Forest Policy Research

–Today for you 27 news articles about earth’s trees! (428th edition) http://forestpolicyresearch.org

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Index:

–Latin America: 1) Fossil tree tells of forests during last ice age, 53% of the emitted carbon dioxide, 2) 53% of the emitted carbon dioxide,

–Trinidad & Tobago: 3) Save the Mangroves, stop the new steel plant!

–Costa Rica: 4) Court bans logging of Almond tree to protect rare parrot

–Peru: 5) Illegal loggers push uncontacted tribes into Brazil, 6) Talsiman company must leave or we will throw them out,

–Ecuador: 7) I am a defender of the forest, 8) What encourages such complex diversity in torpical forests? 9) New Photography book documents victims of Chevron, 10) The story of the Achuar people, 11) Shrimp dialogue regarding mangroves is breaking down,

–Paraguay: 12) Last contacted Indians devastated by huge surge in logging in the past 30 days, 13) new soya season is about to begin,

–Chile: 14) Mushrooms that produce biodiesal,

–Brazil: 15) ADM looks bad thanks to RAN, 16) charges against 81 people accused of being the biggest destroyers of the Amazon rainforest, 17) Plans of world’s third-largest mining company, 18) Politics of Brazil, 19) Juma Reserve in the heart of the Amazon, 20) Another Minc lie: Amazon fund won’t be affected by economic downturn, 21) Marina Silva, 22) Amazon may lose 50% of its tree species, 23) Children of the Amazon 15 years later, 24) Remote tree saving that’s based in South Dakota, 25) forest defender conspired against, 26) 3 times as many species going extinct in recent years, 27) Will the carbon market really save the Amazon?

Articles:

Latin America:

1) A “living fossil” tree species is helping a University of Michigan researcher understand how tropical forests responded to past climate change and how they may react to global warming in the future. The research appears in the November issue of the journal Evolution. Symphonia globulifera is a widespread tropical tree with a history that goes back some 45 million years in Africa, said Christopher Dick, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who is lead author on the paper. It is unusual among tropical trees in having a well-studied fossil record, partly because the oil industry uses its distinctive pollen fossils as a stratigraphic tool. About 15 to 18 million years ago, deposits of fossil pollen suggest, Symphonia suddenly appeared in South America and then in Central America. Unlike kapok, a tropical tree with a similar distribution that Dick also has studied, Symphonia isn’t well-suited for traveling across the ocean—its seeds dry out easily and can’t tolerate saltwater. So how did Symphonia reach the neotropics? Most likely the seeds hitched rides from Africa on rafts of vegetation, as monkeys did, Dick said. “For Central America, we see a pattern in Symphonia that also has been found in a number of other species, with highly genetically differentiated populations across the landscape,” Dick said. “We think the pattern is the result of the distinctive forest history of Mesoamerica, which was relatively dry during the glacial period 10,000 years ago. In many places the forests were confined to hilltops or the wettest lowland regions. What we’re seeing in the patterns of genetic diversity is a signature of that forest history.” In the core Amazon Basin, which was moist throughout the glacial period, allowing for more or less continuous forest, less genetic diversity is found among populations, Dick said. “There’s less differentiation across the whole Amazon Basin than there is among sites in lower Central America.” The study is the first to make such comparisons of genetic diversity patterns in Central and South America. “We think similar patterns will be found in other widespread species,” Dick said. Learning how Symphonia responded to past climate conditions may be helpful for predicting how forests will react to future environmental change, Dick said. “Under scenarios of increased warmth and drying, we can see that populations are likely to be constricted, particularly in Central America, but also that they’re likely to persist, because Symphonia has persisted throughout Central America and the Amazon basin. That tells us that some things can endure in spite of a lot of forest change. However, past climate changes were not combined with deforestation, as is the case today. That combination of factors could be detrimental to many species—especially those with narrow ranges—in the next century.” http://www.physorg.com/news144604259.html

2) From Latin America came the topmost contributor of land scraping in the whole world. Deforestation in Latin America accounts for almost 53% of the emitted carbon dioxide in the atmospheric air. Logging in the region has become so immense that it claimed to have the highest rate in the world, and the fight of it came to be one of hardest struggles of the continent. In over a period of 5 years, the world lost 100 hectares of the forested lands, and about half of that came from the Latin American nation. Deforestation has been quite a great toil to them and their people for years now, and it hasn’t been an easy battle because economy has been playing with the nation ever since. What makes the fight even more exhausting is that the economy of Latin America relies on its own soil for support. Not only are the Latin Americans dependent on their ecological capacity, but the neighboring nations as well.
If this present trend will run continuously for a period of 30 years, the world will be totally depleted of all its natural resources. To combat and counter the ways of deforestation, the Latin American government imposed laws which could help stop all illegal activities. However, it is still a question up to this time why the problem has not ceased for years. Predictions For Latin AmericaRecently, Latin America has experienced great climactic changes, and this could have been brought only by the intense cutting of their forests and the abuse that their lands receive. By the year 2050, these set of predictions by environmentalists and experts are set to happen globally: distribution of human diseases will be widely spread and emergence of new types of illnesses will rise, crop disease and pest will likewise rise in trend, economic activities will be severely depleted, drought and famine will be in much abundance especially in impoverished tropical countries. Water resource will be greatly reduced, plant and animal species will decrease in variability, the ecosystem will be significantly disrupted, and melting of most of the earth’s glaciers will take place. http://www.9dom.com/deforestation-in-latin-america-afflicting-the-world-in-countless-ways

Trinidad & Tobago:

3) Recently, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago signed an agreement with Essar Steel of India to build a steel mill in the center of a number of communities in the North Claxton Bay area. It has also contracted with Saipem, an Italian firm to build a port next to the steel mill and fishing port in the area. These projects will be ruinous to the economy, health, environment and livelihood of the residents of Claxton Bay and environs, and citizens of the West Coast and Trinidad and Tobago generally. A No Port, No Steel Mill Campaign has been raging on the island over the past two years. Activists have engaged in meetings with leading government officials, protests, rallies, numerous media campaigns, fasting, legal action, national sensitization, the burning of tyres and direct action against surveying and soil testing activities. A number of activists have been arrested. The following are the reasons why the citizens of the  Trinidad and Tobago are  rejecting the plans by the Government to destroy the mangrove at Claxton Bay. 1) Essar would be building on 500 acres of land which was allotted to farmers in the area, then taken back for the steel mill. 2) The steel mill is located contiguous to and upwind of Claxton Bay would thousand of tons of steel dust each year for thirty to fifty years. Over 3,000 persons live contiguous to the planned Essar site. 3) The Government would be giving steep gas concessions to Essar Steel. 4) The mill would require a port which would be built on 625 acres of fishing grounds in an area where grounds are already severely delimited through industrial activity. 5) The mill would emit 900,000 tons of carbon per year. 6) The port would destroy two miles of a historic mangrove system a valuable source of food and recreation; it is home to a number of species of crabs, fish, mollusks, birds, clams and mammals. 7) The port would destroy a specialized fishery for mullets which feeds in the brackish coastal estuarine waters 8) The port would destroy the mullet saltfish factory located on the nearby fishing port. 9) The port would destroy, through dredge siltation, a vast acreage of sea grass beds; the estuarine foreshore would be continually dredged to a depth of 13 meters to accommodate 200 meter ships, berthing facilities and turnaround bays. 10) The livelihood of over 100 fishermen who now use the fishing facilities would be severely impacted. — The entire project is uneconomic; the value of resource loss will be considerably higher than gains; the fact is that Government has adopted a neo-liberalization agenda, which intends to convert valuable local resources, health, gas, fisheries, mangrove, sea grass beds, fishing grounds, arable lands, valuable port lands, into profits for Saipem, and Essar Steel and its customers in the United States. http://www.mangroveactionproject.org/news/action-alerts/please-help-us-to-save-our-mangroves-from-essar-steel-of-india

Costa Rica:

4) Costa Rica’s high court has prohibited the cutting of a certain species of tree, in part because a highly endangered type of parrot uses the tree almost exclusively for nesting. With one decision, the Sala IV constitutional court protected the mountain almond tree and the great green macaw, specifically in a sprawling area in northern Costa Rica. However, the court also ordered the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía to spread the word to all its regional officials, thus protecting the tree throughout the country. The Sala IV also ordered the environmental courts to monitor compliance with the decision. The tree is known in Spanish as the almendro amarillo, and it has the Latin name of Dipteryx panamensis. It is a slow-growing, towering tree that has wood so dense it only recently has become subject to lumbering. The wood resists termites, too. The court decision annulled an order issued in February 2007 by the director of the Área de Conservación Arenal Huetar Norte that would allow harvesting of the tree. The great green macaw is far more endangered than the almond trees. The Rainforest Biodiversity Group, which used to be called Friends of the Great Green Macaw, reports that only about 50 nests of the bird were found in a census and that some of the nests had not been occupied. The group estimates on its Web site that only about 200 of the birds remain in Costa Rica, about 10 percent of the original population remains. The bird is called lapa verde in Spanish and has the Latin name of Ara ambigua. The birds have a real advantage with the towering almond trees. The seeds or nuts provide food for the birds and other forest creatures. Cavities in the tree collect water that the birds drink as well as supply safe locations for nesting. The objection to lumbering was brought to the Sala IV by a man identified in the decision summary by the last names of Carmiol Ulloa. He was doing so on behalf of the Asociación Red Costarricense de Reservas Naturales. The Arenal Huetar Norte conservation area is some 4,220 square kilometers (1,629 square miles) that runs north from Zarcero to the border with Nicaragua. The area extends to a point west of Upala and shares a border with the Área de Conservación Tortuguero on the east. The reserve network organization that brought the case is an association of some 110 private reserves. The almendro tree was not commercially viable until the introduction of special carbon steel blades about 25 years ago due to the density of the wood. Some trees may be 50 meters, nearly 164 feet, tall. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1027-costa_rica.html

Peru:

5) Illegal logging in the Peruvian Amazon is driving uncontacted tribes into Brazil where they are in conflict over food and resources with other uncontacted groups, according to a Reuters interview with a leading expert on indigenous tribes. Jose Meirelles of Brazil’s Indian affairs agency FUNAI told Reuters he was seeing evidence of uncontacted tribes fleeing loggers in Peru. “Putting it simply, the loggers are killing and expelling the isolated people. It’s clear that they (the Indians) are coming here,” Meirelles told Reuters from Brazil. As the Indians flee they move into territories controlled by other tribes, resulting in conflict. “On one side they are persecuted and killed by loggers and when they flee they come into conflict with rival isolated tribes. So they have to keep looking for space where they can feed themselves,” added Beatriz Huertas, an representative for CIPIACI — an indigenous rights group — who spent three weeks in the border area in June. Last month Meirelles and a colleague were attacked with arrows by a group of Indians. He said the arrows and the cut of the hair did not match the three known groups on the Brazilian side, indicating that Indians are indeed crossing the border. The attack took place in the Brazilian state of Acre near where a band of uncontacted Indians were photographed with dyed skin and wielding bows and arrows. The photos stirred a media frenzy when released in May by Brazilian authorities who hoped the attention would pressure Peru to better protect indigenous groups from loggers in the region. Brazil also has difficulty protecting Indians from illegal loggers, miners, and bounty hunters hired by developers aiming to clear land for cattle pasture and farms. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1022-peru_indigenous.html

