BIRDS OF AMAZON - ON A POSTER

riodasfurnas@gmail.com

Birds of Amazonian region on a poster  can be purchased  (R$30.00 + p&p) from site of  Rio das Furnas (see e-mail above).

Seventy-four species are represented beautifully, with their popular names (Portuguese and English) and scientific name, as you can see on photo above, and as 'advertised' on site of

www.oeco.org.br

DROUGHT IN NORTHEAST BRAZIL: THE SÃO FRANCISCO RIVER IS NOT SO MIRACULOUS

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In Brazil we are instituting the practice of bad habit, or tragedy, taking purely political decisions, neglecting and even ignoring completely what is discovered and revealed by science. We did this with the Brazilian Forest Code and now we are doing it with the transposition or Integration of the São Francisco River, as if this were a solution to decimate hunger and thirst in the Northeastern Brazil.  A typical attitude of third world country. This is not sustainable development.

Check out the facts, reading this interview with JOÃO SUASSUNA.

[Interview with Joao Suassuna, reproduced from  'ECODESENVOLVIMENTO' http://www.ecodesenvolvimento.org/avina-leadership/o-nordeste-tem-muita-agua-afirma-joao-suassuna?tag=biodiversidade

and some additional information of the site of  'ASA Brasil - Articulação do Semiárido Brasileiro' http://www.asabrasil.org.br/]

 João Suassuna, researcher at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation (Recife, Pernambuco state) is an agronomist,  one of Brazil's most respected specialists when it comes to the hydrology of the semi-arid, mostly in the dry Northeastern region..

Question:  You criticize a lot the design of transposition of the São Francisco River or integration of São Francisco, as some people now prefer to call it. What is the reason?

João Suassuna: The Northeast has plenty of water. For you to have an idea about this: the Northeast has accumulated in their dams, something around 37 billion cubic meters of water - this the largest volume of water dammed in semi-arid regions of the world. But, what we do not have for certain is a policy to put water in taps for populations. And it is in this scenario that the Federal Government wants to bring the water from the São Francisco river to supply the main dams in the Northeast, a process they call 'hydrologic synergy'.

Question: What is the meaning of the expression 'hydrologic synergy'?

João Suassuna: Prevent the dams from drying out. But what must be clear is that the Northeast has large dams that never dry out completely, even with the continued use of such water. So if São Francisco's water supply the main dams in the region, it will end up being used in the wrong way.

Question: Why?

João Suassuna: Because this water will not solve the problems of those who need it most: the diffuse population. And observe that I'm talking about something around 10 million people, that in extreme drought suffer thirst and hunger.

Question: What alternative do you propose?

João Suassuna: For diffuse problems, you also need  diffuse solutions. After falling into large dams, the water of São Francisco will favour to big business.  In Fortaleza, Ceara state's Government is building a steel factory which alone will consume an amount of water able to meet the need of a municipality of 90 thousand inhabitants. So if the São Francisco water falls into the Castanhão dam, which is the largest reservoir in the Northeast, and where there is already a channel that connects the dam to the port of Pecém [NB.: 'CSP-Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém' = steel factory of Vale do Rio Doce company in partnership with South Korean steel industry, in the municipality of São Gonçalo do Amarante, near Fortaleza],  logically, this water will supply that steel factory. This is where what we consider as the 'drought industry'. They promise to supply 12 million people in the Northeast with the water of São Francisco, and that will not happen!!! This water will be used for the agribusiness, and that's where we have invested our work. We have 74 articles published on the internet denouncing this reality.

Question: The construction of cisterns is a good alternative?.

João Suassuna: Without doubt. It is not a channel for implementation that will solve the economic problems of those who need it most, in this case, the population. If today, on  São Francisco river's banks you already have problems of shortages, it will not be the channel that will solve the problem, because in this project there is no prediction of a reasonable distribution of the water to solve such problem. This, simply, does not exist.

