Pedro Ferreira spends his days and nights in a cramped, steamy tunnel under the damp earth of the Amazon rain forest, chipping away at a wall of rock glittering with traces of gold.
Cattle ranchers are far bigger culprits in Amazon deforestation than soy farmers, a study showed on Tuesday, as the environmental record of Brazil's commodity exporters comes under increasing international scrutiny.
Environmental police in Brazil seized the equivalent of 400 truckloads of wood in a major raid on illegal loggers, the government said on Wednesday, the latest effort to curb destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
Brazilian senator and former environment minister Marina Silva won Norway's $100,000 Sophie Prize for her work to protect the Amazon rainforest, the prize foundation announced on Wednesday.
>> A California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors was struck down February 26 by a US federal appeals court >> More than 1,815 digital maps will be completed in 2009 marking official and clandestine roads, rivers, settlements, and schools in Brazillian Amazon. Cartographers from Brazil
Variations in climate history pinpoint biodiversity hotpots ecologists are yet to discover all the biodiversity-rich areas on this earth. One way is to map out each region after physical observation. But mapping inaccessible mountainous terrains like the Himalayas is a challenge. A scientific team claimed studying the climatic history of a region can help locate species-rich areas.
With the world in economic recession, there is a temptation to downgrade or sideline climate change. That would be a great mistake.
The gathering of 2,000 scientists in Copenhagen in March found the climate change situation much worse than previously reported. They called on politicians to act quickly and decisively.
Climate change could kill the Amazon rainforest even if deforestation and emissions are curbed, scientists at the Met Office fear.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent in Copenhagen
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Between 20 and 40 per cent of the Amazon?s trees are predicted to disappear Photo: GETTY
Even small temperature rises will cause irreversible destruction of trees, says study.
David Adam
Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.
