Wednesday, June 03, 2020


On This Day: Radical feminist author shoots Andy Warhol

On June 3, 1968, radical feminist author and actor Valerie Solanas shot artist Andy Warhol at his New York City studio The Factory.

By
UPI Staff


Andy Warhol (C) stands in front of a limited edition serigraph of Princess Grace of Monaco on June 1, 1984, in Philadelphia. 

In 1968, radical feminist author and actor Valerie Solanas shot artist Andy Warhol at his New York City studio The Factory. Warhol survived the shooting after a five-hour operation to repair damage to several internal organs.
File Photo by George Bilyk/UPI | License Photo

On June 3, 1968, the militant feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol at The Factory, his famous studio/club house in New York City. Although two bullets missed Warhol, the third went through his spleen, liver, stomach, and esophagus. He almost died during the five-hour surgery that followed, and remained bedridden for three months afterward. While at home, he painted small portraits of Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, marking his return to portraiture, a theme that had preoccupied him since the 1950s and dominated his output for the remainder of his life. Through commissioned portraits, Warhol could control his public interactions and reliably earn a living. 
https://carolinaarts.com/1015/1015carolinaarts-sp.pdf

Read More

UPI Archives: Artist Andy Warhol dead at 58UPI Archives: Texas woman allegedly damages Warhol paintings on first date


Search Results

Web results

by V Solanas - ‎Cited by 405 - ‎Related articles
S.C.U.M. Manifesto. (Society for Cutting Up Men) by Valerie Solanas. Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant ...
"Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto was written in 1967 and published in 1968, the year she shot and wounded Andy Warhol. The text used here is that of the ..

Valerie Solanas, USA | 1936-1988
http://www.ubu.com/historical/solanas/index.html




 S.C.U.M Manifesto [PDF, 1.7mb]


 Catherine Lord Wonder Waif Meets Super Neuter October Spring 2010, No. 132, Pages 135-163 [PDF]



Sep 4, 2019 - Solanas, SCUM Manifesto and S.C.U.M Manifesto. 3 . Solanas, Up Your Ass, In culo a ...
Oct 30, 2017 - PDF | This article investigates the ways in which Valerie Solanas takes on what we call the 'grammar of patriarchy' in The SCUM manifesto.


Artist Christo who wrapped Reichstag in fabric dies aged 84

AFP/File / Niklas HALLE'NChristo made transforming internationally known landmarks his speciality
The artist known as Christo, who made his name transforming landmarks such as Germany's Reichstag by covering them with reams of cloth, died on Sunday aged 84, his official Facebook page announced.
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff died of natural causes at his home in New York City, the statement said.
The Bulgarian-born artist worked in collaboration with his wife of 51 years Jeanne-Claude until her death in 2009.
Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect; but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.
"Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible but realising it," said a statement from his office.
"Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork brought people together in shared experiences across the globe, and their work lives on in our hearts and memories."
In accordance with Christo's wishes, the statement added, a work in progress, "l'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped", would be completed.
The event is now scheduled to be shown from September 18, 2021, having been postponed from this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Born on June 13, 1935 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, Christo left his home country in 1957, living briefly in several countries before arriving in Paris, where he met his future wife, a fellow artist.
But in their subsequent collaborations, he was credited more as the artist and Jeanne-Claude as the organiser.
"This is not the work of Christo, it's the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude," she would say.
To finance their massive, ambitious projects and thus maintain their artistic freedom, the couple would sell their preparatory work, including collages and drawings, at exorbitant prices.
- An 'enchanter' -
Next year's work in Paris will be accompanied by an exhibition at the city's Pompidou Centre about their time in the city. That show is due to start in July this year, running until the end of October 2020.
A statement sent to AFP by the Pompidou Centre on Sunday paid tribute to the artist as an "enchanter" who was "essential to the history of art of our time".
"Christo was a great artist, capable of giving new depth to our everyday," said the Pompidou Centre's president, Serge Lasvignes.
AFP / Pierre GUILLAUDHis 1985 project covering Paris's oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, is one of his most famous works
The centre's director, Bernard Blistene, said they had worked "passionately" with Christo's team to put the exhibition together in parallel with the Arc de Triomphe project.
"Let the exhibition that we will be opening on July 1 pay tribute to this exceptional body of work, bestriding all disciplines and so essential to the history of art of our time," he added.
The exhibition will focus on the time Christo and his wife spent in Paris, 1958 to 1964, during which they developed their signature style.
As well as the German Reichstag, another of their major projects was wrapping the Pont Neuf, Paris's oldest bridge, in 1985.
Sunday's statement from Christo's office concluded: "In a 1958 letter Christo wrote, 'Beauty, science and art will always triumph'. We hold those words closely today."

Christo, master of the monumental wrap-up

AFP/File / Niklas HALLE'NBulgarian-born Christo insisted on the ephemeral nature of his work, even though they took years of planning
From Paris's oldest bridge to Berlin's Reichstag, Bulgarian-born US artist Christo spent decades wrapping landmarks and creating improbable structures around the world.
Christo, who died on Sunday in New York at the age of 84, collaborated with his wife of 51 years, Jeanne-Claude, until her death in 2009. Afterwards, he continued to produce dramatic pieces into his 80s.
Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect: but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.
"Totally useless," said Christo of their work in the 2019 documentary, "Walking on Water".
"Art is all about pleasure. Visual pleasure is very important — very invigorating, very engaging," he told The New York Times in 2016.
Gaunt, bespectacled, his long hair becoming wispy and white in age, Christo had been planning to cover Paris' Arc de Triomphe in silvery-blue recyclable material in 2021 to coincide with a retrospective at the city's Pompidou Centre.
The statement from his office Sunday announcing his death said that, in accordance with his wishes, that project would go ahead and was on schedule for September next year.
- Bulgarian fugue, Paris romance -
Born in 1935 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff fled the communist regime in 1956 aboard a goods train.
Arriving in Paris, he mixed with artists such as Yves Klein and Niki de Saint-Phalle, and dabbled in abstract painting.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude - 2019 Christo/AFP / Andre GROSSMANNChristo's final project, 'L'Arc de Triomph, Wrapped' is due to go ahead as planned despite his death, in accordance with his wishes
He met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon in 1958, as he was doing a portrait of her mother, and they married the same year.
Their work was collaborative but they at first called themselves just Christo, creating the impression that their production was his alone.
Their son Cyril was born in 1960 and the family moved to the United States in 1964, Christo obtaining US nationality in 1973.
- The art of covering up -
Their first large-scale public installation appeared in 1968 when the couple wrapped Swiss art museum the Kunsthalle, in Berne, in 2,430 square metres (26,160 square feet) of fabric.
Among the most famous of similar works across the world were the Pont Neuf in Paris which was entirely draped in silky sandstone material in 1985, and 10 years later Germany's Reichstag covered in silvery shimmering fabric.
AFP / Pierre GUILLAUDAn earlier Paris project, in 1985, focussed on the city's oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf
There have been islands surrounded in floating pink material, an Australian beach covered in white, and a 39-kilometre-long (24-mile) cloth fence through the Californian hills.
The cost of these temporary installations can be astronomical.
"The Umbrellas" in 1991, for example, cost $26 million, entirely financed by the artists, according to their website. The simultaneous installation in California and Japan of hundreds of giant blue and yellow umbrellas was dismantled after 18 days.
Christo never accepted sponsorship, funding the projects through the sale of his sketches, collages, scale models and original lithographs.
- Fleeting and free -
The installations also required permits that could take lengthy negotiations to secure. Over 50 years, just 22 had been achieved by 2011 with 37 not receiving official permission, according to the website.
Some of the work has been controversial: the Reichstag wrap-up required a vote by German deputies, getting 292 in favour and 223 against.
AFP / NIKLAS HALLE'NOne of Christo's last projects was 'The Mastaba' on the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park in London: more than 7,000 coloured, horizontally stacked barrels on a floating platform
But the uncertainty and intense collaboration required each time were all welcome parts of the adventure.
"I think it would be absolutely boring to work the way many artists do," Christo said in The New York Times in 2014.
The temporary quality of the productions was also important to the artist.
When asked by Berlin authorities to prolong the Reichstag cover-up beyond its 14 days, Christo refused.
"It is a kind of naivete and arrogance to think that this thing stays forever, for eternity," he said in an interview with the Journal of Contemporary Art in 1991.
"All these projects have this strong dimension of missing, of self-effacement... they will go away, like our childhood, our life.
"They create a tremendous intensity when they are there for a few days."

