Hydroelectric dams drastically reduce tropical forest biodiversity

A press release from the University of East Anglia: Widely hailed as ‘green’ sources of renewable energy, hydroelectric dams have been built worldwide at an unprecedented scale. But research from the University of East Anglia reveals that these major infrastructure projects are far from environmentally friendly.

A study published today in PLOS ONE reveals the drastic effects of the major Amazonian Balbina Dam on tropical rainforest biodiversity. The research reveals a loss of mammals, birds and tortoises from the vast majority of islands formed by the creation of the vast Balbina Lake, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric reservoirs.

Lead author Dr Maíra Benchimol..., a former PhD student at UEA and now at Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Bahia, Brazil, said: “Hydroelectric dams have been thought to be an environmentally friendly source of renewable power – and in recent years they have been built to supply the burgeoning energy demands of emergent tropical countries. Previous studies have shown that large dams result in severe losses in fishery revenues, increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and socioeconomic costs to local communities. Our research adds evidence that forest biodiversity also pays a heavy price when large dams are built.

Prof Carlos Peres, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Of course, it is widely known that dams cause massive population losses in terrestrial and tree-dwelling species within lowland forest areas that are flooded. However, we’re only beginning to realize the staggering extent of extinctions in forest areas that remain above water as habitat islands.

“The Brazilian government is currently planning to build hundreds of new dams in some of the world’s most biodiverse tropical forest regions. But the high biodiversity costs of mega dams should be carefully weighed against any benefits of hydropower production.”...

Near Balbina Dam in Brazil, shot by Seabirds, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Rainforest protection akin to speed limit control

A press release from the University of Bonn: The destruction of the Brazilian rainforest has slowed significantly. With around 5000 square kilometers annually, the loss is now about 80% lower than in 2004. Led by the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, an international team of researchers has evaluated the effectiveness of forest law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon. In some federal states of the Brazilian Amazon region enforcement has been more effective than in others. The results are presented in the journal "PLOS ONE".

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest featured in international press headlines for a long time. However, Brazil has made substantial efforts to protect rainforests ecosystem services lately. "Over the last decade, there has been a significant decline in deforestation," says Dr. Jan Börner, the Robert Bosch junior professor at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn. According to national statistics, in 2004, 27,772 square kilometers of forest fell victim, primarily to agricultural use; by 2012, deforestation had decreased to 4,656 square kilometers.

Rainforest destruction is driven in particular by large cattle ranchers and farmers, but also small-scale agriculture. New roads promote timber extraction and clearing. With an international team of researchers from the University of Freiburg, the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) in Brazil, Börner studied around 15,000 forest law violations across the Brazilian part of the Amazon basin to measure how effective the implementation of the rainforest protection was. "Forest law enforcement is, in principle, similar to speed limit control in traffic: the higher the penalties and the more frequent the controls, the greater the deterrence potential", explains Börner.

...The study suggests that effective rainforest protection hinges on the physical presence of regulators and the actual delivery of disincentives on the ground. This often involves effective collaboration between enforcement authorities at federal and state levels. Based on those criteria, forest law enforcement was particularly effective in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Pará. "Public prosecutors in these states have dramatically increased the pressure: They maintain black lists of agricultural enterprises that violate the protective provisions", reports the ZEF scientist. "For example, wholesale dealers may then no longer buy products from these sources."...

NASA image of afternoon clouds over the Amazon rain forest

Why Brazil's megadrought is a Wall Street failure

Amy Larkin in the Guardian (UK): It’s hard to overestimate the appalling environmental and economic crisis that’s brewing in Brazil right now. The country is in the grip of a crippling megadrought – the result of pollution, deforestation and climate change – that deeply threatens its economy, society and environment. And the damage may be permanent: São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and industrial center, has begun rationing water and is discussing whether or not it will need to depopulate in the near future.

But if Brazil’s drought is shocking, Wall Street’s shortsighted approach to the country is appalling. Institutional investors’ reports on the country – the seventh largest economy in the world – cite worries about inflation, government cutbacks and low consumer confidence. But I could not find a single analysis that mentioned the existential threat facing the country: the megadrought that is expected to last decades and could destroy the Brazilian economy. Not a single analysis cited the brutal global impact that this will cause.

In other words, a host of institutional investors have found worrisome things to say about Brazil, but none seem to be aware of – or, at least, willing to face – the country’s greatest threat. Attempting to separate economies from environment – as many of these analysts seem to do – is like trying to separate mind and body. It simply doesn’t work.

