Protecting the Amazon, the latest special film program from EarthxTV, explains the need for these actions and how to work in solidarity with indigenous peoples to preserve Amazonia.
The Amazon rainforest and the indigenous tribes that call it home are in danger. The newest scientific reports predict the world's largest rainforest will collapse by 2064, causing dangerous water shortages, catastrophic biodiversity loss and much more. As the ecosystem degrades, it will also lose its ability to store carbon, changing from a carbon sink for the planet into a carbon source. A 2020 study estimated that the Amazon is already on the brink of turning into a net carbon emitter. Going past that threshold would throw the climate crisis into full swing.
Unsustainable development, deforestation, cattle ranching and soybean production are the main culprits behind this rapid destruction. Illegal gold mining plays a big part, too.
Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, president of the Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation and one of the co-hosts of the 3-hour special, lamented the bleak outlook.
"The current state of the Amazon rainforest is dire," she told EcoWatch. "During 2019 and 2020, deforestation continued at a frightening pace and scale. Last year, it increased by 30 percent from what was already a record-breaking year in 2019."
The conservation journalist also pointed out how deforestation, invasion of indigenous lands and mining in the rainforest have skyrocketed under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a known pro-development, anti-Amazon, anti-indigenous candidate. Bolsonaro was elected with the support of the "so-called BBB (beef, bullets and bible)," a very powerful lobby composed of militaries, Christian evangelists and meat producers, Princess Esmeralda said. She estimated that almost 20 percent of the Amazon had been lost in the last half-century.
Unfortunately, attempts to stop the destruction have fallen short.
According to Rob Harding, executive producer of Protecting the Amazon, "The international community's attempts to nurture a healthier Amazon have thus far failed... The urgency of this situation is clear."
Citing his motivations behind pitching the special project, Harding added, "There's no time like the present to help raise awareness and inspire meaningful action by instilling a sense of global collective responsibility. We believe that Protecting the Amazon will do all of the above."
The film event, a rare collaboration and amplification of indigenous voices and their allies, brings together some of the world's biggest players in conservation – including Jane Goodall, legendary indigenous rights advocates Chief Raoni Metuktire and Chief Ninawa Huni-Kui and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson – on the same virtual stage to highlight our collective responsibility to the rainforest.
All make the case for demarcating indigenous lands in the Amazon as an effective forestalling against the catastrophes forecasted above. Demarcation is the constitutionally-mandated federal process wherein indigenous territories are identified and studied to determine and mark off boundaries, explained Gert-Peter Bruch, co-host of the special and co-founder of the Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians.
Satellite views of the rainforest make clear that where there are federally-recognized, demarcated and protected indigenous territories, the richest and most contiguous forests still remain, said Christian Poirier, program director for Amazon Watch, a partner in the special program.
"These are essentially islands of forests in a sea of deforestation," he told EcoWatch. "Everything around them has been degraded and deforested."
Importantly, he added, these areas remain pristine because (1) indigenous peoples are effective stewards of the rainforest, and (2) the federal government of Brazil has recognized the rights of indigenous peoples to these lands and helps to keep out destructive actors.
"The demarcation of indigenous lands is fundamental to the future of the Amazon, both in terms of its environmental conservation and in terms of respecting the human rights of indigenous peoples, who are the best stewards of the rainforest," Poirier said. Without demarcation, "the Amazon would cease to exist as we know it today."
In theory, once land is demarcated, non-indigenous equipment, installations and occupants would be required to leave, for good, Bruch explained. This would allow indigenous peoples to continue to act as custodians of the land as they have since time immemorial.
In the Amazon and indeed even on a global scale, indigenous peoples make up approximately 4 percent of the world's population, and yet they effectively watch over 80 percent of the planet's remaining biodiversity, Poirier explained.
"Because they are proven the best stewards of the rainforest, we need to learn from them how to keep the rainforest from reaching a tipping point," Poirier said. "The integrity of their territories is a fundamental component of that, but it goes beyond their territories. This is a worldview we need to apply to understanding how to preserve the rainforest in conjunction with its peoples ‒ its forest peoples and its indigenous peoples. We need to have their voice centered in any conversation about land conservation and their rights upheld."
