#Amazon Rainforest

[animentality]

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Biden Observes Extreme Drought Effects During Flyover, Seeks Data on Amazon Fires

On the president's helicopter were Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre and the U.S. climate envoy, John Podesta; they flew over the area surrounding Manaus

In a 35-minute flight over the area surrounding Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, U.S. President Joe Biden was able to observe the effects of extreme drought on the biome, the advance of deforestation in areas that were previously more preserved, and the impact of fire in the forest. This is according to two people who accompanied Biden on the flyover, which took place on Sunday afternoon (17) aboard the Marine One helicopter, from the U.S. government, accompanied by six other helicopters from the same fleet.

Continue reading.

[hope-for-the-planet]

Amazon deforestation fell over 50% in 2023 and as of August 2024 it was 46% lower than this time last year.

The Brazilian government has pledged to end Amazon deforestation entirely by 2030 and their current efforts have deforestation approaching the lowest it has been in the last six years.

[homo-house]

hey uh so I haven't seen anyone talking about this here yet, but

the amazon river, like the biggest river in the fucking world, in the middle of the amazon fucking rainforest, is currently going through its worst drought since the records began 121 years ago

picture from Folha PE

there's a lot going on but I haven't seen much international buzz around this like there was when the forest was on fire (maybe because it's harder to shift the narrative to blame brazil exclusively as if the rest of the world didn't have fault in this) so I wanted to bring this to tumblr's attention

I don't know too many details as I live in the other side of the country and we are suffering from the exact opposite (at least three cyclones this year, honestly have stopped counting - it's unusual for us to get hit by even one - floods, landslides, we have a death toll, people are losing everything to the water), but like, I as a brazilian have literally never seen pictures of the river like this before. every single city in the amazonas state is in a state of emergency as of november 1st.

pictures by Adriano Liziero (ig: geopanoramas)

we are used to seeing images of rio negro and solimões, the two main amazon river affluents, in all their grandiose and beauty and seeing these pictures is really fucking chilling. some of our news outlets are saying the solimões has turned to a sand desert... can you imagine this watery sight turning into a desert in the span of a year?

while down south we are seeing amounts of rain and hailstorms the likes of which our infrastructure is simply not built to deal with, up north people who have built everything around the river are at a loss of what to do.

the houses there that are built to float are just on the ground, people who depend on fishing for a living have to walk kilometers to find any fish that are still alive at all, the biodiversity there is at risk, and on an economic level it's hard to grasp how people from the northern states are getting by at all - the main means of transport for ANYTHING in that region is via the river water. this will impact the region for months to come. it doesnt make a lot of sense to build a lot of roads bc it's just better to use the waterway system, everything is built around or floats on the river after all. and like, the water level is so incomprehensibly low the boats are just STUCK. people are having a hard time getting from one place to another - keep in mind the widest parts of the river are over 10 km apart!!

this shit is really serious and i am trying not to think about it because we have a different kind of problem to worry about down south but it's really terrifying when I stop to think about it. you already know the climate crisis is real and the effects are beyond preventable now (we're past global warming, get used to calling it "global boiling"). we'll be switching strategies to damage control from now on and like, this is what it's come to.

I don't like to be alarmist but it's hard not to be alarmed. I'm sorry that I can't end this post with very clear intructions on how people overseas can help, there really isn't much to do except hope the water level rises soon, maybe pray if you believe in something. in that regard we just have to keep pressing for change at a global level; local conditions only would not, COULD NOT be causing this - the amazon river is a CONTINENTAL body of water, it spans across multiple countries. so my advice is spread the word, let your representatives know that you're worried and you want change towards sustainability, degrowth and reduced carbon emissions, support your local NGOs, maybe join a cause, I don't know? I recommend reading on ecological and feminist economics though

however, I know you can help the affected riverine families by donating to organizations dedicated to helping the region. keep in mind a single US dollar, pound or euro is worth over 5x more in our currency so anything you donate at all will certainly help those affected.

