The Amazon River, surrounding nearly half of the territory of Peru, is the mightiest river in the world, flanked by vast stretches of pristine rainforest. International Expeditions has been exploring the Amazon for all of our 29 years of existence, and we continue to be amazed at all we find on our 10-day Amazon Cruise.
The rainforest canopy shelters the richest and most diverse ecosystem on Earth, making it the perfect place for an Amazon River cruise. We begin our Amazon River tour in Iquitos, the world’s furthest inland seaport. The Amazon Cruise travels upstream along the Amazon’s tributaries, going deep into the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve — the largest wetland reserve in the world.
On our exclusive Amazon itinerary, you go deeper into the reserve and as a result, you see much more. On our Amazon Voyage, we’ll look for the Amazon’s myriad forms of wildlife — monkeys, birds, sloths and other mammals, pink and gray dolphins and many more. You might even spot the endangered giant otter or the rare harpy eagle on our Amazon Cruise.
Expert local naturalist guides and an expedition leader will accompany you on your Amazon travel expeditions. Many have worked with us for more than a decade. They are extremely friendly and very knowledgeable about the Amazon, with the uncanny ability to find wildlife and the desire to share their knowledge.
http://www.ietravel.com/AmazonCruises/index.asp?itinid=1214&ieid=628609
rainforestpower Headline Animator
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Latin American Leaders Aim to Redefine Relationship With United States
When President George W. Bush traveled to Argentina four years ago for a gathering of Latin American leaders, protesters smashed windows, looted stores and sang anti-Bush slogans. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, drew 25,000 to a soccer stadium to rail against the United States’ free trade policies.
The summit meeting was a qualified fiasco for Mr. Bush and a low ebb for relations between the United States and Latin America.
Now President Obama is planning to visit Trinidad and Tobago this weekend for the fifth Summit of the Americas, with a chance to dim memories of the last such meeting and re-engage with Latin America, a region that took a distant back seat to the Iraq conflict during the Bush years.
But Latin American leaders are seeking more than re-engagement. They are looking to redefine the relationship.
“I’m going to ask the United States to take a different view of Latin America,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, said last month before meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington. “We’re a democratic, peaceful continent, and the United States has to look at the region in a productive, developmental way, and not just think about drug trafficking or organized crime.”
Leaders from the 34 countries with democratically elected governments that make up the Organization of American States are expected to press Mr. Obama on issues including the global economy and the United States’ policies on Cuba and on drugs.
Mr. Bush was the most unpopular American president ever in Latin America, polls showed, while Mr. Obama has rock-star status throughout the hemisphere — for the moment.
“Yes, there are other leaders coming, but people do not understand that, they only concerned about Obama,” said Kenneth Job, a street merchant in Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, where the meeting will be held.
“He is the main man who everybody love and want to see,” said Mr. Job, who sells framed photos of Mr. Obama, and of Nelson Mandela, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.
Ultimately, Mr. Obama’s appeal in the region could be what keeps anti-Americanism in check at the meeting, analysts said. Mr. Chávez, a fiery populist, is also less likely to try to use the event to take a stand against the United States. In Argentina his ire was directed at sinking a free trade agreement, a deal that ultimately died and has yet to be revived.
But the steep decline in oil prices and Brazil’s ascendancy in the region may throw Mr. Chávez off balance. “He is not going to have the same support to be defiant or make provocative statements against the United States,” said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research center in Washington.
Senior American officials said they did not expect Mr. Obama to try a formal reconciliation with either Mr. Chávez or with Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president. Each leader has expelled American ambassadors in recent months, accusing them of being involved in coup plots.
The conference is focused on “human prosperity,” energy security and environmental sustainability, but the global economy will be central for Latin American leaders, including Mr. da Silva, who is still smarting over how the crisis threatens to derail one of Brazil’s greatest periods of prosperity in a generation.
White House officials also worry that economic contagion could reverse the region’s growth and poverty alleviation in the past half-decade.