Protecting the Amazon calls for this critical mass and solidarity with indigenous peoples in protecting their rights and the forest, simultaneously. The film event notes the long history of fierce indigenous resistance to the many efforts to disenfranchise and evict them from their lands. All speakers also insist that indigenous peoples cannot do this work alone.
Bruch concluded with a hope that the special event would refocus the world on these pressing issues and remind everyone that the destiny of the indigenous guardians of the Amazon is linked to ours, and that their protection depends on the protection of their territories.
"Solidarity is so critical and... this event is a critical step towards raising awareness... of the work (indigenous peoples) have always done to benefit us all," Poirier said. "If they are unsuccessful in protecting their areas, all of humanity will suffer gravely."
View the film on demand on EarthxOnDemand.
A new EarthxTV film special calls for the protection of the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous people that call it home. EarthxTV.org
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Deforested peat forest in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay
Overall, forests remain a carbon sink, stashing away 7.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, according to a recent study published in Nature Climate Change. But in the last 20 years alone, forests in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, have turned into net emitters of carbon, thanks to the spread of plantations, raging fires, and loss of peatlands.
Human activities are producing record-breaking emissions — atmospheric carbon dioxide hit a 4-million-year high last year — and they are hacking into the planet's sturdiest defenses.
Spread across 5.5 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles) in nine countries in South America, the Amazon is still sucking out carbon from the air — but only just.
Most of the Amazon lies in Brazil, and between 2001 and 2019 the Brazilian Amazon acted as a net emitter of carbon, the study found.
Since Jair Bolsonaro became president at the start of 2019, Brazil has seen increased deforestation through clearing land for cattle pastures and through fires. The 2019 fire season raised concerns across the world about the health of the forests in Brazil, but deforestation has been steadily eating away into its green cover for years.
Of the three great swaths of tropical rainforest left on Earth, only those of the Congo Basin still stand strong.
Tropical forests grow quickly and absorb the most carbon of any type of forest. During photosynthesis, they use carbon dioxide to produce energy and biomass. Because trees lock away carbon dioxide, when forests are destroyed, not only is this vital function lost, but the stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
Forests are considered a carbon sink when they absorb more carbon dioxide than is released through land-use changes and forest destruction.
A 2020 study predicted the Amazon would turn into a carbon source in the next 15 years.
What is especially worrying is the loss of pristine swaths of forests that have kept carbon out of the atmosphere for decades, if not centuries. Madagascar, the world's oldest island, has lost nearly 90% of its natural forests in four decades. Since the turn of the century, unlike many African countries, it has turned into a carbon source, according to the analysis.
"Unlike secondary forests or fast-rotation pine or eucalyptus plantations, harvesting in old-growth forests releases CO2 that has taken centuries to accumulate — carbon that, once lost, is irrecoverable in our lifetime," the paper's authors write.
Forests lapsing into net producers of carbon emissions is terrible news for the planet, but it is also bad news for the forests themselves. Climate change is known to contribute to intense fire seasons and prolonged droughts that can prove fatal to trees.
One bright spot in the analysis is that more than a quarter of greenhouse gas removal occurred in forests in protected areas. The authors cite the example of the Menkragnotí Indigenous Territory in Brazil, where forests continue to absorb emissions equal to those from 2 million cars every year — even though surrounding forests have turned into net carbon sources. The researchers say mining activities, cattle ranching, and soy cultivation are to blame.
The research also represents an advancement in carbon accounting. The conventional method is to rely on data from individual countries. The new approach combines satellite data with ground measurements and presents a more refined picture. It evens out calculations on different scales, making it possible to estimate emissions and removals for small forest patches as well as countries and continents.
Reposted with permission from Mongabay.
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These are rock paintings that take your breath away: Stretched across almost 12 kilometers (8 miles) of cliff face, there are geometric shapes along with tens of thousands of images of animals and humans, including fish, turtles, lizards and birds, people dancing or holding hands, figures with masks, and lots of handprints.
