Amazonia: UNEP & ACTO’s report: Environment Outlook in the Amazonia

One of the most important ways to effectively communicate ideas is to
blend words with images, charts, graphs, drawings. And to find the
right images for every post here on Forest Policy Research takes time,
yet it’s what makes this site unique.

And today I’m awestruck by the high-quality representation of
information in this new report. This report is a gold mine! These
graphical representations are the best I’ve ever found in the field of
forest ecology. –Editor, Forest Policy Research

The findings of a report supported by the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), entitled
“Environment Outlook in the Amazonia: GEO Amazonia,” reveal the
variety of environmental degradation occurring in the Amazon region of
Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and
Venezuela. The publication is part of UNEP’s Global Environment
Outlook (GEO) series and highlights population growth, urbanization
and expanded economic activity, and the resulting deforestation, loss
of biodiversity and climate change impacts in the region. The authors
underline the interrelatedness of these problems, noting that as
deforestation increases, rainfall decreases, producing a vicious
circle that results in deforestation due to fires, further decreases
in rainfall, and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Get full text; support writer, producer of the words:
http://www.climate-l.org/2009/02/unep-report-highlights-environmental-degradation-in-amazon.html

Amazonia has been occupied and in use from time immemorial. It should
be stressed that the original land occupation of this region is subject to serious controversies, especially concerning the extent of the occupation and how it tookplace. The pre-Columbian occupations into Amazonia
consisted of Arawak populations who spread as far as the Antilles, the
Tupí-Guaraní, from the El Chaco region, and the ethno-linguistic
family of Carib origin that entered the Amazonian basin through a low
rainfall corridor.

In the Peruvian – Ecuadoran zone, between the years 3500 and 300 BC, there was a cultural and commercial link between the pacific coast, the Andean altiplano and the eastern slope of the Andes (UpperAmazonia). The configuration of the territory that we know todayas Amazonia is the result, by and large, of the process of occupation by European colonists between the 16th and 19th centuries. excerpted from –> Download (22mb) full report here: http://www.pnuma.org/deat1/geoamazonia/