LUIZ SUGIMOTO The socioeconomic impact will also be great The social liability foreseen in the EIA/Rima is 689 affected families but the coordinator argues that many have already sold their properties in all the years in which the dam was considered “Another aspect not considered is investments in public policies a health center or pave a street if that community is going to be flooded?” these plants generate around 270.000 kilowatts energy that goes through transmission lines to the CBA foundry in the city called Alumínio the plants in Vale do Ribeira are enough to supply a smelter with 90 thousand tons of aluminum per year CBA needs to capture most of the energy it consumes from other sources” that the company has inventoried a total of 25 plants in the Ribeira basin Top Volume 6 - 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2018.00025 The Cananéia-Iguape system is a combined estuarine-lagoonal sedimentary system It consists of a network of channels and islands oriented mainly parallel to the coast was opened in the northern part of this system to connect a major river of the region The Valo Grande was closed with a dam and re-opened twice between 1978 and 1995 These openings and closures of the Valo Grande had a significant influence on the Cananéia-Iguape system and geochronological data from a sediment core collected at the southern end of the 50 km long lagoonal system showing how the phases of the opening and closure of the channel through time are expressed in the sedimentary record Despite the homogeneity of the grain size and magnetic properties throughout the core significant variations in the mineralogical composition showed the influence of the opening of the channel on the sediment supply with lower quartz and halite and higher kaolinite corresponded to periods when the Valo Grande was open as well as the disappearance of other detrital minerals corresponded with periods of absence or closure of the channel indicating a more sea-influenced depositional setting This work represented an example of anthropogenic influence in a lagoonal-estuarine sedimentary system which is a common context along the coast of Brazil Figure 2. Geologic map of the Cananéia Alkaline Massif area (adapted from Riccomini, 1995 with permission) The core was collected on the southern end of the lagoon This location receives sediment from all the different inputs into the sedimentary system and thus is ideal to assess the extension and the intensity of the disturbances created by the opening of the channel The core CAN-N01 was collected using a gravity corer at −25.023831 The core is 137 cm long with a 7.5 cm of diameter and was sampled each 2.5 cm Samples of the local bedrock, the Cananéia Alkaline Massif, forming the São João hill, were collected from an outcrop at −25.026223, −47.923203. The collection sites are shown in Figure 3 (B) outcrop of São Jõao hill All the measurements for this study were performed in the laboratories at the Institute of Oceanography of the University of São Paulo The samples and parameters analyzed are listed below The samples were collected continuously along the core with 5 cm spacing Carbonate constituents were removed with a 10% HCl solution in a beaker over a hot plate at 80°C put inside an extraction hood while stirring hourly and adding more solution as it saturated the samples were the washed at least twice and dried in an oven at a temperature of above 60°C for approximately 24 h Organic matter was removed with a 10% H-peroxide solution in a beaker over a hot plate until the solution became colorless and changing the solution every 2 days the samples were washed at least twice with distilled water Grain sizes of 27 samples were determined using a Malvern Mastersizer-2000 Laser analyzer® In order to study in detail the magnetic properties of the core a U-channel sample spanning the entire length of core (137 cm) was collected Discrete oriented samples in cylindrical plastic boxes were also collected every 2.5 cm in order to isolate the characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) Different rock magnetic measurements were performed to characterize the magnetic mineralogy of the core Mass-dependent magnetic susceptibility was determined on discrete samples using an Agico KF1 Kappabridge In order to perform the measurements with the 2G Cryogenic Magnetometer we used the Laboratory of Paleomagnetism of the Institute of Astronomy Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of São Paulo The results, presented using the Particle Size Distribution (PSZ) (Figure 4) showed high concentrations of fine and very fine sand (respectively on average 45.2 and 32.7%) No significant variations in grain size are observable throughout the core Distribution of grain size in core CAN-N-01 profile The nutrients concentrations in pore waters are shown in Figure 5 Distribution profiles of dissolved nutrient concentrations in pore-waters: (A) N-Ammonium Concentration of N- ammonium ranged from 685 to 3,282 μmol L−1. The values showed an increasing trend downcore, except from a value at 90 