WATCH THIS VIDEO ON "FLYING RIVERS" http://youtu.be/jT0FgvjRthY AND READ THE REPORT FROM BBC ON WATER CRISIS IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

Brazil in 'worst water crisis' [reproduced from BBC News]

Watch video on FLYING RIVERS, to understand what is happening to the water cycle on Brazilian territory: http://youtu.be/jT0FgvjRthY

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira has said the country's three most populous states are experiencing their worst drought since 1930.

The states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais must save water, she said after an emergency meeting in the capital Brasilia.

Ms Teixeira described the water crisis as "delicate" and "worrying".

Industry and agriculture are expected to be affected, further damaging Brazil's troubled economy.

The drought is also having an impact on energy supplies, with reduced generation from hydroelectric dams.

'Poor planning'

The BBC's Julia Carneiro in Rio de Janeiro says Brazil is supposed to be in the middle of its rainy season but there has been scant rainfall in the south-east and the drought shows no sign of abating.

The crisis comes at a time of high demand for energy, with soaring temperatures in the summer months.

"Since records for Brazil's south-eastern region began 84 years ago, we have never seen such a delicate and worrying situation," said Ms Teixeira.

Her comments came at the end of a meeting with five other ministers at the presidential palace in Brasilia to discuss the drought.

The crisis began in Sao Paulo, where hundreds of thousands of residents have been affected by frequent cuts in water supplies, our correspondent says.

The city's Cantareira reservoir system, which serves over eight million people, has now dropped to 5.2% of its capacity despite recent rain, Brazil's TV Globo reported.

Accumulated rainfall in the area of Cantareira is said to be only 33.5% of that predicted for the month, Globo's G1 news site added.

Sao Paulo state suffered similar serious drought problems last year.

Governor Geraldo Alckmin has taken several measures, such as raising charges for high consumption levels, offering discounts to those who reduce use, and limiting the amounts captured by industries and agriculture from rivers.

But critics blame poor planning and politics for the worsening situation.

Political opponents say the state authorities failed to respond quickly enough to the crisis because Mr Alckmin did not want to alarm people as he was seeking re-election in October 2014, allegations he disputes.

In Rio de Janeiro state, the main water reservoir has dropped to level zero for the first time since it was built.

Environment Secretary Andre Correa acknowledged that the state was experiencing "the worst water crisis in its history".

But he said there was enough water in other reservoirs to avoid rationing in Rio de Janeiro for at least another six months.

Mr Correa described the situation in Sao Paulo as "infinitely worse".

However, Rio and Minas Gerais are asking residents and industries to reduce water consumption by as much as 30%.

BBC © 2015

"ECOTOURISM" SEEMS TO BE A GOOD ECONOMICAL ALTERNATIVE TO LOCALS IN THE AMAZON

Brazil's tribal groups adopt tourism

[Reproduced from BBC News]

Sitting quietly in the corner of the wooden hut, wearing a crown made from bright blue feathers, the elder - or paje - of a small tribal village in the Amazon rainforest looks on.

His face is painted with the crushed red seed of the urucum fruit, and he carries a wooden staff decked with white downy feathers.

Nearby, one of the younger members of the village checks his mobile phone.

This is the somewhat incongruous life inside the Tupe reserve, home to 40 members of the Dessana tribe, and located 15 miles (24km) up the Rio Negro river from Manaus, the capital of Brazil's vast Amazon region.

The tribe originates from more than 600 miles further upstream, in remote north-western Brazil, but three decades ago nine members moved down river to Tupe, to be near Manaus, a modern city of two million people.

They decided on the relocation so they could get away from subsistence farming and fishing, and instead explore easier, or more lucrative, ways to make a living.

Eventually they chose to go into tourism, and commercialising their culture.

Yet while they continue to be successful in doing this, some commentators remain concerned that the Tupe villagers, and other such tribal groups which have gone into tourism, are at risk of being exploited.

Former farmers

Today the residents of Tupe put on traditional music and dance performances for tourists and sell their homemade jewellery to visitors.

