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Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century

26 October 2010.

    One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.

    The drought currently affecting areas of Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the rio Negro or Black river, which flows into the world-famous rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in l902 on Sunday. In 24 hours the level of the rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low. The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their waters plunge since early August, isolating village dwellers who rely on the Amazon’s waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks.

    Authorities say around 62,000 families have been affected by this year’s receding rivers. The problem has been particularly intense up river from state capital Manaus towards the border with Peru and Colombia. But the area around the city has also been badly hit. In Iranduba, 15 miles from Manaus, authorities are reportedly planning to build a small road through the rainforest in order to reconnect their community with the outside world.

    Colonel Leite, from Manaus’ Regional Air Force Command, said two Hercules cargo planes had ferried around 830 tons of food aid to isolated regions near the Amazon towns of Tefe and Tabatinga. “Medium and large boats have not been able to reach various places across the Amazon,” he said. “Our planes take the supplies to the airport and from there the transport has to be done in small boats or on foot – these are the only ways of reaching some communities.”

    Meteorologists and activists are divided on the drought’s causes – some point to hurricanes in the Atlantic which may have drained humidity from the Amazon while others blame forest fires for reducing rainfall or speculate that early effects of global warming may already be reshaping the region’s climate patterns. Rafael Cruz, a Greenpeace activist in Manaus who has been monitoring the drought, said that while the rise and fall of the Amazon’s rivers was a normal process, recent years had seen both extreme droughts and flooding become worryingly frequent. “If this situation continues the state of Amazonas will live in a permanent state of emergency. The changes in people’s lives would be horrific.”

(guardian.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder à questão.

Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century

26 October 2010.

    One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.

    The drought currently affecting areas of Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the rio Negro or Black river, which flows into the world-famous rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in l902 on Sunday. In 24 hours the level of the rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low. The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their waters plunge since early August, isolating village dwellers who rely on the Amazon’s waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks.

    Authorities say around 62,000 families have been affected by this year’s receding rivers. The problem has been particularly intense up river from state capital Manaus towards the border with Peru and Colombia. But the area around the city has also been badly hit. In Iranduba, 15 miles from Manaus, authorities are reportedly planning to build a small road through the rainforest in order to reconnect their community with the outside world.

    Colonel Leite, from Manaus’ Regional Air Force Command, said two Hercules cargo planes had ferried around 830 tons of food aid to isolated regions near the Amazon towns of Tefe and Tabatinga. “Medium and large boats have not been able to reach various places across the Amazon,” he said. “Our planes take the supplies to the airport and from there the transport has to be done in small boats or on foot – these are the only ways of reaching some communities.”

    Meteorologists and activists are divided on the drought’s causes – some point to hurricanes in the Atlantic which may have drained humidity from the Amazon while others blame forest fires for reducing rainfall or speculate that early effects of global warming may already be reshaping the region’s climate patterns. Rafael Cruz, a Greenpeace activist in Manaus who has been monitoring the drought, said that while the rise and fall of the Amazon’s rivers was a normal process, recent years had seen both extreme droughts and flooding become worryingly frequent. “If this situation continues the state of Amazonas will live in a permanent state of emergency. The changes in people’s lives would be horrific.”

(guardian.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Texto

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Adapted from http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-crossculture-brazil-1.htm

Texto

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Isn’t it time you thought about investing in the largest economy in South America..?

Here are just three reasons why we think your investment will have a solid foundation:

   Resources: Brazil is a country of vast natural resources – We are the world’s largest producer of sugar cane and coffee, and our other exports include cocoa, orange juice, and soya beans. In addition, the poultry, pork and milk industries have undergone rapid growth in the last decade.We are one of the world’s leading producers of hydroelectric power, which accounts for 90% of country’s own electricity. And we exported 6 million kWh in 2004. Our extensive mineral resources are iron, manganese, nickel, tin, bauxite, and copper...the list continues. We have proven oil reserves of 15 billion barrels and expertise in deep-water prospecting.These resources are no longer exploited at the cost of the environment. The government is getting serious about sustainability. We recently adopted an Environmental Crimes Law to combat deforestation in the
Amazon.