We will never repair our business models and government policies to conform to the real environmental constraints of the 21st century until we repair this fundamental flaw in our economic system. Investors and analysts regularly review a host of factors – including national debt, inflation, currency devaluation and other financial considerations – when they formulate their economic predictions. Their decision to omit the environment as a fundamental economic consideration is willfully ignorant and negligent....

A dried up reservoir in Paraguacu, Brazil, from 2012, shot by WOtP, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Malaria resurfaces in Rio as drought displaces mosquitoes

Adriana Brasileiro in Thomson Reuters Foundation: Malaria has resurfaced in Rio de Janeiro as a historic drought in Brazil's southeastern region is driving mosquitoes in the Atlantic Forest to seek water in areas frequented by people, such as waterfalls.

"The mosquitoes in this area habitually lay their eggs in water collected in bromeliads (plants), deep in the forest," said infectologist Alberto Chebabo. "So the drought probably forced them to look for water in more humid places, such as rivers and waterfalls, where people often go at this time of year," Chebabo, of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said in a recent interview. "This may have increased contamination."

Rio de Janeiro and most regions in southeastern Brazil have been considered malaria-free zones for the past 40 years, with just a few cases reported each year. Malaria is only endemic in the northern region, particularly in the Amazon basin.

In the past three weeks, 14 cases have been reported in Rio de Janeiro state, compared with eight in all of 2014, according to the Health Ministry. The people who were infected had travelled to dense Atlantic Forest areas in the interior of Rio state. The cases are not considered severe, as the mosquitoes in the area transmit the Plasmodium vivax parasites, which are less virulent than the Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest species.

Southeast Brazil, home to the country's wealthiest cities, is grappling with the worst drought in at least 80 years as unusually low rainfall since 2013 has resulted in rivers and reservoirs drying up....

The Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon in Rio, shot by chensiyuan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license 

Alleged king of Amazon deforestation detained in Brazil

NBC News: Brazil has detained a land-grabber thought to be the Amazon's single biggest deforester, the country's environmental protection agency said. The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources said Ezequiel Antonio Castanha, who was detained Saturday in the state of Para, operated a network that illegally seized federal lands, clear-cut them and sold them to cattle grazers.

The agency blames the network for 20 percent of the deforestation in Brazil's Amazon in recent years, though the statement issued Monday did not provide the estimated scale of the devastation. It quoted the agency's head of environmental protection, Luciano Evaristo, as saying he hopes Castanha's arrest will "contribute significantly to controlling deforestation in the region."

Castanha will face charges including illegal deforestation and money laundering, and could be sentenced to up to 46 years in prison, the statement said.

Officials said late last year that 1,870 square miles (4,848 square kilometers) of rain forest were destroyed between August 2013 and July 2014. That's a bit larger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island....

A deforested hillside in Brazil, shot by Alex Rio Brazil, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Brazil drought: water rationing alone won't save Sao Paulo

Marussia Whatley and Rebeca Lerer in the Guardian (UK): It should be the rainy season. Instead Sao Paulo state is experiencing a third consecutive year with soaring temperatures and rainfall patterns well below historic records.

The main water reservoirs are operating at their lowest capacity. The Cantareira reservoir system, which serves more than nine million people in the state, is only 5% full. At the Alto Tietê reservoir network, which supplies three million people in greater Sao Paulo, water levels are below 15%.

Simple calculations indicate that given the current level of consumption versus the predicted raining patterns there is only enough water on the system to last four to six months. That means the water could run out before the next rainy season starts in November. State officials recently announced a potential rationing program of five days without water and two days with, in case the February and March rains do not refill the reservoirs.

This extreme climate scenario, combined with a series of management flaws, political negligence and a culture of waste and pollution, is bringing the largest metropolitan region of Brazil to the brink of collapse.

Since 2013, after decades of warnings about misguided development policies and destructive land use practices, experts and civil society organisations have been calling for increasingly strong measures to reduce water consumption to keep the minimum secure levels for supply reservoirs. The calls have been ignored by the state government – the system’s main operator – and federal and municipal authorities turned a blind eye to the severity of the situation....