6) “We do not want our forests, rivers and earth polluted, because this is our natural market… We have proof that pollution already exists, damage to nature and to indigenous people in the communities where petroleum activities are developed. For 37 years in the Achuar brother communities of the Corrientes River, petroleum has not brought any development to them; on the contrary they are sick and poverty stricken.” The Achuar say they will physically remove Talisman if the company does not stop working on their lands by November 15. “If they do not want to leave we will force them out.” Reuters reported that the Calgary-based company “said it had no plans to pull out of Peru.” Already this year Canadian resource companies in Peru have been responsible for a number of socially damaging events; an oil and gas company entered an area inhabited by a nomadic tribe that has refused contact with the outside world; a mine destroyed pre-Columbian carvings; the government declared a state of emergency over fears that arsenic, lead and cadmium from a mine near Lima could pollute the capital’s main water supply. And in recent years Toronto-based Barrick Gold’s operations in the country have been engulfed in a number of violent protests, one of which left a couple of protesters dead. “In Peru,” notes McGill professor Daviken Stuenicki Gizbert, “40% of conflicts involving local communities are over mining. The majority of the mining sector in Peru is Canadian.” Before 1990, no Canadian mining company operated in Peru. Now, Canadian corporations dominate the country’s mining sector with a hundred mines. As an illustration of the size of Canadian mining investment in Peru, in late 2006 Scotia Bank announced plans to expand its banking in the country to do more business with mining clients. Driven by resource companies, Canadian direct investment in Peru is worth billions of dollars. http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/yvesengler

Ecuador:

7) Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I Am Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador. The film shows how the community, living in the autonomous region of Sarayaku, organized themselves and confronted the Argentinian oil company CGC (Compañia General de Combustibles). In 2002 the company entered Sarayaku with a plan to carry out a geological survey. However, they did not have permission from the community to do so. CGC was told to leave the territory, but the company refused. In response, the community took matters into their own hands, by organizing to remove the invading company. At that point the government of Ecuador sent in the military to back the company up, which led to a series of confrontations with the community. Conflicts also broke out with neighboring communities who had been tricked into siding with CGC. Nevertheless, the Sarayaku remained committed to defending their land. http://intercontinentalcry.org/i-am-defender-of-the-rainforest/

8) The rich diversity of trees in tropical forests may be “the result of subtle strategies that allow each species to occupy its own ecological niche” rather than random dispersal, report researchers writing in the journal Science. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1023-biodiversity.html Trees in a hyper-diverse tropical rainforest interact with each other and their environment to create and maintain diversity, researchers report in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Science. This study was conducted in the Yasuni forest dynamics plot of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, the most diverse tropical forest site associated with the Center for Tropical Forest Science/Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory network (CTFS/SIGEO). a unified theory of diversity patterns in ecological communities remains elusive. The most complex biological systems—such as tropical rainforests—are the most important testing grounds for theories that attempt to generalize across ecological communities; as they pose the greatest challenge. At Yasuni, in addition to the 600 species of birds and 170 of mammals, there are approximately 1,100 species of trees in the 25 hectare plot?more than in all of the U.S. and Canada, combined. Neutral theory rests on the assumption that all species are equal in terms of their ability to survive and reproduce. Chance events drive change. This study supports an alternative, older explanation that characteristics of individual species play an important role in determining the structure of the community, contributing to the maintenance of biodiversity through distinct strategies. “If the neutral theory is correct, we would expect these traits to be distributed at random throughout the forest, but that was not the case,” explained RenatoValencia, professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and lead investigator at the Yasuni forest plot. Nathan Kraft, PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, measured and compiled traits of the leaves, seed and wood of trees at Yasuni and then used detailed maps from the plot to look at how these traits are distributed across the forest. “The traits we measured give us important clues about the strategy of each species in the forest —how they make a living, if you will. One exciting thing that we found is that trees growing near each other in basically the same habitat, may employ very different strategies,” Kraft explained. More research will be needed to resolve these conflicting views, and participants in the CTFS/SIGEO network of more than 30 forest dynamics plots in 17 countries hope that researchers will take advantage of standardized life-table data from more than 6,500 tree species to understand the patterns of biological diversity across the world. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-10/stri-dot102308.php

9) “We often hear of environmental catastophes but almost never meet the people who suffer the consequences.” Those are some of the introductory words of Lou Dematteis, one of the authors and photographers of the new photo book Crude Reflections: Oil, Ruin, and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest. Using photographs to illustrate their subject, Dematteis and fellow scribe/photographer Kayana Szymczak present a damning case against Chevron, whose oil operations and despicable waste disposal practices from the 1960s onward have devastated the northeast region of Ecuador. The health problems and catastrophic destruction caused by Chevron’s pollution of the rainforest is now referred to as the “Amazon Chernobyl.” Chevron dumped waste oil in unsealed pits, burnt it into the air, and put it on roads to keep down dust. The company’s other option would have been to pump the waste back into the ground, something that it was already doing in the United States– in fact, Chevron was the first company to adopt the practice. Without sentiment, Crude Reflections presents the gruesome evidence of human suffering that is occurring in Ecuador. This indictment is crucial now, right as Chevron tries to weasel their way out of facing a major court decision that has been in the making since a case was first opened in 1993 against them by Ecuadorians. The verdict will justifiably announce the company’s wrongdoing to a world audience and possibly bankrupt it as well. Stories like those of Jairo Yumbo (pictured at top) show how immediate and serious the pollution and health problems have become. Jairo’s father, a coffee and cocoa farmer, explains that a stream near his house that his family uses for drinking and bathing water is polluted with crude. His son was born with a deformed hand that doctors told him was a direct result from the pollution. When he took Jairo to a clinic run by Chevron “they said that his hand had nothing to do with the oil, that it was a result of a medicine we took to stop having children. We never took any medicine, but I preferred not to say anything; I just left. The oil company people always become angry if we said anything or complained.” http://ecoworldly.com/2008/10/24/new-photo-book-proves-that-chevron-caused-ecuadors-amazon-chernobyl/

