Word: brazilians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...destination was a tiny area in the midst of the Amazon basin, a few hectares of land in the middle of a preserve called the Tapaj?s National Forest, 67 km south of Santar?m in the Brazilian state of Par?. After a tooth-loosening ride along a cratered, flooded jungle road and a short but slippery hike into the 25-year-old preserve, I finally got to my goal?a surreal scene in the heart of the rain forest. As far as the eye could see, transparent plastic tents covered the forest floor, which was crisscrossed by a complicated network...
...support Nepstad?s concern. Almost every year, more and more of the rain forest is going up in smoke. In 1998, in the wake of the weather shifts brought on by El Ni?o?s warming the Pacific waters off South America, some 40,000 sq km of the Brazilian Amazon was scorched. Smoke-related ailments killed 700 people, put more than 10,000 in the hospital, according to ipam, and afflicted tens of thousands of others who did not show up in official statistics. The following year, when Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso tried to become the first chief executive...
...tinder, but humans provide the match. Human penetration of the Amazon, rather than lightning or other natural phenomena, sparks most of the huge fires, and that penetration is increasing, along with deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture. Fire, deforestation and roads are linked in an unholy trinity. In 1998, Brazilian authorities found themselves battling enormous fires in the states of Par? (where 40% of the southeastern forests burned), Roraima and Mato Grosso. Most blazes started near roads as settlers burned accessible forest to clear land for farms. The only reason even bigger stretches of the dense forest around Tapaj?s...
...Around the world, scientists have found that roads are the single best (but not infallible) predictor of tropical deforestation. In the Brazilian Amazon, roughly 75% of the deforestation that has taken place has occurred within 50 km of a paved road. In the 26 years after the 1965 paving of the slender highway between the Amazon city of Bel?m and Bras?lia, 58% of the forests disappeared in a 100-km swath on either side of the road. The paving of 1,460 km of highway BR-364 between the city of Cuiab? in Mato Grosso and Porto Velho in Rond?nia...
...north and east from Campo Grande in Mato Grosso do Sul to the city of Santar?m in Par?. The 700-km unpaved section runs directly past Tapaj?s National Forest and on through millions of hectares of the most vulnerable parts of the rain forest. Says Nepstad: ?Brazilian scientists call this area the ?corridor of drought,? and it becomes kindling when El Ni?o roars through...