In just six weeks the expedition recorded an astounding variety of life: 158 species of birds, 22 species of medium to large mammals, and half of Guyana's known endangered species.
[Photograph by: nicholascsavage]
In the Xingu region, indigenous communities are getting their war paint ready: they are furious about Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's decision to build a controversial hydroelectric plant in the area.
[Photograph by: Andre Penner/AP]
Nicolas Sarkozy can find the time to come 5,100 miles from Paris to Manaus? But Peru’s president Alan Garcia – whose country has about 11 per cent of the total Amazon territory inside its borders – can’t find the time to do a short day-trip flight from Lima to Manaus?
[Photograph by: Martin Mejia/AP]
A few decades ago, Mato Grosso — "thick forest" in Portuguese — was covered by jungle. Today, it is an endless plain of soy farms and meatpacking plants that resembles the American Midwest.
[Photograph by: Rhett Butler/Mongabay]
A summit intended to help save the Amazon rainforest has ended in Brazil without forging a common agenda on deforestation.
[Photograph by: Andre Penner/AP]
The state with the most devastation in October was Pará (45%), followed by Mato Grosso (22%) and Rondônia (13%). Together, the three represent 80% of total cleared forest. Then come Amazonas (9%), Roraima (6%), Amapá (3%) and Acre (2%).
Please note: This article is in Portuguese.
[Map by: Volunteer Brazil]
Resident Manoel da Silva paddles his canoe through dead fish in the Parana de Manaquiri River, a tributary of the Amazon, near the city of Manaquiri November 22, 2009. After a rainy season that caused some of the worst flooding in recent history the seasonal drought that followed is proving to be especially bad as well.
[Photograph by: Bruno Kelly/A Crítica/Agência Estado]
Reforestation is expensive, difficult to plan, and even harder to execute. Success is subject to weather, pests, weeds, and continued maintenance.
[Photograph by: Sustainable Forests Solutions]
The Amazon is the largest remaining rainforest on Earth and plays a major role in regulating the planet's climate. But tens of thousands of square kilometres of Amazon rainforest are destroyed each year by slash-and-burn practices, which local people use to clear land for farming.
[Photograph by: Dado Galdier/AP]
Rock star Sting has used his latest visit to Brazil to urge the government there to listen to the concerns of indigenous peoples over a proposed new hydro-electric dam in the Amazon.
[Photograph by: Alex Almeida/REUTERS]
Out of an estimated 80,000 species of flower-bearing plants in the Amazon, only about a fifth have been identified.
[Photograph by: Editora Abril S.A.]
The funds would aim "to protect biodiversity and support sustainable landscapes in fiscal year 2010 ... with a focus on protection of tropical forests," a U.S. Embassy London spokesman confirmed. A lot of the money would go to the Amazon and Congo basins in South America and Africa, he added.
[Photograph by: Have Fun SVO]
Leaders from the eight countries straddling the Amazon -- Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela -- have all been invited to Thursday's talks in the Brazilian city of Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
[Photograph by: CityFiles/WireImage.com]
Despite increased public awareness of the importance of tropical rainforests, deforestation rates are actually on the rise, mostly due to activities such as commercial logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, dam-building and mining, but also due to subsistence agriculture and collection of fuel wood.
[Photograph by: Dado Galdier/AP]
Government leaders say the project is necessary to ensure that Brazil can meet growing demand for power, but activists say it would displace indigenous people living in the area and flood large parts of the sensitive Amazon rainforest.
[Photograph by: Marcellino]
A group of scientists published an open letter to president Lula asking for the cancellation of the reconstruction of highway BR-319, which connects Porto Velho to Manaus. The main argument is that the road would more bring deforestation for one of the preserved regions of the Amazon.
Please note: This article is in Portuguese.
[Photograph by: Iberê Thenório/Globo Amazônia]
As major sponges of carbon dioxide, the world's forests need to be protected and rehabilitated. Shrinkage of the Amazon rainforest is not just a Brazilian problem, it's a global problem - so it needs a global solution.
