Experts predict the disappearance of most of the Amazon forests by the end of the century. DISAPPEAR "THE AMAZON?
By Jose Alvarez Alonso (*)
What scientists say: the Amazon, the richest ecosystem and biodiversity, and fifth reservoir of unfrozen fresh water on the planet, is at serious risk to disappear in this century due to deforestation and climate change. According to recent studies, the southeastern region would be at greater risk of becoming the next decades in a savanna ecosystem biologically much poorer and much less ability to store carbon and produce rain. The northwestern region, which includes Loreto, would most likely have to withstand the ravages of climate change "as long as the conservation of forests, prevent the experts.
The Amazon will not be the lungs of the world as stated in past decades, but it is an important regulator of global climate, due to capacity to absorb carbon (stored between 90 and 120 billion metric tons) and its ability to produce moisture and generate its own climate. However, last year, during the terrible drought that hit the whole region, the Amazon is no longer a carbon sink to become a net emitter, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere that Europe and Japan combined, a very bad news for the planet, threatened by climate change. It is said that if current scenarios do not change, the destruction of Amazonian forests would significantly accelerate global warming, between 1 and 2 degrees, according to some estimates-and affect agriculture in the border regions, including the valleys, dependent on moisture generated Amazonia.
The drought of 2010, a notice of future
The Amazon, the King of Rivers, the largest river in the world, was embarrassed months ago: for the second time in a year it broke its record low level, while some of its major tributaries like the Huallaga, Maranon and Ucayali, were almost turned into streams. The international media alarmed the World: "The Amazon River is drying up", Reuters reported in September, while Radio Netherlands said: "The majestic Amazon becomes a stream." The extreme dry season has been accompanied by an unbearable heat wave and a severe drought caused havoc throughout the basin. Just a few months earlier had broken the record lowest temperature in several locations in Peru and Bolivia. Amazon is confused population meet these ends, while some preachers make a killing announcing the end of the world.
One Sky 'belly of a donkey', similar to the Lima winter long weeks covered by the low jungle of northern Peru, and the river levels kept dropping and broke the boat traffic, the sun, usually bright Amazon in the limpid sky, just dying peered through the mist, while soils of the farms were cracked by the lack of water and riverbeds dried up, to the alarm of the Amazon. It was later revealed that the culprits were the thousands of fires in the Brazilian Amazon. "This world is ending", she said the motorcycle taxi that takes me home from the airport in Iquitos, referring to the infernal heat and lack of rains in recent months. "We've never seen anything like it, nor the oldest old and remember a dry season", she said Mamerto Maicu, Awajún, president of the Indian-AIDESEP CORPI in San Lorenzo.
Amazon Iquitos and other cities for several weeks suffered food shortages, gas, cement and other products of the sea, by the difficulties of water transport, there were also problems in water supply. In the jungle it was extreme: Tarapoto, Bagua and other cities in the northern jungle spent several months just one hour of water per day. In the central and lower Huallaga May languished rice crops and livestock with no water or for watering their livestock. The once mighty Huallaga became so low that it could cross on foot in several places. The press reported several villages abandoned by the drought, the first "climate refugees" that there are reports in the Peruvian Amazon.
The heat was in some places to levels never seen before: "37 º C in Moyobamba, that never happened, no rain, no water, no electricity, Gera dry, it is a joke to see the fallen bridge and wonder but raging river has made such thing if you do not have water, it seems that anger was not only the bridge but the water "I wrote Karina Pinasco, a renowned conservationist from this once idyllic town. And he told me that the forests of conservation areas Mishquiyacu-Rumiyacu, and Almond, Moyobamba water source, burned for more than five days to the despair of the inhabitants of the city.
The city of Pucallpa also for several weeks was covered with smoke, apparently coming from the burning of forests in southwestern Brazil. In the upper Ucayali and in several other areas of Loreto and Madre de Dios, dozens of indigenous communities were isolated for several months due to extreme dry season the rivers that impeded water transport.