     Stability: Since 1994, the Real Plan has brought rampant inflation under control. And the introduction of a policy of fiscal prudence continues to this day under President Lula da Silva. The economy showed steady GDP growth of 2.2% in the period 2001-05. Unemployment is under 10%. Trade has doubled since 1990, as has US direct investment following a sharp reduction in import
tariffs. Exports in 2005 were the best ever in the country’s history. Brazil is now the 11th largest economy in the world.
    Services: We have a diverse and sophisticated services sector. Take Financial Services, for example, which has recently seen significant structural reform to attract foreign capital. The result has been a huge increase in investment from the USA alone. Brazilians are as technology-hungry as anywhere in the world. You used to wait years to have a telephone installed. Today there are 70 million mobile phones and over 25 million internet users.

Think of the future. Think Brazil...

Adapted from http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-crossculture-brazil-1.htm

Extinction 'Gene': Some Species Are More at Risk

By Bryan Walsh Friday, Aug. 07, 2009

(1) In the tree of life, we often envision evolution working like a patient gardener, pruning species that don't quite fit, bit by bit. But that's not how extinction works in practice. Throughout our planet's history, mass extinction has occurred five times — most recently 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs finally died out — taking out vast amounts of life all at once, usually due to a catastrophic and sudden climatic change.

(2) But it turns out that even during the relatively peaceful eras between global calamities, during what is known as background extinction, whole families of species can disappear, pushed out of existence together. And it's not random. According to a new study published in the August 7 issue of Science, vulnerability to extinction runs in families, meaning that some groups of species have a higher likelihood of becoming extinct than others. "It turns out that some branches of the tree of life are more extinction-prone than others," says Kaustuv Roy, a biology professor at the University of California, San Diego. "Those traits aren't just a part of extinctions that human beings cause, but a general feature of extinction itself."

(3) Roy and his colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Chicago examined 200 million years of history of marine clams, oysters and mussels; they picked the simple bivalves because they have a long and detailed fossil record. Going back to the Jurassic period, researchers analyzed when each genus — a taxonomic category just above species — disappeared, and whether relatives vanished at the same time. On average they found that closely related groups of clams went extinct together at a rate that was more often than expected by blind chance — generally those groups of species were confined to a fairly small geographic area. "Extinctions tend to be clustered, which means the effects tend to be worse than what you might expect from random," says Roy. "That's true for mass extinctions as well — they end up culling the most vulnerable lineages, leaving the more resistant ones."

(4) This matters because if extinction were truly random, we'd have a much richer evolutionary history, because at least some representatives of all living things would make it to the present. But because extinction tends to be clumped around certain lineages, when extinction occurs we lose whole groups of species. "The long-term consequences are therefore much worse for biodiversity," says Roy.

(5) The Science study will provide needed ammunition for modern-day conservationists as well. We're in the middle of what some scientists have begun to call the sixth great extinction event, this one caused almost entirely by human beings. Human expansion, hunting, deforestation and ultimately climate change are eliminating species at a rate up to 1,000 times higher than the evolutionary norm. Species like the Yangtze River dolphin and the golden toad have disappeared, while a range of animals — from the Sumatran tiger to the silky Sifaka lemur of Madagascar are on the brink.

(6) Since extinction tends to target groups of vulnerable species, conservationists would be smart to identify and focus their efforts on the most susceptible families. That means species that have a narrow geographic spread — always a risk factor for extinction, in case something happens to their habitat — and, interestingly, large body size, which also tends to be associated with extinction. "It's a quick and dirty way to get a better picture of which species are likely to be most impacted," says Roy. "Then you can go in and mark your priorities." Extinction may be a part of life, but as the dominant species, we have the ability to influence it — for better or for worse.

(taken from the website: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1915055,00.html#ixzz0bHFxP4Tw ) 

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“I’ve switched off the lights and I´m using candles now”

Although not exactly scared witless, the people questioned have grasped one fundamental implication of the credit crunch: to prioritize meeting real needs over confected wants. This shows up in what they’ve cut back on. “I’m just getting the essential now” and “I’m cutting back on luxury things like expensive food and taking taxis when I could go on the bus or the tube.” We need, let’s say, emotional intimacy or antibiotics for our children when they are sick, whereas we only want a widescreen television. As money becomes tight, every time we are about to purchase something we should automatically start asking ourselves, “Do I need this, or do I just want it?” …Pursuing wants rather than needs is very bad for mental health. It creates an inner emptiness, a constant hunger for more.

Oliver James in Speak Up 260.