Brazil could make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation. Should the UNFCCC include a “reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation” (REDD) mechanism in its post-2012 framework? About 75 per cent of Brazil’s CO2 emissions do not result from the burning of fossil fuels, as is the case in the industrializes countries and in countries such as China and India, but rather from land-use changes, specifically deforestation and fires in its tropical forests.
Interactions between repeated fire, nutrients, and insect herbivores affect the recovery of diversity in the southern Amazon
Surface fires burn extensive areas of tropical forests each year, altering resource availability, biotic interactions, and, ultimately, plant diversity. In transitional forest between the Brazilian cerrado (savanna) and high stature Amazon forest, we took advantage...