Amazon rainforest mapped in unprecedented detail

Friday 27 January 2012Source: guardian.co.uk

An aerial image of the Amazon rainforest taken by tropical Greg Asner and his team. Photograph: Carnegie Department of Global Ecology/Stanford University

Five thousand metres above the most biodiverse corner of the Amazon, tropical ecologist Greg Asner and his team see a kaleidoscope of colours among a mass of green.

Huddled in a twin-engine Dornier 228 aeroplane called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, the scientists are capturing multicoloured images of the Peruvian rainforest canopy that verge on the psychedelic.

Inside the plane, a machine known as a Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) bounces a laser beam off the forest canopy 400,000 times per second – the result is a three-dimensional map of the forest showing unprecedented detail.

In addition, a spectrometre, kept at a temperature of -131C (-204F), measures the biodiversity of the jungle in vivid colours by registering the chemical and optical properties of the forest canopy. The team can scan 360 sq km each hour.

"The technology that we have here gives us a first-ever look at the Amazon in its full three-dimensional detail, over very large regions," said Asner, who is conducting the research for the department of Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science, based at Stanford University, California.

"[It's] the critical information that's missing for managing these systems, for conserving them and for developing policy to better utilise the Amazon basin as a resource, while still protecting what it has in terms of its biological diversity."

As well as measuring how the forest ecosystem is responding to the 2010 Amazon drought – the worst ever recorded – the technology accurately monitors deforestation and degradation, and has revealed unexpectedly high levels of biodiversity in high forest on the Andean rim of the Amazon basin.

The data could prove critical to the United Nation's Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative, which will be the biggest future source of funding to protect the planet's tropical forest.

The programme is designed to compensate tropical countries for reducing deforestation and forest degradation.

"Redd cannot exist without scientifically monitored data on carbon stock," said Asner, who may have invented the most efficient way of measuring it to date.

Daniel Nepstad, director and president of the international programme at the Brazil-based Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam), and a leading expert on Redd programmes, described Asner as in "a league of his own in resolving the technical challenges that must be overcome for Redd to realise its potential."

Having scanned some of the Peruvian Amazon's most inaccessible places, Asner says the region has one of the "most incredible portfolios of biodiversity". But Asner said his initial research showed a radical increase of illicit alluvial gold mining in Peru's Amazon region of Madre de Dios since it was last mapped in 2009, making it the region's primary cause of deforestation – an area estimated to exceed 100 sq km.

Pioneering six-mile walkway to attract 'eco tourists' to Amazon rainforest

23rd January 2012
Source: Daily Mail

A project to build a pioneering science centre with more than six miles of walkways will give tourists spectacular views in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

The £6.4m centre will be built by a British charity and will act as a research base for scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, provide jobs for Brazilian tribes and attract eco-tourists, according to The Sunday Times.

Tourist high-light: The walkway will give visitors a stunning view of the rainforest from high above the jungle floor

The ambitious walkway will be located in Roraima, a remote province of northeast Brazil, and will be designed by the same architects who created the London Eye and Kew Gardens’ treetop walkway.

Researchers will use the walkway to study the rainforest canopy while tourists will be able to enjoy stunning views from high above the jungle floor.

The project is being co-ordinated by the Amazon Charitable Trust and is expected to take two years to construct.

Robert Pasley-Tyler, a managing partner of the Amazon Charitable Trust, said of the project: ‘It will employ the local river tribe, giving them a way of making a living without destroying the forest, and also boost awareness around the world.

‘Visitors will also get to see the nearby pink dolphins and the giant otters before spending a relaxing day on a riverside beach.’

Roraima is the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil. It borders Venezuela and Guyana and renowned for its challenging hiking routes.

In Brazil, Fears of a Slide Back for Amazon Protection

January 24, 2012
Source: New York Times

Deforestation in Brazil, driven largely by clearing land for cattle, as in Mato Grosso, above, has lessened. But there has been a shift under President Dilma Rousseff.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestation and showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest.

The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years, as the government carved out about 150 million acres for conservation — an area roughly the size of France — and used police raids and other tactics to crack down on illegal deforesters, according to both environmentalists and the government. Brazil’s former environment minister, Marina Silva, became an internationally respected defender of the Amazon. She ran for president in 2010 on the Green Party ticket and won 19.4 percent of the votes.

But since Dilma Rousseff was elected president in late 2010, there have been signs of a shift in the government’s attitude toward the Amazon. A provisional measure now allows the president to decrease the lands already created for conservation. The government is granting more flexibility for large infrastructure projects during the environmental licensing process. And a proposal would give Brazil’s Congress veto power over the recognition of indigenous territories.

“What is happening in Brazil is the biggest backsliding that we could ever imagine with regards to environmental policies,” said Ms. Silva, who now devotes her time to environmental advocacy.

Now, a bill seeking to overhaul the 47-year-old Forest Code, a central piece of environmental legislation, is the most serious test yet of Ms. Rousseff’s stance on the environment.

The debate over the law has revealed the stark disconnect between a population that is increasingly supportive of conserving the Amazon and a Congress in which agricultural interests in the country’s rural north and northeast still hold sway. The furor comes as Brazil is set to hold a United Nations conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in June.

