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20 Nov 2009: Emergency Rainforest Fund
Created by Prince Charles and 35 Nations

Britain’s Prince Charles has struck an agreement with 35 nations to contribute $22 billion to $36 billion to reduce the destruction of tropical forests by 25 percent by 2015. The Prince of Wales said the U.S. has agreed to contribute $275 million to the rainforest protection fund, which will pay countries such as Indonesia and Brazil to preserve forests rather than felling them for timber or agricultural use. Ed Miliband, the U.K.’s energy and climate change secretary, said a global mechanism for paying countries to protect tropical forests is on the agenda at next month’s Copenhagen climate summit and is “closer than it’s ever been” to being codified in an international treaty. Deforestation is responsible for nearly 20 percent of global carbon emissions, and various nations and conservation groups are working to develop programs known as REDD — Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Conservationists said that the Prince of Wales’ effort must ensure the funds are not squandered through local corruption or questionable forest protection schemes. The conservationists cited the example of Norway’s pledging $250 million to slow deforestation in Guyana. Since the Guyanese government claimed an artificially high rate of previous deforestation, it can receive payments while actually doing little or nothing to slow current forest loss.
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13 Nov 2009: Clearing of Brazilian Amazon
Fell 45 Percent in Last Year, Officials Say

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 45 percent from August 2008 to July 2009, the largest annual reduction since Brazil started tracking rainforest destruction in 1988, government officials reported. Using satellite images from the National Institute for Space Research, Brazilian officials calculated that about 2,700 square miles of forest were removed during that span. About 5,000 square miles had been cleared during the previous 12-month period. Government officials said the amount of deforestation has been falling since 2004, when a record 10,425 square miles were removed. “The new deforestation data represents an extraordinary and significant reduction for Brazil,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a statement. The use of satellite technology and more aggressive government enforcement have helped slow deforestation of the critical rainforest, officials said. But according to Paulo Gustavo, environmental policy director of Conservation International, the biggest factor in the most recent data was the falling prices of beef, soy and other products that require the clearing of forest. Deforestation causes 75 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gases.
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12 Nov 2009: Colombian Farmers Sue Oil Firm
Over Long-Term Effects of Pipeline

A group of Colombian farmers has filed a lawsuit against the oil company BP, claiming that construction of a 450-mile pipeline in the mid-1990s has caused landslides, permanently damaging soil and crops and harming livestock. In the suit filed in a London court, 95 farmers claim that BP Exploration Company ignored evidence that the pipeline would damage the land, and never informed the property owners, many of them illiterate, of the risks. The pipeline, which delivers as much as 620,000 barrels of crude oil to an export terminal daily, crosses 192 rural villages. Farmers say that during construction, natural vegetation that protected their soil from the elements was removed, leading to significant erosion. Additionally, they say BP never paid them for the damage, which made their farms unsustainable. “The region has been profoundly and adversely affected causing many farms to close or drastically reduce production and causing some farmers to leave the land,” according to the suit. BP denies negligence, claiming the soil failed because the farmers removed forests for cattle grazing.
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12 Nov 2009: Brown Pelican Removed
From U.S. Endangered Species List

The brown pelican, a bird once prized by hunters for its feathers and later imperiled by rampant pesticide use, has “fully recovered” and no longer requires federal protection, the U.S. Interior Department announced. Populations of the bird — a fixture in Florida, the Gulf Coast states and along the Pacific coast — have reached more than 650,000 in North and Central America. That marks a stark contrast to decades ago, when a combination of hunting and the use of the pesticide DDT — which weakened pelican eggs, causing them to hatch prematurely — had decimated the species. Pelican populations at one time had dipped as low as 10,000. The bird was declared endangered in 1970. A ban on the general use of DDT in 1972 was a key step in the recovery, federal officials said. “It has taken 36 years, the banning of DDT and a lot of work,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, “but today we can say that the brown pelican is back.” Removal from the endangered species list means that officials will no longer be required to consider effects on the bird when reviewing construction projects.
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29 Oct 2009: Solar Power Potential
Is Huge in Developing Countries

The developing world, where 44 percent of people lack access to electricity, could soon be one of the biggest markets for solar power, according to participants at the Solar Power International conference in California. To date, just 1 percent of solar panel production has been installed in poor nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, a situation that Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, called “a scandal for our industry.” Eckhart and other experts said that in addition to finding financing to help low-income residents install solar panels, a major challenge is purchasing and replacing the batteries to store electricity at night and on cloudy days. Another significant hurdle is replacing the energy-wasting incandescent bulbs and old, inefficient appliances and computers often used by village households. One expert who has installed off-the-grid solar arrays in Africa and China said in regions where villagers use compact fluorescent bulbs and efficient appliances the cost of installing an adequate solar array and battery can be 75 percent cheaper.
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23 Sep 2009: Ecuador Would Forego Drilling in Amazonian Rainforest for a Price

