A LETTER TO THE FUTURE PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[N.B. I personnally hope the President will not be him!!!]

http://imazon.org.br/imprensa/help-brazil-preserve-the-amazon/?lang=en

As reported in imazon.org.br

Help Brazil Preserve the Amazon

 

In the new issue of Americas Quarterly, we asked people, “What would you tell the next U.S. president about Latin America?” To see other authors’ responses, click here.

 

 

Dear Mister / Madam President,

Last June, Presidents Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff, meeting in Washington, jointly declared that addressing climate change requires “continued, robust financial support.” They committed the U.S. and Brazil to an ambitious program aimed at helping developing countries mitigate the effects of climate change.

It was a landmark step. You should strengthen and expand this initiative — with special attention to the threats facing the Brazilian Amazon, where significant reductions in deforestation would produce enormous reductions in emissions. The work that still needs to be done is formidable.

Between 2004 and 2015, Brazil made great progress by reducing the deforestation rate of its Amazon region by more than 75 percent. But even with this large reduction, in the past three years, the region lost an average of 5,578 square kilometers (2,153 square miles) of forest annually, an area roughly the size of Delaware.

Zero deforestation should be the goal. But achieving it requires combining public policy initiatives with the positive influence of the market. For example, the U.S. and Brazil should deepen cooperation to enforce the Lacey Act against illegal logging. This would entail working together to improve the traceability of timber harvested in the Amazon and exported to the U.S. One way to do so is by exchanging data on logging permits. Additionally, the U.S. could help Brazilian and U.S. firms to fulfill their goals to curb deforestation by helping Brazil to implement full traceability of cattle in the Amazon region.

Brazil could benefit from the U.S. experience in managing national parklands to balance conservation and economic development. Although over 272 million acres of the Amazon have been allocated as conservation units (in the form of parks, national forests, etc.), the generation of jobs and income from these areas is currently only a fraction of its potential. Tourism and other activities in the U.S. national park system generated $32 billion and supported nearly 300,000 jobs in 2015. A Washington-sponsored initiative to develop collaboration between U.S. federal parks authorities and their Brazilian counterparts, including state and federal conservation authorities, would be a major step forward.

Investing in forest-based development would generate environmental and economic gains for both countries. We urge you to work with Brazil to develop the pledged Binational Program on Forest and Land Sector Investment and convene a public-private Forum on Innovative Forest Investment to increase investments in sustainable forest management and forest restoration in the region.

In their June 2015 declaration, the U.S. and Brazil also pledged to explore joint projects on clean energy. Studies show that several large hydropower plants proposed for the Amazon by the Brazilian government are very likely to increase deforestation as well as conflicts with indigenous peoples. U.S. collaboration would enable Brazil to develop other clean energy sources such as solar, biomass and wind, without increasing emissions — and avoid social conflicts associated with hydropower plants.

Further destruction of the Amazon would accelerate climate change, extinguish thousands of unique animal and plant species, and bring suffering to its indigenous peoples. Conserving it is in the U.S. interest as well as Brazil’s.

-

Veríssimo is a senior researcher and cofounder of the Amazon Institute of People and Environment (Imazon), a think-and-do-tank based in the Brazilian Amazon. He holds a master’s degree in ecology from Pennsylvania State University (USA) and a graduate degree in agriculture engineering from the Federal Rural University of the Brazilian Amazon.

Barreto is a senior researcher at Imazon. He holds a master’s degree in forest science from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the Federal Rural University in Pará state, Brazil.

Any opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Quarterly or its publishers.

SUSTAINABILITY: EARTH OVERSHOOT DAY 2016

By Balakrishna Pisupati (UNEP Division of Environmental Law and Conventions) and Mathis Wackernagel (Global Footprint Network) | 08 August 2016

Today, millions of people around the world will watch as Olympic swimmers and divers compete in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We believe this global event begs the question: What if countries were as competitive about fulfilling the pledges for a sustainable world they made last year in New York and Paris, as they have been in training athletes for the Olympic Games?

Today (August 8) is Earth Overshoot Day 2016. Humanity has used all the renewable natural resources that the planet can replenish for the whole year, according to international research institute, Global Footprint Network.

Its data shows that humanity demands 64% more from nature than planet Earth can renew. We make up for that gap by depleting our planet’s natural capital through overfishing, overharvesting forests and emitting more carbon into our atmosphere than can be absorbed.