“In the last year, these achievements have started to dwindle away,” said Jeffrey S. Davidow, the White House adviser for the summit meeting. “There is a real concern that Latin America or the hemisphere may be entering into another lost decade.”
The Latin American leaders are hoping Mr. Obama will not shy away from subjects that have historically been taboo at such meetings. In the past, the United States has vetoed discussions about Cuba and shrugged off criticism of its drug policy.
But the Obama administration has signaled it agrees with some leaders in the region who want to rethink the approach to curbing drug violence. Several of the region’s leaders have also said in recent months that lifting the embargo with Cuba would go a long way toward repairing relations between Latin America and the United States.
American officials said this week that the president welcomed the discussion, but he is not expected to go beyond steps announced on Monday: lifting restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba by Cuban-Americans.
“They may not lift the embargo or legalize drugs, but there will be more space to talk about those kinds of things,” Mr. Shifter said. “Something could happen on these issues that hasn’t really happened before, which is an open debate. That is Obama’s style.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/americas/17trinidad.html?ref=global-home
The summit meeting was a qualified fiasco for Mr. Bush and a low ebb for relations between the United States and Latin America.
Now President Obama is planning to visit Trinidad and Tobago this weekend for the fifth Summit of the Americas, with a chance to dim memories of the last such meeting and re-engage with Latin America, a region that took a distant back seat to the Iraq conflict during the Bush years.
But Latin American leaders are seeking more than re-engagement. They are looking to redefine the relationship.
“I’m going to ask the United States to take a different view of Latin America,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, said last month before meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington. “We’re a democratic, peaceful continent, and the United States has to look at the region in a productive, developmental way, and not just think about drug trafficking or organized crime.”
Leaders from the 34 countries with democratically elected governments that make up the Organization of American States are expected to press Mr. Obama on issues including the global economy and the United States’ policies on Cuba and on drugs.
Mr. Bush was the most unpopular American president ever in Latin America, polls showed, while Mr. Obama has rock-star status throughout the hemisphere — for the moment.
“Yes, there are other leaders coming, but people do not understand that, they only concerned about Obama,” said Kenneth Job, a street merchant in Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, where the meeting will be held.
“He is the main man who everybody love and want to see,” said Mr. Job, who sells framed photos of Mr. Obama, and of Nelson Mandela, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.
Ultimately, Mr. Obama’s appeal in the region could be what keeps anti-Americanism in check at the meeting, analysts said. Mr. Chávez, a fiery populist, is also less likely to try to use the event to take a stand against the United States. In Argentina his ire was directed at sinking a free trade agreement, a deal that ultimately died and has yet to be revived.
But the steep decline in oil prices and Brazil’s ascendancy in the region may throw Mr. Chávez off balance. “He is not going to have the same support to be defiant or make provocative statements against the United States,” said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research center in Washington.
Senior American officials said they did not expect Mr. Obama to try a formal reconciliation with either Mr. Chávez or with Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president. Each leader has expelled American ambassadors in recent months, accusing them of being involved in coup plots.
The conference is focused on “human prosperity,” energy security and environmental sustainability, but the global economy will be central for Latin American leaders, including Mr. da Silva, who is still smarting over how the crisis threatens to derail one of Brazil’s greatest periods of prosperity in a generation.
White House officials also worry that economic contagion could reverse the region’s growth and poverty alleviation in the past half-decade.
“In the last year, these achievements have started to dwindle away,” said Jeffrey S. Davidow, the White House adviser for the summit meeting. “There is a real concern that Latin America or the hemisphere may be entering into another lost decade.”
The Latin American leaders are hoping Mr. Obama will not shy away from subjects that have historically been taboo at such meetings. In the past, the United States has vetoed discussions about Cuba and shrugged off criticism of its drug policy.
