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New illegal logging threatens Liberia’s forests amid vague ban
- Large-scale commercial operators are evading Liberian forestry regulations by illegally processing wood destined for export on-site in forests.
- Timber milled in forests with chainsaws is legally restricted to the production of boards by artisanal loggers for sale on the domestic market, but reporting by Liberian newspaper The Daylight and research by U.S.-based NGO Forest Trends has found large-scale operators producing thicker blocks of high-value wood for export.
- Chainsaw-milled timber isn’t entered into the country’s timber-tracking system, meaning producers can evade sustainable forestry regulations as well as taxes and benefits due to local communities.
- The country’s Forestry Development Authority says it has banned production of this type of timber, but campaigners say it has done little to publicize the ban or prevent traffickers from exploiting this loophole.
Liberia puts a wartime logger in charge of its forests
- In February, Liberia’s newly inaugurated president, Joseph Boakai, appointed timber lobbyist Rudolph Merab to head the country’s Forestry Development Authority.
- Merab has been a fixture in Liberia’s logging industry for decades, and was the co-owner of a company that operated on the Sierra Leonean border during the region’s civil wars.
- Environmental advocates describe Merab as an opponent of community forestry and donor-driven conservation projects.
- Merab’s predecessor as head of the Forestry Development Authority, Mike Doryen, was controversial, with the FDA marred by allegations of corruption and mismanagement under his watch.
In Cambodia, an official’s cashew factory churns out timber from a protected forest
- A senior Cambodian official notorious for illegal logging appears to be carving out a vast swath of forest in what’s supposed to be a protected area in the country’s north.
- Satellite imagery suggests some 3,100 hectares (7,700 acres) of protected forest could be lost in a concession that activists and anonymous officials say has been awarded to a company led by Ouk Kimsan.
- Kimsan, who’s also the deputy governor of Preah Vihear province, denied owning a concession inside Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary — despite his company stating the opposite on its website.
- Community activists, who manage a slice of the protected area, say their complaints about illegal logging have been ignored by the provincial government, and blame a culture of corruption.
Pakistan bucks global trend with 30-year mangrove expansion
- Around the world, mangrove forests have undergone a decades-long decline that is just now slowing to a halt.
- In Pakistan, by contrast, mangroves expanded nearly threefold between 1986 and 2020, according to a 2022 analysis of satellite data.
- Experts attribute this success to massive mangrove planting and conservation, as well as concerted community engagement.
- Many in Pakistan are looking to mangroves to bolster precious fish stocks and defend against the mounting effects of climate change — even as threats to mangroves, such as wood harvesting and camel grazing, continue with no end in sight.
Indonesian districts trial a shift from commodity monocrops to sustainable produce
- A network of district governments across Indonesia is working on transitioning away from commodity-based economic development to sustainable, nature-based solutions.
- Many of these districts are heavily reliant on monoculture plantations like palm oil, or other extractive industries like oil and gas, and are making the shift to better preserve forests and peatlands, as well as indigenous Indonesian forest commodities.
- Among those making progress is the district of Siak in the palm oil heartland of Riau province, where large palm oil and pulpwood companies are supporting the development of nature-based commodities by local communities.
- The national government is also involved in this search to “innovate economic models outside of plantation commodities that can support forest conservation and are locally based.”
Causeway threatens mangroves that Philippine fishers planted as typhoon shield
- The city of Tacloban in the central Philippines was ground zero for Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded and the deadliest in the Philippines’ modern record.
- A decade after the storm, the city is moving forward with controversial plans to build a road embankment and land reclamation project that proponents say will help protect the city from storm surges.
- Opponents of the plan say it threatens local fisheries, will disrupt natural storm protection measures like mangroves, and is poorly designed as a barrier against storms.
- The plan will also result in the relocation of a coastal village of 500 households, who have been active stewards of the bay’s mangrove forests.
Community forestry is a conservation solution in Nepal: Q&A with Teri Allendorf
- Conservation biologist Teri Allendorf talks about the opportunities and challenges facing the community-based forest conservation program in Nepal.
- She argues that the program has been a success and the government needs to do more to empower the communities to work on biodiversity conservation.
- With Nepalis getting more exposure to the wider world, many will want to return home and help protect the environment and their forests, she hopes.
‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars
- Researchers have launched a new book that catalogs hundreds of plant species from Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that have known medicinal uses.
- The book draws on the knowledge of Indigenous communities who have found a use for these plants over the course of generations, and whose livelihoods and cultures are closely intertwined with the fate of these species.
- The book also serves to highlight the imperiled situation of Prey Lang and its native species as deforestation by politically linked timber-trafficking networks continues to destroy vast swaths of this ostensibly protected area.
- “If the current trends of deforestation continue,” the authors warn, “an immense body of knowledge about nature will be lost, reducing the resilience and adaptability of future generations.”
Mining company Belo Sun sues environmental defenders in intimidation tactic, NGOs say
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun has filed a lawsuit against community leaders and environmental rights defenders, including members of Amazon Watch and International Rivers, for their alleged support or involvement in the illegal occupation of company-owned land.
- A coalition of environmental lawyers and human rights activists say the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic part of a pattern the company uses to silence and weaken those who speak against its operations near the biodiverse Xingu River.
- Belo Sun denies persecuting or threatening environmental defenders and says it is only acting to preserve its rights, preserve the rights of the protesters and stop criminal activity.
- The lawyers of those accused have started to provide their defense in court and plan to present a complaint of the lawsuit to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N.
Community tropical forest management linked to social & environmental benefits: Study
- A study shows that forests in 15 tropical countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities are associated with improved outcomes for carbon storage, biodiversity and forest livelihoods.
- The study finds that the positive outcomes were most likely observed when formal management institutions were in place and Indigenous and local communities had influence in defining their rights and roles in forest use and management.
- The findings suggest that governance reforms, like supporting Indigenous and local community rights or roles to manage forests, can play a role in supporting both human and environmental goals in tropical forested landscapes.
- However, giving local people formal rights is just a starting point, the lead author says; other procedures and support need to be in place to determine whether people actually get those rights and if they are able to use them to good effect.
No safe space for Nepal’s sloth bears outside protected areas, study finds
- The exploitation of forest resources in Nepal’s Chure region is likely leading to a lack of food for sloth bears in their prime habitat, pushing them into protected areas.
- A camera trap study in the subtropical forests of the Chure region recorded just 46 detections of sloth bears across 30 sites in four months, highlighting the impact of resource extraction on their habitat.
- The study recommends implementing a conservation plan between Parsa National Park and Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve to benefit sloth bears and other threatened species in Nepal’s lowlands.
- It also emphasized the need for action to conserve the eastern Chure forests and the establishment of corridors for sloth bear movement.
How Indigenous peoples and local communities can make the voluntary carbon market work for them (commentary)
- The voluntary carbon market has the potential to address $4.1 trillion in nature financing gap by 2050 and support Indigenous peoples and local communities — when done right, argue a cohort of Indigenous leaders in a new commentary.
- The voluntary carbon market can work for and support Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs), and them for it, but these communities have not been adequately engaged or consulted to participate in this carbon market.
- The Indigenous leaders announce the new IPs and LCs Voluntary Carbon Market Engagement Forum that is taking shape and will try to address these IPs and LCs’ priorities. The Forum is now coordinating open calls for Governing Board members and Forum partners.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Control of Africa’s forests must not be sold to carbon offset companies (commentary)
- A forest carbon deal between Blue Carbon and the nation of Liberia would give the company exclusive rights to control 10% of the nation’s land mass for 30 years.
- Blue Carbon has also signed MOUs for similar deals with Tanzania and Zambia (and others) and combined with the Liberia deal, the land controlled by the company in these three African nations represents an area the size of the whole of the United Kingdom.
- “Carbon colonialism is a false solution to the climate crisis,” a new op-ed states. “The only real answer is to end our fossil fuel addiction by dramatically reducing our emissions, while financially supporting countries and local communities to protect their forests, rather than wrest control of them.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Ex-FARC members aim to restore 1 million native trees in the Colombian Amazon
- Former fighters in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are working to restore the Colombian Amazon through a cooperative called Comuccom.
- Their goal, despite ongoing conflicts and danger, is to plant 1 million native trees to counteract deforestation from illegal mining, logging, ranching and coca cultivation.
- Those involved in the effort, many of whom were just children when they joined FARC, have already planted 125,000 trees; another 250,000 trees are ready in their cooperative nursery.
Community forest association helps hold the line to protect Mount Kenya forest
- The volunteer members of the Chehe Community Forest Association are playing an active role in protecting forests on the southwestern slopes of Mount Kenya.
- Despite this, 20% of the Afromontane forests in this region have been lost to fire, illegal logging and invasive species over the past 20 years.
- The forest association’s chair says some local residents continue to encroach on forest reserves in the area — and that enforcement could be stronger.
Indonesian activist Gita Syahrani wins $3m award for work on sustainable growth
- Global philanthropy Climate Breakthrough has awarded Indonesian environmental activist Gita Syahrani $3 million in grants along with capacity-building resources to support her projects in developing alternative economic models for local governments across Indonesia.
- Gita has for many years focused on supporting district governments protect peatlands and forests while developing policies for sustainable economic growth.
- Gita said she is keen to explore and include approaches that are more mindful and spiritual in encouraging more people to be active in protecting, rehabilitating and recovering the balance between people and the environment.
- Gita is the second Indonesian awardee of Climate Breakthrough grants, following environmentalist Arief Rabik in 2019; her fellow awardee this year is Jane Fleming Kleeb of the U.S., a prominent activist against the Keystone XL pipeline.
Nepal’s constitutional bench halts ‘triple taxation’ on community forests
- Nepal’s Constitutional Court has issued a stay on the laws that require community forest user groups to pay taxes to the local, provincial and federal governments, which are seen as unfair and contradictory to the constitution.
- Community forest user groups manage about 34% of Nepal’s forested area under a participatory conservation model that has been praised for increasing forest cover and empowering local communities.
- The petitioners argued that the taxation system violates the constitutional provision of balance between development and environment, and that only the federal government can determine taxes for community forests.
- The court ordered the government not to implement the taxation laws until a final verdict is passed, and the user groups hope that the court will rule in their favor.
World owes it to Tanzania to keep Eastern Arc forests standing, study shows
- Tanzania’s Eastern Arc’s evergreen forests provide carbon sequestration that the world benefits, yet it’s local communities alone who shoulder the costs of keeping the forests standing.
- The authors of a new study recommend that international investments in conservation within the Eastern Arc worth $2 billion need to be made over the next 20 years.
- Without this, the authors say, the mountains’ forests and their extraordinary levels of biodiversity will be lost or degraded as local communities convert them to agricultural land or harvest timber from them.
Logging route cut into Cambodia’s Prey Lang from Think Biotech’s concession
- A road carved from a reforestation concession into the heart of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia appears to be facilitating the illegal logging and trafficking of valuable timber, a Mongabay investigation has revealed.
- The road originates in the concession of Think Biotech, a company previously implicated in forestry crimes, but its director denies being involved in the new road.
- The road had advanced 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the ostensibly protected Prey Lang before authorities ordered a crackdown — one that activists say was just for show and targeted only small-time loggers.
- Community groups and activists say Prey Lang’s forests are being decimated at alarming rates, with satellite data showing nearly the same amount of forest cover loss in the past five years as in the previous 18.
EU deforestation-free rule ‘highly challenging’ for SE Asia smallholders, experts say
- Millions of small-scale farmers in mainland Southeast Asia are at risk of losing access to European forest commodity supply chains unless serious action is taken to help them comply with the new EU deforestation-free regulation, experts say.
- Smallholders produce significant quantities of the region’s forest-related commodities, but many lack the technical capacity and financial capital to meet the hefty due diligence requirements of the new rule.
- Without support for vulnerable communities to comply, experts say farmers could be exposed to land grabbing, dispossession and other abuses, with some left with no choice but to retreat into forested landscapes to eke out a living.
- Sustainability groups, meanwhile, say the new EU rule is an opportunity to move forest commodity sectors toward improved responsibility, sustainability and transparency.
A Philippines NGO project aimed to protect villages from typhoons: What went wrong?
- Concepcion is a low-income fishing town in the central Philippines’ Iloilo province where Super Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda, made its fifth landfall nearly a decade ago, destroying houses and fishing boats.
- In 2015, the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International (CI) introduced so-called green-gray infrastructure to enhance the climate resilience of five Concepcion villages, employing a combination of nature-based and engineering solutions.
- A little more than a year after the project ended, a Mongabay visit to Concepcion found most project components degraded or destroyed, leaving residents with little more protection than they had when Yolanda devastated their communities in 2013.
- A CI official acknowledged the project’s challenges, expressing an organizational commitment to learn from the experience and attempt to secure new funding to sustain the initiative.
What would it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest?
- The Congo Basin holds the world’s second-largest rainforest — the majority of which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — playing a vital role in carbon storage and ecological services that millions of people and species rely upon.
- However, the DRC is a nation with the second-highest rate of tropical deforestation behind Brazil. Meanwhile, Gabon says it has acted to protect its forests but hasn’t reaped the promised rewards.
- International commitments to protect the Congo Rainforest are historically meager compared with what experts say is actually needed, and many of these commitments go unfulfilled.
- On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, we speak with experts about what’s needed to overcome hurdles to financing forest protection to benefit conservation, climate and communities: Paolo Cerutti, senior scientist and DRC unit head at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-ICRAF); Chadrack Kafuti at Ghent University; Wahida Patwa Patwa-Shah, senior regional technical specialist, UNDP Climate Hub; and Lee White, minister of water, forests, the sea and environment in Gabon.
