The first pictures of a huge coral reef system discovered in the Amazon last year have been released by environmental campaigners.
The Amazon Reef is a 9,500 sq km (3,600 sq miles) system of corals, sponges and rhodoliths, Greenpeace says.
The reef is almost 1,000 km (620 miles) long, and is located where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Oil drilling could start in the area if companies obtain permits from the Brazilian government, the group warns.
Amazon Reef: First images of new coral system
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38789009
Nearly one year on from the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, the Gualaxo do Norte river in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais still runs iron-ore red.
At 3.45pm on 5 November 2015 a huge tailings dam operated by Brazilian mining company Samarco collapsed and a tidal wave of 32m to 40m cubic meters of mining waste washed across the bucolic countryside of pretty green valleys, villages and farmland.
Map of Minas Gerais
The waste - a liquid mix of water, sands and clays – killed 19 people, destroyed villages, left hundreds homeless, and killed fish and aquatic life as it flowed on down the bigger River Doce to the sea more than 600km away.
Scientists highlight the critical role of birds in forest regeneration
Laura Briggs
White-tailed cotinga
16th January, 2017
Reproduced from THE ECOLOGIST
The loss of birds could significantly impact efforts to combat deforestation, according to research from scientists looking at species across the Brazilian Amazon. LAURA BRIGGS reports
Understanding the implications of the loss of bird species for ecosystem function is crucial to our understanding of the future trajectories of Amazonian landscapes
Study results, published in the Journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences show that the understanding of animals and their physical traits is vital to saving tropical ecosystems.
According to the research, understanding land-use change is important because tropical forests are integral to the long-term stability of global air quality and climate cycles. The health of tropical forests is reliant on biodiversity - and is helped by animals spreading seeds to regenerate growth. In fact it is thought 90% of tropical tree and shrub species rely on animals for seed dispersal.
Lead author of the study Dr Tom Bregman of Oxford University and the Global Canopy Programme, says: "We provide compelling evidence that the loss of tropical bird species following land use change will disrupt both seed dispersal and rates of insect herbivory, both regulated by birds. This has important implications for the ability of tropical forests to recover from human activities including deforestation."
Scientists worked across 330 locations in different habitat types varying from soybean fields to undisturbed forest with a team of scientists looking at potential change on two ecosystem processes for which birds play important roles, specifically with regard to seed dispersal and insect predation.
According to Dr Alexander Lees, one of the scientists involved in the research from Manchester Metropolitan University, the study is extremely timely: "Understanding the implications of the loss of bird species for ecosystem function is crucial to our understanding of the future trajectories of Amazonian landscapes, he said.
Data on bird community composition, collected by the Sustainable Amazon Network, was reviwed together with data on bird morphology from museum specimens to look at the ‘functional trait structure' of Amazonian forest bird communities - size, diet, wing and tails, and their occurrence across habitats. Data from bird specimens deposited in museums in Brazil, the UK and the USA was also used.
The team recorded that a loss of birds cuts the chance of forests bouncing back from deforestation. It is the birds' physical traits, such as beak or tail size, which provide a window for scientists to assess the impact of environmental change.
Results suggest that local extinctions of birds caused by the loss and degradation of their tropical forest habitats are not random with respect to the bird's traits. For example, the loss of large-billed and long-winged species in agricultural landscapes and in regenerating secondary forests means that certain large-seeded tree species will likely not have their seeds dispersed in future.
The loss of certain kinds of insectivorous bird species will also mean a lack of control of herbivorous insects, many of which can be pests in agricultural landscapes. The distribution of the species and their traits can then be used to assess whether we maintain or lose ecosystem functionality as land-use change intensifies.
Dr Joseph Tobias, of Imperial College London, says: "The ‘biodiversity services' that tropical forest birds supply are crucial for forests to function properly. Our work shows that they are more effectively retained in primary forests that have not been completely cleared, rather than secondary forests regenerating after total clearance." He added that these services collapse in agricultural land-uses such as pasture and arable.
Dr Lees adds: "Data from specimens held in natural history museums underpinned this study; yet these institutions are often woefully underfunded and undervalued, despite being crucial for efforts to catalogue and understand global biodiversity."
Understanding the provisioning of key ecosystem processes such as seed dispersal and control of herbivory will help to understand whether tropical forests will have impaired or reduced resilience in future. If this is the case, forests damaged by fire and logging are unlikely to come back strongly because species have been lost that assist in the process.