FAS - Sustainable Amazon Fundation

Idesam - Sustainable Developent and Preservation Institute of Amazonas

Greenpeace Brasil - I know Greenpeace isn't the best but they're one of the few options I can think of that have a bridge to the international world and they are helping directly

There are a lot of other smaller/local NGOs but I'm not sure how you could donate to them from overseas, I'll leave some of them here anyway:

Projeto Gari

Caritás Brasileira

If you know any other organizations please link them, I'll be sure to reblog though my reach isn't a lot

thank you so much for reading this to the end, don't feel obligated to share but please do if you can! even if you just read up to here it means a lot to me that someone out there knows

also as an afterthought, I wanted to expand on why I think this hasn't made big news yet: because unlike the case of the 2020 forest fires, other countries have to hold themselves accountable when looking at this situation. while in 2020 it was easier to pretend the fires were all our fault and people were talking about taking the amazon away from us like they wouldn't do much worse. global superpowers have no more forests to speak of so I guess they've been eyeing what latin america still has. so like this bit of the post is just to say if you're thinking of saying anything of the sort, maybe think of what your own country has done to contribute to this instead of blaming brazil exclusively and saying the amazon should be protected by force or whatever

[reasonsforhope]

"Amid record-high temperatures, devastating disasters, and the resulting climate anxiety that comes with them, it can be easy to give in to despair. 

The resounding question of “does this even matter?” likely echoes on a loop, every time you toss an item in the recycling bin, or call your elected officials for the umpteenth time.

But according to research from the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, public outcry can indeed lead to significant environmental action — even when public officials are openly hostile to climate-forward policies.

Their paper, titled “Going Viral: Public Attention and Environmental Action in the Amazon,” will soon be published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. It focuses on the “unprecedented” public scrutiny following forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon in August of 2019.

These fires occurred soon after Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president, after a staunchly anti-environmental campaign.

But after analyzing both media coverage and international pressure towards Brazil’s federal government, the researchers found that the increased public attention resulted in a 22% decrease in fires in the country’s Amazon Rainforest. 

This, in turn, translated into the avoidance of an estimated 24.8 million tons of CO2 emissions.

“Our research underscores the significant role that public attention and media coverage can play in influencing local environmental policies and actions,” the study’s coauthor Teevrat Garg, said in a statement...

“The 2019 surge in attention led to immediate governmental responses, which contributed to the notable decrease in fires,” he added.

To come to these conclusions, the researchers compared fire activity in Brazil with that in Peru and Bolivia, countries that did not receive the same amount of public pressure, though typically still have the same level of fire activity per square kilometer."

-via GoodGoodGood, October 4, 2024

[wachinyeya]

[manessha545]

Amazon rainforest, South America: The Amazon rainforest is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km2 of which 6,000,000 km2 are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 indigenous territories. The majority of the forest, 60%, is in Brazil, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. Wikipedia

[politijohn]

Source

[troythecatfish]

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Have you done the hoatzin yet? My all time favorite bird 💕

Not yet! Good choice! For those who don't know, these unique birds mostly eat leaves (rare in birds!) and their young have primitive claws. They have been the subject of a lot of scientific attention!

[probablyasocialecologist]

[craniozito]

How about I start the side blog with this post? If you are a fan of Osamu Tezuka you must know that he was friends with one of the greatest Brazilian comic artists, Mauricio de Sousa.

I didn't see anywhere other than Brazilian sources commenting on this.

A few years ago MSP (Mauricio de Sousa Produções) was going to finish a story about the Amazon rainforest that Tezuka was writing but with his passing the manga is incomplete, but MSP never touched in the subject since, the project will probably never be completed, I believe it is in limbo.

The only project with the Amazon rainforest that actually happened is the crossover between Turma da Mônica and the Tezuka characters.

