Environment, 3rd prize
Amazon: Paradise Threatened
Daniel Beltra
20 January, 2017
Dead trees from forests flooded by construction of a dam on the Araguaia River, Amapá, Brazilian Amazon. The dam, built to generate hydroelectric power, inundated hundreds of square kilometers of forest.
After declining from major peaks in 1995 and 2004, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased sharply in 2016, under pressure from logging, mining, agriculture and hydropower developments. The Amazon forest is one of Earth’s great ‘carbon sinks’, absorbing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and acting as a climate regulator. Without it, the world’s ability to lock up carbon would be reduced, compounding the effects of global warming.
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