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News articles on rainforests

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Mongabay.com news articles on rainforests in blog format. Updated regularly.

Venezuela plans 5000-mile pipeline across Amazon rain forest

(01/25/2006) Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, announced a plan to build a massive gas pipeline that would carry natural gas from the oil rich state 5,000 miles south. Environmentalists fear that the project could damage the Amazon rain forest by polluting waterways and creating roads that would attract developers and poor farmers, while analysts question the wisdom and viability of the plan which may cost $20-50 billion depending on who makes the estimate.


Indigenous Amazonians Display Core Understanding Of Geometry

(01/23/2006) Researchers in France and at Harvard University have found that isolated indigenous peoples deep in the Amazon readily grasp basic concepts of geometry such as points, lines, parallelism and right angles, and can use distance, angle and other relationships in maps to locate hidden objects. The results suggest that geometry is a core set of intuitions present in all humans, regardless of their language or schooling.


Goodbye to West Africa's Rainforests

(01/22/2006) West Africa's once verdant and extensive rainforests are now a historical footnote. Gone to build ships and furniture, feed hungry mouths, and supply minerals and gems to the West, the band of tropical forests that once extended from Guinea to Cameroon are virtually gone. The loss of West Africa's rainforests have triggered a number of environmental problems that have contributed to social unrest and exacerbated poverty across the region.


Malaysia's deforestation rate increasing rapidly - 86% jump since 1990s

(12/28/2005) Malaysia's deforestation rate is accelerating faster than any other tropical country in the world according to data from the United Nations.


New resource documents Caribbean marine life of Bocas del Toro

(12/27/2005) Coral reefs, coastal rainforest, land-grab, industrial bananas and organic cacao, mangroves, tourist boom, eclectic cultural mix: A Caribbean Journal of Science special issue presents the first scientific overview of the marine environment in Bocas del Toro Province.


Brazilian Reporter Defends Amazon

(12/25/2005) Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto's crusade against the destroyers of the Amazonian rain forest has earned him an International Press Freedom Award _ along with death threats and some 32 lawsuits aimed at keeping him silent.


Dangerous times on Brazil's Amazon frontier

(12/22/2005) Amazon land activist Deurival Santiago has the look of a hunted man. Activists like Santiago often protect peasant settlers in jungle areas where the government still has little control. That puts them in conflict with large-scale loggers, ranchers and land speculators pushing into an area of Para state known as the Terra do Meio, or Middle Land. It's the main battleground in the fight to slow destruction of the world's largest rain forest.


Bolivian rainforest certified to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

(12/20/2005) The Bolivian government, The Nature Conservancy and the Bolivian conservation organization Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza announced that the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project is the first conservation-based initiative in the world to be fully certified for reducing greenhouse gas emissions using internationally accepted standards.


Tsunami relief risks rainforest destruction

(12/19/2005) Today WWF warned that donor countries must include sustainably sourced building materials in their long-term aid packages to avoid a second ecological disaster stemming from deforestation. According to WWF, Indonesia's Aceh province will require at least 860,000 cubic meters of sawn timber for the construction of 200,000 homes over the next five years. The conservation organization says that only a small fraction of this additional demand can be met locally without resorting to illegal logging that would be damaging to Sumatra's biologically important rain forests.


Australia warns neighbors to stop illegal rainforest logging

(12/19/2005) Australia warned its neighbors to crack down on illegal logging in their rainforests or face trade restrictions according to an article in The Australian.


Ability to capture large prey may be origin of army ants' cooperative behvaior

(12/16/2005) Animal behvaiorist Sean O'Donnell was having an afternoon cup of coffee when a giant earthworm exploded out of the leaf litter covering the jungle floor in an Ecuadorean nature preserve. The worm, later measured at nearly 16 inches long, was pursued by a column of hundreds of raiding army ants that quickly paralyzed or killed it.


Some Amazon rainforest trees are over 1000 years old finds study

(12/13/2005) 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.


