for the many who have violated the conservation requirements now in force.

The Code currently allows the clearing of only 20 percent of the forest on landholdings in the "legal" Amazon, a geographic division that includes all states partially or totally covered by the Amazon rainforest biome.

"I'm 100 percent certain that this will increase deforestation and result in a big increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the Amazon," Carrero said.

Brazil's agribusiness is behind the proposed changes and is pressuring politicians for more flexible laws.

"It is cheaper to deforest a hectare of land than to improve a hectare of degraded land," Carrero noted.

Ironically, it is Brazil's success in reducing deforestation rates by 70 per cent from 2004 to 2009 that is behind the big push to change the laws.

"The recent crackdown on municipalities with high deforestation rates was so successful, farming and ranching interests want to get the laws changed," Rhett Butler, writer and conservationist at the NGO Mongabay.com, told Tierramérica.

The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), the world's largest scientific organization devoted to the study, protection and sustainable use of tropical ecosystems, has warned that the proposed changes to the Brazilian Forest Code will result in higher levels of deforestation.

In early July the Association issued an official resolution urging the government to do a science-based assessment of the potential ecological impacts before proceeding.

Brazil officially pledged to cut deforestation by 80 percent from historic levels by 2020 under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.

mazon Deforestation

29 July 2011
Source: Cool Earth

Logging continues for a second year in two communities on the Rio Ene in Peru's Amazon region. These communities lie immediately north and immediately south of the rainforest being protected by Cool Earth in close collaboration with three core Ashaninka communities.


Piles of massive trunks, cut from valuable tornillo trees (Cedrelinga catenaeformis of the Leguminosae family) lie on the river banks waiting to be floated 50 miles downstream to the nearest decent road-head. Tornillo trees grow tall and straight on the slopes and plateaux of Brazilian and Peruvian rainforest mountains. Here in the Ene Valley the best species are found at over 1000m above sea level, more than 550m above the level of the Ene river. It can grow over 150ft (46m) high with a girth of between 4ft and 9ft (1m and 3m). Tornillo's like humid soil and the wood - valued for construction and furniture components - is known for its resilience to weather and time.

Cool Earth's avoided deforestation project has been running since February 2008 and conserves over 50,400 hectares of rainforest. Within this area, protected by the Ashaninka, there are several impressive stands of tornillo.

Environmental protection agency chief: Brazil will do the same to indigenous as 'Australians did to the Aborigines'

July 17, 2011Source: mongabay.com

Curt Trennepohl, president of Brazil's environmental protection agency (IBAMA), caused an uproar last week when he told an Australian TV crew that his agency's role "is not caring for the environment, but to minimize the impact". Later when Trennepohl believed the cameras were off he went on to say Brazilian indigenous tribes would suffer the same fate as Australia's Aborigines, reports Folha de S.Paulo

Trennepohl made the remarks while speaking with Allison Langdon of the Australia's "60 Minutes" about the controversial Belo Monte dam, which was approved by Trennepohl despite widespread protests from environmentalists and indigenous groups. Trennepohl's predecessor resigned instead of signing the license allowing Belo Monte to proceed.

Belo Monte, a $16 billion hydroelectric project that will block the Xingu river, one of the Amazon’s largest tributaries, will swamp more than 40,000 hectares of forest and displace upwards of 16,000 people, including indigenous tribes, which strongly oppose the dam.

Langdon asked Trennepohl whether he was comfortable with the decision to proceed with Belo Monte.

"Yes, the decision was mine," said Trennepohl.

"But their work is not caring for the environment?"

"No, my job is to minimize the impacts."

Trennepohl, unaware that his microphone was still live, then proceeded to imply that Brazil does not respect its indigenous population.

"You have the natives there and do not respect them," he said to Langdon.

"So you going to do with the Indians the same as we did with the Aborigines?" she asked.

"Yes, yes," said Trennepohl.

Throughout the 19th century Australian colonists ran a campaign to exterminate the Aborigines, the original inhabitants of Australia. Settlers paid bounties to trackers who captured and killed Aborigines. Discriminatory policies against the Aborigines continued into the mid-20th century and today the Aborigines as a group are among the poorest and least educated of any Australians. The United States has a similar legacy with its native peoples.

Meeting of Kayapo leaders. Earlier this month the Kayapo tribe, which will be affected by Belo Monte, established a $8 million fund to develop sustainable economic activities in their territories. © Cristina Mittermeier/ International League of Conservation Photographers (iCLP).

Trennepohl's remarks play into popular sentiment in some parts of Brazil where a common question is 'Why do so few Indians need so much land?' referring to the large extent of land demarcated as indigenous territories, including 22 percent of the Brazilian Amazon.

Roberto Malvezzi, adviser to the Pastoral Land Commission, which advocates for land reform, says that at least Trennepohl's comments are honest.

"Finally someone in power is honest with their statements," he wrote.

"The statement is a horror, a proclamation of genocide," he continued. "However, it is what is before our eyes every day. IBAMA's task is to try to put new patches on old cloth, that is, to minimize the damage done by the great works, whether official or private initiative. Prevention and precaution are not part of the government script."

Trennepohl later distanced himself from the 60 Minutes interview saying that the journalist was "very aggressive", according to Folha. The newspaper said Trennepohl would not comment on the remarks comparing Brazilian tribes and Aborigines.

Amazon drought and forest fire prediction system devised

Jul 21st 2011
Source: UN-SPIDER

Researchers have devised a model to anticipate drought and forest fires in the Amazon rainforest.The research, which used precipitation records dating back to 1970 and hotspots tracked by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA satellites, finds a strong correlation between sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic and subsequent drought in the western Amazon. Drought in the Amazon is increasingly associated with forest fires due to land-clearing fires set by agricultural developers and cattle ranchers.

The researchers, led by Katia Fernandes of Columbia University, conclude that their model could be used to forecast drought up the three months in advance, giving authorities a window to alert ranchers and farmers about the increased risk of using fire to clear land during the dry season, which typically runs from July-September. Coupled with its existing satellite-based deforestation monitoring capabilities, the warning system could prove useful to Brazil as it aims to reduce deforestation rates under its national climate action plan.

The study, which is published in Geophysical Research Letters, comes on the heels of another paper, published in the same issue, that reports an increase in droughts in the Amazon. That research — led by Jose Marengo of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) — identifies the 2005 and 2010 droughts in the Amazon as the worst on record. It finds that since the mid-1970s droughts have increased in the Amazon region, while the length of the typical dry season has expanded. The study says droughts are "aggravated" when there was low rainfall in the previous wet season.

The 2010 drought affected some 3 million hectares of forest, nearly 60 percent more than the 1.9 million square kilometers affected during the 2005 drought. Both events triggered severe drops in water levels for Amazon tributaries, stranding communities and stalling river transportation. Fires and associated 'haze' increased markedly during both droughts. Scientists have warned for years that climate change could turn much of the Amazon into a tinderbox. Other research suggests that by mid-century, much of the Amazon could be at risk of die-off due to climate change-induced drought, the effects of which are worsened by deforestation, forest degradation, and fragmentation.

Amazon tribes win support to protect 46 million ha of Amazon forest

July 21, 2011
Source: mongabay.com



Indigenous communities working to protect the Amazon rainforest got a boost last week with the launch of a "biocultural conservation corridor" initiative in two regions of Brazil.

The initiative, coordinated by the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) and partially funded by the Skoll Foundation, which contributed $1.6 million, aims to prevent deforestation across 46 million ha (114 million acres) in the northeastern and southwestern sections of Brazilian Amazon.

