Brazil says Amazon deforestation rose 28% in a year

Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July, after years of decline. The government is working to reverse this "crime", Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said. Activists have blamed the increase in destruction on a controversial reform to Brazil's forest protection law. Last year Brazil reported the lowest rate of deforestation in the Amazon since monitoring began. The provisional statistics from August 2012 to last July suggest that the area suffering deforestation was 5,843 sq km (2,255 sq miles), compared to 4,571 sq km (1,765 sq miles) in the previous 12 months. The 28% rise interrupts a period of declining deforestation which began in 2009. However, it still remains the second lowest annual figure for forest loss in absolute terms. The worst year on record was 2004, when 27,000 sq km of forest was destroyed. Monthly data from several scientific institutions had suggested the deforestation rate might be on the rise.

Antarctic may host methane stores

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Ancient organic matter could be converted to methane by microbes.
 

Large volumes of methane - a potent

greenhouse gas - could be locked beneath the ice-covered regions of Antarctica,

according to a new study.

It says this methane could be released into the atmosphere as ice retreats,

contributing to climate warming.

The findings indicate that ancient deposits of organic matter may have been

converted to methane by microbes under the ice.

An international team reported the results in Nature journal.

Study leader Jemima Wadham, from Bristol University, said: "This is an

immense amount of organic carbon, more than ten times the size of carbon stocks

in northern permafrost regions.

"Our laboratory experiments tell us that these sub-ice environments are also

biologically active, meaning that this organic carbon is probably being

metabolised to carbon dioxide and methane gas by microbes."

They estimate that there could be hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon