Tag: Amazon

The Economist discovers the economic value of biodiversity

4th October 2010

Any more of this left-wing, environmentalist, clap-trap and I might just be forced to subscribe to this magazine!

Seriously, though, having managed to get up my nose for several decades now with its doctrinaire free-market editorial, The Economist is actually starting to talk sense, analysing issues such as the plight of the world’s forests in a manner that would have been total anathema a few years ago. The narrow, neoclassical approach is nowhere to be seen and instead we are treated to some penetrating insights that are extremely timely from a periodical of such standing, given the looming crisis in global biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Illegal logging in the Amazon

1st September 2008

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Image source: daylife.com

A piece in The Guardian today reports on the recent escalation of deforestation in the Amazon. The dramatic increase (up 64% in the last year) suggests that with commodity prices hitting historic highs, the financial gains from illegal logging are proving too lucrative to stay on the right side of the law. These latest statistics have understandably caused some controversy in Brazil but, frankly, this is not a Brazilian issue alone. An area half the size of Wales was cleared in the 12 months to August, which reduces the already damaged ‘lung capacity’ of the earth. Is this issue not sufficiently important to provide international assistance to the Brazilian authorities to prevent illegal logging?

The Earth’s lungs grow smaller

23rd October 2005

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Image source: AP Photo/Dado Galdieri

A BBC report last week revealed that the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has been underestimated by around 60%. An article published in Science magazine documents how the NASA space agency has used an ultra-high-resolution technique to examine just how much selective logging has been going on. Although considered more environmentally-friendly than clear-felling, roads still have to be constructed and heavy machinery brought in. The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s great treasures of biodiversity and its function as a carbon sink means that its rapid diminution can only serve to speed up global warming and climate change. If one were to surgically remove a person’s lungs bit by bit, that person becomes very unhealthy and they die. Cutting out the Earth’s ‘lungs’, on the other hand, is considered ‘progress’.

The Amazon basin drought

16th October 2005

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Brazilian fishermen stand among dead fish along an Amazon tributary
Image source: planetark.com

Just as deforestation has affected rainfall patterns in China, the dramatic images from the drought-stricken Amazon basin this week shows what happens when 6 football pitches of rainforest are cut down every minute. As this latest environmental catastrophe is one of a long line of such incidents around the world recently, it has barely registered with the world’s media, yet it affects 61 municipalities and threatens the livelihoods of millions of people.