cm that decreased to 757 μmol L−1 (Figure 5A) Phosphate concentration ranged from 104,6 to 291,7 μmol L−1. The values showed an increasing trend downcore except at 20 cm that dropped from 170,3 to 104,6 μmol L−1, and at 120 cm that dropped to 177,3 (Figure 5B) Silicate values ranged from 640.2 to 836.2 μmol L−1, with irregular distribution (Figure 5C) the vast majority of the samples showed a particular pattern in the variation of intensity of the NRM suggesting that the sample had acquired gyroremanence (GRM) The presence of an early gyroremanence precluded the study of the behavior of the sample at higher alternating fields The PCA analysis showed that the ChRM always had negative inclinations, as expected, with mean inclination of −37.2° (α95 of 1.6°), (Figure 6) that is perfectly in agreement with the expected value of −37.9° for the locality (as calculated with the Model WMM integrated between the years 2012 and 2014) Distribution of paleomagnetism data for core CAN-N-01 A secondary component was recognizable at low demagnetization fields and was interpreted as a viscous remanent magnetization (VRM) carried by a very low-coercivity mineral The results of the environmental magnetic studies are summarized in Figure 6 The various parameters show little to no features with almost constant values along the core A few positive peaks in NRM and ARM can be interpreted as an increase in the relative abundance of magnetic minerals while negative peaks can be interpreted as a decrease S-Ratios give information about the relative concentration of high and low (for S-Ratio300) and middle and low (S-Ratio100) coercivity minerals with almost constant values close to 1 for the S-Ratio300 and 0.4 for the S-Ratio100 throughout the core with only a slight increase in the interval between 80 and 90 cm The HIRMs curves also show almost no variation with only some minor variations at 40 and 75 cm that should represent small fluctuations in the abundance of high coercivity minerals Model CIC was applied to the vertical profile of 210Pb (Figure 7) and the calculated sedimentation rate was 0.43 ± 0.02 cm yr−1 p < 0.05) shows that the sedimentation rate underwent little variations within the core it was limited to the 8–12 cm of the core and it is not statistically significant to the overall calculation given the fit quality obtained from the statistical parameters presented above this result is supported by the vertical distribution of 137Cs which estimates a mean sedimentation rate of 0.39 ± 0.02 cm yr−1 for the first 40 cm of the core based on its horizon of maximum activity (corresponding to the nuclear fallout maximum of 1963 from past atomic tests) Vertical distribution of 210xsPb and 137Cs for core CAN-N-01 estimating a deposition year of 1920 for the 40-cm-deep layer of the core Given that it was not observed evident changes in the sedimentation rate within the core the age model created with the CIC model was extrapolated throughout the entire core XRD analysis of the sediment core revealed three main mineralogical assemblages: (i) quartz around 99% and halite; (ii) quartz around 80%, and a minor fraction dominated by brucite; (iii) quartz between 60 and 80%, and a minor fraction dominated by kaolinite (Figure 8) Mineralogical distribution for core CAN-N-01: concentration of quartz on the right side and minor mineral fraction on the left side Minor mineral abundances are expressed as normalized respect to quartz The interval from the top of the core to 65 cm depth is dominated by the mineralogical assemblages (ii) and (iii), with lower quartz content. Only a brief interval, between 15 and 22.5 cm, is dominated by the assemblage (i). Down-core, quartz content increases and below 95 cm it reaches the abundance of 97% or higher, with only halite as a minor mineral fraction. The XRD analysis of the bedrock samples yielded the results shown in Table 1 Mineralogical composition of the bedrock samples Our results are in agreement with previous studies on the bedrock in this area, which found intrusive rocks, saturated or oversaturated in silica, with Na-feldspar more abundant than K-feldspar (Spinelli and Gomes, 2009) The core was collected close to where the water outflows from the lagoon to the sea in a moderate energy environment mainly controlled by the currents flowing parallel to the coast In this context the lack of significant grain size variations along the core indicates that the energy of the system remained constant during the deposition of the entire interval and therefore the changes observed in the mineralogical assemblages must be related to the sediment supply the opening of the Valo Grande channel in 1852 should have occurred at 70 cm depth its closure with the construction of the dam in 1978 at 16 cm and the re-opening of the channel in 1983 at 13 cm The results of the environmental magnetic studies showed almost constant values along the core The positive correlation between ARM and IRM peaks and the magnetic grain size suggested that the variation in concentration of magnetic minerals was accompanied by variations in