Today we get this piece from The Independent. (Pictures and captions from Greenpeace).

A small stream runs through what was once a huge lake. In an area used to ample rainfall a drought as severe as this in the Amazon basin is having dramatic and devastating effects on the wildlife and people of this unique region. The mighty Amazon River is being reduced to a trickle in places, grinding the entire region to a halt. The people of the Amazon rely on the river and its many tributaries for everything from food to transportation.

And new studies are a major slap in the face to George Bush and his Administration's "Healthy Forests Initiative", a government program that used America's tragic fires of 2002 as an excuse to rape this country's forests and reward corporate logging companies for their generous donations.

"Logged forests are areas of extraordinary damage. A tree crown can be 25 meters. When you knock down a tree it causes a lot of damage in the understory. It's a debris field down there," he said.

Studies of area subjected to selective logging have revealed that light penetrates to the understory and dries out the forest floor, making it vulnerable to fires.

Full post @daily kos