The ebb also seriously affected the fish, the main power supply for the Amazonian population in the lowlands. "There are less and are smaller. I do not know what we will eat, if we continue like this, "laments Julie Soplin, a humble fish vendor in the market for Bellavista, at the confluence of the Nanay and the Amazon. "El Peje is running, sometimes no coat or to feed my family," she explained Tapayuri Second, Kukamiria Huallaga River, weaving their networks while lamenting the increasing scarcity of fish.
Fernando Fonseca, a farmer and poet of the Amazon river, had alarmed me: "Many of my trees died to lack of water, something very serious is happening in the Amazon." And it seems to be right, because the drought not only affected the Peruvian Amazon, in Brazil, forest fires ravaged thousands of hectares of forests, including 80% Das Emas National Park in the Cerrado, while suspended navigation in rivers as large as the Black River, the Madeira and Tapajos. More than 40,000 head of cattle perished of thirst in the Beni, in Bolivia, due to drought. Only
we increase
"Only we increase, and trash the rest decreasing every year: water, fish, trees ...," said Ronaldo Fachín resigned, old fisherman's port of Bellavista, in Iquitos, sitting on the bow of his canoe empty after a fruitless day of fishing. Many Amazonian share their pessimism, because they are seen as ecosystems are degraded Amazonian uncontrollably while resources are the basis of their livelihoods are made more and more scarce, along the skies once generous petty now your water.
The Government's announcement of a mega package for high Marañón, including hydropower and water diversion of the Amazon to the coast, could not come at a worse time. Experts fear that these projects irreversibly alters the cycle of rising and ebb, and the migration of fish, which would seriously affect the ecosystem of the forest floor and the resources that communities rely on Amazon. In Loreto growing voices have risen in protest against what they see as a new aggression of centralism, and a more serious threat to a quite struck by poverty and environmental degradation.
Amazonian ecosystems are already under much stress, not only by climate change, but for the river pollution, overexploitation of forests and deforestation in the headwaters of the illicit crop. A new attack could be a step towards environmental collapse, which would mean more hunger and disease for a population already quite hungry and sick.
Climatologists expect an increase of between 3 and 5 degrees of temperatures in the Amazon by the end of the century. But according to Met's Hadley Centre, which provides weather information to Government British temperatures could rise by up to 8 degrees Celsius. Under these conditions, drought and widespread fires would be catastrophic and would be very difficult life in the Amazon.
Conjuring the ghost of deforestation
The drought that has plagued the Amazon is, say many scientists, the effect of climate change, deforestation but also wild in the basin headwaters, say the experts. Over 20% of the Amazon has been destroyed, and some models require that the "critical threshold" or turning point is between 35 and 45% of deforestation, before to collapse the Amazon climate. The Amazon forest is not only stores the rainwater, but the results: about 50% of the Amazon rain are the product of the evapotranspiration of the forest. In deforested areas, torrential rains drag everything in its path, causing landslides and floods, when it stops raining a few days, the streams and rivers dry.
In Loreto Region and are promoting measures to address the effects of climate change: in 2009 it passed an ordinance that protects all regional basin headwaters, to ensure the provision of water and other vital resources for the population, a measure that earned him a national award regional president.
Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon, in partnership with the Regional Government of Loreto and other organizations are promoting participatory conservation projects with community forests under the principles of 'use of the standing forest' and 'productive conservation' as an alternative to agricultural frontier expansion and illegal logging. Many indigenous communities, usually reluctant to protected areas, are now turning to them as a tool to conserve the resources on which its economy depends. If you provide incentives for forest conservation through the carbon credit market, something that still takes a time as has been seen in the summit that "it is possible that you can still prevent catastrophe. Meanwhile
should be discarded all these crazy projects with their access roads out of date "settlement plans" and expansion of the agricultural frontier in poor soils of the mainland, also should be stopped all promotion project in the Amazon to monocultures expense of forests. Instead you should promote measures to exploit and add value to standing forest products by communities in the Amazon, while to be recovered with areas already degraded reforestation projects or crops permanent high capacity for carbon sequestration and production of moisture.