The initiative will "strengthen the capacity of the indigenous communities and government agencies to monitor, manage and protect the indigenous reserves and adjacent areas while creating positive conditions for long-term financing of forest protection," according to a statement from the Skoll Foundation.

The project will also fund development of sustainable economic activities for indigenous tribes, which include the Zoró, Diahui, Cinta Larga, Surui, Wai Wai, Kaxuyana, Tiriyó, and Wayana-Apalaí.

"The conservation and sustainable management of complex tropical mosaic of landscapes is inherently challenging," said Mark Plotkin, President and co-founder of ACT, in a statement. "But we believe that working closely with indigenous peoples on their lands and then creating alliances across the cultural, biological, political and economic spectrum is a powerful and holistic approach to protecting rainforest diversity."

The initiative presents a unique opportunity to involve indigenous groups in conservation efforts across two sharply contrasting regions — one relatively untouched and under low threat (the Karib), the other heavily impacted by deforestation and under high threat (the Munde-Kwahiba) — potentially providing valuable insight for similar approaches elsewhere.


"This initiative represents both a great challenge and opportunity in the realm of indigenous rights and indigenous territories," says Liliana Madrigal, ACT Vice President, in a statement. "We feel that the implementation of the biocultural conservation corridor approach has the potential to yield very valuable experiences and lessons for landscapes as varied as the Canadian boreal forest and the Australian outback."

ACT Brazil will lead the initiative. Partners include Kanindé, the Conservation Strategy Fund, Metareilá, and IDESAM. Kanindé is an NGO run by the Surui people, who are pioneering an indigenous-run forest carbon (REDD+) project on their lands.

"The Amazon Conservation Team, working in partnership with indigenous colleagues and local stakeholders, is implementing inclusive and innovative solutions to better manage and protect Amazon rain forests," said Sally Osberg, Skoll Foundation President and CEO. "We believe this local, collaborative approach is critical to demonstrating impact and driving long term behavior and policy changes."

"This initiative provides significant support for the Surui people since it helps to mobilize our people to defend the environment and our culture," added Chief Almir Surui, Major Leader of the Surui people. "It also gives voice to the people of the forest, who contribute to the elaboration of public policies for national and international recognition of the potential of our biodiversity. The initiative shows that it is possible to develop a sustainable environment in order to stimulate the recognition of the green economy."

Five months to save Ecuador's rainforest

July 21 2011
Source: People & the Planet

The Yasuni National Park is home to the Tagaeri-Taromenane, an indigenous people living in voluntary isolation. Photo credit: UNDP

In 2007, Ecuador floated an unprecedented proposal: it would leave a fifth of its oil reserves – 846m barrels of crude – underground for the health of the planet if, in return, the international community stumped up $350bn (£217bn), half its market value. The oil lies in the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) oil fields, beneath the stunning Yasuni national park in Ecuador's Amazon, an area that scientists have called the most biodiverse tract of rainforest in the world.

But after four years of vainly trying to secure the cash from rich nations, Ecuador is turning to . . . us. Last week, the Yasuni-ITT trust fund, administered by the UN Development Programme, became open to donations of as little as $1 (previously, the fund only accepted contributions of $10,000 or more). "The idea is that individuals the world over will show their support . . . by symbolically 'buying' a barrel of Yasuni oil," says Carlos Larrea, technical director for the crowdfunding initiative.

The environmental case for protecting this piece of Yasuni national park is beyond question: it boasts an incredible diversity of plant, animal and insect species, including 644 types of tree in a single hectare. It is also home to at least two uncontacted tribes. Leaving the oil underground will avoid the emission of 407m tonnes of CO2 – equal to the annual footprint of Brazil. The cash raised will be used to develop national renewable energy initiatives, in turn helping to fund environmental and social projects across Ecuador.

Chile and Spain were among the first to swell the coffers, adding $100,000 and €1m respectively. Italy followed by cancelling $35m of Ecuadorian debt, with the proviso that the money went into the fund. Germany, however, backed out of its initial pledge to contribute an annual €50m.

There is now around $40m in the Yasuni pot, but the clock is ticking. If there isn't at least $100m by December, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has said he will ditch the scheme for "Plan B" – drilling for the oil.

As if to prove he means it, the rainforest surrounding the ITT block is rapidly being readied for exploitation. Without that missing $60m, there's every chance the ITT block could be next.

Despite moratorium, soy still contributes indirectly to Amazon deforestation

July 15, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Soy expansion in areas neighboring the Amazon rainforest is contributing to loss of rainforest itself, reports a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

The research, which analyzed changes in forest cover across the 761 municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon, found that "deforestation in the forest frontiers of the basin is strongly related to soy expansion in its settled agricultural areas, to the south and east."

The results indicate that indirect land use change (ILUC) is having a substantial impact on the Amazon rainforest. As mechanized soy farms encroach onto existing cattle pastures, ranchers are displaced into frontier forest areas, triggering deforestation.

The authors show that a relatively marginal increase in soy production in former pasture areas has caused a disproportionate amount of forest loss. Cattle ranching displaced by soy tends to be low-intensity and therefore requires large areas of land to be viable.

"Between 2003-2008 soy production expanded in Brazil by 39,000 square kilometers," said Marcelus Caldas, an assistant professor of geography at Kansas State University who was a co-author of the study. "Of this 39,000 square kilometers, our study shows that reducing soybean production by 10 percent in these pasture areas could decrease deforestation in heavily forested counties of the Brazilian Amazon by almost 26,000 square kilometers -- or 40 percent."

The findings suggest that the Brazilian soy industry's moratorium on new deforestation for soybean production — a result of a campaign by Greenpeace — may not be as effective as hoped.

"The results thus call into question the effectiveness of the soy moratorium in reducing deforestation, and suggest that environmental policy in Brazil must recognize land use linkages in the agricultural sector of the economy," the study states. "The results also suggest that supply chains crossing international boundaries may stimulate Amazonian deforestation via ILUC. That is, as global demands for Brazilian agricultural commodities grow, Amazonian deforestation may result by virtue of the process identified in this letter. Consequently, global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by substituting biofuels for petroleum products must proceed with care, in order not to intensify processes of Amazonian deforestation via ILUC, thereby undermining Brazil's REDD objectives."

Efforts to curtail deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon may similarly displace forest clearing to surrounding countries. Both Paraguay and Bolivia saw huge jumps in soy acreage during the study period.

Disappearing Resources of the Amazon

July 20, 2011
Source: Fox News

A sad-eyed monkey in a cage frets nervously and moves back and forth, anxiety written in all its behavior. The pitiable creature is one of many in the “mini zoo” at the badly mis-described eco lodge Maloka.

At the end of a lane of raucous bars in the Yarinacocha district of Peru’s Amazon river city of Pucallpa, whose pounding disco music shakes the ground all night, Maloka is more Mad Max than Amazon. There you can have your disco, your shamanic ceremonies at night, a large buffet, and a shower, all within easy reach of vast swaths of human poverty and suffering. Welcome to what was once the greatest rainforest on earth, where savage destruction is the rule, where reason has long vacated the scene, and where devastation is simply the order of the day.

Most of the time I write these weekly articles from the comfort of my office in Massachusetts, but I am here in the Peruvian Amazon, and what I have witnessed over the past week or more is seared into my mind. In this chaotic and impoverished river city of Pucallpa, hundreds of thousands of displaced native people live in shabby neighborhoods without plumbing, where septic pools of stagnant water are filled with plastic bottles, disposable diapers, cans, and every type of filth and waste. The streets are choked with exhaust-spewing moto-taxis, the grit in the air stings your eyes, and children without futures play in dust and filth.

