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Unless Brazil enforces existing conservation laws and takes steps to prevent deforestation on private land, it will lose more then 40 per cent of its Amazon rainforest by 2050, say scientists.
The predictions, published on March 24 in Nature magazine, are among the first to emerge from a unique, large-scale study that is using computer models to simulate how factors such as logging, farming, climate and policy decisions could affect the future of the forest. The models predict that unless Brazil takes action, eight of the Amazon basin's twelve main watersheds will lose more than half of their forest, increasing the risk of flooding. They also suggest that almost 100 of the region's wild mammal species could lose more than half of their habitat. The news is not all bad, however, says lead author Britaldo Soares-Filho of the Federal University of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The study predicts that if Brazil puts in place measures to protect the Amazon, as much as 73 per cent of it could remain intact in 2050. To achieve this, Brazil would need to enforce existing laws and prevent the loss of rainforest on private land by creating economic incentives for farmers to manage their land sustainably. As well as protecting watersheds and conserving biodiversity, this would prevent 17 billion tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere by 2050, say the researchers. Under the model's optimistic scenario, the Amazon would still have 4.5 million square kilometers of living forest in 2050, Soares-Filho told reporters. Currently, the Brazilian Amazon covers 5.3 million square kilometers. Brazil is making increasing efforts to control deforestation, and to set up more than 70,000 square kilometers of new conservation areas that were designated in 2004 and 2005. But, says Soares-Filho, this is not enough as most areas at risk are on private land that could be profitably deforested for timber or to farm cattle or soybeans. The researchers say that ways of encouraging farmers to manage their forested land sustainably could include certification schemes that reward environmentally sound timber production, or a carbon trading scheme to reward avoided greenhouse gas emissions. This article appeared originally in Science and Development Network - www.scidev.net.
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The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj).
DOES THE AMAZON BELONGS TO THER WORLD OR TO BRAZIL ?????
IF IT BELONGS TO THE WORLD, NO ONE HAS GIVEN YOU THE AUTHORITY TO DEFOREST IT AS YOU DO.
If it belongs to you....that is another story !
But mixing and confusing phrases just as it pleases and when it pleases a few is not FAIR !!!!!!