Sites: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia
Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia
topic: Saving The Amazon
Social media activity version | Lean version
‘We’re getting back on track’: Interview with IBAMA head Rodrigo Agostinho
- Rodrigo Agostinho, head of IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, for two years now, spoke with Mongabay about the progress of his agency and the challenges it faces in protecting the country’s biomes after four years of regression under former president Jair Bolsonaro.
- Agostinho revealed plans to strengthen the agency and try to reach the 2030 zero-deforestation goal before the deadline, with investments in cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence: “IBAMA went four years without using satellite images for embargoes. We’ve taken that up again with full force”.
- Agostinho also detailed IBAMA’s restructuring plans, with the opening of offices in the Amazon and support from financial authorities to cut off funding for embargoed areas: “We embargo them due to deforestation, and then that person can’t get agricultural financing anymore.”
Indigenous communities come together to protect the Colombian Amazon
- Indigenous communities are increasingly recognized as the most effective guardians of the Amazon Rainforest, thanks to their deep-rooted beliefs that nature possesses its own life and rights, and also to their focus on long-term sustainability rather than short-term profits.
- In the Colombian Amazon’s Putumayo department, Indigenous women have come together to plant trees, collect waste, monitor water quality, launch educational campaigns, and denounce extractive activities that threaten the rainforest.
- One of the key challenges lies in blending traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern scientific approaches.
- Despite growing interest in Indigenous knowledge and preservation efforts, Indigenous communities remain underrepresented in political decision-making and the funding of conservation projects, and are also left exposed to attacks for their role as environmental defenders.
The year in tropical rainforests: 2024
- The year 2024 saw significant developments in tropical rainforest conservation, deforestation, and degradation. While progress in some regions provided glimmers of hope, systemic challenges and emerging threats highlighted the fragility of these ecosystems.
- Although a complete comparison of tropical forest loss in 2024 with previous years is not yet available, there are currently no indications that this year’s loss will be markedly higher. A sharp decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon—partially offset by widespread forest fires—suggests the overall rate of loss may be lower.
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2024.
‘Time is water’: A cross-border Indigenous alliance works to save the Amazon
- A transboundary Indigenous peoples’ alliance has been working in Ecuador and Peru to protect the Amazon Basin in the face of climate change impacts.
- Indigenous people, who have sacred connections with the Amazon River, are suffering the consequences of wildfires, extreme heat and drought, which have deeply affected water levels across the basin.
- The Sacred Headwaters Alliance is focusing on climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as on teaching younger generations to resist against the destruction of the Amazon.
‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
- In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury.
- In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.
Raw materials become high-value bioeconomy goods at an Amazon science park
- Ahead of hosting 2025’s COP30 climate summit, Belém is betting on the development of products such as honey-based spirits, digital glasses from local wood and jambu-infused medicine at a local tech park.
- The Guamá Science and Technology Park (PCT), operating since 2010 and the first of its kind in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, uses technology to transform forest-based resources into high-value products.
- It’s a step toward building a sustainable and thriving billion-dollar bioeconomy that provides local populations with alternatives to deforestation and increases the appeal of sustainably harvesting the region’s resources.
- Future plans include expanding the park for further innovation and to build more science and technology parks in the Amazon as well as fostering networks with other Pan Amazonian countries with similar hubs such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Time for a copal comeback? The natural resin could boost Amazon’s economy
- Copal resin, also known as rosin or jutaicica, historically was a relevant source of income for river and traditional communities in the surroundings of Santarém, in the Brazilian Pará state.
- In the 1980s, however, its use as a varnish was substituted by a petroleum-based solution.
- Researchers say the natural resin could be part of the communities’ sustainable economy again, especially by adding value to Amazon timber products.
New study reaffirms Indigenous lands key to mitigating climate change in Brazil
- A recent study adds to growing literature showing that Indigenous lands and conservation units are much more effective at regulating climate than multiuse areas.
- The authors found that Indigenous lands and conservation units contribute more to climate regulation than multiple-use areas, underscoring the crucial role that protected areas play in regional water supply services and mitigating ongoing climate change.
- However, persistent degradation pressures from forest fires, deforestation and global climate change are increasingly challenging the capacity of protected areas to regulate climate.
Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest continues to plummet despite a rise in fires
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to its lowest level since March 2018, according to new data from the Brazilian government.
- Deforestation for the year to date is down 40% compared to 2023, with expectations for a significant annual decline when the “deforestation year” concludes on July 31.
- Despite declining deforestation in the Amazon, the region is experiencing a rise in forest fires due to a severe drought.
- Deforestation is rising in the cerrado, an adjacent ecosystem.
Governments are ramping up actions to fight environmental crime across the Amazon, but is it working? (commentary)
- In 2023, Amazon deforestation rates declined after years of record-breaking losses, thanks to efforts led by Brazil and Colombia. However, these gains are fragile, and anti-deforestation efforts show signs of weakening, with persistent risks of a tipping point, argues Robert Muggah, Co-Founder of the Igarapé Institute.
- Government measures focus on forest conservation, green development, and strengthening the rule of law but face challenges due to underfunding and limited municipal support. Public security forces are overwhelmed by environmental crimes like illegal mining and wildlife trafficking, exacerbating forest and biodiversity loss.
- Environmental crime is gaining more attention from decision-makers, law enforcement, and civil society, leading to increased media coverage and public commitments. Despite this, interventions remain fragmented, with inconsistent political backing and funding, writes Muggah.
- “Ultimately, Brazil and other countries in the Amazon Basin cannot reverse environmental crime through police and prosecutions alone,” he writes. “A comprehensive strategy that combines law enforcement with nature-based development opportunities is critical.” This post is a commentary, so the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Interview with the award-winning directors of ‘We Are Guardians’
In this episode of Mongabay Sessions, join Romi Castagnino, Mongabay’s Associate Video Producer, as she delves into an insightful interview with the directors of the acclaimed documentary We Are Guardians. Featuring Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, and Rob Grobman, this film is a powerful exploration of the Amazon’s ongoing battle for survival. We Are Guardians weaves […]
Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.
New technologies to map environmental crime in the Amazon Basin (commentary)
- Environmental crimes like land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and poaching hinder climate action, deter investment in sustainable practices, and threaten biodiversity across major biomes worldwide.
- Despite challenges such as vast territories difficult to police and weak rule of law, new technologies like geospatial and predictive analytics are being leveraged to enhance the detection and disruption of these activities.
- Innovative approaches, including public-private partnerships and AI tools, show promise in improving real-time monitoring and enforcement, although they require increased investment and training to be truly effective, argue Robert Muggah and Peter Smith of Instituto Igarapé, a “think and do tank” in Brazil.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
To reverse deforestation and protect biodiversity, build a bioeconomy in the Amazon (commentary)
- Slowing and reversing deforestation and land degradation in the Amazon requires not only conservation efforts but also increasing the economic value of standing primary forests through a bioeconomy approach, argues Robert Muggah, co-founder of Instituto Igarapé.
- A bioeconomy involves regenerative agriculture, sustainable energy, and other activities that leverage the forest’s natural assets while ensuring economic benefits for local communities. However, the expansion of the bioeconomy faces challenges, including resistance from extractive sectors, investment risks, and the need for infrastructure, research, and support for local enterprises.
- Despite these hurdles, advancing the bioeconomy is essential for sustainable development and decarbonization in the Amazon and crucial for the world, says Muggah.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Detailed NASA analysis finds Earth and Amazon in deep climate trouble
- A NASA study analyzed the future action of six climate variables in all the world’s regions — air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, short- and long wave solar radiation and wind speed — if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, which could occur by 2040 if emissions keep rising at current rates.
- The authors used advanced statistical techniques to downscale climate models at a resolution eight times greater than most previous models. This allows for identification of climate variations on a daily basis across the world, something essential since climate impacts unfold gradually, rather than as upheavals.
- The study found that the Amazon will be the area with the greatest reduction in relative humidity. An analysis by the Brazilian space agency INPE showed that some parts of this rainforest biome have already reached maximum temperatures of more than 3°C (5.4°F) over 1960 levels.
- Regardless of warnings from science and Indigenous peoples of the existential threat posed by climate change, the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, largely with government consent, plan to further expand fossil fuel exploration, says a U.N. report. That’s despite a COP28 climate summit deal “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Science panel presents COP28 with blueprint for saving the Amazon
- Five policy briefs launched at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai highlight the critical challenges facing the Amazon Basin, as well as the immediate actions and solutions needed to ensure a sustainable future for the region’s ecosystems and the 47 million people living there.
- The reports, published by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), a high-level science body, cover cross-cutting topics, from root causes of deforestation and rethinking Amazon infrastructure to restoration and finance solutions.
- Stressing the urgency of preventing the rainforest from crossing a tipping point into a dry scrubland, the panel calls for leveraging nature-based solutions and Indigenous knowledge to consolidate new social bioeconomies that can “leave forests standing and rivers flowing.”
- Based on a previous SPA brief, Brazil launched Arcs of Reforestation, a $205 million program to restore 6 million hectares (15 million acres) of deforested and degraded forest land in some of most affected parts of the Brazilian Amazon.
Amazon deforestation declines but fossil fuels remain contentious, COP28 shows
- COP28 celebrates the strong downward trend in deforestation in the Amazon over the last year, but also reveals a conflict between Amazonian nations over fossil fuels.
- Colombia has stopped all new oil exploration contracts in a bid to eliminate dependency on the fossil fuel economy. On the other hand, Brazil announced plans that could make it the world’s fourth-largest oil producer by the end of this decade.
- Indigenous groups who live and depend on the Amazon Rainforest lament that they haven’t been heard or involved in important decision-making during COP28 that would ultimately impact them.
- Experts say that international finance is “fundamental” for climate action, and while this theme has been on the table at COP28, there has been no tangible action that would meet the scale required to preserve the Amazon Rainforest.
Safety of Peru’s land defenders in question after killing of Indigenous leader in the Amazon
- Quinto Inuma was killed on November 29 while traveling to the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community in Peru’s Amazon following a meeting of environmental defenders.
- For years, the Indigenous Kichwa leader had been receiving threats for his work trying to stop invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging in his community, forcing him to rely on protection measures from the Ministry of Justice.
- After Inuma’s death, a group of 128 Indigenous communities released a statement appealing for justice and holding the Peruvian state reponsible for its inaction and ineffectivtieness in protecting the lives of human rights defenders in Indigenous territories. Several other Indigenous leaders who receive threats have requested protection measures from the state but have not gotten a response.
- According to an official in the Ministry of Justice, providing the Kichwa leader with protection measures was very complex because he lived in a high-risk area. The only thing that could be done, they said, is to provide permanent police protection, which wasn’t possible for the local police.
Least-studied areas of Brazilian Amazon at high risk from climate change
- In the Brazilian Amazon, between 15 and 18% of the areas most overlooked by research are at high risk of severe climate and land-use changes by 2050, according to a new study.
- Analyzing data from more than 7,500 locations surveyed between 2010-2020, the study looked at the role of logistics and human presence in determining which areas of the Brazilian Amazon get studied, and at the challenges to expanding research to more remote areas.
- The study suggests that creating new research centers in less-studied areas and working with Indigenous communities would help boost research efforts in underrepresented sites.
What Brazil should have said at COP28 but didn’t (commentary)
- Brazil’s President Lula made important contributions to COP28 in demanding that the 1.5°C temperature increase limit be respected, in recognizing the risk of Amazon forest collapse, and in promising to end Brazil’s Amazon deforestation by 2030.
- Lula failed to explain how zero deforestation would be achieved, implicitly relying only on the Ministry of Environment’s command and control operations against illegal clearing. The causes of deforestation must be addressed, many of which are being strengthened by the rest of Lula’s presidential administration.
- These include legalization of illegal land claims in government land and highway projects such as BR-319 and associated side roads that would open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters. Brazil’s plans for opening new oil and gas extraction areas and expanding existing ones contradict the discourse on limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Mongabay CEO discusses slowdown in Amazon loss and other positive news
- It’s been an eventful couple of months for the Amazon Rainforest and for the Mongabay newsroom.
- Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recently shared data showing a 22% decline in deforestation for the year ending July 31, 2023.
- In other exciting news, Mongabay was awarded the prestigious 2023 Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication recently. Past winners have included Pulitzer-winning journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and The Guardian.
- Mongabay has also just launched an entirely new bilingual bureau in Africa. Here to discuss all these developments on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is CEO and editor-in-chief Rhett Butler.
Cacao and cupuaçu emerge as Amazon’s bioeconomy showcases
- A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
- Selling high-end chocolate made from both of these closely related pods increases the value of the products and also allows local communities to earn higher incomes, thereby giving them an incentive not to deforest.
- Portable biofactories are also set to teach traditional communities how to make bean-to-bar premium chocolate products, helping to increase the value of the raw cacao by up to 2,000%.
- These projects are part of an emerging bioeconomy in the Amazonian region, which experts say will keep the rainforest standing while also lifting the region’s population out of poverty.
New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Mobi, a new online interactive map, draws information from public databases, government statistics and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats that uncontacted Indigenous peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The exact location of uncontacted communities is deliberately displaced on the map to avoid any subsequent attacks against them from those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The tool can help Indigenous agencies deploy more effective protective actions to fend off threats such as diseases and environmental destruction, which can wipe out vulnerable populations.
- Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that ranks uncontacted populations according to the severity of threats against them, which can promote stronger public policies.
EU bill and new green policies spur progress on Brazil’s cattle tracking
- Brazilian banks have created new rules for releasing credit to meatpackers and slaughterhouses in Amazonian states in which their clients must implement traceability and monitoring systems by 2025 to show that their cattle didn’t come from illegal deforestation.
- Even the powerful Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) recognizes the cattle tracking demand and proposes a traceability model to the federal government.
- A new study shows that existing cattle companies’ zero-deforestation commitments have reduced Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 15% and that the devastation could be halved by scaling up the implementation of supply chain policies.
- The ideal animal tracking model is individual, but experts defend a middle-of-the-road solution to reduce illegal deforestation based on cross-referencing from inter-ranch cattle transport data and the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).
Peru signs $20-million debt-for-nature swap with focus on Amazon rainforest
- Peru struck a $20 million debt-for-nature swap agreement with the U.S. that transfers debt payments to conservation initiatives like improving protected areas and natural resource management.
- The deal also included four NGOs: Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund. The groups donated a combined $3 million in addition to the $15 million contributed by the U.S.
- This is the third debt-for-nature swap deal struck with Peru. The U.S. has now made 13 debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps in Latin America and 22 worldwide.
How the Amazon’s ‘greatest devastator’ sold cattle to a Carrefour supplier
- Arrested by Brazilian Federal Police, cattle rancher Bruno Heller and relatives have already received over $5 million in environmental fines. He is also suspected of land grabbing.
- Heller transported cattle from a family farm fined for environmental violations to two other properties free from environmental implications — this maneuver is an indication of the so-called “cattle laundering.”
- A Frialto Group meatpacking plant confirmed that it slaughtered 249 animals for the Heller family. The facility supplies Carrefour, but the French retail company states that the meat from animals raised by Heller did not reach its supermarkets.
Amazon deforestation continues to fall under Lula
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon plunged sharply in July, continuing a downward trend since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office at the beginning of the year.
- The analysis of satellite data from Brazil’s national space research institute showed that 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of tropical rainforest were cleared in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon during the month of July. This represents a 66% decline relative to July a year ago when Jair Bolsonaro was president.
- The news comes just days before leaders from eight Amazonian nations will meet in Belém to discuss ways to protect and sustainably manage Earth’s largest rainforest.
- The decline in Brazil’s rate of deforestation marks a sharp reversal relative to the trend under the Bolsonaro Administration, during which forest destruction surged.
Rare Amazon dark soils could help forest restoration, study shows
- A recent study shows that Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), through their high nutrient and microbiological contents, could help to restore deforested areas in the Amazon region.
- Furthermore, these unique soils, enriched with beneficial microorganisms like bacteria and archaea, can boost the fertility of typically nutrient-depleted soils in the Amazon region.
- Building on these findings, researchers plan to further analyze the composition and microorganisms of ADEs, aiming to help restore and conserve the Amazon Rainforest.
A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
- An online tool developed last year by the NGO Global Witness aims to monitor and expose deforestation linked to the indirect supply chain of Brazilian meat company JBS.
- Brazil Big Beef Watch, a Twitter bot, uses satellite data and cattle transit permit data to identify whether a ranch where deforestation was detected is part of JBS’s supply chain.
- Environmentalists have often criticized JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, for being opaque about its indirect supply chain and its inability to take action.
- The new tool, Global Witness says, aims to serve as a way to call on JBS to take action and for the company’s financers to stop backing it until JBS can prove that its supply chain is deforestation-free.
Latin America had the most attacks on environmental defenders in 2022, says report
- Almost half of the 401 murders of human rights defenders recorded in 2022 were against people involved in the defense of land and environment, according to the most recent report by the organization Front Line Defenders.
- Latin America is the region with the highest number of cases of recorded violence against defenders.
- The countries with the most cases are Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Honduras.
- The violence against rights defenders has not only included murders, but also stigmatization, prosecution and constant threats to individuals and their families, said the report.
World’s ‘largest’ tropical reforestation project slowed by Covid, Bolsonaro, fires
- In 2017, Conservation International launched what was dubbed the “largest tropical forest restoration in the world” and slated for the Brazilian Amazon. Despite a goal of completing the project by the end of this year, CI is less than 20% of the way there.
- According to project managers, the initiative has been slowed by two main factors: the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2019-2022 presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
- But fire, once a rarity in the Amazon, has also played a role, destroying 2,700 hectares (nearly 6,700 acres) of restoration areas in 2021 alone.
- Still, the initiative is moving ahead across the “arc of deforestation,” with organizers hoping to prove it’s possible to restore the rapidly receding southern edge of the Brazilian Amazon before a large part of the rainforest biome hits a tipping point and changes over to savanna — releasing huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere.
Brazilian Indigenous anthropologists turn the tables from ‘objects of study’ to active voices
- Three Indigenous women leaders who are also artists and anthropologists are reshaping the relationship between the peoples anthropologists study and those who do the studying.
- A meeting with the leader of the Scottish Green Party provided an opportunity to understand the connections between Scotland’s highland clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries and the land struggles faced by Brazil’s Indigenous peoples today.
- Bamff Wildland, a Scottish rewilding project, shows that as Brazil continues to be deforested, attempts are underway across the UK and Europe to reforest, increasing biodiversity and the land’s ability to capture carbon.
- These women leaders assert that Indigenous voices need to be heard and Indigenous relationships with nonhumans need to be understood and respected, if humanity is to turn the tide on climate change and biodiversity loss.
Lula wants to mirror Amazon’s lessons in all biomes, but challenges await
- A new decree intends to protect all of Brazil’s biomes and promote sustainable development in arguably one of the country’s most ambitious environmental policies to date.
- The mandate establishes action plans for the Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado savanna, Atlantic Forest, semi-arid Caatinga, Pampas grasslands and Pantanal wetlands, based on past strategies in the Amazon that have already proven successful against deforestation.
- Environmentalists have welcomed the decree amid the country’s surging deforestation levels and rising greenhouse emissions during the past four years under Jair Bolsonaro’s rule.
- The decree’s implementation won’t be easy, experts warn, and its success depends on coordinated action across all levels of the government, increased personnel in struggling environmental enforcement agencies and highly tailored plans for each biome.
Mapping of no-drill areas in Ecuador’s Amazon can be scaled for entire rainforest: Study
- A recent study proposes a new methodology to map parts of the Ecuadoran Amazon where fossil fuel reserves must be kept untapped to meet global climate goals, and says it can be replicated and scaled for the entire Amazon Rainforest.
- This includes reviving the Yasuní-ITT Initiative proposed in 2003, and later abandoned by the Ecuadoran government, to stop oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park.
- Since the initiative was shelved, oil exploration has resumed inside the park, advancing toward areas where isolated Indigenous people live and driving swaths of deforestation in the dense forest.
- Campaigners have successfully pushed for the revival of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative to be put to a referendum this month.
Amazonian countries must act together to reverse rainforest loss, experts say
- A group of researchers from the Science Panel for the Amazon, an initiative dedicated to the region, says reversing the destruction of the rainforest needs to be done through large-scale restoration.
- They prescribe tailored action that unlocks different benefits in areas with high deforestation rates and forest degradation, and those experiencing climate change impacts.
- So-called arcs of reforestation would need to be created across Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Brazil, while conservation work would seek to stop further deforestation.
- According to the experts, with the exception of Brazil, Amazonian countries lack forest data for effectively running restoration actions.
From Japan to Brazil: Reforesting the Amazon with the Miyawaki method
- Reforestation using the Miyawaki method seeks to restore nature to its original state with results that can be seen in around six years.
- Miyawaki works around three concepts: trees should be native, several species should be randomly planted, and the materials for the seedlings and the soil should be organic.
- The method is suitable for urban areas, which gives it a significant capacity to connect human beings with nature, with benefits for the health and well-being of the population.
- Different from other reforestation methods that may seek a financial return, like agroforestry, the motivation of the Miyawaki method is purely ecological.
Dammed, now mined: Indigenous Brazilians fight for the Xingu River’s future
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, but faces opposition from Indigenous communities.
- In addition to the environmental impacts, experts warn of the risk of the proposed tailings dam rupturing, which could flood the area with 9 million cubic meters (2.4 billion gallons) of toxic waste.
- The same region is already suffering the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which diverts up to 85% of the flow of the Xingu River, leading to a mass decline in fish that traditional riverside dwellers and Indigenous people rely on.
- The Belo Sun project was legally challenged last year, prompting supporters to harass and intimidate those who oppose the mine’s construction; tensions in the region remain high.
Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.
From deforestation to restoration: Policy plots path to Amazon recovery
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new president, took office and promised to halt deforestation and to restore degraded land but plans to regenerate deforested areas remain unclear.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon at the COP27 climate summit provided the scientific basis to guide debates and decisions around the large-scale recovery of deforested and degraded areas.
- The most significant opportunity for large-scale and low-cost restoration is concentrated in public forests, protected areas and Indigenous lands that have suffered recent degradation.
- For areas with high levels of degradation, especially on private lands, productive restoration models capable of providing sustainable economic development are the main bet.
How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon
- As Brazil prepares to turn the page on the Bolsonaro government, finding sustainable and economically viable alternatives for the Amazon region remains challenging.
- Advocates tout agroforestry as a sustainable farming alternative to soy monocultures and cattle ranching. It can restore degraded pastures and provide a stable income for small farmers.
- One such project is RECA, a sustainable farming cooperative and an agroforestry pioneer in Brazil’s Amazon, with more than 30 years of experience.
- Yet expertise, financing, scale, science and technology are significant challenges.
COP27: ‘Brazil is back’ to fight deforestation, Lula says, but hurdles await
- At COP27 this week Brazil president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged “zero deforestation and degradation of biomes,” a goal to be achieved by 2030.
- Lula also plans to establish a Ministry of Indigenous People, and to end “all the exploration of Indigenous lands by miners, and… to prohibit timber cutters.” Activists said Lula has sent a “strong message” at the COP27 summit, a meeting which has so far seen little climate progress.
- The president-elect has also met with Norway and Germany about restarting the Amazon Fund, which helped finance efforts to keep the rainforest intact until it was frozen in 2019 due to the anti-environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Lula will likely have to pursue stricter forest enforcement through executive action, as he faces a congress with many members hostile to his Amazon protection promises.