UN agrees to "rainforest conservation for emissions" deal

(12/11/2005) Friday, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Montreal, the U.N. agreed to a proposal that allows developing nations to receive financial compensation from industrialized countries for agreeing to preserve their rainforests. Environmentalists hope the deal -- set forth by ten developing countries led by Papua New Guinea -- will give developing nations a financial reason to get more involved in climate talks while safeguarding globally important ecosystems.


Amazon drought continues, worst on record

(12/11/2005) The worst drought ever recorded in the Amazon continues according to an update from The New York Times. The drought has turned rivers into grassy mud flats, killed tens of millions of fish, stranded hundreds of communities, and brought disease and economic despair to the region.


Brazilian accused of nun's murder says death not contract killing

(12/10/2005) The confessed killer of a 73-year-old American nun who defended the poor in Brazil's Amazon rain forest told a court on Friday he shot her in self-defense, not in a contract killing.


Amazon rainforest biodiversity due to biology not climate change says study

(12/05/2005) The biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest results from biological factors, not climate change as widely thought, says new research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Scientists have long argued that the species richness of tropical forests could be due to climate change-induced fragmentation, known as the "forest refuge: theory, and other external factors that caused geographic isolation. Now, researchers from University College London say that biological influences play a greater role in driving species evolution.


Congo rainforest - 600,000 sq km slated for logging

(12/05/2005) The World Bank will meet Thursday to decide whether it will fund large-scale logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo's rainforests. The country, home to the second largest rainforest in the world after Brazil, is emerging from years of civil strife which resulted in the deaths of some 3.8 million people from violence and disease.


Mysterious carnivore found in Borneo rain forest

(12/05/2005) WWF researchers may have discovered a new, mysterious carnivore species in the dense, central forests of Borneo.


Amazon deforestation slows in Brazil for 2005

(12/05/2005) 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.


Study uncovers how thousands of tree species coexist in rain forest

(11/30/2005) A group of scientists have a developed a new theory to explain why the biodiversity of tropical rain forests is so high and how species are assembled in an ecological community. According to their research presented in Nature, the answer can be found in 'neutral theory' whereby community membership is determined by just five fundamental processes. The scientists say that species will regulate themselves to make room for each other if they follow the 'membership rules.' The new theory undermines the conventional 'niche theory' which has been traditionally used to explain community assemblages.


Rainforests worth $1.1 trillion for carbon alone in Coalition nations

(11/29/2005) If a coalition of developing countries has its way, there could soon be new forests sprouting up in tropical regions. The group of ten countries, led by Papua New Guinea, has proposed that wealthy countries pay them to preserve their rainforests. The Coalition for Rainforest Nations argues that all countries should pay for the benefits -- from carbon sequestration to watershed protection -- that tropical rainforests provide.


Developing countries: pay us to save rainforests

(11/27/2005) At this week's United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal a coalition of tropical developing countries plans to propose that wealthy countries pay them to preserve their rainforests. The group of 10 countries, led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, will argue that they should be compensated for the services rainforests provide the rest of the world.


Exploring freshwater fish habitats in the rainforest of Peru

(11/26/2005) This fall the editor of mongabay.com, a leading environmental science and tropical freshwater fish information site, traveled to the Peruvian Amazon and examined habitats for freshwater fish. As a result of this effort, two new biotope descriptions have been posted on the site. The descriptions include underwater photographs for those interested in replicating the natural conditions of these habitats.


Goldman Sachs first investment bank to adopt comprehensive environmental policy

(11/22/2005) The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) today issued a release commending Goldman Sachs for becoming the first global investment bank to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy. The policy acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change and calls for urgent action by public policy makers and federal regulators to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Pictures from Peru

(11/14/2005) Mongabay.com, a leading rainforest information web site, has launched a new section featuring photographs from Peru. More than 1900 photos from Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, and the Amazon have been added to the site.


FAO deforestation stats are bogus

(11/14/2005) The Rainforest Foundation today claimed that new figures released today by the United Nations on the 'state of the world's forests' are misleading, inaccurate and understate the real extent of deforestation and damage to forests globally.