For International Youth Day, three youth conservation success stories
- This Saturday is International Youth Day, a day established by the U.N. to draw attention to youth issues worldwide.
- This year celebrates youth developing the “green skills” needed to shift the world into one that is environmentally sustainable and climate-friendly.
- In recognition of the international day, Mongabay spoke with three youths worldwide who initiated successful environmental restoration organizations in their communities.
Progress is slow on Africa’s Great Green Wall, but some bright spots bloom
- Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall, a mosaic of reforestation efforts to stop desertification, has been plagued by delays and challenges.
- Some reforestation efforts, however, have tasted success, becoming a model for many to follow.
- Experts suggest moving away from viewing the initiative as merely a tree-planting exercise and instead seeing it as a holistic, participatory approach that involves local communities and helps them build their livelihoods and incomes.
- Challenges still abound, however, including a volatile security situation, lack of water, coordination challenges, and scattered long-term monitoring of reforested patches.
In Sumatra’s Jambi, community forest managers fish to protect peatlands
- A community in Indonesia’s Jambi province has resorted to fish farming to raise money for its efforts to prevent wildfires in the community.
- In 2015, around 80% of the province’s peat forest was damaged during the Southeast Asia wildfire crisis.
- Jambi-based nonprofit KKI Warsi cites the number of peatland canals as the greatest barrier to replenishing the wetland.
Sulawesi sea nomads who inspired Avatar movie chart new course saving forests
- Umar Pasandre, a member of the seafaring Bajo people, has spent more than two decades protecting mangroves in Indonesia’s Gorontalo province.
- The Bajo people were first recorded by 16th-century explorers and inspired James Cameron’s sequel to “Avatar.”
- Umar leads local mangrove-replanting initiatives and has confronted those seeking to convert the forests for aquaculture production.
From cardamom to carbon: Bold new Tanzanian project is regrowing a rainforest
- Farmers in eastern Tanzania are regrowing rainforest trees on part of their land.
- The farmers receive payments from the sale of carbon credits to supplement their incomes and to compensate them for loss of land and cash crops.
- So far, close to 270,000 trees have been planted on 200 hectares (494 acres) of farms located on the flanks of the Nguru Mountains.
- Nguru’s forests, home to a wealth of unique animal and plant species, are under increasing pressure from farmers who fell trees to grow crops, including valuable cardamom spice.
Brazil nut harvesting proves a win-win for forest and community livelihood
- In the Calha Norte region of Brazil’s Pará state, home to the broadest mosaic of conservation units and Indigenous territories on the planet, communal Brazil nut harvesting is proving to be a winning opportunity for the future of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Communities of nut gatherers living on the banks of the Paru River have practiced their traditional nut-gathering lifestyle for generations, grounded in the understanding that without an intact forest, there are no Brazil nuts.
- Some 300,000 people throughout the Brazilian Amazon depend on the Brazil nut production chain for their living.
- The nut market, however, has not yet recovered from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and a severe drought in 2016.
Learning to live with — and love — bears and eagles in Colombia’s cloud forest
- Human-wildlife conflict is on the rise in the cloud forests of Colombia’s northern Andes, exacerbated by drivers such as deforestation due to the rapid expansion of agriculture.
- Retaliatory killing due to predation of livestock and crop raiding is a major driver of the decline of the black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori) and spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), both of which face their greatest risk of extinction in Colombia.
- In the Western Cordilleras of Colombia’s Antioquia department, a local NGO has been achieving remarkable success in reducing human-wildlife conflict at the local scale through promoting dialogue, inclusion and community participation in conservation efforts.
In Nepal, Chepang take up the challenge to revive their cultural keystone tree
- In Nepal, the Chepang people have long relied on the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea or Indian butter tree) for timber, fuelwood and butter.
- According to folklore, the Chepang tribe, the chiuri tree and bats are all part of a three-pronged system of survival, as each helps the other two; that system — and the chiuri tree — has fallen to the wayside.
- Now, young Chepangs are trying to revive the chiuri tree and market the valuable fruits.
Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Two years since the Feb 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Indigenous activists continue their struggle to protect the Salween Peace Park, an Indigenous Karen-led protected area, from conflict.
- The park was subject to military-led deadly airstrikes in March 2021 and renewed violence in the vicinity of the park continues to force people to flee their homes into the forest.
- The Salween Peace Park was launched in 2018 and encompasses 5,485 square kilometers (nearly 1.4 million acres) of the Salween River Basin in one of Southeast Asia’s most biologically rich ecoregions.
- With many examples around the world, peace parks seek to preserve zones of biodiversity and cultural heritage using conservation to promote peacebuilding. The SPP includes more than 350 villages, 27 community forests, four forest reserves, and three wildlife sanctuaries.
After Sri Lanka, Nepal debates exporting its ‘problematic’ monkeys
- Some officials in Nepal are calling for mimicking a plan by Sri Lanka — now suspended — to export large numbers of rhesus macaques.
- The monkeys are seen as pests by farmers whose crops they eat, and exporting them would address this problem while also generating foreign revenue, proponents say.
- However, a previous attempt to export a small number of macaques was scrapped on the grounds that it violated Nepali laws and international wildlife trade regulations.
- Conservationists also say that exporting the monkeys won’t address the root causes of human-macaque conflicts, including a government forestry program that’s seen the animals’ preferred fruit trees replaced with non-native species.
Palm oil giant hands over sacred community land for reforestation project
- After two years of local organizations campaigning in Cameroon’s Mbonjo village, palm oil giant Socapalm has handed over three sacred sites, totaling approximately three hectares (about seven acres) of land, to a community.
- However, the total is still short of what the community asked for, which was initially 30 hectares (about 74 acres).
- The local environmental organization and traditional leaders who campaigned for the sacred sites say reforestation and land restoration projects are now in the works.
- Socapalm is highlighting its commitment to respecting the rights and traditions of communities in accordance with its social and sustainability certifications, while local critics continue to accuse it of land grabbing.
A Philippine town and its leaders show how mangrove restoration can succeed
- In the early 1990s, the coastal town of Prieto Diaz, in the Philippines’ Bicol region, was selected as a pilot area for a community-based resource management program created by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
- Today, an award-winning community organization helps maintain a mangrove ecosystem that has grown to be the region’s largest and supports the livelihoods of both its members and the broader community.
- Residents credit the restored mangrove ecosystem with protecting the village from storm surges, and point to committed local leaders as vital to the ongoing success of mangrove restoration and protection.
Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- For hundreds of years, the island nation of Japan has seen various examples of efforts to conserve its coastal ecosystems, vital to its fisheries.
- An 1897 law created protection forests to conserve a variety of ecosystem services. “Fish forests,” one type of protection forest, conserve watershed woodlands and offer benefits to coastal fisheries, including shade, soil erosion reduction, and the provision of nutrients.
- Beginning in the late 1980s, fishers across Japan started planting trees in coastal watersheds that feed into their fishing grounds, helping launch the nation’s environmental movement. Although the fishers felt from experience that healthy forests contribute to healthy seas, science for many years offered little evidence.
- New research using environmental DNA metabarcoding analysis confirms that greater forest cover in Japan’s watersheds contributes to a greater number of vulnerable coastal fish species. Lessons learned via Japan’s protection and fish forests could benefit nations the world over as the environmental crisis deepens.
Camera trap images of rare gorillas with infants bring hope in DRC
- Camera traps in the Tayna Nature Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo have recorded two mother-infant pairs of eastern lowland gorillas, confirming the presence of healthy family groups in one of their last strongholds.
- This subspecies is critically endangered, with only 6,800 individuals left in the world, and is threatened by hunting, deforestation and mining activities
- Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education (GRACE) operates the world’s only sanctuary for rescued eastern lowland gorillas, and employs local communities in a key role in monitoring efforts in Tayna.
15 community-based conservation opportunities to help people and the planet
- A recently published horizon scan on community-based conservation identified 15 topics that offer opportunities to yield positive change for people and the planet, as well as provide insights on avoiding pitfalls in achieving 2030 global policy targets.
- These resulted from work undertaken over the past two years by a group of 39 conservation practitioners from around the globe, including staff at Mongabay.
- Community-based conservation has for decades tried to tackle these interrelated challenges with mixed success and, at times, counter-productive results, but has arisen as a promising and popular approach on global agendas.
Reconnecting ‘island habitat’ with wild corridors in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this third story, the NGO Saving Nature works to create wild corridors to reconnect fragmented patches of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.
Mountain islands: Restoring a transitional cloud forest in Costa Rica
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, and greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this second story, two tourists vacationing in Costa Rica and stunned by the deforestation they see, buy degraded land next to Chirripó National Park and restore a transitional cloud forest.
From ukuleles to reforestation: Regrowing a tropical forest in Hawai‘i
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by water as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soils and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this first story, two ukulele makers strive to save Hawai‘i’s koa tree, found nowhere else in the world. In the process they restore a biodiverse tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano.
Indigenous youths keep ancient forestry traditions alive in the Philippines
- In the southern Philippines’ Misamis Oriental province, Indigenous Higaonon practice a forest management tradition known as panlaoy.
- Panlaoy requires immersion in the forest, with participants observing, documenting and assessing the condition of the ecosystem and any threats to it.
- The practice is integral to the protection of an area of recognized customary land encompassing 17,553 hectares (43,374 acres) of forest inhabited by around 10,000 people.
- Guided by tribal elders, Higaonon youth volunteers known as basbasonon are trained to be the next generation of cultural bearers and forest vanguards.
Agroecology is a poverty solution in Haiti (commentary)
- Haiti is facing a political and economic crisis: Functional governance that serves the interests of Haiti’s people is largely nonexistent.
- In this commentary, Cantave Jean-Baptiste, Director of Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL), and Steve Brescia, Executive Director of Groundswell International, argue that replacing Haiti’s extractive agricultural and economic model with one that regenerates rural communities and landscapes and promotes food sovereignty is a potential solution to problems that plague Haitians.
- Through a regenerative model of agricultural and rural development, Haiti could become “a positive example of how some of the most marginalized smallholder farmers in the world can replace the longstanding model of extractive agriculture with one that continuously regenerates their land, food production, rural economies, and dignity.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Nepal’s community forest program misses the biodiversity for the trees
- Nepal increased its forest cover from 26% to 45% in two-and-a-half-decades, but the success has translated into a limited win for biodiversity conservation, experts say.
- The reforestation gains came largely from the country’s community forestry program, which encourages communities to grow, manage and harvest their own forest resources.
- As such, the program’s focus has been an economic one, with many of the newly forested areas consisting of pine monocultures that are ideal for providing wood but make for poor wildlife habitat.
- Experts say there needs to be a greater emphasis on wildlife management in the community forestry program to address growing issues such as human-wildlife conflict and the spread of “green deserts” devoid of biodiversity.
Failed mangrove tourism project in Sumatra highlights need for community collaboration
- Once a bustling attraction, the Sicanang Mangrove Forest ecotourism project in North Sumatra is padlocked and falling into disrepair.
- Launched in 2019, the project was supported by Sumatra-based NGO Yagasu but fell apart in the wake of claims that the project was improperly established on private land.
- Facing multiple accusations, Yagasu withdrew from the project, which failed without the organization’s support. The outcome, Yagasu staff say, highlights the importance of close collaboration among NGOs, local governments and community groups.
‘The Mangrove Guy’: Q&A with Kelly Roberts Banda, Kenya’s lawyer-conservationist
- Kelly Roberts Banda is a Kenyan property and family lawyer best known for his work as a conservationist, planting mangroves and advocating for climate justice.
- According to government data, Kenya lost 20% of its mangroves between 1985 and 2009 due to overharvesting, clearing for salt mining and shrimp harvesting, pollution and sedimentation.
- In addition to planting trees, Banda and his colleagues help local communities earn money through beehives in the mangroves.
- Banda’s passion for the environment stems from a childhood incident in which his home was flooded and he witnessed the damage from heavy rainfall throughout his neighborhood.
Indigenous Kogi worldview aims to change face of conservation for good
- The Indigenous Kogi of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta in northern Colombia have been saying for decades that non-Indigenous populations are destroying the Earth, but now they want to share their knowledge about how to save it.
- Today, they are part of the very first UNESCO BRIDGES project, which focuses on finding solutions coming from communities, rather than experts bringing their idea of solutions into communities, which has long been problematic.
- The new project, called Reviving Water: Munekan Masha (“let emerge or be born”), will be led by the Kogi, teaching scientists and education experts from various universities about their conservation methods.
- Both the Kogi and non-Indigenous experts will also help develop Indigenous conservation methods for school curricula, to help Western science broaden its outlook, experts say.
New app tells donors what communities need to stop deforestation: Q&A with Health In Harmony
- Nonprofit organization Health In Harmony has been working with rainforest communities to improve access to health care, education and alternative sources of income, and now has a new app to directly connect donors to communities.
- The organization aims to work on intersectional solutions to help communities improve their lives while also weaning them off practices that drive deforestation.
- Health In Harmony’s new app, which includes images and video, enables people from around the world to make donations to implement community-driven solutions.
As dry season looms, Sumatra villagers hope their peat restoration pays off
- Community-led efforts to restore degraded peatlands in Indonesia’s Riau province could be put to the test in early 2023 as the dry season sets in.
- Riau is the perennial epicenter of the burning season on Sumatra Island, and is expected to have a more intense dry season after three consecutive years of wetter-than-usual conditions due to La Niña.
- A broad coalition of local governments, communities, researchers and NGOs have been working to restore peatlands that had been drained in preparation for planting, with the hope that restoring water levels will prevent burning.
