A demonstration against the reopening of the highway in Iguaçu National Park. Credit: Courtesy of SOS Mata Atlântica

By Alice Marcondes
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 13 2013 (IPS)

Environmental groups have appealed to UNESCO to help stop the reopening of Caminho do Colono, a stretch of highway in southern Brazil that crosses through Iguaçu National Park, declared a World Heritage site by the UN agency in 1986.

Hydroelectric dams in the Amazon, amendments to the Forest Code, agrarian reform conflicts: over recent years, the Brazilian public has witnessed a succession of controversies pitting environmental organisations against the country’s authorities.

The most recent conflict involves the Caminho do Colono or “Settler’s Road”, a stretch of highway in the southern state of Paraná that has been closed for over a decade, but could be reopened if a bill currently under study in the Senate is passed. The bill was fast-tracked straight to the Senate following approval by a commission in the Chamber of Deputies, without full discussion in the lower house as a whole.

The origins of the 18-kilometre stretch of highway date back to 1925, when local communities used it as an informal road and for the transport of the “yerba mate” harvested in the region. (Yerba mate is a plant used to prepare a tea-like infusion popular in a number of South American countries.)

Years later the road was integrated into the Brazilian highway network, forming part of Route PR-495, which connects the city of Serranópolis do Iguaçu, on the northern edge of the park, and the town of Iguiporã, in the municipality of Marechal Cândido Rondon.

In 1986 the road was closed for the first time under a management plan drawn up for Iguaçu National Park, which was created as a nature conservation area in 1939 and is home to the largest area of the Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest biome in southern Brazil. The closed section of highway falls entirely within the borders of the park.

It was also in 1986 that the park was designated a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The road was later reopened illegally, but in 2001 the government declared its permanent closure.

The park is located in the westernmost part of Paraná, 17 kilometres from the centre of the city of Foz do Iguaçu and near the triple border with Argentina and Paraguay. It borders on Iguazu National Park in Argentina, with which it shares the breathtaking Iguazu Falls, a popular tourist destination that earned a spot on the list of Seven Natural Wonders compiled by the Swiss-based New7Wonders Foundation.

Lawmakers from the region have presented numerous bills to get Caminho do Colono reopened. One of them, PL 7.123/2010, drafted by federal deputy Assis do Couto of the ruling Workers’ Party, could be passed by the Senate this month.

The goal is to stimulate tourism and environmental education, and to allow tourists to get to the falls without having to go through Argentina, Couto told Tierramérica*.

The imminent Senate vote on the bill to reopen the road prompted some 1,000 Brazilian organisations to write to UNESCO and request its intervention.

“The author of the bill and its supporters claim that the highway will promote preservation, environmental education and sustainable regional development, although the impacts of highways on protected areas are widely documented and understood. Historical records do not demonstrate any positive effect of the Caminho do Colono on the local, regional, state or national economy,” the letter stresses.

Deputy Couto says that his bill provides for the control of traffic through the park and prohibits the use of the road by trucks.

“The road will not be paved, in order to maintain the permeability of the soil. Cars will not be allowed on it at night. In addition, the opening of the highway will mean a greater state presence, which will curb the current illegal harvesting of palm hearts. The police have even found camps of palm heart harvesters in the area,” he added.

According to Couto, the road will benefit local communities, but this argument does not convince the park’s director of conservation and management, biologist Apolonio Rodrigues.

“The highway is of no importance to the flow of production and the road network of the region. It is simply viewed as a shortcut for people travelling south to north, who would like to shorten the distance they need to drive by going through the park,” Rodrigues told Tierramérica.

“If we consider the importance of the park for humanity, there is no justification for opening the highway to benefit a small group of people,” he said.

Reopening the highway would lead to the fragmentation of the ecosystem, he maintained. “In addition, it could serve as an entryway for exotic species, and its use could lead to the sedimentation and degradation of the waterways,” he warned.

Another problem highlighted by the road’s opponents is the danger it could pose for the local population of jaguars (Panthera onca), which has already shrunk by 90 percent.

It is estimated that there are barely 18 living specimens in an area where up to 180 jaguars once roamed. In fact, the species could be completely wiped out in the region in the next 80 years, according to the coordinator of the National Centre for Carnivorous Mammal Research and Conservation, Ronaldo Morato.

The Centre is a division of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, which is responsible for the management of Iguaçu National Park.