10) The story of the Achuar is incredible. By building partnerships with people from the modern world, like you and me, they are saving millions of acres of rainforest so all of us on the planet can all breathe easier. This Amazonian tribe only came out into the modern world fourteen years ago because they saw in their dreams that an enemy, the modern world, would be coming into their pristine rainforest and they wanted to prevent that,  not in their old warrior ways, but by creating partnerships and working with people from the modern world so we could all breathe much easier on the planet. From that call, the Pachamama Alliance was born.  The positive result of this partnership is a powerful example fulfilling the Eagle and Condor prophecy which can be found on my website. Thanks to the Pachamama Alliance over the past 14 years, The Achuar now have a beautiful eco village that you can visit. They even have an airplane and are in need of another, to get people in and out of the forest. You can’t just mosey into the rainforest, it is a ride on a small plane over millions of acres of natural beauty and then a canoe ride. As soon as they own the next plane they will be on their way to being fully sustainable, which is an important goal they have. I am happy to be a supporter of the Pachamama Alliance. Check out their site to see the great programs they are offering around the world to raise awareness about global warming and how you can help. http://pointsofconnection.typepad.com/points_of_connection/2008/10/saving-the-rainforest-1.html

11) Throughout the world, WWF promotes a series of meetings between shrimp farmers, import companies, and NGOs, called “Shrimp Dialogues,” attempting to establish global standards for the certification of the shrimp aquaculture industry. One of the meetings already took place in Belize, 1-2 April of this year, without the participation of the Central American victims of the shrimp farming industry. The second shrimp dialogue organized by WWF was held in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, during the international Aqua 2008 fair, 8-9 November. Redmanglar Internacional (RMI) was represented at the meeting by its Executive Secretary, Juan José López Negrete, and an ample delegation of those affected by shrimp farming, grouped together in C-CONDEM, among them representatives of the RMI Directing Council – Líder Góngora Farías and Tomás Cruz. Throughout the day the RMI delegation staged a pacific boycott of the meeting before an auditorium of shrimp farmers, NGOs, and importers, noting at all times the illegitimate character of the so-called shrimp dialogues. At the end of the afternoon they were able to get WWF, organizer of the event, to cede 30 minutes for RMI to expound on its reasons for boycotting the event. The RMI Executive Secretary, Juan José López Negrete, and the representative of the RMI Directing Council, Líder Góngora Farías, expressed in a far-ranging and sustained manner the reasons why RMI categorically opposes any process that permits the certification of the shrimp farming industry in Latin America, as well as the rest of the planet. Those attending the event, among them Cesar Monge, President of the Aquaculture Chamber of Ecuador; delegates of WWF; Naturland, David Suzuki Foundation, among others, listened to the forceful arguments presented by the RMI representatives against the intent of WWF to certify the shrimp farming industry. The RMI representatives proposed that instead of a shrimp dialogue to certify the shrimp farm industry that they should create an international tribunal to investigate and punish all of the crimes against humanity committed by such industry. In addition, they declared that RMI would denounce WWF internationally if it continues with the intention of favoring certification of a criminal and merciless industry, such is shrimp farming. http://www.mangroveactionproject.org/news/current_headlines/shrimp-aquaculture-dialogue-fails-in-ecuador

Paraguay:

12) Satellite photos taken just a few days ago reveal how hundreds of hectares of forest belonging to Paraguay’s last uncontacted Indians have been devastated in the last thirty days alone. The photos show how a Brazilian company, Yaguarete Pora S.A., has destroyed a brand new patch of forest belonging to the Indians, called the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, the last uncontacted people in South America outside the Amazon. Photos taken last month did not detect such activity. The devastation of the Totobiegosode’s forest is rapidly accelerating. The amount of land cleared is now more than double what it was in May this year, when earlier satellite photos were taken. It is being destroyed by Yaguarete Pora S.A. and another Brazilian company, River Plate S.A., mainly to graze cattle for beef. The photos have caused outrage in Paraguay and led to a mass Indian plea to Paraguay’s new president, the ex-bishop Fernando Lugo. In a statement to Lugo, the destruction of the Totobiegosode’s land was denounced as a ‘violation of (the Indians’) cultural, environmental and territorial rights.’ The Totobiegosode live in sub-tropical forest known as ‘the Chaco’. The number of uncontacted Indians, who are exceedingly vulnerable to any form of contact with outsiders, is not known. Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘Just look at the sat photos! It’s impossible not to see what is going on there – the flagrant destruction of the Totobiegosode’s home, right ‘before our eyes’. How can president Lugo ignore this?’ View satellite photos taken from May to October this year http://www.survival-international.org/news/3833