But the Obama administration has signaled it agrees with some leaders in the region who want to rethink the approach to curbing drug violence. Several of the region’s leaders have also said in recent months that lifting the embargo with Cuba would go a long way toward repairing relations between Latin America and the United States.
American officials said this week that the president welcomed the discussion, but he is not expected to go beyond steps announced on Monday: lifting restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba by Cuban-Americans.
“They may not lift the embargo or legalize drugs, but there will be more space to talk about those kinds of things,” Mr. Shifter said. “Something could happen on these issues that hasn’t really happened before, which is an open debate. That is Obama’s style.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/americas/17trinidad.html?ref=global-home
Amazon Rainforest: Environmentalists oppose Amazon road proposal
Brazil's top environmental groups on Thursday warned of serious damage to the Amazon rainforest if a proposal to allow unrestricted road paving is approved.
The measure was quietly slipped into legislation aimed at stimulating economic growth that Brazil's Chamber of Deputies approved Monday. It still needs approval in the Senate and then the president's signature to become law.
"Road paving is the largest vector of deforestation in the Amazonia," 30 environmental groups said in a joint statement.
"Historically, 75 percent of the deforestation of the region happened along paved highways."
The real goal of the measure, the groups say, is to pave a road between the Amazon river city of Manaus to Porto Velho, some 765 kilometers (475 miles) to the southwest in Rondonia state.
"We consider the paving of highway BR-319 unacceptable," the statement read.
The road would "open the Amazon's most remote and preserved region to disorganized occupation."
The measure "would drastically harm the Amazonia," former environmental minister Marina Silva told the daily O Globo.
The legislators "are carrying out scorched earth politics with environmental legislation," she said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNtVdGzLqBJtS_HrZbDjwHBOIRxg
The measure was quietly slipped into legislation aimed at stimulating economic growth that Brazil's Chamber of Deputies approved Monday. It still needs approval in the Senate and then the president's signature to become law.
"Road paving is the largest vector of deforestation in the Amazonia," 30 environmental groups said in a joint statement.
"Historically, 75 percent of the deforestation of the region happened along paved highways."
The real goal of the measure, the groups say, is to pave a road between the Amazon river city of Manaus to Porto Velho, some 765 kilometers (475 miles) to the southwest in Rondonia state.
"We consider the paving of highway BR-319 unacceptable," the statement read.
The road would "open the Amazon's most remote and preserved region to disorganized occupation."
The measure "would drastically harm the Amazonia," former environmental minister Marina Silva told the daily O Globo.
The legislators "are carrying out scorched earth politics with environmental legislation," she said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNtVdGzLqBJtS_HrZbDjwHBOIRxg
Brazil's Lula -
U.S. must have a new look at Latin America
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva talked to U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, asking him to have a new look at Latin America.
In a phone conversation with Obama, Lula said there are conditions for the United States and Latin America to establish partnership, the technological development in particular.
"The U.S. must look at Latin America thinking about technological development, partnership, contribution," he said.
Later on Thursday, during an Armed Forces event in Brasilia, Lula said that the U.S. hesitation about the region is not justifiable, since democracy has been established in the area.
"There must be a change in the U.S. policy on Latin America," said Lula, "There is no Cold War anymore, and there is no armed conflict."
He was also optimistic about a change in the U.S. stance towards Latin American countries, as "President Obama has every condition to improve and expand his country's relations with the Latin American nations," he said.
The two leaders will meet again at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Trinidad and Tobago from Friday to Sunday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/17/content_11197620.htm
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva talked to U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, asking him to have a new look at Latin America.
In a phone conversation with Obama, Lula said there are conditions for the United States and Latin America to establish partnership, the technological development in particular.
"The U.S. must look at Latin America thinking about technological development, partnership, contribution," he said.
Later on Thursday, during an Armed Forces event in Brasilia, Lula said that the U.S. hesitation about the region is not justifiable, since democracy has been established in the area.
"There must be a change in the U.S. policy on Latin America," said Lula, "There is no Cold War anymore, and there is no armed conflict."
