The threat to South Florida beaches from the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest

Brian Lapointe, Ph.D., co-author and a research professor at FAU’s Harbor Branch, emerges from a seaweed bloom. Lapointe has studied Sargassum for more than four decades, and is among a team of scientists who have discovered the world’s largest macroalgae bloom.

From FAU News Desk July 5, 2019 Scientist Discover World'd Largest Seaweed Bloom by Gisele Galoustian

A month ago, I had a conversation with Kirt Rusenko PhD., the marine conservationist at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, in which he shared that his peers had been tracking the northward movement and expansion of Sargassum seaweed from Brazil onto South Florida beaches for over the past eleven years.  

Research on Sargassum seaweed blanketing South Florida beaches is taking place at FAU's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (read this now: https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/great-atlantic-sargassum-belt.php) located at 5600 U.S. 1, Fort Pierce, FL 34946, north of Fort Pierce and south of Vero Beach.  

The nutrient source of this Sargassum seaweed bloom is deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest and West Africa upwelling. In the wake of the biodiversity loss in the Amazon Rainforest, triggered by deforestation, three consequential droughts took place in the world's largest rainforest in 2005, 2010 & 2016, which likely have aggravated the blooms. 

Addressing ecologic impacts and attendant climate warming is now complicated by the ascendancy of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro  

Like his peer, Dishonest Don, Brazilian President Bolsonaro has been married three times. 

Since taking office on January 1, 2019, Bolsonaro has eliminated three departments in the Ministry of the Environment: the deforestation department and two departments related to mitigating the adverse impacts of climate warming.  

His newly appointed foreign affairs minister, Ernesto Araújo, has depicted climate warming as a cultural Marxist plot.  

Bolsonaro is known to oppose indigenous tribal lands and support agribusiness profits over Amazon Rainforest preservation. Additionally, Bolsonaro supports plans to locate hydroelectric and nuclear power projects in the Amazon Rainforest.  

Last fall, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro influenced the Brazilian lawmakers to withdraw Brazil's offer to host the United Nations climate conference in November 2019, citing Brazil’s sovereignty over the Amazon (Brazil accounts for only sixty percent of the Amazon Rainforest watershed) as the primary reason.

The intersection between politics and business influencers and the extent of human destruction of ecologically biodiverse landscapes is crystal clear. Politics, which undermine efforts to slow biodiversity loss and mitigate climate warming, is a worldwide phenomenon and must be challenged globally.