Through the National Water Agency ('ANA-Agência Nacional de Águas'), the Federal Government published the Atlas of Human Water Supply, which seeks to supply 34 million people. This is a great idea that is being carried out. Covers a much larger number of municipalities and, amazingly, it costs half than the expected for the transposition of the São Francisco River. This project addresses the problem of shortages for the municipalities up to 5 thousand inhabitants. In what way? With the water that already exists in the region, through the adduction of the existing water  in dams, wells.

P1MC - Project 1 million cisterns

Rain water is collected in cisterns

Question: And what is adduction?

João Suassuna: It means to carry water from a lower level, a reservoir for example, to a higher level by using a pump. For the rural area, the diffuse communities, who live in small towns, most distant, foothills and mountain gorges, there are alternatives, such as those that have been worked by the 'ASA Brasil - Articulação do Semiárido Brasileiro' (= Articulation of the Brazilian Semi-arid region), which develops a program of 1 million cisterns in dry region of Northeast [see photos].  [Electronic address: http://www.asabrasil.org.br]  This program already has about 300 thousand cisterns implanted.  A cistern of 16 thousand litres solves the problem of a family of 5 people during the eight months without rain in the region.  [NB.: watch the video, in Portuguese if you don´t mind: http://glo.bo/12pIkxl] [You can read a summary of the video]. The Northeast in the 'sertão' [= the arid barren region of Brazil characterized by caatinga]  concentrates its rain four months and in eight remaining months it doesn't rain.  Then rural cisterns will supply these people with water for drinking and cooking for eight months. We have to encourage this kind of initiative, and not a project that will bring water from São Francisco, which is 500 km, at an exorbitant cost.

Conclusion. As it turns out, science in our society does not prevail. Mainly environmental science. I doubt if  politicians  would be courageous enough not to follow the advice of a physician with respect to medical treatment or medicine intake, on benefit of their health!!! But in terms of accepting scientific orientation with respect to the environment, the story changes!!!

It is really noticeable that in this case  the agribusiness will prevail, solely for the politicians benefit. The problem itself, hunger and drought, will be promised to be solved later, who knows, before  next election!!!

SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO: http://glo.bo/12pIkxl

 Food production during the present severe  drought in the 'sertão' of Pernambuco state.

A study of the National Institute of Space Research, during 35 years, shows that in Northeastern Brazil there are intervals of 26 years of severe drought and 13 years intervals of less severe drought (as explained by João Suassuna).

The cisterns constructed totalled now, more than 470 thousands.

The organic farm produces are comercialized in the region.

DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON, FROM TWO SOURCES OF INFORMATION

[Reproduced from http://www.oeco.org.br/  and from Ibama: http://www.ibama.gov.br/]

IMAZON (Institute of Man and Environment in the Amazon)

Imazon: Mato Grosso state leads 'short clear cut' in April

Daniele Bragança20th  May  2013

IBAMA seizes illegal timber in Mato Grosso. Photo: Ascom Ibama/MT

In April, deforestation in the Amazon,  totaled an area of 140 square kilometers (km2), an increase of 84%in relation to April 2012 when deforestation totaled 76 square kilometers, according to figures released on Saturday (18) by Deforestation  Bulletin of Imazon, who make independent monitoring deforestation in the 'Legal Amazon'.

The monthly data show that deforestation continues rising in the Amazon: August 2012, when started the timing of deforestation, until April 2013, the deforested area totaled 1,570 square kilometers, an increase of 88% in relation to the previous period (August 2011 to April 2012) when deforestation totaled 836 square kilometers.
[Graph below shows deforestation from August 2012 to April 2013 in the 'Legal Amazonia']
['Legal Amazon' = The current area of legally-defined Amazon region corresponds to all of the States of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins and part of the states of Mato Grosso and Maranhão (west of the meridian of longitude 44), making up an area of approximately 5,217,423 km2 corresponding to about 61% of the Brazilian territory].