the relative magnetic grain size with a general trend of bigger grain size during periods of low concentration and vice-versa S-Ratio curves showed that the most predominant magnetic minerals are of low to middle coercivity, probably low-Ti magnetite (Ozima and Larson, 1970) and HIRMs curves could represent an increase of fine grained magnetite crystals in the sediment comparable with the features found in sediments from Mamangua (RJ that were interpreted as the presence of living magnetotactic bacteria producing biogenic magnetite (Rodelli et al. Major mineral concentrations and pore water results over time for core CAN-N-01 Dating before 1850 has been extrapolated from the sedimentation rate (1) Period before the construction of the Valo Grande channel; (2) Period during the construction of the Valo Grande channel; (3) Period during which the Valo Grande channel was completely open; (4) Period of the closure of the Valo Grande channel with a dam; (5) Period after the destruction of the dam and complete re-opening of the Valo Grande channel Mineralogical analyses show that halite and quartz have similar trends throughout the core, with maximum values corresponding to the periods when the Valo Grande channel was closed and decreasing when it was open (Figure 9) Their abundances have a marked increase between 15 and 22.5 cm where the first type of mineralogical assemblage replaces the others an alternation between the mineralogical assemblages (ii) and (iii) dominates from the top to the depth of 67.5 cm where quartz content begins to increase and the first type of mineralogical assemblage becomes more frequent Mineralogical assemblage (i) predominates from the depth of 90 cm down-core Halite can precipitate only from highly saline seawater therefore its presence indicates the absence of riverine input that freshens the water during the periods of absence or closure of the Valo Grande (between 1978 and 1983 and before 1827) the Ribeira River entered in the sea more northwards and did not supply significant amount of sediment to the Cananéia–Iguape aquatic environment The mineralogical composition of the sediment core indicates that during the time when the Valo Grande was opened the sediments were characterized by lower quartz content and significant amounts of kaolinite which corresponds also to a slight increase in detrital magnetite estimated from environmental magnetic analyses These minerals may have come from the alteration and erosion of the metamorphic basement forming most of the bedrock of the region and transported there by the opening of the Valo Grande before the construction of the Valo Grande and during its closure the sedimentary supply into the lagoon was controlled by sea currents which delivered more mature sediments composed mainly by quartz Our data shows that the sedimentary input into the lagoon changed during the last 165 years in response to the openings and closures of the Valo Grande channel These variations are well displayed by the mineralogical assemblages despite the homogenous grain size and environmental magnetic parameters and pore waters profiles of a sedimentary core from the southern portion of the estuarine-lagoonal system Despite the homogeneity of the grain size throughout the approximately 300 years interval significant variations in the mineralogical composition of the non-quartz material revealed the influence of the opening of the channel on the sediment supply in the downstream part of the lagoon A sediment composition presenting lower quartz and halite and higher kaolinite and franklinite corresponded to periods of freshwater intrusion into the lagoon due to the opening of the Valo Grande channel High abundance of quartz and halite and the disappearance of the detrital minerals corresponded with prolonged periods of channel closure and a more sea-influenced setting both before the opening of the Valo and during its following closures These results are corroborated also by pore water dissolved nutrients As estuarine-lagoonal sedimentary systems are rather common along the coast of Brazil the case presented in this study could have several analogs in still less studied settings interpretation of the data and writing of the manuscript; LJ: Magnetic properties editing of the manuscript; PA: Geochronology editing of the manuscript; RL: Geochronology editing of the manuscript; DR: Magnetic properties editing of the manuscript; GB: Pore waters editing of the manuscript; EB: Pore waters Financial Support was provided by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo the PhD program of the Instituto Oceanográfico da Universidade de São Paulo and the fellowship of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest industry and sewage on the phosphorus geochemistry of a subtropical estuary in Brazil Circulação e Transporte de sal: Barra de Cananéia Sul do mar de Cananéia e Baía do Trapandé Estimativa da descarga de água doce no sistema estuarino-lagunar de Cananéia-Iguape Google Scholar Eutrophication and bacterial pollution caused by industrial and domestic wastes at the