Word: amazon
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Conditions have conspired, say scientists, to make the Amazon more vulnerable than ever before. Of most concern is the heightened impact of El Nino, the periodic warming of Pacific waters that plays havoc with the world's weather. El Nino helped cause the 1998 Amazon dry spell, and ecologist Nepstad has studied the vicious circle of drought and fire. The first year of drying and burning sucks vital moisture from the soil and leaves the forest littered with tinder. Sheltering leaves that ordinarily prevent the forest floor from baking in the sun are thinned out. The rainy season may provide...
...should you care? Even if you're not concerned that the world's greatest trove of biological diversity, including millions of undiscovered animal and plant species, is vanishing in a cloud of smoke, you should know that the burning of the Amazon is pumping countless tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, intensifying the threat of global warming...
That's why scientists are so worried about the paving of BR-163. In the Brazilian Amazon, roughly 75% of deforestation has occurred within 30 miles of a paved road. Despite laws prohibiting settlement in virgin lands, politicians, who see settlers as voters, have encouraged Brazil's 10 million landless poor to migrate into the interior, torching forest as they go. But the rain forest is not good agricultural land, and many of the farmers sell out to cattle ranchers. The only reason enormous stretches of the forest did not burn down in 1998 was that paved roads...
Conservationists are still trying to block the paving of BR-163, arguing that the government approved the project without assessing its environmental impact. There's a chance the opposition will succeed, but powerful agribusinesses are arrayed behind the road. It will link the port of Santarem on the Amazon River with the city of Cuiaba to the south and make it easier to export soybeans from southern fields...
...more by Eugene Linden on the damaging effects of highways on the Amazon, see time.com