Vampires kill 23 in Brazil, deforestation blamed

(11/07/2005) Rabid vampire bats killed 23 people and attacked more than 1,000 Brazilian officials confirmed last week. The bats have been displaced from their normal rain forest environment by worsening deforestation in the region. In an attempt to slow deaths, health agencies have treated 1,350 people with anti-rabies medication in the past two months.


Logging can have low impact on Amazon rainforest says FAO

(11/05/2005) The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has issued a response to a study that found selective logging in the Amazon is highly destructive. The research, conducted by scientists from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, was published in Science last month. FAO argues that selective logging is not necessarily destructive and can be done with low impact on the remaining forests, if the proper techniques are applied.


Rainforest conservation worth the cost shows new study

(11/02/2005) The economic benefits of protecting a rainforest reserve outweigh the costs of preserving it, says University of Alberta research--the first of its kind to have conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the conservation of species diversity. "The traditional moral and aesthetic arguments have been made about why we should conserve the biodiversity in rainforests, but little has been done that looks at whether it makes pure economic sense to do so," said Dr. Robin Naidoo, who did his PhD at the U of A in biological sciences and rural economy. "We provide some good evidence from a strict economic side, that yes, it does."


Logging impact worse than thought in the Amazon

(11/01/2005) Research released earlier this month in Science found that Brazil's Amazon rain forest is being degraded twice as fast as deforestation figures suggest. Selective logging, where only one or two valuable tree species are harvested from an area, is driving the forest degradation. The findings have important implications for "sustainable harvesting" schemes that have been promoted as ecologically-sound alternatives to traditional harvesting techniques.


Hunting ban threatens Congo forest dwellers

(10/31/2005) A blanket ban on hunting in the Republic of Congo has made life even more difficult for the Baka community, an indigenous hunter-gatherer group living in the rain forests near the timber-concession areas in the north of the country.


Congo's Kabila calls for rainforest protection

(10/30/2005) The world's second largest rainforest stands a greater chance of being protected after Congo's president finally backed a largely ignored ban on new logging, conservation group Greenpeace said on Friday.


Biopiracy fears hampering research in Brazilian Amazon

(10/30/2005) 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."


Pre-Columbian Amazon supported millions of people

(10/18/2005) Controversial evidence uncovered over the past decade suggests that the Amazon rainforest was once home to large sedentary populations of people. Besides the well-known empires of the Inca and their predecessors, the Huari, millions of people once lived in the forests and shaped the environment to suit their own needs.


Air medics deliver healthcare in the remote Amazon

(10/13/2005) National Air Mail isn't a letter-carrying service -- it's an airborne medical unit making rounds in the most isolated parts of the jungle.


Innovations in tropical forest research

(10/12/2005) Tropical forest research innovations: the Center for Tropical Forest Science takes a new director, defines new horizons and receives a significant pledge.


Amazon at record low -- communities isolated, commerce stalled

(10/11/2005) The Amazon River in Peru and parts of Brazil is at its lowest level in 30 years of record keeping. While variable water levels are characteristic of the Amazon river ecosystem, the increasingly extreme fluctuations are of great concern. Low water levels are wreaking havoc on the shipping industry in the region. In Iquitos, a city in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon which is only accessible by plane or boat, ships and barges are having difficulty navigating the river, resulting in serious shipping delays. Local officials in Peru are blaming deforestation of the upper reaches of the Amazon in the Andes for the fall in river levels, although it is likely that larger forces are at least equally important. Warmer ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific and low sunspot activity is also affecting weather in the region, while warming in the north Atlantic -- which has helped trigger an unusually strong and destructive hurricane season -- may be preventing the formation of rain clouds over the Amazon Basin.