Spectre of oil giant Rosneft looms over Russian independent media

Sputnik/AFP / Alexey NIKOLSKYJournalists at Russia's top liberal business daily Vedomosti say they were barred from covering negative opinion polls of President Vladimir Putin
Russian oil giant Rosneft, run by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, is wielding growing influence over Russia's remaining independent media outlets, already squeezed by tightening press freedoms and pressure from the Kremlin.
Now, reporters at the country's top liberal business daily Vedomosti -- shaken in March by an announcement from owner Demyan Kudryavtsev that he planned to sell the newspaper -- have denounced censorship under its new acting editor-in-chief.
Andrei Shmarov was appointed in late March, ahead of the sale's completion. Journalists say they were barred from covering negative opinion polls of Putin, and that editors interfered in coverage of Rosneft.
On Friday, the new owner was announced as the head of a little-known regional news agency called FederalPress, Ivan Yeryomin.
An investigation in May by several Russian news outlets including Vedomosti revealed that Rosneft leveraged control over the paper through debts owed by owner Kudryavtsev to the oil giant's bank.
Kudryavtsev denied these allegations while Rosneft has not reacted.
- 'Real owner Rosneft' -
"The real owner is Rosneft through a chain of debt," said Vedomosti editor-at-large Maxim Trudolyubov, who has worked at the paper since it started in 1999.
Trudolyubov said the new editor-in-chief was "selected to run the newspaper favourably to the new owner".
"They just wanted to silence it."
He described Rosneft chief Igor Sechin as "some sort of a hitman" employing aggressive tactics.
"He plays a complicated game of takeovers to build his empire at the expense of other oligarchs. It's about assets, money, influence."
The newspaper wrote in a recent editorial: "Vedomosti will just become another dependent and controlled media outlet."
On Friday, the newspaper wrote that the change of ownership deal undoubtedly had "not only commercial aims".
Its editorial suggested that "unnamed figures who really stand behind the official buyers... see the publication as an instrument of influence, not a business".
"This is a public humiliation of the Vedomosti brand and its editorial staff," Galina Timchenko, editor-in-chief of Meduza news site, told AFP.
In May, it was the turn of another respected business daily, RBK. Rosneft is suing the newspaper for a record 43 billion rubles ($612 million) over an article about the oil company's activities in Venezuela.
"We aren't worried, because we know our work is correct and honest," said Timofei Dzyadko, an energy reporter at the newspaper.
But Pyotr Kanayev, the RBK editor-in-chief, said the lawsuit was surprising.
"We published (an) article based on public information and we're not the source of this information," he said.
The news coverage at RBK "doesn't serve anybody's interests, only our audience", he told AFP.
A legal defeat against the oil giant would deal the media outlet a serious blow.
The two decades of Putin's rule have seen all the national television channels as well as a number of radio stations and newspapers pass into the hands of Kremlin-friendly owners.
In one of the most high-profile takeovers, NTV television, known for its independent stance in the 1990s, was taken over in 2001 by the media arm of the state gas giant Gazprom.
- Choice to make -
Vedomosti launched in September 1999 as Putin emerged as Russia's dominant political figure.
The paper was co-founded and co-owned by Dutch entrepreneur Derk Sauer's Independent Media, the London-based Financial Times and US business daily The Wall Street Journal, demonstrating Russia's entry into the fold of Western capitalist countries.
Vedomosti's independent editors and reporters covered the businesses beginning to emerge from the ashes of a severe financial crisis in 1998.
Editors at the newspaper have been lauded for mostly keeping at bay pressure from the Kremlin and private business interests.
The newspaper has changed hands several times since its first print run as lawmakers introduced new legislation limiting foreign ownership of Russian media.
While traditional media has come under increasing pressure, new media projects are mushrooming online, such as news sites Meduza and The Bell and numerous YouTube projects such as the video channels of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
"Russian independent media does still operate (and is) more successful now than it has been in a while," said Trudolyubov, describing such new projects as "quite promising".
As for Vedomosti, its journalists now have a choice: they must either quit or conform, observers have said.
"I can barely imagine a way the Vedomosti journalists can hold for a long time," said Trudolyubov.

YOUNG WHALE TRAVELS THE SEAWAY TO MONTREAL

Reseau Quebecois d'Urgences Mammiferes Marins/AFP / HandoutSince Saturday, the humpback has been seen exploring the waters off Montreal, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the waters it usually calls home
A young humpback whale that swam up one of Canada's major rivers and has been exploring the waters off Montreal for a few days was likely led astray while on a hunting trip, authorities have said.

Since Saturday, the giant creature has been swimming in the St Lawrence river against the backdrop of the Montreal skyline -- hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the waters it usually calls home.