He was also optimistic about a change in the U.S. stance towards Latin American countries, as "President Obama has every condition to improve and expand his country's relations with the Latin American nations," he said.
The two leaders will meet again at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Trinidad and Tobago from Friday to Sunday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/17/content_11197620.htm
Monday, April 13, 2009
Rainforest reserves
- even those disturbed by roads - provide an important buffer against fires that are devastating parts of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new study by a trio of researchers at Duke University published 8 April in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.
'Our findings show that reserves are making a difference even when they are crossed by roads,' said lead author, Marion Adeney, a PhD candidate at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. 'We already knew, from previous studies, that there were generally fewer fires inside reserves than outside - what we didn't know was whether this holds true when you put a road across the reserve.'
Fire is one of the chief causes of deforestation in tropical rainforests. Fires in humid tropical forests are always caused by people, Adeney says - they typically start on farms or ranches and spread to the nearby forest. Since tropical forest trees have no natural protection against fire, even a small fire can kill most of the trees.
Nearly 90 percent of fires occur within 10 kilometres of a road, a key factor, Adeney says, in explaining why fires are much more common and concentrated in the southern Amazon, where roads are more numerous.
Determining whether reserves with roads provide protection against deforestation caused by fires was critical, she explains, because the pace of road-building has accelerated in recent years in many parts of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, including in many reserves. Especially important are the region's indigenous reserves, which cover five times the area of fully protected parks. Despite having roads and settlements, many of these indigenous reserves contain ecologically important areas of rainforest still largely unaffected by the human development in surrounding areas.
'There is a lot of discussion about how to curb deforestation and fire as new roads are built or paved into these forests,' says Adeney's co-author and faculty co-advisor, Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke's Nicholas School.
To assess what degree of protection reserves with roads provide against these fires, Adeney, Pimm and Norm Christensen, professor of ecology at the Nicholas School, analysed ten years of satellite-detected fire data from the entire Brazilian Amazon.
Overall, they found no significant difference in fire incidence between sustainable-use reserves, indigenous reserves and protected parks. Location and timing were found to be much more important factors than type of reserve, Adeney notes. Fires were more likely to occur during El Nino years, as a result of drought. But, the increase in fire in El Nino years was greater outside than inside of reserves, suggesting that reserves are also buffering against these climate effects. 'Still, although there are overall many fewer fires inside than outside reserves, we found that reserves in highly impacted areas still experienced more fires than reserves in remote areas. Large and remote reserves, not surprisingly, had the fewest roads and the fewest fires,' she says.
'This reinforces the importance of reserves for protecting forest cover in the Amazon' says Pimm. 'Our results show that even inhabited reserves can be an effective tool to reduce fires, even when they have roads built through them.'
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09040824-reserves-found-be-effective-tool-reducing-fires-brazilian-rainforests
'Our findings show that reserves are making a difference even when they are crossed by roads,' said lead author, Marion Adeney, a PhD candidate at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. 'We already knew, from previous studies, that there were generally fewer fires inside reserves than outside - what we didn't know was whether this holds true when you put a road across the reserve.'
Fire is one of the chief causes of deforestation in tropical rainforests. Fires in humid tropical forests are always caused by people, Adeney says - they typically start on farms or ranches and spread to the nearby forest. Since tropical forest trees have no natural protection against fire, even a small fire can kill most of the trees.
Nearly 90 percent of fires occur within 10 kilometres of a road, a key factor, Adeney says, in explaining why fires are much more common and concentrated in the southern Amazon, where roads are more numerous.
Determining whether reserves with roads provide protection against deforestation caused by fires was critical, she explains, because the pace of road-building has accelerated in recent years in many parts of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, including in many reserves. Especially important are the region's indigenous reserves, which cover five times the area of fully protected parks. Despite having roads and settlements, many of these indigenous reserves contain ecologically important areas of rainforest still largely unaffected by the human development in surrounding areas.