I am here working with Amazonian plants that demonstrate value for the cosmetic industry, and there are plenty to choose from. You have to go further out than ever before to get to forest, but there you can find natural treasures totally superior to the artificial chemicals, polymer beadlets, preservatives and petrochemical fragrances that comprise the majority of cosmetic products today.

To get to the native communities where we work, my friend Sergio and I travel many of the hundreds of Amazon rivers. As we go, we witness a steady parade of barges of old growth trees on their way to sawmills, to make planking. There is tremendous waste at the innumerable sawmills, whose discarded wood, in great mountains, burns day and night, sending plumes of smoke into the sky.

Yet consider the treasures being lost. Of the 80,000 or so higher plants estimated to exist in the Amazon, only three percent or so have been studied. Consider cat’s claw, an anti-inflammatory plant superior in every way to both ibuprofen and acetaminophen. The inner bark of an abundant vine, cat’s claw also demonstrates the ability to repair damaged DNA in skin tissue when applied topically. If a person has damaged their skin due to excess exposure to UVA and UVB rays of the sun, cat’s claw can help to repair the damage that has occurred.

There is dragon’s blood, the latex of a croton tree that is used for wound healing. With antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties, dragon’s blood is a superior first aid agent. But it is also a surprisingly effective skin-rejuvenating marvel, causing the formation of new, healthy collagen in skin when applied topically. Amazingly, only one half of one percent dragon’s blood in a cream or lotion will accomplish this.

While the global cosmetics industry has no natural black dyes of any kind, the super-abundant huito fruit colors hair a shiny black beautifully, and is used by virtually all Shipibo native people in the province of Ucayali. Producing a lustrous shine to hair, huito is unsurpassed as a natural black dye.

Dry or scaly skin responds beautifully to the silky vine oil that we have collected in the forest. In just seconds, skin hungrily takes it all in, resulting in a smooth appearance, and a reduction in fine wrinkles. These few ingredients are just the tiniest representation of the riches of the great Amazon rainforest.

Yet the Amazon is being cut down, burned down and otherwise destroyed at an accelerated rate. As many as 30 million animals and birds each year are taken for the exotic pet trade. Alligators and crocodiles have been largely wiped out to make shoes, belts and handbags. Where fish were abundant, drag-netting has drastically reduced their numbers.

Peru has deeded vast tracts of land to Chile, for de-forestation. Brazil is turning over immense acreage of forest to China for soybean cultivation. In the pillaging race, few scenarios compare to that of Amazonia, where small payoffs to the right officials can guarantee deforestation for decades.

Per acre, the land in the Amazon rainforest can yield far more profit from the sustainable harvesting of wild fruits, oil-bearing nuts and seeds, and medicinal plants, than from timber-cutting, cattle-grazing, or the cultivation of GMO soybeans. If profit is the main motive here, then forest preservation is the only viable path. But to establish programs that reduce devastation and promote genuine conservation, we need global awareness, immediate action, and less dithering at conferences far removed from the forest.

Every day when I am far enough out in the Amazon, either in virgin forest or far down one of the rivers, I marvel at the splendor of nature, and of its multiplicity of forms. When I hike under the verdant rainforest canopy, the green shade cools me as I catch a view of some rapidly-disappearing monkeys swinging in trees. Up some of the rivers, I spot pink fresh-water dolphins. The majesty of it is spellbinding. I hope I am not one of the last people to witness this, but reason tells me that the greatest rainforest on earth, with its beauty and beneficial treasures, is fading into the mists of time.

Skoll Foundation donates funds to Amazon rainforest initiative

July 19, 2011
Source: Sage Nonprofit Solutions

A new partnership seeks to help protect the Amazon rainforest was recently launched by two foundations.

The Skoll Foundation recently provided a $1.6 million grant to the the Amazon Conservation Team to help preserve the natural beauty of the land by making sure that landholders do their part to make sure that the forest is available for generations to come. ACT Brazil will also partner with local groups - including Conservation Strategy Fund, the Instituto de Conservação e Desenvolvimento Sustentável do Amazonas, Metareila and Kanide - to help monitor progress.

"The Amazon Conservation Team, working in partnership with indigenous colleagues and local stakeholders, is implementing inclusive and innovative solutions to better manage and protect Amazon rain forests," said Skoll Foundation president and CEO Sally Osberg. "We believe this local, collaborative approach is critical to demonstrating impact and driving long-term behavior and policy changes."

According to its website, the Skoll Foundation was formed in 1999 by Jeff Skoll in an effort to help solve some of the biggest issues the world faces.

Amazon drought and forest fire prediction system devised

July 18, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

Researchers have devised a model to anticipate drought and forest fires in the Amazon rainforest.

The research, which used precipitation records dating back to 1970 and hotspots tracked by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA satellites, finds a strong correlation between sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic and subsequent drought in the western Amazon. Drought in the Amazon is increasingly associated with forest fires due to land-clearing fires set by agricultural developers and cattle ranchers.

The researchers, led by Katia Fernandes of Columbia University, conclude that their model could be used to forecast drought up the three months in advance, giving authorities a window to alert ranchers and farmers about the increased risk of using fire to clear land during the dry season, which typically runs from July-September. Coupled with its existing satellite-based deforestation monitoring capabilities, the warning system could prove useful to Brazil as it aims to reduce deforestation rates under its national climate action plan.

The study, which is published in Geophysical Research Letters, comes on the heels of another paper, published in the same issue, that reports an increase in droughts in the Amazon.


That research — led by Jose Marengo of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) — identifies the 2005 and 2010 droughts in the Amazon as the worst on record. It finds that since the mid-1970s droughts have increased in the Amazon region, while the length of the typical dry season has expanded. The study says droughts are "aggravated" when there was low rainfall in the previous wet season.

Representation (Hovmoller diagram) of precipitation in the southern Amazon from 1951 to 2010. The shade reflects the amount of rainfall, with the 100 mm (2.5-inches) level marked in bold as an indicator of dry months. You can see that the length of the dry season has increased over time. Image courtesy of Marengo et al (2011).

The 2010 drought affected some 3 million hectares of forest, nearly 60 percent more than the 1.9 million square kilometers affected during the 2005 drought. Both events triggered severe drops in water levels for Amazon tributaries, stranding communities and stalling river transportation. Fires and associated 'haze' increased markedly during both droughts.

Scientists have warned for years that climate change could turn much of the Amazon into a tinderbox. Other research suggests that by mid-century, much of the Amazon could be at risk of die-off due to climate change-induced drought, the effects of which are worsened by deforestation, forest degradation, and fragmentation.

Your chance to save Ecuador's rainforest

Sunday 17 July 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk

Yasuni national park needs protecting – scientists say it is the world’s most biodiverse tract of rainforest. Photograph: Alamy

In 2007, Ecuador floated an unprecedented proposal: it would leave a fifth of its oil reserves – 846m barrels of crude – underground for the health of the planet if, in return, the international community stumped up $350bn (£217bn), half its market value. The oil lies in the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) oil fields, beneath the stunning Yasuni national park in Ecuador's Amazon, an area that scientists have called the most biodiverse tract of rainforest in the world.

But after four years of vainly trying to secure the cash from rich nations, Ecuador is turning to . . . us. Last week, the Yasuni-ITT trust fund, administered by the UN Development Programme, became open to donations of as little as $1 (previously, the fund only accepted contributions of $10,000 or more). "The idea is that individuals the world over will show their support . . . by symbolically 'buying' a barrel of Yasuni oil," says Carlos Larrea, technical director for the crowdfunding initiative.

