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Last year the deforestation of the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest was slowing dramatically. It keeps doing so: ” Brazil’s government says deforestation in the Amazon rain forest has dropped to its slowest pace in 22 years.”
” Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira says satellite imagery of the National Institute for Space Research shows that 6,450 square kilometers of the Amazon was deforested between 2009 and 2010, a 14 percent drop from a year earlier.“
” (…) the area deforested is the least since 1988. “ These sure are great news that show that Brazil is committed more than ever it protecting the lungs of the planet. (Source : Huffington Post)
I wrote about it before : deforestation in the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest – aka the lungs of Earth – decreased by no less than 46 percent and is at record low levels in the past two decades.
These are surely good news as deforestation is a predominant part in Brazilian greenhouse gases emissions. TreeHugger explains how this was achieved, partly thanks to satellites.
As a science fiction fan I like it when space technology helps solving Earth matters. This isn’t the first time it happens. Continue »
We have seen it throughout this blog, deforestation is a key environmental issue but it is sometimes hard to grab for people in developed nations as they aren’t directly concerned by this phenomenon.
How much time would it take for Central Park or the Champs de Mars to be destroyed if deforestation were to occur in New York or Paris ? This brilliant and short video answers these questions.
This is typically the kind of document that I believe anyone should watch to finally understand that deforestation concerns us all. Continue »
The year is beginning with many good news. After the huge wind energy plan in the UK, another good sign that climate change mitigation slowly but surely surfaces as a key preoccupation at a global scale.
Indeed the Brazilian goverment signed a National Policy on Climate Change bill which is due to help the country cut its emissions by 39 percent by 2020 from a business as usual scenario. (cf. my previous post on that topic)
On the other side of the Planet, Indonesia is also willing to act on deforestation and start reforesting. Both countries need the help of developed nations to reach their ambitious objectives. Continue »
While in the train going to Paris to attend the Green Job forum I read an interesting article on how banking on trees could enable us to fight off climate change and give money to enable developing nations to protect their forests.
The United Nations REDD program – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries – may enable us to do just that by financing the protection of existing rainforests.
Time Magazine investigated in Indonesia’s Aceh province as the country is the third greenhouse gases emitter behind China and the United States because of its massive deforestation. Continue »
To the pictures taken by satellites the annual rate of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest have dropped by no less than 46 percent this year. If these figures were confirmed by ground data this would prove significant.
These figures are the lowest since record keeping begun 21 years ago and can be explained by the increased police patrols as the Brazilian government is willing to cut the deforestation rate by 70 percent by 2018.
Less than three months before the Copenhagen meeting these news are sure to help in reaching in agreement among the world’s leaders. Continue »
Science Magazine published an interesting article on how deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest provides only a temporary increase of living conditions to local populations. To the article:
(…) on the basis of an assessment of 286 municipalities in different stages of deforestation, we found a boom-and-bust pattern in levels of human development across the deforestation frontier.
This is to meditate when one knows that people could take financial advantage of taking care of their neighboring forests as we have seen in a previous post.
Images are worth thousands of words. So when I found on VeoVerde a series of photographs from the NASA depicting the deforestation of the Amazonian rain forest I thought I should share them with you.
The picture on the left (0.4 Mo ; 465*3000 px) is a collage of nine photographs and shows the horrifying process at work between 2000 and 2008 in the western State of Rondonia, Brazil.
It’s high time we find an alternative economic model that would allow the preservation of the rainforest and the subsistence of the populations. Continue »
Japan is lending $120 million (88 million euros) to Peru to enable the country to protect 55 million hectares of forests (nearly the equivalent area of France). This is done to stop the deforestation in the country by the next ten years.
To Ecoworldy, this initiative will store 20 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. I wonder if such an idea could be implemented on a larger scale. As an example, would the US pay for the protection of the Brazilian rainforest ?
I have been writing a lot lately on forests and ways to protect them. I hope they will be protected as they are an important issue of climate change mitigation.
The Amazon rain forest may lose 40 percent of its area even with the two degrees, lowest estimates of rising temperatures. These are the dramatic conclusions of a recent study carried out by UK Met Office.
Three degrees Celsius would destroy up to 75 percent. This is a huge problem as the Amazon rain forest, sometimes referred to the lung of the planet, are already threatened by deforestation.
These findings were presented in margin of the United Nations which are preparing the Copenhagen climate change conference which will occur this December. Continue »
