Brazil is delaying a bid to build a multi-billion dollar hydroelectric dam in the Amazon until 2010, an official said on Wednesday, amid criticism of the project's environmental impact.
The 11 gigawatt Belo Monte project, with an estimated cost of at least 16 billion reais ($9.4 billion), is to be developed with state-run generator Eletrobras (ELET5.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
"We can say that the auction for Belo Monte is viable for January," Marcio Zimmermann, executive secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told reporters.
The delays have come largely from trouble in acquiring an environmental license for the project. Brazil seeks to have licenses in place before starting the bid to reduce investors' perception of political risk.
Private industry leaders say the cost will be considerably greater than the official estimates.
Government leaders say the project is necessary to ensure that Brazil can meet growing demand for power, but activists say it would displace indigenous people living in the area and flood large parts of the sensitive Amazon rainforest.
Brazil suffered a major blackout last week that left nearly half of the nation without power, but that incident was attributed to transmissions problems rather than lack of generation capacity.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1850756020091118
rainforestpower Headline Animator
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Brazilian President Calls for Commitment to Reduction of Carbon Emissions
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Monday that he expects the leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to commit to a reduction of the greenhouse gases.
In his weekly radio show, the president expressed his worry on the matter of climate change and said that he expects the APEC leaders to advance on the discussions, in order to reach a proposal to be presented to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-15), which will take place in December in Copenhagen.
The APEC leaders met over the weekend in Singapore, but failed to reach an agreement on the carbon emission reduction.
President Lula also noted Brazil's commitment on the matter last week. The country announced its intention to commit to a reduction of 36.1 to 38.9 percent in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
"Brazil made a decision which I consider extremely important," he said.
According to the government plan, about 20 percent of the reduction will originate from the reduction in the deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest region, while the other 20 percent will result from actions to protect the Brazilian savannah, to promote the use of green steel and biofuels and to increase energy efficiency.
President Lula said that Brazil's commitment indicates that things are going well in the country, and stressed that the government will keep on working hard so that things will improve even more.
http://english.cri.cn/6966/2009/11/17/2021s529808.htm
In his weekly radio show, the president expressed his worry on the matter of climate change and said that he expects the APEC leaders to advance on the discussions, in order to reach a proposal to be presented to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-15), which will take place in December in Copenhagen.
The APEC leaders met over the weekend in Singapore, but failed to reach an agreement on the carbon emission reduction.
President Lula also noted Brazil's commitment on the matter last week. The country announced its intention to commit to a reduction of 36.1 to 38.9 percent in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
"Brazil made a decision which I consider extremely important," he said.
According to the government plan, about 20 percent of the reduction will originate from the reduction in the deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest region, while the other 20 percent will result from actions to protect the Brazilian savannah, to promote the use of green steel and biofuels and to increase energy efficiency.
President Lula said that Brazil's commitment indicates that things are going well in the country, and stressed that the government will keep on working hard so that things will improve even more.
http://english.cri.cn/6966/2009/11/17/2021s529808.htm
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wal-Mart is betting on acai
Acai berries, found in the Amazon, are believed to have healthy qualities and may also help the big box retailer in a down economy. Acai Berry Juice sold some $40 million within its first 90 days on the market and is expected to hit roughly $110 million in sales next year, Lindsay Duncan, Genesis Today founder, president & CEO, told CNBC.
The Brazilian berry juice, developed by Wal-Mart and Genesis Today, contains the protein content of an egg, the fat content of olive oil and the highest level of antioxidants known to any food, claimed Duncan.
“It’s very clear to me and it’s very clear to Wal-Mart that America is very vertically ill,” he said. “And we’re interested in doing something about that with products that do no harm.”
Studies at the University of Florida also indicate that acai killed 86 percent of Leukemia cells in a laboratory, Duncan said.
Wal-Mart reached out to Duncan to develop a healthy food product, he said.
“They [Wal-Mart] just wanted to learn about my 27 years of helping people heal their body with nutrition,” he said. “It’s kind of what like Whole Foods has done. They believe that food’s your medicine. And that’s what we do, and they wanted to pick my brain and find out what foods do I believe are the most healthy foods in the world.”
Genesis Today is not considering going public, said Duncan: “There's no reason to go public.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33910374
The Brazilian berry juice, developed by Wal-Mart and Genesis Today, contains the protein content of an egg, the fat content of olive oil and the highest level of antioxidants known to any food, claimed Duncan.
“It’s very clear to me and it’s very clear to Wal-Mart that America is very vertically ill,” he said. “And we’re interested in doing something about that with products that do no harm.”
Studies at the University of Florida also indicate that acai killed 86 percent of Leukemia cells in a laboratory, Duncan said.
Wal-Mart reached out to Duncan to develop a healthy food product, he said.
“They [Wal-Mart] just wanted to learn about my 27 years of helping people heal their body with nutrition,” he said. “It’s kind of what like Whole Foods has done. They believe that food’s your medicine. And that’s what we do, and they wanted to pick my brain and find out what foods do I believe are the most healthy foods in the world.”
Genesis Today is not considering going public, said Duncan: “There's no reason to go public.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33910374
Rainforest money doesn't grow on trees
The fall in deforestation in Brazil is welcome, but our leaders must make a financial commitment to replicating this success
My colleagues in the Amazon office of Greenpeace like to characterise deforestation as a lion, oscillating between periods of slumber and bouts of frenetic and violent activity. New figures released by Brazil's government yesterday suggest that over the past year the lion has slept a little more soundly than usual. This is very good news, but we must not take our eyes off him.
The reported fall in the rate of Amazon deforestation should be kept in perspective. Over the past year "just" 7,000 square kilometres of rainforest was destroyed – which means that an area just a little smaller than Puerto Rico was razed to the ground. Of course the Amazon is also only one of the world's ancient rainforests. The lions of deforestation are on the prowl in the paradise forests of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. In the Congo basin, they are stretching their limbs for the very first time, eyeing up a tasty meal in the world's second largest rainforest.
The key questions we must answer are these: how do we maintain this progress in Brazil, and how can we replicate this success elsewhere in the world?
The fall in deforestation in Brazil can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the global economic recession. Civil society has played its part, by voicing public opposition to changes to the Brazilian forest code, which could have become a charter for industrial logging interests. A pioneering agreement banning deforestation for the production of soya beans also helped remove one of the key drivers of deforestation in the region.
Then, earlier this year, a Greenpeace campaign exposed the cattle industry as the biggest single cause of deforestation in the Amazon. Under pressure from high street brands like Nike, Adidas and Clarks, which were using Brazilian leather, as well as makers of tinned beef products like Princes, the four largest players in the global cattle sector have now committed to "zero deforestation in their supply chains".
These steps, although hugely significant, will not stand the test of time without an international agreement to remove the drivers of deforestation. The situation is urgent, and with a long-term deal on forests at Copenhagen hanging in the balance, a short-term fix must be found.
Earlier this year the Prince of Wales launched a project calling for an interim finance package to slow rates of deforestation in rainforest countries in the next few years. More than 40 countries signed on to the initiative, which has led to the establishment of an international working group which recently suggested that €15-25bn would be needed between 2010 and 2015 to fight deforestation. The UK's share of this would be a few hundred million pounds over a five-year timescale.
The proposals have received broad international support, but no official backing from the UK government in terms of money on the table to help stop deforestation. It's time for our leaders to commit a relatively small amount of financial support to protect an ecosystem that all of us rely on for our survival.
Amazon Deforestation
My colleagues in the Amazon office of Greenpeace like to characterise deforestation as a lion, oscillating between periods of slumber and bouts of frenetic and violent activity. New figures released by Brazil's government yesterday suggest that over the past year the lion has slept a little more soundly than usual. This is very good news, but we must not take our eyes off him.
The reported fall in the rate of Amazon deforestation should be kept in perspective. Over the past year "just" 7,000 square kilometres of rainforest was destroyed – which means that an area just a little smaller than Puerto Rico was razed to the ground. Of course the Amazon is also only one of the world's ancient rainforests. The lions of deforestation are on the prowl in the paradise forests of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. In the Congo basin, they are stretching their limbs for the very first time, eyeing up a tasty meal in the world's second largest rainforest.
The key questions we must answer are these: how do we maintain this progress in Brazil, and how can we replicate this success elsewhere in the world?
The fall in deforestation in Brazil can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the global economic recession. Civil society has played its part, by voicing public opposition to changes to the Brazilian forest code, which could have become a charter for industrial logging interests. A pioneering agreement banning deforestation for the production of soya beans also helped remove one of the key drivers of deforestation in the region.
Then, earlier this year, a Greenpeace campaign exposed the cattle industry as the biggest single cause of deforestation in the Amazon. Under pressure from high street brands like Nike, Adidas and Clarks, which were using Brazilian leather, as well as makers of tinned beef products like Princes, the four largest players in the global cattle sector have now committed to "zero deforestation in their supply chains".
These steps, although hugely significant, will not stand the test of time without an international agreement to remove the drivers of deforestation. The situation is urgent, and with a long-term deal on forests at Copenhagen hanging in the balance, a short-term fix must be found.
Earlier this year the Prince of Wales launched a project calling for an interim finance package to slow rates of deforestation in rainforest countries in the next few years. More than 40 countries signed on to the initiative, which has led to the establishment of an international working group which recently suggested that €15-25bn would be needed between 2010 and 2015 to fight deforestation. The UK's share of this would be a few hundred million pounds over a five-year timescale.
The proposals have received broad international support, but no official backing from the UK government in terms of money on the table to help stop deforestation. It's time for our leaders to commit a relatively small amount of financial support to protect an ecosystem that all of us rely on for our survival.
Amazon Deforestation
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Trucks, Trains and Trees
No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over. The one that always stuns me is this: Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year. The amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, all those cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo. We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year, and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change.
It is going to be a long time before we transform the world’s transportation fleet so it is emission-free. But right now — like tomorrow — we could eliminate 17 percent of all global emissions if we could halt the cutting and burning of tropical forests. But to do that requires putting in place a whole new system of economic development — one that makes it more profitable for the poorer, forest-rich nations to preserve and manage their trees rather than to chop them down to make furniture or plant soybeans.
Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, you can kiss the rainforests goodbye. The old model of economic growth will devour them. The only Amazon your grandchildren will ever relate to is the one that ends in dot-com and sells books.
To better understand this issue, I’m visiting the Tapajós National Forest in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon on a trip organized by Conservation International and the Brazilian government. Flying in here by prop plane from Manaus, you can understand why the Amazon rainforest is considered one of the lungs of the world. Even from 20,000 feet, all you see in every direction is an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops that, from the air, looks like a vast and endless carpet of broccoli.
Once on the ground, we drove from Santarém into Tapajós, where we met with the community cooperative that manages the eco-friendly businesses here that support the 8,000 local people living in this protected forest. What you learn when you visit with a tiny Brazilian community that actually lives in, and off, the forest is a simple but crucial truth: To save an ecosystem of nature, you need an ecosystem of markets and governance.
“You need a new model of economic development — one that is based on raising people’s standards of living by maintaining their natural capital, not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging,” said José María Silva, vice president for South America of Conservation International.
Right now people protecting the rainforest are paid a pittance — compared with those who strip it — even though we now know that the rainforest provides everything from keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere to maintaining the flow of freshwater into rivers.
The good news is that Brazil has put in place all the elements of a system to compensate its forest-dwellers for maintaining the forests. Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples. Another 19 percent of the Amazon, though, has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers.
So the big question is what will happen to the other 38 percent. The more we get the Brazilian system to work, the more of that 38 percent will be preserved and the less carbon reductions the whole world would have to make. But it takes money.
The residents of the Tapajós reserve are already organized into cooperatives that sell eco-tourism on rainforest trails, furniture and other wood products made from sustainable selective logging and a very attractive line of purses made from “ecological leather,” a k a, rainforest rubber. They also get government subsidies.
Sergio Pimentel, 48, explained to me that he used to farm about five acres of land for subsistence, but now is using only about one acre to support his family of six. The rest of the income comes through the co-op’s forest businesses. “We were born inside the forest,” he added. “So we know the importance of it being preserved, but we need better access to global markets for the products we make here. Can you help us with that?”
There are community co-ops like this all over the protected areas of the Amazon rainforest. But this system needs money — money to expand into more markets, money to maintain police monitoring and enforcement and money to improve the productivity of farming on already degraded lands so people won’t eat up more rainforest. That is why we need to make sure that whatever energy-climate bill comes out of the U.S. Congress, and whatever framework comes out of the Copenhagen conference next month, they include provisions for financing rainforest conservation systems like those in Brazil. The last 38 percent of the Amazon is still up for grabs. It is there for us to save. Your grandchildren will thank you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11friedman.html?ref=opinion
It is going to be a long time before we transform the world’s transportation fleet so it is emission-free. But right now — like tomorrow — we could eliminate 17 percent of all global emissions if we could halt the cutting and burning of tropical forests. But to do that requires putting in place a whole new system of economic development — one that makes it more profitable for the poorer, forest-rich nations to preserve and manage their trees rather than to chop them down to make furniture or plant soybeans.
Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, you can kiss the rainforests goodbye. The old model of economic growth will devour them. The only Amazon your grandchildren will ever relate to is the one that ends in dot-com and sells books.
To better understand this issue, I’m visiting the Tapajós National Forest in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon on a trip organized by Conservation International and the Brazilian government. Flying in here by prop plane from Manaus, you can understand why the Amazon rainforest is considered one of the lungs of the world. Even from 20,000 feet, all you see in every direction is an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops that, from the air, looks like a vast and endless carpet of broccoli.
Once on the ground, we drove from Santarém into Tapajós, where we met with the community cooperative that manages the eco-friendly businesses here that support the 8,000 local people living in this protected forest. What you learn when you visit with a tiny Brazilian community that actually lives in, and off, the forest is a simple but crucial truth: To save an ecosystem of nature, you need an ecosystem of markets and governance.
“You need a new model of economic development — one that is based on raising people’s standards of living by maintaining their natural capital, not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging,” said José María Silva, vice president for South America of Conservation International.
Right now people protecting the rainforest are paid a pittance — compared with those who strip it — even though we now know that the rainforest provides everything from keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere to maintaining the flow of freshwater into rivers.
The good news is that Brazil has put in place all the elements of a system to compensate its forest-dwellers for maintaining the forests. Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples. Another 19 percent of the Amazon, though, has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers.
So the big question is what will happen to the other 38 percent. The more we get the Brazilian system to work, the more of that 38 percent will be preserved and the less carbon reductions the whole world would have to make. But it takes money.
The residents of the Tapajós reserve are already organized into cooperatives that sell eco-tourism on rainforest trails, furniture and other wood products made from sustainable selective logging and a very attractive line of purses made from “ecological leather,” a k a, rainforest rubber. They also get government subsidies.
Sergio Pimentel, 48, explained to me that he used to farm about five acres of land for subsistence, but now is using only about one acre to support his family of six. The rest of the income comes through the co-op’s forest businesses. “We were born inside the forest,” he added. “So we know the importance of it being preserved, but we need better access to global markets for the products we make here. Can you help us with that?”
There are community co-ops like this all over the protected areas of the Amazon rainforest. But this system needs money — money to expand into more markets, money to maintain police monitoring and enforcement and money to improve the productivity of farming on already degraded lands so people won’t eat up more rainforest. That is why we need to make sure that whatever energy-climate bill comes out of the U.S. Congress, and whatever framework comes out of the Copenhagen conference next month, they include provisions for financing rainforest conservation systems like those in Brazil. The last 38 percent of the Amazon is still up for grabs. It is there for us to save. Your grandchildren will thank you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11friedman.html?ref=opinion
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sambazon PowerCaps
Packed with wholefood nutrition, Sambazon’s Açaí PowerCaps offer a powerful boost of antioxidants in your daily diet. And what’s more important than staying healthy as we head into the festive holiday season?