The area “is already suffering from hunting. Urgent action is needed, and reopening the highway will not contribute to preservation,” Morato told Tierramérica.

Critics of the bill maintain that the efforts to open the road serve the interests of local soy producers, who would be provided with a shortcut for transporting their merchandise.

But Couto refutes this argument by emphasising that trucks would be prohibited. Soy producers, he says, “already have established transportation routes.”

Reopening the highway would require amending the Brazilian legislation on conservation areas in order to include the category of “parkway”. This would set a precedent for the indiscriminate opening of roads in other protected areas, warned the signatories of the letter to UNESCO, which has yet to issue a pronouncement on the matter.

Couto, for his part, believes it would remedy a void in environmental legislation, since there are already highways within the borders of other conservation areas. “One example is the Paraty-Cunha highway inside Serra da Bocaina National Park,” he said.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

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Tiago Maranhão Alves with a strip of the newly developed solar plastic. Credit: Courtesy of CSEM Brazil/Rafael Motta - Agência Nitro

By Alice Marcondes
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Mar 12 2013 (IPS)

As part of the country’s growing emphasis on green tech research, Brazilian scientists have developed plastic solar panels that could revolutionise power generation from this clean, renewable energy source.

What looks like a thin, flexible sheet of regular plastic is actually a solar panel printed with photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. This new material, totally unlike the heavy and costly silicon-based panels commonly used to generate solar power today, was created by scientists at CSEM Brasil, a research institute based in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.

Made by incorporating organic photovoltaic cells into common polymers, the new panels resemble transparent sheets of plastic with stripes where they have been printed with carbon-based organic polymers.

The technology to produce these organic photovoltaic cells has been studied in Europe and the United States for a number of years, and has now been further developed in Brazil.

According to its inventors, the new “solar plastic” could represent a minor revolution in the way clean energy is produced from sunlight.

“While the capacity for power generation is almost the same, its small size means that it can be given uses that are almost impossible for silicon panels,” said the chairman of CSEM Brasil, Tiago Maranhão Alves, a physical engineer who participated directly in the research.

The lightweight, flexible new material can be used to power the electrical components of automobiles and in electronic devices like mobile phones and wireless computer keyboards and mice.

But the Brazilian researchers are concentrating on the production of solar panels, which can be used to cover relatively large areas, like windows. “A panel with a surface area of two or three square metres could be sufficient to generate the energy needed in a house lived in by a family of four,” Alves told Tierramérica*.

“Because of its good cost-benefit ratio, it could also be an option for bringing energy to remote areas without electric power service. In Brazil (with a population of over 192 million) there are still close to a million places in this situation,” he added.

Ease of transport is one of the main advantages of the new panels over silicon panels. “Because they are easy to transport, logistical costs are lower. In addition, people can take them with them when they move to a new home,” he said.

The plastic can also be used to cover buildings and venues like airports and sports stadiums, avoiding the need to set aside an area for the installation of conventional solar panels.

Some ten million dollars were invested in developing the formula for the new Brazilian-made material, and investment is expected to double in the coming year. “We are now going to study the best way to scale up the product. In its current state it could already be launched on the market, but the price should be analysed on a case-by-case basis,” said Alves.

The resources invested, which also enabled the creation of CSEM Brasil, were provided through a partnership between the venture capital firm FIR Capital and the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM).

The project has also received support from the Minas Gerais State Research Foundation (FAPEMIG).

The method has not been made public, since it is still classified as a trade secret. “This is a multi-billion-dollar market, and there are a lot of research centres after this technology,” commented Alves.

The breakthrough announced by the researchers in Minas Gerais reflects a growing trend in Brazil: investment in clean technologies.

Last year, the Studies and Projects Financing Agency (FINEP), a public company administered by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, launched the Sustainable Brazil Programme, which will distribute some 10 million dollars in lines of credit for initiatives aimed at the preservation of natural resources.

According to FINEP, the programme responds to a demand perceived by the agency, which over the last eight years has provided 2.3 million dollars in financing for projects with a “green” component. One quarter of these projects have involved clean energy production.

André Pereira de Carvalho, a business administration professor, believes that the increase in funding for this type of research is a result of the fact that both private investment funds and public institutions view green tech as a lucrative field.