Ecuador says it will preserve a portion of its Amazonian rainforest — and forego drilling for the 900 million gallons of crude oil beneath it — if rich countries are willing to pay the South American nation $360 million annually. By not drilling for oil in the Yasuní rainforest, Foreign Minister Fander Falconi said, Ecuador could prevent about 410 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. The $360 million fee is about half the amount of revenue that the 900 million gallons of petroleum beneath the rainforest would generate. The proposal comes as developing nations made the case during a United Nations climate conference this week that rich nations should compensate developing countries for taking steps to reduce carbon emissions. “We have to attack the cause of climate change, which is the elevated use of energy by industrialized countries,” Falconi told Reuters. Ecuador, a member of OPEC, produces about 450,000 barrels of oil daily.
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Satellite Image: Carajas Mine in Brazil

Gouged out of the Amazon, the Carajas mine — one of the world’s largest deposits of iron ore — stretches across more than six miles of rainforest in northeastern Brazil. Discovered in 1967, Carajas is an open pit mine where minerals are removed from the surface one layer at a time, as shown in this photograph taken by NASA’s EO-1 satellite in late July. In 2007, 296 million metric tons of iron ore were dug out of the mine, which is estimated to contain a total of 18 billion tons of iron ore, gold, manganese, copper, and nickel. The mine is one of scores of mining, hydropower, agricultural, and road projects that are increasingly denuding the world’s largest rainforest.
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27 Jul 2009: Chilean Salmon Industry
Using Massive Amounts of Antibiotics

The Chilean government has reported that the country’s salmon farmers use roughly 350 times more antibiotics to control disease in fish pens than the Norwegian salmon farming industry. Chile’s Economy Ministry said that the country’s salmon operations used 718,000 pounds of antibiotics in 2008 and 850,000 pounds in 2007 — 350 to 600 times more than the roughly 2,000 pounds used in all of Norway’s salmon farms in 2008. Norway remains the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon and has developed vaccines to better control disease outbreaks in fish cages, where thousands of Atlantic salmon swim in tightly packed conditions. The Chilean salmon industry, the world’s second largest, has been plagued by outbreaks of infectious diseases that have killed tens of thousands of farmed salmon. Chile is the largest supplier of farmed salmon to the U.S., but concerns about environmental conditions at Chile’s fish farms have caused Wal-Mart and Safeway to recently reduce purchases of Chilean salmon.
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13 Jul 2009: Protected Brazilian Timber
Reportedly Being Sold as “Eco-Certified”

The Brazilian government is investigating charges that illegal timber is being cut in protected reserves and laundered as “eco-certified” to markets abroad, including the United States and Europe, according to a report in the newspaper O Globo. A federal prosecutor says wood taken from reserves and indigenous lands in the Brazilian state of Pará was classified as certified timber, a designation that earns a higher price from international buyers interested in purchasing and marketing sustainably harvested wood. The alleged operation involves as many as 3,000 companies, according to the report. Pará, which has emerged as a major timber market in recent years, also has the highest deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon, accounting for 43 percent of total forest loss.
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10 Jul 2009: New Bus Systems Reduce
Traffic, Pollution in Developing Cities

Large, low-emission buses being introduced in developing cities from Mexico City to Ahmedabad, India are reducing congestion on crowded roadways and cutting pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, all at a much lower cost than constructing subways. In Bogota, Colombia, city leaders took control of two to four center lanes of major boulevards for the TransMilenio rapid transit system. Small walls isolate the “tracks” of the bus lines from other traffic, and passengers are able to board the long, segmented buses from the center platforms of modern stations. Since 2001, the TransMilenio bus system has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from roadways and has slashed fuel use by more than 59 percent, according to a New York Times report. As a result, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation system allowed by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Climate researchers say that emissions reductions related to transportation will become increasingly urgent in coming decades, particularly in the developing world. Projects similar to Bogota’s TransMilenio are planned in Cape Town, Mexico City, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
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08 Jul 2009: Researchers Discover New Monkey
In Isolated Amazon Region of Brazil

