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15 May 2012: U.S. Companies Use Steel Linked
To Amazon Destruction, Greenpeace Finds

U.S. car makers such as General Motors, Ford, and Nissan are purchasing steel made from pig iron that is smelted using large amounts of illegally logged timber from the Amazon rainforest, according to a two-year investigation by Greenpeace. The environmental group also said that the pig iron smelting, fueled by charcoal produced from tropical forest trees, has resulted in virtual slave labor and illegal logging of indigenous lands in northeastern Brazil. The Greenpeace investigation said that Brazil’s Carajas region — where three-quarters of the forests have been cleared, mainly for charcoal production — is home to 43 blast furnaces used by 18 different companies. Two of the major companies, Viena and Sidepar, sell pig iron to a U.S. steel mill operated by Severstal, Greenpeace said. That mill sells steel to General Motors, Nissan, BMW, and Mercedes, according to Greenpeace. As illegal charcoal operations have decimated the forests in Carajas, loggers have entered conservation areas belonging to indigenous tribes, who have lost 30 percent of their lands to illegal loggers, Greenpeace said.
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14 May 2012: Various Uses of Wood
Determine Emissions from Deforestation

The volume of greenhouse gases released when a forest is cleared depends on how how the trees are used and in which part of the world the trees are grown, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Analyzing how 160 countries use wood from cleared forests, the researchers found that if the wood is generally used to create solid wood products, such as timber for housing, up to 62 percent of the carbon in the trees remains in storage. Temperate forests in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are cleared primarily for use in such products. But the study found that wood from tropical forests in places like Brazil and Indonesia is generally used in paper, pulp, and bioenergy production, and such uses lead to an almost complete release of the carbon stored in trees. Reporting in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers said that early studies assumed that most of the carbon stored in trees was released once they were felled. The new study, however, gives a more nuanced picture of carbon releases from deforestation.
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11 May 2012: Study Calls Selective Logging
Most Realistic Conservation Strategy

A new study says that well-managed selective logging may be the only realistic solution to conserving tropical forests in the face of a rapacious global demand for timber resources. In an analysis of more than 100 studies, researchers at the University of Florida found that while even selective logging has a significant impact on biodiversity in tropical forests and carbon storage capacity, those impacts are “survivable and reversible to a degree” if the forests are given time to recover. In fact, the researchers found that, on average, 85 to 100 percent of animal and plant species present before initial logging were still around after selective logging and that forests retained about 75 percent of their carbon after initial harvest. By contrast, the researchers say, forest loss for the planting of rubber or palm oil plantations is permanent. “We’re not advocates for logging,” said Jack Putz, a professor of biology and lead author of the study published in Conservation Letters. “We’re just acknowledging that it is a reality — and that within that reality, there is a way forward.”
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19 Apr 2012: 151 Planned Dams Threatens
Balance of Andean Amazon, Study Says

A new study warns that 151 hydroelectric dams planned along six major rivers in the Amazon basin over the next two decades, including dozens of so-called mega-dams, could significantly disrupt the region’s ecological connectivity. Writing in the online journal PLoS ONE, researchers say 60 percent of the dams currently being planned would cause the first major break in river connectivity between the Andean headwaters and the lowland Amazon, possibly threatening the free flow of several Andean-Amazon rivers. The Andes provide most of the sediment, nutrients, and organic matter to the vast, species-rich Amazonian floodplain. The study also found the majority of the projects would increase forest loss because of new roads and transmission lines. “There appears to be no strategic planning regarding possible consequences to the disruption of an ecological connection that has existed for millions of years,” said Matt Finer of the Center for International Environmental Law and the study's lead author.
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28 Mar 2012: Brazil Policies Helped Drive
Decline in Deforestation, Report Says

Brazilian conservation policies were responsible for about half of the 70 percent decline in deforestation within the Amazon rainforest from 2005 to 2009, according to a new study. In an analysis conducted by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), researchers found that a series of government policies — including stricter monitoring and enforcement of land use laws, the expansion of protected areas, and stronger incentives for local governments to meet environmental standards — helped prevent the clearing of nearly 24,000 square miles (62,000 square kilometers) of forest and avoided 620 million tons of carbon emissions that would have otherwise occurred during that period, Mongabay reports. Those policies — which included the creation of blacklists for municipalities with high deforestation rates — were enacted following a spike in deforestation in 2004, when a record 10,425 square miles were cleared. The study found that falling agricultural prices also slowed deforestation rates.
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23 Mar 2012: Google Street View Offers
Virtual Tour of Amazon Basin