“These organisations primarily evaluate whether the product is a good one, with a formula that is difficult to copy and the potential for large-scale production. This applies to any investment, whether it is in an information technology company or a green technology initiative,” said Carvalho, who has coordinated studies on innovation for sustainability.

Compared to the United States, Japan or Germany, Brazil is still “in diapers” when it comes to the green tech industry, but it has the potential to learn to walk very quickly, Carvalho told Tierramérica.

“A few years ago, an entrepreneur who wanted to invest in this sector would run into many more obstacles. Today there is still a degree of mistrust towards what is commonly viewed as a more costly niche market, but it has already become much easier to obtain financing,” he added.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

The jaguar is one of the first three species that Brazilian scientists will attempt to clone. Credit: Courtesy of the Brasilia Zoo

By Alice Marcondes
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 6 2012 (IPS)

Brazilian scientists are attempting to clone animals in danger of extinction, like the jaguar and maned wolf, although the potential impact on the conservation of these threatened species is still not clear.

The cloning initiative is being undertaken by the Brasilia Zoological Garden in partnership with the Brazilian government’s agricultural research agency, EMBRAPA, and is now in its second phase. The research is aimed at adapting cloning techniques to wild animal species as a means of contributing to conservation.

The first phase involved the collection of samples of genetic material, or germplasm, in the form of blood, sperm, somatic cells and umbilical cord cells.

“We already have 420 germplasm samples stored in our bank and are going to continue collecting,” EMBRAPA researcher Carlos Frederico Martins told Tierramérica*.

Eight animals have been chosen for the initiative, including the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), the jaguar (Panthera onca) and the black lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus). Most are on the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The samples were gathered over the course of two years. In addition to the three species mentioned above, the bank has also been stocked with germplasm from the bush dog (Speothos venaticus), coati (genus Nasua), collared anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla), gray brocket deer (Mazama gouazoubira) and bison (genus Bison).

The researchers harvested the genetic material primarily from dead specimens of animals native to the Cerrado, the vast tropical savannah biome that stretches across central Brazil.

The next phase will be the training of researchers at the zoo.

“At EMBRAPA we have already cloned cows. What we are going to do now is to transfer our knowledge to the researchers so that they can conduct studies to adapt the technique to wild animals,” said Martins.

EMBRAPA was responsible for the birth of the first cloned animal in Brazil, a calf named Vitória, who was born in 2001 and lived until 2011.

After Vitória, many other animals have been cloned, mainly cows and horses who now add up to over 100 living specimens.

A bill that has been making its way through the Brazilian senate since 2007 would establish regulations for the practice of cloning, since the current legislation does not set very clear rules.

“Research can be freely conducted, but there is little monitoring and control. Any laboratory can clone cows, so it is impossible to precisely say how many clones exist,” explained the EMBRAPA researcher.

This is Brazil’s first attempt at cloning wild animals. Martins noted that “countries like the United States and South Korea are already working on similar research.”

The lack of prior experience makes it difficult to foresee how long it will take to produce the first clone, he said. But “we can predict that it will probably be a maned wolf, since this is the species for which we have many samples of genetic material,” he added.

Martins stressed, however, that the goal is not to release the clones into the wild. “The zoo wants to increase the number of specimens for its own use. The idea is to keep these animals in captivity. The use of clones would prevent the impact caused by the removal of these animals from their natural setting,” he said.

“From the point of view of conservation, the ideal approach is to preserve and multiply the number of wild animals where they are found,” he emphasised. Since cloned specimens contain the exact same genes as the animals they were cloned from, “they do not have the genetic variability that would make it beneficial to release them in the wild,” he explained.

Cloned animals would only be released in extreme cases, Martins said.

“If a certain species was in a state of drastic decline, at risk of total extinction, and it was possible to provide reinforcement, we will have the capacity,” Juciara Pelles, the head of conservation and research at the Brasilia Zoo, told Tierramérica.

“We are still in the phase of developing the technology, so we still don’t know if it will be possible to rescue a population in the wild, but we could potentially make it viable again,” she added.

The current technique has a five to seven percent rate of effectiveness. According to Martins, this percentage is within the average range achieved worldwide.

“It’s a low number, which makes the technology more costly, but it is average. The research underway is also aimed at raising it,” he noted.

For Onildo João Marini Filho, a biologist at ICMBio, the cloning of horses and cows is justified by its commercial purposes. But the cloning of wild animals needs to be handled with caution.