Brazil’s new environmental future under Lula: Q&A with Marina Silva
- Considered for Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, environmentalist Marina Silva says in an interview with Mongabay that the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva means a new cycle of prosperity for the country, “when it will be possible to make the transition to a new development model that is capable of fighting inequality with democracy and sustainability.”
- “Part of the agribusiness sector is realizing that this practice by Bolsonaro is bad for business,” the congresswoman-elect said about the possibility of reconciling the environmental agenda and the demands of agribusiness.
- Silva stressed that the current challenges are much greater than those faced when she was a member of Lula’s first administration in 2003: “We are not going to become sustainable in the blink of an eye. It’s a transition.”
Growing soy on cattle pasture can eliminate Amazon deforestation in Brazil
- Expanding soy cultivation into underutilized cattle pastureland would help prevent massive deforestation and carbon emissions compared to the current practice of clearing new forest for farmland, a new study says.
- Experts say that Brazil, the world’s No. 1 soy producer and beef exporter, has enough pastureland lying unused that would allow soy production to increase by more than a third without any further deforestation.
- Researchers warn that if Brazil continues with its current method of soy cultivation, it would end up clearing 5.7 million hectares (14 million acres) of Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna into cropland over the next 15 years.
- Environmentalists have welcomed intensifying agriculture as a solution to deforestation, but have raised concerns about the potential for increased pesticide use, biodiversity loss, and the expansion of cattle ranching into forested areas.
To save threatened Amazon primates in Brazil, turn them into the main attraction
- Primates along the southern portion of Brazil’s Amazon frontier, a region known as the Arc of Deforestation, are being pushed to the brink of extinction as vast swaths of their habitats are cleared.
- A recent assessment places the Vieira’s titi monkey, whose conservation status was previously unknown, now as critically endangered; researchers say other primates face a similarly perilous situation.
- Conservationists say investing in primate-based ecotourism, based on the established model of the bird-watching industry and making use of the existing agroindustry infrastructure, could provide an effective conservation solution.
- Some point to the city of Sinop, in the state of Mato Grosso, as a potential “hotspot” for primate-watching ecotourism.
Successes and struggles: Brazil’s 20-year Amazon reforestation carbon sink project
- The Peugeot-ONF Forest Carbon Sink project, implemented more than 20 years ago in northwestern Mato Grosso state, within the “arc of deforestation” of the Brazilian Amazon, has achieved significant ecological restoration and carbon sequestration results.
- Reforesting 2,000 hectares of degraded cattle pasture on the São Nicolau Farm in Cotriguaçu municipality, the project has been Verra certified for reducing carbon emissions, with 394,400 metric tons of CO2 sequestered to date, equal to 85,000 cars taken off the road for a year. This CO2 reduction is being traded as carbon credits on Pachama, an online marketplace.
- Today, São Nicolau Farm is a living laboratory documenting the dynamics of forest restoration and carbon capture in the Amazon. The farm also offers ecotourism, training and educational opportunities.
- But Brazil’s volatile sociopolitical context is posing major risks to the project. Threats include a rising wave of forest crime, along with weakened environmental regulations, and controversial development proposals for the rainforest biome.
How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- Scientists warn that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from a lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna. This point may be reached when 25% of the forest is lost.
- In a newly released report, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes.
- However, when the map is divided into thirds, it shows that 31% of the eastern Amazon has been lost. Moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to half of all rainfall across the Amazon. The 31% figure is critical, the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.”
- Experts say the upcoming elections in Brazil could have dramatic consequences for the Amazon, and to avert the tipping point we must lower emissions, undertake ambitious reforestation projects, and build an economy based on the standing forest. Granting and honoring Indigenous land tenure and protected areas are also key strategies.
Brazil faces two contrasting legacies for the Amazon in October’s elections
- Polls indicate that Brazil’s presidential election in October will go to a runoff between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a duel likely to decide the fate of the Amazon Rainforest.
- While Bolsonaro doubles down his climate change denialism and anti-Indigenous agenda, Lula vows to tackle deforestation and eject criminals from the Amazon.
- Under Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Amazon has lost an area of forest larger than Belgium and recorded its highest deforestation rate in the last 15 years.
- Lula’s policies helped reduce annual deforestation by 82%, to the lowest rate recorded since satellite monitoring began.
‘Brazilians aren’t familiar with the Amazon’: Q&A with Ângela Mendes
- Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance.
- In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
- She also reflects on the culture of impunity that allowed the masterminds of her father’s murder to evade justice, and which she says persists in Brazil today.
- But she also holds out hope for change, noting that Brazilians are largely concerned about the environment, but that they need to channel this concern into concrete actions, including in the national elections coming up in October.
Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.
The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)
- Journalists in Brazil and around the world are devastated about the tragic end of a 10-day search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border in northern Amazonas state. Bodies believed to be theirs were found on June 15 after a huge outcry against the federal government’s inaction following their disappearance. Indigenous patrols bravely conducted their own search while the government did little.
- The murders of Dom and Bruno are emblematic of the plight of journalists across Latin America as violence against both journalists and activists in the region escalates. It also raises an alarm for the need to protect reporters as we report on environmental crime from Nature’s frontline.
- But these crimes will not stop us: Exposing wrongdoing across Brazil’s critical biomes — from the Mata Atlantica to the Cerrado to the Amazon — is more necessary than ever now. At the same time, demanding justice for the murder of Bruno and Dom became a fight for all of us.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
For Ecuador’s A’i Cofán leaders, Goldman Prize validates Indigenous struggle
- Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, young leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe in Ecaudor, led a movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining.
- In recognition of their struggle, they were awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize, widely known as the “Green Nobel.”
- The A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe forced the Ecuadoran state to revoke 52 gold mining concessions that threatened their territory and were awarded without the prior consultation stipulated in the country’s Constitution.
For companies shopping for quality carbon credits, a new guide offers help
- The newly published Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide aims to help companies looking to make smarter purchases of tropical forest credits, one strategy for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
- Tropical forests carbon credits allow companies to offset their carbon emissions by paying for the conservation of forests.
- The guide says companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests.
- It also urges them to be transparent about carbon credit purchases and establish a good-faith relationship with local and Indigenous communities.
A new index measures the human impacts on Amazon waters
- Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
- According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon micro basins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
- The same index points out that 323 of the 385 Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon face a medium to low impact, which demonstrates the fundamental role of these areas in protecting the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon.
- The Amazon River Basin covers 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles) and contains 20% of all freshwater on the Earth’s surface; still, little is known about the impacts of increased human activity on aquatic ecosystems.
‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- The Amazon Rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study.
- Researchers found that three-quarters of the Amazon has lost some resilience, or ability to regain biomass after disturbance. This loss of resilience is especially high in regions close to human activity and with less rainfall.
- As the forest is slashed, burned and degraded, it’s left with less vegetation, which means less evapotranspiration, leading to less rain. And less rain leads to further droughts, fires, tree death and forest degradation — a feedback loop of destruction and loss of resilience.
- The lead author describes the findings as “depressing” but also says that “having an early warning of this gives us a chance to do something about it … Rather than focusing on the trajectory the Amazon is on, we can instead try and change it.”
John Deere and Brazilian bank team up to equip farmers deforesting the Amazon
- Farmers whose properties have been embargoed by environmental authorities in Brazil for deforestation have still been able to access government-subsidized loans to buy John Deere tractors, an investigation has found.
- The five farmers identified in the investigation received a combined 28.6 million reais ($5.4 million) in loans under a program administered by the state-owned Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and underwritten by John Deere Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. farm equipment manufacturer.
- Under Central Bank rules, farms that have been embargoed for deforestation are barred from accessing credit, but a loophole allows the farm owners to apply on the basis of a different property; in some cases, lender oversight was so lax that the farmers didn’t need to resort to this subterfuge.
- In addition to being embargoed, some of the farmers also had outstanding fines for environmental violations; one of them still owed 18 million reais ($3.4 million), yet went on to receive 11 million reais ($2.1 million) in loans.
Young environmentalists ‘plant the future’ in Colombia’s Amazon
- Young people like Felipe “Pipe” Henao in Guaviare, Colombia, are using tree planting and social media to raise awareness and spread the message of protecting and valuing the environment.
- Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) recorded a nationwide deforestation rate of 171,685 hectares (424,242 acres) in 2020, with Guaviare department in the Amazon being one of the worst hit.
- Despite the damage being done, civil society efforts are already showing gains with efforts like Henao’s.
- His organization alone has connected with more than 150 companies and organizations in and around the town of Calamar and more than 1,800 families, and mobilized more than 1,000 young people to volunteer to clean rivers, protect wetlands and plant more than 60,000 trees.
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.
Mongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
- A Peruvian cacao company that sued a Mongabay Latam writer for reporting on its deforestation in the Amazon has also targeted others in what lawyers said appears to be a pattern of intimidation.
- Tamshi, formerly Cacao del Perú Norte SAC, had its lawsuit against Mongabay Latam’s Yvette Sierra Praeli thrown out by a court in November.
- A separate lawsuit against four environment ministry officials, including the one who led the prosecution of the company, has also been dropped, although it may still be appealed.
- In a third lawsuit, environmental activist Lucila Pautrat, who documented farmers’ allegations against Tamshi, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fine, but is appealing the decision.
Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.
Brazil leads Amazon in forest loss this year, Indigenous and protected areas hold out
- Satellite imagery brings us a first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots, areas where forest cover was lost in high densities across the Amazon, amounting to more than 860,000 hectares (2.1 million acres).
- The majority of deforestation (76%) occurred in Brazil and was clustered around roads, according to a recent report from Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP); many of the areas deforested this year in Brazil have also burned.
- In Colombia, deforestation hotspots this year were in and around numerous protected areas, including Tinigua and Chiribiquete national parks, as well as Indigenous reserves, particularly Yari-Yaguara II and Nukak Maku; in Peru, rice farming and a new Mennonite colony drove recent deforestation.
- Of primary forests loss across the western Amazon between 2017 and 2020, three-quarters were outside protected areas and Indigenous territories, highlighting the importance of these key land use designations for safeguarding the remaining Amazon rainforest.
Fires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species
- New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades.
- Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
- Primates were the most affected, as they depend on trees for movement, food and shelter. Rare and endemic species with restricted habitats suffered the strongest impacts.
- The study assessed two decades of fires between 2001 and 2019 and confirmed the impact of environmental policies on deforestation cycles in the Amazon; law enforcement was concluded to have direct impact on the extent and volume of fires.
‘Join us for the Amazon,’ Indigenous leaders tell IUCN in push for protection
- At the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, Indigenous leaders and conservationists called for support of their effort to protect 80% of the Amazon Basin by 2025.
- Scientists say the Amazon region has already lost 17% of its forest cover and that an additional 17% has been degraded by forest loss, fragmentation, wildfires and drought, and that these pressures are pushing the rainforest toward a critical tipping point.
- While the recognition of Indigenous land rights would be a critical first step, experts say that Indigenous communities need support in enforcing their land rights and their efforts to defend the Amazon.
- A motion that would support area-based conservation targets with the view to protecting at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025 was eventually approved by the IUCN World Conservation Congress.
New study offers latest proof that Brazilian Amazon is now a net CO2 source
- The Brazilian Amazon has been transformed from a carbon dioxide sink to a source for new emissions over the past two decades, a new study shows.
- While the Amazon as a whole, which straddles nine countries, has absorbed about 1.7 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent more than it has emitted in the past 20 years, the Brazilian portion alone has emitted a net 3.6 billion metric tons during that period.
- This study by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) is unique because it was able to go deeper in analyzing changes in forest emissions from different parts of the rainforest compared to previous research, says author Matt Finer.
- Satellite monitoring data show that formally protected areas and lands controlled by Indigenous peoples hold the best hope for preserving the Amazon and its function as a bulwark against climate change.
Climate change threatens traditional extractive communities in the Amazon
- Traditional peoples in the Amazon are already experiencing the scientific community’s warnings that rising temperatures will impact those who depend on the forest for their livelihood.
- Brazil nuts, açaí berries, andiroba oil, copaíba oil, rubber, cacao and cupuaçu fruits are some of the products at risk of disappearance or reduced production in the next 30 years.
- In addition to climate change’s environmental impact on these resources, the social impact will likely bring worsening poverty and an exodus of traditional peoples to urban areas.
Grain production depends on ending deforestation, studies show
- Recent scientific studies confirm what Brazilian farmers already feel in practice: the uncontrolled production of agricultural commodities is destroying the productivity and profits of agribusiness itself, a cycle researchers are calling “agro-suicide.”
- Regions such as the southern Amazon and Matopiba (the borderland between the Brazilian states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) in the Cerrado savanna are the most affected by lack of rain, prolonged rains and waves of extreme heat.
- Resulting financial losses are expected to reach at least $4.5 billion annually by 2050, according to a conservative estimate; if deforestation continues unchecked, damage could reach $9 billion per year.
- Though grim, the scenario can still be reversed; one recommendation from the study is to adopt a moratorium on soy in the Cerrado, inspired by the Amazon Soy Moratorium.
Shoe-leather science helps quadruple protected area in Peruvian Amazon
- Rapid biological and social inventories produced by a team from Chicago’s Field Museum were the basis for new areas dedicated to conservation in Peru, a new study shows.
- In the Amazonian department of Loreto, territory covered under some category of conservation went from 2 million hectares to 8.5 million hectares (4.9 million acres to 21 million acres).
- The study found that advances in protecting Loreto allowed not only the region, but also Peru as a whole, to meet the Aichi Goal of getting 17% of the country’s territory under some category of protection.
Protected areas keep adjacent lands safe, but face losing their own protection
- Safeguarding nature in one area can displace harmful activities, such as illegal logging or mining, into another, a phenomenon known as leakage or spillover; but how big is the problem?
- The first systematic review of studies examining the effects of protected areas around the globe on their surrounding areas found that less than 12% showed evidence of leakage or spillover, while the majority (54%) reduced deforestation in surrounding areas.
- Another study found that protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon overwhelmingly blocked deforestation in the surrounding forest, again suggesting that protected areas inhibit deforestation both within and outside of their boundaries.
- Experts say environmental and regulatory rollbacks that loosen restrictions on land use, shrink boundaries, or altogether eliminate protections pose a much greater threat to the Amazon than leakage, and efforts should focus on keeping protected areas permanent and improving management and enforcement of regulations.
Brazil government faces heat over plan that could underreport forest fires
- The Brazilian government faces a new controversy over how it monitors, and ultimately responds to, forest fires, after rolling out a new centralized information system.
- The National Meteorology System (SNM) will collate date from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE), the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET) and the Managing and Operational Center of the System to Protect the Amazon (Censipam).
- But the government has sent out mixed messages about how the system will work, raising concerns among scientists and environmentalists that the comprehensive and reliable data sets from INPE will be quashed in favor of underreported deforestation and fire information from INMET.
- The government has sought to allay those fears, saying INPE’s data stream will be maintained, but critics say this isn’t the first time the Bolsonaro administration has tried to undermine INPE for exposing the rising trend in deforestation and fires under the administration.
Bank risk policies failing to protect Amazon from oil-related threats: Report
- A new report by Amazon Watch and Stand.Earth finds that most banks have failed to implement policies that would prevent the worst impacts of the oil industry in the Amazon.
- Of 14 banks assigned a score in the report, 11 were listed as being at “high” or “very high” risk of contributing to deforestation, corruption, pollution, and the violation of Indigenous rights.
- The report’s authors say a blanket exclusion for any oil-related activities in the Amazon is the only way to ensure its protection.
Soy and cattle team up to drive deforestation in South America: Study
- Between 2000 and 2019, the production of soybean in South America has doubled, covering an area larger than the state of California.
- Soybean farms are typically planted in old cattle pastures, and as soy encroaches, pasture is forced into new frontiers, driving deforestation and fires.
- Although soy was found to be largely an indirect driver of deforestation, policies addressing deforestation have to consider multiple commodities at once, such as the relationship between beef and soy.
- Increased commitments by companies to source from “zero-deforestation” supply chains are a promising strategy, but in order to work, the market needs to be more transparent.
‘I am Indigenous, not pardo’: Push for self-declaration in Brazil’s census
- Brazil’s 2010 census was the first to map out the presence of Indigenous people throughout the whole country, but still maintained the term pardo, for a mixed-race individual, that Indigenous activists say has long been used to render Indigenous identities “invisible.”
- The next census is due in 2022, and activists and leaders are mounting a campaign to get all Indigenous Brazilians to self-declare as Indigenous.
- Getting a more accurate picture of the number and distribution of Indigenous people, especially in urban areas, is key to informing public policies geared toward their specific needs, experts say.
- “Everything is Indigenous,” says Júlio César Pereira de Freitas Güató, one of the Indigenous leaders promoting the campaign. “All the rest is invasion.”
In Rio de Janeiro, Indigenous people fight to undo centuries of erasure
- Rio de Janeiro holds a special place in Brazil’s history, but many of its residents are unaware of the city’s Indigenous heritage — from the names of iconic places like Ipanema and Maracanã, to the Indigenous slave labor that built some of its most recognizable structures.
- Nearly 7,000 Indigenous people live in Rio, the fourth-biggest population among Brazilian cities; a unique interactive map by Mongabay shows how they’re spread across the city, as well as their living conditions and ethnic groups.
- Despite their presence, and Rio’s famed diversity and laidback culture, Indigenous people in the city continue to face prejudice and a “silencing” of their traditions and culture that they attribute to centuries of efforts to erase them and make them invisible.
- But Indigenous people are pushing back, agitating to get their rights on the political agenda, and working through academia to unearth the Indigenous history of the city that has long been hidden.
In Boa Vista, Indigenous Brazilians retake their identity through education
- The city of Boa Vista near Brazil’s borders with Venezuela and Guyana is home to Indigenous groups whose ancestral range don’t recognize national boundaries, and who still continue to flow into Brazil from crisis-stricken Venezuela.
- The colonization of Boa Vista by Europeans forced the Indigenous inhabitants off their lands on the banks of the Rio Branco, and resentments simmer today over the return of some of those lands to the original owners.
- The land conflicts also killed off the use of the many ethnic languages spoken in the region, but community-led movements are seeking to bring them back, including in learning materials published by the local university.
- Higher education is seen as a life-changing opportunity for Indigenous students, not just for their personal growth but also for the avenues it opens up to advocate for and empower the wider Indigenous community.
Exhibition showcases Claudia Andujar’s half-century fight for the Yanomami
- Swiss-born Claudia Andujar fled Europe as a child at the end of World War II, and spent much of her later life in Brazil, becoming a celebrated photographer.
- In her adopted homeland, she found a strong affinity with the Yanomami Indigenous people, for whom she was an advocate for the establishment of their own territory — something that came to pass in 1992 as Brazil prepared to host the Rio Earth Summit.
- Now aged 90, Andujar remains deeply concerned for the people with whom she says she “totally identified,” noting that the present threat of illegal mining in Indigenous territories is doing far more harm than the government-driven road projects of the 1970s.
- Andujar’s years of work and life with the Yanomami are now chronicled in a major photo exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre through Aug. 29.
Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- Three Indigenous leaders were reportedly seriously injured after Brazilian police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters in the capital, Brasília
- The incident comes as Indigenous groups from across Brazil gather in the capital to protest against violence and invasions that they face on their own lands; the Munduruku people had to have a police escort to travel to Brasília after being attacked by illegal miners in their reserve in Pará state.
- The Indigenous protesters are also in the capital to press Congress to halt deliberations of legislation that they call the “bill of death,” that would severely undermine Indigenous rights. On the day after the confrontation, it was approved by a congressional commission and will go to a vote in the lower house.
- Among other measures, the bill would make it harder to demarcate Indigenous reserves; override Indigenous territorial sovereignty for “public interest” projects; and dismantle the current policy of non-contact with isolated Indigenous people.
In Brazil’s most Indigenous city, prejudice and diversity go hand in hand
- São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in northern Amazonas state, is recognized as Brazil’s most Indigenous municipality: an estimated 90% of its population is Indigenous, accounting for both its urban and rural areas; the urban area alone is 58% self-declared Indigenous.
- Spread across an area the size of Cuba, São Gabriel da Cachoeira has a history marked by the arrival of Brazilian military forces in 1760 and subsequently Catholic and Protestant missionaries, organized Indigenous social movements, as well as national and international NGOs focused on defending the environment and the Indigenous peoples.
- According to the census, there are 32 indigenous ethnic groups in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, many of them unknown in the rest of the country, such as the Koripako, Baniwa, Baré, Wanano, Piratapuya, Tukano, and Dãw people.
- The municipality is the only one in the country with four official languages, in addition to Portuguese: Baniwa, Tukano, Nheengatu and Yanomami. But despite its cultural and ethnic diversity, there are frequent reports of discrimination against Indigenous people.
Farmers in the Amazon could earn 9 times more and prevent ecosystem collapse
- In this opinion piece, Jonah Wittkamper, Alexander Borges Rose, and Denis Minev argue that agroforestry in the Amazon “can replace cattle, generate new wealth, create jobs and develop new economic zones that insulate pristine forest from deforestation risk.”
- “The opportunity is huge and the needs are urgent,” they write. “If landowners switched from producing soy to a polyculture of fruit and horticultural products, their income would more than triple.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fending off attacks and threats by settlers who reject their ancestral land rights over the territory.
- Settlers opposed to the recognition of the Tekohá Dje’y Indigenous Reserve yanked off a new identification plaque marking the reserve, threatened Indigenous leaders and tried to run residents over with a vehicle, the community alleges.
- The Indigenous group in Paraty, a municipality a four-hour drive from Rio’s capital, blames farmers and land grabbers for the attacks and for not recognizing their rights to the land; the community says authorities are not doing enough to protect them from attacks.
- The attacks come amid ongoing violence in the Yanomami and Munduruku reserves, where illegal miners have invaded Indigenous lands in search of gold. Indigenous groups are protesting in Brasília this week against a host of anti-Indigenous bills that could weaken land rights and legalize the mining.
Brazil’s environment minister faces second probe linked to illegal timber
- Brazil’s highest court has authorized an investigation into alleged obstruction of justice by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who has admitted to siding with suspected illegal loggers targeted in a police operation.
- Following the country’s biggest ever bust of illegal timber in March, Salles traveled to the site in the Amazon and declared on social media accounts that he had personally checked the origin of a sample of the wood and found it was not of illegal origin, despite the police’s evidence to the contrary.
- The new investigation into Salles comes two weeks after the Federal Police began a probe into allegations that the minister was involved in exports of illegal timber to the U.S. and Europe.
- Salles’s term as environment minister has been marked by skyrocketing deforestation rates, a record-high number of rural land conflicts, the gutting of environmental regulators, and an increase in invasions and attacks on Indigenous lands.
US, UK join Norway and Germany in effort to protect Peru’s rainforests
- Britain and the United States have joined Norway and Germany in supporting efforts by the Peruvian government to reduce deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.
- The U.S. and U.K. have signed on to the existing reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) program established in 2014 by Norway and Germany with the government of Peru.
- Norway and Germany have agreed to extend their participation in the program through 2025, pledging 1.8 billion Norwegian Krone ($215 million) and 210 million euros ($255 million), respectively, based on Peru’s progress in curbing deforestation.
- Deforestation in Peru has been trending upward since the mid-2010s, according to data from the World Resource Institute’s Global Forest Watch. Primary forest loss reached 190,000 hectares in 2020, the highest level since at least 2002.
Science refutes United Cacao’s claim it didn’t deforest Peruvian Amazon
- Years of satellite imagery and analysis reveals that United Cacao, a company once publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, deforested nearly 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of primary forest in the Peruvian Amazon.
- The evidence refutes the company’s narrative that farmers had degraded the land before it arrived.