Made with 100% pure organic and freeze dried açaí, Sambazon’s supplements are the most nutritious you’ll find on the market.
So don’t be confused with any açaí supplement blends, products that look pink instead of dark purple, or conventionally grown açaí.
Stick with the original Sambazon Brand from the Rainforest of Brazil, for the freshest, most nutritious, organic açaí on the market.
Made with 100% pure organic and freeze dried açaí, Sambazon’s supplements are the most nutritious you’ll find on the market.
So don’t be confused with any açaí supplement blends, products that look pink instead of dark purple, or conventionally grown açaí.
Stick with the original Sambazon Brand from the Rainforest of Brazil, for the freshest, most nutritious, organic açaí on the market.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sambazon Becomes First to Achieve Fair-Trade Crop Certification for Acai
Sambazon, the leading global supplier of acai, announces the certification of its acai crop as Fair Trade in Brazil. The certification by Ecocert, a global control and certification organization, guarantees that Sambazon ensures fair labor conditions and wages for workers, promotes environmentally sustainable farming methods and reinvests money into the community.
Sambazon's certification occurs in conjunction with Fair Trade Month, which promotes and celebrates the socially responsible system of trade that prioritizes the needs of human beings and the environment over the drive for profits. The certification supports all three pillars of Sambazon's triple bottom line business model (people-planet-profits) by guaranteeing that the agro-forestry farms and the families who supply Sambazon with acai fruit receive a fair market price.
The company commitment to this mission is evidenced in its Sustainable Amazon Partnership (SAP), which Sambazon founded with the Brazil Foundation and the Peabiru Institute to ensure the lasting sustainable management of the acai regions and communities. In addition to acai training programs, the partnership also offers alternative income-generating activities for thousands of woman, youth and small family farmers.
"By promoting triple bottom line success, these families are proving the case for sustainable development in the Amazon," said Ryan Black, Sambazon co-founder and CEO. "Through Sambazon Acai, we're bringing long-term development and improved quality of life to an impoverished region."
In 2003, Sambazon was the first company in its category to certify its acai crop as organic, and many other companies have since followed suit. A similar trend with Fair Trade would represent a win for all the stakeholders in the acai supply chain -- from the farmers to the consumers.
About Sambazon
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver high quality, organic acai products to the planet. Sambazon's product line of Organic Acai Juice and Smoothies, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbets, Acai Supplements are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Super Target, Safeway, HEB, Albertsons, Vitamin Shoppe, Jamba Juice and Juice It Up! Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste. To learn more about Sambazon Acai and creating positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit
Sambazon's certification occurs in conjunction with Fair Trade Month, which promotes and celebrates the socially responsible system of trade that prioritizes the needs of human beings and the environment over the drive for profits. The certification supports all three pillars of Sambazon's triple bottom line business model (people-planet-profits) by guaranteeing that the agro-forestry farms and the families who supply Sambazon with acai fruit receive a fair market price.
The company commitment to this mission is evidenced in its Sustainable Amazon Partnership (SAP), which Sambazon founded with the Brazil Foundation and the Peabiru Institute to ensure the lasting sustainable management of the acai regions and communities. In addition to acai training programs, the partnership also offers alternative income-generating activities for thousands of woman, youth and small family farmers.
"By promoting triple bottom line success, these families are proving the case for sustainable development in the Amazon," said Ryan Black, Sambazon co-founder and CEO. "Through Sambazon Acai, we're bringing long-term development and improved quality of life to an impoverished region."
In 2003, Sambazon was the first company in its category to certify its acai crop as organic, and many other companies have since followed suit. A similar trend with Fair Trade would represent a win for all the stakeholders in the acai supply chain -- from the farmers to the consumers.
About Sambazon
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver high quality, organic acai products to the planet. Sambazon's product line of Organic Acai Juice and Smoothies, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbets, Acai Supplements are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Super Target, Safeway, HEB, Albertsons, Vitamin Shoppe, Jamba Juice and Juice It Up! Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste. To learn more about Sambazon Acai and creating positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Independent Review Highlights the True Costs of Belo Monte Dam
What would be the true environmental, social, and economic costs of Belo Monte Dam? New studies by a group of independent experts have highlighted the serious consequences the dam would have for the region, its inhabitants, and ecosystems of the Amazon rainforest.
Belo Monte, which with an installed generating capacity of 11,231 MW would be the world's third largest dam, and its complex array of two powerhouses, artificial canals, huge dykes, two reservoirs, spillways, ports, roads, and work camps would devastate more than 1,500 sq km of the Xingu River region of the central Brazilian Amazon.
The vast mosaic of indigenous reserves and protected areas of the Xingu would be in harm's way, and according to the experts, more than double the official figure of 19,000 people would likely have to moved to make way for the dam. A 100 km stretch of what is known as the "Big Bend" of the Xingu (number one on the map) would dry up when most of the Xingu's flow is diverted to the power house (casa de força).
Opposition has been growing since the first Xingu indigenous gathering in Altamira in 1989 and the second protest in 2008, and recently activists and community leaders met with President Lula to voice their concerns. Lula promised to review the project.
But, a strong police presence at recent public hearings on Belo Monte, and the government's insistence on offering the concession for Belo Monte by year's end have made it clear that Brazil is determined to push forward with the dam no matter what the cost.
The Belo Monte experts panel was convened to respond to the uncertainties facing local communities in the Xingu region. 40 specialists in diverse fields analyzed the project feasibility and environmental impact studies. Their conclusions were delivered to licensing authorities and public attorneys, and will be made accessible to the people of the Xingu in a simplified text.
http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/4729
Belo Monte, which with an installed generating capacity of 11,231 MW would be the world's third largest dam, and its complex array of two powerhouses, artificial canals, huge dykes, two reservoirs, spillways, ports, roads, and work camps would devastate more than 1,500 sq km of the Xingu River region of the central Brazilian Amazon.
The vast mosaic of indigenous reserves and protected areas of the Xingu would be in harm's way, and according to the experts, more than double the official figure of 19,000 people would likely have to moved to make way for the dam. A 100 km stretch of what is known as the "Big Bend" of the Xingu (number one on the map) would dry up when most of the Xingu's flow is diverted to the power house (casa de força).
Opposition has been growing since the first Xingu indigenous gathering in Altamira in 1989 and the second protest in 2008, and recently activists and community leaders met with President Lula to voice their concerns. Lula promised to review the project.
But, a strong police presence at recent public hearings on Belo Monte, and the government's insistence on offering the concession for Belo Monte by year's end have made it clear that Brazil is determined to push forward with the dam no matter what the cost.
The Belo Monte experts panel was convened to respond to the uncertainties facing local communities in the Xingu region. 40 specialists in diverse fields analyzed the project feasibility and environmental impact studies. Their conclusions were delivered to licensing authorities and public attorneys, and will be made accessible to the people of the Xingu in a simplified text.
http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/4729
Friday, October 16, 2009
Brazilian president to cut deforestation
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, will offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 80% at this year's climate talks in Copenhagen.
Mr Lula said he would make the pledge at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is due to take place this December in the Danish capital.
He told listeners of his Coffee with the President weekly radio programme that he foresees making this reduction by 2020 amounting to 4.8 billion fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
However, Mr Lula added that with respect to global warming, the responsibility of rich countries is much greater than that of emerging ones.
"We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop," he said.
The Amazon rainforest is the largest in the world and is the source of one-fifth of all free-flowing fresh water on earth.
According to the WWF, if deforestation continues at its present rate 55 per cent of the Amazon will have disappeared by 2030.
http://www.sidewaysnews.com/environment-nature/brazilian-president-cut-deforestation
Mr Lula said he would make the pledge at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is due to take place this December in the Danish capital.
He told listeners of his Coffee with the President weekly radio programme that he foresees making this reduction by 2020 amounting to 4.8 billion fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
However, Mr Lula added that with respect to global warming, the responsibility of rich countries is much greater than that of emerging ones.
"We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop," he said.
The Amazon rainforest is the largest in the world and is the source of one-fifth of all free-flowing fresh water on earth.
According to the WWF, if deforestation continues at its present rate 55 per cent of the Amazon will have disappeared by 2030.
http://www.sidewaysnews.com/environment-nature/brazilian-president-cut-deforestation
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Brazil vows to slow deforestation
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he will offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest by 80 per cent by 2020 when he attends December's global climate talks in Copenhagen.
Lula said his pledge will come during high-stakes talks in the Danish capital that aim to push 192 nations towards a climate deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
"We're in the process of preparing our proposal for Copenhagen," he said on his weekly radio program overnight.
"I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 per cent, in other words we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide gas," Lula said during his Coffee with the President program.
Brazil's rainforest, the largest on Earth, is shrinking at the rate of some 12,000 square kilometres per year because of deforestation.
Lula said he will also demand in Copenhagen that industrialised countries pay their fair share of the costs of reducing greenhouse gases.
Proposals offered by developed countries should not only cover "initiatives to reduce their emissions, but all the other harm they already have inflicted on the planet", the Brazilian leader said.
"We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop," he said.
"With respect to global warming, the responsibility of the rich countries is much greater than that of emerging countries," said Lula.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26207950-23109,00.html
Lula said his pledge will come during high-stakes talks in the Danish capital that aim to push 192 nations towards a climate deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
"We're in the process of preparing our proposal for Copenhagen," he said on his weekly radio program overnight.
"I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 per cent, in other words we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide gas," Lula said during his Coffee with the President program.
Brazil's rainforest, the largest on Earth, is shrinking at the rate of some 12,000 square kilometres per year because of deforestation.
Lula said he will also demand in Copenhagen that industrialised countries pay their fair share of the costs of reducing greenhouse gases.
Proposals offered by developed countries should not only cover "initiatives to reduce their emissions, but all the other harm they already have inflicted on the planet", the Brazilian leader said.
"We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop," he said.
"With respect to global warming, the responsibility of the rich countries is much greater than that of emerging countries," said Lula.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26207950-23109,00.html
Sunday, October 11, 2009
British delegate's pro-logging stance prompts EU apology
Embarassed official apologises after a British negotiator at the Bangkok climate talks rewrites the EU's climate change policy to sanction the felling of rainforests
The EU called the removal of forest protection wording a 'mishap' ... an aerial view of cleared rainforest in the Amazon basin. Photograph: Bruno Domingos/Reuters
The EU had to apologise last night after a British official at the Bangkok climate negotiations single-handedly rewrote its position to effectively sanction the felling of the world's rainforests in order to grow plantations of palm oil.
Wording that would have protected natural forests was in the draft UN text at the start of the week's negotiations, but had mysteriously disappeared by Wednesday – to the delight of loggers and some African countries.
On Friday, more than 20 countries led by Brazil, Mexico, India and Norway protested vigorously and pleaded for the safeguard to be put back in. But the EU, supported by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and other countries not known for their forestry protection policies, declined to reinstate it.
This prompted environmentalists and others to accuse the EU of being in the pocket of the global logging industry – some of whose members were at the negotiations lobbying delegates in the Bangkok conference halls.
But at a press conference this afternoon, the EU gave way. A clearly embarrassed Swedish spokesman was forced to say the negotiator had blundered. "It was an unfortunate mishap," he said. "Sometimes negotiators think of tactical moves. In this case, he wanted to wait until the Barcelona talks next month (to reinstate it). The EU has not changed its position. It is unfortunate. The poor negotiator has been slapped in his face."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/british-logging-eu-apology
The EU called the removal of forest protection wording a 'mishap' ... an aerial view of cleared rainforest in the Amazon basin. Photograph: Bruno Domingos/Reuters
The EU had to apologise last night after a British official at the Bangkok climate negotiations single-handedly rewrote its position to effectively sanction the felling of the world's rainforests in order to grow plantations of palm oil.
Wording that would have protected natural forests was in the draft UN text at the start of the week's negotiations, but had mysteriously disappeared by Wednesday – to the delight of loggers and some African countries.
On Friday, more than 20 countries led by Brazil, Mexico, India and Norway protested vigorously and pleaded for the safeguard to be put back in. But the EU, supported by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and other countries not known for their forestry protection policies, declined to reinstate it.
This prompted environmentalists and others to accuse the EU of being in the pocket of the global logging industry – some of whose members were at the negotiations lobbying delegates in the Bangkok conference halls.
But at a press conference this afternoon, the EU gave way. A clearly embarrassed Swedish spokesman was forced to say the negotiator had blundered. "It was an unfortunate mishap," he said. "Sometimes negotiators think of tactical moves. In this case, he wanted to wait until the Barcelona talks next month (to reinstate it). The EU has not changed its position. It is unfortunate. The poor negotiator has been slapped in his face."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/british-logging-eu-apology
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Sambazon Introduces New Antioxidant Elixir
Sambazon, the global leader in Acai, announces the launch of a powerfully nutritious premium juice line. Antioxidant Elixir(TM) is a organic revitalizing beverage that provides powerful antioxidants and 600% DV Vitamin C, yet remains refreshingly light on calories, sugar, and contains no fat. Sweetened naturally with agave and infused with a blend of acai, acerola, and the finest organic botanical extracts, this is truly a powerful concoction of ingredients. Ideal for health-conscious consumers on the go, Sambazon Antioxidant Elixirs are the first products in Sambazon's line of organic juices containing a mere 70 calories per serving.
"We are launching Elixirs with the blessing of our female consumers," said Jeremy Black, vice president of marketing. "This is a low-sugar, all-natural acai beverage that is light enough to drink between or with meals. And the complex flavor of the Elixirs comes through in each pure and unique blend."
Sambazon Antioxidant Elixir will be offered in three exciting flavors, acai berry, acai passionfruit, and acai blackberry and will be available in 11oz bottles for $2.99 (MSRP) in grocery and natural food stores nationwide beginning mid-Oct. 2009.
About Sambazon:
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver high quality, organic Acai. Sambazon's product line of Premium Organic Acai, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbets, Acai Supplements and Amazon Energy are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, HEB, Albertsons, Safeway, and Vitamin Shoppe. Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the Acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste.
To learn more about Sambazon and how they create positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit www.sambazon.com.
"We are launching Elixirs with the blessing of our female consumers," said Jeremy Black, vice president of marketing. "This is a low-sugar, all-natural acai beverage that is light enough to drink between or with meals. And the complex flavor of the Elixirs comes through in each pure and unique blend."
Sambazon Antioxidant Elixir will be offered in three exciting flavors, acai berry, acai passionfruit, and acai blackberry and will be available in 11oz bottles for $2.99 (MSRP) in grocery and natural food stores nationwide beginning mid-Oct. 2009.
About Sambazon:
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver high quality, organic Acai. Sambazon's product line of Premium Organic Acai, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbets, Acai Supplements and Amazon Energy are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, HEB, Albertsons, Safeway, and Vitamin Shoppe. Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the Acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste.
To learn more about Sambazon and how they create positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit www.sambazon.com.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sambazon Announces Scientific Advisory Board
Sambazon, the global leader in acai, announces the creation of a Scientific Advisory Board. The Board of established and respected individuals in the health and wellness community will assist in communicating the accuracy of existing data stating the nutritional benefits of Sambazon organic acai. They will also develop and execute human studies examining the health impact of Sambazon acai consumption in the diet.
To further educate their loyal consumers and advance their expertise in acai, Sambazon has assembled a team of professionals with extensive knowledge in organic foods and nutrition to provide insights and conduct additional research on the benefits of Sambazon acai. "This is not only an investment in Sambazon, it is an investment in our consumers," explains Ryan Black, CEO. "We are excited to be working with the preeminent scientific authorities in our industry and to continue to uphold superior nutritional integrity through all of our current and future product lines."