“There has to be a very tangible benefit for conservation. If there is something to be gained, it is valid. It might be possible, for example, to increase the number of animals to help with a breeding programme,” he told Tierramérica.

In order for the second phase of the research to effectively begin, the Brasilia Zoo is waiting for legal authorisation from the relevant agencies. It is hoped that the initial steps towards the creation of the first clone can be taken in approximately one month. “This is a long-term project,” said Pelles.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

The Guaraní-Kaiowá can no longer wait for the government to protect their lands. Credit: Courtesy CIMI/Cléber Buzatto

By Alice Marcondes
SÃO PAULO, Sep 4 2012 (IPS)

The land conflict between the Guaraní-Kaiowá indigenous people and large landowners in the southwestern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul is a powder keg ready to explode, say observers.

Nísio Gomes, Jenivaldo Vera, Rolindo Vera, Teodoro Ricardi, Ortiz and Xurete Lopes are just a few of the names on a long list of people murdered in this state in recent years, according to the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).

The statistics gathered by the Council, founded in 1972 by the Brazilian National Bishops’ Conference, reveal that 279 indigenous people have been killed since 2003 in land disputes with landowners and ranchers.

The most recent case is that of Eduardo Pires, who disappeared on Aug. 10 when armed men attacked a group of Kaiowá people in the Arroio Korá indigenous reserve, located in the municipality of Paranhos in the south of the state, near the border with Paraguay.

Arroio Korá, an area of roughly 7,000 hectares, was officially recognised as indigenous land on Dec. 21, 2009 by then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But one week later, a Federal Supreme Court ruling on an appeal filed by a landowner exempted a 184-hectare section of the land from this status.

“Even with this partial embargo, the government did not foresee that the rest would be effectively turned over to the Guaraní-Kaiowá,” said Flávio Machado, the CIMI regional coordinator in Mato Grosso do Sul. “The community, which is made up of around 600 members, currently occupies around 700 hectares. When they decided to retake control over the rest of the land, they met with a violent response,” he told Tierramérica*.

According to Eliseu, a Kaiowá leader who was present when the attack took place, on the morning of Aug. 10 some 400 members of the community set up a camp on a section of the officially recognised reserve land where a ranch is located.

A short time later, a number of armed men arrived. “I heard the gunshots and took off running. We are a people with a culture of peace, we have no weapons, but we are not going to give up fighting for our land. If we are going to die, we would rather die on our own land,” he told Tierramérica.

No one has seen Eduardo Pires since the attack. “I believe he is dead,” said Eliseu.

The Federal Police of Mato Grosso do Sul are in charge of the case. “The indigenous people say that one of them is missing. We are investigating, but we have nothing concrete. We have to be impartial,” Federal Police Superintendent Edgar Paulo Marcon commented to Tierramérica.

The following week, CIMI reports, the police removed a number of ranchers and their cattle from the area. Since then, the Kaiowá have been targeted by threats, the most explicit of which is a filmed declaration by Luis Carlos da Silva Vieira, known as Lenço Preto (“Black Kerchief”), posted on YouTube.

“We are going to organise and prepare for confrontation… They only want the land to be bothersome. We have weapons. If they want war, they’ll get war,” he states repeatedly.

In response, the Kaiowá community published a letter calling for urgent attention from the government. “Faced with a collective death threat, made publicly in the press by the landowners, we request an investigation and severe punishment of these promoters of the genocide/ethnocide of indigenous peoples.”

“Everyone knows that they have sophisticated and fearsome weapons, that they have money obtained at the expense of indigenous blood to buy more weapons and to hire gunmen… We do not have guns and, above all, we do not know how to use them,” the letter continues.

“We want to reiterate and highlight the fact that our fight for our ancestral lands is aimed solely at protecting human life and the fauna and flora of the planet Earth; it is not our intention to kill anyone.”

The state prosecutor’s office is also investigating the case and visited the area on Aug. 28. In a note published on the office’s website, the prosecutors reported that during their visit, they heard five gunshots, which they believe were meant to intimidate them.

The Guaraní-Kaiowá have always lived from subsistence agriculture, which is becoming increasingly difficult because of their lack of access to their ancestral lands, although they now have the support of the National Indigenous Foundation, a government agency.

The Kaiowá people’s lands have been occupied for decades by settlers and ranchers.

