The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil inherited, in its National Forest Program, a formidable proposal to increase the area designated to national forests (Flonas) in the Amazon from eight to 50 million hectares by the year 2010. This objective is an ambitious and worthy conservation goal, and one that appears to be holding approval, give or take a few million hectares, within the new government. Attached to this plan, however, is a lingering desire to allow private timber harvesting on Flonas through a system of forest concessions.
Riparian forests buffer the negative effects of cropland on macroinvertebrate diversity in lowland Amazonian streams
Riparian forests buffer the negative effects of cropland on macroinvertebrate diversity in lowland Amazonian streams
Riparian forests regulate stream ecosystems and biodiversity. Therefore, changes to riparian structure may threaten stream ecosystem function by triggering taxonomic and functional changes to aquatic communities. Because macroinvertebrate assemblages are sensitive...