- The deforestation, as well as other legal violations, have led to sanctions against a successor to United Cacao’s Peruvian subsidiary, now called Tamshi SAC.
- But Tamshi is now claiming that Mongabay Latam improperly used the term “deforestation” and has sued for defamation.
Brazil court orders illegal miners booted from Yanomami Indigenous Reserve
- A court has ordered Brazilian authorities to remove all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve in the Amazon, following five days of attacks and intimidation by the miners against an Indigenous village.
- The federal government has still not complied with the May 17 ruling. Army officials say they are planning operations in the region, but have not provided dates. The Federal Police say a team will arrive May 21 to collect data for investigation.
- The attacks that began May 10 saw the miners shoot at the village of Palimiú, throw tear gas canisters, and station several boats nearby in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
- The violent conflict between miners and Indigenous groups follows a surge of land invasions and illegal mining in Indigenous reserves and other conservation areas, dubbed “The Bolsonaro Effect” by Brazilian researchers after its chief enabler.
‘Amazônia must live on’: Photographer Sebastião Salgado returns home with his new book
- Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
- Salgado, one of the most respected documentary photographers in the world, returned to the region four decades after gaining fame shooting the Serra Pelada gold mine and its thousands of mud-covered diggers.
- The book is also a cry for preservation of what remains of the Amazon: “My wish … is that in 50 years’ time this book will not resemble a record of a lost world,” he says.
Brazil’s environment minister investigated for alleged illegal timber sales
- A week after Brazil’s Lower House of Congress approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has been named in a probe for alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber, following a Federal Supreme Court ruling on May 19.
- The ruling cites “extremely atypical financial transactions” totaling $2.7 million involving a law firm where Salles is one of the stakeholders.
- The federal police carried out raids in various ministry offices in the early hours of May 19, which led to the suspension of 10 high-ranking environmental officials, including Eduardo Bim, the head of the IBAMA, the country’s environmental agency.
- Salles denied any wrongdoing and called the operation “exaggerated” and “unnecessary” in a press conference on May 19.
After gold miners shoot Yanomani people, Brazil cuts environmental regulation further
- With 300 votes in favor and 122 against, Brazil’s Lower House passed the draft of a bill on May 12 that withdraws environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, ranging from construction of roads to agriculture.
- The measure, which was submitted to the Senate for its appraisal, is backed by President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful conservative agribusiness lobby — the ‘ruralistas’ — who champion it as a way of slashing red tape on environmental licensing, to facilitate “self-licensing” infrastructure projects.
- Congressmen, experts and activists opposed to it are convinced the new legal framework will inevitably fast-track approval of high-risk projects, leading to deforestation and the escalation of violence against traditional communities.
- As the Lower House moved to approve it, Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state. “They [illegal miners] are not shooting to try and scare us. They want us dead,” a Yanomami leader told Mongabay.
Karipuna people sue Brazil government for alleged complicity in land grabs
- Leaders of the Karipuna Indigenous group in Brazil are suing the government for what they say is complicity in the continued invasion and theft of their land.
- Findings by Greenpeace and the Catholic Church-affiliated Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) show 31 land claims overlapping onto the Karipuna Indigenous Reserve, while 7% of the area has already been deforested or destroyed.
- The Karipuna Indigenous, who rebuilt their population to around 60 in the last few decades from just eight members who survived mass deaths by disease that followed their forced contact with the outside world in the 1970s, are seeking damages of $8.2 million, the right to permanent protection, and the cancellation of all outsider land claims to their territory.
- Land grabbing has been fueled by the political rhetoric and action of President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, who are seeking to drastically reduce protected areas in the Amazon and weaken environmental protections, activists and experts say.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro vowed to work with Indigenous people. Now he’s investigating them
- At least two top Indigenous leaders in Brazil, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Suruí, were recently summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of slander against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Both probes were prompted by complaints filed by Funai, the federal agency for Indigenous affairs, just a week after Bolsonaro pledged at a global leaders’ climate summit to work together with Indigenous peoples to tackle deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The NGO Human Rights Watch said it’s “deeply concerned” about the government’s moves and called any retaliation against Indigenous peoples a “flagrant abuse of power,” while APIB, Brazil’s main Indigenous association, called the government’s approach a “clear attempt to curtail freedom of expression.”
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation in Brazil has reached its highest level since 2008, invasions of indigenous territories increased 135% in 2019, and the persecution of government critics under a draconian national security law has skyrocketed.
Criticizing Brazil over Amazon conservation will likely backfire (commentary)
- Although Brazilians share a concern for the Amazon, and even hosted the groundbreaking Earth Summit in 1992, polls show less consensus on who is responsible for Amazon deforestation, who is best addressing this problem, or the role of foreign actors.
- When activists or leaders from abroad single out Brazil and its president as bad actors on the environment, they risk potential backlash from Brazilians who often view such attacks as a double standard.
- The heavy-handed tone that the Biden Administration has adopted may create unfortunate roadblocks to the progress which is possible, argue two authors from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute and the University of São Paulo.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indigenous in São Paulo: Erased by a colonial education curriculum
- São Paulo, the biggest city in the western hemisphere, is home to two Indigenous reserves with vastly differing fates.
- The Jaraguá reserve is the smallest in Brazil, hemmed in by a controversial property development and highways that commemorate colonizers who enslaved and massacred the Indigenous population.
- On the much larger Tenondé Porã reserve, residents grow their own food and speak their own language.
- Despite these differences, Indigenous people in São Paulo, whether in the reserves or in the city, face the common problems of discrimination, an education system that refuses to acknowledge their presence, and the continued glorification of genocidal colonizers.
As climate summit unfolds, no Biden-Bolsonaro Amazon deal forthcoming
- The United States and Brazil have been conducting closed door negotiations to broker an Amazon rainforest protection agreement — with the U.S. and other nations tentatively to provide significant funding, and Brazil possibly agreeing to pragmatic measures to end deforestation.
- However, as the global Climate Leaders Summit progressed today, it became apparent that those talks are likely stalemated, with no deal announced, nor likely anytime soon.
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has made it clear that Amazon conservation is dependent on a big financial investment by the United States. However, Amazon deforestation continued soaring through March, even as critics offered substantial proof Brazil is insincere in its environmental commitments.
- For example, new federal rules make it nearly impossible to collect fines for environmental crimes. Also, Brazil has made suspect adjustments to its Paris Climate Agreement carbon reduction targets, allowing it to meet its goals on paper, even as it continues cutting down forests and releasing greenhouse gases.
‘We are made invisible’: Brazil’s Indigenous on prejudice in the city
- Contrary to popular belief, Brazil’s Indigenous people aren’t confined to the Amazon Rainforest, with more than a third of them, or about 315,000 individuals, living in urban areas.
- Over the past year, we dived into the census and related databases to produce unique maps and infographics showing not only how the Indigenous residents are distributed in six cities and in Brazil overall, but also showcasing their access to education, sewage and other amenities, and their ethnic diversity.
- Access to higher education is a milestone: the number of Indigenous people enrolled in universities jumped from 10,000 to about 81,000 between 2010 and 2019, giving them a higher college education rate than the general population.
- This data-driven reporting project received funding support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting’s data journalism and property rights grant.
Nearly half the Amazon’s intact forest on Indigenous-held lands: Report
- A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC) draws on more than 300 studies from the last two decades to demonstrate the protection that Indigenous societies provide for forests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- According to the team’s research, about 45% of the intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in Indigenous territories.
- The forests occupied by Indigenous communities in the region hold more carbon than all of the forests in either Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the next two biggest swaths of tropical forest after Brazil.
- The report’s authors say investing in securing land rights for Indigenous communities is a cheap and effective way to address climate change, while also helping these communities recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brazil’s isolated tribes in the crosshairs of miners targeting Indigenous lands
- The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
- Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, Funai, holds 114 reports of isolated tribes, of which 43 are within Indigenous lands targeted by mining.
- In addition to the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria, mining activity poses health threats from the mercury used in gold extraction, which contaminates rivers and fish.
- Indigenous groups have filed a lawsuit with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court against the government, demanding protection for isolated Indigenous peoples.
Amazon’s Belo Monte dam cuts Xingu River flow 85%; a crime, Indigenous say
- In February, IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency permitted Belo Monte mega-dam operator Norte Energia to drastically reduce flows to the Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu River for at least a year. That decision reversed an earlier ruling to maintain much higher Xingu River flows and the fishery — as legally required.
- The flow reduction will leave 70% of usually-flooded forest dry this season, causing massive fish mortality and diminished reproduction, experts say. Community group Xingu Vivo Para Sempre denounced the decision as “a death sentence for the Xingu” and demanded IBAMA’s and Norte Energia’s presidents be “criminally prosecuted.”
- Norte Energia has funded projects to mitigate the reduced flow, collecting and dropping fruit into the river for fish to feed on, and releasing captive-bred fish. But scientists say these approaches are unscientific and will likely be ineffective, and can’t make up for the loss of the river’s seasonal flood pulse, upon which fish depend.
- Residents say the government has spread misinformation, telling Brazilian consumers that their electricity bills would go up if Belo Monte released more water to maintain the Xingu’s ecosystem — something Norte Energia is obligated to do. At present, water levels on the Volta Grande have not been restored.
The Possible Meat: A Brazilian farmer shows ranching can regenerate the Cerrado
- Matheus Sborgia, a Brazilian chef, decided to bet on regenerative agriculture after inheriting his grandfather’s cattle ranch in the heart of the Cerrado.
- Sborgia embraced the idea of holistic management and rotational grazing preached by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean ecologist who became famous for his provocative idea that to save the planet from climate change, instead of reducing livestock farming, we would have to increase it.
- Instead of letting his 200 cows range freely, Sborgia lets them eat everything in a small plot of land before moving them on to another plot; by the time they cycle back the original plot has already regenerated.
- The Brazilian Cerrado is one of the country’s most overgrazed regions. It suffered one of its worst wildfire seasons ever during the past year, and while the ranches around Sborgia’s property were dry, his own land was green and full of life.
Big dream: NGO leads in creating 1,615-mile Amazon-Cerrado river greenbelt
- The Black Jaguar Foundation plans to reforest 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) along Brazil’s Araguaia and Tocantins rivers in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. The 2,600 kilometer (1,615 mile) long natural corridor will require the planting of around 1.7 billion trees. Tens-of-thousands have already been planted.
- This natural corridor will be established on private lands, and it will have dual ecological and economic goals, resulting in both land conservation and sustainable agroforestry production. It would cross six Brazilian states (Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Pará and Maranhão).
- BJF is well funded and well organized, so the greatest barriers to accomplishing the NGO’s goals are many initially resistant rural property owners who need to be sold on the economic benefits of the green corridor. 24,000 privately owned lots are included in the planned green corridor.
- “Brazil has a huge liability in degraded areas, and the BJF [green corridor] initiative is a huge outdoor laboratory for ecosystem restoration in the center of the country, in the agricultural frontier region,” said one researcher.
Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- Brazilian legislators in the Amazon state of Roraima have passed a bill legalizing garimpo wildcat mining on state lands without studies. Amendments would also legalize the use of toxic mercury in gold processing, and greatly expand the legal size of mining claims.
- Indigenous groups say the law was passed without adequate consultation, and will invite gold miner invasions of Indigenous reserves in the state, including that of the Yanomami, the largest reserve in Brazil. Since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro more than 20,000 illegal miners have been reported on Yanomami lands.
- Wildcat mining is already legal in some Brazilian Amazon states. Based on that experience, experts say that legalization in Roraima will enable fraud, with gold illegally mined in Indigenous reserves “laundered” to become “legal” gold, and illicit “conflict gold” trafficked from neighboring Venezuela laundered in Roraima.
- The Roraima garimpo mining bill now awaits the state governor’s signature.
In ‘dire’ plea, Brazil’s Amazonas state appeals for global COVID assistance
- In a letter describing pandemic conditions as “dire,” the government of Brazil’s Amazonas state is pleading for urgent medical assistance from the international community. The authenticated letter apparently bypassed the Bolsonaro administration which critics say has been ineffectual in dealing with COVID-19.
- Manaus, the Amazonas state capital, was overwhelmed by the coronavirus last April, but this second wave, according to state authorities is far worse, impacting not only the city, but increasingly, the state’s rainforest interior. The soaring number of cases and deaths statewide is yet to be fully tallied.
- According to authorities, medical facilities in Manaus and Amazonas are presently being utterly overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, with hospitals and clinics lacking beds, oxygen and other vital resources, resulting in deaths. The disease’s rapid spread may be the result of the P.I. viral lineage variant newly detected in Brazil.
- “The situation is dire, and our fear is that the same situation we are seeing in the capital Manaus will reach the inland of Amazonas, the traditional and indigenous populations that are in situation of greater vulnerability,” said the letter sent to international NGOs. The international response isn’t yet known.
Brazil’s collapsing health service, new COVID variant, raise Indigenous risk
- The city of Manaus made world headlines last April when a first wave of the coronavirus swept through the city. Now that city, and the entire state of Amazonas, is being swept by a second wave of the pandemic, which is shaping up to be far worse than the first.
- Indigenous people are especially vulnerable, with their mortality rate from COVID-19 at least 16% higher than the Brazilian average. Now, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, located 852 kilometers (529 miles) from Manaus, near the Colombia-Venezuela frontier, is being heavily impacted.
- São Gabriel has a large Indigenous population, and while it escaped the worst of the first wave of the pandemic, its meagre health system resources are now being overwhelmed. The state of Amazonas lacks sufficient hospital beds, its ICUs are overrun, and medical facilities lack sufficient oxygen.
- Of extreme concern is a new Brazilian coronavirus variant called P.1, which recently appeared in Amazonas state. While more research is needed, one possibility is that P.I. is bypassing the human immune response triggered by the initial coronavirus lineage that ravaged Manaus last year. This means people could be reinfected.
Traditional and Indigenous peoples ‘denounce’ planned Amazon railway
- The Ferrovia Paraense (FEPASA) railway if fully completed would run 1,312 kilometers (815 miles) from Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará, along the state’s eastern border, to the port city of Barcarena on the Amazon River. It could carry 80 million tons of mining ores and agribusiness commodities annually.
- In 2019, Pará state signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Communication Construction Company for a R$7 billion (US$1.4 billion) investment to fund the building of 492 kilometers (305 miles) of the railway, from Marabá to Barcarena. Construction is currently expected to start in 2021.
- But that plan could be delayed by resistance from Indigenous and traditional communities who say they’ve yet to be consulted on the project, as required by international law. FEPASA and Ferrogrão (Grainrail) will integrate Pará into Brazil’s vast rail network, greatly aiding export of Amazon commodities to China.
- A letter from the Amazon communities to Pará’s government accused it and its allies of “forcing on us a development model that does not represent us, that is imposing railways,… expelling people from their lands, ending our food security, destroying our people, destroying our cultures,… and killing our forests.”
Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon rainforest: Study
- A new study sought to quantify the impact of the Amazon soy moratorium, signed in 2006 by companies accounting for around 90% of the soy sourced from the Brazilian Amazon.
- The companies agreed that they would not purchase soy grown on plots that were recently deforested.
- The research demonstrates that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2016 was 35% lower than it would have been without the moratorium, likely keeping 18,000 square kilometers (6,950 square miles) of the Amazon standing.
- Despite the success, observers question whether the ban on soy from deforested areas of the Amazon will prevent the loss of rainforest over the long term.
Ribeirinhos win right to waterside Amazon homeland lost to Belo Monte dam
- Some 40,000 people — mostly peasant farmers, fisherfolk, traditional families (living from the collection of forest products), Indigenous people, and ribeirinhos — were evicted to make way for the Belo Monte dam, constructed between June 2011 and November 2019.
- The ribeirinhos (traditional riverine people) were not politically well organized at the time, and along with many others, were forced out of their traditional riverside homes and livelihoods. Most moved into urban housing developments away from the Xingu River, where they were forced to pay rent and acclimate themselves to urban life.
- But over the years the ribeirinhos gained political savvy. Negotiating with Norte Energia, the consortium that built and runs Belo Monte, they gained the right to establish a collectively owned Ribeirinho Territory beside the Belo Monte reservoir.
- Under the agreement, 315 families are each to be provided with 14 hectares (34 acres) for individual use. Added to that are areas for collective use and a forest reserve — a combined total of 20,341 hectares (50,263 acres). However, with the deal now seemingly sealed, Norte Energia has backpedaled, wanting to propose a different agreement.
Brazilian woman threatened by Amazon loggers wins global human rights award
- Rural community leader Osvalinda Alves Pereira is the first Brazilian to receive the Edelstam Prize, a Swedish award given to human rights defenders. She was honored this November for her brave stand against illegal loggers and for her defense of the Amazon agrarian reform community of Areia in Pará state.
- Illegal loggers there have repeatedly threatened Osvalinda and her husband with violence, forcing them out of their community and into urban safe houses. Now the couple has returned to their rural home; threats to Osvalinda and her community have resumed since she received the Edelstam Prize.
- Illegal deforestation, especially the illegal export of rare and valuable Amazon woods, has been strongly aided by the deregulatory policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, according to critics, who also say that the president’s incendiary rhetoric is emboldening illegal loggers and others to violence.
- Still threatened by logging militias in Amazonia, Osvalinda received the award just a week after President Bolsonaro in a speech tried to shift responsibility for the policing of Amazon illegal deforestation away from Brazil and onto its foreign trading partners who are importing timber from the South American nation.
Belo Monte dam’s water demands imperil Amazon communities, environment
- Norte Energia, the builder and operator of the controversial Belo Monte mega-dam is pushing for implementation of a much disputed “consensus hydrogram” — a plan to annually manipulate water releases into the Xingu River’s Volta Grande (Big Bend), with estimated peak April releases ranging from a mere 4,000 – 8,000 m3/s.
- Noting that April average historical river flows in the Volta Grande before the dam was built were 19,985 m3/s, analysts say this dearth of water flow will prevent and imperil annual fish reproduction. One Volta Grande expert estimates that, using the so-called consensus hydrogram plan, at least 80% of Volta Grande fish will die.
- Documents from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, which first came to light publicly on December 3, acknowledge “grave and irreparable impacts” from the Belo Monte dam, and signal an urgent need to revise Norte Energia’s planned consensus hydrogram.
- Two recent studies say fish are decreasing dramatically in diets within Belo Monte’s influence area, causing food insecurity. Norte Energia claims fish quantities sold locally remain the same, but their data may mask significantly increased fishing effort, and the need to fish more widely, beyond previous fishing areas.
The Amazon’s Yanomami utterly abandoned by Brazilian authorities: Report
- A new report highlights the escalating existential crisis among the 30,000 Indigenous people living in the Yanomami Territory, covering 9,664,975 hectares (37,317 square miles) in northern Brazil. Data shows that the Yanomami reserve is in the top ten areas now most prone to illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The report accuses Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazilian government of abandoning the Yanomami to the invasion of their territory by tens-of-thousands of illegal miners. While the administration has launched sporadic operations to stop these incursions, the miners return as soon as police leave the reserve.
- Bolsonaro is also accused of having done little to combat COVID-19 or provide basic healthcare. As a result, pandemic case numbers have grown by 250% in the last three months, now possibly infecting 10,000 Yanomami and Ye’kwana, about a third of the reserve’s entire population, with deaths recorded among adults and children.
- “Children, young people and the generations to come deserve to live healthy lives in their forest home. Their futures should not be cut off by the actions of a genocidal administration,” says the report compiled by the Yanomami and Ye’kwana and a network of academics. Brazil’s Health Ministry denied the charge of negligence.
Multiplying Amazon river ports open new Brazil-to-China commodities routes
- Nearly 100 major industrial river ports have been built on the Brazilian Amazon’s major rivers over the past two decades. Many of the projects have been internationally financed and built by commodities companies with little government oversight.
- These ports have transformed the region, opening it to agribusiness and the export of commodities, especially soy, to China and the rest of the world. However, this boom in port infrastructure often came at the expense of the environment and traditional riverine communities.
- Today, more than 40 additional major river ports are planned in the Amazon biome on the Tapajós, Tocantins, Madeira and other rivers, projects again being pursued largely without taking cumulative socioenvironmental impacts into account.
- “What resources do these soy men bring to our city?” asked Manoel Munduruku, an Indigenous leader. “They only bring destruction.”
Peru prosecutors probe Amazon deforestation linked to Mennonite communities
- Satellite images show a sudden surge in deforestation in areas settled by Mennonite communities in Peru’s Ucayali and Loreto regions.
- Those cases are among the rare instances of large-scale forest loss that has occurred in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Prosecutors say the clearing was unpermitted and illegal, and have launched an investigation.
- A lawyer for the Mennonites says they have complied with an injunction against forest clearing since last December, and that any deforestation that occurred this year is the work of outsiders.
New Latin American treaty could help protect women conservation leaders — and all environment defenders
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we once again highlight the work of women leaders in Amazon conservation, and look at an international agreement that could help protect environmental defenders in Latin America — one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental activist, especially as a woman.
- We speak with Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, or WECAN International, who tells us about some of the most inspiring women she’s worked with who are fighting to protect their communities and their forests in the Amazon, and discusses the groundbreaking Escazu Agreement, which would help protect defenders of the environment across Latin America.
- We also speak with Nicolas Bustamante Hernandez, a contributor to Mongabay who recently profiled an ornithologist and activist in Colombia named Yehimi Fajardo. Bustamente Hernandez tells us how, via the Alas Association she helped establish, Fajardo’s work has led hundreds of Indigenous children in Colombia’s Putumayo department to become avid birders, able to recognize the songs of birds in the region and to more fully appreciate the important role birds play in the local ecosystem.
2020 fires endangering uncontacted Amazon Indigenous groups
- Amazon fires this year are seriously threatening Indigenous territories in which isolated uncontacted Indigenous groups make their homes. Brazil has an estimated 100+ isolated Indigenous groups living within its borders, more than any other Amazonian nation.
- Particularly threatened by fires in 2020 are the isolated Ãwa people who live on Bananal Island in Tocantins state; the uncontacted Awá inhabiting the Arariboia Indigenous Reserve in Maranhão state; and uncontacted groups in the Uru Eu Wau Wau Indigenous territory in Rondônia and Ituna Itatá Indigenous territory in Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation and land conflicts rates.
- All of these Indigenous territories are under intense pressure from land grabbers, illegal loggers and ranchers, with many of this year’s fires thought to have been set intentionally as a means of converting protected rainforest to pasture and cropland.
- Meanwhile, the Jair Bolsonaro government has hobbled IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, defunding it and preventing it from fighting fires, causing one critic to accuse the administration of having “waged war against Indigenous peoples” and of “an ongoing genocide.”
‘Digital land grab’ deprives traditional LatAm peoples of ancestral lands: Report
- South American nations, including Brazil and Colombia, are increasingly using georeferencing technology for registering land ownership.
- However, if this high-tech digital technique is not backed up by traditional ground truthing surveys, it can be used by landgrabbers and agribusiness companies to fraudulently obtain deeds depriving traditional communities of their collective ancestral lands, according to a new report.
- The georeferenced process is being partly funded by the World Bank, which has provided US $45.5 million for digital registration of private rural properties in Brazil. Georeferencing is allowing the international financial sector to play a key role in converting large tracts of rainforest and savanna into agribusiness lands.
- To prevent this form of land theft, prospective landowners’ claims need to be independently verified via a centralized governmental land registration system organized to resolve land conflicts and to detect and eliminate local and regional corruption.
