A new study concludes that last year’s drought in the Amazon was the worst in over 100 years and put severe stress on the rainforest ecosystem. The study, published April 1 in Eos, the weekly magazine of the American Geophysical Union, shows that greenness levels—a measure of a forest’s health—fell dramatically throughout 2.5 million square kilometers (965,000 square miles) of the Amazon. Moreover, the damaged area did not recover to normal levels even after the drought ended in late October 2010. “We don’t know whether the reduction in greenness as captured by satellite reflected the loss of leaves from the drought, the death of water sensitive trees, or an increase in fires,” says Ranga Myneni, a professor in the department of geography and...
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The Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded this year to Francisco Pineda, a 46-year-old farmer from El Salvador who built a grassroots movement to fight a gold-mining project in the watershed of the Lempa, El Salvador’s longest river. Pineda is the founder and president of the Environmental Committee of Cabañas in Defense of Water and Culture, which opposes Vancouver-based Pacific Rim’s El Dorado gold mine. The Committee has been instrumental in organizing hundreds of people to oppose the mine and in helping persuade El Salvador’s government to deny Pacific Rim’s 2005 request for an environmental license to exploit the mine’s gold reserves. Despite continual death threats and the murder of two of its members, the Committee helped convince the government that exploration...
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In its ongoing border dispute with Nicaragua, Costa Rica has consistently said its prime concern is the environmental damage that it claims is being done to some of its wetlands by a Nicaraguan river-dredging project. But a veteran Nicaraguan environmentalist is attempting to float an alternative explanation: oil. Kamilo Lara, president of Fonare/SOS, a recycling and environmental-conservation group, says the potential for oil discoveries off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica underlie the dispute. Specifically, he charges that Costa Rica harbors “expansionist plans” to appropriate a small piece of coastal swampland in order to lay claim to a much larger swath of corresponding territorial waters with oil potential. Costa Rica claims the Caribbean coastal land—a five-square-kilometer (1,200...
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Brazil’s banking industry association (Febraban) is surveying its members to see how they are complying with voluntary commitments they made to increase the sustainability of their lending and internal operations. The Environment Ministry and Febraban signed an accord in which the association pledged to encourage its 125 members to voluntarily adopt a “green protocol.” The questionnaires, already distributed and due to be returned this month, survey members’ progress in adopting the protocol’s four prescribed steps. Those steps are to: conduct environmental and social risk analysis before making business loans; prioritize loans to green friendly businesses; offer clients opportunities to invest in green businesses; and introduce sustainable internal practices for banks. Febraban plans to contact members individually and advise them using the survey results. Mario Sergio...
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