Nutriologa

Amazon Conservation

How to save the Amazon rainforest?
Environmentalists have long voiced concern over the vanishing Amazon rainforest, but they haven't been particularly effective at slowingforest loss. In fact, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in donor funds that have flowed into the region since 2000 and the establishment of more than 100 million hectares of protected areassince 2002, average annual deforestation rates have increased since the 1990s, peaking at 73,785 square kilometers (28,488 square miles) of forest loss between 2002 and 2004. With land prices fastappreciating, cattle ranching and industrial soy farms expanding, and billions of dollars' worth of new infrastructure projects in the works, development pressure on the Amazon is expected to accelerate.Given these trends, it is apparent that conservation efforts alone will not determine the fate of the Amazon or other rainforests. Some argue that market measures, which value forests for the ecosystemservices they provide as well as reward developers for environmental performance, will be the key to saving the Amazon from large-scale destruction. In the end it may be the very markets currentlydriving deforestation that saves forests. 

Increasing productivity

Increasing productivity of cleared rainforest lands is possible using improved technology to generate higher yielding crops.Taking advantage of improved germplasm developed through careful selection can produce grasses and crops that will grow on degraded forest soils. While technology may have accelerated the development andimpoverishment of tropical rainforests, it will be one of the keys to saving them. 

Habitat and species rehabilitation

There is still time to save some of the most threatened species andecosystems that have been pushed so close to extinction that they will perish unless we intervene. In Brazil, tremendous progress has been made in restoring the population of the Golden Lion Tamarin which...