Rock art at the Cerro Azul hill in Serrania La Lindosa in the Amazonian jungle department of Guaviare, Colombia, on June 8, 2018. GUILLERMO LEGARIA / AFP via Getty Images
Animals that have long since become extinct, such as giant sloths, Ice Age horses, or the palaeolama, a type of ancient camel, are also depicted.
There is even a picture of a mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that has not inhabited South America for the last 12,000 years. These paintings would seem to make it clear that the rock art was created more than 12,500 years ago.
Archaeologists found pieces of ocher that were scraped off to make the images, which are painted in a reddish terra-cotta color.
Kept Secret for a Documentary
The fascinating rock paintings were discovered in 2017 by a British-Colombian team of researchers, but the sensational find was kept secret ahead of a British Channel 4 series being shown in December, Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon.
It is not surprising that this Ice Age art has remained undiscovered for so long: The site is located in the Serrania de la Lindosa mountain range in the middle of the Colombian jungle, about 400 kilometers southeast of the capital, Bogota. On satellite images, the area around the Serrania de la Lindosa simply looks green; to the north, the Rio Guaviare meanders through the dense Amazon rainforest.
To compound the difficulty of getting to the site, the region was controlled by FARC rebels until not so long ago and was thus completely inaccessible to archaeologists. Not until very recently, after the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government finally negotiated a ceasefire following 50 years of civil war, were archaeologists able to venture into the remote area.
Similar Paintings in Chiribiquete National Park
The images are strongly reminiscent of the more than 20,000 rock paintings discovered years ago in neighboring Chiribiquete National Park.
These paintings prove that people lived in the area as far back as 19,000 years ago and decorated rock faces with scenes of hunting, dancing and eating.
In addition to depictions of humans, there are also images of deer and elk, porcupines, snakes, birds, monkeys and insects. However, most of the paintings of animals and humans in the Chiribiquete National Park, which is a World Heritage Site, are in small, difficult-to-access caves at high elevations.
Archaeologists hope the recent sensational find will give them new insights into the lives of people in the Amazon region during the Ice Age. The paintings will not only provide more information on the animals and plants that existed at that time, but also give clues about how people communicated with each other and what shamanic rituals they had. It is already clear that it will take decades for all the pictures to be documented and analyzed.
Ancient rock art depicting animals and humans at the Chiribiquete National Park in Guaviare, Cerro Azul, Colombia on July 2, 2018. Diego Camilo Carranza Jimenez / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Reposted with permission from DW.
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The model was developed based on surface temperature analysis of the Atlantic Ocean. The relation between the humidity of the oceans and the rainfall regime in the Amazon is part of the intrinsic functioning of the biomes. Any variation in temperature, as a result of global warming, is enough to trigger a series of consequences.
According to physicist and study co-author Niklas Boers, the early-warning system developed by the group is based on a very simple mechanism: "We discovered that every two years the surface temperatures in the north and south tropical Atlantic develop a dipole, a phenomenon that occurs when temperatures increase in one region and decrease in another."
The drought forecast alert is issued when this pattern begins to develop. "The dipole modifies the direction of the trade winds, which take moisture from the Atlantic Ocean to South America. This change of direction is responsible for causing droughts mainly in the center-south of the Amazon," Boers said. From the model they developed, the researchers were able to trace back six of the seven main drought events that have occurred in the Amazon since the 1980s.
Average monthly sea surface temperature (in degrees Celsius, red scale) and average continental rainfall in South America (in millimeters/month, blue scale) from 1981 to 2016. Sea surface temperatures and precipitation are generally higher around the equator. On the left, the area where El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs; dotted lines indicate the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in January and July, responsible for transporting heat and humidity from the oceans around the tropics.
Carlos Nobre, a renowned Brazilian climate scientist who was not involved in the study, said global warming is making the northern cycle of warmer waters stronger and more present. In the future, he said, we should expect the southern Amazon to become less humid. "The mega droughts of 2005, 2010 and the ongoing one are directly associated with the increase in temperatures in the north tropical Atlantic Ocean," Nobre said.
