394 Latin America
–Costa Rica: 19) Pineapple plantations acres triple in a 10yrs, 20) Restoration of habitat, –Venezuela 21) Gov. to translocate 100,000 people to new city in El Avila National Park
–Peru: 22) Mostly peaceful protest by several thousand tribespeople
–Guyana: 23) $80M for breaches occurring in its forest concession,
–Brazil: 24) Greenpeace broadcasts live webcast from still-smouldering rainforest ruins, 25) From Stone Age to Internet age, 26) Deforestation rates have fallen? 27) Deforestation rates have risen? 28) Amazon was once covered in a vast sprawl of interconnected villages, 29) Supreme court to rule in case that pits indigenous people against rice farmers, 30) Thirty to forty tribes still hiding out in most remote reaches of rainforest, 31) Minc must provide economic advancement to 25 million people in the Amazon, 32) Instrument-maker Raúl Lage loves the rainforest,
Costa Rica:
19) Pineapple plantations, riding a boom that began when Coral Gables-based fruit company Fresh Del Monte introduced the ”Gold” pineapple in 1996, have sprawled from nearly 30,000 acres in 2000 to more than 100,000 acres — outpacing coffee, African palms and bananas as Costa Rica’s fastest-growing export crop, according to the country’s 2007 State of the Nation report. Three of every four pineapples consumed in the United States — 580,000 metric tons — now originate from Costa Rica, says Alberto Jerardo, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Exports from Costa Rica, meanwhile, have tripled in value with rising demand, from $159 million in 2002 to $505 million in 2007. But the music stopped in April, when the country’s Environmental Tribunal, Costa Rica’s highest environmental court, called the burgeoning export industry to task, placing 26 plantations under investigation for abuses ranging from the illegal clearing of forest to water contamination and violation of riverine buffer zones. The revelations prompted a closer look at industry practices. Bernardo Vargas, executive director of the pineapple chamber, says his growers responded immediately to concerns, issuing a series of ‘’social-environmental commitments,” designed to reduce waste, conserve soil and water and uphold environmental laws. Many say the nature of large-scale pineapple plantations could make such promises hard to keep. Jorge Lobo, a University of Costa Rica biologist, says the regional trend toward large-scale industrial monoculture is alarming, particularly in an area so rich in rainfall and biodiversity. Along the Caribbean slope, just 18 pineapple producers now manage nearly 40,000 acres. In a nearby province to the north, roughly the same acreage is divided among more than 1,000 growers, according to pineapple chamber statistics. ”It’s a different kind of agriculture, much more intensive, and more problematic,” says Lobo, who adds that pineapple — unlike coffee, another traditional export — requires direct sunlight for optimal growth and thus, the absence of trees and forest cover, which help prevent erosion in areas of heavy rainfall. http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/661565.html
20) The regeneration of tropical forest in Guanacaste Province, northwestern Costa Rica (90, 93), is particularly heartening for several reasons: it involves restoration of multiple habitat types; it is large-scale yet local and decen- tralized; and it was achieved by using a portfolio of innovative mechanisms and via broad collaboration among scientists, busi- nesspeople, politicians, and the local community. The result has been the regeneration and conservation of 700 km2 of tropical dry forest along with abutting chunks of rain andmontane forest. In poverty-stricken Niger on the fringe of the Sahara, farmers
have helped hold off desertification in many areas by nurturing saplings in their fields rather than removing them—and they have begun to reap benefits from this greening of the country- side (94). In the oceans, researchers have had some success transplanting live coral fragments onto degraded reefs (95). Likewise, efforts to rebuild damaged watersheds and wetlands have been a major focus of scientific restoration ecology (e.g.,
ref. 96), with important implications for the availability of potable water. Large animals are particularly extinction-prone, at both the population and species levels. They are also often particularly important to ecological dynamics. Returningmegafaunal species to what remains of their historical ranges (97) can yield a number of overlapping benefits: the return of these charismatic species undoes population extinctions, makes habitats more interesting and exciting, and can restore ecological interactions with ap- pealing system-wide consequences. The repatriation of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 not only titillated tourists but also revived a multispecies trophic interaction involving elk, beavers, and trees, which has rejuvenated the region’s riparian
ecosystems (98, 99). These examples and others illustrate that ecological restora-
tion has a critical role in determining where biodiversity goes from here; we hope for enormous and rapid expansion of such revival efforts, even if the ultimate ecological goals take centuries to achieve. From: Where does biodiversity go from here? A grim business-as-usual forecast and a hopeful portfolioof partial solutions Paul R. Ehrlich* and Robert M. Pringle
Venezuela:
