Ok so this isn’t strictly related to forestry but let’s face it, this is interesting!
The ongoing saga of the new Amazon dam has finally come to an end with President Luiz Lula da Silva signing the contract for the Belo Monte dam with the Norte Energia consortium.
The 11,000 MW dam will become the world’s third [...]
I was researching alternative assets classes that not only could perform as well as the stock market but also provide good diversification opportunities as well as passive income possibility. One asset class which seems a little overlooked is timber. According to several sources, investing in timber has beaten the stock market by 4 percentage points [...]
A steel mill being built by 30,000 people and costing an astounding $8.2 billion is being announced at Brazil’s biggest private sector investment for 15 years. It is expected that this mill alone will boost Brazil’s annual steel exports by over 40%.
This is yet another electoral boost for President Lula, who was at Santa Cruz, [...]
Brazil’s Labour Ministry said on Monday that Brazil’s economy had added more payroll jobs in May than expected and a record number of payroll jobs were expected to be added in June.
In total the number of payroll jobs added in May come to 298,041, which is the fifth straight month of increases and is a [...]
Environment ministers of the Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) bloc met in Cape Town last month to look at how to fast track a deal to curb global warming. This group of developing countries are among the world’s fastest growing carbon emitters and according to them a legally binding global agreement to limit [...]
It is widely agreed that the REDD payment mechanisms could halve forest destruction in the Amazon. What is not so well publicised is that the majority of the money set aside to conserve the forests would be going to the region’s wealthiest landholders.
These landholders are responsible for 80% of the deforestation still going on in [...]
A UN top climate official has said that governments must acknowledge that the UN’s Kyoto Protocol for fighting climate change is in danger of falling apart since no agreement has been forthcoming regarding a successor treaty.
After the UN summit in Copenhagen last year fell short of reaching a binding accord it is likely that the [...]
Given the strong prospects for economic and corporate earnings growth the Latin American equity market continues to offer good investment value even though the region is not longer at bargin basement levels.
According to Dean Newman the head of emerging market equities at Invesco Perpetual, Brazil and Columbia off the most stable economic and political frameworks.
The [...]
For some such as Canfor Corp the economic downturn that significantly reduced the US demand for Canadian lumber has had an upside. Instead of wallowing in the doldrums Canfor Corp turned their attention to Asia and during the first quarter discovered ‘exponential growth’.
“There so many opportunities in China, it’s really a stretch of the imagination,” [...]
Over 70 people have been arrested in Brazil in a crackdown on illegal loggers in the Amazon. The arrests followed a two year investigation in six Brazilian states and police estimate that the illegal logging operation had caused damage costing up to $500 million.
Of those arrested several were officials employed to protect the rainforest. These [...]
On Tuesday environment ministers said that the highest octane political gathering on climate change since the Copenhagen summit has helped restore trust but delivered no notable breakthroughs.
“The ice is broken,” Germany’s Norbert Roettgen told journalists as the two-and-a-half day brainstorming session outside Bonn ended. “This meeting was a very important contribution to building trust and [...]
The World Bank is so concerned about the lack of forests remaining in the small country of Armenia that they have warned that it could one day become a desert.
The loss of the country’s forests can be traced back to their energy crisis in the early 1990s. Since then the Massachusetts based Armenian Tree Project [...]
Investor interest in forestry is building. This trend is being driven by the growing market for forestry products and climate change concerns, which has the world looking towards sustainable fuels.
Biomass is beginning to be favoured as a sustainable energy source by climate change politics and legislation. Addressing deforestation is being prioritised and in addition pension [...]
For the first time since 2008 the Central Bank has raised interest rates and against a back drop of the developed world frantically trying to fend off a wave of sovereign debt defaults in Europe. The real GDP growth is at its best performance since 1986, having reached 6% and forecasts are predicting it could [...]
During an interview published last Monday, chief executive Benjamin Steinbruch said that Brazilian integrated steelmaker CSN is planning to invest R$34 billion in its operations in 2016.
According to Steinbruch approximately 80% of the planned investments will be allocated in the steel and iron ore areas, clearly news which Greenwood Management, the sponsors of this blog [...]
Like a debutante out for the first time Latin America finds itself surrounded by many suitors. Recently China’s Hu Jintao and Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev have been paying court to Latin America with the US as ever a constant presence.
With so many countries vying for its commodities and friendship Latin America is now one of the [...]
During his presidency Lula has driven Latin America’s biggest economy from the edge of default and transformed the nation of 193 million into an emerging financial power.
In 2009 the Brazilian real reached 33%, which was the biggest net gain among the world’s 16 most actively traded currencies. In March annual inflation dropped from 14.5% when [...]
The state of Tocantins has the advantage of having the highest rate of growth in Brazil, which a company representative called to the attention of Eucatex when he came to look over the potential and productive conditions of the region.
Eucatex is the leading manufacturer of products for the construction industry and owns one of the [...]
Brazil has been attracting a lot of attention lately from major multinationals who want to ride the wave of Brazil’s economic boom that has been fuelled by oil and agriculture. They are attracted to Brazil’s stable, growing, middle-class and increasingly IT-literate workforce.
Still it did come as a surprise when Goldman Sachs introduced Brazil into the [...]
From 1983 up until a few years ago the Bhutanese bragged about having over 72.5% of its land under forest cover. It wasn’t until 2005 that the forestry department’s updated figure showed that figure to have suddenly dropped to 64.35% and in the process causing a few eyebrows to rise during their annual forestry conference.
The [...]
