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<title><![CDATA[amazon rainforest news from mongabay.com]]></title>
<link>http://www.mongabay.com</link>
<description><![CDATA[amazon rainforest news.]]></description>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2006 mongabay.com</copyright>
<pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:58:39 -0800</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Subtle threats could ruin the Amazon rainforest]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[While the mention of Amazon destruction usually conjures up images of vast stretches of felled and burned rainforest trees, cattle ranches, and vast soybean farms, some of the biggest threats to the Amazon rainforest are barely perceptible from above.  Selective logging -- which opens up the forest canopy and allows winds and sunlight to dry leaf litter on the forest floor -- and 6-inch high "surface" fires are turning parts of the Amazon into a tinderbox, putting the world's largest rainforest at risk of ever-more severe forest fires.  At the same time, market-driven hunting is impoverishing some areas of seed dispersers and predators, making it more difficult for forests to recover. Climate change -- an its forecast impacts on the Amazon basin -- further looms large over the horizon.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1107-interview_carlos_peres.html</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1107-interview_carlos_peres.html</guid>
</item>
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<title><![CDATA[Is the Amazon more valuable for carbon offsets than cattle or soy?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[After a steep drop in deforestation rates since 2004, widespread fires in the Brazilian Amazon (September and October 2007) suggest that forest clearing may increase this year.  All told, since 2000 Brazil has lost more than 60,000 square miles (150,000 square kilometers) of rainforest -- an area larger than the state of Georgia or the country of Bangladesh.  Most of this destruction has been driven by clearing for cattle pasture and agriculture, often in association with infrastructure development and improvements.  Higher commodity prices, especially for beef and soy, have further spurred forest conversion in the region. While drivers of Amazon deforestation are stronger than ever, mounting concerns over climate change and the effort to reign in greenhouse gas emissions may provide new economic incentives for landowners to preserve forest lands through a concept known as "avoided deforestation".]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1017-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1017-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Biofuels driving destruction of Brazilian cerrado]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The cerrado, wooded grassland in Brazil that once covered an area half the size of Europe, is fast being transformed into croplands to meet rising demand for soybeans, sugarcane, and cattle. The cerrado is now disappearing more than twice as the rate as the neighboring Amazon rainforest, according to a Brazilian expert on the savanna ecosystem.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0821-cerrado.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0821-cerrado.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Land reform agency sanctions logging in Amazon rainforest park]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Under the guise of a sustainable development scheme, a Brazilian land agency has granted large tracts of Amazon rainforest to colonists who quickly resold the forest to loggers, alleges a new report from Greenpeace.  Some of the concessions were in the Amazon National Park, a national park.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0821-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0821-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Amazon deforestation in Brazil falls 29% for 2007]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell 29 percent for the 2006-2007 year, compared with the prior period.  The loss of 3,863 square miles (10,010 square kilometers) of rainforest was the lowest since the Brazilian government started tracking deforestation on a yearly basis in 1988.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0813-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0813-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Amazon deforestation rate falls to lowest on record]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon for the previous year were the lowest on record, according to preliminary figures released by INPE, Brazil's National Institute of Space Research.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0810-amazon_deforestation.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0810-amazon_deforestation.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Forest disturbance reduces biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Two new studies in the Amazon rainforest show that plantation forests and second-growth forests have lower species counts for butterflies, reptiles, and amphibians than adjacent primary forest areas.  The research has important implications for conservation of tropical biodiversity in a world where old-growth forest is increasingly replaced by secondary forests, industrial plantations, and agricultural landscapes.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0702-gardner.html</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0702-gardner.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[450 years of Amazon research reviewed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Research on the Peruvian Amazon is largely inaccessible to the people who could make most use of it, reports a comprehensive review of 2,202 texts published over the past 450 years on the Madre de Dios region of southwestern Peru.  The study recommends the establishment of "a Web-based digital library for Neotropical nature" to make research more widely available.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0702-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0702-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Ancient Amazonian technology could save the world]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Terra preta, the ancient charcoal-based soil used by ancient Amazonians to create permanently fertile agricultural lands in the rainforest, is getting serious consideration as a means to fight global warming and meet domestic energy demand, reports an article in Scientific American.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0517-terra_preta.html</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2007 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0517-terra_preta.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Some Amazon rainforest trees are over 1000 years old finds study]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Trees in the Amazon rainforest are older than originally believed according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team of American and Brazilian researchers using radiocarbon dating methods to study tree growth in the world's largest tropical rainforest found that up to half of all trees greater than 10 centimeters in diameter are more than 300 years old. Some of the trees are 750 to 1,000 years old says Susan Trumbore, a professor of Earth system science at University of California at Irvine and one of the authors of the study.