Those still wondering whether global warming has arrived need look no further than Central America, where an epidemic of coffee rust disease (Hemileia vastatrix) has ripped through coffee plantations, savaging coffee production and costing more than 400,000 coffee workers their jobs. Scientists link the outbreak of the disease, the worst in 30 years, to higher rainfall and soaring temperatures. Those factors have pushed the fungal infection in the Central American highlands up to altitudes ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 feet—elevations where coffee farmers had moved in order to escape previous outbreaks. With heavy rains expected in the next few weeks, the crisis could deepen, analysts say. Temperatures in South and Central America have risen by 0.7 to 1 degree centigrade over the last 40...
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Environmental organizations challenging large tourism developments along the Gulf of California coast won a victory last month in their effort to boost public scrutiny of the projects, which they want canceled. A dozen U.S. and Mexican green groups argue that the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) violated Mexican law when it approved environmental impact studies for four large developments along the gulf’s coastline. As part of a broader strategy that includes court challenges and public opinion campaigns, they asked the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the trilateral agency created under an environmental side agreement to the 20-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), to study the circumstances of the approvals. The CEC secretariat acted favorably on their request on Sept...
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Over the last decade, developed nations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Latin America to preserve and promote forestland in the fight against global warming. But those efforts, which include reforestation, tree plantations and fire suppression, can be harmful when applied to tropical grasslands, a new study warns. “The emphasis on forest plantations and fighting fires can lead to the destruction of tropical grasslands on which huge numbers of plant, insect, bird and mammal species and critical water resources depend,” says University of Liverpool ecologist Catherine Parr, the study’s principal author. The study, published recently in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution and entitled “Tropical Grassy Biomes: Misunderstood, Neglected, and Under Threat,” appears at a time when Latin American nations have received significant...
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Tropical deforestation is down thanks to successful programs and policies—by governments, the private sector, individuals and communities—that have protected and restored forests in 17 different countries, according to a recent report by the U.S. nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. In the 1990s, deforestation, nearly all of which occurs in tropical countries, consumed 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) a year—an area about the size of the U.S. state of Georgia—and was responsible for about 17% of the world’s global warming emissions. By the early 2000s, deforestation was down 19% to 13 million hectares (32.1 million acres). Now, deforestation is responsible for about 10% of climate emissions globally, according to the study, which was released in June and is titled “Deforestation Success...
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