The Sambazon Scientific Advisory Board includes the following experts:
Jack Bukowski M.D., Ph.D. - As Chief Scientific Officer for the Nutritional Science Research Institute and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Bukowski's focus has been on immununutrition, the study of how nutrients in certain foods & beverages can induce our innate immune systems to fight off disease. In 2003, his study was published, proving that drinking five to six cups per day of tea boosts, by 500 to 1500%, the ability of an innate immune system component to make interferon gamma.
Jonathan Gordon, Ph.D. - With undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Food Science and a Doctorate in Chemical and Process Engineering for research in Soy Protein Chemistry and Microbiology, Dr. Gordon has been an integral player in the continued development, commercial production and determination of health impact of soy products. Over the years, Dr. Gordon has worked in and managed a multitude of food and beverage product development areas such as aseptic beverages, juices, emulsions, fat-replacers, nutraceuticals, diet and wellness products, center-plate items, meats and meat analogs, flavors, and bars. He now runs Glasgow Consulting Group LLC., a full service product development consulting company.
Marie Spano, MS, RD/LD, FISSN, CSCS - Spano is one of the leading sports nutrition and nutrition communications experts in North America. Currently serving as Vice President of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, she has helped elite, professional and amateur athletes go beyond their personal best and achieve maximum performance in their respective sports. She has appeared on Fox, NBC and CBS affiliates in the greater metropolitan Washington, DC area, Georgia and Alabama and is a regular contributor to Muscle & Fitness Hers, FitnessRx for Women, Diabetes Self Management and Today's Dietitian.
About Sambazon:
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver the highest quality, organic Acai products. Sambazon's product line of Organic Acai Juice, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbet, Acai Supplements and Amazon Energy are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, HEB, Albertsons, Vitamin Shoppe, and Jamba Juice! Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the Acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste. To learn more about Sambazon and how they create positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit us at www.sambazon.com.
SOURCE Sambazon
To further educate their loyal consumers and advance their expertise in acai, Sambazon has assembled a team of professionals with extensive knowledge in organic foods and nutrition to provide insights and conduct additional research on the benefits of Sambazon acai. "This is not only an investment in Sambazon, it is an investment in our consumers," explains Ryan Black, CEO. "We are excited to be working with the preeminent scientific authorities in our industry and to continue to uphold superior nutritional integrity through all of our current and future product lines."
The Sambazon Scientific Advisory Board includes the following experts:
Jack Bukowski M.D., Ph.D. - As Chief Scientific Officer for the Nutritional Science Research Institute and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Bukowski's focus has been on immununutrition, the study of how nutrients in certain foods & beverages can induce our innate immune systems to fight off disease. In 2003, his study was published, proving that drinking five to six cups per day of tea boosts, by 500 to 1500%, the ability of an innate immune system component to make interferon gamma.
Jonathan Gordon, Ph.D. - With undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Food Science and a Doctorate in Chemical and Process Engineering for research in Soy Protein Chemistry and Microbiology, Dr. Gordon has been an integral player in the continued development, commercial production and determination of health impact of soy products. Over the years, Dr. Gordon has worked in and managed a multitude of food and beverage product development areas such as aseptic beverages, juices, emulsions, fat-replacers, nutraceuticals, diet and wellness products, center-plate items, meats and meat analogs, flavors, and bars. He now runs Glasgow Consulting Group LLC., a full service product development consulting company.
Marie Spano, MS, RD/LD, FISSN, CSCS - Spano is one of the leading sports nutrition and nutrition communications experts in North America. Currently serving as Vice President of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, she has helped elite, professional and amateur athletes go beyond their personal best and achieve maximum performance in their respective sports. She has appeared on Fox, NBC and CBS affiliates in the greater metropolitan Washington, DC area, Georgia and Alabama and is a regular contributor to Muscle & Fitness Hers, FitnessRx for Women, Diabetes Self Management and Today's Dietitian.
About Sambazon:
Sambazon is the global leader in Acai. Founded in 2000 as the first company to bring the antioxidant-rich Acai berry from the Amazon to North America, Sambazon's mission is to deliver the highest quality, organic Acai products. Sambazon's product line of Organic Acai Juice, Frozen Acai Smoothie Packs and Sorbet, Acai Supplements and Amazon Energy are enjoyed by world-class athletes and health-conscious consumers everywhere. Products are available at major retail stores and juice bars across North America including Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, HEB, Albertsons, Vitamin Shoppe, and Jamba Juice! Sambazon is also a leader among organic foods and sustainable agriculture. In November of 2006, Sambazon was named a winner of the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence for helping to create worldwide awareness and demand for the Acai fruit. Sambazon pioneered the first of its kind Fair Trade and Certified Organic supply chain of Acai which benefits thousands of local families and protects the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest through sustainable agriculture. Sambazon is the largest vertically integrated supplier and marketer of Acai products, controlling every step of the manufacturing process to ensure sustainable and organic origin of the fruit as well as the highest level quality, nutrition, taste. To learn more about Sambazon and how they create positive change in the Amazon and beyond please visit us at www.sambazon.com.
SOURCE Sambazon
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest up 157% in July
The deforestation rate in Brazil's Amazon rainforest region in July went up by 44 percent from June and 157 percent compared with June 2008, a Brazilian institute announced on Tuesday.
According to the National Institute of Space Research, the deforested area, which is 836.5 square km, equals half the size of Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America.
Para state in the north of the country registered the highest deforestation in July with 577 square km, almost 70 percent of the total deforested area.
During the January-July period of this year, the accumulated deforestation area reached 1,958 square km, down 60 percent from the same period in 2008.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/02/content_11983156.htm
According to the National Institute of Space Research, the deforested area, which is 836.5 square km, equals half the size of Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America.
Para state in the north of the country registered the highest deforestation in July with 577 square km, almost 70 percent of the total deforested area.
During the January-July period of this year, the accumulated deforestation area reached 1,958 square km, down 60 percent from the same period in 2008.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/02/content_11983156.htm
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Amazon Jungle Lodge Reveals Its Indigenous Spa
La Selva Jungle Lodge, located deep in primary rainforest in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador has taken the traditional spa idea to a new level. Using native Indian women, who live nearby the famed ecotourism resort,the one hour and twenty minute "Rainforest Treatment "is a combination of ancient techniques with jungle herbs and a touch of mysticism combined with modern spa practices given an Amazonian flair.
The world of the spa has just been given an Amazonian manipulation spa novices and sophisticates alike will not soon forget. La Selva Jungle Lodge, located in the heart of the pristine Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador has created what they call The Indigenous Spa. Two native Quichua Indian women who reside deep in the forest but near the remote lodge walk barefoot for an hour through the jungle from their huts to give their spiritual version- all one hour and 20 minutes of it- of the spa experience in the attractive spa rooms on the lodge grounds.
For $69 the participant is treated to a magical dusting away of evil spirits with special leaves brought fresh for each guest, next a footbath and foot massage with special scented plants also from the forest sets the transcendental mood, followed by the two women in harmony massaging the client's body. The women, who are immaculately clean and wear uniforms which do little to conceal their glowing aboriginal cheekbones and other attractive features, have very strong hands after toil since childhood in fields and in the home virtually without tools, but are surprisingly soft and tender when they massage just the right places. They add an organic milk-rice facial mask after they have worked the muscles of the backside and continue working the frontside as the mask dries.
La Selva Jungle Lodge began this project as yet another way to find sustainable work for its rainforest dwelling neighbors. Since women are in short supply for work outside the home the labor pool was small. Three groups of two have now been established and the women work in tandem for the $69 the lucky rainforest resort guests are clamoring to shell out. La Selva Jungle Lodge (http://www.laselvajunglelodge.com) hopes to develop more Spa options for their female neighbors to develop and are considering a line of rainforest products like those used in the spa. La Selva shares the wealth as broadly as it can with most profits from The Indigenous Spa returning to the community as donations through their foundation, Helping Hands In The Forest.
With the guest now like putty in their hands they escort the thoroughly relaxed participant to a large stone tub where he or she sits in the center on a stool and receives what the women call their "Rainforest Shower" a final organic dousing with a concoction of herbs that have been brewed and cooled to a luke warm temperature which is lovingly poured over the guest removing the facial, and supplying new organic rainforest nutrition for the skin.
A Final rubbing of oil, based on Amazon ingredients, and the supple guest is given over to some fluffy towels and a lounge chair. If they are not in jungle heaven- the lodge's surveys concur- they are certainly within whispering distance.
A tray of gorgeous tropical fruit arrives for the participant freshly prepared from the lodge kitchen and an energy drink, also fruit based which among other fresh juices, contains Noni and acai. With the guest now sated inside and out the spa women, (one of whom has no identity papers and has never been to a city) smile and relax for a moment with the client. An intimacy has been shared, for the women, who speak only a handful of words in English and speak Spanish as a second language to their native Indian dialect have communicated much to their guest. And their guest understands everything.
About La Selva Jungle Lodge:
Founded in 1986 by North Americans Eric and Maggie Schwartz, La Selva's (http://www.Laselvajunglelodge.com) longevity is a testament to the quality of their service and the preservation of the wildlife that guests come to view. Typically guests in groups of 8 or less go with an English-speaking Naturalist and native Tracker to learn and see the sights of the Rainforest in short hikes combined with canoe trips. The lodge sleeps 36-40 people in trips that usually run for 3nights /4 days or 4nights/5days. La Selva has accommodated more than Fifty thousand guests from almost 40 countries and was a pioneer in Ecotourism. The company has won many ecotourism awards and is always at the vanguard of the industry in jungle tourism.
The lodge also features a butterfly farm and is currently undergoing a 2 million dollar project to turn many of their standard bungalows into luxury suites so that those of our guests who put a premium on comfort when not in the forest will have everything luxury implies in the rainforest. That does not include television, internet, or recorded music. The balconies, however, will be so wide and so equipped that they can have the Indigenous Spa Treatment come to them. After which they can lounge in their living room or take a siesta.
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/9/prweb2807394.htm
The world of the spa has just been given an Amazonian manipulation spa novices and sophisticates alike will not soon forget. La Selva Jungle Lodge, located in the heart of the pristine Amazon Rainforest of Ecuador has created what they call The Indigenous Spa. Two native Quichua Indian women who reside deep in the forest but near the remote lodge walk barefoot for an hour through the jungle from their huts to give their spiritual version- all one hour and 20 minutes of it- of the spa experience in the attractive spa rooms on the lodge grounds.
For $69 the participant is treated to a magical dusting away of evil spirits with special leaves brought fresh for each guest, next a footbath and foot massage with special scented plants also from the forest sets the transcendental mood, followed by the two women in harmony massaging the client's body. The women, who are immaculately clean and wear uniforms which do little to conceal their glowing aboriginal cheekbones and other attractive features, have very strong hands after toil since childhood in fields and in the home virtually without tools, but are surprisingly soft and tender when they massage just the right places. They add an organic milk-rice facial mask after they have worked the muscles of the backside and continue working the frontside as the mask dries.
La Selva Jungle Lodge began this project as yet another way to find sustainable work for its rainforest dwelling neighbors. Since women are in short supply for work outside the home the labor pool was small. Three groups of two have now been established and the women work in tandem for the $69 the lucky rainforest resort guests are clamoring to shell out. La Selva Jungle Lodge (http://www.laselvajunglelodge.com) hopes to develop more Spa options for their female neighbors to develop and are considering a line of rainforest products like those used in the spa. La Selva shares the wealth as broadly as it can with most profits from The Indigenous Spa returning to the community as donations through their foundation, Helping Hands In The Forest.
With the guest now like putty in their hands they escort the thoroughly relaxed participant to a large stone tub where he or she sits in the center on a stool and receives what the women call their "Rainforest Shower" a final organic dousing with a concoction of herbs that have been brewed and cooled to a luke warm temperature which is lovingly poured over the guest removing the facial, and supplying new organic rainforest nutrition for the skin.
A Final rubbing of oil, based on Amazon ingredients, and the supple guest is given over to some fluffy towels and a lounge chair. If they are not in jungle heaven- the lodge's surveys concur- they are certainly within whispering distance.
A tray of gorgeous tropical fruit arrives for the participant freshly prepared from the lodge kitchen and an energy drink, also fruit based which among other fresh juices, contains Noni and acai. With the guest now sated inside and out the spa women, (one of whom has no identity papers and has never been to a city) smile and relax for a moment with the client. An intimacy has been shared, for the women, who speak only a handful of words in English and speak Spanish as a second language to their native Indian dialect have communicated much to their guest. And their guest understands everything.
About La Selva Jungle Lodge:
Founded in 1986 by North Americans Eric and Maggie Schwartz, La Selva's (http://www.Laselvajunglelodge.com) longevity is a testament to the quality of their service and the preservation of the wildlife that guests come to view. Typically guests in groups of 8 or less go with an English-speaking Naturalist and native Tracker to learn and see the sights of the Rainforest in short hikes combined with canoe trips. The lodge sleeps 36-40 people in trips that usually run for 3nights /4 days or 4nights/5days. La Selva has accommodated more than Fifty thousand guests from almost 40 countries and was a pioneer in Ecotourism. The company has won many ecotourism awards and is always at the vanguard of the industry in jungle tourism.
The lodge also features a butterfly farm and is currently undergoing a 2 million dollar project to turn many of their standard bungalows into luxury suites so that those of our guests who put a premium on comfort when not in the forest will have everything luxury implies in the rainforest. That does not include television, internet, or recorded music. The balconies, however, will be so wide and so equipped that they can have the Indigenous Spa Treatment come to them. After which they can lounge in their living room or take a siesta.
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/9/prweb2807394.htm
Friday, August 28, 2009
Alternative energy powerhouse Brazil finds big oil
Brazil, long proud of its push to develop renewable energy and wean itself off oil, has a bad case of fossil-fuel fever.
An enormous offshore field in territorial waters — the biggest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in 30 years — has Brazilians saying, "Drill, baby, drill," while environmentalists fear the nation will take a big leap backward in its hunt for crude.
There has been virtually no public debate on the potential environmental costs of retrieving the billions of barrels of oil, a project one expert said will be as difficult as landing a man on the moon.
"The government is whipping Brazil into a euphoria that this is going to be a solution for all our societal problems," said Sergio Leitao, director of public policies for Greenpeace Brasil. "Brazil is no longer seriously looking at alternatives."
Home to the bulk of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil for decades has developed alternative energy as an issue of national security following severe energy shortages in the 1970s. It uses hydroelectric power for more than 80 percent of its energy needs, is the world's largest exporter of ethanol, and nine out of every 10 cars sold in the nation can run on ethanol or a combination of ethanol and gasoline.
A U.N. study found that in 2008, Brazil accounted for almost all of Latin America's renewable energy investment, to the tune of $10.8 billion.
But since the national oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, discovered the massive Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro two years ago — estimated to hold 5 to 8 billion barrels — it is the development of oil fields that has gone into overdrive.
Thirty years ago, more than 85 percent of Brazil's oil came from foreign sources. Today, it is a net exporter.
There have been a series of other discoveries since Tupi — each lying at least 115 miles (185 kilometers) offshore, more than a mile below the ocean's surface and under another 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of earth and salt. Estimates of the entire area's recoverable oil range between 50 billion and 100 billion barrels.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hailed the finds as the nation's future, a second declaration of independence and an economic savior for 57 million Brazilians living in poverty — 30 percent of the population. The military wants new submarines and jets to protect the crude. Leftist groups want it all nationalized.
The enthusiasm is also fanned by Brazil's devotion to Petrobras, routinely listed as one of the most-admired companies in national polls.
Founded in 1953 to fend off an economic crisis and dependency on foreign oil, Petrobras has long embodied Brazilian nationalism and the notion of shielding domestic wealth from foreigners — particularly the United States and Europe.
In 2008, Brazil's total oil and natural gas production was nearly 2.3 million barrels per day. Petrobras was responsible for more than 96 percent of it.
