Good job Brazil!!! 13 thousand acres is an insane amount of land damaged by one guy. That's roughly half of Richmond BC!
Good job Brazil!!!
Kruger had previously been forced to pay damages by Ibama for destroying 5,600 hectares (13,838 acres) in the Amazonian municipalities of Boca do Acre and Lábrea.
13 thousand acres is an insane amount of land damaged by one guy. That's roughly half of Richmond BC!
This is not really possible, but the judgement and the aggressive follow-through (freezing assets, preventing him from selling the operation for someone else to continue, etc.) seems really...
ordered to restore the precious carbon sink.
This is not really possible, but the judgement and the aggressive follow-through (freezing assets, preventing him from selling the operation for someone else to continue, etc.) seems really positive. I don't know if the Brazilian justice system has the same problem as the US where rich people can delay punishment for a decade by repeatedly appealing, though.
It's a little bit of a long watch, but here's Mossy Earth (an environmental restoration organization) doing a walkthrough of some partially degraded rainforest they purchased. In the video you can...
It's a little bit of a long watch, but here's Mossy Earth (an environmental restoration organization) doing a walkthrough of some partially degraded rainforest they purchased. In the video you can see different sections that were last cleared different amounts of time ago and you can see that the land can be restored, especially when the rainforest still exists nearby.
Yeah that's what I mean, it is technically possible to restore rainforest but it's such a complex and dense ecosystem that it would take a ridiculously long time to genuinely restore what was...
Yeah that's what I mean, it is technically possible to restore rainforest but it's such a complex and dense ecosystem that it would take a ridiculously long time to genuinely restore what was lost. The trees themselves could maybe be regrown in 50-100 years, but for all the species of plants and animals to return to the 5600 hectares this guy destroyed would take centuries or millennia (see the table of estimated species per hectare here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest#Biodiversity,_flora_and_fauna). And the whole web is connected, even if we're strictly thinking in carbon terms, the land will not be as effective a carbon sink without all these plants pulling in CO2 and animals fertilizing the land and water.
So I think the trees can't really be restored within the rancher's lifetime, and the full rainforest would take so long to restore that in practical terms it will never happen. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, and of course it's good that this guy will be forced to attempt some restoration. I just think sometimes people imagine that if we plant as many trees as we cut down then we've balanced the scales, but that isn't how forests work. Even ignoring the decades it will take the new trees to grow, you just can't replace what has organically developed over thousands or millions of years.
This is great, but I think this is more important: As I understand it, it's the likelihood of getting caught, more than the severity of the punishment, that acts as a deterrent to criminal...
This is great, but I think this is more important:
This was the biggest claim to date for damage to the rainforest sought by Brazil’s attorney general’s office, which intended it to be “just the first of a series of actions that seek to repair the climate damage caused by the destruction not only of the Amazon, but of all Brazilian biomes”.
As I understand it, it's the likelihood of getting caught, more than the severity of the punishment, that acts as a deterrent to criminal behavior.
The rancher used chainsaws to clear vegetation, then set fires to clear the land and finally planted grass to establish pasture for raising cattle. Satellite images showed the scale of the damage and Kruger admitted having caused it on film.
A statistic I recently came across is that a staggering amount of developed land in the world is for animal agriculture. This seems to be yet another case of it causing environmental damage.
Good job Brazil!!!
13 thousand acres is an insane amount of land damaged by one guy. That's roughly half of Richmond BC!
This is not really possible, but the judgement and the aggressive follow-through (freezing assets, preventing him from selling the operation for someone else to continue, etc.) seems really positive. I don't know if the Brazilian justice system has the same problem as the US where rich people can delay punishment for a decade by repeatedly appealing, though.
It's a little bit of a long watch, but here's Mossy Earth (an environmental restoration organization) doing a walkthrough of some partially degraded rainforest they purchased. In the video you can see different sections that were last cleared different amounts of time ago and you can see that the land can be restored, especially when the rainforest still exists nearby.
I don't follow?
Reforestation works. It just takes a lot of years to have things return, sometimes decades or longer.
What am I missing?
Yeah that's what I mean, it is technically possible to restore rainforest but it's such a complex and dense ecosystem that it would take a ridiculously long time to genuinely restore what was lost. The trees themselves could maybe be regrown in 50-100 years, but for all the species of plants and animals to return to the 5600 hectares this guy destroyed would take centuries or millennia (see the table of estimated species per hectare here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest#Biodiversity,_flora_and_fauna). And the whole web is connected, even if we're strictly thinking in carbon terms, the land will not be as effective a carbon sink without all these plants pulling in CO2 and animals fertilizing the land and water.
Here's an article about a study of a different rainforest in Brazil: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14112-how-long-does-it-take-a-rainforest-to-regenerate/.
So I think the trees can't really be restored within the rancher's lifetime, and the full rainforest would take so long to restore that in practical terms it will never happen. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, and of course it's good that this guy will be forced to attempt some restoration. I just think sometimes people imagine that if we plant as many trees as we cut down then we've balanced the scales, but that isn't how forests work. Even ignoring the decades it will take the new trees to grow, you just can't replace what has organically developed over thousands or millions of years.
Wow. I must say, this might be the single most positive story about environmental regulation I've ever heard.
Here's hoping the punishment sticks.
This is great, but I think this is more important:
As I understand it, it's the likelihood of getting caught, more than the severity of the punishment, that acts as a deterrent to criminal behavior.
A statistic I recently came across is that a staggering amount of developed land in the world is for animal agriculture. This seems to be yet another case of it causing environmental damage.