The environmental case for protecting this piece of Yasuni national park is beyond question: it boasts an incredible diversity of plant, animal and insect species, including 644 types of tree in a single hectare. It is also home to at least two uncontacted tribes. Leaving the oil underground will avoid the emission of 407m tonnes of CO2 – equal to the annual footprint of Brazil. The cash raised will be used to develop national renewable energy initiatives, in turn helping to fund environmental and social projects across Ecuador.

Chile and Spain were among the first to swell the coffers, adding $100,000 and €1m respectively. Italy followed by cancelling $35m of Ecuadorian debt, with the proviso that the money went into the fund. Germany, however, backed out of its initial pledge to contribute an annual €50m.

There is now around $40m in the Yasuni pot, but the clock is ticking. If there isn't at least $100m by December, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has said he will ditch the scheme for "Plan B" – drilling for the oil.

As if to prove he means it, the rainforest surrounding the ITT block is rapidly being readied for exploitation. Without that missing $60m, there's every chance the ITT block could be next.

Ecuador’s Amazon: Held hostage by poverty and petrodollars

18 Jul 2011
Source: Greenfudge.org

Around 35% of Ecuador’s residents live below the poverty line. The economy of this South American nation depends overwhelmingly on its natural resources and agriculture. Half of the area of Ecuador is covered by the Amazon rainforest.

The Ecuadoran Amazon is one of the richest, most bio-diverse place on the planet and the “lungs of the Earth”, supplying crucial oxygen and taking in vast amounts of CO2.

However, beneath this extremely important carbon sink and treasure of natural life that the entire world benefits from is a huge amount of oil – $7bn worth

Ecuador’s government is willing to take $3.5bn to preserve the rainforest and not cut it down to extract the oil – that’s half of what they could earn from drilling. By forgoing the big temporary pay off, this poor country would receive much needed cash and the world would keep a big part of its lungs and biodiversity.

The offer has been on the table for 5 years and Ecuador is running out of time. If they don’t get $100,000 by the end of the year they will have to start clearing the precious Amazon.

But now, according to an article in the Guardian, small donations from private citizens are now being accepted through the Yasuni ITT Trust Fund.

British student's body found in Amazon after jumping in 'despite not being able to swim'

18th July 2011
Source: Daily Mail

The body of a British student has been recovered from a lake in the Amazon rainforest.

Olakunle Teniola, 20, is believed to have jumped into the Acajatuba lake in Brazil - even though he did not know how to swim.

He went missing on Tuesday while working as a missionary near the city of Manaus.

His tutor at Coventry University, where he was studying for a BA in Youth Work, said he was 'popular with the students and staff.'

Kunle, as he was known to friends, was 'a very committed Christian', according to a university spokesman.

'His faith was everything to him,' a close friend added.

Fellow-student Benson Akinsola said that Kunle was very keen to spend his summer as a missionary. He said: 'When he heard about the charity's work, there was no doubt he was going to do it.'

At the time of his death, Kunle was travelling on a boat across the lake to a nearby village. Leaders of the trip invited those on board to have a swim in the middle of the lake.

Search: Villagers and fishermen helped look for Kunle's body

Kunle jumped in with a friend, but only the friend emerged. A search operation involving the navy, local villagers and fishermen was quickly mounted, and his body was found a few days later.

Friends expressed surprise at Kunle's decision to jump in the lake. Mr Akinsola said, 'There's no way he would be going into the water, he is scared of the water.'

Brazil: Manaus is the capital of Amazonas state

After Kunle's disappearance, his aunt said, 'The family are not good. I am in the middle of planning his 21st birthday party.'

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We can confirm the death of a British national in Manaus, Brazil on Tuesday July 12.

'We are providing consular assistance to his family at this very difficult time.'

Peaceful: But Lake Acajatuba was the scene of Kunle's tragic death

Oil company hires indigenous people to clean up its Amazon spill with rags and buckets

July 13, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

On Sunday morning children swimming in the Mashiria River in the Peruvian Amazon noticed oil floating on the water. A pipeline owned by Maple Energy had ruptured in Block 31-E, polluting the Mashiria River which is used by the Shipibo indigenous community in Nuevo Sucre for fishing and drinking water. In response to the spill, Maple Energy's local operator—Dublin incorporate transnational—hired 32 Shipibo community members to clean up the spills using only rags and buckets.

According to the NGO Amazon Watch, these hired community members were given no training or protective equipment. They were not informed about the dangerous health impacts of the oil. Maple Energy did not discuss with community members the spill or its potential negative impacts.

"We are very concerned about the health of the workers cleaning the spill, our children who play and drink from the Mashiria daily, and all the members of our community that survive on this water," said Raúl Tuesta, head of the community of Nuevo Sucre, in a press release. "No one has been able to give us an answer as to why Maple directed these men to work directly in the petroleum with bare hands, legs, and feet. We are very worried about what impacts this will have on their health."

FECONBU, the local indigenous-rights organization, along with ORAU, the regional partner of AIDESEP, are calling on Maple Energy to provide community members with potable water, food, and health assistance for oil-exposure. In addition, they say community workers must be provided with protective gear and just compensation.

Maple Energy has a pattern of oil spills in the region: this is its 6th in two years over oil blocks 31-E and 31-B. In addition, this is not the first time local communities have been hired to clean spills: in 2009 the company had community members clean up a different oil spill 'without training or protective equipment'.

According to a complaint filed last April with the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC), following the largest of three oil spills in 2009 —no official measurements of the oil spilled are documented by the company—employees with Maple Energy told the community: 'no one can leave Nuevo Sucre for Contamana [the nearest city], because everyone is going to work here, the young and adults too.' [Maple employees] rented all the boats in Nuevo Sucre from April 9-12, 2009 so that no one was able to leave the contaminated village. Maple offered community members Soles 50/day for one month to clean up the petroleum that began to spill on April 8th. Because the people of Nuevo Sucre were desperate for money, 33 men accepted the offer. Maple’s own employees did not take part in the clean up effort, they only supervised the work of the people hired from Nuevo Sucre."

The complaint, filed by two indigenous communities,including Nuevo Sucre, also accuses Maple Energy of human rights abuses, sexual harassment, refusal to pay for goods, and widespread pollution from oil spills, including a litany of health impacts on the community.

"Maple has poisoned us through contamination of our land and water and repeated oil spills, including four oil spills in 2009 and one in 2010," the 37 page complaint reads in part.

In 2007 the IFC granted $40 million to Maple Energy to expand its oil operations in the Peruvian Amazon.

"This is yet another example of the social and environmental cost of oil drilling in the Amazon," said Leila Salazar-Lopez, Program Director at Amazon Watch, in a press release. "The outgoing Garcia administration has promoted a massive expansion of oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon while the government clearly lacks the regulatory capacity to protect the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples."

The government of Peru, formerly led by Alan Garcia, pushed an oil boom over the past decade. Around 70 percent of the Peruvian Amazon has been opened for oil and gas exploration and drilling.

The conflict between indigenous people living the region and big oil turned violent in 2009. A standoff between indigenous protestors and government police ended with 23 police officers and at least 10 protesters dead, though indigenous people say that bodies of protesters were dumped in rivers to hide the numbers killed.

Its uncertain how Peru's new president, Ollanta Humala, will deal with the nation's battle between oil and indigenous rights.

July 2011 Maple Energy oil spill in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo courtesy of Amazon Watch.

Head of Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency Says It Is Not His Job to Protect the Environment

07/15/2011
Source: Treehugger

Photo: CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture / cc

As the President of Brazil's environmental protection agency IBAMA, which oversees regulationion in the world's largest rainforest, Curt Trennepohl has a very important position -- the only problem is, he says that protecting the environment isn't part of it. In an interview with Australia's "60 Minutes", when asked if his job was to guard the environment from destructive projects, Trennepohl replied: "No, my job is to minimize the impacts." And as if that were not controversial enough, the IBAMA chief then suggested that indigenous tribes which stand in the way of progress should be dealt with harshly.