Before taking office last January, Ms. Rousseff promised to veto any revision of the Forest Code that granted amnesty to landowners who had previously deforested illegally. Then her government negotiated a version of the code, approved by the Senate in December, that would give amnesty to farmers who broke the law before 2008 — provided they agreed to plant new trees. The House is expected to debate the legislation once again in March, with Ms. Rousseff holding final veto power.

The fight over the Forest Code has stoked the age-old struggle over development versus conservation in Brazil, a country that bears the weight of international pressure to protect the Amazon from deforestation because its sheer scale could affect global climatic conditions. Ms. Rousseff, a former energy minister, has so far flashed a more pro-development stance, environmentalists say, shifting the balance from the administration of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who appointed Ms. Silva.

Agriculture represents 22 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product. The so-called ruralists in Congress say that the old code is holding back Brazil’s agricultural potential and that it needs updating to allow more land to be opened up to production. Environmentalists counter that there is already enough land available to double production and that the proposed changes would open the door to a surge in deforestation.

Last May, the House approved a more sweeping amnesty for those who had illegally deforested, outraging environmentalists and scientists. It did not help that the deputies refused to receive a group of respected Brazilian scientists that issued a report condemning the changes.

“In the House, there was very little consultation with scientists,” said Carlos Nobre, a scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research who specializes in climate issues. Still, he said, scientists “waited too long to realize that the House wanted to radically change the Forest Code, creating a broad and unrestricted license to deforest.”

Ms. Silva, who was raised in the Amazon, resigned in 2008 after a backlash by rural governors to restrictions on illegal deforestation she had put in place. But she left what environmentalists consider an effective policy to control Amazon deforestation. Among other tactics, Mr. da Silva’s government used satellite images to home in on deforesters, organized police raids and blacklisted the worst offenders.

“The ruralists have pushed so much to change the Forest Code because the government actually started enforcing it under Marina Silva,” said Stephan Schwartzman, director for tropical forest policy at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington.

The vote in the House showed how heavily represented the less developed north and northeast are in Brazil’s Congress, a relic of the military dictatorship.

“The skewed proportional representation in Brazil has shown that the environmentalists have much less power in Congress than they have in public opinion,” said Gilberto Câmara, director of the National Institute for Space Research, which monitors Amazon deforestation.

Days after the House vote last May, a poll by Datafolha showed that 85 percent of Brazilians believed the reformed code should prioritize forests and rivers, even if it came at the expense of agricultural production.

After weeks of debate, the bill the Senate approved in December was somewhat more palatable to environmentalists. Rather than outright amnesty for past illegal deforestation, the Senate version lets farmers replant to avoid fines. The legislation now goes back to the House.

“We have to reconcile the generation of income with sustainability,” Izabella Teixeira, the current environment minister, said after the vote.

For Marcos Jank, president of the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, a major reason to change the code is to legalize countless Amazon properties lacking land titles that have complicated the tracking of illegal activity. “When you have a Forest Code that legalizes land titles, then that has the effect of reducing deforestation, not increasing it,” he said.

The government claims the code will reforest about 60 million acres, much of it in the Amazon, which the Environment Ministry calls “the largest reforestation program in the world.” But who will pay for all those new trees? And will the government enforce the replanting requirements?

“The small producers don’t have the money to replant,” Mr. Jank said. “You need to develop programs to help them.”

There are also questions about the size of lands being exempted from the legal requirement to preserve 80 percent of the trees in Amazon properties. The new law would exempt “small” properties of up to four “fiscal modules,” which in the Amazon are almost 1,000 acres combined.

“That is a large property in any part of the world,” Mr. Nobre said. “I see great risk here if this definition is maintained.”

Despite the concerns, there is no denying that deforestation in Brazil, driven largely by clearing land for inefficient cattle grazing, has been on a downward trend. Beyond that, a new generation of satellites over the next two years will give Brazil access to images from seven satellites, up from the current two.

If people abide by the law — a big if — Mr. Câmara and other scientists are predicting that the Brazilian Amazon has a chance by 2020 to become a “carbon sink,” in which the amount of forest being replanted is larger than the amount being deforested.

“President Rousseff is extremely aware of this,” Mr. Câmara said. “When I told her, she almost fell off her chair.”

But to make that happen, “there has to be very strong government financing and support for people to recover the forest,” he said.

Big trees, like the old-growth forests they inhabit, are declining globally

January 26, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Already on the decline worldwide, big trees face a dire future due to habitat fragmentation, selective harvesting by loggers, exotic invaders, and the effects of climate change, warns an article published this week in New Scientist magazine.

Reviewing research from forests around the world, William F. Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, provides evidence of decline among the world's "biggest and most magnificent" trees and details the range of threats they face. He says their demise will have substantial impacts on biodiversity and forest ecology, while worsening climate change.

"To persist, big trees need a safe place to live and long periods of stability," he told mongabay.com via email. "But time and stability are becoming very rare commodities in our modern world."

Giant trees offer critical habitat and forage for wildlife, while transpiring massive amounts of water through their leaves, contributing to local rainfall. Old trees also lock up massive amounts of carbon — in some forests they can account for up to a quarter of living biomass.

But their ability to sequester carbon and render other ecosystem services is threatened by human activities. Some of the world's largest trees are particularly targeted by loggers. The oldest trees are among the most valuable and therefore the first to be cut in "virgin" forest areas.