Google this week expanded its popular Street View feature to the forests of the Amazon basin, posting more than 50,000 photos that allow online users a virtual tour of the world’s largest tropical region. The photos, taken last summer in the Rio Negro Reserve, provide a panoramic view of tropical forest trails and village pathways — and a “virtual board ride” down the Rio Negro. Like many areas of the Amazon, the Rio Negro Reserve is under strict government control and has restricted access to the public, Amazon project leader Karin Tuxen-Bettman wrote on the Google blog. “We’re thrilled to help everyone from researchers and scientists to armchair explorers around the world learn more about the Amazon, and better understand how local communities there are working to preserve this unique environment for future generations,” she wrote. The project is part of a Google partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation.
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Interview: Finding Strategies
To Save World’s Coral Reefs

In her four decades as a marine biologist, Nancy Knowlton has played an important role in helping document the biodiversity of the planet’s coral reefs — and the threats they increasingly face. Knowlton, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, has been elated by the rapid pace of discoveries but also  alarmed by the perils facing coral reefs, including overfishing, disease, and climate change. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Knowlton assesses the state of the world’s corals and discusses conservation projects that offer hope of saving these irreplaceable marine ecosystems — success stories that she has highlighted in a series of events called “Beyond the Obituaries: Success Stories in Ocean Conservation.” “I felt it was really important to give people a reason to think that there is something you can do,” Knowlton says. “We all need more than doom and gloom.”
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31 Jan 2012: Tropics Store More Carbon
Than Previously Believed, Study Says

A new analysis calculates that vegetation in the world’s tropical regions stores about 229 billion tons of carbon, which is about 21 percent more carbon than previously believed. Using remote sensing satellite data — including cloud-penetrating LiDAR — and field observations from forests, woodlands and savannas across Africa, Asia, and South America, researchers say they were able to create the first “wall-to-wall” map depicting carbon density. According to their results, Brazilian rainforests store about 53.2 billion tons of carbon, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (22 billion) and Indonesia (18.6). “For the first time we were able to derive accurate estimates of carbon densities using satellite LiDAR observations in places that have never been measured,” said Alessandro Baccini of the Woods Hole Research Center the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The results could help improve the accuracy of reporting carbon emissions as part of the UN-based REDD initiative, which provides incentives to developing nations to prevent large-scale deforestation.
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25 Jan 2012: South Pacific ‘Free-for-All’
Decimating Fish Stocks, Report Says

Years of lax oversight, corruption, and political rivalry have allowed industrial fishing fleets from Asia, Europe, and Latin America to decimate fish stocks across the southern Pacific, a “free-for-all” that has pushed one critical species to the brink, according to a new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). With governments ignoring the threat of overfishing and heavily subsidizing the fishing industry, fleets have plundered the waters off Chile and Peru and have fished heavily right up to protected Antarctic waters. Stocks of jack mackerel — an oily fish that is a staple in Africa and a vital component in fishmeal for aquaculture — have declined by more than 90 percent, from an estimated 30 million metric tons to less than 3 million metric tons, in just two decades. According to Daniel Pauly, an oceanographer at the University of British Columbia, the jack mackerel decline could portend a collapse in fisheries worldwide.
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10 Jan 2012: Brazil Gains in Food Production
Coincided With Drop in Deforestation

A new study of land use in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso shows that deforestation rates decreased significantly from 2006 to 2010 even as agricultural production in the region reached an all-time high. The study found that growers in Mato Grosso, where more than a third of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon occurred in the 1980s, have increasingly used previously cleared pasture land. Using satellite data and government statistics on deforestation and production, researchers from Columbia University calculated that 26 percent of the increase in soy production within Mato Grosso from 2001 to 2005 was the result of cropland expansion into forested areas, accounting for 10 percent of total deforestation; during the second half of the decade, however, soy expansion accounted for just 2 percent of total deforestation. According to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this shift coincided with a drop in commodity markets, as well as a series of high-profile policy initiatives to reduce deforestation and improved methods in monitoring illegal clearing, including satellite-based tracking systems.
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19 Dec 2011: Brazil's Forest Code Will Lead
To Rise in Deforestation, Critics Say