The Cerrado, a tropical savannah biome typical of Mato Grosso do Sul, has been gradually taken over by soybean plantations and cattle grazing. The land here is also highly coveted for planting sugarcane for ethanol production.

A number of Kaiowá leaders met with authorities from the Human Rights Secretariat of the Office of the Presidency in Brasilia on Aug. 24, and were subsequently included in the government’s programme for the protection of threatened persons.

But for CIMI, this measure is insufficient.

“Many of the indigenous people murdered were in this programme. They were put on the list, but this doesn’t represent any kind of effective protection,” said Machado. “All they do is send people to verify what has already happened.”

Nevertheless, the Kaiowá view this protection as a positive step. “At least (the authorities) know who is threatening us, and if anything happens to us they will know who did it,” said Eliseu.

The decision to occupy the Arroio Korá territory was adopted by the community’s leaders in a large assembly known as “Aty Guasú”.

Despite the latest attacks, the community is no longer willing to put up with the government’s delays. They are determined to take back control over all of the lands officially recognised as theirs.

“The delays are killing the people anyway,” another indigenous leader, Tonico, told Tierramérica. “We are going to occupy all of our lands, even knowing that there is no security, that we are going to die. The people have decided.”

As for the death threats made by landowners, Tonico commented, “They are saying publicly that they are going to do what they are already doing. Here, in Mato Grosso, the human rights of indigenous people don’t exist. Indians are not people,” he said.

The decision to occupy the land was reinforced by the anger sparked by a decree issued on Jul. 17 by the Attorney General’s Office, which serves as the state’s legal defense. According to the decree, indigenous lands can be occupied by hydroelectric projects, communications and transportation lines, and military facilities without the need for prior consultation with the people living there.

“This is a regression,” said Tonico.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

An alteration of the relationship between the Amazon rainforest and the billions of cubic metres of water transported by air from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean to the Andes Mountains could endanger the resilience of a biome that is crucial for the global climate, warns a recently concluded two-decade research project.

Scientific observation tower in Boa Vista, capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima, which borders with Venezuela. Credit: Courtesy of Mario Bentes

In order to more fully understand this complex ecosystem, scientists from Brazil and around the world created the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA).

After 20 years of research, the conclusions reached from the data collected warn of numerous potential threats.

According to the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), one of the agencies participating in the experiment, unless effective policies are implemented in the coming years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by the end of the 21st century there will be 40 percent less rainfall and average temperatures of up to eight degrees higher than normal in the Amazon.

This would convert the rainforest into a source of carbon dioxide emissions instead of a “sink” that contributes to carbon sequestration and storage.

The International Energy Agency estimates that in 2010 the world’s population released a record amount of 30.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.

“The research shows us that the rainforest has a great power of resilience, but also that this power has limits,” physicist Paulo Artaxo, chair of the LBA International Scientific Steering Committee, told Tierramérica.

“If we continue burning so much carbon, the climate scenario for the region will be considerably unfavorable for any resilience that the rainforest could develop. It would be difficult for it to survive such enormous climate stress,” he added.

To gather data for its research, the LBA used, among other instruments, 13 towers measuring between 40 and 55 metres in height, set up in different points throughout the rainforest to measure the flow of gases, the functioning of basic properties of the ecosystem, and many other environmental parameters.

The information collected was analysed by scientists from various fields in order to understand the rainforest as an interrelated system.

“The perception in the scientific community was that studies carried out in individual disciplines were not sufficiently able to explain the Amazon, and this led to the LBA. It was felt that an integrated effort was needed to explain the rainforest from the viewpoint of the physical, chemical, biological and human sciences, and the relationship between them,” explained Brazilian climate expert Antônio Nobre, another participant in the research initiative.

“When I began my studies in the LBA, my part in the project was mainly about carbon. But carbon without water dries out and the forest catches fire. Without transpiration, there is no carbon sequestration, because there is no photosynthesis. I realised that the water and carbon cycles are inseparable,” Nobre told Tierramérica.

This integrated analysis demonstrated that the Amazon rainforest absorbs a small amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, estimated at half a ton per hectare per year.

But the amount of carbon absorbed varies considerably from region to region, depending on environmental alterations. In areas near places where human activity has caused significant degradation, the rate of absorption is reduced, and the Amazon, instead of storing carbon dioxide, is releasing it.