The humpback is likely to be the same creature as that seen a few days ago further downstream near Quebec City, said Marie-Eve Muller of the Quebec marine mammal emergency network (RQUMM).

Humpback whales live near both the Arctic and Antarctic, with adults growing up to 17 metres (55 feet) and weighing up to 40 tonnes.

Each pod spends the summer near the poles and travels to tropical areas in their respective hemispheres during the winter to breed.

The Montreal visitor, thought to be two or three years old, was likely led astray while chasing prey, or made a navigation error, Muller said.

It is possible that the whale could extend its stay in the city for several months, she added, although locks and rapids further upstream would likely prevent it from exploring any further west.

A team from RQUMM has been deployed to monitor the humpback to prevent any possible collisions with ships, she said, although there were no plans to redirect the whale yet, since it could survive for a short while in freshwater.

"For the moment, the whale is in good health... The best option is to let nature take its course," and hope that the animal decides to return to the open ocean itself, she added

Deadly Tropical Storm Amanda hits El Salvador, Guatemala

AFP / Marvin RECINOSAt least 14 people were killed when Tropical Storm Amanda struck El Salvador, unleashing heavy rain, landslides and flash floods across the country
Tropical Storm Amanda triggered flash floods, landslides and power outages as it barrelled through El Salvador and Guatemala Sunday, killing 14 people, authorities said, warning of further heavy rain to come.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele declared a 15-day state of emergency to cope with the effects of the storm, which he estimated to have caused $200 million in damage, but which weakened later in the day as it moved into Guatemala.
Amanda, the first named storm of the season in the Pacific, unleashed torrents of floodwater that tossed vehicles around like toys and damaged about 200 homes, the head of the Civil Protection Service William Hernandez said.
AFP / Yuri CORTEZFlash-floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Amanda tossed cars around like toys in several San Salvador neighborhoods
The fatalities were all recorded in El Salvador, Interior Minister Mario Duran said, warning that the death toll could rise.
One person is still missing, senior government official Carolina Recinos added.
 
AFP / Yuri CORTEZMembers of a volunteer stretcher corps prepare to carry out a woman who fainted in an area flooded by Tropical Storm Amanda in San Salvador's Modelo neighborhood
"We are experiencing an unprecedented situation: one top-level emergency on top of another serious one," San Salvador mayor Ernesto Muyshondt said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
He added that half of those killed died in the capital, and that 4,200 people had sought refuge in government-run shelters after losing their homes or being forced to leave because they were in high-risk areas.
In some flooded areas, soldiers worked alongside emergency personnel to rescue people.
AFP / Yuri CORTEZLandslides and swollen rivers destroyed homes in working-class neighborhoods of El Salvador's capital San Salvador
"We lost everything, we've been left with nowhere to live," said Isidro Gomez, a resident of hard-hit southeastern San Salvador, after a nearby river overflowed and destroyed his home.
Another victim, Mariano Ramos, said that at dawn residents of his San Salvador neighborhood were slammed by an avalanche of mud and water. An elderly man died in the area, officials said.
 