Extreme drought drops Amazon river to record low levels

(10/07/2005) The Amazon River in Peru and parts of Brazil is at its lowest level in 30 years of record keeping. While variable water levels are characteristic of the Amazon river ecosystem, the increasingly extreme fluctuations are of great concern. Low water levels are wreaking havoc on the shipping industry in the region. In Iquitos, a city in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon which is only accessible by plane or boat, ships and barges are having difficulty navigating the river, resulting in serious shipping delays. Local officials in Peru are blaming deforestation of the upper reaches of the Amazon in the Andes for the fall in river levels, although it is likely that larger forces are at least equally important. Warmer ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific and low sunspot activity is also affecting weather in the region. Brazilian meteorologists have discounted the theory that the severe hurricane season off the US Gulf coast has impacted the availability of moisture in the Amazon.


95% of mahogany from Peru is illegally logged says scientist

(10/06/2005) 95 percent of the mahogany that leaves the rainforests of Peru is logged illegally according to a scientist at the Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon.


Weight of flooded Amazon river causes Earth to sink 3 inches

(10/05/2005) As the Amazon River floods every year, a sizeable portion of South America sinks several inches because of the extra weight -- and then rises again as the waters recede, a study has found. This annual rise and fall of earth's crust is the largest ever detected, and it may one day help scientists tally the total amount of water on Earth.


Dodging bullets in Brazil with Greenpeace

(10/02/2005) When self-confessed hippie and Innocent smoothies entrepreneur Richard Reed travelled to the Amazon, he wasn't sure what to expect. But it certainly wasn't Greenpeace activists with bullet-proof vests and night-vision goggles. This is his travel journal.


Biofuels threaten rainforests as important European Commission decision lies ahead

(10/01/2005) To meet Kyoto protocol commitments, various European and other governments are encouraging the use of biomass as fuel (biofuel) in transport and electricity. Biofuels are mostly carbon neutral, and switching from fossil fuels to biodiesel is promoted as a solution to climate change.


Amazon river at record low levels; deforestation blamed

(09/30/2005) The Amazon River in Peru is at its lowest level in 30 years of record keeping according to a report in Peruvian daily newspaper El Comercio. Local officials say deforestation is the likely culprit of the low water levels. While variable water levels are characteristic of the Amazon river ecosystem, the increasingly extreme fluctuations are of great concern.


Cocaine destroying rainforest parks in Colombia

(09/28/2005) Cocaine is killing the great nature parks of Colombia. Government spraying of coca plant killer is driving growers and traffickers out of their usual territory into national parks where spraying is banned. Here they are burning thousands of acres of virgin rain forest and poisoning rivers with chemicals.


Birds and Bats Responsible for Seed Dispersal in Tropical Forests

(09/27/2005) Restoring the rich diversity of trees that once characterized expansive tracts of tropical rainforest gets a helping hand from native birds and bats. Just how big a role these winged gardeners play is a question ecologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago and several Latin American universities are about to find out by setting up essentially a living laboratory in Mexico's gulf coast state of Veracruz.


What to pack for your visit to the rainforest

(09/26/2005) Visiting a tropical rainforest promises to be a memorable experience. Rainforests house around half the world's plant and animal species and are home to indigenous people who live in ways quite unlike those in the western world.


Gabon sets aside 10 percent of country as protected parks

(09/24/2005) In a move that sets a new standard in African conservation, the nation of Gabon, which contains some of the most pristine tropical rainforests on earth, announced today that it will set aside 10 percent of its land mass for a system of national parks. Up to this point, Gabon had no national park system. The Gabonese government has been working closely with The Wildlife conservation Society (WCS) on conservation issues for the past ten years. The announcement is a major victory for Africa's wildlife.


Fires rage in Bolivian rainforest

(09/23/2005) Fires have burned more than 1700 square miles (4450 square km) of Amazon rainforest and pasture in Bolivia, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency in two provinces.


Pig iron production fueling Amazon deforestation

(09/21/2005) Pig iron production in the states of Para and Maranhao is fueling deforestation a Brazilian newspaper reports.


Number of Amazon forest fires in Mato Grosso, Brazil fall 44%

(09/21/2005) The Brazilian National Institute for Spatial Research (INPE) reports that fires have fallen 44% in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil when compared to last year's figures.



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