Australian reporter Allison Langdon recently confronted Trennepohl following his decision as head of IBAMA to approve construction of the Belo Monte dam, a controversial project which would destroy 121,600 acres of rainforest and displace nearly 50,000 indigenous people that live there. Prior to Trennepohl taking office, IBAMA's former president chose to resign rather than give in to political pressure to green-light the dam.

Clearly, Trennepohl has no intention of letting the environment stand in the way of progress. But perhaps what's more shocking, is his apparent willingness to violate the human rights of native peoples. In what Trennepohl believed to be a private moment, he made a disturbing statement seeming to indicate that indigenous Amazon tribes could be mistreated.

"You have the Aborigines there [in Australia]. You don't respect them," Trennepohl told Langdon.

"So you're going to do to the Indians what we did to the Aborigines?" she asked.

"Yes. Yes. Yes," he said.

Check out the 60 Minutes segment, including Langdon's interview with Trennepohl (which appears around the 12 minute mark), to judge for yourself what he may have meant by that.

Subsequently, Trennepohl was contacted by the Brazilian newspaper Folha to clarify his remarks. He said that he was caught off guard by the 'aggressive' reporter's questioning, adding that IBAMA's function was indeed to "minimize the impacts when a project is licensed," but that any project whose impact can't be minimized is rejected.

Regardless of whether the head of Brazil's environmental protection agency misspoke about his role in caring for the environment or dealing respectfully with indigenous groups, IBAMA's actions speak louder than any errant word. But standing up to interests lobbying for a massive dam in the middle of the Amazon, even if unpopular, is the job of such an agency. If Trennepohl, as President of IBAMA can't offer a sensible argument for preservation from within the government, what chance do NGOs have? Sadly, their biggest advocate may be no advocate at all.

Perhaps Brazilian blogger Roberto Malvezzi put it best when he wrote: "Finally someone in power is honest with their statements."

Group making forays into Amazon for the Pororoca...

15 July, 2011
Source: Global Surf News

Surfing the Amazon River tidal bore

Imagine surfing the world’s longest wave, up the world’s greatest river, miles from civilisation and deep within the most impressive rainforest on earth. We are trying to make that image reality. This is an extreme adventure, with real dangers, and miles away from civilisation. Crocodiles, snakes, piranhas, and a wall of white water tearing up everything in its path...

But without risk, there is no adventure... (Adventure: the participation or willingness to participate in things that involve uncertainty and risk). Those surfers ready for an extreme adventure will experience the most beautiful sight a surfer will EVER get to see. Amazing lefts and rights, barrels that last for minutes, all while surrounded by the stunning and completely fascinating Amazon rainforest. Here is an extract from a journal of one of our first development trips to the Pororoca:

That was by far the most terrifying, adrenaline pumping, amazing thing I have done in a long time!! We left Rio behind us and headed north to the town of Macapá on the mouth of the Amazon River. Not what I expected, a clean safe town with a ratio of 10-15 girls for every man... All of them seem to be wearing massive heels. Total trip out!

So, we are getting organised, on Brazil time... We were supposed to leave at 2pm with the tide - never going to happen! We didn´t even get picked up until 4pm... No worries, we will leave at 2am on the next tide.

We drive through the night, I’m like a little kid at Christmas, because I know when we get there it´s straight into the boat to go surf this mystical wave... I wake up at one point in the middle of the night to see the boat in a paddock with water buffalo around us!!!!! Now this is a fairly big boat, 25-30 metres long with three decks, you know, not the kind of boat that will be easy to push off a sand bar.

Yeah, they got a little lost. In the day light, I could see why. We really were driving though paddocks!! Channels everywhere, it´s hard enough to navigate during the day never mind at night with no charts, GPS or radar!!!! At least he had a depth sounder.

5am, we arrive at the spot drop an anchor and prepare the boats. All the boys are putting fins in; waxing boards, nearly complete silence, none of the usual pre surf banter... The truth is we were all scared shitless! I mean we had no idea what to expect. We had heard rumours of this being the biggest Pororoca in ten years; big enough to get a channel 7 TV crew here all the way from Australia and Ross Clarke Jones, one of the legends, and total charger, of the sport.

All this is going through our minds, as well as the fact that if you fall off, what then? How long will I be in this water for? It´s full a stuff that wants to eat or bite me... What if they can´t see me and I go out to sea?? The river is about 5kms wide where we were going to surf... What if i hit a log?

So we head out, all the boys trembling but keeping the chins up, we go out to the waiting spot, beach the boats, meet Ross and the TV crew with their chopper and flash jet skis and all the kit, do a quick interview and then get ready. Yeah, we are going to be on TV!! After the chopper left it was really quiet and still, then a faint rumble, like a train in the distance or a jet plane flying overhead... the Pororoca was coming!!!! Really shitting it now!

We get in the boats and head out to the middle of this massive river and you could see this little white water wall approaching... It was miles away and was by no means little! by the time it got to us it was actually a wall of white water 2.5 metres high and just churning up the river with an almighty roar tearing up the banks and snapping trees and sending water buffalo screaming, the heart is going flat out and the asshole is doing the 5cent 50 cent dance! What the fuck are we doing here!!!!!!

Then the wave hit some banks and transformed from this ugly wall of death to the most beautiful sight, for a surfer especially! Amazing rights and lefts just peeling literally for miles up the river! Even barrels that lasted for minutes! We were fizzing, just could not believe what our eyes were seeing, this amazing force of Mother Nature was unfolding before us. I’m getting sweaty palms just writing this!! So now it´s crunch time, I’m number two guy out of the boat, after a local legend that goes by the name of junior, he is out of the boat and up surfing! Sick, I’m out there!

I jump, heart in my mouth and paddle like crazy, the wave is coming up to me, i feel like I’m in the spot like a normal wave, but this is no normal wave... I missed it!! It passed underneath me, it was a horrible feeling that only lasted a second or two when the next wave picked me up and tossed me like a rag doll for a bit and then... I’m up!!!! Hands in the air and the biggest claim! It was such a rush, cruising along a head high wave with the Amazon under my feet and the jungle flashing past me all the while getting buzzed by the chopper and battling boat wakes and dodging logs and branches etc.

I rode that wave for 5 minutes! My legs hurt and my face hurt from laughing and smiling! Then the part i was on faded out... Shit no more waves... There is generally a set of 4-10 waves but no more here...... back to shitting it, I’m now floating up the river about a kilometre from the bank, trying not to think about crocs! Junior had fallen around the same time, it´s amazing how much better you feel when someone else is there with you. We were back in the boat before long and gunning it to catch up and get another wave..... in the end it took so long to collect everyone that it had petered by the time we got up front of it again. Day one was over and we were still alive, all very stoked to get it out of the way. Just that fear of the unknown, day two would be way better!!!

So day two started like any normal day on the river, meet up with the chopper and TV boys at the spot, headed out to go surf this thing again. I jumped out and managed this time to get the first wave....... I shared it with Ross for a good five minutes doing big cut backs around each other and having a chat.

A surreal experience, as if it was a normal wave, you would definitely not share, let alone be relaxed enough to have a chat. It was so bumpy this day and with all the boat wakes in the way it made for very difficult surfing, my legs hurt like hell, i eventually faded out.

I was the last to get picked up and our boat driver decided on a different line to get us back in front of the wave, instead of going round he thought, nah I’ll just go straight over the front. This is a manoeuvre I have done a few times before and surf life savers do it all the time when coming in and out of the surf. They do it in inflatable flexible 12 foot boats, not 18 foot tinnies, with six people in it!