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1213-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1213-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Amazon deforestation slows in Brazil for 2005]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell 37% for the 2004-2004 year according to Brazilian government figures released today. Between July 2004 and August 2005, 7,298 square miles of rainforest (18,900 square kilometers) -- an area almost half the size of Switzerland -- were destroyed. Last year the figure was 10,088 square miles (26,129 sq km kilometers) and since 1978 some 206,250 square miles (534,200 sq km) of forest has been lost.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1205-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 05 Dec 2005 06:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1205-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Biopiracy fears hampering research in Brazilian Amazon]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Somewhere in the Amazon there may be flora and fauna that hold the key to curing diseases ranging from cancer to multiple sclerosis. That, at any rate, is the dream. But the reality is that the search for the next miracle drugs is being hampered by a deep Brazilian suspicion of "biopiracy."]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1030-ap.html</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 30 Oct 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1030-ap.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[NASA Satellite Data Used to Assess Amazon Deforestation]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Amazon, a vast tropical forest stretching across South America, is so large that is virtually impossible to study the evolving landscapes within the basin without the use of satellites. Scientists have used satellite imagery of the Amazon for more than 30 years to seek answers about this diverse ecosystem and the patterns and processes of land cover change. This technology continues to advance and a new study shows that NASA satellite images can allow scientists to more quickly and accurately assess deforestation in the Amazon.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0915-nasa.html</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 15 Sep 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0915-nasa.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Amazon deforestation lower than last year says Brazil]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Yesterday Brazil announced that 3,515 square miles (9,103 square kilometers) of Amazon rainforest were destroyed between August 2004 and July 2005, a marked decline from the 7,229 sq. mi. (18,723 sq. km.) in the same period a year earlier. While the government has tried to take credit for the drop, analysts say the slowing is more likely the result of lower commodity prices, giving farmers less incentive to clear forest land.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0827-brazil.html</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 27 Aug 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0827-brazil.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Brazil to crackdown on illegal logging says Environment Minister]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[According to a report from Bloomberg, Brazil will increase the monitoring of logging in the Amazon rainforest and raise fines for those caught illegally clearing trees.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0809-amazon.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0809-amazon.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Landowner caught burning 2 million trees in the Amazon]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A large plantation owner was caught burning almost 2 million trees in the Amazon to make way for a cattle pastures according to O Estado de S.Paulo, as translated by amazonia.org.br.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0803-amazonia.html</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Aug 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0803-amazonia.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Scientists to set fire to Amazon rainforest to study its resilience]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Woods Hole Research Center scientists will burn two and a half square kilometers of forest in the transition forest of northern Mato Grosso state in order to study the effects of fire on the rainforest and the forests' ability to recover from repeated burning.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0719-whrc.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jul 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0719-whrc.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Saving the Amazonian Rainforest Through Agricultural Certification]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[John Cain Carter is a Texan rancher who believes that landowners, despite being held in low regard by environmentalists, may be the potential saviors of the rainforest. Carter, among other somewhat environmentally-conscious, yet profit-oriented landowners, wants to promote responsible agricultural practices by encouraging consumers to provide incentives to growers and producers.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0604-tina_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jun 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0604-tina_butler.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Green party quits government to protest Amazon deforestation]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[According to a report from Reuters, legislators for Brazil's Green Party have quit the government in protest of its failure to slow deforestation in the Amazon.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0524-rhett_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 24 May 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0524-rhett_butler.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Rainforest loss in the Amazon tops 200,000 square miles, new figures from Brazilian government]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[New figures from the Brazilian government show that 10,088 square miles of rain forest were destroyed in the 12 months ending in August 2004. Deforestation in the Amazon in 2004 was the second worst ever as rain forest was cleared for cattle ranches and soy farms.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0521-rhett_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0521-rhett_butler.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Amazon rain forest continues to fall; 200,000 square miles gone since 1978]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Forest loss may worsen as Brazil seeks to expand agricultural production and fires threaten stressed ecosystem.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0424-rhett_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0424-rhett_butler.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Drought, fire called biggest threats to Amazon rainforest ecosystem]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A prolonged drought in the Amazon could lead to a massive die-off in the world's largest rainforest according to a study released in Science last week.]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0423-rhett_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0423-rhett_butler.html</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Smoke from forest fires reduces rainfall and spells trouble for the Amazon rainforest]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Smoke from forest fires reduces rainfall and spells trouble for the Amazon rainforest]]></description>
<link>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0414-rhett_butler.html</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<source url="http://www.mongabay.com/">Mongabay.com</source>
<guid>http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0414-rhett_butler.html</guid>
</item>

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