0 Amazon's extinction debt still to be paid

Current species losses are just the tip of the iceberg. Helen Thompson 12 July 2012 The vast majority of species extinctions in the Brazilian Amazon are yet to come, predicts a paper published in Science*. Deforestation has declined to record lows in recent years, and just over 50% of Brazil’s rainforest now falls under some form of protected status. But the effects of habitat loss take time to manifest. “Cutting down trees doesn’t kill a bird directly. It takes a lot of time for those birds to actually die. They’re all crammed into the habitat that’s left. Then gradually you’ll have this increased mortality,” says Robert...