"Most Brazilians think of Petrobras like they think of their soccer stars," said Eric Smith, an offshore oil expert at Tulane University in New Orleans who likened efforts to get at Brazil's oil to a trip to the moon. "Try to find Americans who support Exxon like that."
Petrobras fattens government coffers with more than $30 billion a year in taxes and royalties.
The company is led by Sergio Gabrielli, a bearded economics professor-on-leave, who was jailed under the nation's military regime for his political activities. He defends the company's environmental record emphatically.
"Our ethanol program, our biodiesel program is still there. Petrobras is allocating $2.8 billion dollars to develop our infrastructure and production capacity for producing ethanol and biodiesel," Gabrielli told The Associated Press at an economic forum in Rio this spring.
The company's record is not untarnished, however.
In January 2000, a pipeline spilled about 350,000 gallons of crude into Rio's Guanabara Bay. Six months later, there was a spill at a refinery near Curitiba in Brazil's south — 1 million gallons of oil flooded two rivers. In March 2001, explosions on what was then the company's biggest offshore platform killed 11 workers. The rig sank, releasing more than 300,000 gallons of oil.
Petrobras quickly initiated a $4 billion investment program to prevent future disasters and Gabrielli says Petrobras can safely develop the difficult offshore fields.
Judy Dugan, a founder of OilWatchdog.org, cautions Brazilians against embracing an oil company as a national benefactor.
She said the track record of global oil companies shows none "truly have the good of the citizenry first in mind. The oil business creates corruption in many governments and large sources of political influence for an oil company's benefit, not for the benefit of citizens."
Brazil's Senate recently opened an inquiry into corruption at Petrobras. Opposition lawmakers say the company failed to pay more than $2 billion in taxes and that it overpays firms with ties to the Silva administration.
Silva swears Brazil will not go the way of a Venezuela or Nigeria, where petro dollars routinely mix with politics.
Instead, he is pushing a version of the Norwegian model, working to set up a government-controlled oil fund for social projects that he argues would operate with transparency. The opposition, however, fears giving the central government control of such a fund would give it massive new political influence.
Leitao, of Greenpeace, wonders if the billions of dollars needed to develop the offshore finds will be worth it should the price of oil fall.
"At the beginning of the 20th century, we were the largest producers of rubber in the world. People were lighting cigars with money," he said. "But the hangover came quickly because the English started producing rubber in Asia. The prices fell and our fortunes ended.
"We're not looking at the lessons our own history has given us."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hxQdx6DomM1By5mqzTtFFibxZ2eAD9A8O5L02
An enormous offshore field in territorial waters — the biggest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in 30 years — has Brazilians saying, "Drill, baby, drill," while environmentalists fear the nation will take a big leap backward in its hunt for crude.
There has been virtually no public debate on the potential environmental costs of retrieving the billions of barrels of oil, a project one expert said will be as difficult as landing a man on the moon.
"The government is whipping Brazil into a euphoria that this is going to be a solution for all our societal problems," said Sergio Leitao, director of public policies for Greenpeace Brasil. "Brazil is no longer seriously looking at alternatives."
Home to the bulk of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil for decades has developed alternative energy as an issue of national security following severe energy shortages in the 1970s. It uses hydroelectric power for more than 80 percent of its energy needs, is the world's largest exporter of ethanol, and nine out of every 10 cars sold in the nation can run on ethanol or a combination of ethanol and gasoline.
A U.N. study found that in 2008, Brazil accounted for almost all of Latin America's renewable energy investment, to the tune of $10.8 billion.
But since the national oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, discovered the massive Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro two years ago — estimated to hold 5 to 8 billion barrels — it is the development of oil fields that has gone into overdrive.
Thirty years ago, more than 85 percent of Brazil's oil came from foreign sources. Today, it is a net exporter.
There have been a series of other discoveries since Tupi — each lying at least 115 miles (185 kilometers) offshore, more than a mile below the ocean's surface and under another 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of earth and salt. Estimates of the entire area's recoverable oil range between 50 billion and 100 billion barrels.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hailed the finds as the nation's future, a second declaration of independence and an economic savior for 57 million Brazilians living in poverty — 30 percent of the population. The military wants new submarines and jets to protect the crude. Leftist groups want it all nationalized.
The enthusiasm is also fanned by Brazil's devotion to Petrobras, routinely listed as one of the most-admired companies in national polls.
Founded in 1953 to fend off an economic crisis and dependency on foreign oil, Petrobras has long embodied Brazilian nationalism and the notion of shielding domestic wealth from foreigners — particularly the United States and Europe.
In 2008, Brazil's total oil and natural gas production was nearly 2.3 million barrels per day. Petrobras was responsible for more than 96 percent of it.
"Most Brazilians think of Petrobras like they think of their soccer stars," said Eric Smith, an offshore oil expert at Tulane University in New Orleans who likened efforts to get at Brazil's oil to a trip to the moon. "Try to find Americans who support Exxon like that."
Petrobras fattens government coffers with more than $30 billion a year in taxes and royalties.
The company is led by Sergio Gabrielli, a bearded economics professor-on-leave, who was jailed under the nation's military regime for his political activities. He defends the company's environmental record emphatically.
"Our ethanol program, our biodiesel program is still there. Petrobras is allocating $2.8 billion dollars to develop our infrastructure and production capacity for producing ethanol and biodiesel," Gabrielli told The Associated Press at an economic forum in Rio this spring.
The company's record is not untarnished, however.
In January 2000, a pipeline spilled about 350,000 gallons of crude into Rio's Guanabara Bay. Six months later, there was a spill at a refinery near Curitiba in Brazil's south — 1 million gallons of oil flooded two rivers. In March 2001, explosions on what was then the company's biggest offshore platform killed 11 workers. The rig sank, releasing more than 300,000 gallons of oil.
Petrobras quickly initiated a $4 billion investment program to prevent future disasters and Gabrielli says Petrobras can safely develop the difficult offshore fields.
Judy Dugan, a founder of OilWatchdog.org, cautions Brazilians against embracing an oil company as a national benefactor.
She said the track record of global oil companies shows none "truly have the good of the citizenry first in mind. The oil business creates corruption in many governments and large sources of political influence for an oil company's benefit, not for the benefit of citizens."
Brazil's Senate recently opened an inquiry into corruption at Petrobras. Opposition lawmakers say the company failed to pay more than $2 billion in taxes and that it overpays firms with ties to the Silva administration.
Silva swears Brazil will not go the way of a Venezuela or Nigeria, where petro dollars routinely mix with politics.
Instead, he is pushing a version of the Norwegian model, working to set up a government-controlled oil fund for social projects that he argues would operate with transparency. The opposition, however, fears giving the central government control of such a fund would give it massive new political influence.
Leitao, of Greenpeace, wonders if the billions of dollars needed to develop the offshore finds will be worth it should the price of oil fall.
"At the beginning of the 20th century, we were the largest producers of rubber in the world. People were lighting cigars with money," he said. "But the hangover came quickly because the English started producing rubber in Asia. The prices fell and our fortunes ended.
"We're not looking at the lessons our own history has given us."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hxQdx6DomM1By5mqzTtFFibxZ2eAD9A8O5L02
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Brazil's former environment minister leaves ruling party over 'destruction of natural resources'
Marina Silva is expected to make a 2010 presidential bid and put the environment back on the agenda
Brazil's former environment minister, the rainforest defender Marina Silva, has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, paving the way for a 2010 presidential bid, which supporters hope will put the environment back on the political agenda of South America's largest country.
For weeks speculation has been growing that Silva, who resigned from government last May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to dispute the presidential elections next October.
Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia earlier today, Silva, who has been a Workers' party member for over 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environmental cause.
In her resignation letter to the president of the Workers' party, Silva said her decision was an attempt to break with the idea of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority" including "the destruction of natural resources".
She added that "political conditions" had meant that "environmental concerns had not been able to take route at the heart of the government."
Silva, 51, stopped short of formally announcing a presidential bid but few doubt that she will now front the Green Party's 2010 election campaign.
The Brazilian media has been overtaken with Marina mania since earlier this month when rumours about a possible bid for the presidency began spreading. This week one major news magazine stamped Silva's photograph onto its front-page alongside the headline: "President Marina?"
Writing in the O Globo newspaper yesterday, the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura said Silva could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections.
"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama," he wrote.
Born in an impoverished community of rubber tappers in the remote Amazon state of Acre, Silva was orphaned at 16 and was illiterate until her early teens.
In 1994, aged 35, she was elected as Brazil's youngest ever female senator and subsequently became renowned for her staunch defence of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants, winning a succession of international awards for her work. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has not so far commented on her resignation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/19/marina-silva-resigns
Brazil's former environment minister, the rainforest defender Marina Silva, has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, paving the way for a 2010 presidential bid, which supporters hope will put the environment back on the political agenda of South America's largest country.
For weeks speculation has been growing that Silva, who resigned from government last May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to dispute the presidential elections next October.
Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia earlier today, Silva, who has been a Workers' party member for over 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environmental cause.
In her resignation letter to the president of the Workers' party, Silva said her decision was an attempt to break with the idea of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority" including "the destruction of natural resources".
She added that "political conditions" had meant that "environmental concerns had not been able to take route at the heart of the government."
Silva, 51, stopped short of formally announcing a presidential bid but few doubt that she will now front the Green Party's 2010 election campaign.
The Brazilian media has been overtaken with Marina mania since earlier this month when rumours about a possible bid for the presidency began spreading. This week one major news magazine stamped Silva's photograph onto its front-page alongside the headline: "President Marina?"
Writing in the O Globo newspaper yesterday, the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura said Silva could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections.
"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama," he wrote.
Born in an impoverished community of rubber tappers in the remote Amazon state of Acre, Silva was orphaned at 16 and was illiterate until her early teens.
In 1994, aged 35, she was elected as Brazil's youngest ever female senator and subsequently became renowned for her staunch defence of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants, winning a succession of international awards for her work. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has not so far commented on her resignation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/19/marina-silva-resigns
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Brazil's former minister resigns in environmental protest
Speculation mounts that Marina Silva is preparing a presidential bid that will drive rainforest protection back up political agenda
The protection of the Amazon rainforest could take centre stage in next year's Brazilian presidential election, after the country's former environment minister announced yesterday that she has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, raising speculation that she is preparing a presidential bid.
Speaking at a press conference, Marina Silva said she was leaving the party in protest at the "political conditions" that had meant "environmental concerns had not been able to take root at the heart of the government".
She added in her resignation letter that she was leaving in an attempt to challenge ideas of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority", including "the destruction of natural resources".
Silva, who resigned last May following a row over plans to develop parts of the Amazon, has been subject to speculation that she is to defect to the Green Party and launch a presidential bid next year. While she yesterday stopped short of joining the Greens, media commentators remain convinced that a presidential bid is on the cards.
Any presidential race involving Silva would likely drive the issue of the environment and rainforest protection back to the top of the political agenda, following several years during which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been accused of letting the issue slip down his list of priorities.
Commentators are also convinced that Silva, 51, could pose a considerable challenge to Lula.
The Guardian cited the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura, who this week drew parallels between Silva and US President Barack Obama.
"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party… in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society," he wrote, "as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama."
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2248165/brazil-former-minister-resigns
The protection of the Amazon rainforest could take centre stage in next year's Brazilian presidential election, after the country's former environment minister announced yesterday that she has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, raising speculation that she is preparing a presidential bid.
Speaking at a press conference, Marina Silva said she was leaving the party in protest at the "political conditions" that had meant "environmental concerns had not been able to take root at the heart of the government".
She added in her resignation letter that she was leaving in an attempt to challenge ideas of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority", including "the destruction of natural resources".
Silva, who resigned last May following a row over plans to develop parts of the Amazon, has been subject to speculation that she is to defect to the Green Party and launch a presidential bid next year. While she yesterday stopped short of joining the Greens, media commentators remain convinced that a presidential bid is on the cards.
Any presidential race involving Silva would likely drive the issue of the environment and rainforest protection back to the top of the political agenda, following several years during which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been accused of letting the issue slip down his list of priorities.
Commentators are also convinced that Silva, 51, could pose a considerable challenge to Lula.
The Guardian cited the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura, who this week drew parallels between Silva and US President Barack Obama.
"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party… in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society," he wrote, "as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama."
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2248165/brazil-former-minister-resigns
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
World’s dust bowl
Changing ecosystems: Recent studies highlight the potential for changes in the quantities of desert dust, and the consequent alterations in ecosystems functioning in places far flung from the sources of desert dust. So, half of all the Amazonian dust supply is from the Sahara desert, writes Meera Iyer
DUST STORM... A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year. Getty Images
We already know that climate change might drastically alter landscapes around the world. Interestingly, one of the prime agents of changing ecology might be dust from deserts, and often where you least expect it.
Several studies have shown that the Sahara desert is the world’s largest source of desert dust. A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year.
Dustiest place in the world
Within the Sahara, the Bodélé Depression, on the northeastern end of Lake Chad, is notable as the single largest source of dust, responsible for about half of all the dust in the Sahara! This seems extraordinary, considering that the Bodélé Depression is only 150 km2, or about 0.2 per cent of the area of the Sahara desert.
The Bodélé owes its status as the world’s premier dust source to its past history, its unique topography and the resultant weather patterns.
Today’s Lake Chad is but a poor shadow of the vast lake that existed here about 7,000 years ago, at which point Mega-Chad was the world’s biggest lake. Diatoms – a type of algae found in water bodies – thrived here.
The remains of their silicaceous shells were deposited in thick layers on the lakebed, forming a soft rock called diatomite, which was exposed once the lake began drying. This very fine-grained mineral is easily dislodged and transported by the strong near-surface winds here (called the low-level jet) which are accelerated and funnelled by mountains on the north and southeast of the Bodélé.
About 50 million tons of all the dust transported out of Africa reached the Amazon rainforest every year. And about half of all the Amazonian dust supply is from the Bodélé, making it the largest supplier of dust to the Amazon.
For most of us, dust is merely something to be periodically cleared off surfaces, an irritant that we would gladly be rid of. But Saharan dust is in fact a lifeline for the rainforest. The soils of the Amazon basin are typically nutrient-poor, so that the rainforest trees are able to maintain their nutrient balance only through the inputs of nutrient-rich desert dust from the across the Atlantic Ocean.
Impacts of climate change
Two recent studies highlight the potential for changes in the quantities of desert dust, and the consequent alterations in ecosystem functioning in places far flung from the sources of desert dust.
In a paper published in late July in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Richard Washington from the University of Oxford, along with colleagues from Universite Blaise Pascal in France and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Germany, outline how the Bodélé Depression could be considered a tipping element for climate. Taking off from Malcolm Gladwell’s enormously popular book on tipping points – about how “little things can make a big difference”, a tipping element in the earth’s climate describes components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point.
To determine how climate change may impact the production of dust from the Bodélé, Washington et al.’s paper focused on the controls on the amounts of dust produced, viz., controls on the strong near-surface winds, and on the amounts of diatomite available for erosion.
The authors used leading models of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to estimate the effects of climate change on the Bodélé.
Based on these climate models, and with the caveat that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the models, the authors expect an increase in rainfall over the region. Lake Chad has in fact emptied and refilled more than three times in the last 3-4000 years, with dust output dropping to zero during wetter periods and increasing once again during dry periods.
However, the authors aver that the rainfall increases predicted by the climate change models would be insufficient to cause a drop in dust production.
Instead, the researchers believe that climate change could in fact increase the amounts of Bodélé dust produced over the coming century.
This is based on climate models that also predict an increase in near surface wind speeds in this region in the later decades of the coming century.