In addition, the rainforest’s absorption of carbon dioxide is counteracted by emissions from deforestation and queimadas, fires intentionally set to clear forested land in order to expand agriculture, stressed Artaxo.

Since the latter practice has declined drastically in recent years, from 27,000 sq km in 2005 to around 7,000 sq km in 2010, “the characteristic feature of the rainforest today is that it absorbs carbon,” he said.

But the changes brought about by the greenhouse effect and rising temperatures in the rainforest have led to a situation where the dry season tends to last longer, creating the conditions for the outbreak of more fires and more carbon dioxide emissions.

“The solid particles released into the atmosphere by queimadas alter the microphysics of clouds and the rainfall regimes,” added Artaxo.

In one of the experiment’s studies, it was observed that the increase in queimadas in the northern state of Rondônia extended the dry season by between two and three weeks, which in turn increased the incidence of fires and even further aggravated their effect on the functioning of the ecosystem, he explained.

During a very severe drought in 2005, “the Amazon lost a lot of carbon,” he said. In the event that serious droughts become more frequent, the rainforest could become “an emitter of carbon dioxide and cease to provide an important environmental service,” he warned.

The lengthening of the dry season causes another phenomenon that was also studied in the LBA: the emission of carbon by rivers.

“Small and medium-sized waterways emit significant amounts of gas. This leads to what is called carbon dioxide evasion from bodies of water, and it happens because most of these rivers are saturated with carbon dissolved in their water,” said Ataxo.

As time passes, this carbon “is released into the atmosphere in rather significant quantities. All of the phenomena that alter the Amazon ecosystem have a strong impact on the evasion of gases from the rivers. When the temperature rises, the emission of gases rises as well,” he added.

To illustrate the potential consequences of a lack of equilibrium in the Amazon on the global climate, Nobre referred to the so-called “flying rivers” research that begun in the 1970s and was consolidated in the Flying Rivers Project in 2007.

“We discovered that the sun’s action on the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean evaporates a large amount of water. This humidity is transported by the wind to the north of Brazil. Around 10 billion cubic metres of water arrive in the Amazon every year in the form of water vapor. Some of it falls as rain, and the rest continues to flow until it runs into the wall of the Andes mountain range,” explained Nobre.

In the Andean region it falls as snow, and when the snow melts, “it feeds the rivers of the Amazon basin. Most of the rain that falls on the rainforest is evaporated again,” he added.

This humidity fluctuates over Bolivia, Paraguay and the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, in the west, Minas Gerais and São Paulo, in the east and southeast, and even the southern states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. “And it brings most of the rain to all of these regions,” he stressed.

A drought in the Amazon would have a serious impact on these invisible airborne rivers and on the rainfall patterns in these regions, which are very rich in agriculture, Nobre warned.

The LBA is currently a program of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, coordinated by the National Institute of Amazonian Research, with the support of other agencies.

Its researchers are expanding the initiative into other areas, including agro-pastoral systems and the behavior of carbon dioxide in soybean plantations.

“We have a great deal of work ahead of us to understand the natural processes and the effects of what humans do in terms of the alteration of ecosystems,” concluded Artaxo.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

The Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia arose from the need to understand and explain the rainforest by integrating different scientific fields.

Scientific observation tower in Boa Vista, capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima, which borders with Venezuela. - Courtesy of Mario Bentes

The Amazon rainforest is a living being that covers an area of 6.5 million sq km, occupying half the territory of Brazil and portions of another eight countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Surinam and Venezuela. It is also home to the planet’s largest reserves of freshwater.

In order to more fully understand this complex ecosystem, scientists from Brazil and around the world created the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA).

After 20 years of research, the conclusions reached from the data collected warn of numerous potential threats.

According to the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), one of the agencies participating in the experiment, unless effective policies are implemented in the coming years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by the end of the 21st century there will be 40 percent less rainfall and average temperatures of up to eight degrees higher than normal in the Amazon.

This would convert the rainforest into a source of carbon dioxide emissions instead of a "sink" that contributes to carbon sequestration and storage.

The International Energy Agency estimates that in 2010 the world’s population released a record amount of 30.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.

"The research shows us that the rainforest has a great power of resilience, but also that this power has limits," physicist Paulo Artaxo, chair of the LBA International Scientific Steering Committee, told Tierramérica.