- As part of the restoration programs, communities are also adapting their farming practices, learning to prepare the land without the use of fire, and picking crops that are suited for the wetter soil conditions.
Can a luxury chocolate company help a Congolese forest?
- The widespread popularity of chocolate has led to a cocoa boom in the DRC, escalating deforestation in the country’s primary forests by impoverished locals in the war-torn region.
- Luxury food company, Original Beans, seeks to solve deforestation fueled by chocolate farming near Virunga National Park by planting organic cocoa in an agroforestry system that provides a sustainable form of income to local women.
- The company argues that producing luxury chocolate is a solution that generates enough money to bypass mass-production and opaque supply chains, while fairly paying local producers.
- Agroforestry experts say the project relies too heavily on planting invasive tree species and does not follow all sustainability recommendations.
Amid conflict and chaos, a reforestation project surges ahead in Haiti
- An important reforestation project is forging ahead in Haiti, despite the nation’s economic and political upheavals.
- Reforesting 50 hectares (124 acres) with native plants this year in Grand Bois National Park, the NGO Haiti National Trust (HNT) is working closely with local communities to ensure the restoration project’s long-term survival.
- On an island buffeted by governance woes, severe deforestation and climate change, reforestation can save lives by mitigating the impacts of extreme rain events, droughts and hurricanes, and even reduce the risk of landslides caused by earthquakes.
- If ongoing funding can be secured, the group hopes to continue replanting efforts into the future with larger restoration goals.
After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Redansyah first began working in conservation around Indonesia’’s Tanjung Puting National Park in the 1980s alongside renowned conservationist Biruté Galdikas.
- In a 20-year career, he has planted tens of thousands of seedlings in a once-pristine landscape beset by logging and fires since the 1990s.
- The 68-year-old has no plans to retire: “I just want to work on the job of introducing trees to this community.”
Healthy mangroves build a resilient community in the Philippines’ Palawan
- According to historical accounts, the fisheries of Malampaya Sound in the Philippines’ Palawan province were once so rich it was difficult to wade to shore without stepping on crabs.
- This bounty fueled migration to the area from across the Philippines, and by the turn of the 20th century, much of the areas’ mangroves had been cleared or degraded, leading to a decline in fish catches.
- From 2011-2013, mangrove restoration efforts were initiated as part of the Philippines’ National Greening Program, but, as elsewhere in the country, the initiative performed far below target.
- Today, however, thanks to ongoing outreach initiatives, community partnerships and Indigenous belief systems, the importance of preserving mangroves is widely recognized and the area’s coastal forests and fisheries are seeing a recovery.
BP exploited Mexican communities hoping to benefit from carbon credits: report
- A report published this month in Bloomberg Green said oil and gas company BP has been buying carbon credits from Mexican villages below market value, raising questions about the carbon credit market’s viability as a tool for transitioning companies to green practices.
- BP purchased carbon credits from residents across 59 villages for just $4 per ton of avoided emissions. The true market price is often more than double that.
- Groups involved in conservation efforts, such as the World Resources Institute and Pronatura, were also involved in the creation of the controversial carbon credit program.
Cameroon’s Nigerian refugees who degraded their camp are now vanguards of reforestation
- Nigerian refugees and Cameroonian villagers are taking part in efforts to reforest the area around the Minawao refugee camp near the border between the two countries.
- The influx of the refugees, driven from their homes by the advance of the Islamist group Boko Haram, led to a surge in logging for fuelwood and timber, and also sparked conflict with the locals.
- A reforestation program supported by the UNHCR, French development NGO ADES and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and carried out by refugees and locals, has to date planted more than 400,000 trees across 100 hectares (250 acres).
- Initially, government experts chose the trees to be planted based on their ability to grow quickly and survive in arid places, but since 2017, community members have been brought into the decision-making process as the project’s managers realized that a participatory approach could generate better results.
Dig, dump, repeat, then watch the forest grow: Q&A with mangrove restorer Keila Vazquez
- Las Chelemeras is a group of 18 women in the Mexican port town of Chelem who, since 2010, have worked to restore and protect their local mangrove forests on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula.
- To date, they have contributed to the reforestation of approximately 50 hectares (124 acres) of mangroves, accounting for half of Chelem’s forest cover.
- “We have learned that our work is not only a job or a paycheck, but a collaboration with the environment, and that gives us satisfaction,” says Keila Vazquez, a founding member of the group.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Vazquez talks about her work with Las Chelemeras, the challenges ahead for her community, and how the reforestation of their environment has impacted younger generations.
Bangladeshi coastal communities plant mangroves as a shield against cyclones
- Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal districts are prone to tidal surges, which can become extreme during cyclone seasons, with surges as high as 3 meters (10 feet).
- The coasts have embankments built across to keep the seeping seawater from reaching the coastal settlements, but as cyclones get more severe under a changing climate, these embankments aren’t enough, and losing houses to cyclonic floods has become the norm for coastal communities here.
- As a protection measure, the Bangladeshi government and several NGOs, with the communities’ participation, have initiated large-scale planting of mangrove trees along the embankments to act as a natural shield against tidal surges.
- The NGOs have provided the initial financial and technical support to the communities and are encouraging a self-reliant process of planting native mangrove species.
In Jordan, the Middle East’s first Miyawaki-style ‘baby’ forests take root
- Since 2018, a Jordanian architect and a Japanese environmentalist have planted three tiny forests in Amman, Jordan, the largest with a footprint of just 250 square meters (2,700 square feet).
- These are some of the first forests in the Middle East to be designed according to the Miyawaki method, a technique for growing mature forests in a matter of decades at virtually any scale.
- In a country with just 0.03% tree cover and where tree planting is increasingly popular but knowledge about native vegetation is scattered, the effort involved extensive research and experimentation to identify and propagate native plants.
- With more “baby forests” on the way, the goal is to sketch a path toward the restoration of Jordan’s disappearing forest ecosystems while reconnecting urban communities to nature.
200 mysterious sea turtle deaths: Q&A with Kenyan fisherman and turtle rescuer Daniel Katana
- Near the town of Marereni, smack in the middle of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline, a group of local volunteers has been protecting sea turtles and planting mangroves for nearly two decades.
- In the past two years, however, the Marereni Biodiversity Conservancy has documented alarming spikes in sea turtle deaths and in turtles with fibropapilloma tumors, as well as a decline in sea turtle nests.
- While the causes have yet to be determined, conservancy members suspect the sea turtles’ problems may be associated with pollution from nearby salt mines.
- Mongabay interviewed the group’s CEO, Daniel Masha Katana, about how it is responding to the current threats to sea turtles.
Devastated by a typhoon, community foresters in the Philippines find little support
- The Macatumbalen Community-Based Forest and Coastal Management Association, based in the Philippine province of Palawan, has replanted and managed 1,850 hectares of local forests since 2002.
- When Typhoon Rai struck Palawan in December 2021, the community’s forest was devastated, harming not just the ecosystem but also the livelihood of local people, who depend on agroforestry and harvesting of forest products like honey and rattan.
- Four months after the typhoon struck, the community organization has been left largely on its own as it attempts to resume restoration and replanting.
In Bangladesh, a community comes together to save a life-giving forest
- Several tribal settlements are spread across Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region, each with its own communally managed forest that residents can use.
- But the unchecked exploitation of the once-rich forests, a consequence of population growth, has led to local water holes drying up, forcing many residents to leave the villages.
- In one village, however, residents started an initiative with various programs aimed at conserving their forest and providing funding for alternative livelihoods to reduce members’ reliance on forest resources.
- The initiative in the village of Kamalchhori, which includes prohibitions on hunting and slash-and-burn farming, has seen local water sources restored and vegetation conserved.
Just outside Mexico City, community-run forests provide eco services, livelihoods
- About an hour and a half from Mexico City, communities in the municipalities of Texcoco and Tepetlaoxtoc de Hidalgo use forest management as a tool to sustain themselves and conserve their forests.
- Their sustainable timber-harvesting activity is authorized by the forestry agency, and they complement it with other activities such as collecting edible mushrooms and medicinal plants, or ecotourism.
- These ejidos, or communally managed lands, are also diligently managed to minimize fire risk, through initiative such as pruning and creating firebreaks.
- “We make use of the forest, yes, but we take care of it,” says one of the community members. “This is for everyone: for the youth to come, for the environment.”
Small farmers take a stand for one of Dakar’s last urban woodlands
- A forested strip that’s one of the last green areas in Dakar could be razed for new developments under an urban expansion plan.
- The strip of filao trees is also home to small-scale farmers who grow organic fruit and vegetables for sale in local markets, and whose presence has protected the trees against sand miners and unlicensed development.
- In June 2021, Senegal’s president authorized a new urban plan that “downgraded” 150 hectares (370 acres) of the filao strip, removing its protected status; 43% of this area will be allocated for new homes, and 21% for new roads.
- The farmers have protested the plan, saying they contribute both to the protection of the filao ecosystem and to the local economy.
In Gabon, a community’s plea against logging paves the way for a new reserve
- Gabon’s environment minister has announced an immediate end to the logging of the Massaha ancestral forest in the country’s northeast, setting his administration a two-month deadline to finalize technical questions for permanent protection of the site.
- The move follows his visit to Massaha to gain a better understanding of the motives behind the community’s request to declassify the logging concession and grant it protected area status.
- Minister Lee White also ordered the Chinese company that holds the logging concession, Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), to “leave quickly” and “preserve the area.”
- This is a precedent-setting case in the country’s management of forests, representing the first time an area will be declared protected at the request of the resident community.
Protecting water by conserving forests puts communities in Mexico to the test
- Almost 15 years ago, the inhabitants of eight towns in southern Mexico’s Costa Chica decided to conserve an area that provides them with water by setting aside five square kilometers of their land to create an ecological reserve.
- Previously, sewage from the largest municipality in the area was discharged into the rivers that communities used for washing, bathing and drinking.
- Conflicts initially broke out between communities over sharing water and contributions to the protection of the reserve, though the project has sensitized people to conservation and increased the amount of water in the spring.
- However, according to forestry experts, Mexico’s protected natural areas have exceeded the institution’s capacity and available resources, meaning the communities that manage the conservation of the reserve receive little institutional support.
Opium production down as communities in Mexico’s Golden Triangle turn to forestry
- Four communities in Mexico’s state of Durango, located within the ‘Golden Triangle’, an area known for the presence of the Sinaloa Cartel and opium and marijuana production, embarked on a sustainable forestry project to reduce dependence on illegal crop production.
- The project has helped lift the Tamazula municipality, where the four communities are located, off the state’s poverty list, raise their income above the minimum wage and contain narcotrafficking, according to the Topia Unit for Development and Comprehensive Forest Conservation.
- The mountainous region of temperate forests, diverse species of conifers and deep-cut ravines has a long legacy of sustainable forest management, which the communities hope to revive to relieve stigmatization.
- However, the communities are very isolated and surrounded by long dirt roads, meaning journeys to sell their wood are often arduous and costly.
From land mines to lifelines, Lebanon’s Shouf is a rare restoration success story
- The Shouf Biosphere Reserve is a living laboratory experimenting with degraded ecosystem recovery in ways that also boost the well-being of the human communities living there.
- Previous conservation efforts in the area involved using land mines and armed guards to stem illegal logging and reduce fire risk.
- Today, the reserve builds local skills and creates jobs in a bid to help the local community through Lebanon’s severe economic crisis.
- Managers are also employing adaptive techniques to build resilience in this climate change-hit landscape.
In Brazil, a forest community fights to remain on its traditional land
- Traditional communities living within the limits of the Jureia-Itatins Ecological Station, a formally protected area in São Paulo state, are expecting a crucial ruling to decide whether they can remain on their traditionally occupied land.
- These communities, known as Caiçaras, were established centuries ago along the southern coastline of Brazil, but the state forestry foundation, which manages the protected area, demolished the houses of some inhabitants in 2019, alleging violations of the strong restrictions on human activity it had imposed.
- The ensuing legal battle has seen the Caiçara families win a decision to be allowed to rebuild their homes, but this was overturned just days later on environmental concerns raised by the forest foundation.
- However, several studies show that the presence of these communities in conservation areas helps protect biodiversity instead of destroying it, and other Brazilian government agencies already recognize the need to work with traditional communities as the best “guardians of the forest.”
Can a reforestation project stop land grabs? Villagers in the DRC give it a try
- Kinandu village residents in southern Democratic Republic of Congo are taking part in a reforestation initiative in the miombo woodlands while land grabs are simultaneously on the rise.
- The fear of losing the land on which they were born and raised, coupled with an awareness of the environmental degradation they took part of, is inspiring residents to own forest concessions and restore the land.
- However, restoration largely depends on whether residents and stakeholders will change the way they produce essential goods, such as maize and charcoal.
- The government should continue to support the project after it ends in July 2022, says Jonathan Ilunga, professor of the University of Lubumbashi’s faculty of agronomy and deputy director of the Open Forests Urban Observatory.
Forest enterprise in Mexico attempts to present opportunities for Indigenous communities
- In the state of Jalisco, northwest Mexico, the Wixárika community of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán is attempting to use the forest sustainably to create development opportunities for inhabitants.
- The state government and the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) are supporting projects that encourage forest conservation while providing income generating opportunities for the Indigenous Wixárika and O’dam communities.
- The area is home to Jalisco’s largest forest reserves with some 680,000 hectares (1,680,300 acres) of temperate, dense and arid forest in the state’s ten northernmost municipalities.
In Kenya, a community regrew its forest — and redefined reforestation success
- What started as a group effort to find a solution to deforestation has seen a rural community in Kenya successfully regenerate 50% of their once denuded forest by planting at least 300,000 trees in just five years.
