Oil and gas projects in the Western Amazon: threats to wilderness, biodiversity, and indigenous peoples.

BACKGROUND: The western Amazon is the most biologically rich part of the Amazon basin and is home to a great diversity of indigenous ethnic groups, including some of the world's last uncontacted peoples living in voluntary isolation. Unlike the eastern Brazilian Amazon, it is still a largely intact ecosystem. Underlying this landscape are large reserves of oil and gas, many yet untapped. The growing global demand is leading to unprecedented exploration and development in the region. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We synthesized information from government sources to quantify the status of oil development in the western Amazon. National governments delimit specific geographic areas or "blocks" that are zoned for hydrocarbon activities, which they may lease to state and multinational energy companies for exploration and production. About 180 oil and gas blocks now cover approximately 688,000 km(2) of the western Amazon. These blocks overlap the most species-rich part of the Amazon. We also found that many of the blocks overlap indigenous territories, both titled lands and areas utilized by peoples in voluntary isolation. In Ecuador and Peru, oil and gas blocks now cover more than two-thirds of the Amazon. In Bolivia and western Brazil, major exploration activities are set to increase rapidly. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Without improved policies, the increasing scope and magnitude of planned extraction means that environmental and social impacts are likely to intensify. We review the most pressing oil- and gas-related conservation policy issues confronting the region. These include the need for regional Strategic Environmental Impact Assessments and the adoption of roadless extraction techniques. We also consider the conflicts where the blocks overlap indigenous peoples' territories.

Gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon: global prices, deforestation, and mercury imports.

Many factors such as poverty, ineffective institutions and environmental regulations may prevent developing countries from managing how natural resources are extracted to meet a strong market demand. Extraction for some resources has reached such proportions that evidence is measurable from space. We present recent evidence of the global demand for a single commodity and the ecosystem destruction resulting from commodity extraction, recorded by satellites for one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. We find that since 2003, recent mining deforestation in Madre de Dios, Peru is increasing nonlinearly alongside a constant annual rate of increase in international gold price (∼18%/yr). We detect that the new pattern of mining deforestation (1915 ha/year, 2006-2009) is outpacing that of nearby settlement deforestation. We show that gold price is linked with exponential increases in Peruvian national mercury imports over time (R(2) = 0.93, p = 0.04, 2003-2009). Given the past rates of increase we predict that mercury imports may more than double for 2011 (∼500 t/year). Virtually all of Peru's mercury imports are used in artisanal gold mining. Much of the mining increase is unregulated/artisanal in nature, lacking environmental impact analysis or miner education. As a result, large quantities of mercury are being released into the atmosphere, sediments and waterways. Other developing countries endowed with gold deposits are likely experiencing similar environmental destruction in response to recent record high gold prices. The increasing availability of satellite imagery ought to evoke further studies linking economic variables with land use and cover changes on the ground.

An online daily diary study of alcohol use using Amazon's mechanical turk

Introduction and Aims: In recent years, unprecedented levels of Internet access and the widespread growth of emergent communication technologies have resulted in significantly greater population access for substance use researchers. Despite the research potential of such technologies, the use of the Internet to recruit individuals for participation in event-level research has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief account of the methods and results from an online daily diary study of alcohol use. Design and Methods: Participants were recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Eligible participants completed a brief screener assessing demographics and health behaviours, with a subset of individuals subsequently recruited to participate in a 2 week daily diary study of alcohol use. Results: Multilevel models of the daily alcohol data derived from the Mechanical Turk sample (n=369) replicated several findings commonly reported in daily diary studies of alcohol use. Discussion and Conclusions: Results demonstrate that online participant recruitment and survey administration can be a fruitful method for conducting daily diary alcohol research. © 2014 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.

Assessment of Two Diabetes Point-of-Care Analyzers Measuring Hemoglobin A1c in the Peruvian Amazon

Aims: Measurement of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is an important indicator of glucose control over time. Point-of-care (POC) devices allow for rapid and convenient measurement of HbA1c, greatly facilitating diabetes care. We assessed two POC analyzers in the Peruvian Amazon where laboratory-based HbA1c testing is not available.