Big trees are also sensitive to fragmentation, which exposes them to stronger winds and drier conditions. Laurance's own work in the Amazon has shown substantial die-off of canopy giants in small forest fragments. Their susceptibility seems counter-intuitive given big trees' life histories, which invariably include periods of drought and other stress.

"All around the tropics, big canopy and emergent trees are succumbing to strong droughts," Laurance said. "That's been a surprise to me and many other ecologists, because big, ancient trees would have had to survive many droughts in the past."

Forest giants may suffer disproportionately from climate change, writes Laurance in New Scientist, highlighting research in La Selva, Costa Rica by David and Deborah Clark.

"Trees are probably getting a double-whammy when the thermometer rises,' says David Clark. “During the day, their photosynthesis shuts down when it gets too warm, and at night they consume more energy because their metabolic rate increases, much as a reptile’s would do when it gets warmer.” With less energy being produced in warmer years and more being consumed just to survive, there is less energy available for growth.

The Clarks’ hypothesis, if correct, means tropical forests could shrink over time. The largest, oldest trees would progressively die off and tend not to be replaced. Alarmingly, this might trigger a positive feedback that could destabilize the climate: as older trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere, prompting a vicious circle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions.

Laurance notes climate change is having less direct impacts on forests, including creating conditions for exotic pathogens to thrive. For example, pathogens such as Dutch Elm Disease, introduced by trade or circumstance, can devastate native forests.

All told, the outlook for big trees is not good, according to Laurance.

"The decline of big trees foretells a different world where ancient behemoths are replaced by short-lived pioneers and generalists that can grow anywhere, where forests store less carbon and sustain fewer dependent animals, where giant cathedral-like crowns become a thing of the past."

Geology has split the Amazon into two distinct forests

January 19, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Aerial photo of an Amazon rainforest tributary in Peru. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

The common view of the Amazon is that it is one massive, unbroken forest. This impression is given by maps which tend to mark the Amazon by a large glob of green or even by its single name which doesn't account for regional changes. Of course, scientists have long recognized different ecosystems in the Amazon, most especially related to climate. But a new study in the Journal of Biogeography has uncovered two distinct forest ecosystems, sharply divided, caused by million of years of geologic forces.

"We look at a boundary of over 300 kilometers between two geological formations, the Nauta Formation and the Pebas Formation," lead author Mark Higgins with Duke University told mongabay.com. "The forests of these two geological formations differ by almost 90 percent in their plant species and this turnover occurs in under two kilometers. So, we see an abrupt and almost complete change in plant species between the two formations."

The major difference in the two Amazonian forests, which split in northern Peru, is soil fertility: the Pebas Formation is 15 times more fertile than the Nauta. This means that the two forests support very different plant species.

"On the poor soils, the plants invest very heavily in roots and leaf defenses, to acquire and hold onto scarce nutrients; while on rich soils, the plants are free to invest heavily in height and competition for light," explains Higgins, who says the different ecosystems are easily identifiable.

"While the Pebas Formation forests look like your typical tall rainforest, the poor-soil Nauta Formation forests are a different matter completely. In these forests [...] the ground is often covered by a spongy mat of roots up to 10 centimeters in depth. Sprouting from this root mat you can find hundreds of tiny roots climbing up small palms and saplings, looking for nutrients in leaves caught above the ground. At times I felt that if I stood still long enough they'd start climbing me too. Due to their strong investment in roots and in leaf defenses, these trees invest much less in height and girth, and the forest is generally shorter with many small stems. Sometimes, the canopy in these forests opens up completely and the ground is dominated by massive ground-dwelling bromeliads. Really weird stuff."

The distinct nature of the forests is so strong that it can be viewed in satellite images. Higgins says their findings add a new layer to current understanding of Amazonian ecosystems.

"We propose that geology provides a framework over which variations due to climate are superimposed. In any case, the existence of large-area units in Amazonian forests strongly supports the ecoregion-based mapping and planning of the WWF, The Nature Conservancy, and others. However, our findings also suggest that these maps may need to be substantially redrawn to reflect these underlying divisions."

The identification of such broadly different ecosystems should also play a role in conservation efforts argues the paper. For example forests in the bizarre Nauta Formation have been largely ignored to date both by conservationists and researchers.

"These poor-soil forests are distributed across northern Peru, but are essentially unknown and severely underrepresented in existing protected areas," explains Higgins. "One of the most common plant species found on these poor soils was previously unreported in Peru prior to our work, and we have found populations of bird species that are otherwise unknown except for small patches in northern Peru. In short, we believe that many of these rare species will turn out to be widespread. The new Nanay River Protected Area in northern Peru is a good start, but our findings suggest there is much more to be done. Luckily, mapping and protecting these unique ecosystems could be achieved in months rather than decades given the tools we describe."

Higgins adds that conservation should be more focused on protecting the great variety of the world's ecosystems, instead of simply pursuing protection of charismatic habitats that draw considerably more attention and dollars.

"For me, the aim of conservation planning is to ensure that the full range of ecosystems are represented in protected area systems. Simply protecting the most species-rich, or the most tall and impressive forests will only protect one environment and one set of evolutionary strategies, and this is not the future I am aiming for," he says. "Instead, we should aim to include the full spectrum of ecosystems and evolutionary strategies in our protected areas. I think that this is also a much more compelling strategy than chasing hotspot after hotspot, or simply following political expediency."