Experts agree that the conservation and recuperation is the best and perhaps short-term the only way to mitigate the impact of climate change in Amazonia. The forest becomes a treasure too valuable to let private interests degrade or destroy it, even if the crops be false green seal of "biofuels." The Forest Conservation Programme of MINAM should be a national priority, and should take emergency measures to stop once and for all deforestation and forest degradation. If there is a hope of saving Amazon is jealous and resolutely protecting the forest now.
(*) Biologist, Researcher IIAP
The Amazon will not be the lungs of the world as stated in past decades, but it is an important regulator of global climate, due to capacity to absorb carbon (stored between 90 and 120 billion metric tons) and its ability to produce moisture and generate its own climate. However, last year, during the terrible drought that hit the whole region, the Amazon is no longer a carbon sink to become a net emitter, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere that Europe and Japan combined, a very bad news for the planet, threatened by climate change. It is said that if current scenarios do not change, the destruction of Amazonian forests would significantly accelerate global warming, between 1 and 2 degrees, according to some estimates-and affect agriculture in the border regions, including the valleys, dependent on moisture generated Amazonia.
The drought of 2010, a notice of future
The Amazon, the King of Rivers, the largest river in the world, was embarrassed months ago: for the second time in a year it broke its record low level, while some of its major tributaries like the Huallaga, Maranon and Ucayali, were almost turned into streams. The international media alarmed the World: "The Amazon River is drying up", Reuters reported in September, while Radio Netherlands said: "The majestic Amazon becomes a stream." The extreme dry season has been accompanied by an unbearable heat wave and a severe drought caused havoc throughout the basin. Just a few months earlier had broken the record lowest temperature in several locations in Peru and Bolivia. Amazon is confused population meet these ends, while some preachers make a killing announcing the end of the world.
One Sky 'belly of a donkey', similar to the Lima winter long weeks covered by the low jungle of northern Peru, and the river levels kept dropping and broke the boat traffic, the sun, usually bright Amazon in the limpid sky, just dying peered through the mist, while soils of the farms were cracked by the lack of water and riverbeds dried up, to the alarm of the Amazon. It was later revealed that the culprits were the thousands of fires in the Brazilian Amazon. "This world is ending", she said the motorcycle taxi that takes me home from the airport in Iquitos, referring to the infernal heat and lack of rains in recent months. "We've never seen anything like it, nor the oldest old and remember a dry season", she said Mamerto Maicu, Awajún, president of the Indian-AIDESEP CORPI in San Lorenzo.
Amazon Iquitos and other cities for several weeks suffered food shortages, gas, cement and other products of the sea, by the difficulties of water transport, there were also problems in water supply. In the jungle it was extreme: Tarapoto, Bagua and other cities in the northern jungle spent several months just one hour of water per day. In the central and lower Huallaga May languished rice crops and livestock with no water or for watering their livestock. The once mighty Huallaga became so low that it could cross on foot in several places. The press reported several villages abandoned by the drought, the first "climate refugees" that there are reports in the Peruvian Amazon.
The heat was in some places to levels never seen before: "37 º C in Moyobamba, that never happened, no rain, no water, no electricity, Gera dry, it is a joke to see the fallen bridge and wonder but raging river has made such thing if you do not have water, it seems that anger was not only the bridge but the water "I wrote Karina Pinasco, a renowned conservationist from this once idyllic town. And he told me that the forests of conservation areas Mishquiyacu-Rumiyacu, and Almond, Moyobamba water source, burned for more than five days to the despair of the inhabitants of the city.
The city of Pucallpa also for several weeks was covered with smoke, apparently coming from the burning of forests in southwestern Brazil. In the upper Ucayali and in several other areas of Loreto and Madre de Dios, dozens of indigenous communities were isolated for several months due to extreme dry season the rivers that impeded water transport.
The ebb also seriously affected the fish, the main power supply for the Amazonian population in the lowlands. "There are less and are smaller. I do not know what we will eat, if we continue like this, "laments Julie Soplin, a humble fish vendor in the market for Bellavista, at the confluence of the Nanay and the Amazon. "El Peje is running, sometimes no coat or to feed my family," she explained Tapayuri Second, Kukamiria Huallaga River, weaving their networks while lamenting the increasing scarcity of fish.