- The efforts of the Mirema Community Forest Association (CFA) caught the attention of the Kenya Forest Service, which stepped in to offer technical and management support.
- Key to the initiative’s success has been the combination of natural regeneration of existing trees in the forest, and the planting of native, nursery-grown seedlings.
- The KFS says it now expects the entire 810 hectares (2,000 acres) of the Mirema Forest to be restored by 2027, and is working on exporting the community’s methods to other reforestation projects across Kenya.
Field school teaches young Indigenous Indonesians how to care for their forests
- The Marena Indigenous group on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are among a handful of communities who have obtained title to their ancestral forest following a landmark 2013 ruling by the nation’s Constitutional Court.
- For years the forest was managed by outside companies, but now Indigenous advocacy groups are training the community’s youths about the traditional ways of sustainably exploiting the forest and its resources.
- Organizers say the main goal of this field school program is to train the community’s young generation to be able to understand the forest and its potential.
- The community has used its power to terminate a contract with a sap production company that was originally brought in by the central government, striking a new deal with the company on more favorable terms.
Tukupu: The women of the Kariña community, guardians of Venezuela’s forests
- Tukupu is Venezuela’s first Indigenous forest business, sustainably managing and reforesting 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of the Imataca Forest Reserve in the south-east of the country.
- The business is led mainly by women who have used their ancestral knowledge to restore over 312 hectares (770 acres) of forest, reforest another 113 (280 acres) and dedicate 189 (468 acres) to agroforestry.
- According to the FAO, the equivalent of more than 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions have been avoided, either directly or indirectly, through the project.
- One of the key points of the project has been to figure out how the resources from the forest can be commercialised in a sustainable way that also benefits members of the community.
California redwood forest returned to Indigenous guardianship, conservation
- Ownership of a 215-hectare (532-acre) redwood forest along California’s north coast was returned to Sinkyone tribes and has been renamed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ.
- The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council is working with Save the Redwoods League, which donated the land, to protect California’s remaining old-growth forest, along with endangered species such as the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
- The 30-year conservation plan and land transfer deal is funded by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in order to offset habitat loss that may result from the company’s activities.
- Indigenous forest conservation principles, such as controlled burnings, will be included in the tribal protected area – an inclusion that should be seen in the 30×30 initiative to protect 30% of lands and ocean by 2030, says Save the Redwoods League and the tribal council.
Indonesia’s Womangrove collective reclaims the coast from shrimp farms
- A women’s collective in Indonesia’s Tanakeke Islands has restored dozens of hectares of mangroves since its founding six years ago.
- The Womangrove collective focuses on replanting abandoned shrimp and fish farms that were originally established in cleared mangrove areas, and have to date planted more than 110,000 seedlings.
- Indonesia has more mangrove area than any other country in the world, but has lost half of it in the past 30 years, mostly to shrimp and fish farms.
Australia’s rainforest species gain ground through landscape linkages
- Corridors of planted rainforest trees — landscape linkages — are a straightforward, but costly, on-ground action that can repair past damage and bolster ecosystem resilience in Australia’s Wet Tropics region.
- In the Atherton Tablelands wildlife corridors, now in their third decade, the diversity of naturally regenerating plant species has increased, with trees, vines, rattans, shrubs, palms, ferns and orchids colonizing the planted sites.
- The corridors are providing connectivity and additional habitat for a range of rainforest wildlife, including some threatened by climate change.
- To thoroughly measure the biodiversity outcomes of the linkages, monitoring would need to be more regular, and target a broader range of taxa.
Unique Indigenous Maya food system blends cropping techniques in Guatemala
- Members of the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous communities in Guatemala practice a unique agroforestry system and an intercropping technique seen as one of the best methods in the world of maximizing the different intensities of sunlight and complementing soil fertility.
- The communities’ traditional food system also includes home patio gardens, living fences and communal forest areas to cultivate and gather local plant species used in traditional medicine, woven handicrafts and edible food dye production.
- The resilient food system is increasingly affected by climate change, out-migration, extractive industries and COVID-19 economic impacts driving up prices of household goods that families need to purchase.
- This article is one of an eight-part series showcasing Indigenous food systems covered in the most comprehensive FAO report on the topic to date.
With loss of forests, Bali villages find themselves vulnerable to disaster
- Bali’s Penyaringan village was hit by flash floods in September, which some have linked to the ongoing loss of its forest.
- While the village’s forest has been designated as a protected area, it’s still subject to encroachment by villagers for the planting of short-lived crops, a practice known locally as ngawen.
- To regulate the practice and regenerate the forest, the village formed a management body that restricts the extent and types of crops that villagers can grow and requires them to also plant trees.
Community tree nursery and garden bring a ray of hope to Zimbabwean village
- Tobacco production and brick making are needed sources of income for the Zimbabwean village of Guruve, but are also contributing to the rapid deforestation of woodlots to feed the growing industries.
- To address deforestation, a community women-led tree nursery project has planted more than 200 native tree species in the past year and anticipates planting 2,000 more by the end of this year.
- The project also includes a community garden that provides the women and families with an additional form of income not tied to tobacco production, and aimed at keeping kids in school by tackling food insecurity.
Kenya’s Indigenous Ogiek partner with government rangers to restore Mau Forest
- The Ogiek people of Kenya have for more than a century faced eviction from their ancestral lands in the Mau Forest, on which they have long depended for their material and cultural needs.
- Three years ago, some community members decided to start working with the Kenyan Forest Service to restore the forest complex and promote conservation coupled with sustainable livelihoods such as beekeeping.
- Today, using this biocultural approach, volunteer community members have planted more than 60,000 native trees in four different blocs within the forest, including the endangered parasol tree (Polyscias kikuyuensis) and African cherry tree (Prunus Africana).
- The KFS has been relying on Ogiek knowledge of the terrain and geography of the forest to provide intelligence on the routes used by illegal loggers and those starting forest fires.
Questions over who gets the billions pledged to Indigenous causes at COP26
- Private, public and philanthropic donors pledged billions of dollars to strengthen Indigenous land tenure and forest management at COP26, notably donating $1.7 billion as part of efforts to reverse forest loss.
- Some Indigenous leaders are skeptical about how this will play out given that most previous financial support was not addressed to Indigenous organizations and communities, but to intermediate NGOs, government agencies and regional banks.
- Indigenous organizations say increasing direct funding to Indigenous-led initiatives and transparency in the flow of funds can increase effectiveness of the pledges and build trust.
- Funding for forest monitoring technology is increasingly having a role in how some Indigenous communities safeguard biodiversity and map out their territories.
Indigenous people get less than 1% of climate funding? It’s actually worse (commentary)
- The lead author of a Rainforest Foundation Norway report showing how little funding goes to Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) for tenure and forest management writes that the reality is even worse than the “less than 1%” soundbite often shared.
- Over 10 years, $2.7 billion was given to support IPLCs’ tenure rights and forest management, which equals 0.74% of total development aid allocated to address climate change.
- Researchers further discovered that 17% of the funding to IPLC tenure and management went to projects that specifically included an IPLC organization, thus representing 0.13% of aid designated to climate change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
After a pandemic reprieve, loggers return to a unique Madagascar forest
- Vohibola forest is one of the last primary forests standing in eastern Madagascar, and home to the world’s tiniest frogs and other rare and endangered creatures.
- For a time, in the quiet imposed by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Vohibola got a reprieve from some of the difficulties that have long plagued it, including deforestation, fires, and timber and charcoal trafficking.
- Local people banded together to plant thousands of trees, and the forest and its wildlife seemed to be relaxing and recovering.
- Now, however, Vohibola, a community forest under the management of an underresourced group of volunteers, appears to be returning to its old normal, with incidents of illegal logging ticking back up.
On islands that inspired theory of evolution, deforestation cuts uneven path
- The Wallacea region spans Indonesia’s central islands where the biota of Asia and Australasia meet, making it one of the world’s most valuable centers of endemism, home to scores of species found nowhere else on Earth.
- With development pressure expected to escalate over the coming decades, identifying which of the region’s tracts of forest are most at risk is key to preserving its unique biodiversity.
- A new study that models future deforestation risk across the region has found that coastal, small and unprotected biodiversity sites are most at risk, with North Maluku and Central Sulawesi projected to lose significant tracts of forest by 2053.
- The researchers say their results can be used to target programs, such as social forestry, to sites where they will have optimal impact for biodiversity and communities.
Next to India’s capital, a village looks to the past for its forest’s future
- For generations, a community outside India’s capital has worked to protect their sacred grove from outside interests like mining and real estate.
- Despite being a biodiversity hotspot, the protection status of this grove under India’s Forest Conservation Act remains in limbo.
- But conservationists and experts say they hope new archaeological findings will help the community get more secure legal protection for their grove.
Podcast: Reforestation done right, from Haiti to Honduras and Ho Chi Minh City
- Local communities around the world are replanting their forests, and on today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at why that’s so important to combating climate change and building a sustainable future for life on Earth.
- Our first guest is Erin Axelrod, project director for Trees For Climate Health, who tells us about the nearly 40 community-based reforestation initiatives the program has funded based on its “right tree, right place, right community” approach.
- We also speak with freelance journalist and Mongabay contributor Mike Tatarski, who tells us about Vietnam’s plans to plant a billion trees by 2025 and the NGOs in the country that are working to make tree-planting more community-centered and sustainable both economically and environmentally.
The Brooklyn Bridge needs a makeover. Is rainforest lumber still in style?
- Last year, a proposal to replace the Brooklyn Bridge’s walkway with wooden planks sourced from a Guatemalan rainforest won a City Council-sponsored competition.
- The planks would come from Uaxactun, a community-managed forest concession in the remote northeastern jungles of Petén.
- Set up after Guatemala’s civil war, community concessions in Petén have achieved remarkably low rates of deforestation and have a high prevalence of wildlife.
- Some environmentalists in New York say the proposal is misguided, and that creating any demand for tropical hardwood is a mistake no matter where it’s sourced from.
New survey nearly doubles Grauer’s gorilla population, but threats remain
- A recent survey led by the Wildlife Conservation Society has revised the population estimate for Grauer’s gorillas to 6,800, up from a 2016 estimate of 3,800.
- The survey includes data from the Oku community forests in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which could not be surveyed in 2016 due to security issues.
- Endemic to the eastern DRC, Grauer’s gorillas are still classed as critically endangered, and face threats due to mining and bushmeat hunting.
- The large numbers of gorillas observed in the community forests surrounding Kahuzi-Biéga National Park underscore the importance of engaging local communities in conservation.
From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Indonesia is home to 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of mangroves, more than any other country.
- These coastal forests, which serve as nurseries for countless fish species and help mitigate tidal flooding and tsunami waves, are being cleared for fish farms, charcoal production, and other commercial activities.
- The Indonesian government in 2020 announced a plan to replant 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of mangroves on degraded coastline by 2024.
- But an unsung army of ordinary Indonesians has been toiling around the country for decades to save and grow mangrove forests. These are some of their stories.
Helping Papuans protect Indonesia’s last frontier: Q&A with Bustar Maitar
- Bustar Maitar’s storied career in environmental activism began in the Indonesian region of Papua, the land of his birth and today the coveted target of extractives and industrial agriculture companies.
- In his time at Greenpeace International, Maitar led a forest conservation campaign that pressured major corporations like Nestlé and Unilever to commit to zero deforestation in their supply chains.
- Maitar’s new venture, the EcoNusa Foundation, brings him back to Papua, where it all began, to push for protecting the forests, waters and other ecosystems of this last pristine frontier in Indonesia.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Maitar talks about bridging international NGOs with local communities, ecotourism as a development model for eastern Indonesia, and the revival of the kewang system of traditional environmental stewardship in the Maluku Islands.
Colombia’s sustainable forestry drive boosts biodiversity and business
- Despite the high costs and long registration times, sustainable timber harvesting has the potential to bring more value to rural Colombians while also acting as an effective and important conservation tool.
- Forest management plans are critical to establishing which trees should be exploited, as well as setting standards for related processes so that the environmental impact can be minimized and deforestation avoided.
- Since the start of it Legal Wood Pact in 2009, Colombia has seen sales of legal timber grow from $500,000 in 2011 to $13 million in 2018, with sustainable forestry now considered a key growth area for the economy.
Liberia gave villagers control over their forests. Then a mining company showed up
- After Liberia’s civil war ended, the country overhauled its forestry laws, including passing legislation that gave impoverished rural communities the right to manage large tracts of rainforest.
- The reforms were part of the international community’s postwar reconstruction agenda, and donors have spent millions of dollars helping to implement them.
- Some of the new “community forests” were set up in the remote northern Nimba county, one of the densest biodiversity hotspots in West Africa.
- In 2019, a Swiss-Russian mining company arrived in one of them with a dubious exploration permit, exposing cracks in the reforms and raising questions about their future.
Nazareth Cabrera fights for Colombia’s Indigenous Uitoto with the strength of her words
- She was instrumental in blocking the entry of mining companies into the community, and also advocates for social causes such as the rights of women and children.
- Those who know this powerhouse 52-year-old woman say she is among the “grains of sand” that contribute to the collective process of caring for the Amazon.
From the ashes of a volcano: Mexico’s Purépecha Forest
- After the Parícutin volcano erupted in the 1940s, the Mexican village of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro was rebuilt, shaping a forest management model that today has 12 community enterprises.
- In a region where forests have been cleared for avocado plantations, the community maintains a temperate forest covering around 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres).
- Bucking the nationwide increase in Mexico in deforestation, the community has actually added area to its managed forests.