Alcoa vs. the Amazon: How the ribeirinhos won their collective land rights
- In 2009, communities of ribeirinhos (traditional riverine settlers) launched a major land rights protest in the Amazon against Alcoa, the transnational mining company. Their action led to an agreement that proved decisive not only for the ribeirinhos, but for collective land rights activists across Brazil.
- Alcoa came to Juruti, Pará state, Brazil in 2000 with big plans to mine for bauxite. At first, the 44 communities on the south bank of the Amazon River, made up of Indigenous and traditional peoples, supported the plan, hoping it would bring jobs and prosperity.
- But land rights organizers argued the mine would be a disaster for the environment, traditional livelihoods and culture. Attempts to block the mine failed. But efforts to get collective land rights recognized, along with financial compensation, were successful.
- The government granted full collective land rights, and Alcoa agreed to pay rent for occupying community land, compensate for losses and damages, and give locals an annual share in mine profits. Land rights activists have pursued similar goals — with varying success — in the Amazon ever since.
Mercury from gold mining contaminates Amazon communities’ staple fish
- The four species of fish most commonly consumed by Indigenous and riverine people in the Brazilian state of Amapá contain the highest concentrations of mercury.
- In some species, researchers found levels of mercury four times in excess of World Health Organization recommendations.
- The mercury comes from gold-mining activity, where it’s used to separate gold from ore before being burned off and washed into the rivers.
- The health impacts of mercury contamination are well-documented, and include damage to the central nervous system, potentially resulting in learning disabilities for children and tremors and difficulty walking for adults.
In the Amazon, women are key to forest conservation
- Women are a driving force in the movement to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world.
- Joining us on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is environmental journalist Sarah Sax, who recently wrote about the Women Warriors of the Forest, an all-female Indigenous group that is employing new tactics and building new alliances to protect the forests they call home.
- We also interview Dr. Dolors Armenteras, who is a pioneer in the use of remote sensing to monitor Amazon forests and biodiversity, and has been named one of the most influential scientists studying forest fires.
- Despite her pedigree, Armenteras has faced discrimination as a woman scientist, and discusses how she is supporting the next generation of women scientists to help them overcome such biases.
Brazil green recovery plan could boost economy, add jobs, cut emissions: Report
- If Brazil shifts to a low carbon economy, carbon emissions would be cut by a third while also creating jobs, benefiting economic growth and infrastructure, according to a recent report by the World Resources Institute.
- Brazil’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan could provide an opportunity to implement long-term solutions across multiple sectors that could reduce carbon emissions and Amazon deforestation.
- Study authors hope that the economic benefits of the plan will push the current Jair Bolsonaro administration to adopt a green agenda, even if conservation is not a priority.
- “Climate denial is at a peak, but cost-benefit will be the leading decision-maker, whether or not it benefits the environment.… Due to post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans, we have a window of opportunity that will close in a year and a half or less.” — World Resources Institute Climate Policy Director Carolina Genin.
Bleak milestone: 500 major fires detected in Brazilian Amazon this year
- 516 major fires, most of them illegal, covering 376,416 hectares (912,863 acres) were detected between May 28 and August 25, 2020, with the Amazon fire season not even half over, and expected to run at least through September.
- Of those fires, 12% were within intact forests, while the rest were in recently deforested areas where the cut trees were allowed to dry out before being lit on fire to convert the former rainforest to cattle pasture and croplands.
- Most of these fires were illegal, being in direct defiance of a total Amazon fire ban issued by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on July 15, 2020.
- IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, which annually fought Amazon fires in the past, has a greatly diminished role this year, having largely been defunded by the Bolsonaro administration. Fire suppression this year falls to the Brazilian Army, which has little experience controlling Amazon blazes.
Key Amazon grain route blocked by Indigenous protest over funding, Grainrail
- The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have been blockading the BR-163 highway since 17 August. The BR-163 is a primary route for soy and corn being moved from Brazil’s Amazon interior toward the Atlantic coast for export to China and the European Union.
- The closure is in protest of potentially lost federal funding that the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti use in part to self-protect the Baú and Mekrãgnoti Indigenous Territories from invasion by land grabbers and illegal loggers. The reserve covers 11.3 million hectares (43,630 square miles) in Pará state.
- A second source of conflict: GrainRail, a proposed 934 kilometer (580 mile) railroad, which would run parallel to the BR-163. The railway’s development has been approved by the Brazilian government without an internationally required Indigenous consultation, according to the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti people.
- A federal judge has ordered police to remove the blockade, but a meeting is scheduled for today and expected to run late into the evening to seek a negotiated settlement. The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti are also demanding COVID-19 assistance. So far, 403 Indigenous people from the reserves have been infected and four have died, all elders.
More than 260 major, mostly illegal Amazon fires detected since late May
- The Amazon fire season is building momentum, with 227 fires covering nearly 128,000 hectares, reported between May 28 and August 10. By today, that number rose to 266 fires.
- More than 220 of the May 28 to June 10 fires occurred in Brazil, with just six in Bolivia, and one in Peru. 95% of the Brazilian fires were illegal and in violation of the nation’s 120-day ban on fires. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called the 2020 reports of deforestation and fires a “lie.”
- Most Amazon blazes are set, with land grabbers, ranchers and farmers using fire as a deforestation tool, and as a means of converting rainforest to pasture and croplands.
- Fourteen of the Brazilian fires were within protected areas. The most heavily impacted of these were Jamanxim and Altamira national forests in Pará state — areas long notorious for criminal land grabbing.
Is Chinese investment driving a sharp increase in jaguar poaching?
- A 200-fold increase in the number of trafficked dead jaguars seized by authorities in Central and South America between 2012 and 2018 has been reported in a new study.
- Researchers suggest the major surge in the trade may be facilitated by Chinese investment networks in Latin America.
- Corruption and low incomes in source countries also are likely a significant factor boosting trafficking.
- Acting on the paper’s findings, initiatives organized by nations, states, municipalities, NGOs, universities and research institutes could help improve collaborative regional efforts to combat the illicit trade.
Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
- A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
- This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
- While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
- The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.
Scientists launch ambitious conservation project to save the Amazon
- The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), an ambitious cooperative project to bring together the existing scientific research on the Amazon biome, has been launched with the support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
- Modeled on the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the first Amazon report is planned for release in April 2021; that report will include an extensive section on Amazon conservation solutions and policy suggestions backed up by research findings.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon consists of 150 experts — including climate, ecological, and social scientists; economists; indigenous leaders and political strategists — primarily from the Amazon countries
- According to Carlos Nobre, one of the leading scientists on the project, the SPA’s reports will aim not only to curb deforestation, but to propose an ongoing economically feasible program to conserve the forest while advancing human development goals for the region, working in tandem with, and in support of, ecological systems.
A Brazilian forest community shows certified timber really does work
- In Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation rate, communities inside Tapajós National Forest have for the past 15 years run one of the most successful native timber management projects.
- Eighteen of the 24 communities in the conservation area are part of the project, which involves an average of 130 people. Forest management is their main source of income.
- In 2013, the communities earned FSC certification.
- Today, their products are sold around the world, thanks to partnerships with renowned designers to produce quality sustainable furniture and decorative objects.
Where there’s cattle ranching and soybean farming, there’s fire, study finds
- Most of the fires in the Amazon rainforest last year were associated with industrial agriculture, according to a study cross-referencing NASA satellite data with corporate supply chains.
- Researchers transposed the satellite imagery of fire alerts with the locations of the largest meatpacking plants and soybean silos in the region.
- Of the 981,000 fire alerts that occurred in Brazil between July and October last year, half were in meatpackers JBS and Marfrig’s “potential buy zones” and in the areas surrounding Bunge and Cargill’s soybean silos.
- The study doesn’t aim to make a direct link between the companies and the fires, but rather to show the proximity of the fires within the regions in which they work.
International investors urge Brazil to take real action to stop deforestation
- Jan Erik Saugestad, executive vice president of Norway’s Storebrand Asset Management, who has led an international pressure campaign against deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, says the government must back up its promises with action to reverse the rising trend.
- In an exclusive interview, he describes his recent meeting with Vice President Hamilton Mourão, where there were initial commitments made to reduce deforestation rates and respect the rights of Indigenous peoples and human rights.
- Saugestad says investors need evidence that the Brazilian government and companies, particularly in the beef industry, will follow up on these commitments with meaningful action.
- Saugestad also says climate change has already caused damage to some economic sectors, and adds that “we are only seeing the beginning of some of these risks.”
Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’
- Socio-environmental activists are an endangered species in the Brazilian Amazon, with regularly occurring assassination-style killings like those of activists Chico Mendes in 1988 and Sister Dorothy Stang in 2005 creating an ongoing climate of fear.
- According to human rights watchdog Global Witness, Brazil in 2017 was the world’s most dangerous country for environmental acivists: 57 out of 201 deaths worldwide occurred in Brazil. Intimidation and murder of activists continues into the present.
- Activist Juma Xipaya saw the village she grew up in fundamentally changed by the building of the Belo Monte mega-dam. When she later exposed corruption and incompetence she faced death threats and now lives perpetually on guard.
- In recent years, Xipaya has been repeatedly pursued by a white pickup driven by two armed thugs, but police fail to respond to her pleas for help. The men eventually made an attempt on her life — a close call that almost killed her and her children.
Brazilian meatpacker expands with World Bank funding but fails to reduce impacts in the Amazon
- In 2013, the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, injected $85 million into Minerva.
- The money was for expansion of the meatpacker’s operations in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Colombia, granted on the condition that an environmental and social action plan be implemented in all those countries.
- The IFC understood that Minerva’s activities represented environmental and social risks, including deforestation, child labor, forced labor and land conflicts.
- Seven years later, the company has become Latin America’s leading beef exporter, but continues to face criticism over the uncertain origin of its products.
Brazil bows to pressure from business, decrees 120-day Amazon fire ban
- 38 transnational companies in the agricultural, industrial, mining and service sectors, along with four major business associations, sent a letter Monday to Brazil VP Hamilton Mourão, president of the Amazon Council, asking him to address “environmental irregularities and crime in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes.”
- The letter — backed by Amaggi, Suzano, Vale, Bradesco, Alcoa, Bayer, Shell, Siemens, among others — comes just weeks before this year’s Amazon fire season begins, and as criticism of rapid Amazon deforestation under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro intensifies in the European Union and threatens the EU-Mercusor trade agreement.
- The administration — long resistant to all efforts to redirect its Amazon development and environmental policies — responded today announcing a decree for a 120-day ban on fires in the Amazon. The Army has also been deployed to the region to guard against a replay of last year’s wildfires. Analysts say this is not near enough to curb rampant deforestation.
- The business letter came just weeks after 32 international financial institutions that manage US$4.5 trillion in assets told Brazil that if it didn’t curb deforestation they would stop investing in Brazil. The problem, say critics, is Bolsonaro has set new policies that greatly undermine past socio-environmental safeguards, policies which need to be reversed.
Brazilian court orders 20,000 gold miners removed from Yanomami Park
- The Yanomami Park covers 37,000 square miles in the Brazilian Amazon on the Venezuelan border; it is inhabited by 27,000 Yanomami. Soaring gold prices have resulted in a massive ongoing invasion of the indigenous territory by gold miners who are well supported with monetary backing, heavy equipment and aircraft.
- On 3 July, a federal judge issued an emergency ruling ordering the Jair Bolsonaro administration to come up with an immediate plan to stop the spread of the pandemic to Yanomami Park, a plan which must include the removal of all 20,000 invading miners within ten days. Brazil’s Vice President pledges to back the plan.
- That eviction must stay in effect until the danger to the Yanomami of the pandemic passes. There have so far been five Yanomami deaths due to the disease and 168 confirmed cases. More are expected.
- The invasion has also resulted in violent clashes between miners and indigenous people. In mid-June two Yanomami were killed in a conflict, evoking fears of a replay of retaliatory violence that occurred in the 1990s. In response to the current crisis, the Yanomami have launched their “Miners Out, Covid Out” campaign.
Brazil’s indigenous hit especially hard by COVID-19: why so vulnerable?
- At least 78 indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon are infected by COVID-19, with 3,662 individuals testing positive and 249 dead among 45 of those peoples. Detailed data is lacking for the other 33 peoples. Experts say poverty, poor resistance to Western diseases, and lack of medical facilities may explain high vulnerability.
- The Coordination of Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), which gathered and tallied this data, expects cases and deaths are underreported. Many leaders and elders continue dying among indigenous people, including elders of the Munduruku, Kayapó, Arara, Macuxi, and Tuyuka peoples.
- COVID-19 has now penetrated the Xingu river basin, a vast area south of the Amazon River in Pará and Mato Grosso states. The Arara people there were devastated by disease and violence in the 1980s. Now, of 121 remaining Arara, almost half have tested positive for the coronavirus.
- Of the 1,818 Xicrin in southwest Pará state, 270 (15%) have tested positive, with seven deaths. Analysts speculate this high infection and death rate (higher than Brazil’s general populace, and even many other indigenous groups), may be due to poor underlying health due to water allegedly polluted by a Vale nickel mine.
Illegal farms on indigenous lands get whitewashed under Bolsonaro administration
- An exclusive study shows that 114 properties have been certified inside indigenous territories awaiting demarcation in the Brazilian Amazon, spurred in large part by a recent statute that leaves these reserves unprotected from such illegal land grabs.
- The certified lands span more than 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) inside indigenous territories, some of them authorized before FUNAI, the agency for indigenous affairs, issued the statute allowing registry on unratified lands.
- Landowners have already registered claims for more than 2,000 private properties in indigenous areas inside the Amazon, including areas that are home to isolated peoples.
- Indigenous groups, civil society organizations, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and state prosecutors have denounced the statute and are challenging it in various courts.
A bid to legitimize invasions of Brazil’s indigenous lands faces a court challenge
- In April, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency FUNAI authorized the registration and sale of land on unratified or unregistered indigenous territories, potentially affecting 237 reserves in 24 states.
- Regulation No. 9, as it’s known, affects at least 9.8 million hectares (24 million acres), rendering an area the size of Iceland open to real estate transactions.
- Amazonas is the state with the most threatened reserves — a total of 30 in the sights of land grabbers, landed estate owners, and oil and gas companies — followed by Mato Grosso do Sul, where indigenous communities already live in dire conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and violence.
- FUNAI’s regulation has already withstood a court challenge on a technicality, but now faces a new bid for annulment by the state attorney general of Mato Grosso, who calls it a dereliction of FUNAI’s own mission.
Report names the banks financing destructive oil projects in the Amazon
- Five international banks and investment funds invested a combined $6 billion in oil extraction projects in the western Amazon between 2017 and 2019, a new report shows.
- The region, known as the Sacred Headwaters of the Amazon, is recognized as being the most biodiverse on the planet.
- It spans 30 million hectares (74 million acres) between Ecuador, Peru and Colombia and is home to 500,000 indigenous people.
- Funding these projects runs counter to these companies’ own statements of support for climate actions, including the Paris climate agreement, activists say.
‘Every time an elder dies, a library is burnt’: Amazon COVID-19 toll grows
- COVID-19 kills the elderly, those with underlying health conditions, the poor and vulnerable. It is now doing so in the Brazilian Amazon where the virus killed nine Munduruku indigenous elders in just a few days. Forest people elders are typically leaders and keepers of culture, so their loss is especially destabilizing.
- Officially, 218 indigenous people had died of COVID-19 and 2,642 were infected as of 7 June. But experts say that the numbers are at least three times higher, with poor government recordkeeping and Amazon community remoteness resulting in a severe undercount.
- The Munduruku, Kokama, and Xavante groups are already seeing cases, with the virus now threatening Brazil’s two largest indigenous territories: Yanomami Park and Javari Valley Indigenous Territory. These two reserves are home to most of Brazil’s uncontacted peoples. COVID-19 spread there would be a disaster.
- Indigenous groups are pursuing independent efforts, such as setting up COVID-19 communication websites, to protect their communities. In response to what they call government inaction, indifference and blundering, advocates remind the Brazilian government and the world that “indigenous lives matter.”
In the Amazon, a farmer practices the future of sustainable cattle ranching
- A cattle farmer in Tefé, Brazil, has turned his ranch into a new standard for ranching in the forest — one that’s more profitable and more productive, while using less land.
- This type of farming eliminates the need for clearing new areas of forest for new pasture, a practice that has made cattle ranching one of the major drivers of deforestation in Brazil.
- Under the rational grazing system, cattle are grazed in a fenced-off plot of pasture, then rotated to another plot to allow the soil and vegetation in the previous plot to recover.
- Using land that has already been degraded and abandoned is one solution recommended for raising cattle in the Amazon region; there are an estimated 50 million hectares (125 million acres) of such land in Brazil that could be used for this purposed.
Brazil minister advises using COVID-19 to distract from Amazon deregulation
- In a Brazilian cabinet meeting Environment Minister Ricardo Salles was caught on video declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed more than 23,000 of his fellow citizens offers a distraction during which the government can “run the cattle herd” through the Amazon, “changing all the rules and simplifying standards.”
- The Brazilian and international response was critical and swift, with one European Union parliamentarian recommending that the largest trade treaty every negotiated, between the South American nations of Mercusor and the EU, not be signed as punishment for Brazil’s radical anti-environmental policies.
- Salles statements were “the inconceivably blatant confirmation that the Bolsonaro government is dismantling, step-by-step, the protection regulations of the Amazon, while the world fights the Coronavirus,” the member of the EU Parliament said.
- The government’s environmental deregulation policies are yielding results. Today the MapBiomas Alert project released its first Annual Deforestation Report on all Brazilian biomes. It found that 99% of all deforestation in Brazil in 2019 was illegal — a total of 12,187 square kilometers (4,705 square miles) of native vegetation lost.
Brazilian taxpayers subsidizing Amazon-clearing cattle ranches, study shows
- A new study shows taxpayer money is helping to prop up the beef industry in Brazil, one of the primary drivers of deforestation in the country.
- For every dollar of tax revenue collected from the industry, only 20 cents effectively goes to society — the rest goes back to producers in the form of incentives, easy credit, and even debt forgiveness.
- The carbon footprint of beef production in Brazil’s nine Amazonian states is six times higher on average than other states in the nation when accounting for the impact of deforestation to clear land for pasture.
- The study also highlights integrated crop farming-cattle raising systems, where the land is used alternately for cropping and for pasture, as resulting in negative carbon emissions — but notes that only 4% of pastureland in the Amazon uses this integrated method.
Brazil’s ‘land-grabbers law’ threatens Amazonia (commentary)
- “Land grabbers” are large operators who illegally claim government land in Amazonia and usually later subdivide it for sale to ranchers. This is an important factor in Brazil’s rapid deforestation.
- Illegal invasion of government land by both small and large actors has been stimulated by two previous “land-grabbers’ laws.” Now a vote is imminent on a proposed third law that goes further, granting titles on the strength of mere “self-declarations.”
- The coronavirus pandemic is being used as cover to allow measures such as this to be put into effect without question. This is a strategy for gutting environmental controls that Bolsonaro’s environment minister put forth explicitly in a ministerial meeting, a recording of which was released by court order on 22 May.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
As their land claim stalls, Brazil’s Munduruku face pressure from soybean farms
- Indigenous Munduruku communities in Brazil’s Pará state have seen their crops die as agribusiness expands in the area, with soybean farmers spraying pesticides less than 10 meters (33 feet) from villages.
- The streams used by the Munduruku have also been damaged, if not dried up, and even the artesian wells the communities are digging to survive appear to be contaminated.
- Aside from pesticides, soybean farming has also brought fraudulent requests for land appropriation and violence against indigenous people.
- The Munduruku have for the past 12 years tried to get their land demarcated as an indigenous reserve, but the process has stalled under the Bolsonaro administration.
Kafka in the Amazon: Volunteer forest fire fighter charged with arson still in limbo
- Alter do Châo, a small resort town within Santarém municipality in Pará state, welcomed some 200,000 tourists last year, causing real estate prices to soar, and putting increasing pressure on the Amazon resort’s surrounding forests.
- Following the 2019 Amazon wildfire season, Brazilian police arrested four volunteer firefighters, accusing them of arson in the Alter do Châo Reserve. The firefighters allegedly set the fires to receive money from international environmental groups, according to the authorities. But no evidence has been presented as yet.
- The investigation has dragged on for months, with one suspect still under house arrest. However, many locals believe land speculators and/or land thieves are far more likely to be responsible for last year’s blazes.
- The fear expressed by many in Alter do Châo, is that lawlessness is becoming sanctioned in Amazonia due to the failure of the Bolsonaro government to prosecute socio-environmental crimes. Meanwhile, the volunteer fire brigade members continue awaiting the slow turning of Brazil’s wheels of justice.
Brazil opens 38,000 square miles of indigenous lands to outsiders
- FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous agency, has reversed a long-standing policy with a new instruction paving the way for the legitimization of outsider land claims made within indigenous territories which are still in the process of gaining official recognition.
- Brazil’s 1988 Constitution guarantees indigenous land rights on ancestral lands, but the government has delayed the process for decades. The new policy opens 237 as yet unrecognized indigenous areas, covering 37,830 square miles, an area the size of the U.S. state of Indiana — much of it still covered in rainforest.
- Critics of the Jair Bolsonaro government say that the new instruction will create legal cover for landgrabbers, ranchers, soy growers, loggers, and other outsiders to invade indigenous ancestral lands, claim permanent title to the property and exploit land vital to indigenous survival.
- The policy, say analysts, seems destined to result in close contact and clashes between outsiders and indigenous people, and is especially a threat to isolated indigenous groups, many who currently live within un-demarcated ancestral lands. There is also a high risk of indigenous infection with COVID-19.
Murder, logging and land theft: inside a crime factory in the Amazon
- One of the Amazon’s most deforested regions, Lábrea is remote, poorly policed and suffering from a land tenure crisis. As a result, land grabbing, illegal logging and murder are routine.
- A criminal nexus of landholders laying claim to protected forests they intend to turn into cattle pasture competes over the former São Domingos rubber plantation, where reporters found settlers had left en masse following a spate of killings last year.
- Several of the high-profile landholders and local officials investigated and convicted by federal prosecutors since 2013 were found to have cloned or forged legal documents, and engaged in conspiracy, fraud, environmental crimes and invasion of public land.
Evicted indigenous people in Manaus struggle to stay safe amid COVID-19 crisis
- A group of about 400 indigenous people were displaced from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon in February, reportedly in connection with drug trafficking issues in the area, despite previous promises to regularize their occupation.
- Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, accounts for the country’s fourth-highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 and a growing number of confirmed cases, exacerbating the situation for the evicted indigenous people who also face a greater challenge making a living amid scarce jobs and limited income sources.
- Home to more than 180,000 indigenous people, Amazonas is the Brazilian state with the largest indigenous population, many of whom live in remote areas and lack health services, raising concerns among researchers about their susceptibility to COVID-19 infection.
- The federal government recently announced the creation of an emergency hospital in Manaus devoted specifically to indigenous people; with more than 4,000 reported cases and 351 deaths, authorities have been warning in recent weeks that the state’s health system is close to its limit.
Satellite data show Amazon rainforest likely drier, more fire-prone this year
- Satellite data show regions of the Amazon with severe negative changes in soil moisture and groundwater, meaning this year will likely be drier than 2019.
- While a severe drought is unlikely, a drier year may increase the spread of wildfires and trigger an earlier spike in deforestation rates, experts say.
- Although weather forecasts for the Amazon are highly unpredictable, which could potentially reverse the current deficit, climate models by Brazil’s Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Research (CPTEC) show no indication of above-average precipitation in the coming months.
- A technical report by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) published this week anticipates a surge in fires caused by the deforestation spike of 2019, as the modus operandi of land grabbers is to deforest one year then set fire the next, in order to successfully transform forest into farmland and pastures.
