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Lush climates alone do not account for the vast biodiversity in tropical rainforests. Research on treefrogs from around the world, covering 123 sites and gathering DNA sequence data for 360 species of treefrogs, has provided a new understanding of biodiversity in tropical rainforests: some groups of treefrogs have existed together in the Amazon Basin for more than 60 million years. A more recent publication supports this finding, noting that forests in Canada and Europe may have much more in common with tropical rainforests than previously believed, but tropical forests have not been subjected to glaciations and mass extinctions, allowing for much greater biodiversity.
posted by filthy light thief on Sep 27, 2011 - 10 comments

An Ecuadoran court has issued a landmark $8bn judgement against Chevron Corporation. [more inside]
posted by clarknova on May 27, 2011 - 40 comments

Ahead of the global climate talks, nine photographers from the photo agency NOOR photographed climate stories from around the world. Their goal: to document some of the causes and consequences, from deforestation to changing sea levels, as well as the people whose lives and jobs are part of that carbon culture. Warming threatens lifestyle of Russian herders | Refugees flee drought, war in East Africa | Greenland’s shrinking ice hurts natives [more inside]
posted by netbros on Dec 10, 2009 - 3 comments

Inspired by its 10th anniversary, the Earth Observatory has pulled together a special series of NASA satellite images documenting how the world has changed. From these images, Wired Science has made 5 videos, presenting convenient time-lapse views of the world changing (mainly) because of human actions. Watch the urbanization of Dubai, specifically the growth of Palm Jumeirah. See the Aral Sea dry up - once the fourth largest lake, down to 10 percent of its original size (marked by the thin black line in the video) by 2007. View the clearing the Amazon, as observed from above the state of Rondônia in western Brazil. Behold the return of Mesopotamia's Wetlands, now in the process of being restored from near total destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Witness the impact of drought on Southern Utah's Lake Powell, where water level dropped from 20 million to 8 million acre-feet from 2000 to 2005.
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 4, 2009 - 12 comments

"Percy Harrison Fawcett ... convinced himself, based on a mix of archival research, deduction and clairvoyance, that a large undiscovered city lay hidden somewhere in the Amazon" Greg Grandin of The Nation talks about the allure of the Amazon in history and the repeated attempts made to domesticate, colonize, control, or explore it. previous discussion of failed Amazon ventures here ( via )
posted by The Whelk on Mar 31, 2009 - 21 comments

Silence Like Scouring Sand. "One of America's quietest places, and the valiant effort to keep it that way." (Previously.)
posted by homunculus on Nov 3, 2008 - 24 comments

BBC's Lost Land of the Jaguar puts Guyana's unspoilt rainforest into sharp focus. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Aug 14, 2008 - 8 comments

Geologists have discovered the remains of one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests , near Danville IL. The four square miles of fossils are in a coal mine 250 feet below the surface.
posted by Green Eyed Monster on Apr 24, 2007 - 11 comments

African dust storms [pic] have been suspected of causing fish-killing red tide in the Caribbean, but also of mitigating the effect of hurricanes. Now analysis of images from NASA's MODIS satellite have revealed the Bodélé, a region of the Sahara not far from Lake Chad, as the source of more than half the material that fertilises the Amazon rainforest.
posted by ernie on Nov 1, 2006 - 10 comments

Afro-Celtic music inspired by the Baka, pygmies living in the Central African rainforest of Cameroon. Rivers running through the rainforest are one of the alluring Bakas' favorite instruments, the water drum. Highly inventive and constantly changing, the vocal polyphony and the polyrhythmic sounds of hands and drums are prodigious achievements which astonish modern composers. There are various albums.
posted by nickyskye on Mar 16, 2006 - 11 comments

The vision: a federally funded 5-acre enclosed rainforest, supposedly the world's largest, will make Coralville, Iowa into a world-class destination city and ignite the imagination of its heretofore benighted citizens. The problem: a federally funded rainforest. In Iowa. Read some entertaining background and analysis on the inspiring project here and here.
posted by thirteenkiller on Jan 13, 2006 - 36 comments

"When they emerged after 50 yards, the landscape no longer looked anything like the southern edge of the Amazon forest. It looked like Iowa." In Mato Grosso, Brazil the rainforest is vanishing. And all because of soybeans and beef. "If we were an aggressive tribe, we would have killed the land owners already," said Tupxi, one of the canoeists, who estimated his age at 77. " good Washpost story...
posted by punkbitch on Jun 12, 2005 - 27 comments

Was the Amazon rain forest home to complex societies?
posted by stbalbach on Jan 12, 2005 - 8 comments

Butterfly farming, whether it's to provide live, captive-bred butterflies or framed insects, is a way for people to generate income by nurturing rainforest habitat rather than cutting it down. It's happening in places like Costa Rica, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. But you can also raise butterflies yourself.
posted by mcwetboy on Nov 2, 2002 - 6 comments