"We started doing tourist activities 13 years ago," said Jose Maria, 37, the son of the paje, and whose tribal name Diakuru means "being who drinks water".

He adds: "We used to farm [a food crop called] cassava, and fish, to survive, but it's better for us to work with tourism here, and go to Manaus to buy our goods."

Visitors to the village are invited into a large hut lined with benches, and greeted by members of the tribe, both men and women, wearing feather headdresses, body paint and garlands of leaves.

After putting on a dance performance, the villagers then invite spectators to try to do some of the moves themselves. The tourists are also urged to ask questions about the culture of the Dessana tribe.

Revenue share issue

Most visits to tribal villages such as Tupe are part of a wider package boat tour to and from Manaus, which became much better known internationally last year after hosting a number of World Cup games.

The tours typically also include tourists seeing the "meeting of the waters", where the black Rio Negro meets the brown Rio Solimoes at Manaus to form the River Amazon, and swimming with the fresh water Amazon river dolphin.

With most visitors paying a fixed fee of around £55 per person for a package tour, the problem for the tribal people - and authorities wishing to help project them - is that there is no industry-wide agreement on what share of the money the villagers should be paid.

Some of the 196 tourism agencies don't pay the tribal groups at all, instead forcing them to rely on selling jewellery, with pieces typically retailing for between four reals ($1.50; £1) and 20 reals ($7.60; £5), or asking for donations.

Pedro Neto, who runs Amazon Eco Adventures, does give the villages a share of his revenues, and he says that regulations need to be introduced to ensure that all tour companies have to do the same. "It needs to be more rigorous," he says.

A Brazilian government agency, the National Indian Foundation, which aims to protect and further the needs of indigenous groups, is indeed now looking at whether such regulations should be enforced.

Environmental impact

In the meantime, to help tribal villages better handle business negotiations with tour firms, a non-government organisation called the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (ASF) runs entrepreneurial programmes for members of such communities.

 

"There's a movement for community-based tourism that is developing a strategy to promote it, and avoid interruption of culture.

"The aim is to ensure that people do respect the local traditions, and ensuring the revenues end up with the local people rather than the tourism agencies."

"If it were me, to have this revenue, I'd have to have well-protected areas, and instead of cutting down the big tree in the forest, I'd take tourists to take photographs with it."

Yet he adds that ensuring tourism revenues are shared fairly remains the main challenge.

"We are trying to find ways to make the communities safe from this," he says.

"But generally speaking, I think we have many more opportunities to have good tourism. I would see more positives."

BBC © 2015

IN U.K.: A POWERFUL "ONE-MAN THINK TANK" WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EMISSION OF 28.6 MILLION TONNES OF CO2

Reproduced from www.theecologist.org

Lord Ridley, a card-carrying member of Britain's 1%, led the Northern Rock bank to collapse. Now he's causing another kind of catastrophe: the coal mined off his Northumberland estate is causing 1% of the UK's CO2 emissions. No wonder he's a climate sceptic!

Lord Ridley is a powerhouse of climate denial in Britain - and a leading contender for the title of Britain's biggest individual carbon polluter.

The self-styled Rational Optimist is an advisor to Lord Lawson's secretly funded charity, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and acts as a one-man think tank to his brother-in-law, the sacked environment secretary Owen Paterson.

At the same time, the landed aristocrat will mine more than 10 million tonnes of coal from open cast mines scattered around his expansive Blagdon Estate in Northumberland during the next five years.

It's the fashion these days to vilify coal as the root of all environmental evil, but I think that's mistaken. Coal and the technologies it spawned made it possible to double human lifespan, end famine, provide electric light and spare forests for nature.

Lord Ridley is a powerhouse of climate denial in Britain - and a leading contender for the title of Britain's biggest individual carbon polluter.

The self-styled Rational Optimist is an advisor to Lord Lawson's secretly funded charity, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and acts as a one-man think tank to his brother-in-law, the sacked environment secretary Owen Paterson.