Fight against Amazon destruction at stake after enforcement chief fired
- Brazil’s environmental agency, IBAMA, has stepped up efforts to fight environmental crimes during the COVID-19 crisis amid concerns that loggers, land grabbers and illegal miners could infect indigenous populations.
- However, the fate of these operations is now uncertain following the firing of IBAMA enforcement director Olivaldi Azevedo last week.
- On April 20, Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) launched an investigation into Azevedo’s dismissal, questioning whether IBAMA’s operations in Pará state would be affected and citing risks to the region’s indigenous people.
- Elsewhere, indigenous activists are celebrating an important court victory after a judge ordered the removal of North American missionaries accused of trying to convert isolated indigenous communities in the Vale do Javari region, near the border with Peru.
Rapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
- Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health.
- Scientists warn that the next emergent pandemic could originate in the Brazilian Amazon if Bolsonaro’s policies continue to drive Amazon deforestation rates ever higher. Researchers have long known that new diseases typically arise at the nexus between forest and agribusiness, mining, and other human development.
- One way deforestation leads to new disease emergence is through fire, like the Amazon blazes seen in 2019. In the aftermath of wildfires, altered habitat often offers less food, changing animal behavior, bringing foraging wildlife into contact with neighboring human communities, creating vectors for zoonotic bacteria, viruses and parasites.
- Now, Bolsonaro is pushing to open indigenous lands and conservation units to mining and agribusiness — policies which greatly benefit land grabbers. Escalating deforestation, worsened by climate change, growing drought and fire, heighten the risk of the emergence of new diseases, along with epidemics of existing ones, such as malaria.
In Brazil, COVID-19 outbreak paves way for invasion of indigenous lands
- Reports of continuing land invasions, killings of indigenous leaders, and rising numbers of COVID-19 infections inside indigenous reserves has raise concerns about the increased vulnerability of indigenous communities to violence and infection by illegal extraction gangs as the pandemic rages.
- In Rondônia state, the epicenter of last year’s Amazon fires, members of the Karipuna indigenous people have submitted a complaint to the local Federal Prosecutor’s Office reporting non-indigenous people clearing forest inside their reserve, less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the village where the group lives.
- Fear of the spread of COVID-19 by non-indigenous invaders inside Brazil’s indigenous communities has grown in recent days following reports of the hospitalization and death of a Yanomami teenager.
- At least five indigenous people have been infected by the virus in Brazil so far, according to a map produced by an NGO advocating for indigenous rights, and at least two indigenous people living in cities have died after being infected.
Indigenous group wins unprecedented right of reply to Bolsonaro’s racist invective
- A federal judge in Brazil has ordered government websites to publish a letter from the Kinja indigenous people for 30 days as part of their right of response to racist rhetoric by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- The ruling, issued on March 30, follows a series of offensive statements by government officials over the indigenous community’s resistance to the planned construction of a 720-kilometer (450-mile) power transmission line that will cut through their Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous Reserve in the Amazon rainforest.
- The ruling also requires the government to develop an anti-discrimination indigenous program and to formally discourage all public authorities against inciting or encouraging racial discrimination.
- Brazil’s National Indigenous Agency (FUNAI) says the decision confuses the president’s right to freedom of expression about public policies with discrimination and is out of the court’s jurisdiction, adding it will appeal the decision.
Calls for justice after latest murder of indigenous Guajajara leader in Brazil
- Zezico Rodrigues Guajarara, a teacher from the Arariboia indigenous reserve in northeastern Maranhão state, was found shot dead on March 31. The motive for the killing remains unknown.
- He is the fifth Guajajara indigenous leader to be slain since November in the lawless frontier region dominated by powerful landowners and logging mafias.
- Indigenous leader Olímpio Iwyramu Guajajara, who is himself under state protection following an earlier killing of a prominent community member, told Mongabay he felt “particularly vulnerable in our territory.”
- Zezico had long reportedly received death threats from both indigenous and non-indigenous people involved with illegal logging. The federal police have been called in to investigate the murder.
First COVID-19 case among indigenous people confirmed in Brazilian Amazon
- A 20-year-old Kokama indigenous woman in northern Amazonas state tested positive for the virus, according to the federal government’s body in charge of health services for indigenous people in Brazil (SESAI).
- She is one of 27 people who are being monitored after being in contact with Dr. Matheus Feitosa, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week. Feitosa is a SESAI doctor and he gave treatment to 10 indigenous people in a Tikuna village before developing a fever and going into voluntary isolation.
- Dr. Sofia Mendonça, coordinator of the Xingu Project at the Federal University of São Paulo fears that coronavirus could have a similar impact to the big epidemics of the past. “There is an incredible risk that the virus spreads through the communities and causes genocide,” she told the BBC.
On anniversary of nun’s murder Amazon land rights activists at high risk
- Fifteen years ago this month, land rights activist and Catholic nun Dorothy Stang, “Sister Dorothy,” was brutally assassinated in Anapu municipality, Pará state, Brazil. While her death caused a loud international public outcry, and resulted in Brazil cracking down on such violence, those corrections didn’t last.
- Less than 5% of the more than 550 killings that have occurred since Stang’s murder having gone to court, according to data collected by Brazil’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) and analyzed by Mongabay. In Pará, the state where Stang was murdered, just 6 of more than 190 land conflict murders have been judged in court.
- Experts say the majority of such killings are plotted by land grabbers and powerful land owners trying to intimidate peasant farmers seeking land reform, or trying to protect their small land holdings. Local corruption in government, law enforcement and in the courts leads to few prosecutions.
- Analysts fear President Jair Bolsonaro’s polices will worsen the problem. In December, he issued executive order MP 910, which critics say effectively legalizes land grabbing. The decree, supposedly benefiting smallholders, provides a pardon for past large-scale land grabbers and could embolden land grabbing in future.
Barrage of mining requests targets Brazil’s isolated indigenous peoples
- Nearly 4,000 requests have been submitted for mining-related activities on 31 indigenous reserves and 17 protected areas in Brazil, according to recently obtained data from the nongovernmental Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) and the National Mining Agency.
- The targeted areas are home to 71 known isolated indigenous communities, a group whose population is already considered one of the most vulnerable in the country.
- The requests are part of a wave of sweeping measures led by President Jair Bolsonaro to clear the way for widespread exploitation of indigenous lands for mining, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric plants, ranching and more.
- While deforestation in the Amazon increased by an average of 25% last year, and by 80% on indigenous lands, deforestation rates in areas where isolated peoples are present rose by 114% last year compared with 2018; when compared with 2017, the rate of increase was 364%.
Making a thriller out of Belo Monte hydro dam: Q&A with filmmaker Sabrina McCormick
- The construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon is the narrative engine that drives Sequestrada, the first full-length film by U.S. cinematographer and sociologist Sabrina McCormick.
- The film, which came out in December on various streaming platforms, tells the story of Kamudjara, an indigenous girl, amid the expectations about the profound social and environmental changes that the construction will bring.
- In this interview with Mongabay, the director speaks about her creative process, her experience filming in the Amazon and perceptions about the social and cultural aspects, as well as the indigenous people’s sense of belonging to the forest.
- A former climate and environmental adviser to the Obama administration, McCormick also stresses the importance of blocking the advance of power generation models based on projects like Belo Monte.
Pope makes impassioned plea to save the Amazon — will the world listen?
- In a 94-page document entitled “Querida Amazonia” (Dear Amazon), Pope Francis has made an impassioned plea for world leaders, transnational companies, and people everywhere to step up and protect the Amazon rainforest along with the indigenous people who live there and are its best stewards.
- The Amazon is seeing rapid deforestation in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, while violence against indigenous people is rising. Scientists say climate change and deforestation are forcing a forest-to-savanna tipping point, which could lead to a massive tree die-off, the release of huge amounts of CO2, and global climate catastrophe.
- “We are water, air, earth and life of the environment created by God,” Pope Francis writes in Dear Amazon. “For this reason, we demand an end to the mistreatment and destruction of mother Earth. The land has blood, and it is bleeding; the multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth.”
- Faith leaders applauded the pope: “Care for creation and… social justice for indigenous peoples and forest communities are part of one moral fabric,” said Joe Corcoran of the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative. But most media ignored the pope’s message, focusing instead on his verdict disallowing Amazon priests from marrying.
Bolsonaro sends Congress bill to open indigenous lands to mining, fossil fuels
- President Jair Bolsonaro has long pledged to open Brazil’s indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism. This week he sent a bill to Congress that would do just that.
- And while the legislation would allow consultation with impacted indigenous populations, they would lack the power of veto, except in cases of “garimpo” or wildcat mining. Though the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is strong in Congress, it remains to be seen whether the bill will be approved.
- The legislation would also allow the use of GM, genetically modified, seeds in agricultural projects, a practice previously banned because of the danger of contaminating native seeds. Royalties would be paid to indigenous communities for the economic activities allowed in their reserves and communities.
- Bolsonaro called his project a “dream” but it has already met with withering criticism from indigenous organizations who see it as a nightmare. Apib, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples, called it a ‘death project’ which would, under the mask of false good intentions, effectively authorize the invasion of their lands
Escalating firestorms could turn Amazon from carbon sink to source: Study
- A new study finds that the Brazilian Amazon could be moving from being a carbon storehouse to a carbon source — putting the regional and global climate at great risk. Intensifying wildfires could contribute to that shift happening by mid-century.
- Researchers used models to show that an increasingly hot, dry Amazon climate, coupled with deforestation, could trigger wildfires burning up to 16% of the rainforest in Brazil’s Southern Amazon by 2050, releasing up to 17 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
- The team’s models indicated that Amazon fires will likely continue intensifying before 2030, due to more frequent heat and drought conditions caused by global warming, and as rampant deforestation due to agribusiness expansion dries out the understory and creates more flammable forest edges.
- Of great concern, the study also found that over time, fires won’t just impact edge areas, but intact forest, deep inside indigenous reserves and other conserved areas. Reduced sources of fire ignition and fire suppression could decrease the likelihood of burning, especially if accompanied by a decrease in global carbon emissions.
Carbon uptake slower than expected in Amazon secondary forest: Study
- A secondary forest in a portion of the Brazilian Amazon takes up carbon at only about twice the rate of primary forest, as compared to carbon accumulation at up to 11 times in other parts of the world; that could be bad news if similar findings are confirmed elsewhere in the Amazon and the tropics, according to scientists.
- The Bragantina region of Pará state where the study occurred has been used agriculturally for hundreds of years, until today, almost no primary forest remains. It is unlikely these degraded forests will return to their original levels of carbon storage and biodiversity on “politically meaningful timescales,” the researchers said.
- The results indicate that future researchers should be more cautious in estimating the absorption capacity of atmospheric carbon by regenerating tropical forests to mitigate the impacts of climate change, as that capacity is variable depending on multiple factors and may be overestimated.
- The findings could also put in doubt Brazil’s plan to meet its Paris Climate Agreement carbon reduction pledges by replanting forest. The nation promises to restore 12 million hectares of forest by 2030. But the actual carbon storage value of these new secondary forests, including tree plantations, could be far lower than expected.
Success of Microsoft’s ‘moonshot’ climate pledge hinges on forest conservation
- One mechanism by which the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement incentivizes greenhouse gas reductions is via carbon offsets, payments that compensate nations, states and private landowners who agree to keep forests intact in order to preserve carbon storage capacity and biodiversity.
- But problems exist with forest carbon offset initiatives: corrupt landowners, lack of carbon accounting transparency, and low carbon pricing have caused wariness among investors, and failed to spur forest preservation.
- Now, in a landmark move, Microsoft has pledged to go “carbon negative” by 2030, and erase all the company’s greenhouse gas emissions back to its founding in 1975 by 2050. A big part of achieving that goal will come via the carbon storage provided by verified global forest conservation and reforestation projects around the globe.
- To achieve its goal, Microsoft has teamed with Pachama, a Silicon Valley startup, that seeks to accurately track forest carbon stocks in projects in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, the U.S. and elsewhere using groundbreaking advanced remote-sensing technology including LiDAR, artificial intelligence and satellite imaging.
Use it, don’t lose it: Q&A with Amazon eco scientist Marcelino Guedes
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.
- “Human practices can be managed to become the basis for conservation in Amazonia,” he says. Countering the idea that forests must be maintained in their virgin state, he says the rational use of a forest’s resources is the best way to create an effective conservation dynamic, considering the many pressures the region is undergoing.
- Guedes cites the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, which holds that small changes to the environment are crucial for increasing biodiversity. These disturbances can be natural, as in the case of a storm, or caused by humans, which is the case of the indigenous peoples of Amazonia, who have, over the last 5,000 years, been modifying and enriching the landscape through itinerant agriculture and dispersal of native species.
What starts in the Amazon doesn’t stay there: Fires melting Andes glaciers
- The Amazon rainforest was historically too wet to burn on a large scale, but that has changed as climate change and deforestation have made the biome hotter and dryer.
- A new study finds that fire impacts (specifically in 2007 and 2010, bad fire years), are resulting in black carbon deposits that darken Andes mountain glacial snows. Absorption rather than reflection of solar radiation makes for increased glacial melt.
- The amount of melting depends on how much Amazon fire soot reaches the glacial surface, which is dependent on the amount of soot produced and also on atmospheric conditions, such as wind direction. This black carbon initiated melting isn’t accounted for in current climate models, meaning that the models may be underestimating future melt.
- Black carbon initiated melting over the short term is expected to result in increased water outflows from mountain glaciers, possibly causing flooding. But once the glaciers melt away, severe water shortages could occur in the Andes, though there is no timeframe for such an outcome.
Indigenous, protected lands in Amazon emit far less carbon than areas outside
- A new study calculates the gains and losses in carbon across the Amazon rainforest from deforestation as well as human-caused and naturally occurring degradation of the forest.
- The team found that around 70% of the total carbon emitted from the Amazon between 2003 and 2016 came from areas outside indigenous-held lands and protected areas, despite the fact that these outside areas made up less than half of the total land area.
- The researchers argue that their findings make the case for supporting indigenous communities with “political protection and financial support” to protect carbon stocks in the Amazon necessary to address climate change.
NGOs demand inquiry into Environment Minister aid to Amazon land grabbers
- 25 environmental and indigenous organizations have made an official complaint to the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office requesting an investigation for abuse of power and misconduct in office by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles and Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) head, Homero Cerqueira.
- It is alleged that Salles and Cerqueira met with convicted criminals including known Amazon land grabbers, and that both officials pledged to end inspections inside the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve (Resex), a protected area in Acre state under heavy pressure from illegal deforesters. ICMBio oversees Brazil’s parks.
- Last week President Jair Bolsonaro established the Amazon Council, putting the nation’s Vice President at its head, and subordinating Salles and the Environment Ministry to the new council. Some analysts speculate that Salles has fallen from favor due to his reckless speech and actions, though others disagree.
- Some speculate the new council is a merely a public relations maneuver meant to show international and national critics that Bolsonaro cares about the Amazon. Few expect the council to zealously press forward with conservation efforts, while others see it as a means of bypassing the Environment Ministry.
Impending Amazon tipping point puts biome and world at risk, scientists warn
- Climate models coupled with real world biome changes are causing prominent scientists to forecast that, unless action is taken immediately, 50 to 70% of the Amazon will be transformed from rainforest into savanna in less than 50 years.
- That ecological disaster would trigger a vast release of carbon stored in vegetation, likely leading to a regional and planetary climate catastrophe. The Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point is being triggered by rapidly escalating deforestation, regional and global climate change, and increasing Amazon wildfires — all of which are making the region dryer.
- While models produced the first evidence of the tipping point, events on the ground are now adding to grave concern. The Amazon has grown hotter and dryer in recent decades, and rainforest that was once fireproof now readily burns. Plant species adapted to a wet climate are dying, as drought-resistant species flourish. Deforestation is escalating rapidly.
- Scientists say the tipping point could be reversed with strong environmental policies. However, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is moving in the opposite direction, with plans to develop the Amazon, including the opening of indigenous reserves to industrial mining and agribusiness, and the building of roads, dams and other infrastructure.
Vale has filed hundreds of requests to exploit indigenous lands in Amazon
- Data obtained via the Access to Information Act reveals that Vale has 236 applications registered with the National Mining Agency for mineral exploration in Brazil’s Amazon Basin. Many of them are applications for research, the first step to obtaining authorization for mineral exploration.
- Of the total applications, 214 are on indigenous territory, including some of the largest in Brazil, such as Trombetas/Mapuera and Munduruku reservations. The Constitution prohibits mining in such areas without sanction by Congress and after hearing from the affected communities — something Vale has not done.
- More than 90% of the requests filed are for gold mining, but there are other minerals on the list too, including nickel, tin, lead, copper, manganese, diamonds, beryllium, silver, and platinum.
- Reached for response, Vale said it had only 76 “active” applications, but declined to provide details. The company has also requested that its mining application information be sealed, effectively keeping some of these processes out of the public eye.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro creates Amazon Council and Environmental Police force
- Brazil has formed a new Amazon Council headed by Vice President Hamilton Mourão, a retired general and supporter of Amazon mining development. The council will oversee “the activities of all the ministries involved in the protection, defense and development and sustainable development of the Amazon.”
- A new Environmental Police force is also being created made up of military police from state forces, which will have the potential to put thousands of agents into the field for Amazon operations.
- Meanwhile, Bolsonaro slashed the budget for IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, cutting it by 25% as compared to 2019. IBAMA has been recognized internationally for its key role in enforcing Brazil’s laws against illegal loggers and land grabbers, for reducing deforestation and fighting Amazon fires.
- Critics are concerned over Bolsonaro’s militarization of Amazon environmental, development, and security administration, seeing it as a throwback to the days of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, when new highways and other infrastructure projects greatly benefited land grabbers and wealthy landowners.
Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
- The Amazon rainforest generates half its own rainfall, but deforestation threatens to disrupt this cycle, shifting large parts of this ancient forest to dry, savanna habitat. Passing such a “tipping point” would have disastrous knock-on effects for climate and weather patterns regionally and globally.
- A recent study modelling the impact of proposed roads, hydropower and mining developments in the Amazon basin suggests that 21-43 percent of the Amazon’s original extent will be lost by 2050, putting it close to, or beyond, the tipping point for a biome shift in large parts of the region.
- Although development is not currently proceeding at the rapid rate predicted under various ambitious government initiatives, experts say that, even with no new Amazon infrastructure, continued deforestation could drive the biome to the tipping point in the next 15–30 years.
- A quick transition to zero deforestation is the only way to avert catastrophic change to the Amazon, say experts. But conservationists fear the political will is lacking as the Bolsonaro administration continues to slash protections. Backing indigenous land stewards could offer a solution.
Amazon’s Munduruku stage daring Christmas raid to recover sacred urns
- In 2013, during the building of the Teles Pires dam in the Brazilian Amazon, the Teles Pires Hydroelectric Company (CHTP) dynamited Karobixexe (Seven Rapids), a sacred site of the Munduruku, Apiaká and Kayabi peoples. Located just outside an indigenous reserve, it received no government protection.
- Also during construction, the firm removed funeral urns from a sacred site without indigenous permission and refused to return them. In December, 70 Munduruku occupied the Natural History Museum in Alta Floresta in Mato Grosso state, and took back the 12 funeral urns, plus other artifacts of theirs.
- The construction of the Teles Pires dam and destruction of Karobixexe both occurred without prior consultation of the Mundurku as required under law according to the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, of which Brazil is a signatory.
- Other human remains were found by CHTP and 270,000 artifacts were removed to which the Munduruku now have no access. They have also been barred from another sacred site, Dekoka’a (Monkey Hill) impacted by the construction of the São Manoel Hydroelectric Power Station, also located on the Teles Pires River.
Fines for Amazon fires may go to indigenous communities under new bill
- Born in the northern reaches of Brazil, in the state of Roraima, Joenia Wapichana is the first indigenous lawyer in Brazil and in 2018 she became the first indigenous woman to be elected to the country’s lower house of Congress. She also holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona.
- In her first year in office, she wrote a bill proposing that the funds collected from fines for environmental infractions committed on indigenous lands be reverted back to the native peoples.
- In the bill’s text, Wapichana presents her justification: “The fires in the Amazon region were a recent news story, both nationally and internationally, a fact which also fostered the need to protect the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.”
Belo Monte boondoggle: Brazil’s biggest, costliest dam may be unviable
- The controversial Belo Monte mega-dam in Pará state has done significant socio environmental harm to the Xingu River and the indigenous and traditional people living beside it. Now it appears the dam may not be able to produce the electricity totals promised by its builders — an eventuality critics had long warned about.
- Project designers appear to have seriously misestimated the Xingu River’s flow rates and fluctuations between wet and dry seasons, while also not accounting for reductions in flow due to deforestation caused by rapidly expanding cattle ranches and soy plantations far upriver in Mato Grosso state.
- Climate change-induced droughts are also decreasing Xingu River flows and generating capacity. In 2013, an important Brazilian Panel on Climate Change report warned that global warming could drop water levels all across the Amazon basin, putting hydropower in serious jeopardy.
- As deforestation due to agribusiness and mining spreads across the basin, now driven by the development-friendly policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the future for Amazon hydroelectric dams, their generating capacity and investment potential looks increasingly bleak.
Five murdered in 2020 Brazilian Amazon land conflicts, adding to 2019 surge
- Already this month, three Miranha indigenous people have been murdered in Coari municipality, an oil and gas rich town on the Amazon River in Amazonas state, while two peasant farmers have been murdered in Maranhão state, on the Amazonian frontier — all five men are believed to have died due to land disputes.
- This month’s violence builds on a spike in rural murders and intimidation in the Amazon and across Brazil seen in 2019, which many analysts say is being catalyzed by the inflammatory rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro, along with administration policies undermining protections for indigenous and traditional peoples.
- A major concern, say analysts, is that Bolsonaro’s new policies, including an executive decree (MP 910) issued late in 2019, providing a sweeping amnesty to past land grabbers; and a proposed bill that would open indigenous lands to mining, could result in a further surge in land conflicts and violence this year.
The fight is on to save the last clean waterway in Brazil’s Manaus
- Jó Farah, president of Mata Viva, a local NGO, fights to save a stream called Água Branca, which means “white water,” that he says is the last clean waterway, or igarapé, in the city of Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state.
- Once used for leisure, navigation and fishing, almost all of the 150 igarapés in Manaus are totally polluted, with experts saying it could take up to 30 years for them to recover, while others are considered “dead.”
- Igarapés are important for natural drainage during rainy season, experts say. They warn the problems of flooding will only get worse over time, especially with climate change and related extreme weather conditions, if the issue not addressed properly.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil: 2020 could see revived Amazon mining assault — part two
- President Michel Temer issued a presidential decree in 2017 to open up the vast 4.6 million hectare (17,800 square mile) RENCA preserve in the northern Amazon to mining. Meeting with a firestorm of criticism he abandoned the effort. Sources now say the Bolsonaro administration is poised to quietly revive plans to open RENCA in 2020.
- Likewise, with Bolsonaro in charge, transnational mining companies are pushing for a change in Brazilian law allowing the firms to mine inside protected lands and indigenous reserves across the nation. The change could be introduced in 2020 via the mining law, a bill long stalled in Congress.
- Should mines in RENCA and elsewhere go ahead, transport will be needed. The planned Ferrovia Pará railway (Fepasa) would move commodities from Pará state’s interior for river transport to the coast. Other plans call for 20+ new river ports, 2 thermoelectric power stations, and a transmission line crossing Pará.