Fernando Fonseca, a farmer and poet of the Amazon river, had alarmed me: "Many of my trees died to lack of water, something very serious is happening in the Amazon." And it seems to be right, because the drought not only affected the Peruvian Amazon, in Brazil, forest fires ravaged thousands of hectares of forests, including 80% Das Emas National Park in the Cerrado, while suspended navigation in rivers as large as the Black River, the Madeira and Tapajos. More than 40,000 head of cattle perished of thirst in the Beni, in Bolivia, due to drought. Only
we increase
"Only we increase, and trash the rest decreasing every year: water, fish, trees ...," said Ronaldo Fachín resigned, old fisherman's port of Bellavista, in Iquitos, sitting on the bow of his canoe empty after a fruitless day of fishing. Many Amazonian share their pessimism, because they are seen as ecosystems are degraded Amazonian uncontrollably while resources are the basis of their livelihoods are made more and more scarce, along the skies once generous petty now your water.
The Government's announcement of a mega package for high Marañón, including hydropower and water diversion of the Amazon to the coast, could not come at a worse time. Experts fear that these projects irreversibly alters the cycle of rising and ebb, and the migration of fish, which would seriously affect the ecosystem of the forest floor and the resources that communities rely on Amazon. In Loreto growing voices have risen in protest against what they see as a new aggression of centralism, and a more serious threat to a quite struck by poverty and environmental degradation.
Amazonian ecosystems are already under much stress, not only by climate change, but for the river pollution, overexploitation of forests and deforestation in the headwaters of the illicit crop. A new attack could be a step towards environmental collapse, which would mean more hunger and disease for a population already quite hungry and sick.
Climatologists expect an increase of between 3 and 5 degrees of temperatures in the Amazon by the end of the century. But according to Met's Hadley Centre, which provides weather information to Government British temperatures could rise by up to 8 degrees Celsius. Under these conditions, drought and widespread fires would be catastrophic and would be very difficult life in the Amazon.
Conjuring the ghost of deforestation
The drought that has plagued the Amazon is, say many scientists, the effect of climate change, deforestation but also wild in the basin headwaters, say the experts. Over 20% of the Amazon has been destroyed, and some models require that the "critical threshold" or turning point is between 35 and 45% of deforestation, before to collapse the Amazon climate. The Amazon forest is not only stores the rainwater, but the results: about 50% of the Amazon rain are the product of the evapotranspiration of the forest. In deforested areas, torrential rains drag everything in its path, causing landslides and floods, when it stops raining a few days, the streams and rivers dry.
In Loreto Region and are promoting measures to address the effects of climate change: in 2009 it passed an ordinance that protects all regional basin headwaters, to ensure the provision of water and other vital resources for the population, a measure that earned him a national award regional president.
Research Institute of the Peruvian Amazon, in partnership with the Regional Government of Loreto and other organizations are promoting participatory conservation projects with community forests under the principles of 'use of the standing forest' and 'productive conservation' as an alternative to agricultural frontier expansion and illegal logging. Many indigenous communities, usually reluctant to protected areas, are now turning to them as a tool to conserve the resources on which its economy depends. If you provide incentives for forest conservation through the carbon credit market, something that still takes a time as has been seen in the summit that "it is possible that you can still prevent catastrophe. Meanwhile
should be discarded all these crazy projects with their access roads out of date "settlement plans" and expansion of the agricultural frontier in poor soils of the mainland, also should be stopped all promotion project in the Amazon to monocultures expense of forests. Instead you should promote measures to exploit and add value to standing forest products by communities in the Amazon, while to be recovered with areas already degraded reforestation projects or crops permanent high capacity for carbon sequestration and production of moisture.
Experts agree that the conservation and recuperation is the best and perhaps short-term the only way to mitigate the impact of climate change in Amazonia. The forest becomes a treasure too valuable to let private interests degrade or destroy it, even if the crops be false green seal of "biofuels." The Forest Conservation Programme of MINAM should be a national priority, and should take emergency measures to stop once and for all deforestation and forest degradation. If there is a hope of saving Amazon is jealous and resolutely protecting the forest now.
(*) Biologist, Researcher IIAP
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