Image from a drought in northeastern Brazil. Shot by LeoNunes, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Stanford scientist examines ways to put stormwater to use in big cities

Terra Daily: Stanford researchers plan to use data from St. Paul, Minnesota, to determine the value of stormwater, and apply these lessons to water projects in Brazil and Ethiopia. Runoff from rainstorms in big cities can represent both threats and opportunities. Too much runoff in the wrong places causes flooding. Too little rainwater in the right places leads to dried-up creeks and rivers.

Water that washes up pollution from city streets can dirty downstream watersheds. Figuring out the best solutions to these problems requires lots of data - data that are easy to get in highly developed countries, but much scarcer in others.

At the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Perrine Hamel, a postdoctoral scholar with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, will speak on "Mapping Stormwater Retention in the Cities: A Flexible Model for Data-Scarce Environments." "It's really trying to mimic what would happen in a natural watershed," said Perrine.

Initially, Perrine and co-author Bonnie Keeler from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment plan to study the data-rich Capitol Region watershed in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then they plan to extend that work to the data-poor settings of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Their goal is to determine the value of stormwater retention services for large cities in developing countries, and to compare their benefits to those of other services like recreation or urban heat island mitigation. Natural Capital Project partners World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy want to help large cities like Addis Ababa develop in ways that enhance the provision of ecosystem services and that don't create future problems from stormwater runoff. ...

A stormwater management pond in Patuxent, Maryland, shot by Andrew Bossi, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic licenses  

Brazil to launch new satellite to track deforestation

The New Age (South Africa): Brazil will launch a satellite from China Sunday to keep an eye in the sky on deforestation in the Amazon, the National Space Agency (Inpe) said Thursday. An agency spokesman said the launch of the Cbers-4 satellite was scheduled for 0326 GMT December from Tayuan, China, about 750 kilometers (460 miles) southwest of Beijing.

Brazil and China will share the $30 million cost of sending the two-ton satellite into a 778-kilometer high orbit, the spokesman added.Both countries participated in the development of the satellite, which has four cameras in its payload module. The launch comes a year after its predecessor satellite failed to enter orbit because of a fault with the launch vehicle, China's Long March 4B.

Cbers, standing for China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite, will allow Brazil to keep a close watch from space on deforestation in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rain forest, as well as administer agriculture and monitor livestock movement. Brazil and China began space cooperation in 1988 and Cbers 1 was launched in 1999, with a second satellite in 2003 and a third in 2007...

A line drawing of the Cbers-1 satellite, public domain

Brazil protects giant swathe of Amazon rainforest

Reuters: The Brazilian government said on Tuesday it has put an environmentally rich area of the Amazon rainforest under federal protection, creating a reserve larger than the U.S. state of Delaware.

The new reserve, called Alto Maues, has 6,680 square km (668,000 hectares or 1.65 million acres) of mostly untouched forests that are not known to have human presence, the Brazilian Environment Ministry said. Declaring a federal reserve means forest clearing and similar development are forbidden.

Putting large areas of mostly intact rainforest under federal protection is one of the tools the Brazilian government has to combat deforestation and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The creation of these reserves is part of the country's climate policy. Deforestation is the main cause of carbon emissions in Brazil, unlike most countries where the burning of fossil fuels leads emissions.

The decree creating the reserve was eagerly expected by environmental groups. "This is essential to protect unique Amazon species, such as
some types of primates," said Mauro Armelin, a conservationist working for the local office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)....

Amazon rainforest, shot by Neil Palmer (CIAT), Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

Brazil must target smallholders to curb rising deforestation

Anastasia Moloney in the Guardian (UK) via the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Farmers with smallholdings are not responsible for most of the destruction of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, but their contribution to deforestation is rising and must be addressed if the country is to hold on to recent gains, according to an environmental research group.

Government efforts led to a 77% fall in deforestation in the Amazon between 2004 and 2011, but progress has slowed and deforestation is rising, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said in a report.

The report said that between 2004 and 2011, landowners with more than 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of property were responsible for about 48% of the deforestation. Areas owned by smallholders accounted for 12% of the forests destroyed during the same period.

However, since 2005, the contribution to annual deforestation by the largest landowners has fallen by 63%, while that of smallholders has increased by 69%, the report said. “Despite the gains made to stem deforestation from 2004 onwards … the outlook today is not all positive,” said Javier Godar, a research fellow at SEI and lead author of the study.

In 2013, deforestation increased by 28% compared with the previous year. Godar said part of the reason for the rise was that many conservation areas had been scaled down or had their protection status changed, and flagship public-private initiatives, such as a moratorium on trading soya beans from newly deforested areas in the Amazon, were about to end. A boom in infrastructure projects in the Amazon since 2009, including the building of new roads and dams, may also be contributing to Brazil’s rising deforestation rates, Godar said....

