Deforestation and tipping points
- Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon during the first eight months of 2022 was at the highest level in 15 years, reports Imazon.
- The Amazon has already reached a crucial tipping point with about 26% of the Amazon rainforest lost or badly degraded and without intervention the rest could transform into savannah, says a report in the New Scientist.
- The municipality of Novo Progresso, in Pará, has the worst record for fire and deforestation in the Amazon over the past four years, realising the far right’s “dream” of turning everything into fire and ashes, reports Amazônia Real.
Environmental crime and defenders
- Brazilian narco-gangs are smuggling illegally-felled timber across the border into Peru,which has become a “refuge” for at least four leaders of the Red Command crime organisation, reveals Ojo Publico in an investigation by Nelly Luna Amancio, Fabiano Maisonnave and Aramís Castro.
- Nine months after the murder of environmentalist José Gomes in São Félix do Xingu, Pará, police remain silent about whether the mayor’s brother Francisco Torres de Paula Filho is a suspect or a witness, reports InfoAmazonia.
- Police have failed to make progress in the four-month investigation of the suspicious death of Sarapó Ka’apor, who was repeatedly threatened as a founder of the indigenous self-defense system in Ka’apor territory in Maranhao, notes Repórter Brasil.
- Governo bloqueia R$ 250 milhões da saúde indígena; nota cita tentativa de reversão, reports Rubens Valente for Agência Pública.
Amazon and global finance, trade and markets
- Apple, Microsoft and Tesla all have products that may be tainted by gold illegally mined in Amazon Indigenous territories, according to a new report unveiled during United Nations climate week in New York. Article by the Guardian.
- For those who see only carbon in the forest, beware: money is being burned, writes Daniela Chiaretti in an analysis for the financial newspaper Valor.
- Nestlé supplier used meat from cattle raised illegally on indigenous land, reports O Joio e o Trigo.
