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...season could come at any time, and then the fires will reach a peak. Last year the smoke grew so thick that Porto Velho, the capital of the state of Rondonia, was forced to close its airport for days at a time. An estimated 12,350 sq. mi. of Brazilian rain forest -- an area larger than Belgium -- was reduced to ashes. Anticipating another conflagration this year, scientists, environmentalists and TV crews have journeyed to Porto Velho to marvel and despair at the immolation of these ancient forests...
...passions behind the fight are easy to understand for anyone who has seen the almost unimaginable sweep of the Amazon basin. The river and forest system covers 2.7 million sq. mi. (almost 90% of the area of the contiguous U.S.) and stretches into eight countries besides Brazil, including Venezuela to the north, Peru to the west and Bolivia to the south. An adventurous monkey could climb into the jungle canopy in the foothills of the Andes and swing through 2,000 miles of continuous 200-ft.-high forest before reaching the Atlantic coast. The river itself, fed by more than...
...jungle is so dense and teeming that all the biologists on earth could not fully describe its life forms. A 1982 U.S. National Academy of Sciences report estimated that a typical 4-sq.-mi. patch of rain forest may contain 750 species of trees, 125 kinds of mammals, 400 types of birds, 100 of reptiles and 60 of amphibians. Each type of tree may support more than 400 insect species. In many cases the plants and animals assume Amazonian proportions: lily pads that are 3 ft. or more across, butterflies with 8-in. wingspans and a fish called the pirarucu...
...billion, 324,000-sq.-mi. Grande Carajas Program, located in the eastern Amazon, seeks to exploit Brazil's mineral deposits, perhaps the world's largest, which include iron ore, manganese, bauxite, copper and nickel. The principal iron-ore mine began production in 1985, and its operation has little impact on the forest. The problem, however, is the smelters that convert the ore into pig iron. They are powered by charcoal, and the cheapest way to obtain it is by chopping down the surrounding forests and burning the trees. Environmentalists fear that Grande Carajas will repeat the dismal experience...
...site, Harvard has decided that it would be too costly and too time-consuming to take the city to court over the City Council's June 5 decision to rezone the land. The zoning change cut the maximum floor area of new buildings there by 40,000 sq...