The wave at this point was about a metre high. As we approach the back of it, all of us are hooting and laughing, `this is going to be sick!` BANG we hit the water in front of the wave and it grabs the boat and lurches it sideways, throwing Dirk and Mauro into the water and straight under the boat!!! The motor is still running, I was sitting at the back of the boat... I turn back fully expecting to see the water turn red as they get chewed by the propeller... I see 2 heads pop up a few metres away, MEN OVERBOARD!!!!!! Shit just got real.

Meanwhile we, Geoff, myself, and skipper flip-a-boat are trying our hardest to keep this thing afloat... no deal! We are now sitting in a sunken tinny rushing up the river... Lucky we have our boards and as the boat starts turning over we get out and start paddling, I hand the only life vest to skipper flip-a-boat, he looks at me thankfully, I think... I don´t speak Portuguese.

Lucky the other boat is just behind us and they manage to get a rope on and drag it to the bank... we can´t all fit in one boat so we just sit there floating back towards our big boat and after 45 minutes, 5kms further up stream, and a hell of a lot of laughs and high fives, we are all just happy to be alive, then our mates from channel 7 pluck us out of the water... Heavy day!

Day 3 was by far the best, all the media crew and other boats had gone and it was just us, meaning smooth waves and no crowds... It was epic, all the boys had great waves and we didn´t sink any boats and we finally managed to get that second wave... A lot smaller but super fun!! One of the more memorable surf days I’ve ever had...

The Pororoca can be very dangerous for anyone unprepared, and only experienced surfers should attempt to ride it. The isolation and power of the wave require special equipment and local knowledge. That’s why Ativa provides well-trained and experienced local guides, the highest standards of safety training and equipment, and a number of extra vessels designed to get you in and out of the water as fast as possible. There are risks, but our systems reduce those risks. The trip is still in development phase, but we hope to have this trip ready by the 2012 season.

Ativa offers exciting travel experiences involving surfing, sailing, and mountain biking. Surf, sail, bike, and more - all while exploring the impressive scenery and unique cultural experiences of the most exotic travel destinations. We take you to secret spots, uncrowned beaches, exotic islands, untouched powder, and tropical rainforests to enjoy your favorite adventure sport. We have access to exclusive destinations and know them better than anyone else.

We operate a successful surf camp and tour company in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The only surf camp and tour company in Rio de Janeiro. We have over the past 5 years focused on our surfing, but because of continued interest into other surf destinations (including the Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, Bahia and Amazon river surf destinations) and other activities (sailing and mountain biking), we have decided to expand our business.

Ativa Brazil
Based just south of Ipanema, surrounded by majestic rain forests and nestled on the pure white shores of Rio de Janeiro, Ativa is ideally placed to run some of the finest outdoor instruction and adventure tours in Brazil. From the mild to the wild; looking for a thrill, to learn a skill or just to chill; staggering beauty and heart-pumping thrills wait in Brazil. The expansive natural physical environment offers superb air, water and land based activities.

Thrill-seekers can come to Brazil for surfing, sailing, or mountain biking. More laid-back travelers can relax on the picture-perfect coastlines or take a quiet walk into the impressive surrounding mountains and rainforests. Experience the real Brazil, meet locals, breathe in the scenery, be well taken care of and enjoy an adventure vacation like no other.

Chevron Looks to Its Home Court for a Comeback Win

July 14, 2011
Source: BusinessWeek


For a decade, Chevron (CVX) has been embroiled in an epic legal battle in Ecuador over allegations that the country was used as a dumping ground for billions of gallons of toxic drilling waste. In February the plaintiffs, some 30,000 Amazon Indians and peasant farmers, won an $18.2 billion verdict in a provincial Ecuadorean court. Chevron called the case tainted by fraud and vowed to get the verdict nullified.

Six months later the company has made impressive progress toward doing just that. Lawyers for Chevron, the third-largest U.S. corporation in revenues behind Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) and ExxonMobil (XOM), have persuaded a federal judge in New York essentially to put the Ecuadorean court system on trial for corruption. The company is seeking a far-reaching order that would block the plaintiffs from collecting on their judgment in the U.S.—or anywhere else.

The prospect of establishing a U.S. precedent for extinguishing hostile foreign court verdicts has electrified corporate lawyers and their clients. A coterie of business groups in Washington has weighed in with friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Chevron. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Foreign Trade Council argue that the oil company was the victim of crooked proceedings in Ecuador. In their own joint brief, Dole Food (DOLE), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A) and Dow Chemical (DOW) say they, too, have been hit repeatedly by mass injury suits abroad.

A Chevron victory could become a powerful tool in fending off judgments in such cases. “Vigilance in ensuring that foreign judgments are rendered in systems that provide due process and impartial tribunals is a matter of growing importance in a world where international commerce will, with increasing frequency, be affected by foreign judgments,” the companies contend.

Environmentalists and the government of Ecuador are siding with the plaintiffs. They argue that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1994, lacks the authority to issue a worldwide order blocking enforcement of the verdict. In court filings, Ecuador’s American law firm, Winston & Strawn, asserts that “Judge Kaplan’s gratuitous belittlement of the Republic [of Ecuador]’s judicial system is a wholesale condemnation of the judicial systems of the entire Latin American region.”

At the heart of Chevron’s legal predicament is a massive case of buyer’s remorse. The company fought for more than eight years to get the pollution suit moved to Ecuador, believing it would be more likely to prevail there than in the U.S. When it became clear that it would lose in Ecuador, Chevron came back to U.S. courts seeking to undermine the Ecuadorean proceedings. The oil and gas producer maintains that it cleaned up any pollution for which it was responsible and that it has been unfairly targeted.

The lawsuit began back in 1993 when attorneys representing the plaintiffs sued Texaco in federal court in New York, alleging the company had dumped billions of gallons of dangerous drilling fluids into rainforest streams and rivers while extracting oil from the Amazon from 1972 through 1990. Texaco denied wrongdoing and persuaded the New York court to dismiss the case, arguing that it would be more appropriate to try it in Ecuador. In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, and with it the pollution case. Two years later the plaintiffs refiled the suit in Ecuador, this time naming Chevron as the defendant, even though Chevron didn’t have operations in Ecuador—and still doesn’t.

Years of protracted hearings overseen by a series of Ecuadorean judges culminated on Feb. 14 in the $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron. Two weeks before the verdict, however, Chevron launched a preemptive counterattack in federal court in New York, alleging in a separate civil suit that American and Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ attorneys, along with Ecuadorean judges and government officials, illegally conspired against the company. Chevron claimed its adversaries falsified evidence, intimidated judges, and even ghostwrote parts of the judicial opinion underlying the multibillion-dollar award. Judge Kaplan issued a temporary order in February forbidding enforcement of the Ecuadorean verdict. He has scheduled a nonjury trial for November on whether Chevron received a fair trial in Ecuador.

Kaplan has signaled strongly where his sympathies lie. He doesn’t disguise his disdain for the lead plaintiffs’ attorney, Steven R. Donziger, whom Chevron has portrayed as greedy and dishonest. During one hearing, Kaplan mused disapprovingly about American attorneys who travel abroad to represent foreign clients suing U.S. companies. “The imagination of American lawyers is just without parallel in the world,” the judge said from the bench. “It’s a sad pass. But that’s where we are, and Mr. Donziger is trying to become the Next Big Thing in fixing the balance of payments deficit. I got it from the beginning.”