At the same time, the landed aristocrat will mine more than 10 million tonnes of coal from open cast mines scattered around his expansive Blagdon Estate in Northumberland during the next five years.

Miles King, a conservationist with almost 30 years of professional experience, has used publicly available information to estimate that the coal mined from Ridley's estate will produce 28.6 million tonnes of CO2.

The government has estimated that the UK emitted a total of 570 million tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gasses during 2013. This means Ridley's mines will contribute an estimated 1% of the total annual emissions of a country of 60 million people.

Massive profit, in praise of coal

"I don't know how much profit Ridley is making from his coal but it must be massive", King writes on A New Nature Blog. "As the modern day King Coal, one might suggest Matt Ridley has an extremely large vested interest in stoking climate denial."

Ridley declares an interest in coal when speaking in the House of Lords. He denies being a climate denier, and denies the charge of promoting the coal industry. He claims his arguments support gas rather than coal interests.

However, as King points out, Ridley has been known to defend coal. "It's the fashion these days to vilify coal as the root of all environmental evil, but I think that's mistaken", Ridley writes on his own blog.

"Coal and the technologies it spawned made it possible to double human lifespan, end famine, provide electric light and spare forests for nature.

"Because we get coal out of the ground, we do not have to cut down forests; because we use petroleum we don't have to kill whales for their oil; because we use gas to make fertilizer we don't have to cultivate so much land to feed the world.

"This country can compete with China on the basis of either cheap labour or cheap energy. I know which I'd prefer."

Matt Ridley was also the chairman of the Northern Rock bank from 2004 until its collapse in 2007, after which it was nationalised. In 2013 he was elected as hereditary peer in the House of Lords as a member of the Conservative Party.

Financial benefit unknown - estimated at £13m / year

King's investigation into Ridley's carbon footprint was inspired by reports launched by DeSmog UK just before the New Year where we claimed that the mines around the aristocrat's estate would yield a further £13m a year due to recent planning approvals.

Ridley has so far refused to confirm the exact amount of money he is making from the coal under his family's land, citing commercial confidentiality. "I receive no financial benefit other than a wayleave in exchange for providing access to the land", he toldDeSmog UK.

The Ridley mines are operated by family firm Banks Mining. The coal under the ground is still owned by the British government following nationalisation in 1947, although the Coal Authority charges very little for the extraction and sale of our most valuable and dangerous resource.

Yet, soon Ridley, his miners and the government could be mandated to reveal exactly how much in profits is being made by the Blagdon mines, how much is paid in taxation, and the amount in fees going to the Coal Authority.

The controversial Infrastructure Bill currently going through Parliament will, if passed, make the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) legally binding.

According to the government, "EITI is a global standard ensuring openness and accountability in the management of revenue from natural resources including coal, oil, natural gas, quarrying and mining."

Unburnable coal

The transparency initiative was launched by campaigners concerned about the relationship between major oil companies and corrupt governments around the world.

They believe transparency will allow citizens to fully appreciate how national resources are being sold cheaply by their political elites.

But Britain's support for this initiative could have serious implications for Ridley, when local residents find out exactly how much is being made in profits from the coal on his estate and can test the veracity of his claim to only receive a negligible amount in fees.

A study by academics at University College London (UCL) published in Nature confirms that 80% of the world's coal is 'unburnable' if there is to be any hope of keeping climate change to less than two degrees - and averting catastrophe.

Dr Christophe McGlade, from the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, said: "Policymakers must realise that their instincts to completely use the fossil fuels within their countries are wholly incompatible with their commitments to the 2C goal."

 

---

 

Brendan Montague writes for DeSmogUK. Follow him on Twitter @Brendanmontague.

This article was originally published on DeSmogUK.

 

WILL WE HAVE OUR FRACKING IN THE AMAZON!?

[Reproduced from  www.amazonia.org.br]

Indigenous people who inhabit the region of the Javari Valley, West of Amazonas, fear that the activities of mining companies and oil companies developed near the javary River, on the Peruvian side, cause environmental damage in the Brazilian side in the next two years.