Baixada Santista Estuarine System–Brazil A evolução Geológica Quaternária ea Influência do Valo Grande na Dinâmica sEDIMENTAR da Área de Iguape “Wellsite Mineralogical Data Acquisition; 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Flaminia Cornaggia, ZmxhbWluaWEuY29ybmFnZ2lhQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ== †Present Address: Luciano Alessandretti Universidade Federal de Uberlândia Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish The dates displayed for an article provide information on when various publication milestones were reached at the journal that has published the article activities on preceding journals at which the article was previously under consideration are not shown (for instance submission Science of the Total EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :These metals have different anthropogenic sources such as old mining activities; even after the closure of such mines these sites have continued to release mainly Cu and Pb into the water and sediment (Water – Pb: 0.38–0.59 nmol L−1/Sediment – Cu: 0.94–35.97 mg kg−1 Highest levels of trace elements such as Pb and Zn have also been found in sediment of the northern region of CIELC (Northern – Pb: 0.43 mg g−1 Zn: 137.7 mg g−1/Southern - Pb: 0.25 mg g−1 and Zn bioaccumulation has already been observed in catfish C Coastal and Shelf ScienceCitation Excerpt :Another anthropogenic activity is the industrial and domestic discharge which is usually linked with the occurrences HABs and abnormal elevated DOM concentrations these pollution sources have multiple negative effects on coastal and marine ecosystems (ArandaCirerol et al. The North Arabian (Persian) Gulf (NAG) is one of such marine ecosystems experiencing multiple environmental stressors that have degraded its water quality All content on this site: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. Quilombola communities in São Paulo are hit by floods on the Ribeira de Iguape River telegram Join our Telegram channel! telegram Municipalities in the São Paulo region of Vale do Ribeira are in a state of attention due to the intense and continuous rains that have been occurring since the state of Paraná and have caused a rapid increase in the flow of the Ribeira de Iguape River the quilombola communities of Eldorado and Iporanga are already suffering from flooding houses were hit and the population had to retreat to shelters in search of protection City Hall declared a state of emergency last Sunday due to flooding and roads closed due to landslides Itaóca and Apiaí already have impassable sections and are a concern for the population prevented from traveling due to strong currents families hurriedly removed their belongings from home to stay at the Community Center “We need to take these people to a safe place so that they do not have any harm in their lives” reports the head of the Quilombola Brigade reports that four families in the territory had to leave their homes during the early hours of the morning and were rescued by boat by their neighbors He also highlights that land access to the community is unfeasible the municipality of Eldorado redoubles its attention The course of the river that bathes the city adds rainfall on Monday morning (30/10) the City Hall issued a statement informing that an increase in the level of the Ribeira de Iguape River in the municipality was still expected The situation is worrying because the overflow point - the measure at which the river overflows - of the Ribeira de Iguape River in Eldorado is six meters above according to monitoring by the São Paulo Flood Alert System (Saisp) the population living in regions closest to the banks of the river or other lower-lying locations are aware of the possibility of flooding reports that he spent the night between Sunday and Monday on vigil monitoring the speed of the river's rise near his home “I have a son who is two years and seven months old In the morning it dropped about 15 centimeters I vacated part of the house as a precaution.” Cícero also says that plantations throughout the community were affected And although they are protecting themselves due to the flood spent the morning monitoring the rise of the river which was close to entering the house | Cícero dos Santos/Quilombo Sapatu Lorrayne Silva is a law intern at the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) in Vale do Ribeira “considering that the flood tends to increase at night and/or early in the morning” as stated in the report from Eldorado City Hall everyone in her community will be affected Technical advisor to ISA's Vale do Ribeira Program Raquel Pasinato reinforces the fear of the region's population regarding the floods of the Ribeira de Iguape River in which the Ribeira rises to the point of flooding cities and bordering territories are greatly feared by the population and happen from time to time We had the last biggest ones in 1997 and 2011,” she recalls residents of Vale do Ribeira have faced the consequences of climate extremes and how they have a more severe impact on those in the most fragile