Mexico: Four decades of community lessons from the forests of Durango
- Almost 44 years ago, the General Emiliano Zapata Union of Ejidos and Forest Communities (UNECOFAEZ) was founded in the Mexican state of Durango.
- UNECOFAEZ’s sustainable forest management has made profitable community development possible, benefiting 10,500 families in Durango, in addition to guaranteeing the conservation of nearly a million hectares of forest.
- A tree nursery, high school, credit union, workshops, infrastructure improvements, ecotourism projects and more have all been financed by the union’s community management of forests.
New report asks, do land titles help poor farmers?
- A new report by the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, outlines cases of land privatization around the world.
- The report’s authors caution that privatizing land, especially when it has been traditionally managed communally, could sideline the interests of Indigenous groups and local communities.
- They cite evidence that governments and agencies see private land titles as a way not to help poor farmers, but rather to “unlock the economic potential of the land.”
For forest communities without a legal footing, new guideline is a starting template
- Environmental law group ClientEarth has developed a global guideline to help forest communities build legal frameworks that uphold their rights.
- The new guideline lays out an elaborate and highly adaptable list of questions that decision-makers and stakeholders involved in the community forest can use to develop and review legislation.
- Community forest enterprises are believed to be a proven mechanism for conserving forests and biodiversity, but communities’ rights are often sidelined by governments in favor of infrastructure projects and extractive industry interests.
Community forest enterprises provide win for forests and people: Study
- A new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) looked at community natural resource management in Mexico, Guatemala, Nepal and Namibia.
- The research highlights the importance of government recognition of communities’ rights to manage natural resources and promoting investment in these initiatives.
- The communities still struggle to obtain sustained government support in some cases, and rights to consultation are often sidelined in favor of large infrastructure projects.
Ecuador’s Kichwa implement innovative approach to rainforest conservation
- Through a unique combination of market-based approaches to conservation and traditional agroforestry practices they are diversifying their sources of income while protecting the Amazon rainforest.
- Innovative partnerships with the Aliados Foundation and Lush Cosmetics’ Charity Pot have allowed this Kichwa community to expand their efforts.
Naga tribes of Myanmar face loss of land and forest under new law
- Myanmar hosts more than 100 ethnic groups with their own customary systems of land and forest management.
- Recent amendments to land law conflict with those systems, however, with critics warning that the new provisions may facilitate land grabbing and displacement of tribal communities.
- Tribal members say the changes to the law contradict the spirit of the peace process, which is to allow ethnic minorities greater autonomy than under the previous military dictatorship.
Seed by seed, a women’s collective helps reforest Brazil’s Xingu River Basin
- Members of the Yarang Women’s Movement in Brazil have collected 3.2 tons of seeds over the past decade.
- The native seeds are sold to rural landowners and organizations to help replenish forests that have been degraded.
- The Yarang Women’s Movement is part of a seed network collective responsible for replanting nearly 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of land in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin.
- Unpredictable changes in weather patterns have made the seed-collecting process more challenging in recent years.
Aiming for conservation and development in a corner of Mexico’s Mayan jungle
- A rural community in southeastern Mexico agreed last year to certify 35,000 hectares (86,500 acres) of their communally managed land as a voluntary conservation area.
- Learning from the example of another commune, or ejido, in neighboring Campeche state, the Laguna OM ejido hopes to both conserve their forest and secure an income through activities such as sustainable logging and ecotourism.
- The process has been marred by bureaucratic hurdles, but the community remains diligent about meeting all requirements and achieving its goals.
- Ejido leaders say they hope the conservation program works for both the environment and for the community, by creating jobs and opportunities that will stem the exodus of young people to other areas in search of a livelihood.
The commons, community and conservation: Q&A with anthropologist Leticia Merino
- Leticia Merino began studying community forestry 30 years ago, a management approach developed in Mexico that involves communities organizing to conserve their forests and at the same time generating income from it.
- The best way to conserve and regenerate these ecosystems is not reforestation, says Merino, now a renowned anthropologist.
- Community forest management has been proven to be an effective and non-exclusionary method of maintaining biodiversity, she says.
- Merino spoke with Mongabay Latam about her life and her award-winning work in the field of community forestry.
‘Unless impunity is fought, we will not get anywhere’: Q&A with community forestry expert Lucía Madrid
- Lucía Madrid works with communities in Mexico to implement and improve natural resource management programs.
- Madrid says community-led forest management programs have the power to both reduce deforestation and promote rural development on communal land.
- However, she says environmental law and enforcement must also be strengthened to effectively tackle the illegal deforestation plaguing the country.
Video: Abraham Khouw, the professor who joined the Save Aru movement
- Professor Abraham Khouw is one of dozens of academics in the Indonesian city of Ambon who lent his expertise to the Save Aru movement in the mid-2010s.
- The movement formed after a company called the Menara Group got permits to clear nearly two-thirds of the Aru Islands’ rainforest for a giant sugar plantation.
- The academics lent extra firepower to the fight against the plantation, which was mainly driven by local indigenous communities.
Two deaths trigger alarm at Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- The body of Homero Gómez González, passionate defender the monarch butterfly and a Mexican reserve designed to protect it, was found on Jan. 29, two weeks after his disappearance was reported.
- Three days later, Raúl Hernández Romero, a tourist guide in the area, was also found dead, with evidence of violence.
- Homero Gómez, like other land-collective members in the area, collaborated in the creation of a model that seeks to help communities make sustainable use of forests.
Video: Mika Ganobal, the civil servant who risked his job to save his homeland
- Several years ago, a plantation company nearly broke ground on a plan to clear more than half of the rainforest in Indonesia’s Aru Islands.
- Local residents organized against the project. One of the leaders of the effort to stop it was a local bureaucrat named Mika Ganobal.
- Watch our video profile of Mika below.
For Ecuador’s eco agenda, 2019 was a year of setbacks and pushbacks
- Unrest over environmental issues was at the fore of October’s national strike in Ecuador precipitated by economic difficulties, with strong opposition to the expansion of resource extraction.
- The country experienced a mixed 2019 on the environmental front, with indigenous groups winning court rulings to oppose large extraction projects on their land.
- There were also setbacks, however, including lack of compliance on a 2018 referendum to make greater room for uncontacted tribes in Yasuní National Park; persistent criminalization of indigenous activists and environmental defenders; and massive budget cuts for environmental agencies.
Mexico: Community forestry boosts conservation, jobs, and social benefits
- More than 2,000 communal landholdings known as ejidos, and communities, have organized themselves to carry out sustainable management of forests in their territory.
- In states such as Oaxaca, Michoacán, Durango, Chihuahua and Quintana Roo there are examples of communities that have managed to conserve forests and their biodiversity, while generating jobs and other benefits for the population.
- Mining, organized crime, illegal timber trafficking, and the tax regime are just some of the challenges facing community forest management in Mexico.
Madagascar’s bold reforestation goal lacks a coherent plan, experts say
- Madagascar’s president is pushing an ambitious plan to plant trees on 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of land every year for the next five years.
- But conservation experts point to shortcomings in the plan, including the use of disincentives and imposition of targets to compel NGOs and other organizations to get on board.
- There’s also the very real risk that in racing to meet the target, fast-growing non-native species will be prioritized, including acacia and pine, over slow-growing endemic species.
- Conservationists have called for a more collaborative approach to the replanting initiative to seek community buy-in and ensure the long-term effectiveness of the program.
10 takeaways from Indonesia’s grassroots #SaveAru success
- The Save Aru campaign is one of Indonesia’s most successful grassroots movements in recent years.
- The people of Indonesia’s Aru Islands managed to defeat a plan to turn more than half of their archipelago into a massive sugar plantation.
- This month, Mongabay and The Gecko Project published a narrative article about the movement. Here are 10 takeaways from the article.
Saving Aru: The epic battle to save the islands that inspired the theory of evolution
- In the mid-1800s, the extraordinary biodiversity of the Aru Islands helped inspire the theory of evolution by natural selection.
- Several years ago, however, a corrupt politician granted a single company permission to convert most of the islands’ rainforests into a vast sugar plantation.
- The people of Aru fought back. Today, the story of their grassroots campaign resonates across the world as a growing global movement seeks to force governments to act on climate change.
Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- An initiative in Indonesia’s Aceh province is engaging local farmers in restoring parts of the biodiverse Leuser Ecosystem by allowing them to farm and reforest tracts of land previously used for illegal oil palm plantations.
- The forest is the last place on Earth where critically endangered elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers all still exist in the wild, but is being lost to encroachment for illegal plantations.
- Under the initiative, farmers are trained to plant tropical hardwoods as well as fruit and vegetable crops from which they can make a sustainable living.
- Only long-degraded land from past encroachment qualifies, removing any incentive for someone to damage land then apply for a management license.
Ekuri Initiative: Inside a Nigerian community’s battle to keep its forest
- The Ekuri Community in southeastern Nigeria started an initiative in the early 1990s to manage their community forest adjacent to the Cross River National Park, home to the critically-endangered Cross River gorilla and a suite of other unique and threatened species.
- Formalized through the Ekuri Initiative, planned community forest management has helped to drive local development, conservation, sustainable forest management and address poverty by improving access to sustainable livelihoods.
- The Initiative has resisted threats from logging companies and more recently attempts by state authorities to build a 260-km superhighway that would have destroyed much of the community forest.
- However, community leaders worry that if state and national governments continue to ignore their efforts, villagers might think conservation efforts do not respect their rights to survival.
In Nigeria, a highway threatens community and conservation interests
- Activists and affected communities in Nigeria’s Cross River state continue to protest plans to build a major highway cutting through farmland and forest that’s home to threatened species such as the Cross River gorilla.
- The federal government ordered a slew of measures to minimize the impact of the project, but two years later it remains unclear whether the developers have complied, even as they resume work.
- Environmentalists warn of a “Pandora’s box” of problems ushered in by the construction of the highway, including illegal deforestation, poaching, land grabs, micro-climate change, erosion, biodiversity loss and encroachment into protected areas.
- They’ve called on the state government to pursue alternatives to the new highway, including investing in upgrading existing road networks.
Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- Over the past half century the rainforests of Borneo have been logged, strip-mined, burned, and converted for monoculture plantations. The forests that local people primarily relied upon for sustenance are now felled to feed commodities into the global market.
- But the Dayak Iban of Sungai Utik community in Indonesian Borneo has managed to fend off loggers and land invaders from their forest home.
- Sungai Utik’s efforts to sustainably manage its community forest in the face of large-scale deforestation and cultural loss across Borneo have won it accolades, including the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Equator Prize last month.
- During a June 2019 visit, Mongabay spoke with Apay Janggut, or “Bandi”, the head of the Sungai Utik longhouse about his community’s traditional practices, resistance to loggers, and efforts to adapt to issues facing indigenous peoples around the world.
‘We come from the earth’: Q&A with Goldman Prize winner Alfred Brownell
- In the early 2000s, Liberia’s government signed contracts worth tens of billions of dollars with resource extraction companies from across the world.
- ‘There was nobody in the government who really understood what value the forest has to the communities there,’ Brownell told Mongabay
- He argues that it’s time to invest in innovation and business models created by communities, to engage in extractive processes in forests without destroying them.
On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pledged to transfer 127,000 square kilometers of state land to communities, but progress has been slow.
- In Kalibiru, outside the central Javan city of Yogyakarta, one community forest management program has generated impressive revenues for local governments and incomes for community members.
- Some locals say they’re now less likely to migrate away from Kalibiru for higher pay.
In Bali, a village hews to unwritten rules to manage its forest
- Pengotan is a village of around 3,800 on the southern side of Bali’s Mount Batur.
- Walk into a house here in Pengotan and chances are someone will be weaving bamboo to be used in offerings.
- Much of the law of the land is informed by customary tradition, the perarem, handed down from previous generations.
Farming communities abused at troubled DRC mega-farm, campaigners say
- The Bukanga Lonzo agro-industrial park, located nearly 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Kinshasa, was conceived as a way to boost mechanized food production in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- But now, the park is in shambles, and a new report by the Oakland Institute says that community members were misled and abused during its construction.
- The primary investor in the park, Africom Commodities, is currently seeking nearly $20 million in damages from the Congolese government for non-payment of expenses at the park.
With the legal rights to their forest secure, an indigenous community plans for the future
- The indigenous Kasepuhan community in Lebak, Indonesia, is one of the lucky few for whom the government has recognized their rights to the lands they have occupied for generations.
- Now, local youths are hoping to attract visitors from nearby Jakarta and boost coffee production as a means of creating jobs at home.
- “Now we have this clarity,” says Engkos Kosasih, a young Karang man who hopes to put the Karang forest here on the map for ecotourism. “It’s easy to start making plans for the next five or 10 years.”
What the Congo Basin can learn from Filipino community forestry laws (commentary)
- More than two-thirds of the Philippine’s forest cover has been lost to logging, agriculture, fuelwood extraction, mining and other human pressures. To tackle forest depletion, the Philippines has adopted a logging ban and promoted a system of community-run natural resource management. As of 2013, about 61 percent of the Philippines’ forests were managed under this scheme.
- Nonprofit environmental law organization ClientEarth says that despite some limitations, the legal frameworks establishing community management of forests help reduce deforestation by empowering local people to patrol their forests and carry out both conservation and revenue-generating activities. Another strength of the Filipino community forestry model is that it requires free, prior and informed consent of any indigenous group likely to be affected by the community forest plan.
- ClientEarth says lessons learned from the Philippines’ community forestry system can be applied to places that currently lack such legal frameworks, such as countries in the Congo Basin that are reviewing their forests laws.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
The secret to a town’s perfect potatoes? Its well-preserved forest.