13) Peasant organizations have begun to increase pressure on the government for land reforms, food sovereignty, and the end to pesticide use which gravely impacts their communities. In turn, the farmers have been repeatedly met with violence: Numerous evictions have taken place, at least two leaders have been murdered, and hundreds of peasants have been tortured, beaten and arrested. This is despite Paraguay’s new government, which has stated a commitment to protect small farmers against soya plantations, pesticide spraying and deforestation. La Soja Mata (Soya Kills) is putting together a series of video reports on the conflicts and various other events related to the soya industry in Paraguay. Here’s a handful of the reports they’d made so far: Please note: these reports are in Spanish, Guarani and Castilliano languages, however it is still quite easy to understand what is said. Below the reports you will find a list of emails and a sample letter (c/o www.mediaisland.org) you can send to express your support for the campesinos and their struggle. 1) Two evictions in Alto Parana: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEBsk0jtG4 A Short documentary about the evictions of two encampments in alto parana, in the beginning of October, which resulted in different cases of torture, and one execution. In memoriam Bienvenido Melgarejo. 2) Camp against pesticide in Caaguazú: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4xnXaZGjS8 Report on the land occupation by the community of Mariscal Lopéz, who wants an end to pesticide spraying. 3) Peasant community in San Pedro against pesticide: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfLEXvipkJw A video letter by members the community of Naranjito, who also demand and end to pesticide use, as well as the return of lands that were illegitimately taken from them. 4) Remembering how to maintain an ecological garden: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTUpXTJs15w A report in Guaraní about the practical ways of maintaining an agro-ecological garden on the country side. La Soya Maja explains that, “although all campesinos hate the extensive spraying, a lot of them have forgotten how to grow certain crops without spraying it themselves, albeit on a much smaller scale of course.” A Castillian version is available here. … More videos available at www.lasojamata.org/en/node/230. If you’d like to learn more about the struggles against soya, visit www.aseed.net (English), www.baseis.org.py (Spanish), www.grr.org.ar (Spanish), www.wrm.org.uy (English) Sample Letter (Please send the Spanish version below) http://gregornot.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/a-new-season-of-soya-a-new-season-of-conflict/

Chile:

14) American scientists have discovered a fungus deep in the Patagonian rainforest that makes biodiesel as part of its natural lifecycle. The fungus is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel sources. According to team member Prof. Gary Strobel of Montana State University, “The fungus can even make these diesel compounds from cellulose, which would make it a better source of biofuel than anything we use at the moment.” In its natural habitat the fungus, which the team have labelled Gliocladium Roseum, produces several different molecules that have been shown to contain long chain hydrocarbons of the type found in diesel. However, when the team grew the fungi under laboratory conditions it produced a biofuel that is even more similar to the diesel used in cars. G. Roseum can even be used to make myco-diesel directly from cellulose, meaning that, if the fungus were to be used for large scale biodiesel production, a complete step in the production process could be skipped. The experiments have completely astounded the team. Speaking about the outcome, Prof. Strobel said, “The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end.” This is a fertile period for discoveries in the field of non-food based biofuel. Earlier this week, a team of scientists in Thailand reported the discovery of a new algae species that they are confident can be used to manufacture biodiesel. http://gas2.org/2008/11/03/fungi-discovered-in-patagonia-rainforest-could-be-used-to-make-biodiesel

Brazil:

15) Confronted with statements by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) spokespeople questioning the company’s social and environmental record, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) CEO Patricia Woertz admitted that rainforests are being destroyed in Brazil. Although the company has recently launched a new sustainability initiative that Woertz pledged to personally champion, Woertz resisted accepting responsibility for the environmental damage, instead blaming it on weak governance and regulation by the Brazilian government. The admission came after significant attempts to block criticism from RAN and other shareholders on the company’s poor social responsibility record. For the second year in a row, ADM attempted to prevent RAN spokespeople from presenting information to shareholders describing the devastating social and environmental impacts that the company is causing around the world. RAN representatives and allies were searched and harassed as they attempted to enter the meeting.A heavy police presence outside the meeting prevented students and activists from engaging in a planned non-violent protest.“ADM’s actions show that they are unwilling to hear any concerns that might force them to become more socially and environmentally responsible,” said Andrea Samulon, spokesperson for the Rainforest Action Network. “If they were truly acting in a sustainable way, they wouldn’t need to use police force to block the concerns of shareholder groups.”Among the agenda items at the meeting was a shareholder resolution presented by the New York City Common Retirement Fund calling on ADM to adopt a corporate code of conduct consistent with internationally recognized human rights standards. When finally admitted, RAN spokespeople read statements in support of these resolutions as well as a statement from an Indonesian community, describing the impacts of ADM’s current policies, including illegal land confiscation and forced displacement. “The company’s activities have resulted in the destruction of our villages- Pinang Tingi, Lamo Padang Salak, and Tanah Menang,” said three village heads through the written statement. “Our homes were stolen from us without our free, prior, and informed consent.” http://www.grainnet.com/articles/ADM_CEO_Woertz_Says_Rainforest_Destruction_Does_Exist_in_Brazil-65843.html

16) Brazil will file charges against 81 people accused of being the biggest destroyers of the Amazon rainforest, reports the Associated Press. Environment Minister Carlos Minc said those convicted of crimes — including land-clearing inside reserves and other protected areas — will be fined and required to replant deforested areas. Overall the accused face $99 million in fines. Minc said the majority of those charged are large-scale soy farmers and cattle ranchers. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is increasingly driven by corporate interests and large landowners, rather than poor subsistence farmers. Deforestation for the 2007-2008 year increased for the first time since 2004. Analysts have blamed record high commodity prices for the increase. http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1102-brazil.html