On another occasion, Kaplan suggested from the bench that the suit against Chevron was nothing more than a cynical con. “The object of the whole game, according to Donziger, is to make this so uncomfortable and so unpleasant for Chevron that they’ll write a check and be done with it,” Kaplan said. “Put a lot of pressure on the [Ecuadorean] courts to feed them a record in part false for the purpose of getting a big judgment or threatening a big judgment, which conceivably might be enforceable in the U.S. or in Britain or some other such place, in order to persuade Chevron to come up with some money. Now do the phrases Hobbs Act, extortion, RICO have any bearing here?” Chevron subsequently filed civil claims under RICO, the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, against Donziger and his clients, which are pending. Donziger has denied wrongdoing.

The plaintiffs have asked the federal appeals court in New York to restrain Kaplan—or even remove him from the case. Kaplan, a former partner at the New York corporate law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who specialized in antitrust and securities cases, has declined to step down, saying that his conduct and comments do not reflect any bias. Chevron and its corporate allies have urged the appellate court to let Kaplan move ahead. The case, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues in its brief, “is necessary to prevent vexatious litigation in foreign forums.” The way Chevron’s Ecuadorean adversaries see it, that’s precisely what’s happening to them.

Proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code could hurt economy

July 13, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

The recent decision by the U.S. to dump domestic corn ethanol subsidies and tariffs on imported ethanol could be a boon to Brazil's biofuel industry, especially sugarcane ethanol producers. But the move could put added pressure on Brazil's cerrado and Amazon rainforest ecosystems.

Proposed changes to Brazil's Forest Code will hurt Brazilian agriculture, argues a leading conservationist.

Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, WWF-Brazil's director for conservation, says the reform bill currently being evaluated by Brazil's Senate could have unexpected economic implications for Brazilian ranchers and farmers. Scaramuzza says a bill that grant amnesty for illegal deforesters and sanctions expanded destruction of the Amazon rainforest would make Brazilian agricultural products less attractive in foreign markets.

"The tendency in the world market is to expand the space for sustainable products, and consumers are increasingly averse to acquiring anything whose production involves the destruction or degradation of Nature", said Scaramuzza.

The Brazilian agricultural sector has experienced market backlash their products before. In 2006 soy crushers were hit by the threat of a boycott by McDonalds due to the fast food chain's concern over being associated with deforestation. In 2009 the Brazilian cattle industry has hit by a Greenpeace campaign that targeted major consumer products brands that source leather from Brazil. In both cases, affected producers moved to adopt stronger safeguards to eliminate deforestation from their production cycle.

Scaramuzza says that the bill, if passed in its current form next month, could also undermine the nascent market for ecosystem services. Brazil, with its ample forests and water resources, is poised to become a giant in the market, which some analysts believe could be worth tens of billions of dollars a year by mid-decade.

"The project completely ignores the possibility of remuneration for the provision of environmental services, thereby slamming the door on an interesting opportunity to diversify income," he said, adding that reforestation of degraded forest areas — as required under the current Forest Code — would both "protect natural resources" and "open up the possibility of new income stemming from the provision of environmental services related to combating climate change and maintaining water supplies for cities and rural areas alike."

Scaramuzza adds that the bill could hurt Brazilian agriculture by degrading the very services upon which farming and ranching depend. For example, the proposed bill would allow clearing of forests on hillsides and mountaintops, while reducing the buffer zone along waterways. Deforestation in these areas would exacerbate soil erosion and reduce the availability of clean water. Erosion could further worsen flooding and reducing power generation from hydroelectric plants, according to Scaramuzza.

"The losses in question transform the issue of approving the Forest Code reform bill into another tremendous loss of an opportunity to guarantee that Brazilian production will be founded on more sustainable bases," he said. "If... our products are to be associated to deforestation and exacerbation of global warming, we will eventually lose access to [international markets]."

"The House of Representatives is looking at the rear-view mirror, at the past instead of the future. We should be looking to the promising green markets and to achieving a low carbon economy."

WWF is among the groups lobbying for a reappraisal of the bill's text. A broad coalition of environmentalists, scientists, and rural land rights groups have called for a delay in the Forest Code vote to allow more time to conduct a thorough review of its potential implications on the Brazilian economy and environment.

Amazon facing new threat: Agent Orange

Thursday 14 July 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk

An aerial view of cleared rainforest in the Amazon basin. Photograph: Bruno Domingos/Reuters

Agent Orange was as deadly as guns in the Vietnam War, killing or injuring an estimated 400,000 people. Decades later, the herbicide is being used to kill again — this time, on the Amazon rainforest.

In recent weeks, authorities have discovered ranchers spraying the highly-toxic chemical on sections of the forest in an attempt to clear the land without officials noticing. The herbicide is much harder to detect than traditional methods of deforestation, which usually involve less stealthy tools like tractors and chainsaws.

Photo by Daniele GidsickAbout 440 acres of the Amazon rainforest have already been poisoned by the toxic chemical.

Brazil's environmental enforcement agency, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, or IBAMA, was first alerted to the use of Agent Orange in the Amazon by satellite photos, which showed thousands of trees that had turned the color of ash and lost all their leaves. IBAMA officials said it is probable that the poison was dropped on the trees from an aircraft, though they do not yet know whose aircraft.

According to the photos, about 440 acres have already been poisoned. However, in a rainforest as rich in animal life as the Amazon, thousands of trees are not the only casualties of the practice — animals, too, have been killed. There is no estimate yet of how many or which species were affected, but unlike manual logging, there is little opportunity to escape from Agent Orange, so the damage that is done may last for generations as entire pland and animal communities are wiped out.

"They have changed their strategy because, in a short time, more areas of forest can be destroyed with herbicides," says Jefferson Lobato, an IBAMA official told reporters. "Thus, they don't need to mobilize tree-cutting teams and can therefore bypass the supervision of IBAMA."

In a recent raid, IBAMA officials discovered approximately four tons of the chemical waiting to be dispersed — if it had been, the herbicide could have destroyed 7,500 acres of rainforest and contaminated groundwater. But in this case, the rancher responsible was apprehended and is facing a fine of about $1.3 million.

The switch to a more covert deforestation technique comes as the Brazilian government makes a concerted effort to stop illegal logging. In 2008, after a 3.8 percent increase in deforestation compared to the previous year, the Brazilian government announced a plan to reduce deforestation by 70 percent over the next ten years, or about 6,000 square kilometers per year.

"Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won't be emitted up to 2018, which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," says Carlos Minc, Brazil's Environment Minister.

But the use of Agent Orange — the effects of which are still visible in Vietnam, where one million people have disabilities directly associated with the chemical — makes deforestation of the Amazon an even more urgent problem.

The uni dropout making millions from Amazon berries

July 13, 2011
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Nice job if you can get it ... national marketing manager Jesse Kaniecki (left), CEO Dwayne Martens (front) and productions director Chris Norden. Photo: Supplied

University of Western Australia health science dropout Dwayne Martens, 26, runs a booming business that ticks all the boxes: lucrative, adventurous, sustainable. The business, Amazonia, supplies vitamin-rich açaí berries sourced from the depths of the Amazon by boat.

The berries sell under Marten's own brand, in tubs and as capsules, powder, puree and health bars.

In three years, Martens - the son of a South African pig farmer turned pastor - has built Amazonia into a multimillion dollar Fair Trade business, with 500 per cent net profit growth for the 2009 financial year, he says.

'Superfood' ... Dwayne Martens (right) and Chris Norden with the prized berries.

Martens founded Amazonia in a friend's kitchen in Fremantle, WA, after meeting a Brazilian açaí distributor through a friend.

He then set up a mobile juice bar and sold the supposed superfood (meant to have anti-ageing and weight loss properties) in Perth markets.

