Butterflies of the World - Lifecycle, Ecology, Taxonomy, Conservation, Photography, Butterfly Holidays, Photo Galleries, Book Reviews and more.........
Text and photographs protected by Copyright © Adrian Hoskins 2007, and must not be published in part or in whole elsewhere without prior written permission from the author.
Rainforest conservation links
 
Amazon Conservation Society - protecting the Amazon rainforest.
Australian Rainforest Conservation Society - protecting the rainforests of Queensland.
Cristalino Ecological Foundation - rainforest purchase, education, political lobbying in Brazil.
Iwokrama - research and protection of rainforests in Guyana.
Mongabay - detailed up to date news on rainforest destruction.
Rainforest Alliance
Rainforest Concern - protecting rainforests and cloud-forests in Ecuador and elsewhere.
Rainforest Conservation
Rainforest Foundation UK
Rainforest Portal - ( Ecological Internet ) your link to all of the major rainforest conservation agencies.
Seacology - protecting rainforests on islands.
World Land Trust - purchasing and protecting wildlife habitats worldwide.
 
 
Rainforest ACTION
Join us in our fight to protect the Amazon rainforests
The following letter was sent by learnaboutbutterflies on 5th March 2008 to the President of Brazil as part of the Ecological Internet campaign to arrest soybean production, which threatens to destroy the Amazon rainforests. We eagerly await his response.
 
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil
 
Dear President Lula,
 
I am gravely concerned with the threat posed to Amazon rainforests and communities by industrial soy plantations. Please excuse my impudence in forcefully yet respectfully speaking ecological truth to sovereign power, as I believe the Earth's ability to sustain life is at stake. Huge soy monocultures primarily for agrofuel and livestock feed are destroying tropical ecosystems, accelerating climate change and causing human rights abuses. Soybean production expands the Amazonian agricultural frontier not only through fire and deforestation to clear ancient rainforests, but more importantly by pushing cattle ranches, and displacing forest peoples, further into natural rainforest ecosystems.
 
Soy production could destroy much of the Amazon which would increase the rate of global warming by fifty percent and foreclose eco-development options for its inhabitants. The current mechanized, monoculture based soya industry wipes out biodiversity, destroys soil fertility, pollutes freshwater and displaces communities. Further, soy production often disregards local peoples' rights including food sovereignty, exceeds the capacity of the local land base, and releases toxics.
 
Agrofuel based biodiesel will never satisfy more than a fraction of global energy demand yet threatens the Planet's remaining intact natural ecosystems and thus our shared atmospheric system. The latest science shows plant based biofuels are no climate change solution because they directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, result in land clearing releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Clearing rainforests generally releases 86 times more carbon than the annual agrofuel benefit, and soybeans from the Amazon rainforest have a "carbon debt" of 319 years.
 
Your government had trumpeted a fifty percent decline in Amazonian deforestation over past years. These decreases are now recognized as temporary declines in agricultural markets rather than fundamental change in deforestation rates. Given higher commodity prices followed closely by surging deforestation rates, I support your government's announcement of increased agricultural deforestation enforcement, including banning the sale of farm products from illegally deforested areas, and imposing fines for buying or trading illegally produced soy and beef, with military enforcement. Yet clearly the full political commitment, scale, pace and effectiveness of their implementation is inadequate, and must be intensified.
 
Amazon rainforest sustainability depends critically upon all new soybean production being kept out of ancient primary rainforest ecosystems. Industrial soy monocultures in rainforests can never be environmentally sustainable, and indeed may push the Amazon into wide-scale die-back; the Earth's climate into abrupt, run-away global warming; and cause great suffering for your people as ecosystems collapse. Further, soy's environmental sustainability and social justness depends upon respecting rights of local peoples including their food sovereignty, ensuring local land bases and water resources are not exceeded, and ending the use of toxics.
 
Please persist and strengthen your government's efforts to end soy production dependent upon rainforest destruction and industrial scaled monocultures. All soy industry participants must understand that soy products that damage the Amazon rainforest's biodiversity and climate will not be tolerated in the international marketplace. It is essential you renew calls upon funders such as the World Bank and European Union for avoided deforestation payments. Loss of Amazonian ecosystems will doom us all.
 
Thank you for accepting the validity of this respectfully submitted expression of international concern, and for your willingness to accept Brazil's responsibility to protect the Amazon as a critical global ecosystem engine which makes the Earth habitable for us all. Together those participating in this protest seek to speak ecological truths, not confront or impede upon your sovereignty. One such truth is that a healthy, contiguous and fully intact Amazon is needed for Brazilian and global ecological
sustainability. The world is watching and expecting great things from you, your government and nation in this regard.
 
Sincerely,
 
Adrian Hoskins
United Kingdom
adrianhoskins@hotmail.co.uk
www.learnaboutbutterflies.com

cc:
cc: Environment Minister Marina Silva, Brazilian Embassies Worldwide, World Bank board, European Commission, Regional Governments, Multi-National Soy Agribusiness
 
 
Ecological Internet's projects include:
EcoEarth -- http://www.EcoEarth.Info/
Climate Ark -- http://www.climateark.org/
Forests.org -- http://forests.org/
Water Conserve -- http://www.waterconserve.org/
Ocean Conserve -- http://www.oceanconserve.org/
Rainforest Portal -- http://www.rainforestportal.org/
My.EcoEarth.Info -- http://www.myecoearth.info/
 
Please support Ecological Internet - the World's best little Earth Action Network - by making a
tax deductible donation at: http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/donate/
 

Say NO to bio-fuel !

Vast swathes of Brazilian rainforest, as much as 53 percent in some states, have been deliberately set on fire by US-based companies to make way for soybean plantations used for the production of bio-fuel. In Borneo and Sumatra the rainforests which are home to one of the world's most loved species, the orang-utan, are being destroyed at a catastrophic rate and are predicted to disappear entirely by 2020. The cause of the devastation - massive expansion oil palm plantations for production of bio-fuel.

Scientists around the world tell us that bio-fuel growth and usage will produce a larger carbon-footprint than that of fossil fuels, and will have an even greater impact on climate change. Numerous reports have predicted that bio-fuel development will result in virtually all of the world's rainforests being destroyed within a couple of decades, yet governments, prompted by commercial interests, insist on continuing with this insanity.

This madness must stop. Please visit the rainforestportal website where you can find more detailed information, and take part in on-line petitions to save the Amazon and the rainforests of Africa and Asia.

 
 

 
 

 
 
With the exception of the Amazon rainforest images on this page, all text and photographs on this website
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