Methods: Venous blood samples were collected from 203 individuals from six different Amazonian communities with a wide range of HbA1c, 4.4-9.0% (25-75 mmol/mol). The results of the Afinion AS100 and the DCA Vantage POC analyzers were compared to a central laboratory using the Premier Hb9210 high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. Imprecision was assessed by performing 14 successive tests of a single blood sample.

Results: The correlation coefficient r for POC and HPLC results was 0.92 for the Afinion and 0.93 for the DCA Vantage. The Afinion generated higher HbA1c results than the HPLC (mean difference = +0.56% [+6 mmol/mol]; p < 0.001), as did the DCA Vantage (mean difference = +0.32% [4 mmol/mol]). The bias observed between POC and HPLC did not vary by HbA1c level for the DCA Vantage (p = 0.190), but it did for the Afinion (p < 0.001). Imprecision results were: CV = 1.75% for the Afinion, CV = 4.01% for the DCA Vantage. Sensitivity was 100% for both devices, specificity was 48.3% for the Afinion and 85.1% for the DCA Vantage, positive predictive value (PPV) was 14.4% for the Afinion and 34.9% for the DCA Vantage, and negative predictive value (NPV) for both devices was 100%. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.966 for the Afinion and 0.982 for the DCA Vantage. Agreement between HPLC and POC in classifying diabetes and prediabetes status was slight for the Afinion (Kappa = 0.12) and significantly different (McNemar’s statistic = 89; p < 0.001), and moderate for the DCA Vantage (Kappa = 0.45) and significantly different (McNemar’s statistic = 28; p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Despite significant variation of HbA1c results between the Afinion and DCA Vantage analyzers compared to HPLC, we conclude that both analyzers should be considered in health clinics in the Peruvian Amazon for therapeutic adjustments if healthcare workers are aware of the differences relative to testing in a clinical laboratory. However, imprecision and bias were not low enough to recommend either device for screening purposes, and the local prevalence of anemia and malaria may interfere with diagnostic determinations for a substantial portion of the population.

Protected Areas' Impacts on Brazilian Amazon Deforestation: Examining Conservation-Development Interactions to Inform Planning.

Protected areas are the leading forest conservation policy for species and ecoservices goals and they may feature in climate policy if countries with tropical forest rely on familiar tools. For Brazil's Legal Amazon, we estimate the average impact of protection upon deforestation and show how protected areas' forest impacts vary significantly with development pressure. We use matching, i.e., comparisons that are apples-to-apples in observed land characteristics, to address the fact that protected areas (PAs) tend to be located on lands facing less pressure. Correcting for that location bias lowers our estimates of PAs' forest impacts by roughly half. Further, it reveals significant variation in PA impacts along development-related dimensions: for example, the PAs that are closer to roads and the PAs closer to cities have higher impact. Planners have multiple conservation and development goals, and are constrained by cost, yet still conservation planning should reflect what our results imply about future impacts of PAs.

The role of tectonic uplift, climate, and vegetation in the long-term terrestrial phosphorous cycle

Phosphorus (P) is a crucial element for life and therefore for maintaining ecosystem productivity. Its local availability to the terrestrial biosphere results from the interaction between climate, tectonic uplift, atmospheric transport, and biotic cycling. Here we present a mathematical model that describes the terrestrial P-cycle in a simple but comprehensive way. The resulting dynamical system can be solved analytically for steady-state conditions, allowing us to test the sensitivity of the P-availability to the key parameters and processes. Given constant inputs, we find that humid ecosystems exhibit lower P availability due to higher runoff and losses, and that tectonic uplift is a fundamental constraint. In particular, we find that in humid ecosystems the biotic cycling seem essential to maintain long-term P-availability. The time-dependent P dynamics for the Franz Josef and Hawaii chronosequences show how tectonic uplift is an important constraint on ecosystem productivity, while hydroclimatic conditions control the P-losses and speed towards steady-state. The model also helps describe how, with limited uplift and atmospheric input, as in the case of the Amazon Basin, ecosystems must rely on mechanisms that enhance P-availability and retention. Our novel model has a limited number of parameters and can be easily integrated into global climate models to provide a representation of the response of the terrestrial biosphere to global change. © 2010 Author(s).