"If we continue burning so much carbon, the climate scenario for the region will be considerably unfavorable for any resilience that the rainforest could develop. It would be difficult for it to survive such enormous climate stress," he added.

To gather data for its research, the LBA used, among other instruments, 13 towers measuring between 40 and 55 meters in height, set up in different points throughout the rainforest to measure the flow of gases, the functioning of basic properties of the ecosystem, and many other environmental parameters.

The information collected was analyzed by scientists from various fields in order to understand the rainforest as an interrelated system.

"The perception in the scientific community was that studies carried out in individual disciplines were not sufficiently able to explain the Amazon, and this led to the LBA. It was felt that an integrated effort was needed to explain the rainforest from the viewpoint of the physical, chemical, biological and human sciences, and the relationship between them," explained Brazilian climate expert Antônio Nobre, another participant in the research initiative.

"When I began my studies in the LBA, my part in the project was mainly about carbon. But carbon without water dries out and the forest catches fire. Without transpiration, there is no carbon sequestration, because there is no photosynthesis. I realized that the water and carbon cycles are inseparable," Nobre told Tierramérica.

This integrated analysis demonstrated that the Amazon rainforest absorbs a small amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, estimated at half a ton per hectare per year.

But the amount of carbon absorbed varies considerably from region to region, depending on environmental alterations. In areas near places where human activity has caused significant degradation, the rate of absorption is reduced, and the Amazon, instead of storing carbon dioxide, is releasing it.

In addition, the rainforest’s absorption of carbon dioxide is counteracted by emissions from deforestation and queimadas, fires intentionally set to clear forested land in order to expand agriculture, stressed Artaxo.

Since the latter practice has declined drastically in recent years, from 27,000 sq km in 2005 to around 7,000 sq km in 2010, "the characteristic feature of the rainforest today is that it absorbs carbon," he said.

But the changes brought about by the greenhouse effect and rising temperatures in the rainforest have led to a situation where the dry season tends to last longer, creating the conditions for the outbreak of more fires and more carbon dioxide emissions.

"The solid particles released into the atmosphere by queimadas alter the microphysics of clouds and the rainfall regimes," added Artaxo.

In one of the experiment’s studies, it was observed that the increase in queimadas in the northern state of Rondônia extended the dry season by between two and three weeks, which in turn increased the incidence of fires and even further aggravated their effect on the functioning of the ecosystem, he explained.

During a very severe drought in 2005, "the Amazon lost a lot of carbon," he said. In the event that serious droughts become more frequent, the rainforest could become "an emitter of carbon dioxide and cease to provide an important environmental service," he warned.

The lengthening of the dry season causes another phenomenon that was also studied in the LBA: the emission of carbon by rivers.

"Small and medium-sized waterways emit significant amounts of gas. This leads to what is called carbon dioxide evasion from bodies of water, and it happens because most of these rivers are saturated with carbon dissolved in their water," said Ataxo.

As time passes, this carbon "is released into the atmosphere in rather significant quantities. All of the phenomena that alter the Amazon ecosystem have a strong impact on the evasion of gases from the rivers. When the temperature rises, the emission of gases rises as well," he added.

To illustrate the potential consequences of a lack of equilibrium in the Amazon on the global climate, Nobre referred to the so-called "flying rivers" research that begun in the 1970s and was consolidated in the Flying Rivers Project in 2007.

"We discovered that the sun’s action on the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean evaporates a large amount of water. This humidity is transported by the wind to the north of Brazil. Around 10 billion cubic meters of water arrive in the Amazon every year in the form of water vapor. Some of it falls as rain, and the rest continues to flow until it runs into the wall of the Andes mountain range," explained Nobre.

In the Andean region it falls as snow, and when the snow melts, "it feeds the rivers of the Amazon basin. Most of the rain that falls on the rainforest is evaporated again," he added.

This humidity fluctuates over Bolivia, Paraguay and the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, in the west, Minas Gerais and São Paulo, in the east and southeast, and even the southern states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. "And it brings most of the rain to all of these regions," he stressed.

A drought in the Amazon would have a serious impact on these invisible airborne rivers and on the rainfall patterns in these regions, which are very rich in agriculture, Nobre warned.

The LBA is currently a program of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, coordinated by the National Institute of Amazonian Research, with the support of other agencies.