The editions I have:

Source about the amazon rainforest manga: JBOX

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

A Changing Climate Is Scorching the World’s Biggest River

As a punishing drought dries up stretches of the Amazon River, Brazil is resorting to dredging to try to keep food, medicine and people flowing along the watery superhighway.

The world’s largest river is parched.

The Amazon River, battered by back-to-back droughts fueled by climate change, is drying up, with some stretches of the mighty waterway dwindling to shallow pools only a few feet deep.

Water levels along several sections of the Amazon River, which winds nearly 4,000 miles across South America, fell last month to their lowest level on record, according to figures from the Brazilian Geological Service.

In one stretch in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, the river was 25 feet below the average for this time of year, according to the agency, which began collecting data in 1967.

Parts of three of the Amazon River’s most important tributaries — major rivers in their own right, each spanning over 1,000 miles — have also fallen to historical lows.

The crisis has gridlocked the Amazon, a vital watery superhighway that serves as practically the only way to connect forest communities and move commerce around some of the most remote stretches on the planet.

Continue reading.

[anim-otd]

Animal of the day: Southern green anaconda! (Eunectes murinus) The southern green anaconda is the largest, heaviest, and second longest snake alive today! It inhabits the jungles of South America, and interestingly, is considered an invasive species in Florida! These enormous reptiles have an incredibly slow metabolism, allowing them to go weeks without food. When one does catch food, it will coil itself around the prey animal, crushing it and then swallowing it whole! Image source: https://www.britannica.com/animal/green-anaconda

[ypeoby]

birds

[reasonsforhope]

— Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to its lowest level since March 2018, according to new data from the Brazilian government.

— Deforestation for the year to date is down 40% compared to 2023, with expectations for a significant annual decline when the “deforestation year” concludes on July 31.

— Despite declining deforestation in the Amazon, the region is experiencing a rise in forest fires due to a severe drought...

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued to plummet in May [2024], reaching the lowest level since March 2018, according to new data from the alert system run by Brazil’s national space research institute, INPE.

According to INPE’s DETER system, deforestation in May 2024 amounted to 501 square kilometers (193 square miles), an area 147 times the size of New York City’s Central Park. This tally brings the accumulated deforestation detected by DETER over the past year to 4,350 square kilometers, down 54% from the same time last year.

For the year to date, DETER has detected 1,182 square kilometers of forest clearance, down 40% from the 1,986 square kilometers recorded at this point in 2023.

[Note: January 2023 is when Lula da Silva was elected in Brazil. As you can see, after that, deforestation immediately plummeted. He is doing SO MUCH for the environment, we are SO lucky he beat Bolsonaro (the big pro-deforestation guy) for president of Brazil.

Also, in case the above chart makes you think we're doing worse than ever, that chart actually starts on a major low point for deforestation, toward the end of Lula da Silva's first term. Here's another chart that gives a longer-term picture, from 2002 to 2023. If we are lucky, Lula da Silva will bring the kind of drop in deforestation to us now that he did during his first term: an almost 80% drop in deforestation.]

Pictured: Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon since 2002 under each presidential administration, according to INPE’s PRODES system. Note: Temer took office on 31 Aug 2016 replacing Rousseff, while other presidents started their terms Jan 1. Also 2023 data is preliminary.

The decline in deforestation registered by DETER mirrors the trend recorded by an independent system maintained by Imazon, a Brazilian NGO. Imazon’s system is seen as a check against official data.

The alert data suggests observers should expect a sharp drop in deforestation for the 12 months ending July 31, the period Brazil uses for measuring annual deforestation. July 31 corresponds with the peak of the dry season across much of the Brazilian Amazon, when cloud cover is at a minimum, facilitating efforts to measure changes in forest cover.

For the annual assessment, Brazil uses higher resolution satellite imagery, which requires more time for analysis. In contrast, the shorter timeframe of DETER enables authorities to take action against illegal deforestation if there is interest in doing so. Data from DETER and PRODES, the annual system, have a strong correlation.

-via GoodGoodGood, July 2, 2024