Behind the curtain: the Andes

The research doesn't end there: Higgins and colleagues next sought determine how had this happened: how is it that the Amazon ecosystem could shift from one ecosystem to another in some cases within a few hundred meters?

"Based on our results, the geological and biological patterns we see in lowland Amazonia are the result of the uplift of the Andes mountain range, hundreds to thousands of kilometers away. The Andean uplift creates these patterns through its control of drainage patterns in the vast Amazon basin, alternately depositing and eroding massive geological formations. This has happened in three phases spanning 25 million years, all of which contribute to the patterns we see today," says Higgins.

The story begins around 25 million years ago when the Andes began to rise, the geologic uplift created a massive water body across parts of today's Amazon.

"Because these were very low-energy conditions, sediments were able to settle without too much leaching or removal, resulting in a very deep band of fertile sediments called the Pebas Formation," says Higgins. As the Andes continued to rise from 10-5 million years ago, swift-moving rivers appeared, including the Amazon River. But this was a high-energy environment and sediments lost their nutrients, causing "the Pebas Formation [to be] buried beneath a shallow band of low-fertility sediments called the Nauta Formation (in Peru) or the Ica Formation (in Brazil)."

Finally, erosion over the past five million years in western Amazonia has led to the exposure of the Pebas Formation in some regions.

"Put another way, we are looking at two geological formations: the older, underlying, and more fertile Pebas Formation; and the younger, overlying, and poor-soil Nauta Formation. The Nauta Formation sits on top of the Pebas Formation like layers in a cake. Cutting though the top layer (Nauta Formation) exposes the layer beneath (Pebas Formation). When this happens we get clear discontinuities between the two formations, and thus clear differences in soils and plants," explains Higgins.

Saving the Amazon Rainforest

January 16, 2012
Source: The Scientist

Over $100 million in international donations means the Yasuní ITT Initiative, Ecuador’s plan to avoid drilling for oil beneath a pristine Amazonian rainforest, will go forward. The Yasuní project is designed to conserve one of Earth’s most biodiverse forests, above Yasuní National Park’s Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfields, while preventing 410 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, ScienceInsider reported.

Yasuní-funded projects are planned to head off global warming in several ways—by preventing the destruction of rainforest and through reforestation projects (because forests will absorb CO2 already in the atmosphere, and the burning of fossil fuels (which would reduce CO2 emissions). By conserving part of Ecuador’s rainforest, the initiative would also preserve the livelihoods and territory of two isolated indigenous tribes.

The Yasuní ITT Initiative relies on annual donations world-wide, and the recent $100 million means the project is on track for now. And the project now has a new goal of raising $219 billion in the next 2 years. Oil currently dominates Ecuador’s export revenue, and environmental observers hope that Yasuní could be one step toward helping wean Ecuador off its reliance on oil.

Amazon shifting to carbon emitter, says experts

January 19 2012
Source: Independent Online

Paris - The Amazon Basin, traditionally considered a bulwark against global warming, may be becoming a net contributor of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a result of deforestation, researchers said on Wednesday.

In an overview published in the journal Nature, scientists led by Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts say the Amazon is “in transition” as a result of human activity.

Over 50 years, the population has risen from six million to 25 million, triggering massive land clearance for logging and agriculture, they said.

The Amazon's carbon budget - the amount of CO2 that it releases into the atmosphere or takes from it - is changing although it is hard to estimate accurately, they said.

“Deforestation has moved the net basin-wide budget away from a possible late 20th-century net carbon sink and towards a net source,” according to their paper.

Mature forests such as the Amazon are big factors in the global-warming equation.

Their trees suck up CO2 from the atmosphere through the natural process of photosynthesis.

But when they rot or are burned, or the forest land is ploughed up, the carbon is returned to the air, adding to the greenhouse effect.

The paper estimates that the biomass of the Amazon contains a whopping 100 billion tonnes of carbon - the equivalent of more than 10 years of global fossil-fuel emissions.

Global warming, unleashing weather shifts, could release some of this store, it warned.

“Much of the Amazon forest is resilient to seasonal and moderate drought, but this resilience can and has been exceeded with experimental and natural severe droughts, indicating a risk of carbon loss if drought increases with climate change.”

The paper also noted that there had been extreme droughts and floods on the Tocantins and Araguaia basins, whose rivers drain the heavily deforested Cerado region.

“Where deforestation is widespread at local and regional scales, the dry season duration is lengthening and wet season discharge is increasing,” it warned. - Sapa-AFP

Colonization program remains important driver of deforestation in Brazil

January 10, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Government-subsidized colonization of the Amazon rainforest remains an important driver of forest loss in Brazil, but has mixed economic value, argues a paper published in Biological Conservation.

Carlos Peres and Maurício Schneider review the environmental and socioeconomic costs of Brazil's agrarian resettlement schemes, which have run from the 1970s as part an effort to to encourage migration from densely settled areas to low population regions. The largest, run by the Institute for Rural Settlement and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), has moved nearly a million families to settlements encompassing 85.8 million hectares of mostly forest land. The impact on forests has been substantial — by 2004 15 percent of all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had occurred in INCRA areas. The proportion has since climbed, with some INCRA settlements reaching 70 percent forest loss.