21) There are 6.7 billion people in the world as we write this, a number that is projected to grow (according to a mid-range forecast) to 9.3 billion by 2050 (19). The continued growth of the human population displaces biodiversity directly, as land is developed to create living room. In one recent example, Vene-zuelan president Hugo Chavez aims to translocate 100,000 people into a brand new city in El Avila National Park to alleviate overcrowding in Caracas (20). Providing a huge global populace with the resources necessary for survival (much less comfort) also displaces biodiversity. A recent spatially explicit analysis showed that humanity already appropriates nearly a quarter of global terrestrial net primary productivity, and up to 80% in large regional swaths (21). From: Where does biodiversity go from here? A grim business-as-usual forecast and a hopeful portfolioof partial solutions Paul R. Ehrlich* and Robert M. Pringle
Peru:
22) On the face of it, a mostly peaceful protest by several thousand tribespeople in Peru’s Amazon jungle this month was a resounding victory for those who shook placards and spears. On August 22nd Peru’s Congress repealed two presidential decrees, approved in May and June, that made it easier for companies and individuals to buy land belonging to indigenous peoples by reducing the necessary consent from a two-thirds vote by an entire community to that of half the attendees at a mass meeting. The protesters, who occupied oil installations, claimed that many of them would lose their land unwittingly. Alan García, Peru’s unpopular president, argues that do-gooding NGOs are blocking his country’s drive for economic development. The protest, and the repeal of the decrees, was an embarrassing setback for the government. Other decrees regulating oil exploration will now be reviewed by an all-party committee. The issues raised by the dispute are complex—and they apply across much of the Amazon basin. In Peru, as elsewhere in Latin America, the state owns the subsoil, and any oil, gas or minerals it contains. Since 2005 the proportion of Peru’s rainforest earmarked for oil and gas exploration has expanded from 15% to 72%. But Indians have title to much of the land above: 58 of the 64 oil blocks on the map of Peru overlap Indian land, of which 17 overlay existing or proposed reserves for people living in voluntary isolation. Peru plans to award 22 more oil blocks, many in the jungle, next month. Colombia will soon do the same in its southern jungle. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, has championed an impractical plan to pump his country’s natural gas across the Amazon rainforest to Buenos Aires. Venezuela’s state oil company is helping a newly revived Bolivian state firm explore rainforest. Ecuador has found oil in the Yasuní national park. The government of Rafael Correa has promised Indian tribes not to exploit this—if rich countries pay it $350m a year over the next decade (half the field’s estimated revenue). Germany and Italy expressed interest, but the latter seems to have been put off by the deal’s fuzziness. http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12010425
Guyana:
23) Toolsie Persaud Limited (TPL) has agreed to pay $80M for breaches occurring in its forest concession but indicated yesterday that it plans to take legal action against another timber company operating within TPL’s concession which it says is responsible for some of the breaches. Managing Director of the company, David Persaud told Stabroek News that another timber company had been granted permission to work within TPL’s concession and it was in that company’s portion that some of the breaches occurred. He said that in the contract, the company had agreed to pay any fines instituted, were there any breaches in its portion. But, he stated, the company had not responded favourably to TPL’s demand, as per the contract and so TPL will institute legal proceedings. The issue of the fines for breaches in the company’s concession had been the subject of court proceedings between TPL and the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) but after a decision in TPL’s favour was rendered, the GFC said that it had several defects rendering it unenforceable. Agriculture Minister, Robert Persaud, who has responsibility for forestry subsequently intervened and suspended the TPL Timber Sales Agreement. He further advised the company that a detailed report of the breaches committed by TPL was submitted to President Bharrat Jagdeo for his final pronouncement on the matter. The Ministry of Agriculture, in a media statement yesterday said that TPL has agreed to pay the fines instituted for the breaches following a meeting with President Jagdeo. It said that on August 11, Jagdeo met with the Senior Management of TPL and at that meeting, he pronounced that TPL would be allowed to continue operations in TSA 4/85, provided that it submitted post dated-cheques payable to the GFC on or before December 31, 2008, “Following the submission of these post-dated cheques, and a commitment by the Senior Management of TPL to adhere to the GFC guidelines, the GFC has now fully re-instated the operations of TPL at the Manaka Logging Concession” the release said. http://www.stabroeknews.com/news/tpl-to-pay-80m-forestry-fine-timber-operations-to-resume/
Brazil:
24) On Friday, a Greenpeace team broadcast a live webcast from the heart of the Amazon rainforest, in an area which was still-smouldering after a recent forest fire. Even rainforests have dry seasons and during the current one, fires both natural and man-made are devastating huge areas. We are here in the municipality of Nova Bandeirantes, in the north of the state of Mato Grosso, where a Greenpeace team has come to transmit live, for the first time, images of the destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest. These images you are seeing now are of a region that used to be forest and that was burned during this year’s dry season. Amazon forests fires are responsible for 75 per cent of the greenhouse gases emissions that Brazil emits every year into the atmosphere, making it the fourth largest climate polluter in the world. The deforestation we are documenting today is forest conversion for pasture. The Amazon has already lost 17 per cent of its original forest cover, the equivalent to approximately 700,000 square kilometers, or 16 times the size of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Some 70 per cent of this destruction is currently occupied by pasture. Only last month, in June 2008, an area equivalent to approximately 1.5 football field were destroyed every minute. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/live-and-direct-amazon-20080901
25) “This is about going from the Stone Age to the Internet age,” Google Earth Outreach manager Rebecca Moore told me following the sessions. When the Surui’s data is ready to go online, it will be “unlike any layer seen before Google Earth or Maps.” The tribe is now creating “layers” of data that will be visible to anyone with Internet access. The hope is that dramatic imagery showing the precipitous decline of rain forest will garner worldwide attention — and put an end to illegal logging. Encouragingly, there is some indication that deforestation in the Amazon is stabilizing. Last year, the region lost 11,224 square kilometers (4,334 square miles), its smallest decline in more than 15 years. A comparable loss is expected for 2008. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tightened rules against illegal logging in December, and there are reports of crackdowns by federal police in recent weeks on Surui lands. Vasco van Roosmalen, director of the Amazon Conservation Team’s Brazil program, says the Surui are fast learners. “They are able to very quickly pick up these new technologies and concepts, and integrate them into their traditional world views.” Can tradition survive the Surui’s growing comfort with the Internet? One Google trainer, writing on the Google Earth and Maps blog, said he felt at once “proud and sad” as he watched trainees with no computer experience become Internet “addicts” in a single day. The Surui’s new images, not yet online, are stunning. One of the most important events to be mapped is the first contact, the moment on Sept. 7, 1969, when the Surui met “civilization” during construction of the 2,000-mile Trans-Amazon Highway. One immediate side benefit to the project is that younger tribe members are developing a bigger interest in their own culture. “One of the very important goals is not only to tell the story to the outside world but also to the young people about their own culture and how precious and fragile it is,” Moore says. The Surui youth are interviewing elders who recalled their 1969 introduction to the modern world. In the process, they are learning about, and preserving, their own history through the creation of Web pages and Youtube.com videos. Experts say some 200 distinct tribes have been wiped out throughout the Amazon, so there’s no overstating the gravity of situation. http://www.amazonteam.org - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aZwZqMh4VvuQ&refer=muse
26) The deforestation rate in the Amazon rainforest fell by 63 percent in July from the previous month, the third consecutive month in which deforestation rates have fallen, studies showed. From April to June, the deforested area was 1,124 square km, 1,096 square km and 870 square km respectively, said a study released Friday by Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc attributed the decrease to the efforts in curbing wood transportation in the region and close supervision over wood deals. The imposition of increased fines on environmental crimes since May has also proved effective. From Aug. 2007 to July 2008, the deforested Amazon rainforest has accumulated to 15,000 square km. In the last 20 years, about 9 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been wiped out, which amounts to 360,000 square km. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/30/content_9738871.htm
27) Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months — the first such increase in three years — as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees, officials said Saturday. Some 3,088 square miles of forest were destroyed between August 2007 and August 2008 — a 69 percent increase over the 1,861 square miles felled in the previous 12 months, according to the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, which monitors destruction of the Amazon. “We’re not content,” Environment Minister Carlos Minc said. “Deforestation has to fall more and the conditions for sustainable development have to improve.” Brazil’s government has increased cash payments to fight illegal Amazon logging this year, and it eliminated government bank loans to farmers who illegally clear forest to plant crops. The country lost 2.7 percent of its Amazon rain forest in 2007, or 4,250 square miles. Environmental officials fear even more land will be razed this year — but they have not forecast how much. Minc says monthly deforestation rates have slowed since May, but environmental groups say seasonal shifts in tree cutting make the annual number a more accurate gauge. Most deforestation happens in March and April, the start of Brazil’s dry season, and routinely tapers off in May, June and July: Last month, 125 square miles of trees were felled, 61 percent less than the area razed in June. Environmentalists also argue that INPE’s deforestation report wasn’t designed to give accurate monthly figures, but to alert and direct the government to deforestation hot spots in time to save the land. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26472726/