- Concepción Chiquirichapa, a town in southwestern Guatemala, is renowned for its excellent potatoes.
- The rise of potato agriculture there is due, in part, to the use of leaf litter as an organic fertilizer and a steady supply of high-quality water from the local forest, which the town began restoring and protecting four decades ago.
- As potato farming spreads and the local population grows, the town is attempting in several ways to protect its natural resources.
- This is the third part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Concepción community’s effort to restore the forest of Siete Orejas.
Short film celebrates community forest titles in DRC
- In 2018, the DRC government approved a plan for communities to gain legal control over their local forests.
- The Rainforest Foundation UK and its partners in the DRC have been working with 10 participating villages to help community members understand their legal rights to manage local forests.
- RFUK and its partners maintain that, in addition to the benefits the communities may derive, local management of forests could help halt deforestation, keeping billions of tons of carbon locked away in the fight to slow global climate change.
Ancient spirituality guides a Maya town’s conservation efforts
- Guided by the teachings and beliefs of their ancestors, the indigenous residents of Concepción Chiquirichapa in southwestern Guatemala look to their local mountain, Siete Orejas, as a source of spiritual energy.
- Twenty-two altars exist on Siete Orejas in spots where the mountain’s energy dwells, according to Mayan belief. The town’s spiritual connection with the mountain has for the past 40 years motivated the community to restore and protect the mountain’s forests.
- Mongabay joined a local Maya spiritual guide in a fire ceremony on the mountain to ask for wisdom and the blessing of the Creator.
- This is the second part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Concepción community’s effort to restore the forest of Siete Orejas.
How a Mayan town restored its sacred cloud forest and water supply
- Guided initially only by knowledge inherited from their ancestors, the people of Concepción Chiquirichapa in southwestern Guatemala began conserving their forest four decades ago.
- The participation of local people has been key to converting pastureland on the Siete Orejas mountain into a green and leafy forest that sustains the area’s economy and water supply.
- The sustainable use of forest resources is central to the town’s approach. People can gather food, natural medicine, and leaf litter for use as fertilizer, so long as they do not harm the forest.
- This is the first part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Concepción community’s effort to restore the forest of Siete Orejas.
Funds tripled and target slashed, but Indonesia still off pace for reforestation
- Indonesia’s efforts to reforest critically degraded land, left over from mining, logging and agricultural activities, have fallen far short of the government’s targets.
- The government initially sought to restore an area the size of the United Kingdom by 2030, before slashing its target to an area the size of England.
- Environmental activists have questioned how the government determines what constitutes land that needs to be restored, and say even an increased annual restoration goal combined with a tripling of funding is insufficient to meet the smaller overall target.
- Officials say lack of funding is the main impediment to the program’s success, and while an untapped pool of money is available, local officials are reluctant to touch it because of a history of mismanagement.
Liberia’s community forestry becoming a front for deforestation: Report
- A report released by Global Witness late last year alleges that Liberia’s forestry laws are being “hijacked” by logging companies.
- These logging companies can potentially put vast areas of Liberia’s remaining rainforests at risk of large-scale deforestation.
- There’s historical precedent for the concerns under the current law: in 2012, Liberia was rocked by a scandal over permits meant to enable private landowners to enter into logging agreements with outside parties.
Māori community reconnects youth with their ancestral forests
- Māori have urbanized rapidly over the last century, undergoing a general disconnection from the environment.
- To buck that trend, members of the Tūhoe tribe in the community of Ruatāhuna, New Zealand, have been teaching their young people about their traditional culture and forest knowledge.
- They’re changing the format of their local schools to reflect a Tūhoe worldview, and have set up a “forest academy” for teenagers.
- This is the third part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s effort to restore their ancestral forest.
What makes a forest healthy? Māori knowledge has some answers.
- Working with its elders and other traditional knowledge holders, the Māori community of Ruatāhuna, New Zealand, has articulated its own, culturally relevant system for monitoring the health of the ancient Te Urewera temperate rainforest it calls home.
- For instance, the community regards the size of flocks of kererū or wood pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) as a key indicator of forest health, and assesses it by the amount of awe an observer feels when witnessing a large flock at close range.
- The community feels a sense of urgency to document this kind of traditional knowledge before the elders who hold much of it pass on.
- This is the second part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s effort to restore its ancestral forest.
A Māori community leans on tradition to restore its forest
- Deep in New Zealand’s vast Te Urewera forest, which is famously endowed with a legal personality, the Māori community in Ruatāhuna is working to restore and sustain its forests and way of life.
- Having regained control of their land after decades of logging by outside interests, members of the Tūhoe community are trying to bring back conifers in the Podocarpaceae family, which they refer to as the chiefs of the family of Tāne, the god of forests and birds.
- Other initiatives include controlling invasive species, developing a community-based forest monitoring system centered on traditional values and knowledge, establishing a “forest academy” for local youth, and setting up a profitable honey enterprise to provide jobs and eventually fund forest restoration.
- This is the first part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s effort to restore its ancestral forest.
Guatemala: An indigenous community rejects, then accepts, a protected area
- When the Guatemalan government designated the Río Sarstún Multiple Use Area in 2005, the local people said it never properly contacted or consulted the indigenous Q’eqchi’ living in the area.
- The Q’eqchi’ initially opposed the designation, and vociferously, for fear it would infringe on their rights to the land.
- Eventually, the government gave them a role managing the zone.
- Now, more than a decade after the Río Sarstún Multiple Use Area came into being, the relationship between the Guatemalan government and local communities is settling into a symbiotic groove, and conservation initiatives are having a noticeable effect on the forests and wildlife.
For Kenya’s Yiaku, medicinal herbs are their forest’s blessing and curse
- The Yiaku, hunter-gatherers turned herders who live deep inside Mukogodo Forest in central Kenya, have relied on herbal remedies for ages, with knowledge passed orally from one generation to the next.
- However, high demand for the herbs from neighboring communities is exposing the forest to new threats — a trend mirrored across the country.
- Recognizing that traditional knowledge is crucial to forest conservation, the government has taken steps to protect it, at least on paper. However, the Yiaku have received little support, even as their most knowledgeable elders pass on and their community becomes increasingly assimilated to their pastoral neighbors.
- This is the third story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Yiaku’s management of their ancestral forest.
Kenya: Bees help indigenous Yiaku defend and monitor their ancestral forest
- The Yiaku, former hunter-gatherers who live in Mukogodo Forest in central Kenya, have kept bees since ancient times.
- They consider honey a valuable commodity and use it not only as food but in traditional rituals and medicine. Beekeeping is also part of the community’s customary system of forest management, helping the Yiaku defend the forest against intruders and monitor its health.
- The Yiaku’s use of beekeeping and other traditional practices to conserve their forest has earned them recognition and autonomy from the Kenyan government, which in 2008 granted the community full responsibility for managing the forest.
- This is the second part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Yiaku’s management of their ancestral forest.
A forest of their own: The Yiaku as Kenya’s model forest stewards
- The Yiaku people have inhabited and watched over Mukogodo Forest for centuries, as hunter-gatherers who have lately embraced herding. But it is only in the past decade that the Kenyan government has officially given them rights to the forest, as well as full responsibility for managing it.
- The forest has thrived under the Yiaku’s care, according to officials, a stark contrast to other forests in the country, which are being lost to illegal logging and agricultural encroachment.
- The Kenyan government, which has a decidedly mixed record when it comes to protecting both forests and the rights of forest-dwelling indigenous groups, is hailing the Yiaku’s approach as a model for other communities around the country. However, the Yiaku face a suite of challenges, including intensifying drought, threats of encroachment by neighboring groups, and their own dwindling connection to their traditional culture.
- This is the first part of Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Yiaku’s management of their ancestral forest.
Stop importing illegal timber, PNG activists tell China at APEC Summit
- Environmental and community groups from Papua New Guinea issued a letter for Chinese President Xi Jinping during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in the capital, Port Moresby.
- In the letter, the authors asked that China, the destination for the bulk of PNG’s timber exports, regulate imports to discourage the illegality that plagues PNG’s forestry sector.
- They highlight the negative effects that rampant logging has had on the country’s ecosystems and forest-dependent communities.
Timor-Leste: With sacrifice and ceremony, tribe sets eco rules
- On an August morning in 2012, about 150 men, women and children gathered at a sacred spot in the village of Biacou, in northern Timor-Leste. With sacrifices of a goat and a pig and the blessing of the land and sea spirits, the community inaugurated the village’s tara bandu, a customary law of the indigenous Maubere that governs how people interact with the environment.
- Tara bandu was outlawed under the Indonesian occupation that lasted from 1975 until 1999. Since then, Maubere communities across the country have been bringing tara bandu back to life as a way to guide more sustainable use of their local natural resources.
- In Biacou, at least, the tradition appears to be resonating with residents as there has been just one violation of the tara bandu in the six years since its inauguration.
- This is the third story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Maubere’s revival of tara bandu.
Timor-Leste: Maubere tribes revive customary law to protect the ocean
- Traditional laws governing the management of natural resources known as tara bandu were outlawed during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. Since the country gained independence in 2002, it has been reviving the tradition in an attempt to control the exploitation of its forests and oceans.
- There are signs tara bandu has had a positive effect on some local forest, mangrove and coral reef ecosystems.
- Esteem for tradition seems to outweigh the adverse effects tara bandu has had on some people’s livelihoods, encouraging respect for the law.
- This is the first story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Maubere’s revival of tara bandu.
Chinese demand wiping out forests in the Solomon Islands: New report
- Logging companies are harvesting timber from the forests of the Solomon Islands at about 19 times the sustainable rate, according to an analysis by the watchdog NGO Global Witness.
- More than 80 percent of the Solomons’ log exports go to China.
- Global Witness is calling on China to build on its efforts to develop its “Green Supply Chain” by requiring companies to verify that the timber they import comes from sustainable and legal sources.
Women’s work in Senegalese conservation includes exorcising demons
- Women, and older women in particular, play important roles in the Kawawana ICCA, an indigenous conservation group in Senegal’s Casamance region.
- They set rules for oyster harvesting and mediate conflicts that arise with outsiders who infringe upon Kawawana rules.
- They also deploy ancient animist traditions in defense of the local environment and act as spiritual doctors for those who break the rules.
- Since 2010, Kawawana has made huge strides in repopulating the local river with fish, reducing damaging levels of salinity in its waters, and halting deforestation, largely by returning to traditional fishing and forestry practices.
In a first, DRC communities gain legal rights to forests
- Provincial authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have approved forest concessions for five communities.
- Following the implementation of a new community forest strategy in June, this is the first time the government has given communities control of forests.
- Sustainable use of the forest is seen by conservation and development organizations as a way to both combat rural poverty and fight deforestation.
Watching the wildlife return: Q&A with a rural Senegalese river monitor
- In the mid-2000s, villagers from the Jola ethnic group in the Casamance region of Senegal noticed a decline in local fish stocks and forest cover, and an increase in water salinity, all of which threatened their food supply and way of life.
- They formed a fishing association in 2006 that grew into a community-wide conservation group known as the Kawawana ICCA in 2010, and have since turned their dire situation around by reviving traditional fishing and forestry methods.
- As part of that effort, the Kawawana ICCA established a team to check up on the state of the river and forest, counting birds, fish, crocodiles, otters and dolphins, whose presence indicates healthy fish stocks, and monitoring rainfall and river salinity.
- Bassirou Sambou, 53, a fisherman by trade, heads that effort. Mongabay interviewed him as part of a larger reporting project about the Kawawana ICCA.
Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats
- Thirteen years ago, the eight Jola villages in Mangagoulack, in Senegal’s Casamance region, were indebted and hungry, with overfishing, rising saltwater levels and rampant deforestation of mangroves contributing to a downward spiral.
- In 2006, the community formed an association and began work toward drawing up a code of conduct based on traditional fishing and land-management techniques. The group, now known as the Kawawana ICCA, operates through consensual decision-making and has pledged to remain independent from the government and NGOs.
- By 2012, the river was full of fish, oysters and other wildlife once again. Local people rejoiced at the renewed supply of food and income.
- Today, climate change, a dam, state indifference to poachers, and a youth exodus are putting their hard-won standard of living at risk. Kawawana has served as a model for other communities in the region, and now the villagers hope that working together will help them face down their problems and fortify their gains.
Kenya: Indigenous Ogiek face eviction from their ancestral forest… again
- The Ogiek, traditional hunter-gatherers, have been subject to violent evictions from their ancestral homeland in the Mau Forest Complex of western Kenya since the beginning of British colonial rule.
- The Kenyan government says the evictions are necessary to protect the Mau Forest Complex, an important water catchment.
- In 2017, after more than 20 years of legal wrangling, the Ogiek won a landmark victory when an international court ruled that the Kenyan government had violated the Ogiek’s right to their ancestral land by evicting them.
- However, there are signs that the Kenyan government may be backing down from its pledge to abide by the court’s decision. Activists are warning of “an imminent plan” by the government to evict Ogiek from parts of the forest.
Amid ongoing evictions, Kenya’s Sengwer make plans to save their ancestral forest
- In one of Kenya’s biggest watersheds, the Sengwer indigenous community has struggled to obtain land rights for the forest it has called home for generations.
- The government has been forcefully evicting the Sengwer from Embobut Forest to pave the way for conservation projects funded by international donors.
- The Sengwer, hunter-gatherers, believe that they can protect the forest while living in it better than the government can, using traditional knowledge passed down from their ancestors.
- They have developed a plan to do so, even as another round of evictions looms.