- However, all these major projects face a legal hurdle. The Brazilian Constitution states that no major measure can be authorized allowing mining in indigenous areas, or large new infrastructure projects approved before prerequisites are satisfied, including consent of affected indigenous and traditional communities.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil: 2019 brings death by 1,000 cuts to Amazon — part one
- While the media focused in 2019 on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s incendiary remarks, or on the Amazon fires, he has quietly instituted new policies likely to aid land grabbers and do great harm to Amazon forests, indigenous and traditional peoples. “Death by 1,000 Cuts” parts 1 and 2 reviews those policies.
- Executive decree MP 910 issued December 11 legalizes large-scale land grabbing. The large-owner loophole built into the new decree allows land speculators to register large swathes of public lands that they grabbed before December 2018, using the illegal deforestation they accomplished as proof of their “occupation.”
- MP 910 could transfer 40-60 million hectares of public land to private owners who would then be authorized to legally deforest a fifth of that land, about 10 million hectares, experts say. MP 910 is likely to trigger high rates of conflict and deforestation. Congress must approve MP 910 in 120 days to make it permanent.
- The agriculture ministry also chose to make secret part of its ranching database, thwarting Visipec, an NGO-designed tool for tracking cattle raised on calving ranches where major deforestation occurs. Other administrative measures benefit big agribusiness over small family farms, and muzzle civil society voices.
Amazon’s Mura indigenous group demands input over giant mining project
- In 2013, Potássio do Brasil, a subsidiary of the Canadian merchant bank, Forbes & Manhattan, began drilling exploratory wells for a giant potassium mine — a highly profitable venture that would allow transport of potash along the Amazon and Madeira rivers. Potash is a vital fertilizer for Brazil’s rapidly growing soy agribusiness industry.
- One big problem: the company was reportedly drilling inside the Jauary Indigenous Reserve and directly adjacent to other indigenous reserves and communities. Indigenous people said that the ancestral lands being drilled, though sometimes not demarcated as being within their reserves, were vital for hunting and other livelihoods.
- The mine was licensed in 2015. However, legal irregularities resulted in the project stalling. Finally, a court settlement was reached in which the Mura communities would be given the legal right of consultation — a democratic process of self-determination guaranteed under international law rarely practiced in the remote Brazilian Amazon.
- How the Mura will vote — and whether that vote will be respected by municipal, state and federal governments; agribusiness; a transnational mining giant; and international investors — remains to be seen. However, analysts agree that the result could have far reaching consequences for rural traditional settlements across the Amazon.
Mega-mining project slated for Brazilian Amazon sparks controversy
- Potássio do Brasil, a mining company; Autazes municipal authorities; the federal and Amazonas state governments; and large-scale soy growers all want one thing: to open a potash mine in the town of Autazes that would supply soy producers with Brazilian fertilizer, so as not to buy and pay for imported potash. All stand to profit.
- There’s just one major roadblock: the potassium deposits are on indigenous land, and the mining company started off on the wrong foot in 2013 by digging exploratory wells in secret, without getting indigenous permission to dig on their land.
- Years of acrimonious conflict and legal battles followed. The municipality of Autazes includes 12,000 Mura Indians among its citizens, most of whom live in one of the 20 indigenous reserves that have been officially demarcated or are in the process of being demarcated. They fear the potash mine’s social and environmental repercussions.
- They have successfully stalled the US$2.5 billion mining project up to now. But under the government of Jair Bolsonaro, the possibility that the potash mine could go forward without indigenous consultation — as required by international law — is becoming a looming possibility.
Antonio Donato Nobre: “The forest is sick and losing its carbon-sequestration capacity”
- A researcher at the INPE Center of Land System Science, Antonio Donato Nobre, describes the state of degradation threatening the future of the Amazon rainforest in an exclusive interview with Mongabay.
- Nobre fears the forest is nearing what he describes as a “tipping point,” after which it will no longer be able to regenerate on its own, thus embarking on the path to desertification. “This is not about protecting the forest simply to please environmentalists. The living forest is essential for the survival of human civilization,” he says.
- In order to reverse the current state of destruction, Nobre proposes the development of a forest economy – capable, in his opinion, of generating nearly 20 times as much revenue as extensive cattle ranching. As an example, he cites the project Amazônia 4.0, which defends the use of technology for the sustainable exploration of biodiversity.
Brazil on the precipice: from environmental leader to despoiler (2010-2020)
- Brazil’s 21st century environmental record is most easily visualized via Amazon deforestation: poor regulation and lawlessness led to peak deforestation in 2004, with 27,772 square kilometers cleared. Better laws and enforcement, and a soy moratorium led to a dramatic decline to 4,571 square kilometers in 2012.
- Since then, first under Workers’ Party President Dilma Rousseff, then under Michel Temer, deforestation rates began to rise. The rate saw its biggest jump this year under President Jair Bolsonaro, with a loss of 9,762 square kilometers — the worst deforestation since 2008.
- From 2011-2016, the Amazon saw numerous hydroelectric project controversies, including the construction of the Belo Monte mega-dam, two huge hydroelectric projects on the Madeira River, plus multiple dams on the Teles Pires River. The Lava Jato corruption scandal and an economic downturn curbed dam building.
- Brazil’s ruralist agribusiness interests consolidated power, first under Temer, and more so under Bolsonaro, launching multiple attacks on indigenous and traditional land rights. Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental and anti-indigenous policies are a mark of his administration, a trend expected to continue in 2020.
‘The tipping point is here, it is now,’ top Amazon scientists warn
- In the past, climate modelling has indicated an approaching Amazon tipping point when global climate change, combined with increasing deforestation, could result in a rapid Amazon shift from rainforest to degraded savanna and shrubland, releasing massive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere when the world can least afford it.
- Now, scientists Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy report that researchers are seeing evidence in both the atmosphere and on the ground that this tipping point has been reached and will worsen if no action is taken immediately to reverse the situation.
- They reference a NASA satellite study revealing an increasingly dry Amazon over time, which space agency scientists say is one of “the first indications of positive climate feedback mechanisms.” A 2018 study found that Amazon tree species adapted to wet climates were dying at record rates while dry-adapted trees thrived.
- It is urgent, the scientists say, that Brazil move away from unsustainable agribusiness monocultures of cattle, soy, and sugarcane, while launching a major reforestation project on already degraded lands in the southern and eastern Amazon, actions that could help Brazil keep its Paris Climate Agreement commitment.
Paris accord ‘impossible to implement’ if tropical forest loss not stopped
- Human activity is already threatening 80% of the world’s forests with destruction or degradation. Deforestation is also putting ecosystems and 50% of the world’s biodiversity at risk, along with forest peoples.
- Atop that, dense intact tropical forests serve as vital carbon sinks. But forest loss accounted for 8% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions in 2018, while intact tropical forest loss from 2000 to 2013 will result in over 626% more long-term carbon emissions through 2050 than previously thought, according to new research.
- Zooming in on just one example, 17% of the Amazon has been cleared at one time or another. Another 20% has been degraded. In 2019, the deforestation rate there shot up 30% from the year before. The risk is that climate change combined with deforestation could lead to an Amazon forest collapse, with huge releases of carbon.
- If tropical nations, and nations consuming forest products, but had the political will, then the world’s forests could be conserved. One approach: create buffers around intact tropical forests by reducing road networks while reforesting. Also, give indigenous groups more power to protect forests, as they’re proven to be the best stewards.
Murders of indigenous leaders in Brazilian Amazon hits highest level in two decades
- Erisvan Guajajara, 15 years old, was found dead with multiple stab wounds Friday in the Brazilian Amazon. It is the 10th murder of indigenous people recorded this year.
- The body of Erisvan was found in a soccer field in the town of Amarante, in the Northeast state of Maranhão. And on December 7, two Guajajara leaders — Firmino Silvino Guajajara and Raimundo Bernice Guajajara — were killed in a drive-by shooting in a nearby area.
- Four Guajajara indigenous people have been reported killed in the last two months. In November, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, who was on the frontlines of Amazon protection as part of the indigenous Forest Guardians group, was also murdered. The crimes remain unsolved.
- Seven indigenous leaders were murdered as of December 2019, making it the country’s deadliest year for indigenous leaders in two decades, according to an NGO linked to the Catholic Church. Indigenous leaders have been calling for action to halt increasing violence against indigenous people.
COP25: Brazil’s official presence diverges widely from its public persona
- Brazil’s government presence was much shrunken at COP25, as compared to past climate conferences, and its delegation even opted out of hosting a presentation space — this despite the country’s being South America’s biggest economy and among the world’s top ten greenhouse gas emitters.
- The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is controversial for its anti-environmental and anti-indigenous stance. Its policies have prompted resistance by Amazon indigenous and traditional rural populations.
- Environment Minister Ricardo Salles represented one face of Brazil at COP25, speaking publicly twice at the summit, and focusing mostly on agribusiness and economic development opportunities in Amazonia.
- Indigenous peoples and other activists showed a very different face at COP25, emphasizing government failures to protect the environment as well as indigenous and traditional peoples living in the Amazon.
Evidence ‘unfounded’ against NGO volunteers accused of setting Amazon fires
- The Amazonian town of Alter do Chão in Santarém municipality, Pará state, Brazil attracts 190,000 tourists annually. A battle between environmentalists (wanting to preserve the area’s forests), and land grabbers (wanting to construct high-rises and other profitable infrastructure), has been raging there for many years.
- As part of the wave of fires sweeping the Amazon this year, widespread blazes were set in the Alter do Chão Reserve. In the wake of the fires, police surprisingly arrested four members of Brigada de Alter, an NGO. The four are volunteer firefighters who helped put out September’s blazes.
- Mongabay has acquired police arresting documents revealing what lawyers say is “unfounded” and flimsy evidence. Police claimed the four set the fires with the intent of taking photos and selling them to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
- While the investigation is ongoing, analysts say land grabbers had the best motive for setting the fires. However, critics add, the police focus on the NGO is in line with President Jair Bolsonaro’s ongoing campaign of rhetoric discrediting Brazilian and international socioenvironmental NGOs and undermining their work in the Amazon.
‘Everything is dying’: Q&A with Brazilian indigenous leader Alessandra Munduruku
- Alessandra Munduruku recently spoke at the Global Climate Strike and presented the Munduruku Consultation Protocol to the European Parliament, tabling complaints about rights violations faced by indigenous peoples in Brazil.
- While in Berlin, the Brazilian indigenous leader told Mongabay about the on-the-ground impacts of agribusiness expansion and infrastructure development in the Amazon.
Experts blame Bolsonaro for surge in deforestation, warn of worse to come
- Between August 2018 and July 2019, an area of 9,762 square kilometers (3,769 square miles) of primary forest was cleared, according to data released by the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE) last week.
- The area, roughly the size of Hawaii’s Big Island, represents the highest deforestation rate in 11 years.
- Experts contacted for this story told Mongabay that the 30 percent surge of forest loss over the past year could be even higher for the coming months amid lack of enforcement and large cleared areas preceding fires in August and September 2019.
- The spike in deforestation is a direct result of the actions of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been dismantling environmental agencies and environmental legislation to pave the way to open up Amazon protected areas to agribusiness and mining, experts said.
Brazil works behind scene to greenlight Manaus-Boa Vista transmission line
- The long-delayed Tucuruí Transmission Line extension, providing energy autonomy to Roraima state, appears to be moving ahead rapidly under the Bolsonaro government, with federal institutions carrying out secretive political maneuvers to speed construction at any cost, regardless of opposition, say critics.
- The project’s environmental license has been suspended since 2014. One sticking point: the impact of the project on the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous Territory. Of the 721 kilometers (450 miles) of extension envisaged for the transmission line, 125 kilometers (78 miles) with 200 electrical towers would cross through the reserve.
- Another obstacle is ongoing negotiations with Transnorte, the selected construction consortium, which has demand what are viewed by many as excessive returns on the project. The Bolsonaro government has reportedly pressured the National Electric Energy Agency to accept the conditions demanded by the company.
- Analysts say the transmission line isn’t necessary, as solar power could be utilized to serve the needs of Roraima state, and implementation could be faster. However, some experts suspect that the powerline is connected to plans to open the region to industrial mining, which requires huge amounts of electricity to operate profitably.
Sugarcane threatens Amazon forest and world climate; Brazilian ethanol is not clean (commentary)
- On November 6, 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed an administrative decree abolishing the environmental zoning of sugarcane which has until now restrained the advance of this crop — largely used to produce ethanol — into the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands.
- Sugarcane expansion into these two ecologically sensitive biomes will generate unprecedented impacts — including deforestation and carbon emissions adding to climate change — meaning that Brazilian biofuels can no longer be claimed to be environmentally “clean.”
- In 2018, the European Union imported more than 43 million liters of Brazilian cane ethanol. As with all commodities, importing countries need to assess the environmental impact that the production of these commodities have on the global climate via the destruction of Amazon and Pantanal native vegetation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazil adds deforestation monitoring for all biomes, so long as money lasts
- Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has long monitored the Amazon rainforest biome for deforestation; in 2014 the agency gained funding from the World Bank to pay for similar monitoring in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna biome, which is fast seeing its native vegetation converted to crop and pasture by industrial agribusiness.
- However, the government and others sources failed to fund monitoring in Brazil’s other four biomes — the Pantanal, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga and Pampa. Then, in 2018, the Amazon Fund (which is largely backed financially by Norway), allotted R$ 49.8 million (US$ 12.1 million) to perform deforestation monitoring in all Brazil’s biomes.
- That appropriation is expected to last until 2022. After that, funding again becomes uncertain, because at present Norway has frozen all Amazon Fund financing for future projects in protest over Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental policies.
- The first data sets for the four additional biomes (tracking forest loss between 2016 and 2019), are due to be released in December 2019. Annual reports will be published from 2020 forward.
LIDAR technology leads Brazilian team to 30 story tall Amazon tree
- A research team using cutting edge LIDAR technology is mapping the Brazilian Amazon to create a detailed biomass map in order to track the impacts of land use change on forest carbon emissions — data collection required under the Paris Climate Agreement and paid for by the Amazon Fund.
- While conducting their LIDAR survey by aircraft, the study team detected several groves of immense trees on the border between Pará and Amapá states. One individual, a red angelim (Dinizia excelsa Ducke) was recorded as being 88.5 meters (just over 290 feet) tall.
- A team of 30 researchers, guided by riverine community guides, made the arduous journey to the giant tree groves. They found some of the trees growing atop a hill, which is unusual because big tropical trees generally thrive in low places safe from wind. Further research is needed to learn why they grow there.
- The giant trees are more than a source of wonder: each can sequester up to 40 tons of carbon, nearly as much as a hectare (2.4 acres) of typical forest. So, when managing a forest and deciding which trees to cut, it is important to consider tree size. In this particular case, the loss of one giant red angelim’s carbon footprint would be huge.
Enforce Brazilian laws to curb criminal Amazon deforestation: study
- Recent research finds that a failure to track environmental infractions and to enforce environmental laws and regulations is aiding and abetting ever escalating rates of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado.
- Researchers studied the failings of three environmental initiatives: the TAC da Carne, blocking cattle sales raised in deforestation embargoed areas; the Amazon Soy Moratorium, stopping sales of soy grown on deforested lands; and DOF timber permitting, which allows logging only in approved areas.
- The study found that timber, soy and cattle producers often subvert Brazil’s environmental laws by illegally “laundering” harvested logs, beef and soy to conceal illegal deforestation. These practices have been largely helped by the weak governance of the Jair Bolsonaro administration.
- The scientists recommend the closing of illegal soy, cattle and logging laundering loopholes via the strengthening of Brazilian environmental agencies, the improvement of monitoring technologies, better integration of policies and systems, and putting market pressure on producers.
‘Guardian of the Forest’ ambushed and murdered in Brazilian Amazon
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a 26-years-old indigenous Guajajara leader was killed on Friday in an Amazon rainforest ambush allegedly by loggers in the Araribóia Indigenous Reserve, one of the country’s most threatened indigenous territories, which is located in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Paulo was a member of “Guardians of the Forest,” a group of 120 indigenous Guajajara who risk their lives fighting illegal logging in the Araribóia reserve. The Guardians also protect the uncontacted Awá Guajá hunter-gatherers — one of the most at risk indigenous groups on the planet.
- Indigenous leader Laércio Guajajara, also a Guardian, was hit by gunfire too, but was able to escape and was later taken to a hospital, said indigenous chief Olímpio Iwyramu Guajajara, the Guardians’ leader. All three Guardians have reportedly been threatened by loggers recently.
- Federal Police and Maranhão state police are investigating the attack, which also reportedly resulted in a logger being killed; Paulo’s body was buried on Sunday. The killing is the most recent in a rising tide of violence against indigenous activists since Jair Bolsonaro took power in January.
Indigenous and riverine communities unite to fight Amazon invaders
- The Brazilian Amazon basin, now under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, is increasingly a place of conflict, as loggers and land grabbers — many inspired by the government’s incendiary rhetoric — step up their invasions of indigenous and traditional lands.
- One example can be found along the Mamuru River in Pará state. There the Sateré indigenous group (now living mostly inside the Andirá Marau Indigenous Reserve), and non-indigenous traditional riverine communities (living in the Mamuru State Agro-extractivist Project, known as PEAEX Mamuru), are resisting incursions.
- Loggers and outsiders making dubious land claims are moving in on the disputed government-held common lands that lie between the indigenous reserve and PEAEX Mamuru, a cluster of 18 settlements. The Sateré say this land is part of their ancestral territory, but was mistakenly excluded from the Andirá Marau Reserve.
- Another threat to indigenous and traditional land claims: a new Pará state law that no longer requires that outsiders live currently on the lands they claim, making it far easier for land grabbers to legitimize those claims. In response, indigenous and traditional riverine communities are now forming a unified resistance.
As Bolsonaro meets with Xi, China silent on Brazil environmental crisis
- China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, so it is uniquely positioned to influence the Brazilian agribusiness sector and to help limit the drastic reductions in environmental protections being carried out by the Jair Bolsonaro administration.
- However, when Brazil’s Bolsonaro visited with China General Secretary Xi Jinping last week, the environment appeared to hold no place in their high-level talks which centered on trade and commerce agreements.
- Bolsonaro has caused international concern over his anti-environmental policies with the EU and with international investors. Germany and Norway, in particular, have slashed their aid to Brazil for its deforestation programs.
- Some conservationists hope that China, which has recently become vocal on the topics of sustainability and climate change, will move to brake Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental policy excesses, but other analysts believe China will maintain its primary focus on Brazilian trade.
As 2019 Amazon fires die down, Brazilian deforestation roars ahead
- This year’s August Amazon fires grabbed headlines around the world. In response, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his administration accused the media of lying and exaggerating the disaster, then finally sent in the army to combat the blazes. As of October, many of the fires were under control.
- But experts note that the fires are only a symptom of a far greater problem: rampant and rising deforestation. Altogether, 7,604 square kilometers (2,970 square miles) of rainforest were felled during the first nine months of this year, an 85 percent increase over the same period last year.
- Unscrupulous land speculators are growing rich, say experts, as they mine, log and clear rainforest — operations often conducted illegally on protected lands. Typically, the speculators cut valuable trees, burn the remainder, and sell the cleared land at a heavily marked up price to cattle ranchers or agribusiness.
- So far, Bolsonaro has done little to inhibit these activities, while doing and saying much to encourage deforestation, mining and agribusiness. The government has de-toothed the nation’s environmental agencies and slashed their budgets, while hampering officials from enforcing environmental laws.
Venezuelan crisis: Government censors environmental and scientific data
- Venezuela is among the most biodiverse nations in the world. But it has become increasingly difficult to measure, assess and protect the nation’s environment as the federal government spreads a dense cloak of secrecy over environmental and scientific statistics — concealing invaluable baseline, annual and long-term data.
- When the country was experiencing prosperity in the first decade of the 21st century, data was readily available on the Internet. But from roughly 2011 onward, as the nation spiraled into economic and social chaos, statistics began disappearing from the Web, and being unavailable to the public, scientific researchers and activists.
- Many important government environmental and social indices have been hidden from public view, including updated data on inflation, unemployment, crime, deforestation, ecosystem and wildlife endangerment, mining, water and air quality, pollution, climate change, energy, national fisheries production and more.
- Compounding governmental restrictions on transparency are difficulties in collecting scientific data in a nation suffering economic and social freefall. For example, 70 percent of Venezuelan weather stations are inoperative, meaning that regional temperature and rainfall patterns are no longer being measured.
Vatican calls landmark meeting to conserve Amazon, protect indigenous peoples
- From October 6-27 Catholic Church bishops from nine Amazon nations, indigenous leaders and environmental activists will convene in Rome at the Vatican to develop a unified strategy for preserving the Amazon rainforest and protecting the region’s indigenous peoples.
- The event is an outgrowth of Pope Francis’ 2015 teaching document known as Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home — an indictment of capitalism’s excesses, global extraction industries, industrial agribusiness, and our consumer society, which the pope mostly holds responsible for climate change, deforestation and endangerment of indigenous cultures.
- The Vatican meeting to discuss the Amazon is seen as a direct threat to national sovereignty by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose spokesperson earlier this year said of the Amazon synod that “it’s worrying and we want to neutralize it.”
- In a conference call this week, a few of those who will participate in the Amazon synod took a more positive view, saying that: “People are afraid that they’re going to have to change their own interests. But change has to come and the time is now.”
Brazilian beef industry plays outsized role in tropical carbon emissions: report
- Roughly 2.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide were released annually between 2010 and 2014 due to growth in tropical agriculture and tree plantations, say researchers; 40 percent of those deforestation-related emissions stem from Brazil and Indonesia, with oilseeds — especially palm oil and soy — accounting for most emissions in Indonesia.
- The research shows that cattle ranching in Brazil is the leading driver of deforestation emissions across Latin America. Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS presents the highest deforestation risk of the nation’s leading companies, followed by other major firms including Minerva and Marfrig. Most beef raised in Brazil is consumed domestically.
- The deforestation problem arises because monitoring linked to ranches is only done with the final slaughterhouse supplier, while most forest loss is taking place at the ranch where the animals originate, or at other ranches to which animals are sold, before being “laundered” at a last ranch.
- The solution: barcode tag animals from birth, so livestock can be traced from source, through multiple sales, to the slaughterhouse, tracking deforestation along the way. But political will has been lacking, say analysts, under past administration and especially under President Jair Bolsonaro.
As the Amazon burns, Colombia’s forests decimated for cattle and coca
- The environmental corridor that connects the Amazon, the Orinoquía and the Andes mountain range is in danger as a result of the ongoing deforestation.
- Tinigua National Natural Park lost 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres) between 2017 and July 2019, almost all of it primary forest, while the other parks also lost significant amounts of forest.
- The analysis identifies the main cause of the deforestation as the conversion of forests to pastures for land grabbing and livestock ranching, by invaders taking advantage of the scant government presence in the region.
Prompted by Amazon fires, 230 investors warn firms linked to deforestation
- Prompted by the Amazon fires in Brazil and Bolivia, 230 global investors with $16.2 trillion in assets have issued a strongly worded statement warning hundreds of unnamed companies to either meet their commodities supply chain deforestation commitments or risk economic consequences.
- The statement was published by Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an international network of investors and Ceres, a U.S. non-profit which works with investors to promote sustainability.
- Among the 230 signatories are CalPERS (the California Public Employees’ Retirement System), which manages the largest public pension fund in the United States, and some more unexpected firms, such as China Asset Management.
