#amazon river basin

[bolaneno]

faces dated from 2,000 years ago carved in stone at the Lajes Archaeological Site in Manaus, Brazil

[rjzimmerman]

Scientists May Have Identified a Culprit Behind Declining Amazon Rains. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

For decades, the dry season in the Amazon rainforest has been getting drier. A new study, published on Tuesday, found that about 75 percent of the decrease in rainfall is directly linked to deforestation.

The study, in Nature Communications, also found that tree loss was partly responsible for increased heat across the Amazon. Since 1985, the hottest days in the Amazon have warmed by about 2 degrees Celsius. About 16 percent of that increase, the researchers found, was because of deforestation.

Marco Franco, an assistant professor at the University of São Paulo who led the study, said he was surprised by the findings. “We were expecting to see deforestation as a driver, but not this much,” he said. “It tells us a lot about what’s going on in the biome.”

The Amazon rainforest is often called the lungs of the planet because its trees help to regulate the global climate by absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide. But decades of large-scale logging and burning in the forest have recently flipped that script, and parts of the region have become net producers of greenhouse gases.

The Amazon also steers regional weather patterns. Its trees pull water from the soil and, through a process known as transpiration, release that moisture through tiny pores on their leaves. There are hundreds of billions of trees in the Amazon Basin, and the water they collectively release into the air is estimated to contribute more than 40 percent of all the region’s rainfall.

[solarpunkbusiness]

Brazil reforestation startups are the new hotness

Brazilian reforestation firm Mombak has secured $30 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV), it said on Tuesday, in another sign of growing investor interest in Brazil's carbon removal sector.

Mombak, a leading startup in the nascent industry, restores degraded farm and pasture land to Amazon rainforest with native species and sells credits from the carbon captured to companies looking to voluntarily offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

Biomas, a Brazilian reforestation venture backed by several corporate heavyweights, on Friday unveiled its first project, aiming to restore 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of Brazil's coastal Atlantic rainforest with over 70 native tree species.

It comes as Brazil's nascent carbon removal industry gains scale, with major reforestation projects already underway from startups Mombak and re.green offering credits for companies to voluntarily offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

Those two developers bought land from farmers and ranchers or partnered with them to reforest parts of the Amazon, while Biomas is starting with a stretch of Atlantic rainforest in the state of Bahia and evaluating future projects in the Amazon.

The inaugural project, named Mucununga, will invest some 55 million reais ($9.7 million) to reforest land owned by eucalyptus pulp producer Veracel Celulose.

Link 1 (Reuters)

Link 2 (Reuters)

[cryptids-of-the-world]

The Yacumama is a giant snake said to live in the Amazon River Basin. The Yacumama is described as a giant anaconda that is 60 meters in length and it is believed to eat and attack anything that comes close to it. Locals believe that the Yacumama is the mother of all marine life and that she swims to a special part in the Amazon River known as the Boiling River. Locals also believe that if they blow a conch shell horn the Yacumama will reveal itself if it is in the area. In the 1900′s two men tried to kill Yacumama by putting explosives in the river and when they blew up Yacumama rose out of the river covered in blood and swam away. Experts believe that Yacumama could actually be a surviving Titanaboa. 

[the-faunal-frontier]

Tapirus kabomani - Kabomani Tapir

[bautyofworld]

Madidi jungle Trek, Madidi National Park, Bolivia: Madidi is a national park in the upper Amazon river basin in Bolivia. It was established in 1995 with a total land area of 18,958km². Together with the nearby protected areas Manuripi-Heath and Apolobamba and the Manu Biosphere Reserve, Madidi is part of one of the largest protected areas in the world. Wikipedia

[rjzimmerman]

The World’s Largest Wetland Is Burning, and Rare Animals Are Dying. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Two jaguar cubs burned to death, their small bodies carbonized. Tapirs with raw, bloodied paws had been scalded by smoldering cinders. Nests of unhatched eggs from rare parrots were consumed by flames as tall as trees.

Wildfires are laying waste to Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the most important biodiversity sanctuaries on the planet.

And the blazes, the worst on record since Brazil started tracking fires in 1998, are taking a deadly toll on wild animals, including at-risk species that scientists have been working for decades to protect.

“We’re watching the biodiversity of the Pantanal disappear into ash,” said Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist working for SOS Pantanal, a conservation nonprofit. “It’s being burned to a crisp.”

The Pantanal is a maze of rivers, forests and marshlands that sprawl over 68,000 square miles, an area 20 times the size of the Everglades. About 80 percent lies within Brazil, with the rest in Bolivia and Paraguay.

Usually flooded for much of the year, the Pantanal in recent years has been parched by a string of severe droughts that scientists have linked to deforestation and climate change.

Since the start of the year, wildfires have burned over 7,000 square miles, an area the size of New Jersey, in Brazil’s share of the Pantanal.

The wetlands, parts of which are on UNESCO’s list of heritage sites because of their rich biodiversity, are home to the world’s biggest parrot, the highest concentration of caimans and threatened wildlife like the giant otter.

They also harbor animals that have evolved in ways distinctive from others in their species, like larger jaguars that dive into flooded plains to fish for food.

Researchers have counted at least 4,700 plant and animal species in the Pantanal, though they say many more have yet to be discovered by scientists.

“There’s so much we still don’t know,” said Luciana Leite, a biologist and a climate campaigner for the Environmental Justice Foundation. “It’s such a special region.”

But the wildfires, fanned by strong winds and searing temperatures, are threatening this natural laboratory, killing or injuring giant anteaters, lowland tapirs, marsh deer, hyacinth macaws and caimans.

Image

[rjzimmerman]

‘Narco-deforestation’ and the future of the Amazon

The fate of Colombia’s rainforest may lay in the hands of a rebel group linked to drugs and illegal mining.

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

There’s a struggle for law and order in many of the world’s tropical forests, and nature is losing.

Last week, I wrote about the major progress Colombia made in 2023, slashing deforestation rates by 49 percent in a single year. But this week, we learned the trend reversed significantly in the first quarter of this year. Preliminary figures show tree loss was up 40 percent since the start of the year, Colombia’s Minister of Environment, Susana Muhamad, told reporters on Monday.

Why have things changed so quickly? Mostly because a single armed group controls much of Colombia’s rainforests.

Muhamad explained that conflicts with Estado Mayor Central, a group that is thought to run a sprawling cocaine operation among other illegal activities, were partly behind the striking numbers. “In this case, nature is being placed in the middle of the conflict,” she said. According to experts, E.M.C. had largely banned deforestation and in recent months it seems to have allowed it again.

A 2023 United Nations report referred to this entanglement between drug trafficking and environmental crime as “narco-deforestation.” Perhaps nowhere is that phenomenon more clear than in Colombia, a country that’s both a stage for the decades-old global war on drugs and one of the most biodiverse corners of the planet, where the Andes Mountains meet the vast Amazon rainforest.

But what’s happening in Colombia underscores a growing challenge for many developing countries. Vast pristine forests are both essential to curb climate change and biodiversity loss, and they’re also prized by groups who want to hide illegal activities beneath thick tree canopies.

Today I want to explain why experts on the ground say that there’s no way to protect crucial forests like the Amazon without dealing with the growing power of armed groups.