Why such a fuss is that the Federal Government intends to take the role the business plan of a huge block of 19 thousand km², which goes from the North to the South of the Amazon state of Acre, situated between protected areas and indigenous lands of the Javari.

The goal of the operation, according to reports of indigenous leaders, is to open areas for private activities of shale gas, what worries environmentalists and indigenous to the region. That's because the activity requires the introduction of method "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing for extraction.

[...]

Prior to the injection of this chemical cocktail explosions are conducted underground to break the sedimentary rocks. Such explosions, according to the testimony of the co-ordinator of the National Indian Foundation (Funai), Bruno Pereira, are constant and heard for miles around, causing fear among the natives.

[...]

According to Dr Luiz Fernando Scheib (doctor of science in petrology and mineralogy, Federal University of Santa Catarina) notes that Brazil still has no experience in the exploitation of shale gas, natural gas and oil only. This kind of exploitation is, according to the researchers, being studied in Brazil.

[...]

"IYS: INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SOILS", UNITED NATIONS DECLARED

7 JANUARY 2015

 It’s All About Soil

Reproduced from   http://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/twenty-fifteen-declared-the-international-year-of-soils

Soil is vital to the health of both people and the planet. Unfortunately, it is often the most overlooked of all agricultural inputs. The U.N. General Assembly declared 2015 the International Year of Soils (IYS) to increase awareness and understanding of the many important roles of soil.

According to The Land Institute, soil is every bit as non-renewable as oil, and it is essential for human survival. Healthy soil is the foundation for food, fuel, fiber, and medical products, and is a vital part of ecosystems. It stores and filters water, provides resilience to drought, plays an important role in the carbon cycle, and is the foundation of agriculture and food production.

According to plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute Wes Jackson, and farmer and author Wendell Berry, “our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.”

Jackson says we’re plowing through our soil bank account and sending those riches downstream to the ocean. He believes that the loss of topsoil is the single greatest threat to our food supply and to the continued existence of civilization.

The Land Institute is working on the development of mixed-perennial-grain crops to restore the planet’s natural landscape. Since the beginning of agricultural production, one-fourth of the Earth’s surface has been converted for agriculture; and currently, two-thirds of global cropland is used for monocultures and annual crops. These practices are accompanied by widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, altering the soil biota landscape and depleting its health. Perennial crops, agroforestry, intercropping, and other agroecological practices can be more efficient methods, conserving soils, preventing erosion, and protecting water.

“In this new century, farmers will need to produce more from their lands as they have in the past, but with fewer chemicals, fertilizers, and nonrenewable energy sources; all while causing less harm to the soil, water, and surrounding environment,” says Jerry Glover, an agroecologist for the U.S. Agency for International Development and National Geographic emerging explorer.

According the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the synergies between the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) and the IYS are evident: family farmers depend on healthy soils as much as soils depend on them. We need both for a healthy planet and food security.

"We need to support family farmers in order to support soils," said FAO Director-General, Jose Graziano da Silva. "We must manage soils sustainably. There are many ways to do this. Crop diversification, which is used by most of the world’s family farmers, is one of them. This gives time for important nutrients to regenerate. This is only one example of the role family farmers have in producing food, preserving our natural resources, and safeguarding biodiversity."

This year, Food Tank will promote the importance of soil and the objectives of the IYS, which include:

• Raising awareness among civil society and decision makers

• Educating the public about the crucial role soil plays in food security, climate change, adaptation and mitigation, essential ecosystem services, poverty alleviation and sustainable development

• Supporting effective policies and actions for the sustainable management of and protection of soil resources

• Promoting investment in sustainable soil management activities

• Strengthening initiatives in connection with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) process and post-2015 agenda

• Advocating for rapid capacity enhancement for soil information collection and monitoring at all levels

We ALL need and depend on soil. Join Food Tank and support the IYS!

by Danielle Nierenberg and Sarah Small