Yasuní National Park, located in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is the most biodiverse area in all of South America, a team of Ecuadorean, American, and European scientists concludes in the first major peer-reviewed study of life forms in the park, published today.
But the 13 scientists warn that proposed oil development in Yasuní threatens to destroy one of the world’s last high-biodiversity wilderness areas.
An agreement between the Ecuadorian government and the United Nations for a $3 billion trust fund that would compensate Ecuador for protecting the most vulnerable area of Yasuní by leaving the oil underground has begun to unravel.
Videos posted online by US oil company Chevron purporting to show rampant corruption among Ecuadoran officials are actually a set-up meant to taint an ongoing trial against the energy giant, an attorney in the case alleged.
“By releasing the videos, in my opinion Chevron is trying to taint a trial process that they knew they were going to lose, with the hope that the case would be dismissed in Ecuador,” Steven Donziger, an attorney for Ecuadoran Amazon communities who are suing the oil giant told reporters.
Chevron at the end of August released several grainy videos purporting to show “a three-million-dollar bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit” against the US oil major.
The Ecuadorans allege that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon.
But a report released Thursday by the Amazon Defense Coalition found that one of the individuals said to have produced the videos was a convicted felon with “a habit of breaking the law” and with longstanding ties to the oil company.
An Internet-routing algorithm that tracks electricity price fluctuations could save data-hungry companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon millions of dollars each year in electricity costs. A study from researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and the networking company Akamai suggests that such Internet businesses could reduce their energy use by as much as 40 percent by rerouting data to locations where electricity prices are lowest on a particular day.
Tropical deforestation accounts for one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the transportation sector worldwide. The biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon is Brazil’s cattle sector, and one of this sector’s biggest businesses is the leather industry.
Not only is the cattle industry the main driver of deforestation in the Amazon, but it accounts for 14% of the world’s annual deforestation and is Brazil’s main source of carbon emissions. When we allow the Amazon to be destroyed for cattle, we destroy one of the most biodiverse rainforests in the world which releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere contributing to climate change.
They cite Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Timberland and Clark’s among the culprits. I wonder how many of Nike’s sponsored athletes are aware of this. I know the urge to be like Mike is strong, but maybe some of them would change their minds if they realized the impact.
Over 60 percent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation and land-use change, sectors that directly implicate beef-production. Even in 2000, this totaled close to 400 million carbon-ton equivalents per annum, second only to Indonesia, where land-use change and deforestation account for about 700 million carbon-tons annually.
Between 1996 and 2006, over 10 million hectares were cleared for cattle ranching. While the pace has abated in recent years, it’s still a severe problem. Even if the recent slower pace were to continue, 40 percent of the Amazon would be gone by 2050. Brazil’s plan to effect emissions reductions assumes that Amazonian deforestation will cease completely by 2015.
