All posts tagged: deforestation

A disease of deforestation: how Ebola is linked to the smartphone in your pocket | Ebola

A disease of deforestation: how Ebola is linked to the smartphone in your pocket | Ebola

Published by Sam Flores

For decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most. Not any more. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in west Africa infected more than 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating, has caused 363 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has crossed into Uganda. The conventional explanation has to do with the larger and more interconnected human populations that pathogens can access. But there’s a more fundamental driver: the transformation of the underlying ecology of Ebola, which is being remade, in part, by the rising global hunger for minerals to power the hi-tech economy. Most of the time, viruses such as Ebola live quietly in the bodies of their animal hosts, widely understood to be bats, causing them little …

Suzanne Simard on the wood wide web, connectedness – and Avatar

Suzanne Simard on the wood wide web, connectedness – and Avatar

Published by skeptic

Suzanne Simard and Rowan Hooper discuss the “mother tree” concept To some, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard is a pioneer in the tradition of Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson and Lynn Margulis. To others, she has veered too far from what science tells us. In 1997, she published a breakthrough paper showing that trees exchange food and nutrients via an underground fungal network connecting their roots, a system the journal Nature dubbed “the wood wide web“. In 2021, Simard published Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the wisdom and intelligence of the forest. Her work found a huge new audience, tapping into a public thirst for evidence of community in nature, much like James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. But, as with Gaia, there was an intense backlash, as some researchers objected to the claim that trees shared resources. Simard grew up in a family of loggers and knows better than most the damage that unsustainable modern forestry practices are having on ecosystems. As an academic at the University of British Columbia, Canada, she runs the Mother Tree project, a …

Deforestation could trigger Amazon tipping point in the 2030s

Deforestation could trigger Amazon tipping point in the 2030s

Published by skeptic

Large parts of the Amazon rainforest have been cleared for cattle ranching Paralaxis/Alamy Destruction of rainforest for cattle ranching is making the Amazon biome more vulnerable to irreversible collapse, which could occur within decades if deforestation continues. A landmark 2022 study on tipping points found the Amazon would likely suffer widespread dieback at global warming of 3.5°C and potentially as low as 2°C. That’s worrying, as estimates put Earth on track to warm by about 2.6°C to 2.7°C above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100. But the research didn’t include deforestation, which has already resulted in the loss of at least 15 per cent of the Amazon. Nico Wunderling at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and his colleagues have now modelled Amazon dieback with scenarios involving both rising global temperatures and severe deforestation until 2050. If total forest loss increases to 22 per cent, the Amazon could suffer widespread dieback with as little as 1.5°C of global warming, they found. The world has already experienced 1.3°C to 1.4°C of warming and could hit …

LVMH-owned leather-maker linked to deforestation pushes to weaken EU green law – POLITICO

LVMH-owned leather-maker linked to deforestation pushes to weaken EU green law – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Fabrizio Nuti — president and CEO of Nuti Ivo Group, an Italian tannery acquired three years ago by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, and president of Italy’s national tannery industry association — is a prominent voice in the campaign. “If we cannot get the raw material that we need, we’re out of business — we are out, simply, overnight because we don’t have the information that is required,” Nuti told a recent event at the European Parliament, referring to the supply-chain data he would need to comply with the anti-deforestation rules. He insisted that South American skins only represent a fraction of the sector’s imports. An investigation by NGO Global Witness, a campaign group that investigates the impact of business on the environment, shows that Nuti Ivo has worked with suppliers that have a high risk of causing deforestation across more than 100,000 hectares in Paraguay — including on land claimed by Indigenous communities. The investigation, shared exclusively with POLITICO, also finds that Nuti is part owner of a Paraguayan tannery shipping those skins to Nuti …

EU deforestation law will damage trade with US, Trump official warns – POLITICO

EU deforestation law will damage trade with US, Trump official warns – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

The senior official also complained about a stipulation in the law that if the level of deforestation in any country exceeds 70,000 hectares annually, that country cannot be considered “low risk.” That standard “just doesn’t work for us,” they said. “It’s not fair.” Representatives from the European Commission are meeting with members of the delegation on Friday “at technical level” to discuss the law, a spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed to POLITICO. European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” A 2024 report from the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimated that, in 2023, U.S. exports of the seven commodities under the EUDR accounted for approximately 3 percent of the value of U.S. exports to the EU, “so overall the EUDR may not significantly affect U.S. trade.” European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters in January that there would be no new legislative proposal come April, saying businesses need “predictability.” | Gabriel Luengas/Europa Press via Getty Images Still, the authors wrote, the …

Amazon is getting drier as deforestation shuts down atmospheric rivers

Amazon is getting drier as deforestation shuts down atmospheric rivers

Published by skeptic

Vast areas of the Amazon rainforest have been burned for cattle ranching MICHAEL DANTAS/AFP via Getty Images Deforestation has reduced rainfall over the Amazon, suggesting the rainforest could reach a catastrophic tipping point sooner than expected. Satellite observations and rain gauge measurements show that the amount of rain falling in the southern Amazon basin declined by 8 to 11 per cent between 1980 and 2019. Tree cover in that part of the Amazon shrank by 16 per cent in roughly the same period, mainly because the forest was slashed and burned for beef cattle ranching. The northern Amazon basin has suffered far less deforestation and saw only a slight increase in precipitation, which was not statistically significant. While a recent study linked deforestation to drier weather within 300 kilometres, the new research found this connection across a basin more than 3000 kilometres wide. That shows destroying rainforest can also hurt nearby ranches and soy farms, says Dominick Spracklen at the University of Leeds, UK, who worked on the new study. “Some people in agribusiness might …