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To mitigate the impacts of climate change, the world must find solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity, and provide for the world's poor. One key solution may not require expensive technology, but rather protection of the vast tropical forests of the Brazilian Amazon.
Worldwatch Institute staff writer Ben Block explores the growing pressures facing the Amazon forest and its people in this three-part series, published in April 2008. Below you can find links to the articles and additional information.
Part One: In Brazil, Violence Looms
at the Forest Edge
The Brazilian government is stepping-up anti-deforestation measures. But without
sufficient financial compensation, soy farmers and cattle ranchers may respond
with violence rather than compliance.
Part Two: Can Amazonian Beef Be
Sustainable?
While the IFC and Brazil's leading beef exporter say they plan to halt illegal deforestation and exploitative labor, some environmentalists remain skeptical.
Part Three: In Amazon, Money May Grow on Trees
After All
The outcome of a post-Kyoto international climate agreement may decide whether the
world can save the Brazilian Amazon. The process will be far from easy.
For more information on the topics discussed in the three-part series, see the relevant sources below.
Overview
Tim Hirsch. "The Incredible Shrinking Amazon Rainforest." World Watch Magazine, May/June 2008.
Paulo Moutinho and Stephen Schwartzman, eds., Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change (Washington, DC: Environmental Defense and Belém, Pará, Brazil: IPAM, 2005).
International Climate Talks
Daniel Nepstad et al., "The Costs and Benefits of Reducing Carbon Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in the Brazilian Amazon" (Falmouth, MA: Woods Hole Research Center, December 2007).
Stephan Schwartzman, Daniel Nepstad, and Paulo Moutinho, "Getting REDD Right" (Falmouth, MA: Woods Hole Research Center, December 2007).
Other Woods Hole Research Center reports.
The Forests Dialogue, Yale University. A consortium of forest experts that has made climate change its newest priority issue.
Deforestation Pressures
Daniel Nepstad, Claudia Stickler, and Oriana Almeida, "Globalization of the Amazon Soy and Beef Industries: Opportunities for Conservation," Conservation Biology, 6 December 2006, pp 1595-1602.
Douglas C. Morton et al., "Cropland expansion changes deforestation dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon," Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 26 September 2006, pp. 14637-41.
Roberto Smeraldi and Peter H. May, The Cattle Realm: A New Phase in the Livestock Colonization of Brazilian Amazonia (São Paolo: Amigos da Terra, 2008).
Climate Change and the Amazon
Yadvinder Malhi et al., "Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Fate of the Amazon," Science, 11 January 2008, pp. 169-72.
Daniel C. Nepstad, The Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire in the Greenhouse (Gland, Switzerland: WWF International, 2007).
World Bank Projects
Claudia Stickler and Oriana Almeida. "Harnessing international finance to manage the Amazon agro-industrial explosion? The case of International Finance Corporation loans to Groupo Maggi," Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 2006.
Kenneth M. Chomitz, At Loggerheads? Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Environment in the Tropical Forests (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007).