[Photograph by: Alberto Cesar/Greenpeace]
The Amazon jungle is metaphorically referred to as the lungs of the world: CO2 in, O2 out, transformed through a dense emerald mass. It's an irreplaceable treasure, in many spots still unmapped, and a biological preserve filled with species that we likely haven’t even seen.
[Photograph by: JorgeBrazil]
Brazil could earn up to $16 billion per year to fund emissions reductions and Amazon rainforest protection by selling forest carbon credits, a Brazilian carbon markets expert said in an interview.
[Photograph by: UN-REDD Programme]
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped nearly 46 percent from August 2008 to July 2009 - the biggest annual decline in two decades, the government said Thursday.
[Photograph by: Roberto Jayme/REUTERS]
Brazil has been under pressure for years to slow the encroachment of loggers and ranchers who are blamed for much of the destruction of the forest, which has lost about 20 percent of its area since the 1970s.
[Photograph by: Lalo de Almeida/New York Times]
Environmentalists say dams in the Amazon have flooded vast tracts of rainforest, releasing large volumes of greenhouse gases; blocked important routes for migratory fish; and promoted settlement projects that brought ranchers, soybean farmers, illegal gold miners and loggers to remote regions, driving deforestation.
[Photograph by: Marcellino]
Flying in here by prop plane from Manaus, you can understand why the Amazon rainforest is considered one of the lungs of the world. Even from 20,000 feet, all you see in every direction is an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops that, from the air, looks like a vast and endless carpet of broccoli.
[Photograph by: Nancy Ostertag/Getty Images]
After getting in touch with the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) NGO, Almir decided he should go to San Francisco to try to talk directly to the people at Google. His ideas was to use the web to broadcast information to the rest of the world about the government’s neglect regarding the devastation of indigenous land and the Amazon rainforest.
[Photograph by: Luke MacGregor/REUTERS]
A new study has found that the Amazon jungle, the most robust of the world’s rain forests, suffers from “chronic malnutrition” due to a lack of salt, which helps to keep carbon dioxide emissions at bay.
[Photograph by: Apollo Alliance]
The Yasuni-ITT Initiative would protect a large area of pristine Amazon rainforest, by leaving untouched nearly one billion barrels of oil that lies beneath the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.
[Map by: Schemata-Root.org]
Brazil's Environment minister, Carlos Minc, is celebrating the pace of Brazilian deforestation. The last numbers released by the National Institute of Space Studies (Inpe) this Wednesday, November 4, shows that Brazil in September has downed 400 km² (154 square miles) of trees in the Amazon or the equivalent of a half New York City.
[Photograph by: Roberto Jayme/REUTERS]
The Brazilian government is seeking to repave the almost impassable BR-319 route between Porto Velho and Manaus. But the plan is controversial because the 900km (560 mile) road cuts right through the Amazon rainforest.
[Photograph by: Haino]
The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest, with a population of about 32,000 that straddle the Venezuela-Brazil border. Due to this isolation they have very little resistance to introduced diseases such as flu.
Act now to help the Yanomami!
[Photograph by: Antonio Mari]
The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) found deforestation of 400 km ² of rainforest in September. The area amounts to about one third of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The data was released by the institute on Wednesday (04).
Please note: This article is in Portuguese.
[Photograph by: Rhett Butler/Mongabay]
The Walt Disney Co said on Tuesday it will invest $7 million in forest conservation projects in the Amazon, Congo and United States as part of its effort to reduce emissions, waste and energy use as a corporation.
[Photograph by: Walt Disney Company]
Fifty years ago, the Amazon was still largely intact. Then in 1964, Brazil passed a law to encourage landless peasants to leave the slums and develop the interior. Anyone who could demonstrate that land was being put to "effective use" would get a title to it. As a result, the native forest-dwellers began to be displaced, and newcomers started clearing large areas for cattle production and rubber tapping.
[Photograph by: Rhett Butler/Mongabay]