AFP / MARVIN RECINOSFlooding was especially intense in the Santa Lucia neighborhood of Ilopango, El Salvador, where the roof of a vehicle is barely visible in the flood water
El Salvador's environment ministry warned residents of the "high probability" of multiple landslides that could damage buildings and injure or kill people.
Nearly 90 percent of El Salvador's 6.6 million people are considered vulnerable to flooding and landslides due to its geography.
In neighboring Guatemala, officials said roads had been blocked by at least five landslides and some flooding was reported, but no evacuations were underway.
Even though Amanda weakened to tropical depression status, Guatemalan officials warned that heavy rain would continue, with swollen rivers and possible "landslides affecting highways ... and flooding in coastal areas."
Mexican zoo saves animals endangered by virus crisis
AFP / RASHIDE FRIASA worker looks at a bengal tiger in Culiacan zoo, Mexico, after it was handed over by its previous owner
Kira, a two and a half year-old tiger, arrived at a zoo in Mexico's northeast in April after her owner could no longer feed her due to the coronavirus-induced economic collapse.
The imposing 130-kilogram tigress was sedated and transported in a cage by truck to her new home in Culiacan zoo in Sinaloa state.
Her owner had responded to a campaign by Mexico's Association of Zoos, Nurseries and Aquariums (AZCARM) to avoid abandoning wild animals during the lockdown.
"Abandonment happens when people can't cope with their animals any more, and in this pandemic, faced with the lack of economic resources and places to keep them, they prefer to get rid of them," AZCARM president Ernesto Zazueta told AFP.
Alongside the big cat, the Culiacan zoo also welcomed during the lockdown a python, a baby manatee and 14 green macaws, as well as 49 deer rescued from a sugar mill in Tabasco.
- Malnourished deer -
The deer arrived at the zoo suffering from malnutrition. Now they graze in a large enclosure alongside ostriches, giraffes and antelopes.
"The tiger was reported because they couldn't look after it; but as for the deer... it was an emergency because they didn't have any food or even anyone to look after them, on top of being in a place that was inadequate for the species," said Diego Garcia, Culiacan's director.
AFP / RASHIDE FRIASThe tiger's owner had responded to a campaign to avoid abandoning animals during the COVID-19 lockdown
Mexican zoos have been rescuing illegally trafficked wild animals for years, and others from circuses since a 2015 ban on shows using live animals.
In these reserves, experts try to rehabilitate the animals and where possible return them to their natural habitat.
However, many are forced to live the rest of their lives in zoos because of the long-term physical damages they've suffered or because they've lost their wild instincts.
"When the animals arrive we evaluate them, we rehabilitate them ... Many cannot return to the wild because they don't know how to survive, they don't know how to hunt, nor how to defend themselves," said Zazueta.
- Magnet for illegal traffickers -
Mexican zoos are struggling, like many businesses, due to lockdown rules imposed over the coronavirus and depriving them of vital entrance fess.
AFP / RASHIDE FRIASThese deer were rescued from a ranch in Tabasco state
AZCARM is asking the government for support in food donations and in allowing zoos to reopen in the first phase of the country's "new normality," which saw essential businesses including mining, construction and aviation reactivated from Monday.
Kira and other animals at the Culiacan zoo have been fed on a monthly donation of 3.5 tons of meat from a local company.
And despite the difficulties, all the animals "are being very well cared for and well fed," said Zazueta.
Mexico is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, according to the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
AFP / RASHIDE FRIASGreen macaws were seized by Mexican authorities during a raid to prevent animal trafficking
It is home to 10-12 percent of the biological species on the planet, is number one for reptiles and second for mammals, the government says.

DNA research uncovers Dead Sea Scrolls mystery

AFP / MENAHEM KAHANA
The parchment and papyrus Dead Sea Scrolls contain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and include some of the earliest-known texts from the Bible, including the oldest surviving copy of the Ten Commandments

DNA research on the Dead Sea Scrolls has revealed that not all of the ancient manuscripts came from the desert landscape where they were discovered, according to a study published Tuesday.

Numbering around 900, the manuscripts were found between 1947 -- first by Bedouin shepherds -- and 1956 in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea that are today located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The parchment and papyrus scrolls contain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and include some of the earliest-known texts from the Bible, including the oldest surviving copy of the Ten Commandments.

Research on the texts has been ongoing for decades and in the latest study, DNA tests on manuscript fragments indicate that some were not originally from the area around the caves.

"We have discovered through analysing parchment fragments that some texts were written on the skin of cows and sheep, whereas before we thought they had all been written on goat skin," said researcher Pnina Shor, who heads the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) project studying the manuscripts.

"This proves that the manuscripts do not come from the desert where they were found," she told AFP.

The researchers from the IAA and Tel Aviv University were unable to pinpoint where the fragments came from during their seven-year study, which focused on 13 texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls date from the third century BC to the first century AD.

- 'Parts of a puzzle' -

Many experts believe the manuscripts were written by the Essenes, a dissident Jewish sect that had retreated into the Judaean desert around Qumran and its caves. Others argue that some of the texts were hidden by Jews fleeing the advance of the Romans.

"These initial results will have repercussions on the study of the life of Jews during the period of the Second Temple" in Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Romans in AD70, said Shor.
AFP / MENAHEM KAHANASome 25,000 parchment fragments have been discovered and the Dead Sea Scrolls texts have been continuously studied for more than 60 years

Such archaeological research remains a sensitive subject in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as findings are sometimes used by organisations or political parties to justify their claims to contested land.

Beatriz Riestra, a researcher who took part in the study, pointed to "differences at the same time in the content and the style of calligraphy, but also in the animal skin used for the parchment, proving they are of different origin".

In total, some 25,000 parchment fragments have been discovered and the texts have been continuously studied for more than 60 years.

