Thursday, December 6, 2007

More than half of Amazon will be lost by 2030, report warns

" ... Climate change could speed up the large-scale destruction of the Amazon
rainforest and bring the "point of no return" much closer than previously
thought, conservationists warned today.

Almost 60% of the region's forests could be wiped out or severely damaged
by 2030, as a result of climate change and deforestation, according to a
report published today by WWF.

The damage could release somewhere between 55.5bn-96.9bn tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere from the Amazon's forests and speed up global
warming, according to the report, Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and
Fire.

Trends in agriculture and livestock expansion, fire, drought and logging
could severely damage 55% of the Amazon rainforest by 2030, the report
says. And, in turn, climate change could speed up the process of
destruction by reducing rainfall by as much as 10% by 2030, damaging an
extra 4% of the forests during that time. ... "
 

 

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