- Elsewhere, consumer pressure has led the VF Corporation, a US apparel and footwear firm which owns Timberland and The North Face brands, to announce it has stopped buying Brazilian leather. It remains to be seen whether a global Brazilian boycott linked to deforestation will develop.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil unlikely to achieve Paris Agreement goals: experts
- Brazil is the eighth largest global economy, and the seventh largest national producer of greenhouse gases, with significant emissions due to deforestation, especially in the Amazon.
- Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, Brazil committed to cutting 37 percent of its carbon emissions by 2025, and 43 percent by 2030.
- However, the anti-environmental, climate change and deforestation policies of President Jair Bolsonaro are putting those goals at serious risks, say experts.
- Environmentalists are especially suspicious of a September deal between Bolsonaro and US President Trump to promote private-sector sustainable development in the Amazon via a $100 million biodiversity conservation fund.
World’s biggest meatpackers buying cattle from deforesters in Amazon
- JBS, Marfrig and Frigol, among the world’s biggest meat producers, have been buying cattle from ranches associated with illegal deforestation and slave labor, an investigation by Repórter Brasil has found.
- The ranches in question are located in southern Pará state, the epicenter of the fires currently ravaging the Amazon, providing further evidence of the link between deforestation for cattle pasture and forest fires.
- The three companies say the information that would have flagged the ranches as problematic were not publicly available at the time they made their purchase, and point to their commitments to not source from ranches linked to environmental crimes.
- But a lack of animal traceability allows ranchers to use legalized farms to conceal sales of cattle raised in illegal areas through false declarations of origin, in a practice known as “cattle washing.”
Brazilian Amazon fires scientifically linked to 2019 deforestation: report
- A scientific report released today by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) reveals critical overlap between deforestation and fire alerts. Mongabay had exclusive access to the report ahead of release.
- At least 125,000 hectares (310,000 acres) of the Brazilian Amazon — the equivalent to 172,000 soccer fields — were cleared through 2019 and then burned in August. The findings offer a base map overlapping 2019 deforestation and fire hotspots, and include 16 high-resolution time lapse videos unveiling newly cleared agricultural lands linked to fire occurrences.
- MAAP’s findings show that the dramatic photos that garnered worldwide attention of smoky fires sweeping the Brazilian Amazon in August do not correspond with burning rainforest, but instead coincide with areas intentionally deforested this year, with the cleared land then set ablaze to finish the agricultural conversion process.
- Although the report didn’t detect major forest fires in Brazil to date, the risk still exists, as the dry season deepens, given that many fire occurrences were detected on agriculture-forest boundaries. The study doesn’t say how much of the 125,000 hectares cleared in the first 8 months of 2019 were illegally deforested.
Amazon deforestation and development heighten Amazon fire risk: study
- The current fires burning in the Brazilian Amazon are helping confirm the findings of a new study published this July which shows a major connection between land use and fire incidence — with deforestation and development contributing more to fire occurrence than climate change.
- New research shows that unrestrained deforestation, along with the construction of new highways, could expand wildfire risk in the Amazon by more than 70 percent by 2100, even inside protected areas and indigenous reserves that have relatively intact forests.
- Scientist suggest that efforts to improve sustainable land management and reduce future deforestation and development could offer the best defenses against the escalating threat wildfires pose due to the increased heat and drought brought by escalating climate change.
Giant Norway pension fund weighs Brazil divestment over Amazon deforestation
- KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, with over US$80 billion in assets, is saying it may divest from transnational commodities traders operating in Brazil such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge and Cargill, if they work with producers who contribute to deforestation. KLP has $50 million in shares and loans with the firms.
- KLP is also reaching out to other investors to lobby them to use their financial influence to curb Amazon deforestation via supply chains. On August 28, Nordea, the largest asset management group in the Nordic region announced a temporary quarantine on Brazilian government bonds in response to this year’s Amazon fires.
- International investment firms play a pivotal role in preserving or deforesting the Amazon. A new report found that mega-investment house BlackRock ranks among the top three shareholders in 25 of the largest public “deforestation-risk” companies, firms dealing in soy, beef, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber and timber.
- The Amazon deforestation process is complex. But it often proceeds by the following steps: land speculators invade the rainforest, illegally cut down and sell the most valuable timber, then set fire to the rest; they then can sell the land for 100-200 times its previous worth to cattle ranchers, who may eventually sell it to soy growers.
Brazilian response to Bolsonaro policies and Amazon fires grows
- As a result of international concern and media attention, along with pressure from within his own nation, Jair Bolsonaro decreed a 60-day ban on the setting of fires in the Brazilian Amazon on Wednesday, 28 August. The order came as experts warned that the worst fires this year may be yet to come.
- To avoid international attention, Brazil’s House of Deputies put on hold a plan to pass sweeping legislation that would abolish significant existing environmental protections for 1,514 quilombolas (communities of runaway slave descendants), 163 as yet un-demarcated indigenous territories, and 543 protected areas.
- Both the House and Senate proposed inquiries into the Amazon fires. Also, 400 IBAMA personnel signed an open letter demanding qualified professionals run the environmental agency, that past budget and staffing levels be restored, and that security squads again be deployed with IBAMA teams fighting deforestation.
- Even as South American nations organized a meeting to combat deforestation, Bolsonaro moved ahead with a plan to privatize deforestation satellite monitoring in Brazil. The new system, experts warn, could end real time monthly monitoring, needed to apprehend illegal deforesters.
Misinformation and blame spread concerning sources of Amazon fires
- With the global spotlight on Brazil’s Amazon fires, those in and out of government are playing a blame game, pointing fingers and often using unsubstantiated claims to target those they say set the blazes.
- Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, without evidence, has blamed NGOs disgruntled at losing international Amazon funding. He also accused state governors for not fighting the fires. One ruralist even blamed ICMBio (Brazil’s national park service) for setting the blazes, though she has since been charged with setting fires in a protected area.
- Conservationists put the blame squarely on Bolsonaro and his deregulation and defunding of government institutions, including IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, which used to regularly fight fires and arrest perpetrators.
- IBAMA claims that, though warned days in advance of “A Day of Fire” in Pará state, it received no law enforcement backup from federal or state authorities. This allowed ruralists (radical agricultural advocates) in Altamira and Novo Progresso to set hundreds of fires on August 10-11, with little fear of fines or prosecution.
Bolsonaro expresses ‘love’ for Amazon as it burns, offers no policy shift
- The number of fires in the Amazon biome topped 41,858 in 2019 as of August 24 (up from 22,000 this time last year). Scientists are especially concerned about wildfires raging inside protected areas, such as Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state and Mato Grosso’s Serra de Ricardo Franco Park.
- While the Bolsonaro government blames hot weather for the Amazon blazes, others disagree. They point to the link between fires and their use to illegally clear rainforest by land speculators, who — emboldened by Bolsonaro’s lax enforcement policies —sell cleared land for 100-200 times more money than it would sell for with trees covering it.
- Preliminary data shows deforestation rising under Bolsonaro. The rate in June 2019 was 88 percent higher than in June 2018; deforestation soared by 278 percent in July 2019 as compared with July 2018. The rise, analysts say, is due in part to the dismantling of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency.
- Bolsonaro has pledged to bring in the army to fight the Amazon blazes and deployed the first units over the weekend, while on Monday the G7 nations promised an emergency $20 million in aid to help Amazon countries fight wildfires and launch a long-term global initiative to protect the rainforest.
Amazon fires trigger protests worldwide
- Tens of thousands of active fires are ravaging the Brazilian Amazon in recent weeks, sparking protests in cities across Brazil and around the world, urging effective action from far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to contain fires in the world’s largest rainforest.
- On August 23, demonstrators blocked off roads, shouting slogans and holding placards reading: “Stop killing our Amazon” in cities that included São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, London, Geneva, Paris, Berlin and Toronto. Protesters also demanded Bolsonaro and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles to resign.
- An online petition in the UK asked the European Union to sanction Brazil for its increased deforestation. Within a day, it collected over 65,000 signatures. If it reaches the 100,000 signatures mark, the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
- French President Emmanuel Macron also have called for emergency talks at the G7 summit in Biarritz to discuss the record number of fires, calling the situation an international crisis and gaining the support of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Amazon rainforest fires leave São Paulo in the dark
- The number of forest fires in Brazil soared 85 percent between January 1 and August 20 compared to a year ago, according to data from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Roughly half of fire occurrences of this year were registered in the last 20 days, INPE data showed.
- In a technical note released in the evening of August 20, the Brazilian NGO IPAM (Institute of Environmental Research in Amazonia) said the occurrences are directly connected to deforestation as it didn’t find any evidence to argue that the fires could be a consequence of a lack of rain.
- Fires in Brazil came to spotlight since the afternoon of August 19, when São Paulo’s skies suddenly turned black, spurring discussion about the linkage between the fires and the phenomenon. Since then, “Amazon Fires” are trending on Twitter under the hashtag #PrayforAmazonas.
- Far-right President Bolsonaro reacted on August 21, raising suspicion that members of NGOs could be behind the fires in retaliation against the government for having caused the suspension of a $33.2 million payment from Norway to the Amazon Fund.
Deforestation, climate crisis could crash Amazon tree diversity: study
- New research finds that when climate change and deforestation impacts are taken together, up to 58 percent of Amazon tree species richness could be lost by 2050, of which 49 percent would have some degree of risk for extinction.
- Under the deforestation/climate change scenario, half the Amazon (the north, central and west) could be reduced to 53 percent of the original forest. The other half (the east, south and southeast, where agribusiness occurs), could become extremely fragmented, with only 30 percent of forest remaining.
- Studies rarely take both climate change and deforestation into account. But the new study’s results bolster the findings of other scientists who have modeled results showing that when the Amazon is 20-25 percent deforested, it could cross a rainforest to savanna conversion tipping point, a disaster for biodiversity.
- Scientists warn that Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental policies could result in a worst-case scenario, with severe damage to the Amazon rainforest and to its ecological services, including the loss of the sequestration of vast amounts of stored carbon, leading to a regional and global intensification of climate change.
Norway freezes support for Amazon Fund; EU/Brazil trade deal at risk?
- On Thursday, Norway announced a freeze on US$33.2 million, Amazon Fund donations slated for projects aimed at curbing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The REDD+ Amazon Fund was launched in 2008, and was expected to continue indefinitely.
- However, the anti-environmental policies of Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro have put the Fund’s future in grave doubt. Norway’s freeze came as the direct result of the Bolsonaro administration’s unilateral action to drastically alter the rules for administering the fund, even as monthly deforestation rates shot up in Brazil.
- Bolsonaro seems not to care about the loss of funding. However, some analysts warn that Norway’s decision could lead to a refusal by the European Union to ratify the recently concluded EU/Mercosur Latin American trading bloc agreement. Brazil’s troubled economy badly needs the pact to be activated.
- Other Bolsonaro critics have raised the prospect that the Amazon Fund freeze could be a first step toward a global consumer boycott of Brazilian commodities. Meanwhile, state governments in Brazil are scrambling to step up and accept deforestation reduction funding from international donors.
Precision conservation: High tech to the rescue in the Peruvian Amazon
- Peru’s Los Amigos Biological Station stands on a dividing line between the devastation caused by a gold rush centered on La Pampa, and a vast swath of conserved lands that includes Manú National Park — likely the most biologically important protected area in Latin America — plus its conserved buffers.
- Teaming up to defend these thriving forests and their biodiversity are conservationists and technologists — an innovative alliance that includes Conservación Amazónica (ACCA), Amazon Conservation (ACA), the Andes Amazon Fund, along with other organizations.
- Among the precision conservation tools they use to patrol against invading artisanal miners and illegal loggers are drones, acoustic monitoring, machine learning, lidar and thermal imaging — all applied to protecting one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth.
- Conservationists are hopeful not only that they’ll be able to protect Manú National Park and its buffers, but that they may be able to one day help remediate and restore the wrecked habitat of La Pampa. This integrative approach, they say, is vital to conserving the region’s biodiversity against the escalating climate crisis.
Germany cuts $39.5 million in environmental funding to Brazil
- Germany has announced plans to withdraw some €35 million (US $39.5 million) to Brazil due to the country’s lack of commitment to curbing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest shown by the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
- The funding loss will impact environmental projects in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes.
- The cut will not, however, impact the Amazon Fund — a pool of some $87 million provided to Brazil each year by developed nations, especially Norway and Germany — to finance a variety of programs aimed at halting deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Some experts have expressed concern that Germany’s $39.5 million cut could cause other developed nations to withdraw Brazil funding, and even threaten the Amazon Fund, or the ratification of the recently concluded EU/Mercosur Latin American trade agreement.
Bolsonaro administration approves 290 new pesticide products for use
- In just seven months, the Bolsonaro government has approved 290 new pesticide products for use, at the rate of nearly 1.4 per day. Some of the approved chemicals are banned in the EU, US, and elsewhere. Brazil is one of the largest users of pesticides in the world, with utilization on its vast soy crop especially intensive.
- Most of the pesticides approved are not new individual chemicals, but toxic cocktails that combine a variety of pesticides blended for various uses. However, these combinations have rarely been tested to determine their interactions or impacts on human health or nature.
- In addition to the new products, a new regulatory framework to assess pesticide health risks was established in July that will reduce restrictiveness of toxicological classifications. Under Bolsonaro, 1,942 registered pesticides were quickly reevaluated, with the number considered extremely toxic dropped from 702 to just 43.
- Pesticide poisoning is common in Brazil, and on the rise. The full impacts of chemical toxins on wildlife, plants, waterways and ecosystems are not known. Agribusiness typically sprays from the air, a process that if not conducted properly can result in wind drift of toxins into natural areas and human communities.
Amazon indigenous groups feel deserted by Brazil’s public health service
- Until recently, hundreds of Cuban doctors staffed many remote indigenous health facilities in the Brazilian Amazon and around the nation, an initiative funded by the More Doctors program set up by President Dilma Rousseff in 2013.
- But far-right President Jair Bolsonaro radically restructured the program, and Cuba — calling Bolsonaro’s demands unreasonable — pulled its doctors out.
- That withdrawal heavily impacted indigenous groups. Of the 372 doctors working within indigenous communities, 301 were Cuban. The Ministry of Health says 354 vacancies have since been filled by Brazilian doctors, but indigenous communities say many new doctors are unwilling to stay long in the remote posts.
- Bolsonaro has hindered rural health care in other ways: 13,000 indigenous health workers have remained unpaid since February or April, depending on the region, after the Brazilian Minister of Health stopped providing resources to the 8 NGOs contracted to provide health services to 34 Special Sanitary Indigenous Districts.
Future of Amazon deforestation data in doubt as research head sacked
- The Brazilian government and the world have relied on the INPE (Brazilian National Institute of Space Research) satellite monitoring system to track deforestation since 1988, without controversy. INPE’s data gathering program has been hailed as one of the best such operations in the tropics.
- However, after INPE reported a major uptick in the rate of Brazilian Amazon deforestation in June and July 2019, as compared with the same months in 2018, the Bolsonaro administration responded angrily by accusing the agency of manipulating data, of lying, and of being in conspiracy with international NGOs.
- On August 2, the president fired Ricardo Magnus Osório Galvão, the head of INPE, leaving officials inside the institution concerned for the future of the satellite monitoring program. The government has repeatedly said it plans to develop a costly, privatized deforestation tracking system which would replace INPE.
- Galvão’s removal triggered an outcry from scientists, NGOs and Brazilian federal prosecutors who are concerned over the threat to the future accuracy of Amazon deforestation monitoring. The Bolsonaro administration plans to announce a replacement shortly.
As Amazon deforestation in Brazil rises, Bolsonaro administration attacks the messenger (commentary)
- Officials in the Bolsonaro administration have attacked the credibility of the National Institute for Space Research’s system for tracking deforestation.
- But an analysis indicates their criticism of INPE is flawed.
- Nonetheless, the Bolsonaro administration is taking measures against the agency, including firing INPE’s director Ricardo Galvão on Friday.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
New film reveals at-risk ‘uncontacted’ Awá tribe in Brazilian Amazon
- A just released documentary film includes footage of an uncontacted indigenous group known as the Awá Guajá, hunter-gatherers described by NGO Survival International as the most threatened tribe on the planet. The indigenous group lives in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest in Northeast Maranhão state.
- The footage was captured by chance by cameraman Flay Guajajara, a member of the Mídia Índia (a collective of indigenous communicators of various ethnicities) when he and other Guajajara Indians were on a hunting trip in the Araribóia reserve, one of the country’s most threatened indigenous territories.
*
- The Awá share the Araribóia reserve with their Guajajara relatives. In late 2012, the Guajajara set up a group who call themselves “Guardians of the Forest” and risk their lives combatting illegal logging to protect the reserve and the Awá’s lives.
Study shows how to protect more species for less money in western Amazon
- A new study identifies nearly 300 areas for proposed protection in the western Amazon that would give the most bang for the buck in terms of the number of species conserved in this biodiversity hotspot.
- The researchers considered management and lost-opportunity costs in their analyses, and found that the presence of indigenous communities in protected areas can actually bring down the costs of conservation.
- While the estimated cost for protecting these proposed areas is just $100 million a year — less than a hundredth of the GDP of the countries in the western Amazon — the researchers say there needs to be clear political will to implement such a solution.
Brazilian Amazon deforestation surge is real despite Bolsonaro’s denial (commentary)
- June 2019 saw an 88 percent increase in Amazon deforestation over the same month in 2018. In the first half of July 2019, deforestation was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July 2018, according to INPE, Brazil’s federal monitoring agency.
- However, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January, is denying the accuracy of his own government statistics, calling INPE’s data “lies.”
- Like US President Trump, Bolsonaro has a history of denying scientific data and facts when they conflict with his ideology and policies, including the need for action to combat the escalating climate crisis.
- The conservation outlook for the rest of Bolsonaro’s four-year term is grim; he has in just six months dismantled Brazil’s environmental agencies, deforestation program and environmental licensing system. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Experts deny alleged manipulation of Amazon satellite deforestation data
- The Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE) issues annual Amazon deforestation reports via its PRODES satellite monitoring system (which relies on NASA Landsat satellite imaging), while the DETER system issues monthly deforestation/degradation alerts (which rely on Sino-Brazilian satellites).
- While experts consider INPE’s monitoring systems among the best in the tropics, ministers in the Bolsonaro administration have insinuated that the deforestation data may be manipulated. Experts have denied this, and note that INPE findings align well with those collected by NGOs Imazon and ISA, and Global Forest Watch (GFW).
- All of the data collected so far from various sources show an upswing in deforestation since Jair Bolsonaro’s election win. However, definitive and precise statistics require year-to-year comparisons, not monthly ones, and won’t be available until later in 2019.
- In March, Brazil’s environment minister pressed for a new but costly private deforestation tracking system. In June, the open-access platform MapBiomas — a network of NGOs, universities and tech firms, along with Google — launched a system to compile data from INPE, ISA, Imazon and GFW to produce definitive deforestation data.
Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act
- An estimated 20,000 illegal goldminers (garimpeiros) have entered Yanomami Park, one of Brazil’s biggest indigenous reserves, located in Roraima and Amazonas states, near the border with Venezuela.
- The miners are well funded, likely by entrepreneurs, who pay workers and provide them with earthmoving equipment, supplies and airplanes. Three illegal air strips and three open-pit goldmines are in operation within the Yanomami indigenous territory.
- Indigenous leaders blame President Bolsonaro, with his incendiary anti-indigenous language, and his administration, with its policies that have defunded and gutted agencies responsible for law enforcement in the Amazon.
- Bolsonaro claims indigenous people want mining and industrial agribusiness on their lands, but the Yanomami vehemently deny such desires. They say they want self-determination over the types of businesses on their lands. One such new, sustainable business is a chocolate concession that would preserve the rainforest and offer income.
Amazon REDD+ scheme side-steps land rights to reward small forest producers
- To safeguard the almost 90 percent of its land still covered with forest, the small Brazilian state of Acre implemented a carbon credit scheme that assigns monetary value to stored carbon in the standing trees and rewards local “ecosystem service providers” for their role protecting it.
- Acre’s System of Incentives for Environmental Services (SISA) rewards sustainable harvesting of rubber, nuts and other commodities from the forests. Crucially, it doesn’t make land tenure a prerequisite to qualify for incentives such as subsidies and agricultural supplies.
- But a new study criticizes the program for giving state officials the power to determine what counts as “green labor.” The program already promotes intensive agricultural practices and artificial fishponds, and experts warn more damaging practices may be permitted under the control of new state officials.
- There’s also no definitive evidence that the program works to conserve forests, with the rate of deforestation in Acre holding relatively steady since SISA came into effect.
Amazon rural development and conservation: a path to sustainability?
- Oil palm production in Brazil continues to be conducted on a small scale as compared to the nation’s vast soy plantations. Total oil palm cultivation was just 50,000 hectares in 2010. Today, that total has risen to 236,000 hectares, 85 percent of which is in Pará state.
- While environmentalists fear escalated oil palm production could lead to greater deforestation, Brazil possesses 200 million hectares (772,204 square miles) of deforested, degraded lands, three quarters of which is utilized as pasture, most of it with low productivity that could be converted to oil palm.
- The Rurality Project offers an example of sustainable oil palm production through its recruitment of small-scale growers to boost local economies. But, the bulk of Amazon palm oil is produced on large plantations managed by big firms, like Biopalma, many of which have poor socioenvironmental records.
- If oil palm is to become a large-scale reality in Brazil, without major deforestation, growth will need to be backed by strong regulation and enforcement. But critics say the Bolsonaro government is backing weak regulation that encourages land speculation and deforestation.
Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- 68 percent of the indigenous lands and protected natural areas in the nine nations encompassing the Amazon region are under pressure from roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, forest fires and deforestation, according to a new report by RAISG, the Amazonian Geo-referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network.
- Of the 6,345 indigenous territories located within the nine Amazonian countries surveyed, 2,042 (32 percent) are threatened or pressured by two types of infrastructure activities, while 2,584 (41 percent) are threatened or pressured by at least one. Only 8 percent of the total are not threatened or pressured at all.
- In the case of the 692 protected natural areas in the Amazon region, 193 (28 percent) suffer three kinds of threat or pressure, and 188 (27 percent) suffer threats or pressure from two activities.
- “These are alarming numbers: 43 percent of the protected natural areas and 19 percent of the indigenous lands are under three or more types of pressure or threat,” said Júlia Jacomini, a researcher with the ISA, Instituto Socioambiental, an NGO and RAISG partner.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro presses anti-indigenous agenda; resistance surges
- As President Jair Bolsonaro tries to steamroll his indigenous and environmental policies into law, more than 340 international and Brazilian NGOs are urging the European Union to show its disapproval by pulling out of a nearly complete landmark trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur (South America’s trade bloc).
- A similar plea made in May by 600 European scientists and 300 indigenous groups called on the EU to demand that Brazil respect environmental and human rights standards as a precondition for concluding the Mercosur trade negotiations. It seems very unlikely that these protests will derail the trade agreement.
- Despite being blocked by the Brazilian Congress and by the nation’s Supreme Court, Bolsonaro continues demanding that responsibility for demarcating indigenous lands be taken away from FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, and be handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture.
- In another move, Brazil’s Environment Minister says he plans to overhaul rules used to select deforestation projects for the Amazon Fund, money provided to Brazil annually largely by Norway and Germany. Both nations deny being consulted about the rule change that could end many NGOs receiving grants.
Brazil’s Roraima state at mercy of 2019 wildfires as federal funds dry up
- Brazil, and particularly the Amazonian state of Roraima, have seen large numbers of forest fires so far this year. From January through May, Brazil recorded 17,913 blazes nationwide, with 11,804 occurring in the nine Amazonian states. Only 2016 saw more harm in the Brazilian Amazon, when 13,663 wildfires burned over the same period.
