Ainda hoje as bandeiras do suposto progresso avançam fronteiras na Amazônia brasileira. A busca por crescimento econômico continua justificando a degradação ambiental irreversível e a perda da diversidade cultural. Sem considerar as características socioambientais da região amazônica, a ocupação dessa área continua se baseando em um modelo externo. De fora para dentro, os sulistas continuam tratando a floresta como o inferno verde e o capital estrangeiro como uma região cheia de recursos lucrativos, tais como os diamantes dispostos na Terra Indígena Roosevelt do Povo Cinta Larga. Com esse viés, a obra Mineração em Terras Indígenas: Os Diamantes Cinta Larga pretende analisar os aspectos jurídicos que envolvem a questão da mineração em terras indígenas e levantar uma reflexão a respeito dos valores sociais predominantes. A riqueza da diversidade cultural, que no caso dos povos indígenas está intimamente interligada com a preservação da natureza, apresenta-se, no atual momento de crise ambiental, como um recurso necessário para a perenização da vida. Na busca por um desenvolvimento sustentável que possamos refletir sobre quem ou quais são de fato as pedras preciosas a serem preservadas.

Ações de Educação ambiental em espaços não formais são desenvolvidas com diferentes objetivos, dentre eles destacamos a divulgação cientifica. Nesta perspectiva, no contexto da disciplina Estágio Supervisionado I: vivências em espaços não formais, ofertada para uma turma de graduandos em Biologia, no âmbito do Plano Nacional de Formação de Professores da Educação Básica – PARFOR, em execução na Universidade do Estado do Pará, mediados pela pedagogia dialógico-problematizadora a partir do uso do material didático PROBIO Educação Ambiental, foi realizada junto à comunidade que transita na Praça do Estrela, município de Castanhal/PA, a divulgação cientifica de temas relacionados à Conservação da Biodiversidade do Bioma Amazônia, com abordagem de conflitos socioambientais e espécies ameaçadas de extinção. O procedimento metodológico envolveu a aplicação de um questionário para os graduandos avaliando contribuições do material didático utilizado. A partir dos dados obtidos procedeu-se a análise de conteúdo, cujos resultados são apresentados no presente trabalho.

Pesquisas e documentos nacionais e internacionais destacam a preocupação com o ensino em Conservação da Biodiversidade e com o cenário de elevada extinção de espécies. Considerando a perspectiva dialógico-problematizadora do material didático PROBIO Educação Ambiental (PROBIO-EA), este constitui-se um potencial complemento à sala de aula, baseada em livros didáticos incompletos. Este trabalho propôs-se a fazer a avaliação da contribuição do PROBIO-EA para a aprendizagem do conceito central Extinção de espécies, usando conceitos relacionados presentes no material. A avaliação foi desenvolvida em salas de aula de 6ª série/7º ano de duas escolas da rede pública de Brasília. Mapas conceituais (MC) foram elaborados em momentos pré e pós-teste, e entre eles, utilizou-se o PROBIO-EA. Os MC foram contrastados com mapas elaborados por experts. Os resultados mostram que os alunos constroem MC mais semelhantes aos dos experts e passam a construir mais relações corretas e acerca do conceito central de Extinção de espécies.

The south-eastern Amazon rainforest is subject to ongoing deforestation and is expected to become drier due to climate change. Recent analyses of the distribution of tree cover in the tropics show three modes that have been interpreted as representing alternative stable states: forest, savanna and treeless states. This situation implies that a change in environmental conditions, such as in the climate, could cause critical transitions from a forest towards a savanna ecosystem. Shifts to savanna might also occur if perturbations such as deforestation exceed a critical threshold. Recovering the forest would be difficult as the savanna will be stabilized by a feedback between tree cover and fire. Here we explore how environmental changes and perturbations affect the forest by using a simple model with alternative tree-cover states. We focus on the synergistic effects of precipitation reduction and deforestation on the probability of regime shifts in the south-eastern Amazon rainforest. The analysis indicated that in a large part of the south-eastern Amazon basin rainforest and savanna could be two alternative states, although massive forest dieback caused by mean-precipitation reduction alone is unlikely. However, combinations of deforestation and climate change triggered up to 6.6 times as many local regime shifts than the two did separately, causing large permanent forest losses in the studied region. The results emphasize the importance of reducing deforestation rates in order to prevent a climate-induced dieback of the south-eastern Amazon rainforest.