Researchers have discovered a new species of monkey in the isolated upper Amazon of northwestern Brazil. The creature is nine inches tall, has a 12-inch tail, and weighs less than three-quarters of a pound. It also has distinctive gray and light green mottling on its back that looks like a saddle. The monkey, whose discovery was announced by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, was first seen by scientists during a 2007 expedition in the state of Amazonas. Researchers have named the creature saguinus fuscicollis mura, or Mura’s saddleback tamarin, after the Mura Indians who live in the Purus and Madeira river basins where the monkey was found. Conservationists are concerned that development — including a new highway through the Amazon, a proposed gas pipeline, and two hydroelectric dams — poses a threat to the rainforest habitat where the Mura’s saddleback tamarin lives. “This discovery should serve as a wake-up call that there is still so much to learn from the world’s wild places, yet humans continue to threaten these areas with destruction,” said Fabio Röhe of the Wildlife Conservation Society, lead author of a paper announcing the discovery of the species. The paper was published in the International Journal of Primatology.
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12 Jun 2009: Benefits of Deforestation
in Brazilian Amazon are Temporary

The clear cutting of rainforests may yield a quick payoff for local villagers in the Brazilian Amazon, but in the end typically leaves the community just as poor as before, according a study in the journal Science. The study said that deforestation to clear land for cattle ranching or agriculture often provides a short-term jolt to the local economy as new resources lure investment dollars and development, including new roads. But once the timber disappears, the loggers move on, and the soil is depleted, the quality of life soon falls back below the national average, researchers concluded after an analysis of life expectancy, income, and education data from 286 Brazilian communities. “We found that the level of development in a region that has been through deforestation is indistinguishable from in a region prior to deforestation,” said Robert Ewers of Imperial College London. Much of the land cleared for agriculture was quickly abandoned, Ewers said.
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08 Jun 2009: Peru Declares Curfew
As Violent Amazon Clashes Continue

The Peruvian government has declared a curfew in its Amazon region after several days of clashes have left more than 60 dead, including 23 policemen and approximately 40 Indians protesting the rapid development of the tropical forest. President Alan Garcia, a free-trade advocate, has been instrumental in allocating more than 70 percent of the Peruvian Amazon for oil and gas extraction, and indigenous tribes are protesting recent decrees that would break up their communal property and sell the parcels for development. Protests turned violent late last week as police and soldiers attempted to reoccupy roads and pipeline installations seized by the tribes. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Congress has approved a controversial law allowing companies and individuals who illegally deforested land in the Amazon before December 2004 to obtain legal title to those holdings. The law, which would bestow title on illegally cleared parcels up to 3,700 acres, has been sharply criticized by environmentalists, who say it will spur further deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. President Lula da Silva is expected to sign the bill into law.
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01 Jun 2009: Brazil Investments Drive
Amazon Deforestation, Report Claims

The Brazilian government has invested $2.65 billion in three major beef trading and leather processing companies that are key players in driving deforestation of the Amazon, according to a three-year investigation by the environmental group, Greenpeace. The group also said that shoe companies such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and Timberland, which claim not to buy leather from cattle raised on cleared Amazon land, are in fact doing so — perhaps unwittingly — by purchasing leather from three companies that trade in cattle from the Amazon. Greenpeace identified the three companies involved in buying cattle grazed on illegally cleared Amazon land as Bertin, the world’s largest leather trader; JBS, the world’s largest beef trader; and Marfig, the world’s fourth-largest beef trader. The Brazilian government has a financial stake in all three companies, Greenpeace said in its report, “Slaughtering the Amazon.” Largely because of the clearing and burning of the Amazon — much of it for cattle production — Brazil is the world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
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26 May 2009: Carbon Plan in Ecuador
Would Leave Jungle Oil Reserves Untapped

Conservationists are working on a plan that would leave a vast oil deposit in the pristine jungle of the Ecuadorean Amazon undeveloped, in exchange for billions of dollars in payments from governments and companies looking to purchase carbon offsets. The oil fields — which contain about 20 percent of Ecuador’s oil reserves — lie under the Yasuni National Park in northeastern Ecuador, an undeveloped area that harbors some of the richest biological diversity on earth. Under the conservation plan, Ecuador would sell certificates on fledgling carbon markets that would allow governments or companies to emit carbon dioxide in amounts equal to the carbon left underground in Yasuni. Scientists have estimated that if the oil extracted from Yasuni was extracted and combusted, it would produce roughly 400 million tons of carbon dioxide; the sale of those carbon offsets could yield the country and the Yasuni Indians $4 billion to $7 billion. Bringing such a plan to fruition faces many hurdles, including the need for a December climate summit in Copenhagen to create the legal mechanisms for such carbon offset projects to operate.
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11 May 2009: Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
Has Lost 90 Percent Of Original Habitat