Indonesia’s ‘one-map’ database blasted for excluding indigenous lands
- The Indonesian government has decided to not include maps of indigenous territory in its unified land-use map database when it is launched this month, despite the fact that some of the maps have been formally recognized by local governments.
- The exclusion has drawn criticism from indigenous rights activists, who say it defeats the purpose of the so-called one-map policy, which is to resolve land conflicts, much of which involve disputes over indigenous lands.
- The activists say the exclusion of the customary maps effectively signals the government’s denial of the existence of indigenous lands.
- For its part, the government says the customary maps will be included once all of them have been formally recognized by local governments — a tedious and time-consuming process that requires the passage of a bylaw in each of the hundreds of jurisdictions in which indigenous lands occur.
‘High risk’ that China’s timber from PNG is illegal: New report
- China, as the main destination for Papua New Guinea’s timber, could help tackle illegality in PNG’s forestry sector with stricter enforcement, according to a new report from the watchdog NGO Global Witness.
- The report contends that companies operating in Papua New Guinea continue to harvest timber unsustainably, often in violation of the laws of a country that is 70 percent forest.
- Global Witness calls for a moratorium on logging operations and a review of permits to harvest timber.
- The organization also argues that Chinese companies should increase their own due diligence to avoid purchasing illegally sourced timber.
Community groups in Cambodia say logging surged with approaching election
- Cambodia’s general election campaign has been accompanied by illegal logging, local leaders say, which can be a way for political parties to fund their activities.
- Facing scant and fractured opposition, the Cambodian People’s Party and its leader, Hun Sen, who has served as prime minister for 33 years, were expected to win.
- Community forestry leaders noted an uptick in felled trees and suspected collusion between the enforcement rangers and the illegal loggers, particularly in July.
Peru: Marañón dry forests protected as a regional conservation area
- Peru has formalized the creation of the Regional Conservation Area of Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests of the Marañón through a Supreme Decree.
- The new regional conservation area will ensure the conservation of a representative sample of this ecosystem, which is home to 143 plant species, 22 bird species and 14 reptile species that live nowhere else in the world.
- A second Supreme Decree, passed on the same day, has formalized the creation of the Regional Conservation Area of the Vista Alegre Omia. These conservation areas are the first of their kind in the Amazonas region.
DRC adopts a strategy that will bolster community forestry, conservation group says
- A new community forestry strategy in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could help provide Congolese communities with a say in the management of the country’s forests.
- A group of local and international organizations, government agencies and community groups developed the strategy to strengthen the capacity of provincial authorities and ensure that the country’s community forestry laws do in fact include and benefit communities.
- The plan calls for an “experimental phase” over the next five years to gradually provide access to areas of the roughly 700,000 square kilometers (more than 270,000 square miles) of available forest through community management permits.
Mexico’s ejidos are finding greater sustainability by involving youth and women
- Ejidos now control more than two-thirds of Mexico’s 64 million hectares (158 million acres) of forest. They have generally proven to be an effective means of preserving those forests while creating economic opportunities for local communities through sustainable farming, ranching, and forestry operations.
- But ejidos themselves face challenges that must be overcome in order to ensure their sustainability. Chief among them has been the lack of inclusion of youth and women, an issue many ejidos have begun to seriously address over the course of the past decade.
- The traditional hierarchies built into ejido communities once posed what many observers saw as a serious threat to the future viability of the ejido system. But young people now represent a hopeful future not just for the ejidos they come from and plan to return to in order to ply their newly acquired skills, but also, perhaps, for the future of conservation in Mexico.
To protect the Congolese peatlands, protect local land rights (commentary)
- In 2017, researchers reported the existence of the largest tropical peatland complex in the world in the Congo Basin.
- In early 2018, a team of scientists, including the author, traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to probe deeper into the peatlands, which cover an area about the size of England and hold some 30 billion tons of carbon.
- Around the same time, the DRC government has awarded logging concessions that overlap with the peatlands, in violation of a 16-year-old moratorium on logging.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Audio: Mexico’s ejidos find sustainability by including women and youth
- On today’s episode, a special report on the community-based conservation and agroforestry operations known as ejidos in Mexico.
- Mongabay Newscast host Mike Gaworecki traveled to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in February to visit several ejidos in the states of Quintana Roo and Campeche. Ejidos are lands that are communally owned and operated as agroforestry operations, and they’ve proven to be effective at conserving forests while creating economic opportunities for the local rural communities who live and work on the land.
- But ejidos have also faced a threat to their own survival over the past decade, as younger generations, seeing no place for themselves in the fairly rigid structure of ejido governance, have moved out of the communities in large numbers. At the same time, the lack of inclusion of women in the official decision-making bodies, known as ejidatario assemblies, has also posed a challenge.
Conservation Effectiveness series sparks action, dialogue
- Our in-depth series examined the effectiveness of six common conservation strategies: Forest certification, payments for ecosystem services, community-based forest management, terrestrial protected areas, marine protected areas, and environmental advocacy.
- We also examined how four of the biggest groups that dominate today’s conservation landscape — The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Conservation International (CI), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) — make decisions about which conservation strategy to employ.
- Our series generated a lot of discussion and attracted a wide variety of feedback.
- We hope to keep our databases of scientific studies and our infographics alive and relevant by developing a platform that allows researchers to update them by adding studies. We welcome ideas on this effort.
Camera trap videos capture biodiversity of conservation area in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula
- Many ejidos, such as Ejido Caoba in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatán Peninsula, run sustainable forestry enterprises on their land, harvesting and selling wood for the benefit of the entire community and replanting the trees they cut down in order to ensure the health of the ecosystem as a whole.
- One way to measure how well an ecosystem has been maintained is through the levels of biodiversity the land is capable of sustaining — and by that measure, Ejido Caoba’s efforts to preserve the ecosystem appear to be quite successful, as the camera trap videos below suggest.
- After this year’s harvest of timber and non-timber forest products comes to an end, the ejido will once again install the camera traps in harvest areas in order to continue monitoring wildlife populations on their land. But for now, you can enjoy these videos captured in November and December 2017.
India’s new forest policy draft draws criticism for emphasis on industrial timber
- The Draft National Forest Policy 2018 is now open for public comments, and will replace the older 1988 policy once it comes into force.
- Critics are apprehensive about how the draft policy deals with community participation and industrial forestry.
- The current draft is bereft of knowledge-driven solutions, some experts say.
Critics say proposed changes to Mexico’s Forestry Law threaten sustainable forest management by local communities
- Mexico’s General Law of Sustainable Forest Development, more commonly referred to as the Forestry Law, has been criticized for not being sufficient to keep illegal wood out of the country, which imperils the sustainable forestry enterprises of ejidos, community-owned and -managed landscapes. At the same time, proposed changes to the country’s Forestry Law could put the entire ejido system in jeopardy, critics say.
- The Mexican Network of Peasant Forestry Organizations (MOCAF), a coalition of rural farmers and indigenous organizations, says it is “urgent” that the Mexican Senate open up discussions on how the Forestry Law can be strengthened to halt the practice of “wood washing,” which refers to the process by which illegally sourced wood is made to appear to be legal.
- Meanwhile, at a press conference held last month, MOCAF’s Gustavo Sánchez Valle warned that proposed changes to Mexico’s Forestry Law and General Law of Biodiversity would allow the government to grant to third parties, like mining companies, the rights to exploit natural resources on ejido lands without consulting the communities that own the land.
Report finds projects in DRC ‘REDD+ laboratory’ fall short of development, conservation goals
- The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) released a new report that found that 20 REDD+ projects in a province in DRC aren’t set to address forest conservation and economic development — the primary goals of the strategy.
- The Paris Agreement explicitly mentions the role of REDD+ projects, which channel funds from wealthy countries to heavily forested ones, in keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century.
- RRI is asking REDD+ donors to pause funding of projects in DRC until coordinators develop a more participatory approach that includes communities and indigenous groups.
Jaguar numbers rising at field sites, WCS says
- WCS reports that jaguar numbers have risen by almost 8 percent a year between 2002 and 2016 at study sites in Central and South America.
- The sites cover around 400,000 square kilometers (154,440 square miles) of jaguar habitat.
- Despite the promising findings, WCS scientists caution that habitat destruction, hunting in response to livestock killings, and poaching for their body parts remain critical threats to jaguars.
Audio: How effective is environmental restoration?
- How effective is environmental restoration? On today’s episode, we seek answers to that question through the lens of a much needed new project at the University of Cambridge collecting restoration evidence, and we also speak with the editor of Mongabay’s ongoing series that examines how well a range of other conservation efforts work, too.
- Our first guest today is Claire Wordley, a communications and engagement officer with the Conservation Evidence group at the University of Cambridge in the UK who recently wrote a commentary for Mongabay to alert the world to a new website called Restoration Evidence that collects research into how effective various restoration activities actually are.
- Our second guest is Mongabay’s own Becky Kessler. We’re about to bring the current reporting phase of a series called Conservation Effectiveness to a close, and because Becky has served as the head editor for the series, we wanted to have her on the Newscast to discuss some of the main findings of the series.
Study delves into overlooked community perceptions of conservation impact
- A new study measures the impacts of conservation projects on people’s lives by letting the people define what matters to them.
- The study has adapted the Global Person Generated Index (GPGI), an index that has previously been used in the health sector to see what people consider important for their quality of life, and lets the people rate the performance of those domains.
- The study found that overall, the local people were most commonly concerned with agriculture, health, livestock, education, jobs, and family-related activities, but more than 50 percent of the people who were interviewed said that the conservation projects had had no significant impacts on these aspects of their well-being.
Maps tease apart complex relationship between agriculture and deforestation in DRC
- A team from the University of Maryland’s GLAD laboratory has analyzed satellite images of the Democratic Republic of Congo to identify different elements of the “rural complex” — where many of the DRC’s subsistence farmers live.
- Their new maps and visualizations allow scientists and land-use planners to pinpoint areas where the cycle of shifting cultivation is contained, and where it is causing new deforestation.
- The team and many experts believe that enhanced understanding of the rural complex could help establish baselines that further inform multi-pronged approaches to forest conservation and development, such as REDD+.
Indonesian villages see virtually zero progress in program to manage peatlands
- Only one out of nearly 3,000 villages located in Indonesia’s peatlands has received a government permit to manage the forest under the administration’s “social forestry” program.
- At the same time, 80 percent of peatlands in key areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan fall within plantation and mining concessions.
- Activists have called on the government to speed up the process of granting permits to villages, arguing that they make better forest stewards than plantation operators.
- The government has acknowledged the slow pace of progress and accordingly cut its target for the total area of forest reallocated to local communities to a third of the initial figure.
Rainforests: the year in review 2017
- 2017 was a rough year for tropical rainforests, but there were some bright spots.
- This is Mongabay’s annual year-in-review on what happened in the world of tropical rainforests.
- Here we summarize some of the more notable developments and trends for tropical forests in 2017.
For indigenous kids in Indonesian Borneo, an early start to forest stewardship
- A Dayak indigenous tribe in Indonesian Borneo has been campaigning for years to protect its forest, its main source of food and sustenance.
- A competition by an NGO hopes to impress upon the village’s children the importance of the forest to the community, through an understanding of where its food comes from.
- After fending off plantation and mining interests, the villagers have won recognition for their land rights from the district administration and are now awaiting acknowledgement from Jakarta.
For Papuan villagers practicing conservation, a bid to formalize the familiar
- Indigenous Papuans of Saubeba village last month gave their support for a government-backed program to designate Tambrauw district, rich in biodiversity, a conservation zone.
- The villagers already practice sustainable management of the district’s lush forests and its resources, on which their lives depend.
- The discussion also sought to find solutions for land conflicts that often put legally vulnerable ethnic groups in peril as Tambrauw district pushes for the passage of an indigenous rights bill.
- One anticipated outcome of all this is the prospect of developing an ecotourism industry centered on the region’s natural riches, including its birds-of-paradise.
In rural Indonesia, a village learns to embrace its forest through sustainability
- In August, the village of Taba Padang in southwest Sumatra was recognized by the Indonesian government for practicing the best community-based forestry management this year.
- Less than a decade ago, however, many of its residents were being arrested for planting in a nearby forest, deemed off-limits because of its protected status.
- In 2010, newly elected village chief Yoyon embarked on a years-long process to obtain state approval to allow the farmers to manage nearly 10 square kilometers of land in the forest.
- In exchange, the farmers are prohibited from creating plantations, must agree to protect the animals that live there, and must guard the land against fire.
Carbon dreams: Can REDD+ save a Yosemite-size forest in Madagascar?
- When Makira Natural Park launched in 2005, it seemed to present a solution to one of the most intractable problems in conservation: finding a source of funding that could be counted on year after year.
- The sale of carbon offset credits would fund the park itself as well as development projects aimed at helping nearby communities improve their standard of living and curtail deforestation.
- But more than a decade later, carbon buyers are scarce and much of the funding for community development has been held up. And although deforestation has slowed considerably in and around Makira, it is falling well short of deforestation targets set at the outset of the project.
- This is the seventh story in Mongabay’s multi-part series “Conservation in Madagascar.”
To feed a growing population, farms chew away at Madagascar’s forests
- In Madagascar, farmers are cutting down forests and burning them to make way for rice cultivation.
- The practice is traditional but now illegal because of the harm it causes to natural areas. Many species are already threatened with extinction due to forest loss.
- With the country’s population expected to double by 2060, the pressure is likely to intensify.
COP23: Leaders vie for protection of ‘incredibly important’ African peatland
- The presence of the world’s biggest tropical peatland was recently confirmed in Central Africa. It is the size of England and straddles the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of Congo (ROC).