Impact on alpine ecosystem
A second paper, also in PNAS, examines the impacts of increasing desert dust on the alpine ecosystem of the San Juan mountains, Colorado, USA. Dust here comes largely from the southwestern United States, with minor inputs from Asia. In the last two hundred years, the introduction and expansion of livestock rearing and railways in the southwest has led to an astonishing 500% increase in dust deposition in the San Juan.
To understand the possible implications of such an increase, Heidi Steltzer from Colorado State University and colleagues, set up experimental plots in the mountains, adding desert dust to some plots, removing naturally arrived dust from a second set and leaving a third set of test plots unchanged.
They found that increased dust deposition caused snows to melt 7 to 13 days earlier. Interestingly, climate warming in the region also advances snowmelt, but because early snowmelt caused by dust is not accompanied with higher temperatures, it has different biological consequences. The researches found that it led to synchronised growth and flowering across species, a result which could impact ecosystem functioning, including nutrient cycling, and inter-species interactions and hence species compositions.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/18880/worlds-dust-bowl.html
DUST STORM... A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year. Getty Images
We already know that climate change might drastically alter landscapes around the world. Interestingly, one of the prime agents of changing ecology might be dust from deserts, and often where you least expect it.
Several studies have shown that the Sahara desert is the world’s largest source of desert dust. A mind boggling 240 ± 80 million tons of dust is transported from the Sahara desert to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond every year.
Dustiest place in the world
Within the Sahara, the Bodélé Depression, on the northeastern end of Lake Chad, is notable as the single largest source of dust, responsible for about half of all the dust in the Sahara! This seems extraordinary, considering that the Bodélé Depression is only 150 km2, or about 0.2 per cent of the area of the Sahara desert.
The Bodélé owes its status as the world’s premier dust source to its past history, its unique topography and the resultant weather patterns.
Today’s Lake Chad is but a poor shadow of the vast lake that existed here about 7,000 years ago, at which point Mega-Chad was the world’s biggest lake. Diatoms – a type of algae found in water bodies – thrived here.
The remains of their silicaceous shells were deposited in thick layers on the lakebed, forming a soft rock called diatomite, which was exposed once the lake began drying. This very fine-grained mineral is easily dislodged and transported by the strong near-surface winds here (called the low-level jet) which are accelerated and funnelled by mountains on the north and southeast of the Bodélé.
About 50 million tons of all the dust transported out of Africa reached the Amazon rainforest every year. And about half of all the Amazonian dust supply is from the Bodélé, making it the largest supplier of dust to the Amazon.
For most of us, dust is merely something to be periodically cleared off surfaces, an irritant that we would gladly be rid of. But Saharan dust is in fact a lifeline for the rainforest. The soils of the Amazon basin are typically nutrient-poor, so that the rainforest trees are able to maintain their nutrient balance only through the inputs of nutrient-rich desert dust from the across the Atlantic Ocean.
Impacts of climate change
Two recent studies highlight the potential for changes in the quantities of desert dust, and the consequent alterations in ecosystem functioning in places far flung from the sources of desert dust.
In a paper published in late July in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Richard Washington from the University of Oxford, along with colleagues from Universite Blaise Pascal in France and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Germany, outline how the Bodélé Depression could be considered a tipping element for climate. Taking off from Malcolm Gladwell’s enormously popular book on tipping points – about how “little things can make a big difference”, a tipping element in the earth’s climate describes components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point.
To determine how climate change may impact the production of dust from the Bodélé, Washington et al.’s paper focused on the controls on the amounts of dust produced, viz., controls on the strong near-surface winds, and on the amounts of diatomite available for erosion.
The authors used leading models of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to estimate the effects of climate change on the Bodélé.
Based on these climate models, and with the caveat that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the models, the authors expect an increase in rainfall over the region. Lake Chad has in fact emptied and refilled more than three times in the last 3-4000 years, with dust output dropping to zero during wetter periods and increasing once again during dry periods.
However, the authors aver that the rainfall increases predicted by the climate change models would be insufficient to cause a drop in dust production.
Instead, the researchers believe that climate change could in fact increase the amounts of Bodélé dust produced over the coming century.
This is based on climate models that also predict an increase in near surface wind speeds in this region in the later decades of the coming century.
Impact on alpine ecosystem
A second paper, also in PNAS, examines the impacts of increasing desert dust on the alpine ecosystem of the San Juan mountains, Colorado, USA. Dust here comes largely from the southwestern United States, with minor inputs from Asia. In the last two hundred years, the introduction and expansion of livestock rearing and railways in the southwest has led to an astonishing 500% increase in dust deposition in the San Juan.
To understand the possible implications of such an increase, Heidi Steltzer from Colorado State University and colleagues, set up experimental plots in the mountains, adding desert dust to some plots, removing naturally arrived dust from a second set and leaving a third set of test plots unchanged.
They found that increased dust deposition caused snows to melt 7 to 13 days earlier. Interestingly, climate warming in the region also advances snowmelt, but because early snowmelt caused by dust is not accompanied with higher temperatures, it has different biological consequences. The researches found that it led to synchronised growth and flowering across species, a result which could impact ecosystem functioning, including nutrient cycling, and inter-species interactions and hence species compositions.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/18880/worlds-dust-bowl.html
Brazilians Take On Global Warming and Steal the Show
Brazilians take global warming seriously, much more than the rest of the world. The recently published 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey of twenty five prominent nation-states, including the United States, China, India, France, Kenya, and Poland among many others, now confirms that Brazil is now the world leader in concern over global warming.
The Pew survey reveals Brazil's highest affirmative response rate to the question: Is global warming a serious problem? 90 percent of Brazilians think so, by far the highest proportion of any country in the study. Argentina ranks second with 69 percent, the U.S. response is well behind at 44%, and China is last in this survey with only 30 percent of the respondents troubled by greenhouse gas emissions.
Since the election of President Lula in 2002, Brazilians have become increasingly aware of national and global environmental problems, from the impact of land use practices in the Cerrado to deforestation in the Amazon.
President Lula told Reuters that Brazil was open to adopting targets for greenhouse gas reductions, "the issue is not a taboo for us.", thus reflecting the national preoccupation with global warming and all but reversing the country's adamant opposition to adopting emission reduction targets.
Brazilians did not always share such a unique perspective on the global warming challenge. Before Lula's election, only 20 percent of the population expressed concern for the environment according to the Pew Center. By 2007 this number had jumped to 49%, the largest increase of the survey. According to Larry Rohter of the New York Times,
"The factors behind the re-evaluation range from a drought here in the Amazon rain forest, the world's largest, and the impact that it could have on agriculture if it recurs, to new phenomena like a hurricane in the south of Brazil. As a result, environmental advocates, scientists and some politicians say, Brazilian policy makers and the public they serve are increasingly seeing climate change not as a distant problem, but as one that could affect them too."
Climate change is now front and center in Brazil. Members of Congress from all political parties race to affiliate with the environmental caucus and co-sponsor "green" legislation. The former Minister of the Environment under Lula, Workers Party Senator and former Amazon rubber tapper, Marina Silva, is now considering an invitation from the Green Party to run as their presidential nominee in 2010.
Even S.O.S. Mata Atlântica, a prominent environmental advocacy organization, is running humorous television ads asking Brazilians to "piss in the shower" to save millions of liters of fresh water in a campaign to preserve the Atlantic coast's dwindling rainforest.
Dare to compare Brazil with the U.S.?
During the same period from 2002 to 2007, the U.S. level of environmental concern rose from 23 to 37 percent, but alarm over global warming decreased from 47 percent in 2007 to 44 in 2009 as the economy crumbled. Although President Obama and the Democratic Party passed the controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (known as Waxman-Markey) in the House of Representatives by a very close vote; efforts to pass a climate change bill in the Senate face stiff opposition.
In fact, the ranking Republican member of the key Environment and Public Works committee responsible for developing climate change legislation, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, doubts the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore in 2007. In 2003 Sen. Inhofe remarked that global warming was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Of course, there are other countries in the Pew Center survey that also play down the threat of global warming, including the very large greenhouse gas emitters China and Canada, yes Canada! However, the public opinion gap between Brazil and the U.S. may prove to be a major obstacle in galvanizing international cooperation to reduce emissions.
48 percent of Brazilians are willing to pay higher prices (for energy, food, etc.) to address global warming, compared to only 41 percent for the U.S. Even more interesting, 79 percent of Brazilians are willing to tolerate slower economic growth and job creation to protect the environment compared to 64 percent for the U.S.
With respect to who is most trusted to deal with global warming, 57 percent of U.S. citizens believe the U.S. is the most trustworthy while only 17 percent of Brazilians place their faith in U.S. leadership. Of the countries studied, only Israel, Kenya, and Nigeria place more than 40 percent confidence in the U.S. on climate matters.
Even more telling, Brazil ranks high in the list of countries who blame the U.S. for global warming. 49 percent of the Brazilians single out the U.S. Only Turkey and Bangladesh (61%), Spain (56%), Venezuela and Slovakia (55%), France (53%), and Indonesia (52%) surpass Brazil suspicions. Evidently, these numbers partially reflect the animosity unleashed by President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.
Brazil's recent and very rapid increase in public awareness stands in sharp contrast with the partisan rancor and controversy surrounding U.S. efforts to confront global warming. Moreover, Brazilians about-face is now bearing down on domestic policy making. The government's Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAM) got off to a slow start, but is now showing measurable results.
No doubt this effort has its critics, but Brazil's National Institute for Space Research confirms that the rate of Amazon deforestation is slowing. Also, the current Minister of the Environment, Carlos Minc, announced in June that President Lula himself would directly participate in efforts to stop deforestation by visiting Amazon communities involved in sustainable production. Even Brazil's Army is joining the campaign to stop deforestation!
These efforts highlight Brazil's broader commitment to protect the Amazon and play a leading role in climate change negotiations at Copenhagen. They are now coupled with international campaigns to diminish the external threats to the rainforest. Greenpeace's recent campaign, "Slaughtering the Amazon," has already pressured such companies as Nike to "certify" that leather used in the company's products does not come from cattle herding in the Amazon.
Taken together, Brazilians' concern with global warming, the Lula administration's increasing commitment to stop deforestation, international efforts, such as the Amazon Fund, to assist the country with sustainable development in the Amazon, and Brazil's historic leadership of the G-77 nations in climate change talks add up to a prominent position at this year's Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen or COP15. Indeed, the U.S. Climate Change envoy, Todd Stern, recently visited Brasilia for talks with the government and remarked,
"And I think that an issue like this, which is of enormous importance to the world ... is an ideal opportunity for Brazil to demonstrate leadership on the global stage. And if you want to be a global player, that's what you have to do."
According to the Pew Center, over 180 million Brazilians have weighed in are now ready to take the stage and steal the show.
http://www.brazzil.com/component/content/article/207-august-2009/10231-brazilians-take-on-global-warming-and-steal-the-show.html
The Pew survey reveals Brazil's highest affirmative response rate to the question: Is global warming a serious problem? 90 percent of Brazilians think so, by far the highest proportion of any country in the study. Argentina ranks second with 69 percent, the U.S. response is well behind at 44%, and China is last in this survey with only 30 percent of the respondents troubled by greenhouse gas emissions.
Since the election of President Lula in 2002, Brazilians have become increasingly aware of national and global environmental problems, from the impact of land use practices in the Cerrado to deforestation in the Amazon.
President Lula told Reuters that Brazil was open to adopting targets for greenhouse gas reductions, "the issue is not a taboo for us.", thus reflecting the national preoccupation with global warming and all but reversing the country's adamant opposition to adopting emission reduction targets.
Brazilians did not always share such a unique perspective on the global warming challenge. Before Lula's election, only 20 percent of the population expressed concern for the environment according to the Pew Center. By 2007 this number had jumped to 49%, the largest increase of the survey. According to Larry Rohter of the New York Times,
"The factors behind the re-evaluation range from a drought here in the Amazon rain forest, the world's largest, and the impact that it could have on agriculture if it recurs, to new phenomena like a hurricane in the south of Brazil. As a result, environmental advocates, scientists and some politicians say, Brazilian policy makers and the public they serve are increasingly seeing climate change not as a distant problem, but as one that could affect them too."
Climate change is now front and center in Brazil. Members of Congress from all political parties race to affiliate with the environmental caucus and co-sponsor "green" legislation. The former Minister of the Environment under Lula, Workers Party Senator and former Amazon rubber tapper, Marina Silva, is now considering an invitation from the Green Party to run as their presidential nominee in 2010.
Even S.O.S. Mata Atlântica, a prominent environmental advocacy organization, is running humorous television ads asking Brazilians to "piss in the shower" to save millions of liters of fresh water in a campaign to preserve the Atlantic coast's dwindling rainforest.
Dare to compare Brazil with the U.S.?
During the same period from 2002 to 2007, the U.S. level of environmental concern rose from 23 to 37 percent, but alarm over global warming decreased from 47 percent in 2007 to 44 in 2009 as the economy crumbled. Although President Obama and the Democratic Party passed the controversial American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (known as Waxman-Markey) in the House of Representatives by a very close vote; efforts to pass a climate change bill in the Senate face stiff opposition.
In fact, the ranking Republican member of the key Environment and Public Works committee responsible for developing climate change legislation, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, doubts the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore in 2007. In 2003 Sen. Inhofe remarked that global warming was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Of course, there are other countries in the Pew Center survey that also play down the threat of global warming, including the very large greenhouse gas emitters China and Canada, yes Canada! However, the public opinion gap between Brazil and the U.S. may prove to be a major obstacle in galvanizing international cooperation to reduce emissions.
48 percent of Brazilians are willing to pay higher prices (for energy, food, etc.) to address global warming, compared to only 41 percent for the U.S. Even more interesting, 79 percent of Brazilians are willing to tolerate slower economic growth and job creation to protect the environment compared to 64 percent for the U.S.
With respect to who is most trusted to deal with global warming, 57 percent of U.S. citizens believe the U.S. is the most trustworthy while only 17 percent of Brazilians place their faith in U.S. leadership. Of the countries studied, only Israel, Kenya, and Nigeria place more than 40 percent confidence in the U.S. on climate matters.
Even more telling, Brazil ranks high in the list of countries who blame the U.S. for global warming. 49 percent of the Brazilians single out the U.S. Only Turkey and Bangladesh (61%), Spain (56%), Venezuela and Slovakia (55%), France (53%), and Indonesia (52%) surpass Brazil suspicions. Evidently, these numbers partially reflect the animosity unleashed by President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.
Brazil's recent and very rapid increase in public awareness stands in sharp contrast with the partisan rancor and controversy surrounding U.S. efforts to confront global warming. Moreover, Brazilians about-face is now bearing down on domestic policy making. The government's Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAM) got off to a slow start, but is now showing measurable results.
No doubt this effort has its critics, but Brazil's National Institute for Space Research confirms that the rate of Amazon deforestation is slowing. Also, the current Minister of the Environment, Carlos Minc, announced in June that President Lula himself would directly participate in efforts to stop deforestation by visiting Amazon communities involved in sustainable production. Even Brazil's Army is joining the campaign to stop deforestation!
These efforts highlight Brazil's broader commitment to protect the Amazon and play a leading role in climate change negotiations at Copenhagen. They are now coupled with international campaigns to diminish the external threats to the rainforest. Greenpeace's recent campaign, "Slaughtering the Amazon," has already pressured such companies as Nike to "certify" that leather used in the company's products does not come from cattle herding in the Amazon.
Taken together, Brazilians' concern with global warming, the Lula administration's increasing commitment to stop deforestation, international efforts, such as the Amazon Fund, to assist the country with sustainable development in the Amazon, and Brazil's historic leadership of the G-77 nations in climate change talks add up to a prominent position at this year's Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen or COP15. Indeed, the U.S. Climate Change envoy, Todd Stern, recently visited Brasilia for talks with the government and remarked,
"And I think that an issue like this, which is of enormous importance to the world ... is an ideal opportunity for Brazil to demonstrate leadership on the global stage. And if you want to be a global player, that's what you have to do."