Ongoing climate change and the human role as dominant cause behind it are undeniable and already affecting living systems around the globe. Nonetheless, the likely consequences of climate change to Neotropical biodiversity are still poorly understood. We used species distribution modeling to evaluate the likely effects of climate change to the seven species of wild cats that are endemic to the Neotropics. We gathered (and provide) 424 species occurrence records from museum collections and the literature. We run the analysis on the ModEco software, using four modeling algorithms and projected models into 2050 using data from International Panel on Climate Change’s last Assessment Report, under a business-as-usual emission scenario (RCP 8.5), according to five Global Circulation Models. We used an ensemble-forecasting approach to reach a consensus scenario, including only models with AUC > 0.70 for the present climate dataset. We created ensembles using the majority rule. After this procedure, we ended with two final suitability models per species, one for the present and another for the future. Model performance varied among species and was related to species’ climatic suitability area (the smaller the area, the greater the model performance), and species with the smaller ranges were predicted to lose the highest percentage of their current distribution under climate change. The projections under climate change points to important contraction of climatically suitable areas for all Neotropical felids except for L. geoffoyii. The remaining species show, in average, a 43.5% contraction of suitable areas, with L. jacobitus and L. guigna showing more than 50% contraction. Both are already threatened under IUCN and Leopardus jacobitus, found only in the higher elevations of the Andes, is of special concern because highland species are particularly susceptible to a warming climate.

The quantification of species-environment relationship represents the core of predictive geographical modeling in ecology and the root of contemporary species distribution modeling. The correlative approaches that link known occurrences of species with environmental variation across landscapes to estimate ecological niches and geographic distributions are generally termed ecological niche modeling (ENM) or species distribution modeling (SDM). The theoretical basis of these models is that each organism is adapted to specific tolerance zones or ‘‘niches’’ which, in a Grinellian sense, can be considered as the set of abiotic requirements in which a species can maintain itself. Here we provided an overview of the publication trends on ENM/SDM, both globally and in Brazil, through a scientometric approach. We also review the most important contributions of Dr. Rui Cerqueira’s pioneer scientific research program on biogeography and distribution modeling in Brazil. The global production in the “ENM/SDM” field showed a growing trend in publication from 1990s on, with peaks on global production output occurring five times from 2005 to 2012. After 2009, more than a hundred articles were published yearly. In Brazil, although the production has also increased in the last decade, especially from 2006 on, the increase did not follow the magnitude of the global trend. Only after 2009 the number of articles published yearly surpassed ten. Cerqueira figures among the top ten authors in Brazil, being the only author to publish on the topic before 2002. Cerqueira has also made few, but quite important contributions to the understanding of biogeographical patterns in the Neotropics. These results highlight the pioneer contribution of Dr. Rui Cerqueira to the fields of species distribution modeling and biogeography in Brazil, which we present and discuss here.

As we confront the current environmental crisis, determining the biophysical base (e.g., materials, energy, land, and water) of nations has become paramount. With advanced economies benefiting from the import of resource-intensive primary goods originating from poorer parts of the world, especially emerging nations, these are dilapidating their natural capital. Brazil is one of such emerging economies, whose mining and farming activities, propping up its export-led economic growth, exert great pressure on the environment. In particular, farming has been shown to have one of the world’s greatest environmental impacts, especially as a consequence of land use associated with cattle ranching. Since a nation-wide evaluation of land-use types across the whole sectorial spectrum of the country’s economy is still lacking, we used the most recently available Input–Output Economic Model for Brazil and the Ecological Footprint method to identify those economic sectors with the greatest potential for appropriating portions of the natural world.

Our results show that: (i) the biggest chunk of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint is due to its Carbon Footprint and, in particular, emissions from cattle; (ii) only a few economic sectors exhibit high Ecological Footprint values, chiefly those belonging to livestock farming and energy production based on fossil fuels; (iii) excluding the soybeans and slaughter sectors, export-oriented sectors have below-average Ecological Footprint values; and (iv) the percentage of Brazil’s Ecological Footprint due to household consumption (excluding imports) is three times bigger than that attributable to exports, with sectors belonging to livestock farming contributing the most to such disparity.

These results underscore that the environmental impact of the Brazilian economy can be drastically reduced by tackling the emission-intensive production processes of a few sectors only and disincentivizing the domestic consumption of a narrow range of products, especially with respect to the livestock segment

While a number of papers have shown that subway systems have an impact on the air quality through the release of particulate matters, no information about the impact of such particles on tree attributes is available. Tree leaves from three different species from the exit side of a subway station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were more asymmetrical than leaves from the entrance side. This leaves also presenting changes in leaves cuticle and chlorophyll content.