New highways drive accelerating deforestation in Amazonia
In today's issue of (21 May 2004), a team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists show that the rate of forest destruction has accelerated significantly in Brazilian Amazonia since 1990. The team asserts, moreover, that Amazonian deforestation will likely continue to increase unless the Brazilian government alters its aggressive plans for highway and infrastructure expansion....... "The recent defore...Oil exploitation in Ecuador's Amazon basin produces a 'public health emergency'
......Exploring for oil and extracting it from the Amazon region of northeastern Ecuador has boosted the country's income over the last several decades, but it has also resulted in a "public health emergency" due to the negative effects on the local environment and on the health of persons who live in the petroleum-production areas. That is according to an English-language article published in t...Undisturbed Amazonian forests are changing, say scientists
A research team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists has shown that rainforests in central Amazonia are experiencing striking changes in dynamics and species composition. Although the cause of these changes-in what are believed to be completely undisturbed, old-growth forests-is uncertain, a leading explanation is that they are being driven by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. .........Astonishing discovery over the Amazonian rain forest
Isoprene, an organic compound generated in large quantities by natural vegetation, was originally thought not to be involved in producing atmospheric aerosols. It has now been found to be a potentially major player in this process. An international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, Mainz, Germany, the University of Antwerp, Belgium, the Ghent University, Belgium, and...WCS receives $8M grant from Moore Foundation to protect Amazon-Andes landscapes
NEW YORK (JAN 22, 2004) The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society announced that it has received a grant of nearly $8 million from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation to protect more than 85,000 square miles of habitat in tropical South America. ...The three-year grant will fund ongoing projects to safeguard a wide range of habitats in five South American countries, ranging from a spectac...Professor uses satellites to protect Amazon forests, global climate
The Amazon is the world's largest rain forest and home to an untold number of species and natural resources. It also provides a vital means for removing an important greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. All of this is in danger, as the Amazon is rapidly shrinking....... Greg Asner, a faculty scientist with the Carnegie Institution at Stanford, is working with a multinational team to reverse this t...State of Amazonas safeguards world's richest biodiversity with six new protected areas
Durban, South Africa Sept. 10, 2003 The state government of Amazonas, Brazil announced today the creation of six new protected areas covering 3.8 million hectares of the world's most biodiversity-rich territory. The new areas cover a region the size of Belgium or Costa Rica and bring the state's overall protected area coverage to more than 40 percent.... ...Amazona's Secretary of Sustainable De...Long-term study of humans and deforestation in Amazon Basin gets new support
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A long-term study of human population and deforestation in the dwindling Amazon rainforest, conducted by anthropologist Emilio Moran and his colleagues at Indiana University Bloomington, is continuing with the support of a new $1.63 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development....... Among its goals, the comprehensive study of 952...Amazon wildfires contribute to carbon problem
More trees are dying following forest fires in the Amazon than was previously thought according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Trees that initially appear to survive fires, such as those caused by El Nio, are in fact dying two to three years later, increasing carbon emissions and causing further loss of Amazonian vegetation. Dr Barlow of UEA's School of Environmental S...Study predicts Amazon deforestation could affect climate in US
DURHAM, N.C. -- New mathematical simulations of climate behavior by Duke University researchers indicate that deforestation in the Amazon can cause a reduction of rainfall in the Midwestern United States and the Dakotas in the summer, when precipitation is most needed for agriculture. ... "What this suggests is that if you mess up the planet at one point, the impact could have far-reaching effect...New Amazon forest monitoring team: RAINFOR
Global climate change predictions and greenhouse gas models desperately need to be tested in the Amazon, home of 45% of the world's tropical forest. The Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR), representing nearly fifty researchers from five Amazonian countries, Europe and the U.S., is a new effort to monitor biomass and dynamics of forests across the entire Amazon basin.... ...South American...Worlds largest rain forest national park created in Northern Amazon
Washington, D.C. (August 22, 2002) The government of Brazil announced today the creation of the largest rain forest national park in the world. Conservation International (CI) served as a lead non-governmental advisor for the park's creation, and will continue to provide financial and technical support. ... ...The Tumucumaque Mountains National Park covers 9,562,770 acres (3,870,000 hectares) o...Amazonian devastation: Common sense quantified to predict disaster