The disastrous consequences include climate change, topsoil erosion and biodiversity loss. The longer we continue viewing natural resources as unlimited, the faster we are jeopardizing the very capacity of our planet to provide us with the renewable resources that we need to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves.

We can measure the scope of our ecological overshoot by comparing the Ecological Footprint (demand for resources) to biocapacity (nature’s ability to supply these resources). Human demands compete for biologically productive space. Therefore, we can add up these required spaces to support demand and compare them with the spaces actually available.

Already 85 percent of the global population live in countries whose natural ecosystems do not suffice to support their Ecological Footprint. And 71 percent live in countries whose ecological deficit is compounded by low-income, adding to the challenge of affording, through trade, those resources that their own ecosystems can’t provide.

One of the most significant demands of humanity on nature stems from our carbon emissions as a result of fossil fuel burning. The carbon Footprint now makes up 60% of humanity’s Ecological Footprint. Absorbing carbon emissions competes with other demands on nature, such as producing crops, supporting grazing animals for food, wool and leather, and providing timber.

Thankfully, this year is no business as usual. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in New York last September, and the Paris Climate Agreement, signed last December, have given us the best reason for hope to date. If we are to adhere to the Paris climate goals adopted by nearly 200 countries, carbon emissions will need to gradually fall to zero by 2050. This calls for a new way of living on our planet. That path is already made possible with current technology. Economic analysis shows it is also financially advantageous with overall benefits exceeding costs, since it will stimulate emerging sectors like renewable energy, while reducing risks and costs associated with stranded assets.

The only resource we still need more of is political will. Currently, for instance, only 19 countries (mostly islands and low-lying countries) have ratified the Paris Climate Agreement, accounting for 0.18% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Fortunately, some countries are taking action. For instance, Costa Rica generated 97 percent of its electricity from renewable sources during the first three months of 2016. Portugal, Germany and Britain also demonstrated groundbreaking levels of renewable energy capability this year, when 100% of their electricity demand was met by renewables for several minutes or, in the case of Portugal, for several days. In China, meanwhile, the government has outlined a plan to reduce its citizens’ meat consumption by 50%, which it calculates will lower the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from China’s livestock industry by 1 billion tonnes by 2030.

Furthermore, let’s bear in mind that the future we want is not the responsibility of governments alone. Balancing how much renewable natural resources we use and how much is generated is paramount for mankind to thrive on our beautiful planet. Each of us has the opportunity to participate. Through the choices we make every day as consumers and as citizens, we are already actively contributing to the world that we will be leaving for future generations.

What if the expected 3+ billion Rio Olympics viewers were as committed to taking action towards a low-carbon economy as they are excited about watching athletes compete? That shift is our most important task at hand. Building a sustainable world will take nothing less than transforming our individual and collective mindsets and setting our imaginations free.

Balakrishna Pisaputi, Coordinator, Biodiversity MEAs and SDGs, UNEP Division of Environmental Law and Conventions

Mathis Wackernagel, co-founder and CEO, Global Footprint Network

"ZERO DEFORESTATION" IN THE AMAZON: IS IT A DREAM!?!?!?

Reproduced from IMAZON

Access to

http://imazon.org.br/PDFimazon/Ingles/other_publications/Zero%20Deforestation%20and%20the%20future%20of%20Brazil_new.pdf

NASA WARNS: AMAZON MAY HAVE INTENSE WILDFIRE THIS YEAR

As reported in The Guardian, Environment

Conditions created by the strong El Niño event that warmed up Pacific waters in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon basin, that meant reduced rainfall during the wet season, plunging some parts of the region into severe drought.

According to NASA, the Amazon is the driest it’s been at the start of the dry season since 2002 — and that probably means the rainforest is in for a particularly nasty wildfire season, according to Doug Morton, an Earth scientist with the U.S. agency and a co-creator of the Amazon fire forecast, which uses climate observations and active fire detections by NASA satellites to predict fire season severity.

“Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season have set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon,” Morton said in a statement. The Brazilian states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará are reportedly at the highest risk.

Per NASA’s Amazon fire forecast, the wildfire risk for July to October now exceeds the risk in 2005 and 2010 — the last time the region experienced severe drought and wildfires raged across large swaths of the rainforest. So far, the Amazon has seen more fires through June 2016 than in previous years, which NASA scientists said was another indicator of a potentially rough wildfire season.

NASA’s forecast model, developed by scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UC-Irvine) in 2011, focuses on the link between sea surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which occur during an El Niño event, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean are known to shift rainfall away from the Amazon, thereby increasing the fire risk in dry months.