IBAMA (Brazilian Institute for the  Environment

From their site: www.ibama.org.br

Brasília (07/05/2013) - Devastation in the Amazon continues to  present downward trend.  In April the Real-time Deforestation Detection system ('DETER') accounted for 147 km² of devastation alerts,  which represents a 37% decrease as compared to  the same month of the previous year. . Reduction was even  more expressive as 28 square km devastation were recorded, which means 53%  less than the 60 km2 recorded in the previous year.

CONCLUSION:  It is difficult for us Brazilians to get    reliable information   even if it is provided by the same source, DETER/INPE.
['INPE' = National Space Research Institute]

CONTEMPLATING THE INHABITANTS OF THE 'SKIES OF THE ATLANTIC FOREST'...

...  we highlight this majestic bird of prey: the white-necked hawk.

A 'gift', in the day of the Atlantic Forest: 27th May

[Reproduced from: www.oeco.org.br]

Rafael Ferreira

24th May,  2013

A  curious Amadonastur lacernulatus. Photo: Rick Elis Simpson/Wikimedia Commons Habitats of bird of prey, in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil

In a country with so many biomes as the Brazil, it is not surprising that house so many animal species that are unique. In all its ecosystems there is an endemic species of the region, which could only arise in that environment. It happens in the Cerrado, in the Pampas, in the Amazon and in the Atlantic forest. That is the case of the white-necked hawk (Amadonastur lacernulatus).

The hawk-dove, as is also known, because in flight, it is easy to confuse it with a pigeon, is distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest, and can be found in the states of Alagoas, Paraíba, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Minas Gerais. 

The Amadonastur lacernulatus measures about 43 to 52 cm in length, with a wingspan of 96 cm (from one wing to the other). The dorsal and wings plumes are black.  While the head, neck, higher dorsal surface, and the whole bottom is white..

Lonely hunter sometimes admits to join other flocks of birds to capture food. Its diet consists of insects, spiders, molluscs, snakes, birds, rodents, and other small mammals. Cunning and opportunistic predator, it  has a habit of seeking and capturing animals amazed by the presence of army ants [= due to their aggressive predatory behaviour, groups of ants, known as "raids",  forage simultaneously over a certain area],  or by passing flocks of monkeys or coatis, acting as 'scouts'. There are also records of individuals who lurk or fly over areas, waiting for the moment when some other bird was captured by traps, then feed on it.

However, all the cunning does not save the kind of threats to its existence. Both the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and the ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) classify  A. lacernulatus as vulnerable.

The population of white-necked hawk suffers a serious population decline because of deforestation, which deprives of the characteristics of its habitat. The impact on their territory reduces the locations suitable for nesting (reproduction) and increase competition for food and shelter. 

AMAZON: 'NO NEED TO MOVE INTO FOREST', WORDS FROM A CATTLEMAN

Yes! That's really quite simple!!!

[Reproduced from www.planetasustentavel.abril.com.br]

Rodrigo Baleia

In the environmental park of Paragominas, school children have environmental education. The place was an abandoned private property, reconstructed and vegetation was recovered.

PROSPERITY

Paragominas: the turning point

In the years of 1970 Paragominas, Pará state, northern Brazil, was under accelerated process of deforestation due to the construction of the highway Belém-Brasília. Today with 100 thousand inhabitants, Paragominas is taken as a model of sustainable development for other cities of the Amazon

Thiago Medaglia
National Geographic Brasil / Especial O futuro da Amazônia - 05/2011

In 1990, Paragominas was the main producer of Brazil wood pole to house 400 sawmills - today are less than 20. During the same period, was also the largest producer of cattle. Currently, the herd of 300 thousand heads - who suffered gradual reduction in recent years -  is not even among the top five in Pará state. And the changes go far beyond the pasture.

