Atlas In The Amazon Mini-Series November 25, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment The Amazon Rainforest is a vital ecosystem to the world. The Destruction Of The Amazon, Explained The Amazon rainforest has faced encroachment and deforestation for a long time. But it wasn’t until Brazil’s military dictatorship came to power in the 1970s that deforestation spiked, becoming a big business in the Amazon. When that expansion reached the state of Acre, it met resistance. Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper from the region, took the fight to protect the Amazon from the depths of the rainforest to the global stage. In the process, he gave his life. But the fight he started lives on. The War For The Amazon’s Most Valuable Trees The Amazon is a three-part series about the world’s largest rainforest, why it’s in jeopardy, and the people trying to save it. The Amazon rainforest has faced encroachment and deforestation for a long time. But it wasn’t until Brazil’s military dictatorship came to power in the 1970s that deforestation spiked, becoming a big business in the Amazon. When that expansion reached the state of Acre, it met resistance. Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper from the region, took the fight to protect the Amazon from the depths of the rainforest to the global stage. In the process, he gave his life. But the fight he started lives on. Brazil’s Indigenous Land Is Being Invaded Brazil has over 900,000 indigenous people, most of whom live in the Amazon. After centuries of persecution, they were given extensive rights under a new Constitution in the 1980s, including the right to claim and win back their traditional lands. Since then, hundreds of indigenous lands have been demarcated and protected by the Brazilian government. But in the last few years, those lands have come under attack by landowners, ranchers, loggers, and farmers who want access to the resources inside these indigenous lands. And since Jair Bolsonaro became president, the number of invasions into indigenous lands has skyrocketed.
Indigenous Communities Using Technology to Monitor Illegal Logging in the Amazon October 6, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment A growing number of Indigenous communities in Central and South America are harnessing the power of high-resolution satellite imagery, sophisticated drone equipment, and the latest smart-phone technology to precisely document and act on threats to their lands such as fires, gold-mining, logging, and deforestation for agriculture. But it’s not without its risks: community forest monitors have had their lives threatened. Rainforest Alert explores the groundbreaking research linking community-based monitoring and forest protection from the Eden de la Frontera community in the Peruvian Amazon.Early results show a “measurable reduction of deforestation”. Find out more about the study: https://rainforestfoundation.org.Project run by Rainforest Foundation US, The Indigenous Organization of the Eastern Peruvian Amazon (ORPIO-AIDESEP) and World Resources Institute.
Amazon Deforestation: NGOs in the Line of Fire September 28, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment This week, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rejected criticism over his handling of the forest fires that have ravaged the Amazon, accusing international critics of having a “colonial spirit”. This comes after a Human Rights Watch report accused Bolsonaro of giving a green light to illegal loggers in the Amazon.