He now also sells to five overseas countries: Malaysia, Greece, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, “pending UK and Japan”.

En route to the source of the berries.

He also supports over 2,000 acres of preserved acai rainforest in Brazil and 4000 families. Amazonia gives financial aid to the families, who in turn help keep açaí trees standing, rather than removing them for cattle or soy.

Martens, who jets over to Brazil annually, employs 13 staff. The worst knock his firm has taken, he says, was the Brisbane floods that pumped a metre of water into an Amazonia warehouse, costing him $90,000.

Next, he aims to get on the shelves of Woolworths and Coles. Here, the Bellevue Hill-based health food guru who dances, surfs and does yoga, talks about his meteoric rise.

What were you doing before you launched Amazonia?

Travelling mainly, financed by good old-fashioned work as a labourer for over a year. I went to around 31 countries as an adventure: sometimes very extreme, sometimes really "grounding".

What was your most extreme experience?

I did run with the bulls in Pamplona, 2007. That was pretty extreme.

Also, getting back to England from Ibiza was pretty extreme because I had everything stolen from me in Ibiza. All I had was a passport and a traveller's cheque and I missed my plane.

So I held the big line up and got my plane ticket, and got a plane to London, Gatwick, and had to beg for pennies to get the train into London city. I didn't have a phone or anything like that, so stayed in the gutter for a night, and got hold of a long-lost friend and was able to stay there for a bit and get my credit cards back.

How much did you invest in the business?

Around about $4,000 worth of stock - I just wanted to do something to do with business. I'd been overseas. I'd been reading all my mindset books and travelling and experiencing and learning and itching to come back to Australia...

Mindset books?

Just the mindset of wealth creation. Because we're all manifesters of our own destiny and I think I realised that and worked on not being afraid of wealth creation.

Which book helped you most?

The One Minute Millionaire [by Robert Allen and Mark Victor Hansen]. It sounds a bit shoddy, but I read and experienced it in life through my travels - learning from every situation and taking every situation positively because I could have taken a lot of experiences badly and just gone straight home, or been miserable.

It (travelling) took me to faraway places like Bosnia, Albania as well as the good spots like London and, obviously, Spain, and Paris and all that.

I really feel that journey in my life was a stepping stone for business. I learned a lot.

What's the most common myth about entrepreneurship?
There's so many myths. The most common myth is it can be a quick-fix - you can make millions quickly. You need to work on it. It takes perseverance. It takes a lot of action.

I think the biggest myth is that people can become entrepreneurs focused purely on the money. Whereas, I feel if you want to make money you've got to be passionate about what you're doing.

The money will flow if you're passionate.

What's the hardest lesson you've learned?

The hardest lesson I've learned is controlling the growth, controlling the ambition to expand. I'm a very ambitious person. I like to just go full-out.

When you try to expand too quickly, your energy is dispersed on too many different things and you can't focus on one thing and make it work. Whereas, if you do one thing at one time, focus on it, you can make it work - then move on.

What's your dream?

I live the dream at the moment, brother.

Standing alongside Brazil’s rainforest peoples

Friday, July 8, 2011
Source: Independent Catholic News

CAFOD’s representative in Westminster Diocese is about to travel to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to highlight illegal rainforest destruction and associated human rights violations. Tony Sheen, a 47-year-old from the Parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel & St George, Enfield, will visit the state of Pará, where CAFOD partner, the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), an organisation of the Brazilian Bishops´ Conference, assists local people who have been threatened and intimidated. He will also join a special ‘Martyrs Pilgrimage’ at São Féliz do Araguaia, in neighbouring Mato Grosso State, on 16 July, which will include a torchlight procession in memory of murdered Jesuit priest Joao Bosco Burnier. Fr Burnier was murdered in 1976 when he and Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga of São Felix do Araguaia visited police headquarters in a remote area to inquire about two indigenous women being detained and tortured.

Pará and Mato Grosso are states where indigenous communities and small–scale farmers have struggled to protect the forest and their livelihoods from large-scale cattle ranching and mining. Six murders have taken place in the past month in the region, amid conflicts over land and logging, adding to the 34 murders related to land violence in Brazil over the last year. “I am naturally apprehensive about visiting such a dangerous area,” says Tony, “but I feel it is important to stand alongside the poor in Brazil whose rights are often trampled upon by rich landowners”.

CAFOD is supporting the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference which is alarmed about increasing forest clearances and the surge in violence against social and environmental activists. It supports their demand that proposed change to the country’s Forest Code is vetoed because it will give a green light to developers and loggers to fell more of the Amazon Rainforest and attack opponents. A petition is circulating in Catholic parishes throughout the country at the moment. CAFOD also supports the call for the Brazilian government to bring to justice the individuals who have ordered the recent killings of those standing up for social and environmental justice.

Tony will be taking gifts from the Catholic Community in England and Wales. These include a St Cuthbert's Cross from Holy Island and an ICON of Mary - Mother of the Poor, to be given to Bishop Pedro http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Casald%C3%A1liga" \o "Pedro Casaldáliga" Casaldáliga of São Felix do Araguaia.

Walk through the treetops of the Amazon rainforest

07 Jul 2011
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Walk through the treetops of the Amazon rainforest Photo: © Steve Bloom Images / Alamy

Reached via a 90ft high rope walkway, The Canopy Tree House is perched within the lofty heights of the southeast Amazon rainforest of Peru.

From this vantage point, the splendour of the setting is abundantly clear, delivering quite literally a bird’s eye view of jungle fowl and wildlife accompanied by a live soundtrack of bird song and animal calls.

This is no basic offering, this luxury treehouse has its own butler to escort guests to their rooms and serve sun-downer drinks at the Canopy Bar or supper under the stars. Wake early to enjoy a canopy walk – 1,230ft of tree top paths and observation platforms.

Ranchers using Agent Orange to deforest the Amazon

July 06, 2011
Source: mongabay.com

180 hectares (450 acres) of rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon were defoliated using a potent mix of herbicides dropped by airplane, reports IBAMA, Brazil's environmental law enforcement agency.

The affected area, which is south of the city of Canutama and near the Mapinguari Jacareúba / Katawixi indigenous reservation in Rondônia, was first detected by Brazil's deforestation monitoring system. A subsequent helicopter overflight last month by IBAMA revealed thousands of trees largely stripped of their vegetation. Authorities later found nearly four tons of chemicals — 2,4 - D AMINE 72, U46BR, Garlon 480, and mineral oil — along trans-Amazon highway 174. The herbicides would have been enough to defoliate roughly 3,000 ha (7,500 acres) of forest, which would then be cleared for cattle ranching or agriculture.

IBAMA says use of chemical defoliants is a relatively new phenomenon in the region, but represents a troubling development, according to Cicero Furtado, coordinator of the investigation.

"The herbicide was stored in inappropriate location, hidden in the woods and would be sprayed in the forest with the use of aircraft," he said.

"If used improperly, [the chemicals] can cause serious damage to the environment such as pollution of groundwater, loss of biological diversity in soil, killing animals and insects, among others," added a statement from IBAMA.

Authorities say they will investigate the crime, is punishable by fines ranging from 500,000-2 million reals ($320,000-1.3 million).

The news comes as the Brazilian government announced a sharp increase in deforestation over this time last year. Analysts say speculation that Brazil's environmental laws will be weakened under a Forest Code reform bill making its way through Congress, coupled with rising commodity prices, is contributing to the increase in forest clearing.

The United States famously used Agent Orange — a 50-50 mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T — during the Vietnam War to defoliate vast areas of forest in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The herbicide has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths and deformities.