According to the Pew Center, over 180 million Brazilians have weighed in are now ready to take the stage and steal the show.
http://www.brazzil.com/component/content/article/207-august-2009/10231-brazilians-take-on-global-warming-and-steal-the-show.html
Brazil's environment minister Minc to step down
Brazil's environment minister Carlos Minc will step down in March to run for deputy in the Rio de Janeiro state legislature in general elections next October, reports Reuters.
Brazilian law requires a public official seeking office to step down six months before an election.
Minc has publicly clashed with development interests over environmental laws in the Amazon rainforest. Since taking over the position vacated by former rubber tapper Marina Silva in May 2008, Minc has pushed for stricter environmental rules, called in federal troops and police to crack down on illegal forest clearing, and fought infrastructure projects that would promote deforestation in the region. Minc's efforts have made him powerful enemies who have worked to undermine his policies.
Reuters reports that ministers who leave their posts toward the end of the government's four-year term "are typically replaced by career civil servants." President Lula leaves office next year.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0810-minc.html
Brazilian law requires a public official seeking office to step down six months before an election.
Minc has publicly clashed with development interests over environmental laws in the Amazon rainforest. Since taking over the position vacated by former rubber tapper Marina Silva in May 2008, Minc has pushed for stricter environmental rules, called in federal troops and police to crack down on illegal forest clearing, and fought infrastructure projects that would promote deforestation in the region. Minc's efforts have made him powerful enemies who have worked to undermine his policies.
Reuters reports that ministers who leave their posts toward the end of the government's four-year term "are typically replaced by career civil servants." President Lula leaves office next year.
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0810-minc.html
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Amazon rainforest devastation continues
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest was four times higher in June than the previous month, according to official data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
The figures, taken from satellite images, come in the same week UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband is visiting the country to discuss global warming.
Satellite imagery analyzed by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed 578 square kilometres (223 square miles) of Amazon woodland was burned or cut down. The area is roughly the size of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva.
The forest is under threat from the logging and cattle ranch industries. The Amazon holds up to 86 billion tonnes of carbon and if destroyed, would vastly speed up the effect of global warming.
According to the Space Agency, nearly 4,700 square kilometres of rainforest has been felled in the past year despite promises from the Brazilian Government to slow deforestation by 70 percent over the next 10 years.
Earlier this week Ed Miliband urged world leaders ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December to protect the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous tribes whose livelihood are at risk from deforestation.
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/national-news/12489-amazon-rainforest-devestation-continues.html
The figures, taken from satellite images, come in the same week UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband is visiting the country to discuss global warming.
Satellite imagery analyzed by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed 578 square kilometres (223 square miles) of Amazon woodland was burned or cut down. The area is roughly the size of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva.
The forest is under threat from the logging and cattle ranch industries. The Amazon holds up to 86 billion tonnes of carbon and if destroyed, would vastly speed up the effect of global warming.
According to the Space Agency, nearly 4,700 square kilometres of rainforest has been felled in the past year despite promises from the Brazilian Government to slow deforestation by 70 percent over the next 10 years.
Earlier this week Ed Miliband urged world leaders ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December to protect the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous tribes whose livelihood are at risk from deforestation.
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/national-news/12489-amazon-rainforest-devestation-continues.html
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sangre De Drago is a Medicinal Power House
(NaturalNews) Sangre de drago (grado) or "blood of the dragon" is the latex-like sap that comes from the Croton species of tree that grows throughout the Amazon rainforests of Peru and Ecuador. This medicinal sap used for centuries by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon for the treatment of various ailments that include diarrhea, ulcers in the mouth, throat, stomach and intestines, upper respiratory viruses, cancer, as well as topically to heal wounds has slowly been getting more attention from mainstream medicine. Over the last ten years several studies conducted by the University of Calgary, the Albany Medical Center and several others have pointed to concrete documented evidence that sangre de drago is a medicinal power house of phytochemicals.
Dr. Mark Miller of the Albany Medical Center conducted a study on treating stomach ulcers in rats with sangre de drago. The conclusions that he and his colleagues found are incredible. Out of three groups induced with ulcers, two groups of rats, through their drinking water, ingested the sangre de drago in different concentrations (1:1,000 and 1:10,000 dilutions) and one group was used as a control. Both the bacterial content and size of the ulcers in the two groups of rats treated with sangre de drago was greatly reduced at both concentrations. It was also found that sangre de drago greatly inhibits the inflammation of nerve endings and the creation of Myeloperoxidase, an enzyme in white blood cells that is linked to inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
Though this wonderful sap from the rainforest contains a number of beneficial phytochemicals, the healing and anti-inflammatory properties of sangre de drago can be attributed to two main chemicals. These two chemical compounds are Taspine, an alkaloid that has been documented as anti-inflammatory, antitumorous, and antiviral, and Dimethylcedrusine, a lignan that plays a central role in sangre de drago's wound-healing capabilities. In a study done in Belgium, it was found that the healing properties of the raw sangre de drago resin were four times more effective at forming collagen and healing wounds than the administration of the isolated chemicals. When sangre de drago resin was smeared onto a sterile plate, allowed to dry and then doused with E. Coli bacteria the bacteria promptly died versus a similar plate treated with the antibiotic ampicillin.
Sangre de drago has so many benefits that it is hard to cover all of it within the scope of just one article. Between its internal and external uses it has been used for over thirty-one different ailments, and its uses keep growing in popularity. This sap from the Amazon rainforest is truly a miracle of nature and the more it becomes known to the masses, the better.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026764_Sangre_de_Drago_ulcers_medicine.html
Dr. Mark Miller of the Albany Medical Center conducted a study on treating stomach ulcers in rats with sangre de drago. The conclusions that he and his colleagues found are incredible. Out of three groups induced with ulcers, two groups of rats, through their drinking water, ingested the sangre de drago in different concentrations (1:1,000 and 1:10,000 dilutions) and one group was used as a control. Both the bacterial content and size of the ulcers in the two groups of rats treated with sangre de drago was greatly reduced at both concentrations. It was also found that sangre de drago greatly inhibits the inflammation of nerve endings and the creation of Myeloperoxidase, an enzyme in white blood cells that is linked to inflammation and cardiovascular disease.
Though this wonderful sap from the rainforest contains a number of beneficial phytochemicals, the healing and anti-inflammatory properties of sangre de drago can be attributed to two main chemicals. These two chemical compounds are Taspine, an alkaloid that has been documented as anti-inflammatory, antitumorous, and antiviral, and Dimethylcedrusine, a lignan that plays a central role in sangre de drago's wound-healing capabilities. In a study done in Belgium, it was found that the healing properties of the raw sangre de drago resin were four times more effective at forming collagen and healing wounds than the administration of the isolated chemicals. When sangre de drago resin was smeared onto a sterile plate, allowed to dry and then doused with E. Coli bacteria the bacteria promptly died versus a similar plate treated with the antibiotic ampicillin.
Sangre de drago has so many benefits that it is hard to cover all of it within the scope of just one article. Between its internal and external uses it has been used for over thirty-one different ailments, and its uses keep growing in popularity. This sap from the Amazon rainforest is truly a miracle of nature and the more it becomes known to the masses, the better.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026764_Sangre_de_Drago_ulcers_medicine.html
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Miliband delivers message to forest tribes deep in the Amazon
Energy minister to meet Brazil's environmentalists, policy makers and people on the frontline of deforestation.
Halting deforestation is essential to preventing dangerous global warming, the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, has told indigenous tribesmen and women on a visit to the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Cutting down trees causes 17% of global carbon emissions — more than global transport — and much of it happens in the Amazon. But mechanisms by which rich nations can persuade forested nations that the trees are worth more standing than felled have been problematic, with issues of land ownership, the role of indigenous people and corruption hindering progress.
"We can only get an agreement on climate change if it involves Brazil and it involves forestry," Miliband said during a boat trip on the Xingu river near the remote indigenous community of Pavuru.
The world's governments will gather in Copenhagen in December to agree a global treaty on fighting global warming, with deforestation very high on the agenda. "There is no solution to the question of climate change without forestry," he added.
During the five-day diplomatic offensive Miliband will meet environmentalists, policy makers and scientists as well as the people on the frontline of Brazil's battle against climate change – Brazil's indigenous communities, cattle ranchers and soy farmers.
Yesterday afternoon he touched down in the Xingu National Park — a sprawling indigenous reserve home to 5,000 Indians from 14 different ethnic groups — to discuss the perils of climate change and deforestation with those who inhabit the world's greatest tropical rainforest .
Addressing the Indians in a straw-roofed auditorium in Pavuru, Miliband said:
"We recognise the very important steps that you are taking to protect the environment against illegal activities and other threats against the forest and we are very grateful to you. But we know there is more that we can do to help you manage the forest in a sustainable way."
Tribesmen and women had travelled from across the 2.8m hectare Xingu National Park to reach this tiny village at the heart of the reserve. "They told us the minister wanted to talk to us about deforestation, about water," said Tom Aweti, 48, the leader of the Aweti people who had travelled several hours by boat to reach the meeting. "We will listen."
But the Indians also came to be heard; from the early hours of Sunday dozens of boats carrying tribal leaders and their families began mooring on Pavuru's small beach. Others came onboard a single motor aeroplane.
"The white man is invading our land," Chief Tinini, from the Xingu's Juruna village, told Miliband, holding a tribal spear in his right hand. "Many fish are dying," he added, blaming the construction of hydroelectric plants in the Xingu region. "Our children will starve."
Napiku Ikpeng, 33, from Pavuru's indigenous association, said he was concerned government infrastructure plans, involving roads and hydroelectric plants, would harm his peoples' way of life. "We aren't against economic growth… but this growth has to respect the Indians who live in this place," he said.
Speaking to the Guardian after the meeting Miliband said he had been shocked "seeing the actual logs piled up and the illegal roads that have been built" during a flight over the Amazon rainforest.
"The Amazon forest is such a beautiful place when it is untouched and then you see these scars on the landscape of the deforestation, bigger and bigger scars," he said.
"Brazil is up for a deal we just need proper ambition from developed countries, the right financial architecture in place," he added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/03/ed-miliband-amazon-deforestation
Halting deforestation is essential to preventing dangerous global warming, the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, has told indigenous tribesmen and women on a visit to the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Cutting down trees causes 17% of global carbon emissions — more than global transport — and much of it happens in the Amazon. But mechanisms by which rich nations can persuade forested nations that the trees are worth more standing than felled have been problematic, with issues of land ownership, the role of indigenous people and corruption hindering progress.
"We can only get an agreement on climate change if it involves Brazil and it involves forestry," Miliband said during a boat trip on the Xingu river near the remote indigenous community of Pavuru.
The world's governments will gather in Copenhagen in December to agree a global treaty on fighting global warming, with deforestation very high on the agenda. "There is no solution to the question of climate change without forestry," he added.
During the five-day diplomatic offensive Miliband will meet environmentalists, policy makers and scientists as well as the people on the frontline of Brazil's battle against climate change – Brazil's indigenous communities, cattle ranchers and soy farmers.
Yesterday afternoon he touched down in the Xingu National Park — a sprawling indigenous reserve home to 5,000 Indians from 14 different ethnic groups — to discuss the perils of climate change and deforestation with those who inhabit the world's greatest tropical rainforest .
Addressing the Indians in a straw-roofed auditorium in Pavuru, Miliband said:
"We recognise the very important steps that you are taking to protect the environment against illegal activities and other threats against the forest and we are very grateful to you. But we know there is more that we can do to help you manage the forest in a sustainable way."
Tribesmen and women had travelled from across the 2.8m hectare Xingu National Park to reach this tiny village at the heart of the reserve. "They told us the minister wanted to talk to us about deforestation, about water," said Tom Aweti, 48, the leader of the Aweti people who had travelled several hours by boat to reach the meeting. "We will listen."
But the Indians also came to be heard; from the early hours of Sunday dozens of boats carrying tribal leaders and their families began mooring on Pavuru's small beach. Others came onboard a single motor aeroplane.
"The white man is invading our land," Chief Tinini, from the Xingu's Juruna village, told Miliband, holding a tribal spear in his right hand. "Many fish are dying," he added, blaming the construction of hydroelectric plants in the Xingu region. "Our children will starve."
Napiku Ikpeng, 33, from Pavuru's indigenous association, said he was concerned government infrastructure plans, involving roads and hydroelectric plants, would harm his peoples' way of life. "We aren't against economic growth… but this growth has to respect the Indians who live in this place," he said.
Speaking to the Guardian after the meeting Miliband said he had been shocked "seeing the actual logs piled up and the illegal roads that have been built" during a flight over the Amazon rainforest.
"The Amazon forest is such a beautiful place when it is untouched and then you see these scars on the landscape of the deforestation, bigger and bigger scars," he said.
"Brazil is up for a deal we just need proper ambition from developed countries, the right financial architecture in place," he added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/03/ed-miliband-amazon-deforestation
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Alcoa mine to clear 25,000 acres of rainforest, suck 133,407 gallons of water per hour from the Amazon
A bauxite mine under development by Alcoa, the world’s second-largest primary aluminum producer, will consume 10,500 hectares (25,900 acres) of primary Amazon rainforest and suck 133,407 gallons of water per hour from the Amazon, reports Bloomberg News in an extensive write-up.
Located in the Juruti region of the Amazonian state of Para, the project will produce millions of tons of bauxite ore — used in the production of aluminum — per year, but more than half the mine will lie within a sustainable use forest reserve set aside for locals, according to Bloomberg. Further, state and federal officials are questioning the legality of the mine. Alcoa maintains the mine has the proper permits.
Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro write:
Bauxite mining road in Suriname.
A growing array of evidence in court documents puts Alcoa among the multinational corporations that prosecutors accuse of destroying or causing destruction of the world’s largest rain forest.
Brazilian federal and Para state prosecutors sued Alcoa’s Brazilian mining subsidiary in 2005 in an effort to block the Juruti mine, saying the company had circumvented the law by not applying for a federal permit and instead seeking a license from the state of Para.
After four years of legal haggling, the suit is still pending. Alcoa, which denies any wrongdoing, has already completed construction of the railway, port and processing plants. It’s now ready to start mining.
“The state agency has no power to give anyone full rights to exploit land, especially in the case of a reserve,” state prosecutor Raimundo Moraes says. “Alcoa invaded the area, undeterred. Alcoa has no shame.” For the full story: Alcoa Razes Rain Forest in Court Case Led by Brazil Prosecutors
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170
Located in the Juruti region of the Amazonian state of Para, the project will produce millions of tons of bauxite ore — used in the production of aluminum — per year, but more than half the mine will lie within a sustainable use forest reserve set aside for locals, according to Bloomberg. Further, state and federal officials are questioning the legality of the mine. Alcoa maintains the mine has the proper permits.
Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro write:
Bauxite mining road in Suriname.
A growing array of evidence in court documents puts Alcoa among the multinational corporations that prosecutors accuse of destroying or causing destruction of the world’s largest rain forest.
Brazilian federal and Para state prosecutors sued Alcoa’s Brazilian mining subsidiary in 2005 in an effort to block the Juruti mine, saying the company had circumvented the law by not applying for a federal permit and instead seeking a license from the state of Para.
After four years of legal haggling, the suit is still pending. Alcoa, which denies any wrongdoing, has already completed construction of the railway, port and processing plants. It’s now ready to start mining.