 The past - and their fame - stayed behind. A local project, created in 2008 and called the Town Green, served as a basis for a state program with the same name, coined in 2011 by the Government of Pará and initial adhesion of 74 municipalities. In addition to the partnership with NGOs, universities and research institutes, the main initiatives are reforestation project (in the last three years, the city planted 55 million trees), livestock and sustainable agriculture (they invested in soil fertility rather than proceed on deforestation), environmental education and forest management (action that minimizes the impact on the forest in withdrawal of logs with economic importance).

Environmental initiatives in the municipality of Pará state,  involve a series of public and private projects. The Hydro, which extracts bauxite mining within the area of the city, has a nursery of native seedlings for the reforestation of land already explored

In general, the logging and ranching are carried out for at least three decades in the municipalities of the region. Grain farming and ore extraction (in the local case, bauxite) are more recent. Thus, the city of Pará tried all the productive activities of the Amazon, explains Paulo Amaral, researcher at Imazon ['Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia' = Institute of Man and Environment of Amazon] . produtivas da Amazônia", explica Paulo Amaral, pesquisador do Imazon.

With 20 thousand square kilometers of area (almost the size of Sergipe state, northeastern Brazil), the town has large forest remnant: 66 per cent of its territory. Overflying Paragominas reveals all the sovereignty of treetops, 'studded' here and there by deforested areas. From the top, however, the superficial look fools anyone. This is not pristine forest, but a woods which had much of the trees removed, with commercial value, explains Fábio Niedermeier, a non-governmental organization The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

The President of the Union of Rural Producers, Mauro Lucio Costa propagates the investment in soil quality. 'You do not need to move into the fores't, ensures the cattleman

.

The partnership with TNC, in itself, shows the unusual profile of that city: in a region marked by agrarian conflicts and clashes between environmentalists and 'ruralists'. TNC now have a special room in the building of the Union.

.

This type of innovation is the result of changes driven by previous economic infeasibility of Paragominas. With the entry of the municipality in the 'champions list of deforestation in the Amazon', published in January 2008 by the Ministry of the Environment, the producers were prevented from accessing credit lines.

That same year, in March, a joint operation of the Federal Police, the IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment) and national public security force arrived in the city. Called Arc of Fire, the initiative has resulted, especially in closing illegal sawmills. The reaction of Adnan Demachki, still mayor, was to convene  businessmen and 50 local class  for signing a Pact for Zero Deforestation.

Later that year, in November, another operation, called the Black Trail, headed by the Military  Police and by IBAMA, ended 120 irregular coal ovens, in addition to seize trucks with logs from areas exploited illegally. The reaction of the people linked to these activities was violent, and, on November 24, the IBAMA office in Paragominas was torched.

The persistence in good practice brought results. Problems such as illegal removal of logs still exist, but in reduced scale. The partnership with Imazon, since 2008, provides the satellite monitoring of the territory.

The monthly reports are sent to Municipal Environment Secretary, which, with the geographic coordinates in hand, send officers to the exact locations, who will confirm whether or not there is deforestation. The other partnership, with the TNC, ensures the implementation of Rural Environmental Register ('CAR - Cadastro de Atividade Rural', in Portuguese) almost all city properties are included, a legal tool with information on the perimeter and a mapping of native vegetation and open areas of each farm

AMAZONIAN BIRDS: BRIEF NEWS ON A KNOWLEDGE STILL GOING ON...

[Reproduced from www.amazonas.org.br]

In the week we celebrate the international day of biodiversity, or specifically on May 22nd, a group of scientists announced the discovery of 15 new species of birds in the Brazilian Amazon. This means, statiscally one percent addition to biodiversity of birds of Brazil. For this reason, the novelty is being considered the greatest achievement of Brazilian ornithology in 140 years 

Eleven of the new species are endemic of Brazil and four can be found also in Peru and Bolivia. The presence of the birds always occurs near rivers such as the river Madeira, in Western Amazonia, and the river Tapajós, Pará, in the eastern portion.