Eliminating wild fires, reducing the impact of logging and enforcing the protection of hunted species will help to maintain the health of these ecosystem processes and the forests that depend on them.
This Author
Laura Briggs is the Ecologist's UK news reporter specialising in reporting on ecology and the environment. You can follow her here @WordsbyBriggs
Roundup residues in food cause fatty liver disease
Claire Robinson / GMWatch
9th January 2017
Cutting-edge molecular profiling analyses reveal that the popular weedkiller Roundup causes serious liver damage to rats at low doses permitted by regulators, reports Claire Robinson. The findings suggest that residues of glyphosate-based herbicides in food could be linked to rises in the incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, diabetes and 'metabolic syndrome'.
The weedkiller Roundup causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease at very low doses permitted by regulators worldwide, a new peer-reviewed studypublished by a Nature journal shows.
The study is the first ever to show a causative link between consumption of Roundup at a real-world environmentally relevant dose and a serious disease.
The new peer-reviewed study, led by Dr Michael Antoniou at King's College London, used cutting-edge profiling methods to describe the molecular composition of the livers of female rats fed an extremely low dose of Roundup weedkiller, which is based on the chemical glyphosate, over a 2-year period.
The dose of glyphosate from the Roundup administered was thousands of times below what is permitted by regulators worldwide.
The study revealed that these animals suffered from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Dr Antoniou said: "The findings of our study are very worrying as they demonstrate for the first time a causative link between an environmentally relevant level of Roundup consumption over the long-term and a serious disease - namely non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Our results also suggest that regulators should reconsider the safety evaluation of glyphosate-based herbicides."
Potentially serious implications for human health
The new results demonstrate that long-term consumption of an ultra-low dose of Roundup at a glyphosate daily intake level of only 4 nanograms per kilogram of bodyweight per day, which is 75,000 times below EU and 437,500 below US permitted levels, results in NAFLD.
Regulators worldwide accept toxicity studies in rats as indicators of human health risks. So the results of this latest study have serious implications for human health.
NAFLD currently affects 25% of the US population and similar numbers of Europeans. Risk factors include being overweight or obese, having diabetes, or having high cholesterol or high triglycerides (a constituent of body fat) in the blood. However, some people develop NAFLD even if they do not have any of these known risk factors. The new study raises the question of whether exposure to Roundup is a hitherto unrecognized risk factor.
Symptoms of NAFLD include fatigue, weakness, weight loss, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, spider-like blood vessels, yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice), itching, fluid build-up and swelling of the legs and abdomen, and mental confusion.
NAFLD can progress to the more serious condition, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH causes the liver to swell and become damaged.
Most people with NASH are between the ages of 40 and 60 years. It is more common in women than in men. NASH is one of the leading causes of cirrhosis in adults in the United States. Up to 25% of adults with NASH may also have cirrhosis.
Background to the study
The rat body tissues used in this analysis were obtained from a previous study led by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, France.
In this original investigation, rats were given an extremely low, environmentally relevant dose of a commercial Roundup formulation at 0.1 ppb (parts per billion) / 50 ppt (parts per trillion) glyphosate via drinking water for 2 years. Daily intake of glyphosate from the Roundup was 4 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day, which is thousands of times below what is permitted by regulators.
Analysis of the organs and blood / urine biochemical levels in the original study by Prof Séralini suggested a higher incidence of liver and kidney damage in the animals given Roundup compared to controls given plain drinking water.
Dr Antoniou's group has conducted distinct followup investigations on the rat body tissues from this ultra-low-dose Roundup treatment group, using in-depth molecular analytical procedures and statistical analytical methods that are appropriate for this type of research.
First follow-up study: increased damage to vital organs
In the first follow-up investigation, a transcriptomics (gene function profile) analysis was performed on the livers and kidneys from the female animals.
The results strongly supported the observations made at an anatomical (organ) and blood / urine biochemical level in the Séralini study - namely that the organs of the animals given Roundup suffered more structural and functional damage than the controls.
The transcriptomics results indicated an increased incidence of fibrosis (scarring), necrosis (areas of dead tissue), phospholipidosis (disturbed fat metabolism) and damage to mitochondria (the centres of respiration in cells) in the Roundup-fed animals.
However, although transcriptomics analysis is able to predict health or disease status of an organ, it does not provide definitive proof of harm. This is mainly because it does not give a direct measure of the actual biochemistry of the organ under study.