“The state agency has no power to give anyone full rights to exploit land, especially in the case of a reserve,” state prosecutor Raimundo Moraes says. “Alcoa invaded the area, undeterred. Alcoa has no shame.” For the full story: Alcoa Razes Rain Forest in Court Case Led by Brazil Prosecutors
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
An Amazon Culture Withers as Food Dries Up
As the naked, painted young men of the Kamayurá tribe prepare for the ritualized war games of a festival, they end their haunting fireside chant with a blowing sound — “whoosh, whoosh” — a symbolic attempt to eliminate the scent of fish so they will not be detected by enemies. For centuries, fish from jungle lakes and rivers have been a staple of the Kamayurá diet, the tribe’s primary source of protein.
But fish smells are not a problem for the warriors anymore. Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.
“Us old monkeys can take the hunger, but the little ones suffer — they’re always asking for fish,” said Kotok, the tribe’s chief, who stood in front of a hut containing the tribe’s sacred flutes on a recent evening. He wore a white T-shirt over the tribe’s traditional dress, which is basically nothing.
Chief Kotok, who like all of the Kamayurá people goes by only one name, said that men can now fish all night without a bite in streams where fish used to be abundant; they safely swim in lakes previously teeming with piranhas.
Responsible for 3 wives, 24 children and hundreds of other tribe members, he said his once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream.
“I’m stressed and anxious — this has all changed so quickly, and life has become very hard,” he said in Portuguese, speaking through an interpreter. “As a chief, I have to have vision and look down the road, but I don’t know what will happen to my children and grandchildren.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that up to 30 percent of animals and plants face an increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in coming decades. But anthropologists also fear a wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups — the loss of their traditions, their arts, their languages.
“In some places, people will have to move to preserve their culture,” said Gonzalo Oviedo, a senior adviser on social policy at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland. “But some of those that are small and marginal will assimilate and disappear.”
To make do without fish, Kamayurá children are eating ants on their traditional spongy flatbread, made from tropical cassava flour. “There aren’t as many around because the kids have eaten them,” Chief Kotok said of the ants. Sometimes members of the tribe kill monkeys for their meat, but, the chief said, “You have to eat 30 monkeys to fill your stomach.”
Living deep in the forest with no transportation and little money, he noted, “We don’t have a way to go to the grocery store for rice and beans to supplement what is missing.”
Tacuma, the tribe’s wizened senior shaman, said that the only threat he could remember rivaling climate change was a measles virus that arrived deep in the Amazon in 1954, killing more than 90 percent of the Kamayurá.
Cultures threatened by climate change span the globe. They include rainforest residents like the Kamayurá who face dwindling food supplies; remote Arctic communities where the only roads were frozen rivers that are now flowing most of the year; and residents of low-lying islands whose land is threatened by rising seas.
Many indigenous people depend intimately on the cycles of nature and have had to adapt to climate variations — a season of drought, for example, or a hurricane that kills animals.
But worldwide, the change is large, rapid and inexorable, heading in only one direction: warmer. Eskimo settlements like Kivalina and Shishmaref in Alaska are “literally being washed away,” said Thomas Thornton, an anthropologist who studies the region, because the sea ice that long protected their shores is melting and the seas around are rising. Without that hard ice, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to hunt for seals, a mainstay of the traditional diet.
Some Eskimo groups are suing polluters and developed nations, demanding compensation and help with adapting.
“As they see it, they didn’t cause the problem, and their lifestyle is being threatened by pollution from industrial nations,” said Dr. Thornton, who is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. “The message is that this is about people, not just about polar bears and wildlife.”
At climate negotiations in December in Poznan, Poland, the United Nations created an “adaptation fund” through which rich nations could in theory help poor nations adjust to climate change. But some of the money was expected to come from voluntary contributions, and there have been none so far, said Yvo De Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It would help if rich countries could make financial commitments,” he said.
Throughout history, the traditional final response for indigenous cultures threatened by untenable climate conditions or political strife was to move. But today, moving is often impossible. Land surrounding tribes is now usually occupied by an expanding global population, and once-nomadic groups have often settled down, building homes and schools and even declaring statehood.
The Kamayurá live in the middle of Xingu National Park, a vast territory that was once deep in the Amazon but is now surrounded by farms and ranches.
About 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, according to the Brazilian government. And with far less foliage, there is less moisture in the regional water cycle, lending unpredictability to seasonal rains and leaving the climate drier and hotter.
That has upended the cycles of nature that long regulated Kamayurá life. They wake with the sun and have no set meals, eating whenever they are hungry.
Fish stocks began to dwindle in the 1990s and “have just collapsed” since 2006, said Chief Kotok, who is considering the possibility of fish farming, in which fish would be fed in a penned area of a lake. With hotter temperatures as well as less rain and humidity in the region, water levels in rivers are extremely low. Fish cannot get to their spawning grounds.
Last year, for the first time, the beach on the lake that abuts the village was not covered by water in the rainy season, rendering useless the tribe’s method of catching turtles by putting food in holes that would fill up, luring the animals.
The tribe’s agriculture has suffered, too. For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.
It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.
A specialist in medicinal plants, Ms. Mapulu said that a root she used to treat diarrhea and other ailments had become nearly impossible to find because the forest flora had changed. The grass they use to bound together the essential beams of their huts has also become difficult to find.
But perhaps the Kamayurá’s greatest fear are the new summer forest fires. Once too moist to ignite, the forest here is now flammable because of the drier weather. In 2007, Xingu National Park burned for the first time, and thousands of acres were destroyed.
“The whole Xingu was burning — it stung our lungs and our eyes,” Chief Kotok said. “We had nowhere to escape. We suffered along with the animals.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/earth/25tribe.html?hp
But fish smells are not a problem for the warriors anymore. Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.
“Us old monkeys can take the hunger, but the little ones suffer — they’re always asking for fish,” said Kotok, the tribe’s chief, who stood in front of a hut containing the tribe’s sacred flutes on a recent evening. He wore a white T-shirt over the tribe’s traditional dress, which is basically nothing.
Chief Kotok, who like all of the Kamayurá people goes by only one name, said that men can now fish all night without a bite in streams where fish used to be abundant; they safely swim in lakes previously teeming with piranhas.
Responsible for 3 wives, 24 children and hundreds of other tribe members, he said his once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream.
“I’m stressed and anxious — this has all changed so quickly, and life has become very hard,” he said in Portuguese, speaking through an interpreter. “As a chief, I have to have vision and look down the road, but I don’t know what will happen to my children and grandchildren.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that up to 30 percent of animals and plants face an increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in coming decades. But anthropologists also fear a wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups — the loss of their traditions, their arts, their languages.
“In some places, people will have to move to preserve their culture,” said Gonzalo Oviedo, a senior adviser on social policy at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland. “But some of those that are small and marginal will assimilate and disappear.”
To make do without fish, Kamayurá children are eating ants on their traditional spongy flatbread, made from tropical cassava flour. “There aren’t as many around because the kids have eaten them,” Chief Kotok said of the ants. Sometimes members of the tribe kill monkeys for their meat, but, the chief said, “You have to eat 30 monkeys to fill your stomach.”
Living deep in the forest with no transportation and little money, he noted, “We don’t have a way to go to the grocery store for rice and beans to supplement what is missing.”
Tacuma, the tribe’s wizened senior shaman, said that the only threat he could remember rivaling climate change was a measles virus that arrived deep in the Amazon in 1954, killing more than 90 percent of the Kamayurá.
Cultures threatened by climate change span the globe. They include rainforest residents like the Kamayurá who face dwindling food supplies; remote Arctic communities where the only roads were frozen rivers that are now flowing most of the year; and residents of low-lying islands whose land is threatened by rising seas.
Many indigenous people depend intimately on the cycles of nature and have had to adapt to climate variations — a season of drought, for example, or a hurricane that kills animals.
But worldwide, the change is large, rapid and inexorable, heading in only one direction: warmer. Eskimo settlements like Kivalina and Shishmaref in Alaska are “literally being washed away,” said Thomas Thornton, an anthropologist who studies the region, because the sea ice that long protected their shores is melting and the seas around are rising. Without that hard ice, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to hunt for seals, a mainstay of the traditional diet.
Some Eskimo groups are suing polluters and developed nations, demanding compensation and help with adapting.
“As they see it, they didn’t cause the problem, and their lifestyle is being threatened by pollution from industrial nations,” said Dr. Thornton, who is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. “The message is that this is about people, not just about polar bears and wildlife.”
At climate negotiations in December in Poznan, Poland, the United Nations created an “adaptation fund” through which rich nations could in theory help poor nations adjust to climate change. But some of the money was expected to come from voluntary contributions, and there have been none so far, said Yvo De Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It would help if rich countries could make financial commitments,” he said.
Throughout history, the traditional final response for indigenous cultures threatened by untenable climate conditions or political strife was to move. But today, moving is often impossible. Land surrounding tribes is now usually occupied by an expanding global population, and once-nomadic groups have often settled down, building homes and schools and even declaring statehood.
The Kamayurá live in the middle of Xingu National Park, a vast territory that was once deep in the Amazon but is now surrounded by farms and ranches.
About 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, according to the Brazilian government. And with far less foliage, there is less moisture in the regional water cycle, lending unpredictability to seasonal rains and leaving the climate drier and hotter.
That has upended the cycles of nature that long regulated Kamayurá life. They wake with the sun and have no set meals, eating whenever they are hungry.
Fish stocks began to dwindle in the 1990s and “have just collapsed” since 2006, said Chief Kotok, who is considering the possibility of fish farming, in which fish would be fed in a penned area of a lake. With hotter temperatures as well as less rain and humidity in the region, water levels in rivers are extremely low. Fish cannot get to their spawning grounds.
Last year, for the first time, the beach on the lake that abuts the village was not covered by water in the rainy season, rendering useless the tribe’s method of catching turtles by putting food in holes that would fill up, luring the animals.
The tribe’s agriculture has suffered, too. For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.
It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.
A specialist in medicinal plants, Ms. Mapulu said that a root she used to treat diarrhea and other ailments had become nearly impossible to find because the forest flora had changed. The grass they use to bound together the essential beams of their huts has also become difficult to find.
But perhaps the Kamayurá’s greatest fear are the new summer forest fires. Once too moist to ignite, the forest here is now flammable because of the drier weather. In 2007, Xingu National Park burned for the first time, and thousands of acres were destroyed.
“The whole Xingu was burning — it stung our lungs and our eyes,” Chief Kotok said. “We had nowhere to escape. We suffered along with the animals.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/earth/25tribe.html?hp
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Amazon River on New 7 Wonders of Nature top list
The Amazon Rainforest/River has reached the final stage of an international online competition to name the world's seven natural wonders, the New 7 Wonders Foundation announced today.
The 28 official finalists also include Angel Falls (Venezuela), Galapagos (Ecuador), Grand Canyon (The United States), Iguazu Falls (Brazil/Argentine), Bay of Fundy, Black Forest, Bu Tinah Shoals, Cliff of Moher, Dead Sea, El Yunque, and Great Barrier Reef.
Halong Bay, Jeita Grotto, Jeju Island, and Kilimanjaro, Komodo, Maldives, Masurian Lake District, Matterhorn/Cervino, Milford Sound, Mud Volcanoes, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Sundarbans, Table Mountain, Uluru, Vesuvius and Yushan, were also added to the list.
Competition organizers expect more than a billion people to participate in the online voting, which will continue into 2011, when the finalists by categories will be announced.
A panel of experts chose the finalists among the 77 nominees that gained the most votes in an early round of polling. People had suggested 261 landmarks in countries all over the world.
The panel chaired by Federico Mayor, former chief of Unesco, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, picked the finalists depending on geographical balance, diversity and the importance to human life.
The Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, the Amazon jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations: Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana; Suriname and Venezuela.
The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world.
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total flow greater than the top ten rivers worldwide combined.
It accounts for approximately one-fifth of the total world river flow and has the biggest drainage basin on the planet. Not a single bridge crosses the Amazon.
http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=TjV3xvhBG6M=
The 28 official finalists also include Angel Falls (Venezuela), Galapagos (Ecuador), Grand Canyon (The United States), Iguazu Falls (Brazil/Argentine), Bay of Fundy, Black Forest, Bu Tinah Shoals, Cliff of Moher, Dead Sea, El Yunque, and Great Barrier Reef.
Halong Bay, Jeita Grotto, Jeju Island, and Kilimanjaro, Komodo, Maldives, Masurian Lake District, Matterhorn/Cervino, Milford Sound, Mud Volcanoes, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Sundarbans, Table Mountain, Uluru, Vesuvius and Yushan, were also added to the list.
Competition organizers expect more than a billion people to participate in the online voting, which will continue into 2011, when the finalists by categories will be announced.
A panel of experts chose the finalists among the 77 nominees that gained the most votes in an early round of polling. People had suggested 261 landmarks in countries all over the world.
The panel chaired by Federico Mayor, former chief of Unesco, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, picked the finalists depending on geographical balance, diversity and the importance to human life.
The Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, the Amazon jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations: Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana; Suriname and Venezuela.
The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world.
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total flow greater than the top ten rivers worldwide combined.
It accounts for approximately one-fifth of the total world river flow and has the biggest drainage basin on the planet. Not a single bridge crosses the Amazon.
http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=TjV3xvhBG6M=
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A smooth way to extra nutrients
Prepared properly, smoothies are a tasty way to pack extra nutrients into your diet
Including fresh, local fruit, such as strawberries, in your smoothies is a great way to both increase the quality of your diet and decrease the size of your carbon footprint. Peter J. Thompson, National Post Including fresh, local fruit, such as strawberries, in your smoothies is a great way to both increase the quality of your diet and decrease the size of your carbon footprint.
How do you build a better smoothie? A question that plagues post-modern society, to be sure. All kidding aside, however, smoothies have become big business, with a bevy of products and specialty shops available to satisfy your every desire for drinkable fruit. And while blending up a few berries sounds like a simple enough way to eat a more healthful diet, as with so many things in our world today, we've managed to turn something that was once simple into an increasingly complex science.
So whether you're an athlete looking for a drink to help with muscle recovery, a busy professional who needs to get out the door in a hurry or a parent looking for a nutritious snack for kids on a hot day, here is a primer for building a better smoothie for both health and taste.
THE FRUIT
When it comes to picking the ingredients for a smoothie, you really can't go wrong by starting with any kind of fruit, whether fresh or frozen. Bananas are probably the most common choice, partially for the taste, but also because they add a rich texture, especially if they've been frozen before blending. As for the calorie content, don't be afraid:While they are one of the more energy-dense fruits, the roughly 110 calories a banana provides is quite low compared with many other snack foods -- and few foods of any kind are as rich in blood pressure-lowering potassium.
Aside from bananas, berries of any kind are a great choice for their antioxidant and fibre content, as well as their relatively low calorie content. So if you're a fan, then now is the time of year to load up on strawberries, raspberries and wild blueberries, or any other locally grown fruit, which will not only up the quality of your diet, but also eliminate the carbon footprint that comes with choosing more exotic fruits from overseas.
If you want to step beyond bananas and berries, however, then consider fresh or frozen peaches, melons, pineapple, oranges or mangos. Not only will they add a twist of flavour, also a blend of potentially disease-fighting nutrients, known as flavonoids, that is unique to each fruit.
THE "SUPER FRUIT"
If you're a fan of the growing number of smoothie bars popping up across North America, then you're probably familiar with the various "super fruits" that are added to pump up your drink of choice. One of the most popular is the acai (pronounced a-sigh-EE) berry, a product of the Brazilian rainforest that peaked in popularity after being featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008. Despite a limited body of research, acai supporters argue that it is a powerful, antioxidant-rich superfood that can be useful for everything from weight loss to colon cleansing. While a number of dubious companies have sprung up selling purported acai-based weight loss products, the berry itself--like all berries -- is nutritious, even though it probably won't live up to the hype it has generated.
