how big is the amazon rainforest in comparison to the size of turkey

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Deforestation in Brazil compared with the area of Turkey | GRID-Arendal

Year: 2006

From collection: Vital Forest Graphics

Cartographer: Philippe Rekacewicz assisted by Cecile Marin, Agnes Stienne, Guilio Frigieri, Riccardo Pravettoni, Laura Margueritte and Marion Lecoquierre

Tags: vital graphics

Yazı kaynağı : www.grida.no

Brazil and the Amazon Forest

While it covers 2.6 million square miles across nine countries — Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana — about 60 percent of the Amazon Basin is in Brazil, where Greenpeace has focused its efforts.

In the last 40 years, the Brazilian Amazon has lost more than 18 percent of its rainforest — an area about the size of California — to illegal logging, soy agriculture, and cattle ranching. Despite the creation of protected areas in recent decades, most of the remaining forest is under threat. Deforestation has spiked under President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental agenda, threatening biodiversity, the lives of Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities and the global climate. 

Around the world, people like you have stepped up to achieve policy reform, additional protected areas, and commitments from corporations that have slowed the rate of deforestation. Still, forest areas the size of entire cities are burned in the Brazilian Amazon every year to make way for cattle ranching and soy plantations. This has resulted in record-breaking level fires that are catastrophic for the climate and for Indigenous Peoples’ that rely on these forests. 

Together with Greenpeace Brazil, the work in the Amazon investigates the on-the-ground impact global supply chains have in these regions to highlight the threats and pressure governments to act on it. The work in the Amazon has included the award-winning Amazon Soy Moratorium, groundbreaking research on the International Market’s role in cattle-driven deforestation in the Amazon, and in defending critical forest areas from problematic infrastructure expansion.

Greenpeace International Amazon campaign includes adjacent biomes; the Cerrado Savanna Grasslands in Brazil, the Gran Chaco forests in Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. While lesser-known internationally, these forests are critical in the fight against climate change and are under serious threat from the same drivers that impact the Amazon.

Yazı kaynağı : www.greenpeace.org

Europe can help save the Amazon by changing itself

“These vast flows of animal feedstocks (soybeans and soymeal) being imported into the EU have significant implications for land use in exporting countries, principally in South America, as vast tracts of land are given over to soy monocultures,” the report explains.

“The area planted with soybeans in South America is continuously growing with the combined soybean area of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia expanding two-and-half times between 1988 and 2008, from 17 million hectares to 42 million hectares.”

“Ironically, despite Europe’s significant contribution to deforestation in the Amazon and other forested areas, this is not counted when the EU is measuring its sustainability,” notes Patrizia Heidegger, director for global policies and sustainability at the EEB.

“This enables us to ignore our footprint in the outside world, look at the growing forest cover in Europe and believe we are becoming more sustainable.”

Flames

Unless something dramatic changes, this spells devastation for the Amazon and other rainforests around the world, including the unique flora and fauna they host, not to mention the indigenous peoples who live there and act as custodians of these forests.

The European Union can save the Amazon, and other rainforests, by halting the import of goods produced on land that was formerly forest. An alliance of 26 leading NGOs has urged the EU to pass legislation that will guarantee that all products sold in Europe are free from deforestation and human rights abuses.

“The EU is in a rare position to act for the Amazon by using its unique market leverage,” said Hannah Mowat, campaigns coordinator at Fern, a Brussels-based organisation dedicated to protecting forests and the rights of people depending on them, which is a member of the EEB network.

“Forget the unaccepted €20 million offer from the G7, let’s talk about the €6 billion euro leverage we have, which is what the EU spends on importing rainforest-destroying products like soy or beef,” insists Nick Meynen, policy officer for environmental and economic justice at the EEB.

“Rather than ratifying the EU-Mercosur trade deal that would fan the flames only further, erect new trade tariffs based on the carbon emissions associated with the import of products such as soy, leather or beef.”

Evolve

Another option would be to divert the equivalent of some or all of these funds to finance the restoration and preservation of the rainforest.

“Beyond Mercosur, all trade deals between EU and the outside world must include safeguards to protect biodiversity and contribute to our climate targets,” says Célia Nyssens, agriculture policy officer at the EEB.

Renegotiating harmful trade deals is not enough. We also need to tackle damaging lifestyles.

Margarita Mediavilla is professor of system dynamics and senior scientist with LOCOMOTION, an EU-backed project which is modelling scenarios for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and sustainable future.

She observes: “As long as our dietary patterns continue to evolve towards more meat products, the pressure to gain land from rainforests worldwide will increase.”

Transition

“There is no way around the fact that we have to reduce our consumption of animal products,” insist Nyssens. “We need to transform the way we produce and consume meat and dairy.”

The only way to reduce our pressure on rainforests is to phase out industrial livestock farming, which relies on imported protein crops like soya to feed animals. 

This will inevitably lead to lower livestock numbers in Europe. In order to reduce the pressure on land resources so as to protect forests and natural ecosystems, people need to eat fewer animal proteins and more plant proteins.

“The LOCOMOTION model will include the global picture of land competition among uses: energy, food, urban, natural spaces and forests,” explains Mediavilla. “This module will enable us to explore how dietary changes would influence climate change mitigation.”

Many will regard such lifestyle changes as sacrifices, but reducing meat consumption will actually improve our health and wellbeing. In addition, well-managed pastures can help us achieve our climate and biodiversity objectives, explains Nyssens.

“The key is to help our farmers transition to this new system through government support and consumer choices,” she adds.

This Author

Khaled Diab is an award-winning journalist and the author of two books, Islam for the Politically Incorrrect(2017) and Intimate Enemies(2014). He is a senior communications officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). Follow him on Twitter: @DiabolicalIdea

This article was first published at Meta, the news channel of the European Environmental Bureau and is republished exclusively with The Ecologist.

Yazı kaynağı : theecologist.org

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