After three years of declining deforestation rates, Brazilian authorities announced that logging rates in the Amazon have increased between two to three times since last year. Incra, the Brazilian government’s land reform agency, now faces criminal charges for allegedly handing over rain forest to logging companies and creating fake settlements to avoid environmental regulations.

Photo: Paulo Santos/Reuters

The Amazon represents more than half of the planet’s remaining rainforest, and serves a vital role of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.   Deforestation of the rainforest not only contributes to climate change, but leads to significant losses of biodiversity and threatens indigenous tribes, some of which have not had contact with the outside world.

takepart by helping the World Wildlife Fund protect the rainforest and keep an eye on Brazil’s proposed plan to end deforestation by 2015.

Related:

Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Amazon Rainforest Deforestation is Rising for First Time in Three Years

De-Forestation: Less Eco-Friendly Than You’

Cowboys to the Rainforest Rescue

Norway, which it turns out is not in South America, is the first country to donate to an Amazon preservation fund that will give money to Brazil to save its rainforest.   According to the Associated Press via MSNBC, Norway pledged $1 billion to the fund, paid by 2015, assuming that Brazil reduces deforestation.

The hope is that $21 billion will be raised that will all go to Brazil so that the country may immediately work “to protect nature reserves, to persuade loggers and farmers to stop destroying trees and to finance scientific and technological projects.“  Says Noways Prime Minster Jens Stoltenberg

‘Efforts against deforestation may give us the largest, quickest and cheapest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Brazilian efforts against deforestation are therefore of vital importance if we shall succeed in our campaign against global warming.’

Seems to make sense, no?  This year, Norway will give $21 million to Brazil, next year $210 million, and will keep releasing money according to some sort of metric based on how well Brazil is doing on combating deforestation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we told you that photographs were taken of a tribe of reclusive people native to the Peruvian/Brazilian forests.   On the heels of that, the Peruvian government has announced it will take action to protect the tribes and stop loggers from encroaching on the land the tribes inhabit.   From the BBC:

Authorities in Peru’s Amazon state of Madre de Dios now say they will stop illegal loggers who travel deep into the forest in search of tropical hardwoods.

They are often the first people to encounter the tribes.

Aside from destroying the tribes’ homes, the loggers also can bring diseases fatal to the tribespeople - even something as simple as the common cold can kill.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time ever, a tribe indigenous to the forests on the border of Brazil and Peru has been photographed. The photos were taken by aircraft, and the native people are shown firing arrows at the plane. The expedition was led by José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, Jr., an expert on native affairs in Brazil. Though the number of native people seems strong, Meirelles has a warning against those that would destroy the ecosystem the tribe resides in. From the UK’s Daily Mail:

Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

Read the rest of this entry »