'There is a lot of discussion about how to curb deforestation and fire as new roads are built or paved into these forests,' says Adeney's co-author and faculty co-advisor, Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke's Nicholas School.
To assess what degree of protection reserves with roads provide against these fires, Adeney, Pimm and Norm Christensen, professor of ecology at the Nicholas School, analysed ten years of satellite-detected fire data from the entire Brazilian Amazon.
Overall, they found no significant difference in fire incidence between sustainable-use reserves, indigenous reserves and protected parks. Location and timing were found to be much more important factors than type of reserve, Adeney notes. Fires were more likely to occur during El Nino years, as a result of drought. But, the increase in fire in El Nino years was greater outside than inside of reserves, suggesting that reserves are also buffering against these climate effects. 'Still, although there are overall many fewer fires inside than outside reserves, we found that reserves in highly impacted areas still experienced more fires than reserves in remote areas. Large and remote reserves, not surprisingly, had the fewest roads and the fewest fires,' she says.
'This reinforces the importance of reserves for protecting forest cover in the Amazon' says Pimm. 'Our results show that even inhabited reserves can be an effective tool to reduce fires, even when they have roads built through them.'
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09040824-reserves-found-be-effective-tool-reducing-fires-brazilian-rainforests
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Amazon Rainforest: Brazil targets illegal logging in raid in Amazon
* Minister: raid is warning to illegal loggers
* Illegal saw mills destroyed as workers watch
* Crackdown part of gov't campaign to slash deforestation
* Gov't trying to help timber-reliant areas (Updates with revised amount of wood, adds quotes, details, changes dateline)
Environmental police in Brazil seized the equivalent of 300 truckloads of wood in a major raid on illegal loggers, the government said on Wednesday, the latest effort to curb destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
During the surprise raid in Nova Esperanca do Piria, 120 miles (190 km) southeast of the city of Belem, police shut down 13 logging companies and sawmills, and seized tractors, guns, and ammunition, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said during a visit to the remote jungle site. The owners fled the area.
The crackdown is the latest in a series of measures by the government to meet a new target of reducing destruction of the Amazon forest by 50 percent during the next decade.
"We are determined to slash deforestation -- this operation is a warning to illegal loggers," Minc told Reuters before ordering the destruction of 120 kilns for making charcoal, which is used by iron ore smelters to fire blast furnaces.
Brazil's government last year abandoned years of opposition to deforestation targets and now is under pressure to show the world community and critics at home that it can deliver, particularly ahead of a major climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.
Minc aims to reduce deforestation to about 3,700 square miles (9,500 sq km) in the 12 months through July, the lowest on record and down from 4,600 square miles (11,900 sq km) the year earlier.
The government initially said the latest raid netted 400 truckloads of illegal wood but lowered the figure to about 300 after surveying the area.
Each year advancing loggers, ranchers and farmers cut huge swathes of forest in search of cheap land.
"This is why Brazil has an image abroad of destroying rain forest and emitting carbon," Minc said after overseeing the dismantling of a clandestine saw mill.
Dozens of townspeople, many of whom worked at the saw mills, watched as bulldozers demolished their livelihood.
"We know it's illegal but we have to work," said Keno Alverenga, the son of a mill owner.
In an attempt to prevent social unrest in Nova Esperanca, where most of the 32,000 inhabitants depend on the timber industry, the government pledged welfare measures and alternative economic activities.
SEEKING ALTERNATIVES TO LOGGING
The steps include unemployment benefits, food baskets and plots of land for the poorest. The estimated 5 million reais ($2.24 million) in proceeds from the sale of the impounded wood will finance local infrastructure projects where redundant loggers will be hired.
"Alternative economic activities are more important than repression," Minc said. "Without them, they'll just keep deforesting down the road."
Last year similar police operations in other areas caused violent protests in which loggers took officials hostage and fled with the impounded tree trunks.
