At the Clinton Global Initiative, primate scientist Jane Goodall said that crops growing for biofuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming. “We’re cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now,” Goodall said.
Last week, at the Americas Conference in Miami, former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Roberto Rodrigues pointed out that sugar cane does not grow in the Amazon region, and that Amazonian rainforest is not being destroyed in Brazil for sugar cane cultivation. “It is an absurdity to suggest otherwise”, Rodrigues said.
In Brazil, agricultural officials and biofuel industry representatives explained the proposed expansion of the ethanol industry to portions of the Amazon, saying that already cleared fields would be u...
In Bali, the WWF released a report concluding that half of the Amazon rainforest would disappear by 2030 and would release 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result, or twic...
A Leeds University professor and expert on deforestation issues said that recent data indicates that, on a global basis, some types of tropical forest have increased since 1990, rather than decreasing...
In Brazil, researchers say that Amazonian deforestation has increased in pace in 2007 and is likely to rise throughout 2008. Carlos Nobre, a scientist with Brazil's National Institute for Space Resear...
The Petra group announced plans at the Clinton Global Initiative meetings for a $136 million jatropha plantation and biodiesel refinery in the West Indies.
Also at the Clinton meeting, primate scie...
In Brazil, the federal government announced a crackdown on illegal deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest. Biofuels producers have been accused of causing deforestation, however the authorities are...
