#brazilianrainforest

[docileeffects]

[truthbombmemes]

Americans make-up 4% of the world population yet we consume 20% of the world's beef. And cattle ranching, both legal and illegal, is destroying the Brazilian rain forest. We can do better! Let's STOP EATING BEEF and that will take away the incentive to destroy the rain forest. Also, Brazilian people should throw-out their current president #JairBolsonaro. He is encouraging destruction of the rain forest by not enforcing the laws designed to protect it. He's also a wannabe dictator and a corrupt pandemic-denier. #beefindustry #jbl @jbl_brasil @jblaudio_eu @jblindia @jblargentinaoficial @jbl_mx @jblaudio #brazilianrainforest #protecttherainforest #rainforest #brazil Full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/amazon-beef-deforestation-brazil/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc-v0owLDJh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dragonfishon]

🚨If you care, SHARE... Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is burning at a record rate. We need to bring attention to this.🚨We only have one EARTH 🌍💦#brazilianrainforest #brazilianblowout #amazonfires (at Amazon Rainforest, South America) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1eF59tgwzw/?igshid=1oalcrvzycsng

[cannmarie]

This is absolutely heartbreaking 😔😔 This picture of the Amazon on fire🔥 is going around the gram today and it's truly heartbreaking. Global warming🌍 is real and is happening and the fact that we are not acting in a way to preserve our environment is maddening🌳🌳 #brazilianrainforest #amazonforest #alreadyburningfewweeks #globalwarming #prayforamazonia https://www.instagram.com/p/B1c0bIshfvC3bHJ9Kh5YFNuY5DUibr0wQYszss0/?igshid=1wpivluhnnjtg

[countrymadefoods]

Can We Grow More Food on Less Land? 

“A sweeping new study, by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group; warns that the world’s agricultural system will need drastic changes in the next few decades in order to feed billions more people without triggering a climate catastrophe.The challenge is daunting: Agriculture already occupies roughly 40 percent of the world’s land and is responsible for about a quarter of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. But with the global population expected to grow from 7.2 billion people today to nearly 10 billion by 2050

In the past, researchers who have looked at the food problem have suggested that the key to a sustainable agriculture system is to persuade consumers to eat far less meat and waste far less of the food that’s already grown.

The new report, however, cautions that there may be limits to how much those strategies can achieve on their own. The authors do recommend that the biggest consumers of beef and lamb, such as those in Europe and the United States, could cut back their consumption by about 40 percent by 2050, or down to about 1.5 servings a week on average. Those two types of meat have especially large environmental footprints. But the authors are not counting on a major worldwide shift to vegetarianism.”

“So, in addition to actions on diet and food waste, the researchers also focused on dozens of broad strategies that could allow farmers and ranchers to grow far more food on existing agricultural lands while cutting emissions, a feat that would require a major shift in farming practices worldwide and rapid advances in technology...Improving productivity across the board could help satisfy rising meat demand while lessening the need to clear broad swaths of rain forest.

The authors also pointed to possible techniques to reduce the climate impact of existing farms. For instance, new chemical compounds could help prevent nitrogen fertilizers from producing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. And scientists are exploring feed additives that get cows to burp up less methane, another big contributor to global warming.

The report notes that producing 56 percent more calories without expanding agricultural land could prove even more difficult if, as expected, rising temperatures reduce crop yields.

The researchers emphasize that strategies to improve the productivity of existing croplands and pastures will have to be paired with more rigorous conservation policies to protect existing forests in places like Brazil or sub-Saharan Africa. Otherwise, farmers will just find it more profitable to clear more forests for agriculture — with dire climate consequences.”

“In the past, we’ve often seen agricultural policies and conservation policies moving in parallel without a lot of interaction...The big challenge is to link the two, so that we get more intensive farming without using more land.”

In another contentious recommendation, the report’s authors call for a limit on the use of bioenergy crops, such as corn grown for ethanol in cars, that compete with food crops for land.

Money is also a hurdle. The report’s authors call for large increases in research funding to look at ideas like fertilizers that can be made without the use of fossil fuels, organic sprays that can reduce waste by preserving fresh food for longer, and genetic editing techniques that might produce higher-yielding crops. They also urge new regulations that would encourage private industry to develop sustainable agricultural technologies.”

(via Can We Grow More Food on Less Land? We’ll Have To, a New Study Finds - The New York Times)

10 years ago, the Amazon was being bulldozed for soy. Then everything changed.

“The agreement – called the soy moratorium – is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between civil society, industry and government. It has already produced a spectacular drop in Amazon deforestation. And now the moratorium will last until – as the renewal document says – it is no longer needed.

The moratorium has done a great job of preventing soy expansion in the Brazilian Amazon. The indefinite renewal of the soy moratorium is also a sign of what partnerships between industry and civil society can achieve to save our planet. As political uncertainty grows in Brazil, the agreement can provide the market with strong guarantees that Brazilian soy is forest friendly.

But while the moratorium is widely credited as a major factor in the reduction of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, the fight to end Amazon destruction is far from over.

The Amazon still faces catastrophic mega-dams, illegal logging operations and other commodities driving deforestation – like cattle.”

TURNING RAINFOREST TO FURNITURE – GLOBAL MARKETS GOBBLE UP THE CONGO BASIN

“The rainforests of Central Africa’s Congo Basin are disappearing before our eyes.  New research is suggesting a major cause is demand for furniture in the United States – furniture manufactured from African timbers that in turn are imported from China.A new study from the University of California examines timber exports from five Central African countries to China between 2001 and 2015.  During that period, China more than doubled its wood imports from the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest, and is now its biggest timber importer.”

“While the U.S. is clearly part of the problem in Africa, China is at least as much of a worry.  For example, in 2013, the European Union introduced the E.U. Timber Regulation.  It requires ‘due diligence’ from importers to verify that timber being brought into E.U. markets isn’t illegally harvested. This slowed timber exports from the Congo Basin to the E.U., but China was quick to jump in and exploit the void instead.  And the Chinese worry little about whether timber is illegally harvested or obtained via bribery, according to a wide range of sources.”

“China is the biggest force behind a growing illegal trade that is stripping the native forests of many countries.  Many developed nations – such as the U.S., Australia, and E.U. – are now enacting laws to ban illegal timber imports. But those laws do little to influence China’s aggressive behavior, or taming the dark side of the global timber trade.  Ultimately, strong demand from consumer nations for cheap Chinese-manufactured furniture is driving a great deal of deforestation.When the world wants cheap furniture, China will get it for them, one way or another.”