Settlers tend to clear forest because they "are typically unfamiliar with local farming practices and are often deprived of appropriate technical assistance, which contribute to the high rate of lot abandonment and turnover, and subsequent demand for new lots," according to Peres and Schneider. Furthermore the price of land typically increases after clearing, leading settlers "to to sell their land and move on, [which] helps perpetuate the uprooting cycle of ‘land disposal’ in which farmers fail to look after what will not be theirs for long."

But while the programs drive deforestation, the economic benefits for settlers are less than clear, according to the authors.

"The environmental and monetary costs associated with these resettlement schemes are rarely outweighed by the socioeconomic benefits accrued to translocated farmers," they write. "At an average start-up resettlement cost of at least US$12,000 per family, this is an expensive development program."

From a macroeconomic standpoint, this strategic investment policy is highly questionable. Brazil was the first tropical country to join the traditional 'big five' breadbaskets, but this 'agricultural revolution' was largely spearheaded by large rather than small properties. Only 8% of the country’s 5.2 million farms are relatively large landholdings (>100 ha) but they earn 52.5% of the overall farm income. This highlights the sociopolitical polarity between highly productive large corporate farms and myriads of relatively inefficient smallholdings.

In other words, the programs are failing to meet their policy goals, argue the authors, who say that instead of improving the lot of small farmers, they have "condemned thousands of smallholders to persistent rural poverty." Performance of the schemes is undermined by poor land-tenure governance and poor design and execution.

Thus Peres and Schneider conclude with a call to limit new agricultural settlements to previously deforested areas that are presently used for low-yield cattle pasture; improved law enforcement and forest monitoring programs; and a "truly integrated policy framework" that reconciles conflicting policy goals between different government sectors.

"Above all," write Peres and Schneider, "both a reorganization of land-tenure law enforcement in settler destination regions and curbing the outflow of migrants from source regions will be central to improving the dismal environmental record of land redistribution policy in Brazil."

Trees stolen from Brazilian Amazon

03 Jan 2012
Source: Cool Earth

Huge rafts of cedar logs were captured by Brazilian authorities as they were being floated down the river Javari towards the main Amazon. According to Brazil's Federal Police, these logs had been cut illegally within Brazilian territory by Peruvian loggers.

The river Javari empties out into the Amazon itself (actually called the rio Solimões in this stretch) at a point known as the three-way frontier - where Brazil, Colombia and Peru meet. The police suggest that the lumber was destined for Islândia, a Peruvian frontier island outpost on the Solimões. Here, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the suggestion is that it would have been processed into timber for export. From here it would need to travel with the necessary paperwork.

The usual route for this illegal timber is reported by O Globo to be with Mexican boats into the northern hemisphere. Evidently, two such boats were discovered smuggling cocaine in recent months, so the police suspect that the illegal logging and the cocaine smuggling are a linked operation. If true, then the need for Peruvian gangs to find ways to smuggle cocaine is adding value to the trees and putting pressure on the forest.

Brazil's Amazon Fund bogs down, donors frustrated

14 Jan 2012
Source: Reuters AlertNet

An aerial view of soy plantations flanking the Amazon forest in Mato Grosso September 8, 2011. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

BRASILIA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - An international fund to protect the Amazon forest launched by Brazil in 2008 has gotten bogged down in red tape and donors are frustrated their $466 million contributions are hardly put to use, a Norwegian official said.

The fund was designed to slow deforestation by stimulating sustainable economic alternatives to cattle ranching and farming, which have destroyed parts of the forests.

So far Brazil has only used $39 million on 23 sustainable growth projects, with another $53 million under contract. This poor performance has weakened Brazil's voice as a leading advocate for the protection of the developing world's forests with funding from rich nations.

A government official from Norway, the fund's largest donor, told Reuters in Brasilia that his country is unhappy with Brazil's slow pace in identifying new projects, which has raised questions about the use of the funds in Brazil, where they are managed by the state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).

The source, who asked not to be named, said the funds contracted by the BNDES dropped by half between 2010 and 2011. This has discouraged other potential donors from committing funds, the source said.

Rich from offshore oil, Norway has dominated projects to safeguard rainforests as part of a U.N.-led goal of slowing climate change. Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow and release them when they are burnt or rot.

Norway pledged $1 billion to the Amazon Fund and has donated $418 million to date. Unused funds are deposited in the Norwegian Central Bank.

Germany has donated $27.2 million and Brazil's state-owned oil giant Petrobras has given $4.2 million.

Conservationists say the BNDES has stymied projects with paperwork and endless meetings. Erika Nakazono, who runs a project for a social map of the communities living in the Amazon, said it took 19 months to get approval and some researchers quit because of the delay.

"The bureaucracy is very difficult. At one point I wondered whether all the effort was worth it," Nakazono said.

The BNDES official heading the bank's deforestation control department, Mauro Pires, admitted that the fund is not working as well as donors hoped.

"People wanted things done faster and to cover a wider range (of projects)," Pires told Reuters. He said the fund was a pioneering venture and procedures were still being worked out.

"We are working to create projects that go the heart of the deforestation problem," he said.

Destruction of the Brazilian portion of the world's largest rainforest fell to its lowest in 23 years in 2011, due to the adoption of a tougher stance against illegal logging, the Brazilian government said in December.

Deforestation dropped last year to less than a quarter of the forest area destroyed in 2004, when clear-cutting by farmers expanding their cattle and soy operations reached a recent peak.