"It's like piecing together parts of a puzzle," said Oded Rechavi, a professor who led the Tel Aviv University team.

"There are many scrolls fragments that we don't know how to connect, and if we connect wrong pieces together it can change dramatically the interpretation of any scroll," he said.
3JUN2020

Football pitch of rainforest destroyed every six seconds

AFP / CARL DE SOUZARainforests harbour the richest diversity of wildlife on Earth
Vast tracts of pristine rainforest on three continents went up in smoke last year, with an area roughly the size of Switzerland cut down or burned to make way for cattle and commercial crops, researchers said Tuesday.
Brazil accounted for more than a third of the loss, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia a distant second and third, Global Forest Watch said in its annual report, based on satellite data.
The 38,000 square kilometres (14,500 square miles) destroyed in 2019 -- equivalent to a football pitch of old-growth trees every six seconds -- made it the third most devastating year for primary forests since the scientists began tracking their decline two decades ago.
"We are concerned that the rate of loss is so high despite all the efforts of different countries and companies to reduce deforestation," lead researcher Mikaela Weisse, Global Forest Watch project manager at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told AFP.
If second-growth forests and plantations are included, the total area of tropical forest levelled by fire and bulldozers worldwide in 2019 was in fact three times bigger.
But virgin rainforests, as they were once known, are especially precious.
AFP / Patricio ARANABrazil accounted for more than a third of the loss
Undisturbed by modern development, they harbour the richest diversity of wildlife on Earth, and keep huge stores of carbon locked in their woody mass.
When set ablaze, that carbon escapes into the atmosphere as planet-warming CO2.
"It will take decades or even centuries for these forests to get back to their original state" -- assuming, of course, that the land they once covered is left undisturbed, Weisse said.
The forest fires that engulfed parts of Brazil last year made front-page news as the climate crisis loomed large in the public eye. but were not the main cause of Brazil's loss of primary forest, the data showed.
Satellite images revealed many new "hot spots" of forest destruction. In the state of Para, for example, these fire-ravaged zones corresponded to reports of illegal land-grabs inside the Trincheira/Bacaja indigenous reserve.
- Rare bright spot -
And that was before President Jair Bolsonaro's government proposed legislation that would relax restrictions within these nominally protected regions on commercial mining, oil and gas extraction, and large-scale agriculture -- all of which could make such incursions even more common.
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at WRI, said this is not only unjust for the people who have lived in Brazil's rainforests for uncounted generations, but also bad management.
AFP/File / Raul ARBOLEDAA Colombian Huitoto indigenous man. A mounting body of evidence suggests that legal recognition of indigenous land rights provides greater forest protection
"We know that deforestation is lower in indigenous territories," she said. "A mounting body of evidence suggests that legal recognition of indigenous land rights provides greater forest protection."
The coronavirus pandemic could also make things worse, not just in Brazil -- which has been hit especially hard by COVID-19 -- but anywhere it saps the already anaemic enforcement capacities of tropical forest nations.
"Anecdotal reports of increased levels of illegal logging, mining, poaching and other forest crimes are streaming in from all over the world," Seymour noted.
Neighbouring Bolivia saw unprecedented tree-cover loss in 2019 -- 80 percent higher than any year on record -- due to fires, both within primary forests and surrounding woodlands.
Soy production and cattle ranching were the two main drivers.
Australia was devastated last year by wildfires that caused dozens of deaths, destroyed thousands of homes and killed hundreds of millions of animals.
The area of tree cover lost to the blazes increased six-fold compared to the year before, and was by far the largest ever recorded.
"We will probably see a high level of loss in 2020 since some of the fires were still raging" well into the new year, Weisse said.
Indonesia, meanwhile, showed a five percent drop in the area of forest -- 3,240 sq km -- destroyed in 2019, the third consecutive year of decline, and nearly three times less than in the peak year 2016.
AFP/File / Simon MALFATTOThe planet lost 24 million hectares in forest cover in 2019
"Indonesia has been one of the few bright spots in the global data on tropical deforestation over the last few years," Seymour and two colleagues wrote in a recent blog post.
Tropical ecosystems are vulnerable to both climate change and extractive exploitation.
A study in March calculated that the Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold of deforestation which, once crossed, would see it morph into arid savannah within half a century.
The other countries with the most severe losses of primary forests in 2019 were Peru (1,620 sq km), Malaysia (1,200 sq km), and Colombia (1,150 sq km), followed by Laos, Mexico and Cambodia, all with less than 800 sq km.