A logging truck in the Mato Grasso, shot by Herr Klugbeisser, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license 

Drought bites as Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ dry up

Jan Rocha in Climate News Network: The unprecedented drought now affecting São Paulo, South America’s giant metropolis, is believed to be caused by the absence of the “flying rivers” − the vapour clouds from the Amazon that normally bring rain to the centre and south of Brazil.

Some Brazilian scientists say the absence of rain that has dried up rivers and reservoirs in central and southeast Brazil is not just a quirk of nature, but a change brought about by a combination of the continuing deforestation of the Amazon and global warming. This combination, they say, is reducing the role of the Amazon rainforest as a giant “water pump”, releasing billions of litres of humidity from the trees into the air in the form of vapour.

Meteorologist Jose Marengo, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, first coined the phrase “flying rivers” to describe these massive volumes of vapour that rise from the rainforest, travel west, and then − blocked by the Andes − turn south.

Satellite images from the Centre for Weather Forecasts and Climate Research of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) clearly show that, during January and February this year, the flying rivers failed to arrive, unlike the previous five years.

Deforestation all over Brazil has reached alarming proportions: 22% of the Amazon rainforest (an area larger than Portugal, Italy and Germany combined), 47% of the Cerrado in central Brazil, and 91.5% of the Atlantic forest that used to cover the entire length of the coastal area....

The Amazon River delta from a NASA satellite

Brazil arrests eight in Amazon deforestation swoop

Yahoo News via AFP: Brazilian police said Thursday they had made eight arrests in raids to smash a gang considered the worst perpetrators of deforestation in the Amazon region. "Eight arrests have been made so far. Police are searching for a further six (suspects) considered to be on the run," a police spokesman in the Amazonian state of Para told AFP.

The gang would invade public land in northern Para state, burn down forest, divided the land into parcels and sell them, raking in millions of dollars in the process, according to federal police who moved in on the gang Wednesday.

According to the Brazilian Environmental Institute, the group has carried out environmental crimes valued at $230 million, making them "the greatest destroyers of the Brazilian Amazon currently active."

Para authorities say the state has suffered some 15,500 hectares (38,300 acres) of deforestation, with the state prosecutor's office estimating that the area where the gang was operating accounts for about 10 percent of the total.

The institute said Wednesday the gang members should be charged with invading public land, environmental crimes, forgery, criminal association and money laundering.

Police say they have also issued warrants for further arrests in the states of Sao Paulo, Parana and Mato Grosso...

Deforestation in Brazil, NASA photo

Water crisis threatens thirsty Sao Paulo

Space Daily via AFP: Sao Paulo is thirsty. A severe drought is hitting Brazil's largest city and thriving economic capital with no end in sight, threatening the municipal water supply to millions of people.

The water at the Cantareira reservoirs, which supply about nine million of the 20 million people in the metropolitan area, is at its lowest level ever amid the region's worst drought in 45 years. Other reservoirs are also in distress after 15 months of overstretching. And more dry weather is forecast.

Prosecutors have threatened to sue the state government to make it begin rationing water, warning that Sao Paulo is facing "the worst water crisis ever to hit the region and the collapse of its entire reservoir system." But with Governor Geraldo Alckmin up for reelection in October, his administration has vowed to handle the crisis without rationing the city's water.

State water company Sabesp has encouraged consumers to reduce their usage but also downplayed the shortage, saying it will transfer water from other dams and use emergency reserves if necessary. It says it has enough supplies to last until March 2015 and has vowed not to implement rationing.

But many Sabesp customers suspect their supplies are already being rationed. "Last week we went four whole days without water," said Adilson Becerra, a 36-year-old salesman who lives in the southern suburbs....

Sao Paulo skyline, shot by Jeff Belmonte, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Genetically modified mosquitoes set to be released in Brazil to combat dengue

Justine Alford at IFL Science: ... Mosquitoes kill more people each year than all other animals combined, and on average they kill even more people than humans do. It is estimated that over 1 million people die per year from mosquito-borne diseases, such as Malaria and Dengue Fever, and millions more endure pain and suffering.