Much attention has been focused on the steady destruction of the Brazilian Amazon, but a recent study confirms that the country’s “other” rainforest — which once stretched along the Atlantic coast — is in far worse shape. Analyzing satellite images and vegetation maps, researchers have concluded that the Atlantic forest — once three times the size of France — has been reduced to 10 percent of its original size, largely because of development in the past century. As a result, the region’s rich flora and fauna — which included 20,000 species of plants, 700 species of birds, and 260 species of mammals — is severely threatened, with iconic creatures such as the golden lion tamarind and northern wooly spider monkey facing extinction. Seventy percent of the nation's population — including the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro — is located in what was once the Atlantic forest. Reporting in the journal Biological Conservation, the researchers said that 80 percent of the remaining patches of forest are split into fragments of less than .5 square kilometers and that only 14 percent of the undisturbed forest is protected. Conservationists have called for the creation of reserves in the few remaining large tracts of Atlantic forest, including the Sierra do Mar mountains near Sao Paulo.
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In Bolivia, A Major Glacier Disappears

Bolivia’s Chacaltaya glacier — an 18,000-year-old ice cap that once was the world’s highest ski resort — has melted entirely, according to Bolivian scientists. “Chacaltaya has disappeared,” said Dr. Edison Ramirez, head of an international team of scientists that has studied the glacier since 1991. “It no longer exists.” Located 17,388 feet above sea level, the glacier once served as the foundation of a ski resort that dated back to 1939 and attracted tens of thousands of visitors over the years; it was Bolivia’s only ski resort. As temperatures in the Andes have risen steadily in recent years, Ramirez and his team have documented the rapid retreat of Chacaltaya, which lost 80 percent of its mass since 1987. Ramirez predicted the glacier would disappear by 2015, but the rate of thawing increased threefold in the last decade, hastening the Chacaltaya's demise. The loss of Chacaltaya is the latest sign that glaciers in the Andes are melting faster than earlier projections, threatening the drinking water supplies of 77 million people in the region. Most glaciers in the Andes could disappear in the next several decades, scientists predict.
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10 Feb 2009: Climate Adaptation Network
Launched by MacArthur, WWF, and IUCN

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is giving $2 million to the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to develop programs to help human communities and vulnerable ecosystems adapt to climate change. The conservation groups will use the money to establish an Ecosystems and Livelihoods Adaptation Network, which is designed to identify regions especially vulnerable to climate change and study ways to cushion the impact of higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and other effects of global warming. The new network will initially examine how a rise in sea level will impact coastal ecosystems and communities in Melanesia, the Caribbean, and Madagascar. The $2 million grant is part of a larger, $50 million effort by MacArthur to develop climate adaption programs. Foundation President Jonathan Fanton said that while it is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the rapid pace of climate change “demands global cooperation and innovation to help animal and human populations adapt to our changing planet.”
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03 Feb 2009: New Amphibians Found
Near Border of Colombia and Panama

Nine new frog species and one new salamander species have been discovered in the mountainous Tacarcuna region of northern Colombia, according to the group Conservation International. The species includes three poison frogs, three glass frogs, one harlequin frog, two types of rain frogs, and one salamander. “Without a doubt, this region is a true Noah’s Arc,” said Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, the conservation group's scientific director in Colombia. Conservation International hailed the discovery as an encouraging sign and called for increased protection of the heavily forested region, 25 percent of which has already been logged or cleared for ranching, agriculture, mining, and other forms of development. Amphibian populations are increasingly under threat worldwide from deforestation, development, and climate change, with up to one-third of amphibian species facing extinction this century, scientists say.
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28 Jan 2009: In Ecuadorian Amazon, Camera
Captures Images of Jaguars and Rare Dogs

Wildlife biologists in Ecuador’s Amazon jungle, seeking to census populations of animals as oil exploration and development pressure grows, have used camera traps to take photographs of rarely seen species, including jaguars and short-eared dogs. The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society is conducting the research, which found five times more jaguars in remote areas than in regions where roads and other development have led to an increase in poaching and bushmeat hunting. In the past two years, biologists have taken 75 photographs of jaguars, which can be individually identified by their unique pattern of spots. The camera traps also have snapped pictures of white-lipped peccaries, a major prey species for jaguars, and short-eared dogs, which are related to wolves and foxes.
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