Brazil's Senate passed a forestry law in December that environmentalists say would set back conservation efforts. (Editing by Anthony Boadle and Stacey Joyce)

As Amazon deforestation falls, food production rises

January 9, 2012
Source: mongabay.com

Soy and forest in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

A sharp drop in deforestation has been accompanied by an increase in food production in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, reports a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The research argues that policy interventions, combined with pressure from environmental groups, have encouraged agricultural expansion in already-deforested areas, rather than driving new forest clearing.

Marcia Macedo of Columbia University and colleagues analyzed trends in deforestation and soy production from 2001-2010 in Mato Grosso, a state on Brazil's agricultural frontier where more than a third of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon has occurred since the 1980s. They found that during the first half of the decade about 26 percent of increased soy production was the result of cropland expansion into forest areas, accounting for about 10 percent of total deforestation during the period. During the second half of the decade (2006-2010), soy expansion amounted to only 2 percent of deforestation. 91 percent of the production increase in the late 2000s occurred on previously cleared cattle pasture. Surprisingly, the researchers found little evidence of "leakage" whereby soy expansion was displaced from forest areas to the savanna-like cerrado.

The authors say the decline coincides with several trends and developments, including "fluctuations in commodity markets and the implementation of several high-profile policy initiatives aimed at restricting credit for deforesters, improving monitoring and enforcement, and excluding deforesters from the supply chains of major exporters." Notably, the 2005-2010 period included a prominent campaign by Greenpeace, an international environmental activist group, which pressured major soy crushers and traders to adopt a "moratorium" on new forest clearing for soybeans; the "blacklisting" of high deforestation municipalities, which restricted access to credit and subsidies; and the launch of a near-real-time satellite-based deforestation tracking system which facilitated a crackdown on corruption in the environmental enforcement agency IBAMA and other agencies.

The authors argue these factors helped mitigate forest clearing for soya once commodity prices recovered in the aftermath of the worst of the global financial crisis.

"The land-use transitions observed during the postboom period—and the case of 2009 in particular—suggest that when market conditions favored expansion, producers expanded into areas previously cleared for pasture rather than forest areas. These patterns are consistent with the outcomes expected by many of the recent policy interventions, providing some support for the hypothesis that they have helped to suppress deforestation."

The results seem to offer hope that the combination of private and public sector initiatives have the potential to disaggregate agricultural production from deforestation. But the authors nonetheless warn against complacency. They note that increased investment in infrastructure projects and new technologies will make larger areas of Amazon forests accessible for intensive agricultural production, while proposed reform of the Forest Code which limits how much land a property-holder is allowed to clear, could undermine some of the policy gains for forest conservation.

Macedo and colleagues suggest that policies which encourage more efficient use of degraded, non-forest land could help meet future demand for food, without destroying forests.

"Our results suggest that preventing deforestation over the long term will require parallel efforts to modernize the cattle sector and create strong new policy incentives that promote efficient use of degraded lands," they write. "Recent efforts to model Brazil’s low-carbon development alternatives indicate that the implementation of existing technologies to restore degraded lands and increase pasture productivity could free enough additional land to accommodate projected growth through 2030, although achieving this would be challenging and require substantial private and public investments."

Reversal of Fortune

January 9, 2012
Source: New Yorker

Texaco managed oil extraction in the Oriente region of Ecuador for twenty-three years. When Chevron acquired the company, in 2001, it inherited a lawsuit over environmental damage. Photograph by Remi Benali.

The jungle outpost of Lago Agrio is in northeastern Ecuador, where the elevation plummets from the serrated ridge of the Andes to the swampy lowlands of the Amazon Basin. Ecuadorans call the region the Oriente. For centuries, the rain forest was inhabited only by indigenous tribes. But, in 1967, American drillers working for Texaco discovered that two miles beneath the jungle floor lay abundant reserves of crude oil. For twenty-three years, a consortium of companies, led by Texaco, drilled wells throughout the Ecuadoran Amazon. Initially, the jungle was so impenetrable that the consortium had to fly in equipment by helicopter. But laborers hacked paths with machetes, and, eventually, Texaco paved roads and built an airport.

Today, Lago Agrio feels squalid. The buildings look thrown together, as if no one had believed that the boom might last. Stray dogs prowl the dusty streets, and a slender oil pipeline snakes alongside each major road, elevated on stilts, waist high, like an endless bannister. The Colombian border is ten miles to the north, and drug traffickers and paramilitaries have infested the Oriente, as have sicarios—paid assassins—who post ads online and charge as little as twenty dollars. In 2010, in a single month, the bodies of thirty murder victims were found along a stretch of road near the border.

One day last February, a judge in Lago Agrio, presiding over a spare, concrete courtroom in a shopping mall on the edge of town, issued an opinion that reverberated far beyond the Amazon. Since 1993, a group of Ecuadorans had been pursuing an apparently fruitless legal struggle to hold Texaco responsible for environmental destruction in the Oriente. During the decades when Texaco operated there, the lawsuit maintained, it dumped eighteen billion gallons of toxic waste. When the company ceased operations in Ecuador, in 1992, it allegedly left behind hundreds of open pits full of malignant black sludge. The harm done by Texaco, the plaintiffs contended, could be measured in cancer deaths, miscarriages, birth defects, dead livestock, sick fish, and the near-extinction of several tribes; Texaco’s legacy in the region amounted to a “rain-forest Chernobyl.”