"However, unlike in previous years, the current mega drought began in May and June, not interfering in the rains during the summer season. It is too early to say that the warmer waters will continue throughout the months and if they will cause a continued drought until the next rainy season."
In a context of global warming, there is a close connection between rising ocean temperatures and environmental balance, and the repercussions are felt deep into the forest: what happens on the high seas can impact life in the Amazon.
Janaína Bumbeer, an oceanographer and science and conservation analyst with the Boticário Group Foundation for Nature Protection, said it's not enough to only understand a single aspect of ecology — it's necessary to understand phenomena in a systemic way. "The relation between the ocean temperature, the climate and the winds is very delicate," said Bumbeer, who was not involved in the new study. "Any increase of 1° Celsius [1.8° Fahrenheit] affects the rainfall regime on the continent." The greater the frequency of anomalies in the seas, she said, the more recurrent the extreme climatic events.
Faced with the effects of climate change, there is a risk that the Northern Hemisphere will heat up faster than the South, which would stimulate the occurrence of the Atlantic dipole and lead to a more intense frequency of droughts in the Amazon.
Even with the possibility of predicting a drought period in the region, there is little to be done to actually mitigate the direct impacts on the forest. People who live in the Amazon, especially rural farmers, traditional communities, Indigenous people, and those who depend on river transportation to get around (water levels can become so low that navigability becomes impossible) will be the ones who will benefit from the information, the researchers say. "Indirectly, [with the drought forecast alert] it is possible to have a positive influence on the Amazon ecosystem. The more in advance farmers and traditional communities can plan, the less traumatic the interference of the climate will be," Boers said.
With drought comes another concern: an increase in fires, directly associated with illegal deforestation. According to data from Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE), in September of this year, 31,017 hot spots were recorded, the second-worst September in a decade and a 60% increase from the same month last year. Because the Amazon is a humid tropical forest, fire is not part of the biome's natural dynamics, as it is in the temperate forests of the U.S. West Coast. In the Amazon, fires are usually associated with human actions. And in periods of drought, hotspots have the right conditions to grow in extent and to cause greater impacts on the ecosystem.
"There are innumerous evidence on the possibility of the forest becoming a savanna through the effects of human action," Boers said. "The biome is already very close to the tipping point."
Such a large-scale effect would lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which would further accelerate global warming. The study's underlying message is that all natural phenomena are interconnected. And it demonstrates that as humanity persists on the current economic model of consumption, the effects on the planet will only get worse, to the point of endangering the world's largest tropical forest and its rich biodiversity.
Reposted with permission from Mongabay.
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That's just one of many shocking figures from the Meat Atlas 2021, a comprehensive look at the meat industry released by European nonprofits the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Friends of the Earth Europe and BUND Tuesday.
"Europeans today eat an average of 66 kilograms (approximately 146 pounds) of meat per year per capita, which is almost twice as much as the World Health Organization actually recommends, and this persistently high consumption and production also comes with immense social and ecological costs," Lisa Tostado, head of the International Climate, Trade & Agriculture Policy Programme for Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, said at a public launch event. "And to raise awareness, provide information, and also foster a nuanced debate on the livestock center, the Heinrich-Böll Foundation and Friends of the Earth have compiled facts and figures on meat."
Launch of the Meat Atlas 2021: Facts and figures about the animals we eat www.youtube.com
Listen to the Science
The Meat Atlas 2021 is a comprehensive account of the industry's impact on environmental and public health, totaling more than 70 pages and covering more than 30 topics from land use to greenhouse gas emissions to pesticides. These impacts include:
- Climate Change: The food and farming sector in industrialized countries accounts for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector alone is responsible for 14.5 percent of global emissions: 45 percent of that from feed production and processing, 39 percent from methane release from ruminants and 10 percent from the storage and management of manure. In fact, 20 top livestock companies together emit more than Germany, the UK or France.
- Land Use Change: Meat and milk require more land than any other consumer product, and 77 percent of agricultural land is used for either livestock or livestock feed. This means that the expansion of livestock agriculture is a major driver of land conflicts that displace Indigenous and traditional communities. The conversion of land into cattle pasture drives at least two-thirds of deforestation in the Amazon region, for example.