Threats to Amazonian forests are no news, but a team led by William F. Laurance of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute pinpoints specific causes of forest destruction in hopes of stemming the tide. Human population density, distance to the nearest highway and dry season severity best predict the extent of deforestation, the group rep...Young Amazonian manatee returned to wild
FORT PIERCE, FL., March 8, 2002 - A baby manatee that was at one time bottle-fed by Colombian soldiers is back in the Colombian Amazon after almost three years of care and rehabilitation, thanks in part to the efforts of a HARBOR BRANCH scientist and a unique conservation outreach program. ...... The Amazonian manatee, named Airuwe by his caretakers, was only a few months old when he became t...Long term lessons from Amazonia
A new book features results from one of the longest ongoing studies of forest fragmentation in the Amazon, the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments project, a joint effort of Brazil's National Institute for Research in Amazonia and the U.S. Smithsonian Institution.... ...The book, Lessons from Amazonia: the ecology and conservation of a fragmented forest, published by Yale University Press and...Panama City, Panama. Leading authorities on Amazonian ecology and conservation will gather at the headquarters of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) on January 29, 2002,for a half-day symposium entitled "The Future of the Amazon: Impacts of Deforestation and Climate Change". Dr. Cristian Samper, Acting Director at STRI, and Dr. Eric Dinerstein, Chief Scientist at the World Wildlif...Smithsonian researchers show Amazonian deforestation accelerating
A research team of U.S. and Brazilian scientists has provided compelling evidence that rates of forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon have accelerated over the last decade....... The team, led by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, analyzed deforestation estimates produced by Brazils National Space Agency that were based on detailed satellite images of the Amazo...Amazon rainforest could be unsustainable within a decade
...Edinburgh, Scotland -- Talk of saving the rainforests is as burned into the collective minds of people as refrains to "Save the Whales" and to "Make Love, Not War." Without action, however, the day when there are no tropical rainforests to talk about could come a lot sooner than people think, according to a Penn State Abington researcher. ... Working from his office on campus, James (Bud).... . Eloy Rodriguez, professor of environmental studies at Cornell University, will speak at the 221st national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, on natural organic chemicals found in the Amazon. The meeting will be held April 1-5 in San Diego, Calif.. . Rodriguez' remarks, part of the ACS eminent scientist lecture series, will highlight the in...Conservation battle faces long odds in Brazilian Amazon
. A $40 billion onslaught of highways, railroads, hydroelectric projects and burgeoning population is overwhelming current efforts to promote conservation in the Amazon Forest of Brazil. If left unchecked, it will soon destroy the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth, experts say. . A new study to be published Friday in the journal Science shows that the well-intentioned conservation programs...Amazon roads may lead to peril for rainforest
. . . EAST LANSING, Mich. - Brazil may call its plan to carve roads through the fragile Amazon rainforest "Advance Brazil," but a study published in this week's Science shows that the plan's long-term environmental impact could make it a leap backwards.. . Using satellite data to paint detailed pictures of the impact of past development, MSU researcher Mark Cochrane and others have...Amazon rainforest field research facility opens for ecological, global change studies
.A new field research facility in the Amazon rainforest sponsored by NASA and the Brazilian government will be completed this month as part of an experiment to study the region's impact on global change and develop information for sustainable resource management solutions. Extensive ecological field studies get underway this summer during the region's dry season.. .First-of-a-kind experiments on...Even in the Amazon jungles, treatment for heat exhaustion is the same as it is right here at home
.LOS ANGELES (August 18, 1999) -- If you're going to be sitting in a metal boat.on a sun-drenched lake an hour's hike from the Amazon River, it's a good idea to.take along plenty of fluids and possibly a doctor or two.. ."It's hot and very humid. It's hard to get a good evaporative cooling process.going," says Mary L. Hardy, M.D., director of the Integrative Medicine Medical.Group at Cedars-Sin...Summer Science: Where Have All The Honeybees Gone? UD 'Bee Guy' Asks Why--From America To The Amazon
.If the backyard isn't buzzing this summer, blame it on deadly mites and the.diseases they carry, says Dewey Caron, the University of Delaware's resident.'bee guy,' who braves apiaries from America to the Amazon, and most recently .joined a team investigating startling honeybee losses in the northeastern United.States. .Golden honeybees are essential for pollinating wild plants, as well as up to...