This shows that the numerous watercourses that meander through the forest are an abundant source of biodiversity not only within, but also outside its waters.

Among the birds they discovered, the largest is a species of Crow, with about 35 cm long, that lives in the forest between the rivers Madeira and Purus, in Amazonas state. "This Crow is threatened with extinction," says Mario Cohn-Haft, curator of the Ornithology section of Inpa (National Institute of Amazon Research). "Their habitat is in danger and we can lose the species before we could have time to study it in depth." Its main area of occurrence is an area close to 'rodovia' [=highway]  BR-319, which connects Manaus (state of Amazonas) to Porto Velho (state of Rondônia), and one of the main causes of deforestation in the region. 

Altamira national forest, another region where one of the species was found, scientists needed including the support of armed protection. Habitat of one species of  'arapaçu-de-bico-torto',  black-billed scythebill (see photo below), the Flona ['Floresta Nacional' = National Forest, a category of reserves in Brazil]  located next to highway BR-163, in southern Pará, it is a region of land conflicts and of intense forest degradation. The tension in a place like this is great. There was an illegal mining operation in the unit. In order to be able to work safely in the reserve, we had to be escorted by soldiers of the army ", said Dr Aleixo (of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi).

New species of  'arapaçu-de-bico-torto'  black-billed scythebill, discovered in the National Forest of Altamira, Pará

"There is still much for the Amazon be considered sufficiently well known and thus allow the planning and sustainability of existing biodiversity reserves and also of the future," says the ornithologist Bret Whitney, a researcher at the Museum of Natural Science at the State University of Louisiania. The other institutions involved in the study: Museum of Zoology of the University of São Paulo (MZ-USP), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Inpa), Manaus, and Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, in Belém (MPEG).

RIO NEGRO, AMAZON: SOME INTERESTING FEATURES

Rio Negro, the "Black River" (translated literally into English) is not exactly "black", but it is similar in colour to "strong tea". It is the largest left tributary of the River Amazon. It is the third largest river in the world in water volume; it is the largest blackwater river in the world, and one of the world's ten largest rivers in average discharge.

Rio Negro (black water) and Rio Solimões (brownish water), after their confluence they form the Rio Amazonas. Manaus is the largest city in the Amazonian region, capital of the state of Amazonas

Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas (on top of the photo), is situated on the  left bank of Rio Negro, in the confluence of this river with Rio Solimões.  After their confluence, the river is called  Rio Amazonas

Rio Solimões (brownish water, rich in sediments) in the confluence with  Rio Negro (black colour)

"Encounter of the waters" of rivers Solimões (brownish colour) and Negro (black colour)

Rio Cuieiras, a tributary of Rio Negro

A navigable canal in the Rio Negro

The Rio Negro basin drains an area of 10% of the 7 millions square km of the Amazon basin. The region of Alto Rio Negro (high River Black) has the highest rainfall in the Amazon, reaching more than 3500 mm. Three main types of ecosystems exist in Rio Negro region:  high, wet and dense forest on clayey soils; the Amazonian caatinga ("campinarana", as it is called in Brazil); and periodically flooded forests situated on banks of black water rivers ("igapós"). Dense forests contribute to a high content of organic acids in the water of Rio Negro, which explains partly the dark colour of the water.
But, more recently, it was observed the presence of high contents of a bacterium, Chromobacterium violaceum which is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, non-sporing coccobacillus. It is part of the normal flora of water and soil of tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. It produces a natural antibiotic called violacein, which may be useful for the treatment of colon and other cancers. This condition may explain, partly, the small number of fishes in the Rio Negro, as compared to richness of ictiofauna in the Rio Solimões. Some authors suggest that violacein would affect negatively, the proliferation of plancton. The basis of the food chain in the Rio Negro waters.

Brazilian scientists have sequenced the genome of this bacterium and made its deposit in the National Institute of Health of the United States.