Buscador avanzado

Nota: la búsqueda puede tardar más de 30 segundos.

‘We must stop the deforestation of the Amazon before it reaches the tipping point to become a savanna.’ Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images

Science is clear: climate change is unequivocal, and a result of human activity. The planet is already 1.1C warmer than pre-industrial levels and on a route to reach 2.5C or more this century, which could be catastrophic. The poorest and the most vulnerable populations will suffer more and earlier.

Climate change will bring droughts, floods, extreme temperatures and hurricanes that may become more intense and frequent overtime and impact billions of people. The rise of sea levels, lack of water and food, and regions becoming unfeasible to live may generate massive migrations in a planet already closing frontiers.

That is the bad news.…  Seguir leyendo »

Imagen aérea de una zona talada en la Amazonia por madereros y granjeros, en 2020.UESLEI MARCELINO / Reuters

Estados Unidos, cuya credibilidad en el área ambiental estaba muy dañada tras el mandato de Donald Trump, ha vuelto a la primera línea de la lucha contra el cambio climático. Es una buena noticia, porque el mundo está todavía lejos de la senda necesaria para evitar que la temperatura global aumente por encima de los 1,5 grados centígrados en la próxima década. Sin embargo, en la cumbre que comenzó este jueves quedó claro que, pese a los esfuerzos de Washington, el poder y la influencia de la Casa Blanca no son suficientes para resolver una ecuación fundamental en el marco de este desafío global: el futuro de la Amazonia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Indigenous peoples in Brazil are in an increasingly precarious position and, as a result, the Amazon forest is, too. That's bad news for the world.

The fires burning and choking the western United States have transfixed the nation's attention and the alarm is warranted: The world is warming, meaning present and future changes to the climate will continue to lengthen and intensify fire seasons. Now labeled the worst fire season on record, the 5 million acres already burned across California, Oregon and Washington may not be unprecedented for long.

Yet the fate of US forests doesn't rest in American hands alone.…  Seguir leyendo »

Oxen grazing on a farm in Apiacas, Brazil as forest fires burned in August. Credit Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

When I moved to the Amazon “Wild West” town of Paragominas in northern Brazil in 1984 as a young scientist studying forest recovery on abandoned pastures, I expected a town filled with bandits and land grabbers. Instead, what I mostly found were courageous, hard-working families from across Brazil who had come to this rugged town of sawmills, cattle ranches and smallholder settlements to improve their lot in life.

But as the global outcry over recent Amazon fires and the rise in deforestation has demonstrated yet again, the stigma surrounding Amazon farmers as accomplices in this destruction remains, making enemies of would-be allies.…  Seguir leyendo »

El humo crece durante un incendio en Humaitá, estado de Amazonas, en Brasil, el 17 de agosto. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

Hace poco más de 16 años, durante un día sofocante en la franja sureste de la selva amazónica, nos sentamos en un tronco a medio quemar para recuperar el aliento. En el horizonte, las columnas de humo flotaban hacia el cielo y las motosierras rugían a la distancia. No sabíamos que, en ese momento y lugar, nos estábamos acercando rápidamente al punto máximo de deforestación de la Amazonía en este siglo. Era julio de 2003 en el estado brasileño de Mato Grosso.

Recordamos ese momento recientemente al saber que, este año, la Amazonía brasileña está sufriendo un récord de incendios, resultado de un clima más seco y de quemas intencionales para reducir el tamaño de la selva.…  Seguir leyendo »

Los grupos de presión ruralista de Brasil ya no necesitan presionar tanto al gobierno. En buena medida, han conseguido lo que tanto han buscado: ocupar importantes cargos de poder en Brasilia. En 2014, los brasileños eligieron no solo el congreso más conservador del país desde el fin de la dictadura, sino también el más dominado por el frente parlamentario agropecuario –suma 230 de los 513 diputados–, la más eficiente de las agremiaciones legislativas.

Tras apoyar el proceso de destitución de Dilma Rousseff y con Michel Temer como presidente, ese sector conservador dominó por completo el gobierno. Desde entonces, hemos asistido a una ofensiva contra las conquistas sociales –y ahora ambientales– de la última década.  …  Seguir leyendo »

Never before has the survival of so much rainforest depended on one person. But that is where President Rousseff of Brazil finds herself. The Brazilian congress just passed a forest code that puts the Amazon and other forests in jeopardy.

Dilma Rousseff's imminent decision on whether to pass or veto the bill will have huge ramifications. If approved, it would give loggers and farmers free rein to chop down 190m acres of forest. A territory the size of France and Britain combined will be at risk. It would open forests and rivers up for grabs, putting 70% of Brazil's river basins at risk.…  Seguir leyendo »

In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery — a profound moral stain for a nation that prides itself today on being a multiracial democracy.

During the long 19th-century struggle against slavery, at a time when abolitionists in Britain were protesting the forced transfer of millions of Africans from their homelands, Brazilian leaders denounced the global abolitionist movement for interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

More than a century later, the same right to noninterference in internal affairs is again being invoked, this time by the agribusiness interests defending Brazil’s right to strip and burn what remains of the planet’s tropical rainforests.…  Seguir leyendo »