Since he took office 10 months ago, Minc has cut credit to illegal ranchers and farmers and impounded beef and soy products from deforested areas. He also struck deals with timber and grain wholesalers as well as banks to boycott products of illegal origin.
But critics say President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government remains deeply divided over conservation. It is promoting a series of new roads and hydroelectric plants that conservationists fear could increase deforestation.
The country's influential agriculture lobby also has resisted costly measures to improve productivity and recover depleted land instead of slashing and burning forest.
Norway, which last year pledged contributions of $1 billion through 2015 to a new Amazon Fund, has made its annual contributions conditional on progress in cutting deforestation rates. The fund will finance conservation, scientific research and sustainable economic development.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08531657
* Illegal saw mills destroyed as workers watch
* Crackdown part of gov't campaign to slash deforestation
* Gov't trying to help timber-reliant areas (Updates with revised amount of wood, adds quotes, details, changes dateline)
Environmental police in Brazil seized the equivalent of 300 truckloads of wood in a major raid on illegal loggers, the government said on Wednesday, the latest effort to curb destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
During the surprise raid in Nova Esperanca do Piria, 120 miles (190 km) southeast of the city of Belem, police shut down 13 logging companies and sawmills, and seized tractors, guns, and ammunition, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said during a visit to the remote jungle site. The owners fled the area.
The crackdown is the latest in a series of measures by the government to meet a new target of reducing destruction of the Amazon forest by 50 percent during the next decade.
"We are determined to slash deforestation -- this operation is a warning to illegal loggers," Minc told Reuters before ordering the destruction of 120 kilns for making charcoal, which is used by iron ore smelters to fire blast furnaces.
Brazil's government last year abandoned years of opposition to deforestation targets and now is under pressure to show the world community and critics at home that it can deliver, particularly ahead of a major climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.
Minc aims to reduce deforestation to about 3,700 square miles (9,500 sq km) in the 12 months through July, the lowest on record and down from 4,600 square miles (11,900 sq km) the year earlier.
The government initially said the latest raid netted 400 truckloads of illegal wood but lowered the figure to about 300 after surveying the area.
Each year advancing loggers, ranchers and farmers cut huge swathes of forest in search of cheap land.
"This is why Brazil has an image abroad of destroying rain forest and emitting carbon," Minc said after overseeing the dismantling of a clandestine saw mill.
Dozens of townspeople, many of whom worked at the saw mills, watched as bulldozers demolished their livelihood.
"We know it's illegal but we have to work," said Keno Alverenga, the son of a mill owner.
In an attempt to prevent social unrest in Nova Esperanca, where most of the 32,000 inhabitants depend on the timber industry, the government pledged welfare measures and alternative economic activities.
SEEKING ALTERNATIVES TO LOGGING
The steps include unemployment benefits, food baskets and plots of land for the poorest. The estimated 5 million reais ($2.24 million) in proceeds from the sale of the impounded wood will finance local infrastructure projects where redundant loggers will be hired.
"Alternative economic activities are more important than repression," Minc said. "Without them, they'll just keep deforesting down the road."
Last year similar police operations in other areas caused violent protests in which loggers took officials hostage and fled with the impounded tree trunks.
Since he took office 10 months ago, Minc has cut credit to illegal ranchers and farmers and impounded beef and soy products from deforested areas. He also struck deals with timber and grain wholesalers as well as banks to boycott products of illegal origin.
But critics say President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government remains deeply divided over conservation. It is promoting a series of new roads and hydroelectric plants that conservationists fear could increase deforestation.
The country's influential agriculture lobby also has resisted costly measures to improve productivity and recover depleted land instead of slashing and burning forest.
Norway, which last year pledged contributions of $1 billion through 2015 to a new Amazon Fund, has made its annual contributions conditional on progress in cutting deforestation rates. The fund will finance conservation, scientific research and sustainable economic development.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08531657
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