Brazil

Invasive species – including plants, animals and fish – cause heavy damage to crops, wildlife and human health worldwide. Some prey on native species; other out-compete them for space and food or spread disease. A new United Nations report estimates the losses generated by invasives at more than US$423 billion yearly and shows that these damages have at least quadrupled in every decade since 1970. Humans regularly move animals, plants and other living species from their home areas to new locations, either accidentally or on purpose. For example, they may import plants from faraway locations to raise as crops or bring in a nonnative animal to prey on a local pest. Other invasives hitch rides in cargo or ships’ ballast water. When a species that is not native to a particular area becomes established there, reproducing quickly and causing harm, it has become invasive. These recent articles from The Conversation describe how several invasive species are causing eco...

The record drought in the Brazilian Amazon in 2023 was caused by climate change, Azernews reports, citing foreign media outlets. This conclusion was reached by an international team of scientists from the Center for the Study of Weather Phenomena World Weather Attribution (WWA). “The main cause of the record drought in 2023 in the Amazonian region of Brazil was climate change caused by human activity,” says the report posted on the organization’s website. According to scientists, the influence of the El Nino phenomenon on the weather in the Amazon basin turned out to be much weaker than experts had expected. “Climate change leads to an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation. These factors increased the probability of an unprecedented drought in 2023 by 30 times compared to a situation in which the only factor influencing the weather would be El Nino,” the authors of the study note. Meteorologists f...