28) The “pristine” Amazon rainforest was covered by a vast sprawl of interconnected villages between 1,500 and 500 years ago, according to a study that shows how nature has felt the impact of man for much longer than realized. Explorers have long sought lost cities of the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by forest. Today it turns out that the “garden cities”, which date back 1500 years, were too spread out to make sense of on foot. Assisted by satellite imagery, researchers have spent more than a decade uncovering and mapping the lost and obscured communities to show they held more than 1000 people each and were once large and complex enough to be considered “urban” as the term is commonly applied to medieval European and ancient Greek communities. In the Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon, these garden cities radiated out over a diameter of 150 miles, covering an area of 18,000 square miles that exceeds the sprawl of Los Angeles by 35 fold. However, they only held around 50,000 people, compared with the 13 million in LA. The extraordinary conclusion is reached by anthropologists from the University of Florida and Brazil, and a member of the Kuikuro, an indigenous people who are the descendants of the settlements’ original inhabitants. “If we look at your average medieval town or your average Greek polis, most are about the scale of those we find in this part of the Amazon,” said Prof Mike Heckenberger of the University of Florida, lead author of the paper published today in the journal Science. “Only the ones we find are much more complicated in terms of their planning.” The paper also argues that the size and scale of the settlements in the southern Amazon in North Central Brazil means that what many scientists consider virgin tropical forests were shaped by human activity hundreds of years ago. Not only that, but the settlements - consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages, each organised around a central plaza - suggest future solutions for supporting the indigenous population in Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso and other regions of the Amazon, the paper says. Around the communities the scientists found dams and artificial ponds that indicate the then inhabitants farmed fish, which today could be a valuable new food resource. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/08/28/sciamazon128.xml
29) Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to rule on Wednesday in a case pitting indigenous people against rice farmers on the country’s northern borders. The case has big consequences for indigenous land rights, while analysts and campaigners argue it also has implications for national security and the survival of the Amazon rainforest. The court will decide whether the Raposa Serra do Sol Indian reservation in the northern Amazonian state of Roraima, on Brazil’s border with Venezuela and Guyana, should be maintained as one continuous area or divided into separate “islands”. The reservation, which occupies about 1.7m hectares of land - an area the size of Kuwait - is home to about 18,000 Amazonian Indians living in about 200 villages. Many analysts have argued that keeping the reserve intact would present a threat to national security, as the indigenous populations would have near autonomy over a large area of frontier territory. But supporters of the indigenous peoples say the army’s ability to operate is unaffected by the reservation and that those wanting to break it up are acting on spurious economic grounds. The reservation was proposed in the late 1970s, delineated in the early 1990s and signed into law by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2005. Since the 1970s it has also been occupied by ranchers, wildcat miners and, more recently, rice farmers. Many of its non-Indian residents have recently been relocated and compensated by the government. But an attempt by federal police in April to remove a group of rice farmers present since the early 1990s resulted in violent clashes, and the Supreme Court ordered the police to suspend its operation pending a ruling on the legality of the reserve.The president of the Supreme Court said Wednesday’s ruling would act as a precedent for future rulings. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/121435be-73cf-11dd-8a66-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
30) It is not unusual for conflicts with loggers to end in death and the 30 or 40 groups that still exist have retreated, traumatised, to the most remote and inhospitable parts of the Amazonia. Remarkably there are still dozens of these tribes that remain virtually uncontacted. And one man - Sydney Possuelo - has made it his life’s mission to ensure their ancient way of life can continue unharmed. The 70-year-old Brazilian has dedicated his entire working life to protecting these Indian tribes, lobbying and campaigning on their behalf for more than 40 years and gaining international recognition for his achievements. Now Southampton film-maker Steve Bowles is making a documentary about Sydney’s extraordinary work, focusing on the traditional communities he strives to preserve and protect. It was during a research expedition in 1983 that Steve first encountered the indigenous tribes of Brazil. He and a team of fellow Southampton University graduates were there to study diseases among the tribespeople, carry out botanical surveys and investigate the effects of deforestation. But, from the moment he met