conditions to face them the risk of rain in the headwaters is greater in the summer So there is a probability that climate deregulation is actually changing the volume of rainfall and its timing And this is a point of attention so that the municipalities that are in the Ribeira de Iguape Basin and already have a history of these major floods begin to prepare to welcome the population to improve the conditions of riparian forests in the Ribeira which has a large part of its banks occupied by large-scale monoculture banana plantations Although the weather was cold on Monday morning (30) the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) issued a yellow alert for the region until Tuesday (31) due to the forecast of storms the total volume of rain can reach 50 millimeters (mm) in 24 hours The most relevant news for you to form your opinion on the socio-environmental agenda LAST ISSUE It’s when we used to wake up to cast our net on the river,” Adan Pereira says “The hard part was to play odds and evens to see who’d get in the water But I’d feel sorry for my father and do it.” and we’ve just boarded a boat to cross the Ribeira de Iguape River in Brazil’s São Paulo state and the wind blows a brisk 9° Celsius (48° Fahrenheit) on this early winter morning We’re headed to where Adnan and his father farm the left bank of the Ribeiro de Iguape Along with other members of their quilombo they produce mainly bananas and palm hearts a farmer for whom the weather is never bad Dew drops glitter as the silvery moonlight hits the banana grove A wood stove soon crackles into life: coffee and it has been passed on from generation to generation,” he says In 2018, the Traditional Quilombola Agricultural System (TQAS) of the Ribeira Valley was declared a practice of “intangible cultural heritage” of Brazil by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN) A legacy of the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans who occupied the Ribeira Valley this form of Itinerant agricultural system is an ancient farming system practiced by traditional populations in tropical forests thereby combining production with conservation Many people say that this burning degrades the soil There are several studies proving that it doesn’t burn all the nutrients.” While it’s often considered controversial and requires adaptations in times of climate change partial and controlled burning of the land helps boost the potassium as well as the accumulation of organic carbon which is a fertilizer for tropical forests soils that are often poor in nutrients Then they move on to a new plot and leave the old one to regenerate into forest This type of farming comprises the basis of the knowledge of the Ribeira Valley quilombolas they’ve derived their practices of crop management and diversity The form of TQAS practiced here in the Ribeira Valley includes observing the phases of the moon to start planting “It’s always three days before waning or on the first day,” Adan says If you plant the seed during the waning moon Everything is based on a tradition and a reason In the back of the four-wheel-drive truck sit a scythe hangs the basket made of braided straw on her back As she heads off up a trail that’s just as steep the sun warms the hills in this patch of Atlantic Forest and the bodies swathed in coats so you can’t use tractors,” says João da Mota a farmer who accompanies us along the trail from the Nhunguara quilombo to Rosana’s patch of land “These products have been important to us since our elders’ time They used to plant all this diversity for their own consumption,” says Rosana the elders already planted sweet potatoes to feed the little babies My father always said that when a woman got pregnant she had to have sweet potatoes right away; it was the babies’ food Potatoes and yams are daily staples for Rosana, who also serves as the financial officer for the Quilombola Farmers Cooperative of the Ribeira Valley (Cooperquivale) She shows off the diversity of sweet potatoes that grow in her soil: “They took advantage of the goodness of the land; they branched out a lot,” she says Most of the food consumed in the communities is produced by the quilombolas themselves but birds came and ate much of it,” Rosana says “The weather didn’t help either and the corn didn’t yield what we expected.” but we had no place to sell it,” Rosana says Then we thought about creating the cooperative.” Cooperquivale sells the surplus production of 19 quilombola communities and has more than 240 members It sells around 80 types of food items to government programs at a weekly fair in the municipality of Eldorado and at trade agencies and projects in the city of São Paulo we see an abundance of tangerine and lemon The ground is scattered with the fallen fruits She talks about the need to expand sales opportunities including participation in government schemes such as the Food Acquisition Program (PAA-DS) under the Simultaneous Donation system and the National School Meal Program (PNAE) “We wanted the authorities and public policies to consider that we were small farmers