17) Brazilian group Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (Vale), the world’s third-largest mining company by market capitalisation, is active not only in diversified mining, but also in transport, energy and the environment. During 2006, the IAV developed 100 projects for different Vale operational units, each designed to meet the needs of the different ecosystems in which the units are based. One major project developed that year was the Degraded Areas Recovery Programme, which saw 173 indigenous botanical species re-established in an area of 400 ha. This takes to 1 960 ha the total areas, within the Atlantic Forest, the Amazon, and Cerrado (savannah) ecosystems that have been replanted by Vale. The specialists of the IAV also provide environmental training to staff in other divisions of Vale. The institute has another very important function: it administers botanic parks and conservation areas, only two of which are owned by the group. These are the Vale Natural Resources Reserve, the Vale Botanical Park, the Sooterama Biological Reserve, the Carajás National Forest, the Carajás Zoo-Botanical Park, the Tapirapé-Aquiri National Forest and the Tapirapé Biological Reserve. The Vale Natural Resources Reserve lies in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. With an area of 22 000 ha, it is also the centre of the group’s environmental research programmes. In 2006, the reserve produced some 12 t of seeds and four-million seedlings from 422 different Atlantic Forest tree species, for ecosystem recovery and forest re-establish-ment projects. The Vale Botanical Park lies in the Tubarão industrial complex, also in Espírito Santo. The complex includes a major port, for the export of iron-ore and pellets, and one of the largest pellet producing facilities in the world. Reforestation started in the 1980s, and the Botanical Park now covers 620 ha and contains six-million tropical trees. Not only does the park represent a rehabilitation of an ecosystem, its also acts as a windshield for the stockpiles of iron-ore and pellets. The Sooterama Biological Reserve, again in Espírito Santo, actually belongs to the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama – the Federal government environmental agency) but is managed by the IAV. It lies close to the Vale Natural Resources Reserve and together the two parks cover 48 000 ha, respresenting 45% of Espírito Santo’s forests. http://www.miningweekly.com/article.php?a_id=143752

18) As Brazil’s economy booms from rising agricultural commodity prices worldwide, conflicts over land in the Amazon–where the agricultural frontier is rapidly expanding–are also on the rise. At times, the region appears to be ungovernable for the administration of President Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva and the governing Workers’ Party (PT), which face strong pressure to yield to the interests of regional, national and international agribusiness. Since it came to power in 2003, the Lula government has been embroiled in a conflict between six large-scale rice growers and 19,000 indigenous people over 4.2 million acres of Amazon grassland, forest and river called Raposa Serra do Sol, in the northernmost state of Roraíma, on the border with Venezuela and Guiana. Today, the land dispute threatens to provoke a civil war in the region. Raposa Serra do Sol was demarcated as a single, continuous indigenous reserve by the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1998, and signed into law by President Lula in 2005. Since then, the rice growers, who arrived in the region in the early 1990s, have been required by law to leave their large, landed estates, and offered financial compensation to do so. Yet they have refused. Instead, due to pressure from the rice growers and other agribusiness interests, the Brazilian Supreme Court is currently deciding whether legislation for demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol may be changed to make it discontinuous, thereby allowing the rice growers to remain on the reserve in “islands”. The landmark case, supposedly to be decided by the end of this year, will set the stage for the future of indigenous land rights in Brazil. It has drawn the attention of high-level politicians, military officers, international human rights organizations and even the Pope, pitting the interests of economic expansion against those calling for protection of human rights and the environment. Leading the struggle to change the demarcation is Paulo Cesar Quartiero, the largest rice farmer in Roraíma, former mayor of the town of Pacaraima (part of which lies in Raposa Serra do Sol), and president of the Association of Rice Producers of Roraíma (ARPR), a powerful group of rice growers integrated into national agribusiness markets. Quartiero is a “ruralista”: a member of an influential network of politicians at the municipal, state and federal levels that represents the interests of large landowners and national and international agribusiness. http://www.thescarletpimpernel.info/2008/10/violence-mutiny-and-environmental.html

19) Juma Reserve, in the heart of Brazil’s vast Amazon forest, stands as an example of the perils weighing on the world’s largest tropical woodland. Illegal loggers are tearing down the green canopy, and residents in this, one of the most remote zones on Earth, live in extreme poverty. But the situation is changing, thanks to a pioneer carbon project organized by the government of Amazonas state with collaboration from the US-based international hotel chain Marriott.The reserve is the first place in Brazil to be certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, a partnership between corporations, non-governmental organizations and researchers that aims to establish initiatives promoting sustainable development while protecting the environment. Maria Edines Goncalves, who walked six hours through the jungle with her six children by her side to reach a community where the project was launched on Friday, is representative of the locals the project aims to help. In her pocket, she carried a letter signed by the 12 families in her tiny village asking for three necessities: a school; equipment to mill tapioca flour from the manioc, or cassava, shrub; and an electricity generator. “This is the first time someone from the government has come out here,” Goncalves said. The Juma Reserve project’s goal is to improves the lives of the 322 families living in the area, located 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of the city of Manaus and accessible only by boat. The reserve was declared in 2006 in an effort to slow deforestation which took off after a small road was built to facilitate the movements of the loggers and clandestine gold prospectors. “Four years ago, there were six illegal wood mills operating here. The owners turned up with a lot of money and threatened to evict the inhabitants,” said Father Ramiro, a Spanish priest who has lived in the area for 25 years. He added that he had received death threats for standing up for the locals. Ramiro said that turning half a million hectares into a reserve had helped a little to diminish destruction of the forest. Virgilio Viana, the director of the Durable Amazonas Foundation that overseas public and private finances used in state conservation efforts, emphasized the usefulness of the carbon project. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Carbon_project_brings_sustainable_hope_to_remote_tract_of_Amazon_999.html

20) Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc said on Friday that the Amazon Fund, an initiative to gather funds for the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest area, will not be damaged by the world financial crisis. At the first meeting of the Amazon Fund’s Guiding Committee, held in Brasilia, Minc said several companies, including Petrobras, Wal-Mart and AES, have expressed their interest to donate to the Fund. He assured that the names of the first donors will be announced soon. So far, only the Norwegian government has formally announced its intention to donate to the Fund. Norway will donate 1 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. Its first part of the donation will be 140 million U.S. dollars, which will be made in 2009. The Brazilian government expects to start using the Fund’s money next year. Minc also announced that the deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest area fell in September, lower than the average of the previous three months, which was 650 square km. In August, the deforested area in the Amazon Rainforest increased 133 percent, reaching 756.7 square km. Minc attributed the increase to the upcoming elections, saying that the politicians did not want to take unpopular measures against wood-related and transport companies for fear of losing votes. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/25/content_10248842.htm

21) Maria Osmarina da Silva de Lima, known as Marina Silva, did not go to Philosophy school. Perhaps this can explain her amazing nonchalance as she goes back and forth between the ideal and the real worlds. Furthermore, she creates a solid bridge between those two realms, pointing out earthly solutions for environmental problems - whether they are real, philosophical or invented ones. It could be that her sensitivity and reality during a very difficult childhood and adolescence made dream and pragmatism blend together. Marina Silva was born 50 years ago, in Breu Velho, at a rubber tapping forest area called Seringal Baçado, 70km distant from Rio Branco, the capital city in Acre state. She spent her childhood and early teenage years laboring in rubber latex extraction. Marina Silva was 16 years old when she finally learned how to read and write – that happened after she moved to Rio Branco to work as a house servant. Until then, she had learned from nature, the forest and her own people – these masters arose in her the love for the environment, as well as the senses to interpret it. At 26 years old she got her university degree in History, from Acre’s Federal University, and in 1988 she started a political career. Now a global citizen, Marina Silva is one of the most acknowledged and celebrated women in the world; she was awarded over 50 honor distinctions. After heading the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, where she fought the conservative forces composing the rural scene in Brazil – especially in the Amazon, Marina Silva is back in the Senate, where she continues to fight for social and environmental sustainability. Brazil learned that her apparently fragile physical structure is inhabited by two different personas: a gentle and well balanced forest citizen and a powerful and bold warrior. Senator Marina Silva, what are your views on the environmental movement today, as far as the alleged antagonism between development and conservation is concerned? First of all, I don’t think we should envisage environment and development in opposite sides. I believe this century’s greatest challenge is to achieve protection with development, and development with the protection of the natural resources. During the last ten years, the environmental movement has made significant progress in that direction. Those who insist in that opposition have a purely developmentist mentality. Environmentalists have already understood that the greatest challenge is to act to achieve change in the development models – from unsustainable to a sustainable ones – in order to cover all sustainability dimensions, i.e., the economic, social, cultural, political, ethical and even aesthetic aspects, since the changes we impose upon the natural landscape deconstructs our identity, as well as our relationship with each other and with nature. http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=148824

22) Global warming could kill off half of the tree species in Brazil’s vast Amazon jungle by 2050, a leading international climate change expert said Wednesday. A worst-case rise of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) would wipe out half of the region’s tree species by making the Amazon much drier and causing increased humidity in Brazil’s non-Amazon southern region, said Martin Parry of the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A lower rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 would eliminate a quarter of the tree species in the Amazon, the world’s largest remaining tropical rain forest, he told reporters. In its pivotal 2007 reports on global warming, the IPCC projected that average global temperatures, which rose 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past century, would rise between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in this century, depending on many variable factors including population growth, fuel use and government actions to rein in emissions. Perry said the situation would get much worse if the world doesn’t sharply reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, transportation and agricultural gases blamed for global warming. The margin for global action on climate change is extremely tight; the temperature is going up and the sea levels are rising, he said. We need strong international leadership to make the necessary changes, and Brazil could contribute to this leadership. While Brazil managed to reduce deforestation by 60 percent between 2005 and 2007, rain forest burning is responsible for 55 percent of Brazilian emissions that contribute to global warming, said Carlos Nobre of Brazil’s Economic Research Institute. The rest comes from agriculture, energy generation and vehicles. Deforestation both the burning and rotting of wood in the Amazon releases an estimated 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, boosting Brazil to sixth place or higher among emitter nations. http://www.pr-inside.com/expert-amazon-may-lose-50-pct-r887617.htm

23) Returning to the rainforest where she photographed tribal populations 15 years earlier, native Brazilian Denise Zmekhol discovers drastic changes in “Children of the Amazon.” Well-crafted docu charts the destruction, both ecological and cultural, wrought by decades of still-ongoing deforestation, as well as the efforts to create protected areas. Item could eke out some theatrical dates prior to wider broadcast and educational exposure. Narrating in English, Zmekhol recalls snapping children of the Surui and Negarote tribes as part of a film crew. Showing these images to the now-grown subjects, she finds their ancient, indigenous traditions have been almost extinguished: They’ve gone from stone tools and self-sufficiency to mechanical appliances and standard economic poverty in a generation’s span. First contact with outsiders in 1969 brought diseases that decimated all but 200 members of one 700-strong tribe, and Christian missionaries used hellfire scares to eradicate old spiritual beliefs. The government encouraged farmers from other poor regions to move to the area, many via fake land deals; vast stretches of rainforest were burned to create cattle grazing lands, which some tribespeople were forced to labor on without pay. The newcomers also clashed with communities of rubber tappers, who had mined the now-vanishing forest’s resources without actually destroying them. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938869.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