Sea surface temperatures in tropical Pacific waters from October 2015 to April 2016 were at record highs relative to the 2001-2015 average, according to UC-Irvine scientists. At the same time, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic from January to April 2016 were also above average.

The Amazon fire forecast team also tracks changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) during the dry season. NASA’s GRACE satellites registered below-average TWS across most of Amazonia in March 2016, which means there was less soil moisture recharge from wet season precipitation than in previous years.

“When trees have less moisture to draw upon at the beginning of the dry season, they become more vulnerable to fire and evaporate less water into the atmosphere,” UC-Irvine scientist Jim Randerson, who built the forecast model together with fellow UC-Irvine scientist Yang Chen, said in a statement. “This puts millions of trees under stress and lowers humidity across the region, allowing fires to grow bigger than they normally would.”

Scientists at NASA and UC-Irvine have been working with South American officials and scientists to make them aware of these data and their implications.

Liana Anderson of Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters said in a statement that “fire forecasts three to six months before peak fire activity are important to identify areas with higher fire probability for integrated planning.”

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL: HOW TO PREVENT ANNHILATION OF TRIBAL PEOPLES

Watch the video by accessing this link:

http://www.survivalinternational.org/survival_film?utm_source=ENGLISH%3A+email+updates&utm_campaign=5b8edf2321-ENGLISH_160717_Mark_R_film7_14_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_241e47c256-5b8edf2321-87441577

TURTLE TRAGEDY IN AUSTRALIA'S GREAT BARRIER REEF: HERPES DUE TO POLLUTION

From NEW SCIENTIST

It’s a turtle tragedy. Tumours are crippling an increasing number of green sea turtles on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, with pollution being investigated as the prime culprit.

The animals have a turtle-specific herpesvirus that causes fibropapillomatosis – a condition in which disfiguring tumours grow on the eyes, flippers, tail, shell or internal organs.

“The tumours are benign but can grow up to 30 centimetres in size and block the turtles’ vision, says Karina Jones of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. “This means they can’t find food or see predators or boats.”

Turtles with tumours are also more vulnerable to other infections, she says. “Severely affected turtles are quite skinny and have other pathogens affecting them – that’s why they die.”

The unpublished results of surveys by Jones’s team this year show that herpesvirus is most prevalent within a narrow stretch of Cockle Bay at Magnetic Island, a popular tourist destination in the middle of the reef. Roughly half the turtles in this hotspot have fibropapillomatosis, compared with less than 10 per cent of turtles sampled across the rest of Cockle Bay.

The cause remains unclear, but environmental contaminants are at the top of the suspect list. “We see these tumours in turtles in very localised hotspots around the world where there is heavy human activity,” says Jones.

Turtles in healthy marine environments can still carry the virus, but it often lies dormant with no symptoms, she says. “We think there must be some external trigger that causes the tumour development,” she says.

Fibropapillomatosis has also become increasingly common in turtles in Florida and Hawaii, particularly near onshore farming areas, which may be the source of pollution. Over the last 20 years, Doug Mader of the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Florida, says he has gone from treating six to eight turtles per month to the same number per week.

Mader agrees that human pollution is probably to blame. “It is thought that pollution may weaken their immune systems, thus rendering them more susceptible to disease,” he says.

The next step is to try to pin down the contaminants that are responsible, if any, says Jones. Her team is looking for clues in historical water quality data, and is also planning to test water samples for a range of chemicals, including heavy metals and fertiliser and pesticide components.

“The field is very challenging because there are so many questions to ask,” she says. “But it’s always good to ask the big questions.”

A SOLITARY SPIX'S MACAW IN THE WILD. SHOULD IT HAD BEEN FREED BY A POACHER???

Reproduced from BBC News (on line)

A solitary Spix's Macaw was caught on video flying through trees in the state of Bahia. 

Pedro Develey, head of the Brazilian Society for the Conservation of Birds, said he believed it had been freed by a poacher trying to avoid arrest. 

A search of the area had just been concluded. 

A colony of Spix's Macaw - the breed made famous in the animated "Rio" films - is being bred in Qatar and Brazil plans to reintroduce some of them into the wild. 

The latest sighting was made by residents in Curaca, Bahia.

Mr Develey said the news was "amazing".

"You should have seen the joy of the people when I got there, saying the macaw was back," he said.

However, since the initial sighting, the whereabouts of the bird is unknown, the newspaper Estadao de Sao Paulo reported.