Environmental advocates say a controversial overhaul of Brazil’s Forest Code will lead to an increase in illegal deforestation and send a mixed message about Brazil’s commitment to preserving its rainforests. While advocates of the legislation approved by the Senate last week say it will require property owners to preserve 80 percent of their forested land, opponents say loopholes will allow farmers to clear a significantly larger portion of forest and to replace as much as 50 percent of illegally cleared forest with exotic species rather than native trees. Nationwide, opponents predict, farmers will be required to restore only about half of the 212,000 square miles of forest they would have been required to restore under the current law. The changes come as Brazil pledges to reduce carbon emissions by nearly 40 percent below projected levels by 2020. “Brazil has positioned itself as a country that’s committed itself to saving the forest cover to the benefit of the world,” Christian Poirier, the Brazil director for Amazon Watch, told the Washington Post. “The new forest code flouts all that.” According to a pair of Russian scientists, similar revisions to Russia’s forest code in 2007 produced a spike in illegal deforestation.
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Interview: Defender of Whales
Sees Only a Tenuous Recovery

Biologist Roger Payne first came to prominence more than 40 years ago, when he and a colleague made the discovery that whales sing eerily beautiful songs as a way of communicating. Since then, he has continued his groundbreaking work on whales, including recent studies showing that whales worldwide have high levels of pollutants in their bodies. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Payne talks about current threats to whale populations, including the continued killing of whales by Japan and other nations, and discusses the mystery of the songs sung by whales, whose haunting strains have the power, he says, to move people to tears.
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06 Dec 2011: Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon
Dropped to Record Low Last Year

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to a new record low during the year ending in July, according to preliminary government data. About 2,408 square miles (6,238 square kilometers) of rainforest were cleared from August 2010 to July 2011, a 10.9 percent reduction from the previous year, when about 2,700 square miles of forest were destroyed, an analysis of satellite data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research shows. While Brazilian leaders attributed the trend to stricter enforcement of logging rules and sustainable development initiatives, analysts said slow economic growth was also a factor. The results reflect the continuation of a trend of significantly declining deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, where forest destruction peaked at about 9,650 square miles (25,000 square kilometers) annually in 2003 and 2004. The new findings come as Brazilian lawmakers prepare to vote on legislation that would ease the nation’s Forest Code, which requires property owners in the Amazon to maintain 80 percent of their holdings as forest.
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11 Nov 2011: Wood Smoke Is Linked To
Severe Pneumonia and Cognitive Impacts

A new study finds that reducing exposure to smoke from open fires and wood-burning cook stoves significantly reduces the incidence of pneumonia, the leading of death for children five and under in developing countries. In an assessment of families in the western highlands of Guatemala, researchers found a one-third reduction in severe pneumonia diagnoses among children in homes with smoke-reducing chimneys compared with homes that use dirtier, poorly ventilated stoves, which are the primary source of cooking and heat for 3 billion people, or 43 percent of the global population. “The amount of smoke exposure babies were getting from the open woodfire stoves is comparable to having them smoke three to five cigarettes a day,” said Kirk Smith, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and principal investigator of the study, published in the journal The Lancet. “The chimney stoves reduced that smoke exposure by a half, on average.”
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19 Oct 2011: Trawlers Kill 2,000 Sharks
For Fins in Colombian Marine Sanctuary

As many as 2,000 sharks have been slaughtered for their fins in the protected waters of Colombia’s Malpelo wildlife sanctuary, government officials say. A team of researchers studying sharks in the region reportedly witnessed a fleet of about 10 fishing trawlers in the waters around Malpelo, a rock island about 500 kilometers from the mainland. “When the divers dove, they started finding a large number of animals without their fins,” said Sandra Bessudo, environmental advisor to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. “They didn’t see any alive.” A Colombian navy ship later reported seizing an Ecuadorian fishing boat containing an illegal catch, including sharks and other species. The remote 8,570-square-kilometer sanctuary — which is home to hammerhead, Galápagos, and whale sharks — attracts illegal fishing boats that trap the sharks and strip their fins, before dropping them back into the water. In Hong Kong, where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy, 22 million pounds of shark fins are traded annually and a bowl of soup can fetch £63.
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11 Oct 2011: Rising Gold Prices Drive
Rampant Clearing of Peruvian Amazon