but we could produce and put our produce on the table for them too Adan shows the diversity of his crops in the Sapatu quilombo yam and jacataúva (Citharexylum myrianthum) It will return the organic matter to the soil and there will be diversity.” We fly a drone up over the Ribeira de Iguape River it’s possible to see the greenery described in the numbers: With about 80% of forest coverage this region is home to Brazil’s largest contiguous remnant of the Atlantic Forest accounting for a fifth of the 7% of the biome that remains which connects the southwest of São Paulo state with the northeast of Paraná covers more than 2 million hectares (5 million acres) and is home to more than 80 quilombos “They have been working in the fields and then leaving them fallow since the time of my great-grandfather — that’s amazing!” Adan says “Look at it now: Sapatu has 90% of its territory preserved All we need to have a good life is 2 or 3 hectares [5-7 acres] of well-tended crops a well-planted little grove for palm hearts and then know how to sell it — for example through the cooperative that knows how to distribute it.” Quilombolas like Adan’s forebears had been working in the Ribeira Valley for hundreds of years when the government began to see their activities as deforestation they were required to obtain environmental licenses to plant on land that had always been theirs The process was long: a license request submitted in January might only be issued in December the right time to plant the crops had passed,” Rosana says In another move restricting the quilombolas’ farming practices the government in 2008 established an environmental protection area part of a mosaic of 14 such areas conserving a continuous stretch of Atlantic Forest remnants Both the Nhunguara and Sapatu quilombos are located within the environmental protection area That has effectively hobbled the quilombolas and their farming practices an educator and public advocate at the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples “Everything has happened in this period: licensed plantations lack of technical assistance to cultivate crops “instead of helping to safeguard traditional [land] management the environmental protection area may undermine this system.” In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the looming risk of food insecurity the quilombolas enacted a resolution in 2020 after years of struggle It allowed them to plant first and then seek validation with the authorities afterward The resolution will run until the end of this year Indigenous and quilombola lands are particularly effective at promoting regrowth of degraded areas “From a national and international point of view conservation units are less efficient for environmental conservation than territories of traditional peoples and communities,” Prioste says Nurit Bensusan, a biologist with the ISA who has written extensively about environmental policy in Brazil calls the conservation unit model a colonial holdover “Everyone here cuts down the Atlantic Forest everyone destroys the Atlantic Forest to build beachfront hotels and people think it’s great,” she says “But the quilombolas are seen as backward rather than as those whose way of life has preserved the most important fragments of the Atlantic Forest.” In addition to the quilombolas’ struggle to continue practicing their traditional farming system and obtain titles to their land it took them 28 years of opposition to the construction of the Tijuco Alto dam before its license was denied in 2016 which would have been developed by Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA) to power its nearby aluminum plant would have flooded an area of 5,600 hectares (13,800 acres) where 580 families live Maria Tereza Vieira says collecting seeds changes the way people look at things — starting with children thought I was buying them,” says Maria Tereza I never said no to those kids; I always found a way calculated the price and paid them with my money That network is the Ribeira Valley Seed Network which started in 2017 as an effort to safeguard the seeds of the native Atlantic Forest vegetation and sell them to tree nurseries and restoration projects 42 collectors from four quilombos take part they gathered 1,400 kilograms (3,100 pounds) of seeds or around 2,900 reais ($540) for each collector “This changed the way we think and made us value nature even more,” Maria Tereza says they’ve sold more than 100 species of seeds enough to reforest more than 40 hectares (100 acres) of degraded Atlantic Forest areas the seeds stored at the ISA headquarters in Eldorado moved to a new home: The Seed House in the Nhunguara quilombo Made of packed earth with gravel from the Ribeira do Iguape River its walls are 40 centimeters (16 inches) wide and help to preserve the seeds and seedlings On the shelves sit various ipê hardwoods (Handroanthus spp.) goat’s eyes (Ormosia arborea) and a great diversity of other plants I can only identify the seeds of the guapuruvu (Schizolobium parahyba) a fast-growing tree that can grow to 30 meters (100 feet) and