By the time the judge, Nicolás Zambrano, issued his decision, the case had been going on for eighteen years. It had outlasted jurists on two continents. Zambrano was the sixth judge to preside in Ecuador; one federal judge in New York had died before he could rule on the case. The litigation even outlasted Texaco: in 2001, the company was subsumed by Chevron, which inherited the lawsuit. The dispute is now considered one of the nastiest legal contests in memory, a spectacle almost as ugly as the pollution that prompted it.

Chevron, which operates in more than a hundred countries, is America’s third-largest corporation. Its annual revenue, which often tops two hundred billion dollars, is nearly four times as much as Ecuador’s economic output. The plaintiffs, who named themselves the afectados—the affected ones—included indigenous people and uneducated settlers in the Oriente; some of them initially signed documents in the case with a fingerprint. They were represented by a fractious coalition of American and Ecuadoran lawyers, most of whom were working for contingency fees. An environmental lawsuit against a major corporation can resemble a war of attrition, and in 1993 few observers would have predicted that the plaintiffs could endure as long as they did. But, on February 14, 2011, their persistence was rewarded. Judge Zambrano ruled that Chevron was responsible for vast contamination, and ordered it to pay eighteen billion dollars in damages—the largest judgment ever awarded in an environmental lawsuit.

It was an extraordinary triumph, particularly for one of the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers, a tenacious American named Steven Donziger, who had been a key figure in the case since its inception. Donziger speaks Spanish, and for years has shuttled between Ecuador and New York. “This trial is historic,” he has said. “This is the first time that a small developing country has had power over a multinational American company.”

Chevron categorically denies the charges made in the lawsuit, insisting that it bears no responsibility for pollution in the Amazon and that Texaco’s operations were “completely in line with the standards of the day.” A Chevron spokesman told me that “there is no corroborating evidence” of adverse health effects related to oil development in the Oriente, and blamed “trial lawyers” for “perpetuating false information.”

In recent years, Chevron has invested millions of dollars in remolding its public image. Elegant television commercials, narrated by the actor Campbell Scott, emphasize that the company aims to “practice and espouse conservation.” A print advertisement features a photograph of two smiling African women, and the caption “Oil Companies Should Support the Communities They’re a Part Of.” This fall, at a breakfast discussion on “Business and Human Rights,” in New York, Chevron’s manager for global issues, Silvia Garrigo, said that the company makes “social investments” wherever it operates, noting, “We’re in countries for the long haul.”

In the courtroom, however, Chevron has been far less conciliatory. Not long ago, after the company successfully defeated a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for the shooting deaths of protesters on an offshore oil platform in Nigeria, it tried to compel the impoverished Nigerian plaintiffs, some of whom were widows or children, to reimburse its attorneys’ fees. (No fees were awarded, and a judge admonished Chevron for trying.) “That’s how they litigate,” Bert Voorhees, one of the Nigerians’ lawyers, told me. “The point is to scare off the next community that might try to assert its human rights.”

Chevron has been especially defiant in the face of the Lago Agrio accusations, which its lawyers have labelled “a shakedown.” In addition to defending itself in Ecuador, it has fought the case in more than a dozen U.S. federal courts, hiring hundreds of lawyers and producing what its own attorneys have called “an avalanche of paper.” Donziger has maintained that Chevron is motivated not merely by fear of an adverse judgment but by a desire “to destroy the very idea that indigenous people can bring an environmental lawsuit against an oil company.” In 2008, a Chevron lobbyist in Washington told Newsweek, “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this.” One Chevron spokesman has said, “We’re going to fight this until Hell freezes over—and then we’ll fight it out on the ice.”

The fight to stop deforestation in the Amazon

04 January 2012
Source: Radio Times


I met up with the special ops team in a sultry town on the southern edge of the Amazon. A group of officers, men and women, in black fatigues were relaxing in the shade of a majestic mango tree outside their offices.

They were smoking, chatting and, I noticed with a shiver of apprehension, carrying heavy black pistols slung casually on their thighs. Not what you’d imagine environment agents to carry, but these weren’t bureaucrats carrying clipboards – they were soldiers on the front line in what Brazil regards as a war, a war to protect the Amazon rainforest.

On a map pinned to the wall three commanders were working out strategies and logistics, just like a military operation. I was starting to feel anxious. “Are the loggers likely to be armed?” I asked, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

“Don’t worry about guns,” Evandro Selva, the lead officer, told me dismissively. “They’re only likely to have hunting rifles. Nothing serious.”

Nothing serious?

Tide of destruction

For decades pretty much the only story we’ve heard from the Amazon is about the remorseless tide of destruction sweeping through the forest. The received wisdom has always been that it is unstoppable. It is certainly true that the economic logic of deforestation is powerful – land in the Amazon is worth far more if the trees are cut down. But I was here to discover the remarkable progress Brazil has made in silencing the chain saws.

My journey was to take me across the southern Amazon, the area the Brazilians call “the arc of destruction”. It is one of the last frontiers left on the planet: a grey area between civilisation and one of the world’s last true wildernesses.

For years it was a vision of hell. Vast fires swept through the forest while the chain saws whined, and the armoured tractors that loggers use to clear land roared as they grubbed up the roots of the great Amazonian trees.

As I set off with Evandro and his team, we could see the fruits of all this labour from our helicopter. We flew over vast open fields – some of them many kilometres square – that have been carved out of the virgin forest in the last decade or so.