- From January to May, Roraima registered 4,600 fires, the most numerous of any state for that period (Roraima saw just 1,970 fires during all of last year). The previous annual record for a Brazilian state was set by Mato Grosso, which suffered 4,927 forest fires in all of 2016.
- The uptick in fires is being blamed on a number of factors, including worsening Amazon drought brought by climate change, land theft and illegal deforestation (fire is typically used as a tool to clear rainforest in preparation for use by cattle ranchers and large-scale agribusiness).
- Another contributing factor: federal deforestation and firefighting policies. Since March, the Bolsonaro government has cut $7.3 million slated for fire prevention and environmental inspections to Ibama and ICMBio, Brazil’s two federal environmental agencies.
Brazil guts environmental agencies, clears way for unchecked deforestation
- The Bolsonaro administration has launched policies that undermine IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio (The Chico Mendes Institute) which protects the nation’s federal conservation units, by effectively dismantling environmental law enforcement and allowing deforestation to proceed unchecked.
- Fines imposed for illegal deforestation between Jan. 1 and May 15 this year were down 34 percent from the same period in 2018, the largest percentage drop ever recorded. It was also smallest number of fines ever imposed (850), compared to 1,290 in the same period last year.
- Government seizures of illegally harvested timber fell even more precipitously, with just 40 cubic meters (1,410 cubic feet), equal to 10 large trees, confiscated in the first four months of 2019. By contrast, 25,000 cubic meters (883,000 cubic feet) of illegal timber were seized in 2018. IBAMA is now required to announce in advance the time and location of all its planned raids on illegal loggers.
- Bolsonaro has defanged deforestation enforcement further by firing or not replacing top environmental officials. This includes 21 out of 27 IBAMA state superintendents responsible for imposing most of the deforestation fines. Also, 47 of Brazil’s conservation units now lack directors, leaving a combined area greater than the size of England without conservation leadership.
The Sateré-Mawé move to reclaim Amazon ancestral lands from invaders
- The Andirá-Marau Indigenous Reserve in Brazil’s Amazonas state — in a remote part of the Amazon basin — covers 7,885 square kilometers (3,044 square miles), and is occupied by 13,350 Sateré-Mawé indigenous people who live sustainably off the rainforest.
- However, an area of Sateré-Mawé ancestral land along the Mariaquã River lies outside the demarcated reserve. It was abandoned by the Sateré-Mawé due to an epidemic. The Indians have renewed their claim to the territory since 2002 but FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous agency, has not yet sorted the situation out.
- But the Mariaquã lands are now in dispute, as illegal loggers and land grabbers invade and threaten the indigenous people living in the area around the village of Campo Branco. Dozens of outsiders have made land claims to CAR, Brazil’s Rural Environmental Registry, and allegedly threatened the Indians if they don’t vacate.
- Mongabay’s reporting team joined a small group of Sateré-Mawé as they travelled to Campo Branco to strengthen their indigenous land claim. The Sateré fear that President Bolsonaro’s pledge to pass a law allowing Brazilians with “official” land claims to use arms to evict indigenous “invaders” could be used against them.
New report examines drivers of rising Amazon deforestation on country-by-country basis
- A new report examines the “unchecked development” in the Amazon that has driven deforestation rates to near-record levels throughout the world’s largest tropical forest.
- The main drivers of deforestation vary from country to country, according to the report, a collaborative effort by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Andes Amazon Fund.
- While the causes of Amazonian forest destruction vary, one thing that is common throughout the region is a lack of adequate resources for oversight and enforcement of environmental regulations. And “signs suggest this problem is only growing,” according to the report.
Former Brazilian enviro ministers blast Bolsonaro environmental assaults
- A new manifesto by eight of Brazil’s past environment ministers has accused the rightist Bolsonaro administration of “a series of unprecedented actions that are destroying the capacity of the environment ministry to formulate and carry out public policies.”
- The ministers warn that Bolsonaro’s draconian environmental policies, including the weakening of environmental licensing, plus sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties, could cause great economic harm to Brazil, possibly endangering trade agreements with the European Union.
- Brazil this month threatened to overhaul rules used to select deforestation projects for the Amazon Fund, a pool of money provided to Brazil annually, mostly by Norway and Germany. Both nations deny being consulted about the rule change that could end many NGOs receiving grants from the fund.
- Environment Minister Riccardo Salles also announced a reassessment of every one of Brazil’s 334 conservation units. Some parks may be closed, including the Tamoios Ecological Station, where Bolsonaro was fined for illegal fishing in 2012 and which he’d like to turn into the “Brazilian Cancun.”
‘Resisting to exist’: Indigenous women unite against Brazil’s far-right president
- Brazil today is home to 900,000 indigenous people, speaking 274 languages and with widely differing cultural traditions. Indigenous rights were enshrined in Brazil’s 1988 constitution, including the demarcation and protection of indigenous ancestral lands.
- But indigenous people have felt seriously threatened since Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, as illegal invasions of indigenous territories have rapidly escalated, and as the administration threatens to put policies in place to limit further indigenous demarcations, eliminate indigenous comments on infrastructure projects, and cut back on health services.
- Many of the leaders in the fight against Bolsonaro’s policies are women; in this story, they give voice to their outrage at the danger to their homelands, communities and families.
The heat is on: Amazon tree loss could bring 1.45 degree C local rise
- A new modeling study finds that largely unrestricted “business-as-usual” Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado deforestation could result in the loss of an estimated 606,000 square kilometers of forest by 2050, leading to local temperature increases of up to 1.45 degrees Celsius, in addition to global rises in temperature.
- Under a Brazil Forest Code enforcement model, researchers predict deforestation would be limited to 79,000 square kilometers, with reforestation occurring over 110,000 square kilometers, leading to an average local increase of just 0.02 degrees Celsius.
- Researchers say loss of tree cover must be halted and reforestation program begun to protect people and wildlife, and curb regional warming.
- Reptiles and amphibians would be especially vulnerable to deforestation-triggered temperature rises and loss of humidity.
UK supermarkets implicated in Amazon deforestation supply chain: report
- Deforestation due to cattle ranching has increased in Brazil since 2014. With between 60 and 80 percent of deforested Amazon lands used for pasture, European retailers who source beef from Brazil risk amplifying Amazonian forest destruction unless international action is taken.
- A report from the UK organization Earthsight finds that UK supermarket chains — including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl — are still importing corned beef from Brazil’s largest beef producer, JBS, despite the company being implicated in a long string of corruption and illegal deforestation scandals over the last decade.
- JBS, one of the largest food companies in the world, has faced multiple corruption charges leading to the arrest of two of its former CEOs and was fined $8 million in 2017 for illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- Many hope the forthcoming EU Communication on Stepping Up Action to Halt Deforestation will propose legislation to ensure EU companies and suppliers are not contributing to deforestation and human rights abuses. However, experts say such an agreement will only work if corporate standards are mandatory not voluntary.
Pressure mounts on EU to curb Brazilian deforestation, human rights abuses
- Concern is rising among Brazilian socioenvironmental NGOs and internationally over the new threats to indigenous people and rising deforestation seen under President Jair Bolsonaro — his administration completed its first 100 days in office in April.
- The EU is Brazil’s second largest trading partner, but currently lacks any binding trade regulations on agricultural goods linked to eliminating deforestation, reducing environmental degradation, and protecting against human rights violations.
- A new report by more than 20 NGOs — including FERN, Forest Peoples Programme, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Amazon Watch — is calling on the EU to include provisions in trade agreements now under negotiation, such as the EU/MERCOSUR agreement, that would fully protect forests and indigenous rights.
Dismantling of Brazilian environmental protections gains pace
- In his first 100 days in office, Jair Bolsonaro has moved fast to change personnel and reduce the authority of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, and ICMBio, which manages its conservation areas. His actions are seen as most benefiting ruralists — wealthy elite agribusiness and mining interests.
- Presidential Decree No. 9,760 creates “conciliation centers” to investigate environmental fines, and provides multiple new ways for appealing fines, while also preventing funds gathered via penalties from being distributed to NGOs for environmental projects.
- Some worry the government may use the new decree as a precedent for forgiving the hefty R$250 million (US$63.4 million) fine imposed by IBAMA on Brazil’s gigantic Vale mining company for environmental law infractions related to the Brumadinho tailings dam disaster, in which 235 people died.
- A large number of IBAMA staff have been fired, including 21 of its 27 regional superintendents, responsible for combating deforestation. Many of Bolsonaro’s replacements within the top ranks of the Environment Ministry, IBAMA and ICMBio are coming from the military.
China, EU, US trading with Brazilian firms fined for Amazon deforestation: report
- Soy, cattle, timber and other commodity producers fined for Amazon illegal deforestation in Brazil continue to sell their products to companies in China, the European Union and United States according to a new report. The document names 23 importing companies, including giants Bunge, Cargill and Northwest Hardwoods.
- Large international investment firms, such as BlackRock, also continue to pump money into Brazilian firms, despite their being fined for illegal Amazon forest loss by the Brazilian government, according to the report. Many Brazilian producers deny the accuracy of the Amazon Watch document.
- Forest losses in the Brazilian Amazon jumped 54 percent in January 2019 compared to a year ago, and are expected to increase under the Bolsonaro administration which has announced plans for extensive environmental deregulation, and is making an aggressive push to develop the Amazon rainforest for agribusiness and mining.
- With Brazilian government checks on deforestation diminishing, many analysts feel that the only way to limit the loss of Amazon forests now will be to shed a bright light on global commodities supply chains in order to make consumers worldwide aware of the participation of international companies in deforestation.
Amazon fish kill at Sinop spotlights risk from 80+ Tapajós basin dams
- Evidence shows that a 2019 fish kill in which 13 tons of dead fish were found in Brazil’s Teles Pires River was likely caused by anoxia (lack of oxygen) created by the filling of the Sinop dam’s reservoir by the Sinop HPP consortium (which includes French and Brazilian firms responsible for construction and operation).
- Scientists and environmentalists had warned of this and other ecological risks, but their calls for caution were ignored by regulators and resisted by the builder. Only 30 percent of vegetation was removed from the area of the reservoir, rather than the 100 percent required by law, which helped cause the die-off.
- The concern now is that similar incidents could occur elsewhere. There are at least 80 hydroelectric plants planned for the Juruena / Teles Pires basin alone — one of the Brazilian Amazon’s most important watersheds.
- Of immediate concern is the Castanheira dam on the Arinos River to be built by the federal Energy Research Company (EPE). Critics fear that, under the Jair Bolsonaro government, environmental licensing and construction will advance despite serious threats posed to indigenous reserves and the environment.
Brazil Supreme Court land demarcation decision sparks indigenous protest
- On January 1, the first day of his presidency, Jair Bolsonaro issued a provisional measure (MP 870) shifting decision-making power regarding indigenous reserve demarcations from Funai, Brazil’s indigenous agency, to the Ministry of Agriculture.
- MP 870 was quickly challenged as unconstitutional in Brazil’s Supreme Court, but on April 24 Supreme Court Justice Roberto Barroso rejected that challenge, though he did agree that if the Agriculture Ministry failed to carry through with indigenous demarcations in future, further legal action could go forward at that time.
- At their annual encampment in Brasilia from April 24-26, approximately 4,500 indigenous people from across Brazil protested Barroso’s demarcation decision by marching on the Supreme Court building. During the three-day encampment, indigenous groups also protested Bolsonaro’s plan to allow mining and agribusiness within indigenous reserves.
- Of special concern to indigenous people is the administration’s move toward adopting a policy of assimilation, which could result in the erosion of indigenous autonomy within ancestral reserves, and the absorption of indigenous cultures and traditions into Brazil’s predominant culture.
Stinging ants: Amazon indigenous group girds itself to hold ancestral lands
- The ancestral home of the Sateré-Mawé indigenous group is the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Reserve, an officially demarcated, heavily forested region covering 780,000 hectares (3,011 square miles) in Amazonas and Pará states, Brazil.
- The reserve itself — along with indigenous villages around it that were not included in the demarcated area — are increasingly under attack from illegal loggers and land grabbers.
- To steel themselves against the challenges posed by invading outsiders, and to create unity among their tribal groups, Sateré young men participate in a ritual known as Waumat, in which they endure the painful bites of stinging ants.
- They also renew their commitment to active resistance through dances and songs that celebrate myths, past wars, victories, losses, and terrible exploitation by the colonial Portuguese. The Sateré are feeling especially challenged today by the anti-indigenous rhetoric and policies of the rightist Bolsonaro administration.
Bolsonaro draws battle lines in fight over Amazon indigenous lands
- Parintins, site of Brazil’s big annual indigenous festival, is typical of towns in the Brazilian Amazon. The Sateré, and other indigenous groups living or working there, often endure discrimination and work analogous to slavery. Civil rights are few and indigenous populations inhabit the bottom rung of the economic ladder.
- Now more than ever, indigenous groups fear the loss of their cultural heritage and land rights as guaranteed under the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. New president Jair Bolsonaro wants to achieve indigenous societal “assimilation,” a process by which an ethnic minority group’s traditional way of life and livelihoods is erased.
- The strongest advocates of indigenous assimilation are the ruralistas, rural wealthy elites and agribusiness producers, who have the most to gain via access to the timber, land and mineral wealth found within indigenous territories. The bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby is strong in Congress, and it supports Bolsonaro.
- The Sateré, along with other indigenous groups, have endured a long history marked by extermination and exploitation. Brazil’s 900,000 indigenous people are increasingly joining together to fight the anti-indigenous policies proposed by the Bolsonaro administration and supported by the ruralists.
Amazon could be biggest casualty of US-China Trade war, researchers warn
- The US is the world’s largest soy producer and historically has exported the majority of its soybeans to China.
- But after President Donald Trump’s high China tariffs resulted in a Chinese retaliation of a 25 percent import tariff on US agricultural goods last year, United States soy exports to China dropped 50 percent, and Chinese imports of Brazilian soybeans increased significantly.
- Soy production has been linked to large-scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna — Brazil’s two largest and ecologically most important biomes.
- If the US/China trade war continues, new research suggests that the amount of land dedicated to soy production in Brazil could increase by up to 39 percent in order to fill Chinese demand, causing new deforestation by up to 13 million hectares (50,139 square miles) of forest, an area the size of Greece, researchers estimate.
3 massacres in 12 days: Rural violence escalates in Brazilian Amazon
- The Amazon has seen 3 probable massacres in 12 days — likely a record for the region — as violence has exploded in areas of heavy deforestation where the building of large dams has brought a capital infusion, sent land prices soaring, and invited land speculation by land grabbers, loggers and ranchers.
- A Brazilian landless movement peasant leader and a leading dam activist are among those killed. The attacks have been concentrated in areas centered around the Belo Monte mega-dam; in the Madeira basin near the Jirau dam; and near the Tucuruí dam on the Tocantins River in Pará state.
- Investigations are ongoing, but early reports are that at least 9 people are dead, with some witnesses saying more have been killed, especially rural landless peasant workers. Before becoming president, Jair Bolsonaro expressed strong hostility against the landless peasant movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra, or MST).
- The Bolsonaro Administration has yet to condemn or comment significantly on the recent wave of killings. As of this article’s publication, the international community has taken little notice of the spike in violence.
Brazil soy trade linked to widespread deforestation, carbon emissions
- Recent data released by the Brazilian government’s Prodes deforestation satellite monitoring system found that 220,000 square kilometers in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes were deforested between 2006 and 2017.
- Roughly 10 percent of that land was then used to grow soy, a native vegetation conversion of at least 21,000 square kilometres (with over 17,000 of that in the Cerrado), according to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Global Canopy’s Trase platform, which analyze commodities supply chains.
- Clearing native vegetation releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, while crop plantations store less CO2 – a one-two punch hindering efforts to curb climate change. About 140,000 square kilometers of Cerrado were lost from 2006-2017, releasing 210 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2e).
- The majority of Brazil’s soy is produced for export. So experts say the best way to protect the Cerrado under the Bolsonaro administration will be for commodities companies and NGOs to create market incentives. Plans now under consideration suggest momentum is building to protect Brazil’s most vulnerable ecoregion.
Leading Amazon dam rights activist, spouse and friend murdered in Brazil
- Dilma Ferreira Silva, long time regional coordinator of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) in the Tucuruí region of Pará state, was brutally murdered last Friday at her home, along with her husband, Claudionor Costa da Silva, and Hilton Lopes, a friend.
- Silva was one of 32,000 people displaced during the construction of the Tucuruí mega-dam. The internationally recognized activist has in recent years been pushing the Brazilian government to adopt legislation establishing the rights of those displaced by dams, providing them with compensation; the government has so far done little to create such laws.
- The killers of public officials, environmentalists, landless movement and indigenous activists in the Amazon are rarely found or brought to justice. However, in this case, Civil Police have arrested a large landowner, farmer and businessman, Fernando Ferreira Rosa Filho, known as Fernando Shalom.
- While the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and deputies in the Brazilian Congress, have condemned the killing of dam activist Silva, her husband and friend, the Bolsonaro administration has failed to issue a statement of any kind.
Brazil fails to give adequate public access to Amazon land title data, study finds
- Brazil possesses vast tracts of public lands, especially in the Amazon, which exist in the public domain. Traditional peoples, landless movements, quilombolas (communities established more than a century ago by Afro-Brazilian slave descendants), and other homesteaders have the legal right to lay claim to these lands.
- It is the job of state land tenure agencies to keep track of these public lands, regulating the allocation of land and property rights to secure protection for individuals and communities against forcible evictions, and to monitor against illegal deforestation, large illegal land grabs and other illicit activities.
- However, a recent study found that none of eight Amazonian states met all the mandated transparency criteria. Active transparency indicators (data accessible on the internet or via public documents) were missing 56 percent of the time. Passive transparency indicators (data available on request) fared poorly as well.
- The inefficiency of land tenure agencies in providing land titling information contributes to numerous land conflicts, and increases insecurity in the countryside. The lack of transparency also enhances the possibility of fraud. When the poor are deprived of rightful land title data, the wealthy often have the upper hand if land disputes go to court.
Madeira River dams may spell doom for Amazon’s marathon catfish: Studies
- Independent monitoring of a giant Amazon catfish population in the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon, confirms that two hydroelectric dams have virtually blocked the species’ homing migration upstream — the longest known freshwater fish migration in the world.
- Research completed in 2018 indicates a serious decline in catches of the gilded catfish (Brachyplatystoma rousseauxii) and other key commercial species on the Madeira, both upstream and downstream of the two dams.
- New monitoring techniques show that the disruption of the migration route raises the risk of extinction for this species, for which researchers have recommended the conservation status be elevated from vulnerable to critically endangered.
- If the gilded catfish and other migratory species are to survive, mechanisms to assist their migration past the dams must be improved, researchers say.
Bolsonaro on the move: International meetings push agribusiness agenda
- On his first trip outside Brazil to meet with a head of state, Jair Bolsonaro met with Donald Trump at the White House this week. Bolsonaro also visited the CIA and dined with Trump former strategist Steve Bannon, believed to have had a role in helping Bolsonaro get elected.
- Bolsonaro and Trump are known to have discussed trade, but their meeting was conducted in secret. Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” has long expressed his interest in stronger U.S. relations, though Brazil’s agriculture minister is also courting China (U.S./China trade relations remain frosty, and Brazil hopes to sell more of its soy to the Asian nation).
- In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bolsonaro stated that the Brazilian government wants more agreements with the United States in a number of areas, especially mining and agriculture. He added that there is much to be discovered in the Amazon, a likely reference to untapped resources and agribusiness possibilities there.
- During the visit, a letter of intent was signed between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) “to work toward the launch of the first-ever biodiversity-focused impact-investment fund for the Brazilian Amazon,” with the US$100 million fund to be financed largely by the private sector.
Brazil’s key deforestation drivers: Pasture, cropland, land speculation
- New research shows that the expansion of cropland (row crops) in Brazil nearly doubled between 2000 and 2014, from 26 million hectares (100,387 square miles) to 46.5 million hectares (179,538 square miles).
- 80 percent of new cropland in Brazil came as a result of the conversion of pastures, while only 20 percent resulted from the direct conversion of native vegetation to croplands, especially soy.
- However, while pastureland “absorbs” cropland expansion, and displaces it away from forests, studies show Brazilian deforestation to be most highly driven by land speculation, whereby land speculators deforest an area, possibly selling off the timber, then converting the land to pasture, and then again quickly selling the land to a soy producer at a much increased price.
- Study data also confirmed a strong correlation between the implementation of the 2006 Amazon Soy Moratorium and declines in forest-to-soy direct conversion. However, Amazon conversion to pasturelands remains high. Meanwhile, the Cerrado savannah has seen rapid deforestation due to both pasturelands and soy plantations.
Investors warn soy giants of backlash over deforestation in South America
- Investors have called on the world’s biggest soy companies to make firm commitments to end deforestation in wildlife-rich areas of South America such as the Cerrado and Gran Chaco.
- Those that fail to do so risk being exposed by environmental activists to consumer boycotts, legal action and falling profits, experts warn.
- Investors are leading the way as companies fail to appreciate the scale of the crisis, campaigners say.
New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction
- A new study maps out how disruptive human changes to the environment affect the individual ranges of more than 5,400 mammal, bird and amphibian species around the world.
- Almost a quarter of the species are threatened by human impacts in more than 90 percent of their range, and at least one human impact occurred in an average of 38 percent of the range of a given species.
- The study also identified “cool” spots, where concentrations of species aren’t negatively impacted by humans.
- The researchers say these “refugia” are good targets for conservation efforts.
Brazil to open indigenous reserves to mining without indigenous consent
- New Minister of Mines and Energy Admiral Bento Albuquerque announced on 4 March that he plans to permit mining on indigenous lands in Brazil, including within the Amazon. He also said that he intends to allow mining right up to Brazil’s borders, abolishing the current ban along a 150-kilometer (93-mile)-wide swath at the frontier.
- The Bolsonaro administration’s indigenous mining plan is in direct opposition to indigenous land rights as guaranteed under Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. The indigenous mining initiative will likely be implemented via a presidential decree, which will almost surely be reviewed, and possibly be rejected, by Brazil’s Supreme Court.
- Mining companies stand ready to move into indigenous reserves, if the measure goes forward. Brazil’s mining ministry has received 4,073 requests from mining companies and individuals for mining-related activities on indigenous land. Indigenous groups are outraged and they plan to resist in the courts and by whatever means possible.
- Brazil’s mining industry has a very poor safety and environmental record. As recently as January, Brazil mega-mining company Vale saw a tailings dam collapse at Brumadinho which killed 193 and left another 115 missing. Public outcry is strong against the industry currently, but how the public will respond to the indigenous mining plan isn’t yet known.
Defending the Amazon’s uncontacted peoples: Q&A with Julio Cusurichi
- Julio Cusurichi, a Shipibo-Conibo leader, has been working to protect the peoples and forests of his native Madre de Dios region in southeastern Peru.
- Increasingly, illegal gold miners as well as illegal loggers and drug traffickers are proving to be an existential threat for the indigenous people of the region, which concentrates some of the Amazon’s greatest biodiversity.
- In recent years Cusurichi led a successful campaign to create a legally recognized indigenous territory and helped establish a network of indigenous forest monitors when the government abandoned the effort.
- Now, he is working to gain a greater role for indigenous peoples in governing their territories. “The goal is for indigenous people to be the protagonists,” he told Mongabay on a recent visit to Peru’s capital, Lima. “We have to administer the Amazon regions that are our ancestral territories and not just leave it to the government.”
Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia