In Brazil, an oil disaster 10 years ago struck an ecosystem much like the mangrove swamps in the US now being threatened by the giant BP oil leak in the US Gulf of Mexico.

More than 1.3 million litres of oil leaked from an underwater pipeline run by Brazilian oil giant Petrobras in 2000, making it the country's largest spill.

The oil contaminated the waters of Guanabara Bay outside Rio de Janeiro, an area which the government at the time said would recover after 10 years.

But today the once green mangrove bay area only has thick black mud and no life left in the soil.

Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo reports.