Its researchers are expanding the initiative into other areas, including agro-pastoral systems and the behavior of carbon dioxide in soybean plantations.

"We have a great deal of work ahead of us to understand the natural processes and the effects of what humans do in terms of the alteration of ecosystems," concluded Artaxo.

The term “green jobs”, coined to describe employment that contributes in some way to preserving or restoring the environment, is increasingly entering the vocabulary of companies keen to respond to the social demand for a cleaner economy.

Wind farm under construction in Bom Jardim da Serra, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Credit: Courtesy of Abeeólica

Brazil has not been left behind by this trend. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are more than 2.6 million jobs in the Brazilian formal labor market that meet these criteria, and provide employment for 6.7 percent of the workforce.

A study on green jobs published by the ILO country office in Brazil predicts that the number of these jobs will increase significantly in the medium term.

Renewable energies account for almost 550,000 of the current green jobs in Brazil and constitute one of the market niches that contribute most to the prospects for growth.

While biomass (sugar cane production) and large hydroelectric power plants are the main “green” employers today, much of the growth in the renewable energy sector will be fueled by wind turbines.

What places wind power at the forefront of other energy sources is the fact that it offers decent work, one of the ILO’s prerequisites for a job to be considered genuinely “green”.

“Providing employees with fair working conditions is key. The wind power sector is made up of large projects that primarily offer formal employment,” Paulo Sérgio Muçouçah, coordinator of the ILO’s decent work and green jobs programme in Brazil, told Tierramérica.

“The fact that workers are officially registered and guaranteed their rights makes it possible to classify their jobs as decent work. Both the sugar cane industry and hydroelectric plants have a record of labor conflicts, both on the plantations and in the construction of dams,” he noted. “This puts them at a disadvantage compared to wind power.”

The share of wind power in the worldwide energy mix has increased almost 32-fold over the course of 15 years.

But in Brazil, growth has been much more timid. Although the South American giant’s winds could generate 300 gigawatts (GW) of power, according to the Atlas of Brazilian Wind Energy Potential, by May of this year installed capacity stood at barely 1 GW (one billion watts).

The government’s Ten-Year Energy Plan sets a target of 12 GW by 2020. For the Brazilian Wind Energy Association (Abeeólica), this goal is far too modest. “In fact, we are hoping to almost double it and reach around 22 GW. This growth needs to continue in order to consolidate the national industry,” Élbia Melo, the executive president of Abeeólica, told Tierramérica.

At present, the sector provides almost 13,000 direct and indirect jobs, distributed between the generation and distribution of electric power service, and including the jobs created through the construction of wind farms.

“In addition to the prospects for increased employment alongside the expansion of installed capacity, there are also manufacturers of turbines and other components which represent a promising market,” said Muçouçah.

There are already three manufacturing plants established in Brazil and a number of companies have undertaken studies aimed at opening more plants, he added.

Another factor that places wind power at an advantage as a creator of employment in comparison with hydroelectric power (which currently predominates) is that the production and distribution of one terawatt (one trillion watts) of wind power an hour requires between 918 and 2,400 workers. For the same amount of electricity, hydroelectric power plants require only 250 people.

“The difference in the volume of labor does not affect the price of electricity. The extremely high costs of building hydroelectric power plants and turbines means that the end-consumer must pay for them,” said Muçouçah.

Of the 62 wind farms operating in Brazil, 43 are in the Northeast, the region preferred by the sector for new projects and related industries because of the large concentration and strength of the winds along its Atlantic coast.

“The fact that these new jobs are created in the Northeast, the poorest and least developed region of the country, makes wind energy a contributor to development which in turn makes these jobs even greener,” added the ILO representative.

In the federal government’s last energy auction, wind power plants won half of the contracts, totaling almost 2 GW, offering an average price of less than 100 reals (58 dollars) per megawatt/hour, which is below the cost of hydroelectric power.

This volume represents a major boost for the wind energy sector. But robust growth, and a consequent increase in the country’s green employment statistics, will require improved transportation systems and logistics. “These areas need to be improved to enable the large number of projects contracted,” said Melo.

Moreover, added the president of Abeeólica, “expanding the production of wind energy is a challenge that demands the governance capacity needed to explore the potential still limited by the prevailing energy paradigm, which involves major emissions of greenhouse gases.”

*The writer is a Tierramérica contributor. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.