Mysterious Earthen Rings Predate Amazon Rainforest

Comment: Actually, there's a lot more to this than mere religious rituals. See HERE. (give it a chance. beyond the woo-woo stuff there is something quite extraordinary from the presented evidence).

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Live Science

A series of square, straight and ringlike ditches scattered throughout the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon were there before the rainforest existed, a new study finds.

These human-made structures remain a mystery: They may have been used for defense, drainage, or perhaps ceremonial or religious reasons. But the new research addresses another burning question: whether and how much prehistoric people altered the landscape in the Amazon before the arrival of Europeans.

"People have been affecting the global climate system through land use for not just the past 200 to 300 years, but for thousands of years," said study author John Francis Carson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. [See Images of the Ancient Amazonian Earthworks] 

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Devastating human impact on the Amazon rainforest revealed

Comment: I don't subscribe to the anthropocentric global warming view. I think that human influence on Climate Change is virtually nil due it being a natural ebb and flow of complex forces which produces a warming / cooling cycle. However, CFC and ozone depletion along with rainforest destruction CAN be laid at the door of humanity. This report clearly illustrates the effects of that influence. 

Instead of wasting money on something we have no hope of changing we are allowing our planet to be destroyed through destructive processes which ARE within our collective power to change. 

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Science Daily

he human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers from Brazil and the UK, led by Lancaster University.

he human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers from Brazil and the UK, led by Lancaster University.

They found that selective logging and surface wildfires can result in an annual loss of 54 billion tonnes of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon, increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

This is equivalent to 40% of the yearly carbon loss from deforestation -- when entire forests are chopped down.

This is the largest ever study estimating above and below-ground carbon loss from selective logging and ground level forest fires in the tropics, based on data from 70,000 sampled trees and thousands of soil, litter and dead wood samples from 225 sites in the eastern Brazilian Amazon.

The forest degradation often starts with logging of prized trees such as mahogany and ipe. The felling and removal of these large trees often damages dozens of neighbouring trees.

Once the forest has been logged, the many gaps in the canopy means it becomes much drier due to exposure to the wind and sun, increasing the risk of wildfires spreading inside the forest.

The combination of selective logging and wildfires damages turns primary forests into a thick scrub full of smaller trees and vines, which stores 40% less carbon than undisturbed forests.

So far, climate change policies on the tropics have effectively been focusing on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation only, not accounting for emissions coming from forest degradation.

Lead researcher Dr Erika Berenguer from Lancaster University said: "The impacts of fire and logging in tropical forests have always been largely overlooked by both the scientific community and policy makers who are primarily concerned with deforestation. Yet our results show how these disturbances can severely degrade the forest, with huge amounts of carbon being transferred from plant matter straight into the atmosphere."

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Brazil Amazon: Sixth murder since May amid land rows

 BBCNews

A rural worker has been shot dead in Brazil's Amazon - the sixth murder in a month in the region, amid conflicts over land and logging. 

The body of Obede Loyla Souza was found in dense forest close to his home in the northern state of Para. 

The 31-year-old had argued with illegal loggers in the area, the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission said. 

Violence in the Amazon prompted the Brazilian government last month to offer more protection for activists. 

Police believe Mr Souza was killed last week, but news of his death was only confirmed on Tuesday. 

He was found close to his home in a settlement for landless rural workers near the town of Pacaja. [...]

Amazon rainforest activist shot dead: José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva killed in ambush in the Brazilian Amazon, six months after predicting his own murder

via Guardian

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva fought against illegal loggers and had received death threats but was refused police protection

 

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva had predicted his own murder six months before he was killed and received frequent death threats.

 

Six months after predicting his own murder, a leading rainforest defender has reportedly been gunned down in the Brazilian Amazon. José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo, are said to have been killed in an ambush near their home in Nova Ipixuna, in Pará state, about 37 miles from Marabá.

According to a local newspaper, Diário do Pará, the couple had not had police protection despite getting frequent death threats because of their battle against illegal loggers and ranchers.

On Tuesday there were conflicting reports from about whether the killing happened on Monday night or Tuesday morning. A police spokesperson said there were reports of a "double homicide" at the settlement called Maçaranduba 2.

In a speech at a TEDx event in Manaus, in November, Da Silva spoke of his fears that loggers would try to silence him. "I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment … because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers, and that is why they think I cannot exist. [People] ask me, 'are you afraid?' Yes, I'm a human being, of course I am afraid. But my fear does not silence me. As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest."

Roberto Smeraldi, founder and director of the environmental group Amigos da Terra, who worked with Da Silva in the Amazon, said he had been in a meeting with Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, discussing changes to the forest code when the news broke of Da Silva being killed. "He was convinced he would be killed one day," Smeraldi said. He added that Da Silva had been "very active" in the fight against illegal forest burning and logging. According to Brazilian media reports, Rousseff has asked her chief of staff, Gilberto Carvalho, to offer support to the murder investigation.

"We now have another Chico Mendes," said Felipe Milanez, an environmental journalist from São Paulo, referring to the Amazonian rubber-tapper who became an environmental martyr after his murder in 1988. Milanez said that in a recent phone conversation with Da Silva's wife she had suggested the situation was "getting very ugly". Milanez added: "He knew the threats were very real. He was scared."

A 2008 report compiled by Brazilian human rights groups listed Da Silva as one of dozens of Amazon human rights and environmental activists "considered at risk" of assassination.