The spread of illegal gold mining in southern Peru has driven a growth in deforestation so rampant that government officials may declare an environmental emergency, according to a news report. As the global price of gold has climbed, mining operations in the Amazon have extended into the fringes of Tambopata Nature Reserve, an important region for ecotourism, with miners beginning operations without necessary permits, according Mongabay.com. In some cases, miners have started operations within the reserve itself, using dredges and massive suction equipment to search for gold in rivers and creeks. Ecologists warn that enormous swaths of remote and biodiverse forest are being cleared before scientists have even been able to completely assess their value. “This [area] is often blanketed in clouds. It’s poorly known to science,” said ecologist Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University. “We don’t know the composition of the ecosystems.”
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10 Oct 2011: Amazon Drought Released
More CO2 than India’s Annual Emissions

A drought that affected large areas of the Amazon rainforest in 2010 triggered the release of about 1.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, more than the total annual CO2 emissions of India, according to a new study. After combining a NASA carbon cycle simulation model and satellite data that reflects the “greenness” — or light interception capacity — of forest canopies, researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center found that net primary production in some forest areas decreased by an average of 7 percent compared with 2008 data. The drought not only reduced the amount of CO2 absorbed by the rainforest, but the drying of normally flooded areas also released large amounts of CO2 through the decomposition of soil and dead wood. According to the study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the results suggest “a more widespread and long-lasting impact to Amazonian forests than what could be inferred based solely on rainfall data.”
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26 Sep 2011: Major Rivers Have Enough Water
to Sustain Growing Populations, Study Says

A new study says the world’s major river systems contain more than enough water to meet global food production needs in the 21st century. Following a five-year study of 10 river basins — including the Nile, Ganges, Andes, Yellow, and Niger — scientists with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) found that the greatest water challenge facing the planet is not scarcity but the inefficient and inequitable distribution of water. “Huge volumes of rainwater are lost or never used,” said Alain Vidal, director of CGIAR’s Challenge Program on Water and Food. In regions of sub-Saharan Africa, he said, even “modest” improvements in rainwater harvesting could yield two to three times more food production. Elsewhere, regions in Asia and Latin America exist where food production could be increased by at least 10 percent, according to the report, which is published in the journal Water International. According to a recent UN report, global food output will have to increase 70 percent by 2050 to feed a growing world population.
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30 Aug 2011: Deforestation Rates Higher
In ‘Protected’ Forests, Study Says

A new study says deforestation rates in tropical forests designated as “protected” areas are typically much higher than in community-managed forests. In a comparison of recent studies covering 40 protected areas and 33 community forests in 16 countries — including 11 in Latin America, three in Asia, and two in Africa — researchers found that protected areas lost an average of 1.47 percent of forest cover annually while community-managed forests lost only about 0.24 percent per year. “Our findings suggest that a forest put away behind a fence and designated ‘protected’ doesn’t necessarily guarantee that canopy cover will be maintained over the long term compared to forests managed by local communities,” said Manuel Guariguata, a senior scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research and co-author of the study, published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. While the researchers do not contend that the designation of forest areas as protected is “useless,” they say the evidence suggests community-based efforts can lead to increased local participation, reduced poverty, and greater economic opportunities and are a key part of forest conservation efforts globally.
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29 Aug 2011: Preserving 4 Percent of Ocean
Would Benefit Most Marine Mammal Species

A new study says the preservation of just 4 percent of the world’s oceans would protect critical habitat for most of the world’s marine mammal species. After comparing maps of where each of the planet’s 129 marine mammal species are found — and where conservation efforts would be most productive — scientists from Stanford University and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México identified 20 areas of “species richness” based on the number of species present, risks of extinction, and the presence of species unique to the area. According to their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, preserving just nine of those 20 conservation sites, which cover 4 percent of the world’s oceans, would protect habitat for 108 species, or 84 percent of the Earth’s marine mammal species. The sites are located off the coasts of Baja California in Mexico, eastern Canada, Peru, Argentina, northwestern Africa, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. At least 70 percent of those areas are significantly impacted by human activities, highlighting the urgency to enhance marine conservation efforts, the authors said.
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