THE PROTEIN
If you combine fruit and ice cream or sorbet and call it a smoothie, you're probably better off calling it dessert. Not only will you be including a chunk of added sugar in your diet (which is to be expected if it is dessert, but not so much if you're using it as a meal or snack), it also lacks a source of protein, which means you are more likely to feel hungry shortly after eating it. Likewise, many of the so-called smoothie products available at grocery stores today are simply fruit purees, which means you're not only missing the protein, but they're often blended with mixture of fruit juices that simply don't have the same nutritional value as the whole fruit.
If you want to build a smoothie that will satisfy you and can serve as a meal or substantial snack, then use whole fruit whenever possible, and include a source of protein. Yogourt, milk and soy beverages are all good places to start (all three contain about eight grams of protein per cup), but you can ramp up the protein even more with a scoop of whey protein powder (one scoop of which usually provides around 20 to 25 grams of protein).
THE CALORIES
While smoothies can undoubtedly be a highly nutritious meal or snack, they can also pack a serious caloric punch if you're not careful. At the popular juice bar Booster Juice, for example, most smoothies contain between 375 and 425 calories -- enough to serve as a small meal for most people. While not an issue if you use it to replace a 600 calorie burger, it can be a problem if you pick a smoothie over ice cream or frozen yogourt, thinking you are saving yourself a few calories (most single-scoop ice cream cones contain between 250 and 300 calories, cone included).
Likewise, if you are making your own smoothie at home, then be careful not to add too many extra calories, particularly from fats and oils. While they are certainly good for you, high-fat ingredients like peanut or almond butter, flaxseed or hemp oil can pack a major caloric punch (about 90 calories per tablespoon of nut butters, or 120 calories per tablespoon of oils) that can turn your seemingly harmless drink into a caloric bonanza before you know it. The bottom line: Use careful portion control, or save the nuts for a snack instead.
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=1788953
Including fresh, local fruit, such as strawberries, in your smoothies is a great way to both increase the quality of your diet and decrease the size of your carbon footprint. Peter J. Thompson, National Post Including fresh, local fruit, such as strawberries, in your smoothies is a great way to both increase the quality of your diet and decrease the size of your carbon footprint.
How do you build a better smoothie? A question that plagues post-modern society, to be sure. All kidding aside, however, smoothies have become big business, with a bevy of products and specialty shops available to satisfy your every desire for drinkable fruit. And while blending up a few berries sounds like a simple enough way to eat a more healthful diet, as with so many things in our world today, we've managed to turn something that was once simple into an increasingly complex science.
So whether you're an athlete looking for a drink to help with muscle recovery, a busy professional who needs to get out the door in a hurry or a parent looking for a nutritious snack for kids on a hot day, here is a primer for building a better smoothie for both health and taste.
THE FRUIT
When it comes to picking the ingredients for a smoothie, you really can't go wrong by starting with any kind of fruit, whether fresh or frozen. Bananas are probably the most common choice, partially for the taste, but also because they add a rich texture, especially if they've been frozen before blending. As for the calorie content, don't be afraid:While they are one of the more energy-dense fruits, the roughly 110 calories a banana provides is quite low compared with many other snack foods -- and few foods of any kind are as rich in blood pressure-lowering potassium.
Aside from bananas, berries of any kind are a great choice for their antioxidant and fibre content, as well as their relatively low calorie content. So if you're a fan, then now is the time of year to load up on strawberries, raspberries and wild blueberries, or any other locally grown fruit, which will not only up the quality of your diet, but also eliminate the carbon footprint that comes with choosing more exotic fruits from overseas.
If you want to step beyond bananas and berries, however, then consider fresh or frozen peaches, melons, pineapple, oranges or mangos. Not only will they add a twist of flavour, also a blend of potentially disease-fighting nutrients, known as flavonoids, that is unique to each fruit.
THE "SUPER FRUIT"
If you're a fan of the growing number of smoothie bars popping up across North America, then you're probably familiar with the various "super fruits" that are added to pump up your drink of choice. One of the most popular is the acai (pronounced a-sigh-EE) berry, a product of the Brazilian rainforest that peaked in popularity after being featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008. Despite a limited body of research, acai supporters argue that it is a powerful, antioxidant-rich superfood that can be useful for everything from weight loss to colon cleansing. While a number of dubious companies have sprung up selling purported acai-based weight loss products, the berry itself--like all berries -- is nutritious, even though it probably won't live up to the hype it has generated.
THE PROTEIN
If you combine fruit and ice cream or sorbet and call it a smoothie, you're probably better off calling it dessert. Not only will you be including a chunk of added sugar in your diet (which is to be expected if it is dessert, but not so much if you're using it as a meal or snack), it also lacks a source of protein, which means you are more likely to feel hungry shortly after eating it. Likewise, many of the so-called smoothie products available at grocery stores today are simply fruit purees, which means you're not only missing the protein, but they're often blended with mixture of fruit juices that simply don't have the same nutritional value as the whole fruit.
If you want to build a smoothie that will satisfy you and can serve as a meal or substantial snack, then use whole fruit whenever possible, and include a source of protein. Yogourt, milk and soy beverages are all good places to start (all three contain about eight grams of protein per cup), but you can ramp up the protein even more with a scoop of whey protein powder (one scoop of which usually provides around 20 to 25 grams of protein).
THE CALORIES
While smoothies can undoubtedly be a highly nutritious meal or snack, they can also pack a serious caloric punch if you're not careful. At the popular juice bar Booster Juice, for example, most smoothies contain between 375 and 425 calories -- enough to serve as a small meal for most people. While not an issue if you use it to replace a 600 calorie burger, it can be a problem if you pick a smoothie over ice cream or frozen yogourt, thinking you are saving yourself a few calories (most single-scoop ice cream cones contain between 250 and 300 calories, cone included).
Likewise, if you are making your own smoothie at home, then be careful not to add too many extra calories, particularly from fats and oils. While they are certainly good for you, high-fat ingredients like peanut or almond butter, flaxseed or hemp oil can pack a major caloric punch (about 90 calories per tablespoon of nut butters, or 120 calories per tablespoon of oils) that can turn your seemingly harmless drink into a caloric bonanza before you know it. The bottom line: Use careful portion control, or save the nuts for a snack instead.
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=1788953
The Brazilian Dilemma
A nation struggles not to exploit its own greatest resource.
Seen from the height of 36,000 feet aboard a Brazilian Air Force jet, the Amazon rainforest looks tranquil as we approach our destination, the town of Tabatinga, a jungle outpost in the state of Amazonas where Brazil meets Colombia and Peru. A dark green velvet blankets the land as far as we can see through the fluffy clouds below us. The monotone is free of vehicle tracks, broken only by muddy threads of rivers flowing into the Upper Solimões, as the main branch of the mighty Amazon River is called where it enters the country on its 4,000-mile descent from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic.
But if this five-hour flight from São Paulo offers a glimpse of a vast and untouched Amazon, it also highlights the checkerboarding created by recent development. To reach the wilderness from the south, we first fly over countless towns, coffee and sugar cane plantations, and processing plants covering the state of São Paulo. Then the flight continues northward over immense cattle areas that lay siege to the unique, biologically diverse floodplain called the Pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Passing over Rondônia state, an hour or so before we land, we see how soybean plantations—prominent newer stars in the country’s growing array of exports—have replaced whole swaths of Amazon rainforest.
In sum, the flight gives the passenger a quick snapshot of a massive ecological dilemma. Of the original 1.5 million square miles of Brazilian Amazon forest, far and away the world’s largest, some 82 percent remains intact. This entire area, roughly the size of India, is home to only twenty-four million people and is endowed with incredible biodiversity of global significance. But it continues to give way to logging, cattle, and soy plantations.
The big question is whether this southern giant will follow the development path favored by many Brazilians, once again plundering Amazonia’s natural capital and suffering the severe consequences of deforestation. Or will it learn from unsustainable prior experience along its Atlantic coast, and resist dragging the Amazon rainforest into the same trap?
The recent news has been good. According to satellite photos taken by Brazil’s highly regarded National Institute for Space Research, deforestation rates have been dropping steadily since 2004. That was the year that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, responding to increasing pressure from the international community and a growing contingent of ecologically minded Brazilian voters, revealed the Amazon Deforestation Action Plan. The plan involves tighter controls over loggers and ranchers, including fines and even imprisonment, and the refusal of credit by official banks to farmers who are not able to document that they abide by environmental regulations. Chief among these is the Forestry Code, which requires the preservation of at least 80 percent of forest cover on Amazonian properties.
Another piece of good news is Brazil’s Amazon Fund, an innovative idea first announced by former Environment Minister Marina Silva at the United Nations climate conference in Bali in 2007. The fund, newly operational this year, collects voluntary contributions from other nations, companies, and even individuals: the government of Norway has pledged $1 billion to it, of which a first installment of $110 million was deposited at the end of March. Another $18 million is expected to come from Germany soon. Fund officials working at the National Economic and Social Development Bank, a federal agency, then channel these funds to conservation groups and projects—but only after a country-wide reduction in deforestation has been achieved and documented.
The emergence of this government-run fund, a spinoff from international discussions about Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), constitutes an advance in several important ways. First, by retaining Brazilian control over how the money is spent, the fund’s structure counters nationalist objections to receiving foreign funds in exchange for forest conservation and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Control over the national patrimony has been a strongly valued concept in Brazil ever since the bad old days of the mid-twentieth century, when foreign interests owned local electric power and oil companies. Dreams of Amazonian prosperity arouse similar feelings. Second, for the first time after decades of resistance, the fund commits Brazil to deforestation targets. The goal is to achieve an 80 percent reduction in Amazon deforestation by 2020. Third, the willingness of Norway and other countries to hand over substantial monies to Brazil, for projects chosen by Brazil only, reflects growing international confidence in the country’s ability to measure deforestation rates and select anti-
deforestation controls.
But even as Brazil pursues policies to slow deforestation, it advances others that could speed it up. In particular is the government’s $328 billion Accelerated Development Plan, an ambitious long-term national effort to strengthen Brazilian infrastructure and ties with neighboring countries by means of new highways, bridges, airfields, and electric power installations. Support for such initiatives comes from powerful farming and mining interests. Each new mile of road in the Amazon creates new opportunities to exploit the forests. Meanwhile, agribusiness leaders and sympathetic members of Congress have launched an offensive against the Forestry Code and some of its more restrictive provisions. They are, for example, trying to restore the 80 percent reserve rule in the Amazon to the 50 percent level previously required.
The bottom line: the battle is far from over when it comes to balancing Amazonian economic growth and conservation, and in Brasilia the tug of war continues. The severe effects of Amazonian deforestation on regional weather and the global climate are becoming ever better understood. The forest’s biodiversity remains impressive, and there are still countless plant and animal species yet to be analyzed for their possible benefits to all of us. Still, the reality is that if Brazilians were forced to choose today between forest and development, many would favor the latter, matching the amount of forest that has already been lost and abandoning another 18 percent or more to development, exports, and short-term prosperity for some. Most would gladly retrace the path the nation followed along the coast while eradicating the no less diverse Atlantic forest—thus replicating the fate of most of the temperate forests in the developed world.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0907.leite.html
Seen from the height of 36,000 feet aboard a Brazilian Air Force jet, the Amazon rainforest looks tranquil as we approach our destination, the town of Tabatinga, a jungle outpost in the state of Amazonas where Brazil meets Colombia and Peru. A dark green velvet blankets the land as far as we can see through the fluffy clouds below us. The monotone is free of vehicle tracks, broken only by muddy threads of rivers flowing into the Upper Solimões, as the main branch of the mighty Amazon River is called where it enters the country on its 4,000-mile descent from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic.
But if this five-hour flight from São Paulo offers a glimpse of a vast and untouched Amazon, it also highlights the checkerboarding created by recent development. To reach the wilderness from the south, we first fly over countless towns, coffee and sugar cane plantations, and processing plants covering the state of São Paulo. Then the flight continues northward over immense cattle areas that lay siege to the unique, biologically diverse floodplain called the Pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Passing over Rondônia state, an hour or so before we land, we see how soybean plantations—prominent newer stars in the country’s growing array of exports—have replaced whole swaths of Amazon rainforest.
In sum, the flight gives the passenger a quick snapshot of a massive ecological dilemma. Of the original 1.5 million square miles of Brazilian Amazon forest, far and away the world’s largest, some 82 percent remains intact. This entire area, roughly the size of India, is home to only twenty-four million people and is endowed with incredible biodiversity of global significance. But it continues to give way to logging, cattle, and soy plantations.
The big question is whether this southern giant will follow the development path favored by many Brazilians, once again plundering Amazonia’s natural capital and suffering the severe consequences of deforestation. Or will it learn from unsustainable prior experience along its Atlantic coast, and resist dragging the Amazon rainforest into the same trap?
The recent news has been good. According to satellite photos taken by Brazil’s highly regarded National Institute for Space Research, deforestation rates have been dropping steadily since 2004. That was the year that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, responding to increasing pressure from the international community and a growing contingent of ecologically minded Brazilian voters, revealed the Amazon Deforestation Action Plan. The plan involves tighter controls over loggers and ranchers, including fines and even imprisonment, and the refusal of credit by official banks to farmers who are not able to document that they abide by environmental regulations. Chief among these is the Forestry Code, which requires the preservation of at least 80 percent of forest cover on Amazonian properties.
Another piece of good news is Brazil’s Amazon Fund, an innovative idea first announced by former Environment Minister Marina Silva at the United Nations climate conference in Bali in 2007. The fund, newly operational this year, collects voluntary contributions from other nations, companies, and even individuals: the government of Norway has pledged $1 billion to it, of which a first installment of $110 million was deposited at the end of March. Another $18 million is expected to come from Germany soon. Fund officials working at the National Economic and Social Development Bank, a federal agency, then channel these funds to conservation groups and projects—but only after a country-wide reduction in deforestation has been achieved and documented.
The emergence of this government-run fund, a spinoff from international discussions about Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), constitutes an advance in several important ways. First, by retaining Brazilian control over how the money is spent, the fund’s structure counters nationalist objections to receiving foreign funds in exchange for forest conservation and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Control over the national patrimony has been a strongly valued concept in Brazil ever since the bad old days of the mid-twentieth century, when foreign interests owned local electric power and oil companies. Dreams of Amazonian prosperity arouse similar feelings. Second, for the first time after decades of resistance, the fund commits Brazil to deforestation targets. The goal is to achieve an 80 percent reduction in Amazon deforestation by 2020. Third, the willingness of Norway and other countries to hand over substantial monies to Brazil, for projects chosen by Brazil only, reflects growing international confidence in the country’s ability to measure deforestation rates and select anti-
deforestation controls.
But even as Brazil pursues policies to slow deforestation, it advances others that could speed it up. In particular is the government’s $328 billion Accelerated Development Plan, an ambitious long-term national effort to strengthen Brazilian infrastructure and ties with neighboring countries by means of new highways, bridges, airfields, and electric power installations. Support for such initiatives comes from powerful farming and mining interests. Each new mile of road in the Amazon creates new opportunities to exploit the forests. Meanwhile, agribusiness leaders and sympathetic members of Congress have launched an offensive against the Forestry Code and some of its more restrictive provisions. They are, for example, trying to restore the 80 percent reserve rule in the Amazon to the 50 percent level previously required.
The bottom line: the battle is far from over when it comes to balancing Amazonian economic growth and conservation, and in Brasilia the tug of war continues. The severe effects of Amazonian deforestation on regional weather and the global climate are becoming ever better understood. The forest’s biodiversity remains impressive, and there are still countless plant and animal species yet to be analyzed for their possible benefits to all of us. Still, the reality is that if Brazilians were forced to choose today between forest and development, many would favor the latter, matching the amount of forest that has already been lost and abandoning another 18 percent or more to development, exports, and short-term prosperity for some. Most would gladly retrace the path the nation followed along the coast while eradicating the no less diverse Atlantic forest—thus replicating the fate of most of the temperate forests in the developed world.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0907.leite.html
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