INTERVIEW-From gene sequencing to chocolate, Brazil s Amazon looks for a new development model Reuters 2/1/2021
By Fabio Zuker
SAO PAULO, Feb 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Instead of expanding destructive farming and logging, Brazil should develop the Amazon region by producing high-value products from its indigenous biodiversity, from nuts and fruits to medicinal plants, a top forest researcher said. Sequencing the genomes of its many unique species, for example, could result in earnings as firms look for new medicines, or as agencies try to monitor pathogens that could spur new pandemics, he said.
Growing acai – a native palm fruit increasingly popular internationally as a super food – similarly could net producers 10 times as much income as growing soybeans, according to Carlos Nobre, an earth systems scientist at the University of Sao Paulo.
The Amazon lost an area of primary forest larger than Israel in 2020, new analysis finds
by Morgan Erickson-Davis on 28 January 2021
The Amazon basin lost more than 2 million hectares of primary forest cover in 2020, according to a new report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
This number is higher than the area lost in 2019 and the authors say it may be an underestimation.
Brazil lost the most primary forest, with Bolivia experiencing high levels of fire-related deforestation of its unique Chiquitano dry forests.
While Peru saw continuing deforestation in its midsection, MAAP found reductions in forest loss in the southern part of the country.
An area the size of Israel was deforested in the Amazon biome last year as destruction surged 21% in the region spanning nine countries that is home to the world s largest rainforest, according to the Amazon Conservation organization.
At that accelerated rate, the Amazon rainforest will reach a tipping point in 10 to 20 years, after which it will enter a sustained death spiral as it dries out and turns into a savanna, said Carlos Nobre, an earth systems scientist at University of Sao Paulo.
About 17%-18% of the biome has already been destroyed, and with 1% more cleared every three years, the tipping point of 20%-25% destruction is rapidly approaching, said Nobre, who is not affiliated with the Amazon Conservation organization.
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