Loggers flee the scene

An hour into our flight and Evandro signalled that we were nearing the target. Even I could tell the trees had been freshly cut. There were some still standing – tall, fragile-looking Brazil nut trees – but on the ground were great rough mounds of branches and brush. I could see open scars in the red earth where the machines had gouged their passage.

One of the officers pointed down. I saw a truck piled high with tree trunks and a tractor in front of it. Beside it were two, possibly three men.

The helicopter kicked up a storm of dust and dry leaves. The rotors seemed perilously close to the trees. I hung on tight. Then we were on the ground and running. The truck and tractor were still there but, of course, the culprits had fled. “They’ll be back,” said Evandro confidently. “We’ll just hide here and wait for them.”

The three officers hid among the logs and branches. I did the same. Meanwhile the helicopter flew off in another flurry of leaves and red earth.

Making progress

How can this possibly stop the onslaught, I thought to myself. In the decade between 1996 and 2005 19,500km2 of jungle was lost every single year. I know the comparison is overused but that really is an area the size of Wales. It reached a peak in 2003 when more than 27,000km2 was lost. Then, in 2004, Brazil declared war: it said it would cut deforestation by 80 per cent by 2020.

Seven years later and it has almost reached its goal. The latest figures, released just weeks ago, show the year ending July 2011 had the lowest rates of deforestation since records began three decades ago – just over 6,200km2 was cut. That’s 78 per cent down on 2004: still an area about the size of Devon, but a huge improvement.

Of course the Brazilian government cannot claim all the credit. On my journey across the arc of destruction I met a bizarre cast of characters, all of whom are playing a role.

Allies

I went on patrol with the indigenous Amazonian Indians who have been recruited as “smoke jumpers”: forest fire-fighters. I was taken on a tour of one of the most efficient agricultural enterprises on the planet – an Amazonian soya farm – by the multibillionaire they call the “King of Soya” who now claims to be an environmentalist.

I even visited a condom factory in the jungle. It makes the world’s first rainforest-friendly rubbers – tens of millions of them – and is helping to create a sustainable industry from the forest by using latex harvested from wild rubber trees.

And I met John Carter, the Texan crocodile-wrestling ex-US Special Forces soldier turned Amazonian rancher, whose alliance of farmers is using the politics of persuasion to improve land management. John is very persuasive. I’m still amazed he managed to get me to swim with the crocodile in the river beside his ranch.

The crocodile in question was at least 6ft long, a black cayman, the largest predator in the Amazon. It was floating very still a dozen feet away but he assured me it would not attack. It was only once we were in the water that I thought to ask what we should do if the beast dived. “Get out quick,” he said.

Arrests

Back at the logging site I was still hunched in the bushes. We’d been waiting half an hour when I heard a branch snap and suddenly the officers were up and running. “Para ai, para ai,” they shouted [stop right there].

In all, the officers arrested five men and impounded three trucks and two tractors. I’d been so nervous about confronting these guys but they seemed rather pathetic smoking roll-ups in their scruffy clothes. The agents, however, seemed very content with their haul.

The fact that there is still an illegal logging operation just an hour’s helicopter ride from a major Brazilian city shows that the huge pressure on the forest continues. But, extraordinary as it sounds, it really does seem as if the war to stop the destruction of Amazon rainforest – the greatest ecosystem on the planet – is being won.

What’s more, this is happening before it is too late, because what most people don’t realise is just how much of the forest is still standing. Satellite images confirm that almost 80 per cent of the Amazon remains intact. What an inspiring thought to begin the new year.

Chevron ordered to pay for Amazon damage

January 04, 2012
Source: ABC Online

A court in Ecuador has upheld a 2011 ruling requiring US oil giant Chevron to pay $US9.5 billion for environmental damage in the Amazon rainforest.

The landmark ruling for environment management costs dates back to a 1993 suit against Texaco, a firm later acquired by Chevron.

Ecuador alleges that Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest.

The top regional court in Sucumbios province, in north-eastern Ecuador, fully upheld the February 2011 ruling against Chevron of $US8.6 billion ($8.3 billion) with an additional 10 per cent for environment management costs, a judicial source said.

The original ruling also ordered Chevron "to publicly apologise to the victims" or pay twice the stated amount.

Chevron, the second-largest energy company in the United States, has not apologised.

In the south-western city of Guayaquil, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa said he was satisfied by the ruling.

"I believe justice has been done - the damage that Chevron did in the Amazon basin region is undeniable," Mr Correa said.

'Corrupt and fraudulent'

In a statement, Chevron lashed out at the ruling.

The decision was "another glaring example of the politicisation and corruption of Ecuador's judiciary that has plagued this fraudulent case from the start," Chevron said.

The company attacked the judgment as "illegitimate" and "procured through a corrupt and fraudulent scheme".

Chevron "does not believe that the Ecuador ruling is enforceable in any court that observes the rule of law. The company will continue to seek to hold accountable the perpetrators of this fraud."

The firm said it was also attempting to prevent enforcement of the ruling at an international tribunal and in US courts.

The lawsuit on behalf of Ecuadoran Amazon communities was originally filed in New York in 1993.

Separately, some of the original plaintiffs also are appealing, claiming that the amount Chevron was ordered to pay was insufficient.

Chevron has long claimed the Ecuadoran legal process was tainted.