It is thus increasingly clear that São Paulo, as Brazil’s financial and business heart, can only beat successfully if it receives life-giving rainfall from a sustainably managed Amazonia. At the moment, things don’t look encouraging. Deforestation in the Amazon region jumped by an astounding 29 percent between 2012 and 2013, the first increase since 2008. Studies have shown that continued deforestation could lead to a 20 percent reduction in dry season rainfall on average by mid-century, and that we can’t rule out the possibility that the rainforest is about to cross a tipping point, shifting
...more