stands out for the yellow flowers on its crown “I really enjoy working with this,” Maria Tereza says “It doesn’t matter if tomorrow or the day after I’m not here — with so much forest and in the midst of so many seeds Adan invites us to sit on a bench with a prime view of the Ribeira de Iguape “Our mother says it’s wrong to watch TV while eating pointing to the riverfront panorama unfolding in front of us The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] Three-dimensional renderization made from the tomography of Luzio's cranium an approximately 10,000 years fossil found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley Cranial morphology is similar to that of Luzia the oldest human fossil found to date in South America reason why the researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians The study published today refuted that hypothesis (image: André Strauss/MAE-USP An investigation covering four different parts of Brazil carried out analysis of genomic data from 34 fossils including larger skeletons and the famous mounds of shells and fishbones built on the coast and revealed differences between communities An article on the study is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution By Julia Moióli  |  Agência FAPESP – An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil) was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples Based on the largest set of Brazilian archeological genomic data the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities who built the icons of Brazilian archeology known as sambaquis huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings Archeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens “After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss an archeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast The fossils were at least 10,000 years old They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago “Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago If there was another population here 30,000 years ago it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said Luzio’s DNA also answered another question River middens are different from coastal ones so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations – into the hinterland and along the coast Analysis of the genetic material revealed heterogeneous communities with cultural similarities but significant biological differences especially between coastal communities in the southeast and south “Studies of cranial morphology conducted in the 2000s had already pointed to a subtle difference between these communities and our genetic analysis confirmed it,” Strauss said “We discovered that one of the reasons was that these coastal populations weren’t isolated but ‘swapped genes’ with inland communities this process must have contributed to the regional differences between sambaquis.” Regarding the mysterious disappearance of this coastal civilization comprising the first hunter-gatherers of the Holocene analysis of the DNA samples clearly showed that in contrast with the European Neolithic substitution of entire populations what happened in this part of the world was a change of practices with a decline in construction of shell middens and the introduction of pottery by sambaqui builders the genetic material found at Galheta IV (Santa Catarina state) has remains not of shells but of ceramics and is similar to the classic sambaquis in this respect “This information is compatible with a 2014 study that analyzed pottery shards from sambaquis and found that the pots in question were used to cook not domesticated vegetables but fish They appropriated technology from the hinterland to process food that was already traditional there,” Strauss said The article “Genomic history of coastal societies from Eastern South America” is at: doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02114-9 Science of the Total EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :The Total n-Alk concentration ranged from 0.17 to 1.67 μg g−1 (mean = 0.74 ± 0.42) considering the five-sediment cores studied (n = 50) These levels are considered low when compared to samples from petroleum-polluted sites and urbanized coastal areas (e.g. 2019) and are similar to those found in unpolluted or pristine sediments (e.g. Sediments from Demay Point presented the relative higher mean concentrations of Total n-Alk (DEM: 1.28 ± 0.21 μg g−1) followed by Botany Point (BTP: 0.70 ± 0.37 μg g−1) Marine Pollution BulletinCitation Excerpt :The relative concentrations of parent and alkyl-PAHs can be used to distinguish their origin (Yunker et al. The diagnostic ratios for identifying sources of PAHs (petrogenic and diagenetic) are well established for sediment (Yunker et al. 2002) and there are also some studies that assess the origin of PAHs in organisms such as bivalves and fish (Huckins et al. this literature review showed that the use of diagnostic ratios for PAHs source identification in mammals is incipient but also because these processes rates are most likely different among the compounds (Neff