Sydney, Steve had other ambitions. “I knew from that first meeting that I would make a film about him one day,” said Steve, of Lordswood. “As you go through life you meet a small number of outstanding individuals. Sydney impressed me enormously. He had this tremendous vision of a more equitable world. “The extraordinary thing about him is the two sides to his character: the shrewd politician and his passion and love for the indigenous people and the environment. He understands the importance of their culture and has empathy with them. With my environmental background the latter is something I share.” It was Sydney who first made the radical proposal of ceasing contact with the tribes in an effort to protect them. “The policy used to be to contact them,” explained Steve, “but when that happened around half the community would die from disease, their culture was turned upside down and the effects were traumatic. One of Sydney’s great achievements was to say let’s leave these people alone; let’s protect their land to preserve their way of life. That’s their right and they have made their choice’. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/features/display.var.2433907.0.an_incredible_journey.php
31) Carlos Minc, Brazil’s new minister of environment and the former environment secretary for Rio de Janeiro state, is facing a set of challenges just a few months into his new post. Topping the list is providing opportunities for economic advancement to the 25 million people in the Amazon region while limiting environmentally detrimental development. The Amazon covers 2.4 million square miles, with 63 percent of its territory in Brazil. About 20 percent of the original forest has been destroyed by ranchers, loggers and developers. Minister Minc’s term has been marked by sensitive issues such as the international community’s suggestion that protection of the Amazon region is too crucial an issue to rest solely in the hands of Brazilian authorities. Unsurprisingly, this has caused irritation both among the people and within the administration. Earlier this month, President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva declared that Brazil will take “all the responsibility” to protect the region. Added pressure also comes from national and international corporations wishing to reap increasing economic benefits from the Amazon region, particularly in the areas of agriculture and energy. On August 1, President Lula formally created the Amazon Fund with the signing of a decree. Among other initiatives, money collected will be used to control illegal logging. Brazil’s state-run development bank (BNDES) will administer the fund and has already received assurances of a forthcoming $100 million Norwegian donation in addition to assurances that Norway will continue to offer substantial funding over the next five years. BNDES is setting up the fund to receive “hefty donations” from other countries, with the expectation that donations could reach $21 billion in just over 10 years time. The BNDES has previous experience with environment issues, including management of credit lines for companies that develop environmentally clean and energy-efficient projects and respect the Kyoto Protocol. http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=1215
32) Cuban instrument-maker or luthier Raúl Lage came for six months, but has already spent seven and a half years in Manaus, the city in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. “The project is really fantastic,” he says, explaining why he plans to renew his work contract again in September. What is keeping him in Brazil is the Oficina Escola de Lutheria da Amazônia (Amazonia String Instrument School Workshop - OELA), where teenagers from poor families learn the complex skills of making musical instruments, which provides them with a possible route out of poverty while helping to preserve the rainforest. String instrument-making has opened up employment and cultural opportunities for young people all over Brazil, but OELA is “the only such school in the world that works with certified tropical wood,” which combines environmental and social aims, says a proud Rubens Gomes, executive secretary of the organisation that he founded in 1998. The guitars and other string instruments produced at OELA are made with the wood from tropical rainforest trees, like the breu branco (Tetragastris panamensis) and the tauari (Couratari guianensis), which have no commercial value but are well-suited for musical instruments. “This way we add value to species that the market does not recognise as useful timber,” Gomes tells IPS. The diversification of the sources of wood used from the jungle reduces the pressure on the most coveted species of trees and strengthens the value of the rainforest, helping “consolidate sustainable forestry management,” he explains. It is one way to help prevent the deforestation of the Amazon jungle, by using limited amounts of wood to produce goods with high added value. OELA also trains riverbank communities in forestry management, by means of a mobile school on a boat, and in the production of wooden objects and marquetry (decorative inlaid patterns of wood, ivory, etc. used in furniture and instruments). The project’s main school in Manaus, Unit I, also offers courses in computer science, graphics, music and environmental education, besides providing psycho-pedagogical support. In addition, it has a movie club and an Internet centre for youngsters from the poor neighbourhood where it is located, Zumbi, on the east side of the city. More than 200 people a day pass through Unit I. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43674