Tackling this problem has proved a formidable task in the past, but a very small UK-based company called Oxitec have been developing and implementing an exciting and cost effective technique that could help curb vector-borne diseases in problem areas without the negative environmental impacts that other approaches often bestow. This sustainable technique, which involves the release of “sterile” insects into the wild, has already proved a success story in several dengue mosquito trials in different areas of the world, and can also be applied to control other insect problems such as agricultural pests which risk food security. Furthermore, a factory in Brazil is set to be opened next week in order to raise and release these mosquitoes on a commercial scale in order to tackle Dengue Fever.

Dengue fever is the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease in the world; incidence has increased 30-fold over the last 50 years, and currently it affects around 50-100 million people each year and causes around 25,000 deaths. It’s a viral disease spread primarily by two species of mosquito; Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopticus, although the former is responsible for the majority of transmissions. Dengue is sometimes nicknamed “breakbone fever” because of the agonizing bone pain associated with the illness, and severe cases may result in the often fatal manifestation dengue hemorrhagic fever. Currently there are no vaccines or effective antiviral drugs, meaning that mosquito control is the only viable option to control the disease....

A mosquito, photographed by ProjectManhattan , Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Brazil leads the world in reducing carbon emissions

EurekAlert: As the world turns its attention to Brazil with the opening of the World Cup this month, many people around the globe know the country's soccer fame, but few realize that it is the world's leader in reducing carbon emissions. A new study published in Science magazine provides the first in-depth analysis of how Brazil reached this global-leader status and managed to increase its agriculture production at the same time.

"Brazil is known as a leading favorite to win the World Cup, but they also lead the world in mitigating climate change," says the study's lead author, Daniel Nepstad who heads the Earth Innovation Institute and is a lead author of the recent IPCC report.

Since 2004, farmers and ranchers in Brazil have spared over 86,000 square kilometers of rainforests, close to 14.3 million soccer fields, from clear-cutting. Saving these forests amounts to a 70% decline in deforestation and 3.2 billion tons of CO2 kept out of the atmosphere. The decline in deforestation in 2013 alone represented a 1.5% reduction in global emissions for that year.

In this new study, a group of 17 scientists and economists from the US and South America set out to understand what drove this change. They found that a combination of bold public policies, market rejection of deforesting farmers, and an increase in protected areas curbed clear-cutting, while still allowing the country's soy and beef production to grow.

"There is an urge to find a silver bullet hiding in all the different deforestation efforts. But the truth is that the government can't claim this win alone, nor can Greenpeace or responsible companies. It's the mixture of interventions that worked," says co-author Toby McGrath....

Satellite image of deforestation in Brazil

Brazil's 'chainsaw queen' takes on environmentalists

Jonathan Watts in the Guardian (UK): Outside the political hothouse of Brasilia, there are probably few who can name the head of Brazil's powerful agricultural lobby, yet the woman in question, Kátia Abreu, is rapidly becoming the country's most interesting, important – and dangerous – politician.

The senator and rancher from Goiás was an influential force in the weakening of Brazil's forest code blamed by many for the recent rise in Amazon deforestation. Her support – in parliament and in an acerbic newspaper column – for more roads through the Amazon, congressional control over demarcation of indigenous reserves, more efficient monocultures and genetically modified "terminator seeds" has earned her the wrath of environmentalists who have called her "Miss Deforestation", "chainsaw queen" and the "face of evil".

...Her primary objective is to boost agricultural output, which accounts for a big (23%) and growing share of Brazil's economy. Harvests of soy and other products have surged in recent years, putting the country – according to Abreu – on course to surpass the US even without further deforestation. "We have all the essential elements: abundant water, advanced technology and plenty of land for production. Based on this, we can become number one without cutting down trees."

Her bullish business message is underpinned by flag-waving nationalism and attacks on any group accused of trying to slow the growth of Brazilian agriculture. This include environmentalists, indigenous groups and landless peasants, all of whom she alleged – without evidence – were working for foreign interests. "I don't have concrete proof of this but I get a very strong impression that this is the case," she said....

Senator Katia Abreu, by Antonio Cruz of Agência Brasil, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil license 

Brazil to launch satellite in December

Space Daily via Xinhua: Brazil will launch a new satellite in partnership with China in December, local media reported Friday. The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) confirmed that the launch of the Cbers-4 satellite is expected to take place in the first half of December, Brazilian news website G1 reported.

Cbers-4 was originally scheduled to be launched in 2015, but the date was brought forward following the failed launch of the Cbers-3 satellite in December, which did not reach its planned orbit after the rocket carrying it malfunctioned.