- Public Health: The coronavirus pandemic has drawn attention to the dangers of zoonotic diseases, diseases that pass from animals to humans. Almost 75 percent of these diseases can be traced to wildlife, and the land grabs of the meat and dairy industry increase the chance that humans will encounter new zoonotic diseases as habitat is destroyed. The rampant use of antibiotics in agriculture also increases the risks that bacteria will evolve to resist these drugs. Already, drug-resistant bacteria kill 700,000 people a year, yet 73 percent of the antibiotics used worldwide are used on animals.
Despite these and many other consequences, both meat consumption and meat production are on the rise. Meat consumption has more than doubled in 20 years, and is expected to rise another 13 percent by 2028. Meat production has also been trending upwards. In the 1970s, it stood at one third of current levels, though it declined slightly in 2019 because of an outbreak of African swine fever.
The increase in production has been enabled by many of the things that make that production so problematic: more and more animals are kept in feedlots instead of pastures. This requires their feed to be grown somewhere else, gobbling up more land. Further, such crowding is only possible with antibiotics to prevent infections from spreading in close quarters.
With all of this evidence, the report argued that reducing meat consumption in industrial countries is a case of "listening to the science," something world governments have yet to do seriously with regards to this issue.
"We are talking not about a lack of information, and politicians not acting because they don't know," the atlas' chief executive editor and head of the International Agricultural Policy Division at Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Dr. Christine Chemnitz said at the launch. "We are talking about a lack of political will to steer or transition the agricultural sector into a climate-friendly and biodiversity-friendly direction."
A Meat Atlas 2021 graphic summarizes meat's impact on the world. Bartz / Stockmar / CC BY 4.0
Race to the Bottom
One clear indication we are headed in the wrong direction, Chemnitz noted, is the sheer numbers of animals slaughtered: 75 billion a year as of 2019.
But this death translates directly into profits for the largest meat and dairy companies, Shefali Sharma, one of the report authors and director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) European office, said at the launch.
Sharma explained that the top companies are so powerful that they can set the prices they pay to producers at below the cost of production, and governments will either directly or indirectly subsidize the difference.
This creates a "race to the bottom of cheap prices, more animals, more production, more profits," she said.
However, there is a way up and out. Sharma recommended a three-prong strategy of:
- Redirecting resources away from industrial agriculture and towards more regenerative approaches.
- Regulating companies and holding them responsible for the emissions generated by their supply chains.
- Regenerating by shifting to agroecology.
Agroecology means growing food in ways that respects natural limits while incorporating local and traditional knowledge, Stanka Becheva, a report contributor and Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, explained during the launch.
"It's really the only transformative framework which will help move the industrial... farming sector away from the concentration and the devastating impacts it has," she said.
She also called for a ban on factory farming; turning to more diversified mixed plant and animal farming solutions; ensuring fair prices for small-scale, sustainable farmers; and changing diets to emphasize fresh, local, plant-based food.
A Strong Statement
One hopeful indicator cited by the report is the shifting attitudes of young people. The atlas highlighted a representative survey conducted by the University of Göttingen in Germany of young adults between 15 and 29 years old. It found that nearly 13 percent of them were either vegan or vegetarian, more than double the percentage of the overall German population. A further approximately 25 percent considered themselves flexitarians and only ate meat every so often.
But what was especially striking to Chemnitz was the motivation behind these decisions.
"One thing young people made really clear is that they see their reduced meat consumption as a political statement," she said.
Their decision was not based on taste or health, but opposition to how the current meat industry operates.
The survey found that 75 percent of the vegan and nearly 50 percent of the vegetarian respondents saw themselves as part of the climate movement. Moreover, young people were in favor of government policies directed at creating a more sustainable food system. More than 70 percent of them thought the German government should encourage people to eat a climate-friendly diet and make sure food is produced in an environmentally friendly way.
"This is a strong statement," Chemnitz said, "and it's a strong call for our government to get active."
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