Brazilian City Planting Mangroves to Protect Itself Against Climate Change

Down in Brazil there’s a city in that is increasing the size of their local mangrove forest to protect itself against raising seas and more intense storms. Mangrove forests are excellent at buffering against storms due to their root systems (and that trees in general are good at slowing storms) and how they start beyond the shore line which reduces coastal erosion. The Greater Florianópolis of Brazil’s program to expand their mangroves is improving the local environment while also helping the city’s coastal economy, it;s a win-win.

As a bonus, mangroves are really good at capturing carbon and putting it in the soil so everyone on earth benefits when Brazilians increase their mangroves.

Master’s students are currently comparing the potential for carbon sequestration and storage in natural mangroves and those growing in the landfills of the Greater Florianópolis area. To do this, they’ve collected soil samples from four mangrove areas: two natural ones and two from the artificially created landfills.

The study aims to find out whether mangroves in the latter, human-generated ecosystem have the same carbon-absorbing capacity as natural ones. “Mangrove soil has a high carbon storage capacity, which is why we chose to focus our main analysis on soil rather than roots and leaves,” says Aline Zanetti, a master’s student working on the project.

Mangroves accumulate 50-90% of their carbon in the soil. The waterlogged soil gives rise to a low-oxygen environment, which means that the organic matter that piles up here — leaves, branches, dead animals — don’t decompose as quickly as they would in the open air, thus keeping the carbon they hold in the soil for longer. It’s this waterlogged property that makes coastal ecosystems much more effective carbon sinks than terrestrial forests. For their study, the researchers will also collect samples of mangrove roots to see if there’s a difference in the carbon stock potential of created and natural mangrove roots.

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70,000 Acres of Rainforest Being Replanted

Forest
This week it was announced that carbon in our atmosphere has reached levels not seen for 800,000 years. Clearly we need to do better to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and the releasing of carbon (and other waste) into the atmosphere. While reduction efforts continue, we need to do something now. And doing something now is what an international coalition of agencies is doing in Brazil. They are going to plant 73 million trees to bring life back to the amazon. They will be planting the trees on rainforest land that was previously cleared for factory farming using a new technique to see how well it works.

“This is not a stunt,” Sanjayan says. “It is a carefully controlled experiment to literally figure out how to do tropical restoration at scale, so that people can replicate it and we can drive the costs down dramatically.”

The muvuca strategy demands that seeds from more than 200 native forest species are spread over every square meter of burnt and mismanaged land. The seeds are purchased from the Xingu Seed Network, which since 2007 has acted as a native seed supply for more than 30 organizations, thanks a collection of more than 400 seed collectors–many of whom are indigenous women and local youths.

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Painting Neighbourhoods

Artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn create community art by painting entire neighborhoods, and involving those who live there — from the favelas of Rio to the streets of North Philadelphia. What’s made their projects succeed? In this funny and inspiring talk, the artists explain their art-first approach — and the importance of a neighborhood barbecue.

Ecosia: A Search Engine That Plants Trees

Ecosia is a search engine that is trying to make the world better. Every time you search the net on their site a good percentage of ad revenue is used to pay for planting trees in Brazil. Their goal is one million new trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest by August 2014 (as of posting they are at 219,695 trees planted).

It’s another Google competitor with a good focus. There is also Duck Duck Go which prides itself on its privacy policies as a reaction to Google’s pervasive reach.

Hopefully Ecosia and Duck Duck Go will encourage other Google competitors or perhaps even Google itself will modify its operations.

Brazil Restructures Debt With African Countries

Brazil has announced that they will essentially “write off” about $90 million in debt from African nations. This is for helping the countries alleviate their huge levels of debt while helping create stronger economic ties between Brazil and their indebted partner nations.

“To maintain a special relationship with Africa is strategic for Brazil’s foreign policy.”

He added that most of the debt was accumulated in the 1970s and had been renegotiated before.

A spokesman for Brazil’s Foreign Ministry told Efe news agency that the debt restructuring for some countries would consist of more favourable interest rates and longer repayment terms.

Congo-Brazzaville owes the most to Brazil – $352m – followed by Tanzania ($237m) and Zambia ($113.4m).

The other countries to benefit are Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, and Sudan.

Read more at BBC.

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