Cbers-4 will be launched from China under a partnership agreement signed between the two countries. Under the pact, each of them finances 50 percent of the project. Cbers-4 will have the same mechanisms as Cbers-3, but with more modern cameras to observe the Earth, G1 said.

The satellite will be used to capture images for the Brazilian government, to monitor the environment and to better manage agricultural resources. The space program is part of the government's efforts to reduce its independence on U.S. and European space equipment....

A line drawing of the CBERS/ZY1 spacecraft

Brazil soy, corn production overcome drought

Seed Daily via AFP: Weeks of drought and heat have hit Brazil's soy and corn production, but the agriculture ministry on Tuesday still predicted a record 2014 harvest. Corn production is set to total 75.5 million metric tons, down from a January estimate of 79 million, state food supply agency Conab said in its monthly report.

Soy production will be 90 million tons, just off a January forecast of 90.3 million, and still 10.4 percent higher than last year, Conab said. For soy, grain and rice combined, Conab now expects 2013 to show a 3.6 percent increase overall, to 193.6 million tons.

Last month it had forecast a combined total of 196.7 million tons -- but January saw very low rainfall in much of the giant country. Brazil's Institute of Geography and Statistics gave its own 2014 forecast of 193.9 million tons, three percent up on last year's 188.2 million tons, which was, itself, the best return on record....

Soybean photo from the US Department of Agriculture

World cup cities say climate change is big part of planning

Anita Powell in Voice of America: The World Cup soccer tournament is getting more and more carbon-heavy, with FIFA estimating that the 2014 event in Brazil will dump 2.72 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- one million more tons than South Africa’s 2010 World Cup. Officials from both sides of the globe weigh in how they have incorporated climate change concerns into the World  Cup.

Brazil’s tourism board says it is expecting tourists to spend $10.4 billion during this year’s World Cup. That cash injection, however, will take its toll on the environment. The majority of the heat-trapping gas will come from air travel as spectators and teams fly around the world’s fifth-biggest country in order to get to the 12 different stadiums where the 64 World Cup matches will be played.  

At a meeting in Johannesburg this month, mayors from some of the world's megacities met to discuss the unique challenges -- especially climate change -- that urban areas face. The mayor of the World Cup host city of Curitiba told VOA that green planning was part of its preparations for the event.

Gustavo Fruet also said he’s looked to the last host city, Johannesburg, for lessons. “There were problems with funding, and a lack of clarity in city planning. There should be a legacy for the city and not just for an event. What we see as a positive [from Johannesburg] is that it gives visibility to the country, visibility to the city and it allowed an increase, above all, in tourism and prepared people to provide better service. So for me this is the best achievement, the great legacy -- to show quality, efficiency, and above all joy in receiving foreigners,” he said.

Johannesburg mayor Mpho Parks Tau said he believes mayors are paying attention to the issue of climate change and the World Cup. "That would help us elevate the work that we do as cities in relation to climate change. And we’ve been able to share with them our best practices in relation to energy, in relation to transportation, and other practices that we introduced in Johannesburg.”....

The Johannesburg skyline at dawn, shot by Dylan Harbour, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Data sharing and joint thinking urged for Amazonia

Zoraida Portillo in SciDev.net: Countries in the Amazon region need better data sharing and a more holistic view of development if they are to avoid conflicts and costs relating to key resources such as water over the next 50 years, experts warn.

A report making recommendations for a new, international security agenda for the Amazon, says the region’s nations should link-up and circulate data on water, energy, health and food security to ensure sustainable development and tackle challenges posed by changes in climate and land use. A failure to do so, it says, could lead to far greater economic and social disruption in the mid-term and create unprecedented challenges for South America’s political leaders.

“The data exist, but are very fragmented,” says Andy Jarvis, a programme leader at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and an author of the report released by CIAT and think-tank the Global Canopy Programme last month (17 December). The report was developed with input from science experts and political leaders from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

According to Jarvis, existing data on matters crucial for the region’s future security are out of date, and there is a lack of a consistent monitoring on issues such as access to water, energy and health. Where there are data, the links between these issues, or between data collected at a regional, national or international level, are missing, he adds.

Jarvis also laments the disjointed approach to development in the region, with resource extraction currently dominating the development agenda, instead of efforts to deliver sustainable and holistic progress....

An Orange-winged Amazon near Yarina Lodge, Napo Province, Ecuador. Shot by Geoff Gallice, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license