24) NASA is paying researchers on the cool prairies of South Dakota to help track biodiversity in the steamy rain forests of the Brazilian Amazon. Professor Mark Cochrane in South Dakota State University’s Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence said much of the work relies on interpreting satellite imagery, one of the strengths of the SDSU center. Cochrane and his colleagues at SDSU and other institutions are mapping three specific kinds of forest disturbances in the Amazon: fragmentation of the forest into smaller parcels, logging, and fires. In addition, Cochrane has two SDSU doctoral students on the ground in Brazil doing survey work to determine how certain indicator taxa, or groups of organisms, are affected in those disturbed forest areas compared to undisturbed areas. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is funding the three-year project with a grant of about $1.1 million, of which $83,104 is a subcontract to Hobart and Smith Colleges. The SDSU component of the study is just over $1 million. “Basically what we’re looking at is the biodiversity effects of human land use in the Brazilian Amazon,” Cochrane said. “Typically when we’ve looked at the Amazon for, say, the last three decades, we’ve all heard about slash/burn deforestation. And yes, there has been a lot of deforestation in the Amazon. About 17 percent of it has been cleared. But what people don’t appreciate is that an equal amount of forest, or potentially even more, has been impacted in other ways.” Brazil is taking important steps to protect its rain forests, Cochrane said, but the task of simply mapping forest disturbance is enormous. The international study involves not only SDSU, but also researchers in Brazil and at other universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Working together, scientists will analyze more than 2,000 satellite images from two different satellite systems — Landsat and MODIS — to map different types of forest disturbance. To do that, the researchers will rely in part on methods they’ve developed themselves. For example, fires in the Amazon rain forest — many of which are set by man to clear forest or maintain clearings — are anything but spectacular. Since a single pixel of a Landsat satellite image carries information about a land area that is 30 meters to a side, it requires careful analysis of those images to detect such damage, Cochrane said. “A four-inch fire going through a rain forest, what are you going to see? You’re not going to detect the fire, but we can detect the damage from it. The canopy gets thinned tremendously. What we can see, if we look from space, is more of the forest floor. The forest floor is brown. The canopy is green. I can look at the percentage change in how much brown there is in that signal. In the end what I can do is actually map the areas in which deforestation or damage has occurred.” http://www3.sdstate.edu/SDSU/NewsDetail45702.cfm?ID=46,6733

25) An environmental activist has claimed at the High Court his London flat was sold without his knowledge while he was campaigning in the Amazon rainforest. Captain Clive Kelly, 68, accused three men of conspiring to sell his property in West Kensington. Two of the men deny charges relating to the alleged conspiracy and another has fled jurisdiction. http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGsRyWckJUOSipLqaJggEhlYY7tw

26) The number of animals on the verge of extinction in Brazil has nearly tripled in the last two decades, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said Tuesday. The Environment Ministry launched a book examining the number of animals in danger of extinction, with 627 such animals included. According to Minc, the first such government study of animals on the verge of extinction was performed in 1989, when 218 species were included. “Industry is expanding, agriculture is expanding, people are occupying protected areas and our conservation units do not have the protection needed,” Minc said. According to the minister, 79 species were taken off the endangered list that was published in 1989, while 489 new species were added. “We’ll fight to remove the largest number of species possible from that list,” the minister told reporters, saying the government is taking steps to slow deforestation and increase the amount of federally protected land. Minc blamed the growing number of endangered species on deforestation in the Amazon, which he said is sparked by soy farmers and ranchers illegally clearing land to plant crops and graze cattle.He also blamed the illegal trafficking of exotic animals. According to Renctas, a Brazilian organization that fights animal smuggling, illegal trafficking of rare species generates about $2 billion a year in the country. Many of the animals are sold to collectors in the United States, Europe and Asia. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D94896Q81.htm

27) Growing concern over climate change, and the potential of the carbon credit market, could give the Amazon forest a financial value rivaling the lucrative activities that are eating it away, Brazilian officials believe.The Amazon — the biggest zone of tropical woodland on the planet — is already home to the Juma reserve, an area of half a million hectares that has become the first project in Brazil to achieve international certification for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by averting deforestation.The government in Amazonas state want to replicate that model over 34 other reserves it manages, and it wants to use financing from the carbon market to help preserve the forest and improve the lives of people living within it.”We will be a big player in the carbon market,” said Virgilio Viana, director of the Sustainable Amazonas Foundation running the reserves.Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in August launched an international Amazon Fund, which has already attracted a one-billion-dollar donation pledge from Norway’s government up to 2015.The carbon credits scheme resulted from the Kyoto accord, which came into force three years ago. It opened the way to monetize the shortfall in greenhouse emissions targets and have them traded on a world market.But it does not acknowledge the reduction of emissions from deforestation of tropical forests in developing countries. Brazil, the fourth-biggest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, mostly from deforestation, wants its fight to preserve its five million square kilometers of Amazon forest to be recognized as a service against global warming It argues that its efforts should be rewarded with financial input from other countries which would go to helping poor Amazon populations that might otherwise turn to cutting down trees. http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/081107072350.w82muw9w.html