Also, alterations in gene function resulting from a test do not always result in the types of changes in physical composition that could lead to disease.
And now: definitive confirmation of liver dysfunction from low dose of Roundup
In the new study the researchers undertook a followup protein composition profile ('proteomics') and small molecule metabolite biochemical profile ('metabolomics') investigation of the same liver samples to confirm the prediction of disease suggested by the transcriptomics gene expression profile analysis.
As the proteomics and metabolomics directly measure the actual composition of the organ, these analytical methods provide a definitive assessment of its health or disease status.
"Overall", the authors conclude, "metabolome and proteome disturbances showed a substantial overlap with biomarkers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and its progression to steatohepatosis (serious fatty liver disease) and thus confirm liver functional dysfunction resulting from chronic ultra-low dose [glyphosate] exposure."
Proteins significantly disturbed (214 out of 1906 detected), as shown by the proteomics profiling, reflected a type of cell damage from reactive oxygen (peroxisomal proliferation), steatosis (serious fatty liver disease) and necrosis (areas of dead tissue).
The metabolomics analysis (55 metabolites altered out of 673 detected) confirmed lipotoxic (excess fatty tissue) conditions and oxidative stress. Metabolite alterations were also associated with hallmarks of serious liver toxicity.
Glyphosate responsible for rising diabetes and obesity?
The authors also suggest that the findings may have considerable relevance to human health problems such as obesity and diabetes:
"Our observations may have human health implication since NAFLD is predicted to be the next major global epidemic. Approximately 20-30% of the population in the United States carry extra fat in their livers. NAFLD is associated with the recent rapid rise in the incidence of diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome.
"Overall, it is acknowledged that NAFLD is mostly caused by excess caloric intake, but also from the consumption of processed foods, which increases simple sugar and saturated fat ingestion as well as sedentary lifestyles.
"However, many suffer from NAFLD but which do not have any high risk factors and thus other contributors to disease, such as exposure to physiologically active environmental pollutants via contaminated food, cannot be excluded."
The Chief of the Paiter Surui indigenous people in the state of Rondônia, Brazil has issued the following plea for help to stop illegal logging and mining on their lands. The letter is unedited.
The implications are terrible. In addition to environmental damage (and the challenge to our way of life), these invasions directly endanger our families and our children. Indeed, we are under the threat of weapons of loggers and miners!
To whom it may concern,
I am Almir Narayamoga Surui, Chief of the Paiter Surui indigenous people. Our population lives on the 'Sete de Setembro indigenous territory' in the state of Rondônia, Brazil.
This is my cry of alarm, please listen to me!
Since the beginning of this year 2016, we are undergoing a total invasion of deforesters and miners of diamonds and gold. Every day, 300 trucks leave our territory filled with wood, which represents 600 hectares of deforested forests. And it continues to increase, whilst according to the Constitution of Brazil, it is illegal to deforest an indigenous reservation.
On the ground, the illegal loggers have heavy means, with Caterpillar machines. We have found mercury and cyanide in three rivers of Surui territory because of the miners!
The implications are terrible. In addition to environmental damage (and the challenge to our way of life), these invasions directly endanger our families and our children. Indeed, we are under the threat of weapons of loggers and miners! Either one collaborates, or they put a gun to our heads!
In addition, they try to bribe some of my people with money. For lack of alternatives, some of my people accept, against their first resolve to protect the forest. The situation is terrible!
We, the Surui indigenous people are the first to have set up a REDD+ project to save the Amazon forest, lungs of our planet. But these invasions undermine the Agreement of REDD and go against the spirit of the agreement of the COP21!
Despite our appeals for help against this mafia, the new government did not react. By their silence, they are silent accomplices of this destruction of the forest and our people!
We do not know what to do, Help!
As citizens, NGOs or institutions, you can help us in four ways:
1. We ask you to write to the Brazilian embassies in your own countries to express your outrage and ask the new Brazilian government to intervene quickly.
2. We also ask you to boycott all Brazilian products, as the Brazilian government does not react.
3. We ask the different political bodies to establish an international observer mission on deforestation.
4. Finally, on behalf of the Surui people and of all indigenous people who are trying to protect the Amazon rainforest, in the name of our struggle to preserve a future for all children of this planet at the price of our lives, in the name hope for the future, we ask you to distribute this letter to all your contacts in the world and on social networks, because today we are all connected in a common destiny.
Thanking you,
Almir Narayamoga Surui, Leader of the Paiter Surui Indigenous People.