- However, conservationists and scientists worry it may be at risk from logging and development. They caution its destruction could release “vast amounts” of carbon emissions. Others say the threats are overblown.
- Conservation leaders and representatives gathered this week at COP23 in Bonn, Germany, say protections could exist through REDD+ projects that could give local communities management rights and provide financial incentives for leaving the peat forest intact.
Indonesian president recognizes land rights of nine more indigenous groups
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo last month gave several indigenous communities back the land rights to the forests they have called home for generations.
- The total amount of customary forests relinquished to local groups under this initiative remains far short of what the government has promised, and looks unlikely to be fulfilled before the next presidential election in 2019.
- At a recent conference in Jakarta, a senior government official said the president would sign a decree to help more communities secure rights.
Does community-based forest management work in the tropics?
- To find out if community-based forest management is effective, we read 30 studies that best represent the available evidence.
(See the interactive infographic below.)
- Overall, community-based forest management does not appear to make a forest’s condition worse — and may even make it better.
- The evidence on socio-economic benefits is mixed, but what research there is suggests that community-based forest management sometimes aggravates existing inequities within communities.
- This story is part of a special Mongabay series on “Conservation Effectiveness”.
FSC mulls rule change to allow certification for recent deforesters
- Motion 7 passed at the FSC General Assembly meeting in Vancouver on Oct. 13, indicating that the organization will pursue a change to its rules allowing companies that have converted forests to plantations since 1994 to go for certification.
- Current rules do not allow FSC certification for any companies that have cleared forested land since 1994.
- Proponents of a rule change say it would allow more companies to be held to FSC standards and could result in the restoration or conservation of ‘millions of hectares’ in compensation for recent deforestation.
- Opponents argue that FSC is bending to industry demands and that a rule change will increase the pressure for land conversion on communities and biodiversity.
Can community forestry deliver for Madagascar’s forests and people?
- In recent years “managed resource protected areas”— forests where local people control the use of natural resources — have sprung up across Madagascar, aiming to spark both economic development and conservation, and to include nearby communities in important decision-making.
- But the community groups managing these forests often struggle to exert real control over the landscapes they’ve been asked to protect, and complain that promised development assistance has never materialized.
- Nevertheless, proponents say the approach can succeed with the right project design, and sufficient funding and support.
- This is the first story in Mongabay’s multi-part series “Conservation in Madagascar.”
Does forest certification really work?
- Based on a review of 40 studies of variable quality, we found that certified tropical forests can overall be better for the environment than forests managed conventionally.
- But there wasn’t enough evidence to say if certified tropical forests are better than, the same as, or worse than conventionally managed tropical forests when it comes to people.
- We also found that profits and other economic benefits can be hard to come by for certified logging companies working in tropical forests.
- This is part of a special Mongabay series on “Conservation Effectiveness”.
Protecting a forest in the land of the Indonesian deer-pig
- In a village in the northern part of Indonesia’s giant Sulawesi island, hunters pursue rare animals that are protected by the law.
- A local affiliate of NGO BirdLife International is working with locals to preserve the Popayato-Paguat forest block — and the dozens of endemic species within.
- The NGO is facilitating an ecosystem restoration project in the forest block.
Not out of the woods: Concerns remain with Nigerian superhighway
- The six-lane highway was shifted in April to the west so that it no longer cuts through the center of Cross River National Park, a ‘biological jewel’ that is home to 18 primate species.
- In a new study, scientists report that multiple alternative routes exist that would still provide the intended economic connections and avoid harming the environment in the area.
- However, Nigerian conservation and community rights group worry that the state government won’t follow through on its promises.
Communities band together to protect El Salvador’s last mangroves
- Jiquilisco Bay is home to about half of El Salvador’s remaining mangroves. But many mangrove tracts were nearly wiped out by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and siltation from upstream deforestation and controlled flooding were damaging the rest.
- In response, local communities formed a coalition, called the Mangrove Association, to help protect and expand the region’s mangroves.
- Around 80 communities are involved in the Mangrove Association. They work to restore damaged areas, and have re-planted hundreds of acres of mangrove forest.
A return to mixed roots in a Sumatran forest
- The indigenous Rejang are rediscovering multicropping after years spent focusing on coffee monoculture.
- The Rejang generally abandoned polyculture after the national government established a national park on their lands.
- Multicropping helps them make money year-round instead of just when it’s time for the coffee harvest.
Cross River superhighway changes course in Nigeria
- The 260-kilometer (162-mile) highway is slated to have six lanes and would have run through the center of Cross River National Park as originally designed.
- The region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to forest elephants, drills, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and Cross River gorillas.
- The proposal shifts the route to the west, out of the center of the national park, which garnered praise from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
- The route still appears to cut through forested areas and protected lands.
Ebo forest great apes threatened by stalled Cameroon national park
- Cameroon’s Ebo forest is home to key populations of tool-wielding Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, along with an unspecified subspecies of gorilla, drills, Preuss’s Red Colobus, forest elephants, and a great deal more biodiversity.
- The forest is vulnerable, unprotected due to a drawn-out fight to secure its status as a national park. Logging and hunting threaten Ebo’s biodiversity. The Cameroonian palm oil company Azur recently began planting a 123,000 hectare plantation on its boundary.
- The Ebo Forest Research Project (EFRP) has been working successfully to change the habits of local people who have long subsisted on the forest’s natural resources — turning hunters into great ape guardians. But without the establishment of the national park and full legal protection and enforcement, everyone’s efforts may be in vain.
Communities conserving local forest in El Salvador vote to ban mining
- El Salvador is considered the most-deforested country in Central America, but national efforts to protect remaining forest appear to be on the upswing in the tiny country.
- Cinquera, a municipality in northern El Salvador, has created its own forest preserve and attracted the attention of the national government.
- In February, residents voted to ban metallic mining in the region.
- On March 22, legislator Guillermo Mata announced that the legislative assembly’s multi-partisan environmental committee had approved the text of a law banning metallic mining. The bill is set to go to the floor for a vote this week, according to Mata.
Paying for healthcare with trees: win-win for orangutans and communities
- In 2016, the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) was declared Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Orangutan habitat is fast disappearing due to deforestation caused by industrial agriculture, forest fires, slash and burn agriculture, and logging.
- One of the most important remaining P. pygmaeus populations, with roughly 2,000 individuals, is in Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park. Alam Sehat Lestari (Healthy Nature Everlasting, or ASRI) is partnering with U.S. NGO Health in Harmony and effectively reducing illegal logging in the park via a unique healthcare offering.
- When communities were asked what was needed to stop them from logging conserved forest, the people answered: affordable healthcare and organic farming. Expensive medical costs were forcing people to log to pay medical bills, while unsustainable agricultural practices depleted the soil, necessitating the use of costly fertilizers.
- The two NGOs opened an affordable health clinic, and later a hospital, offering discounted medical service to communities that stop logging. Forest guardians, recruited in every village, encourage people to curb deforestation. They also monitor illegal activity and reforestation, while offering training in organic farming methods. And the program works!
Jokowi reiterates commitment to indigenous rights
- Instead of attending the fifth congress of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago last week in Sumatra as planned, Jokowi invited representatives of the organization to meet in Jakarta on Wednesday.
- He told them he would push parliament to pass a law on indigenous rights and said he would form a task force to support the movement.
- The administration is planning to recognize the rights of 18 more communities to the forests they call home, an area spanning a total of 590,000 hectares, the president said.
Indonesia’s indigenous peoples will have to keep waiting for a promised task force on their rights
- President Joko Widodo’s administration announced some new initiatives at this week’s indigenous peoples congress in Sumatra, but not the task force on their rights participants had been hoping for.
- The president’s chief of staff said it was more efficient for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to address the matter directly.
- Attention now turns to who will be selected to lead the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago for the next five years. A decision will be made on Sunday.
Jokowi cancels appearance at rare indigenous peoples congress
- This week marks the fifth congress of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago. The event takes place once every five years.
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo had been scheduled to deliver a speech. He would have been the nation’s first top official to attend.
- Last last year, Jokowi recognized the rights of nine communities to the forests they call home. The development was welcomed by indigenous groups even as they called for him to replicate it on a far larger scale.
- “This congress is a deadline for Jokowi to keep his promises. Otherwise there will be a political decision.”
From conflict to communities: Forests in Liberia
- Liberia holds 40 percent of West Africa’s Upper Guinean rainforest.
- National and international organizations have worked with communities and the country’s leadership to clean up the corruption that many say has pervaded outside investments in timber and commercial agriculture.
- Currently, the Land Rights Act, which would give communities more control over their forests, awaits approval, but its progress has been paralyzed, in part by this year’s elections.
An indigenous group reforests its corner of coastal New Guinea
- Residents of Yepem on the Indonesian half of New Guinea island are undertaking a reforestation project with the local government.
- Respect for nature is a fundamental part of the worldview of the local Asmat people.
- Locals’ biggest problem is a lack of clean water.
A Bornean village conserves a forest the government listed for cutting
- Residents of Bawan village in Indonesia Borneo applied for a permit to manage their land as a “village forest,” a form of community forestry being pushed by President Joko Widodo’s administration.
- The national government had designated the area as “production forest,” meaning it could be sold to a plantation or mining company, but residents chose instead to protect the land.
- “I consider Bawan’s village forest a champion project,” said Lilik Sugiarti, a USAID representative who helped to bring it about.
Kalaodi, Tidore’s eco-village in Indonesia’s spice capital
- In 1972, Indonesia’s central government mapped Kalaodi, a village of 454 people, into a protected forest.
- Locals were upset because the protected status robbed them of the ability to continue their centuries-old tradition of cultivating spice groves.
- Today, Kalaodi residents are taking the first steps towards restituting past government oversteps.
Proposed Trump policy threatens Critically Endangered Grauer’s gorilla
- The largest great ape, Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) has nearly disappeared in the past two decades. Numbers have plummeted by 77 percent; perhaps 3,800 remain. This animal, dubbed “the forgotten gorilla” because it was so little studied and was absent from most zoos, is in serious danger of extinction.
- Their slaughter was precipitated by the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s bloody civil war and by mining for coltan and tin ore, “conflict minerals” used in cell phones, laptops and other electronics. Gorillas are heavily poached by armed militias, miners, and less often, by refugees: the animals are being eaten nearly to extinction.
- The gorillas could suffer greater harm from warlords and miners if President Trump signs a proposed presidential memorandum leaked to Reuters. It would allow US companies to buy conflict minerals freely without public disclosure, likely increasing mining in the Congo basin — and poaching.
- Trump’s plan would nullify the current US Conflict Mineral Rule, passed with bipartisan support in 2010 and enacted as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Dodd Frank Act. Meanwhile, conservationists are hopeful that the Grauer’s gorilla can be saved — but only with a DRC and planet-wide response.
How ‘jobless men managing the sea’ restored a mangrove forest in Java
- In the 1980s and early 90s, fish farming thrived in Brebes, on the north coast of Indonesia’s main central island of Java.
- The industry’s steady growth saw local residents chop down mangrove stands to make way for aquaculture ponds. But the development brought unintended consequences.
- In response, a group of local residents embarked on an ambitious tree-planting campaign.
The cousins from Indonesia who revived an ancient spring
- A major reforestation effort is underway in the eastern part of Indonesia’s Flores island.
- It began when residents Markus Hayon and Damianus Pelada set out to restore an area around an ancestral spring that had all but dried up after an earthquake in the 1980s.
- The cousins proceeded to plant thousands of trees — though not without some challenges along the way.
NGO takes action to save great apes in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands
- The Lebialem Highlands, in Cameroon’s southwest, is a rugged mountainous and plateaued region still inhabited by the Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla, the Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee and the Vulnerable African forest elephant.
- While the Cameroon government has taken action by protecting swathes of forest in the region, they admit to being unable to fully protect this habitat from incursions by surrounding communities, who go to the protected lands to farm, harvest bushmeat, hunt, log and mine.
- The Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF), an NGO, has stepped in to help protect Highlands conserved areas — including the Tofala Hills Wildlife Sanctuary and the still to be created Mak-Betchou Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Supported by the Rainforest Trust-USA, ERuDeF is also working to improve local village economies and livelihoods in order to take pressure off of wildlife.
Indigenous traditional knowledge revival helps conserve great apes
- Deforestation and hunting continue to put Africa’s great apes at risk. National parks and other top down strategies have met with limited success. Many conservationists are trying alternative strategies, especially harnessing the power of indigenous taboos and other traditional knowledge to motivate local communities to protect great apes.
- In remote parts of Africa, taboos against hunting have long helped conserve gorilla populations. However, those ancient traditions are being weakened by globalization, modernization and Christianity, with anti-hunting taboos and other traditional beliefs being abandoned at a time when they are most needed to conserve great apes.
- Primatologist Denis Ndeloh Etiendem suggests a unique approach to reviving indigenous taboos and traditional beliefs — the creation of videos and films in which these beliefs are presented as a prime reason for conserving wildlife. He also urges that African environmental and general educational curricula focus not on endangered dolphins or whales, but on wildlife found in interior Africa.
- Development specialist Dominique Bikaba emphasizes the importance of moving away from top down federal management, and to local management of community forests by indigenous communities, whose leaders mesh traditional beliefs with modern conservation strategies. Prime examples are successes seen at Burhinyi Community Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Jokowi grants first-ever indigenous land rights to 9 communities
- Indonesia is one of the most diverse countries in the world, with hundreds of distinct ethic groups and languages.
- The archipelago nation’s constitution recognizes its indigenous peoples, but the government has ignored their rights for most of the country’s 71-year existence.
- In a landmark 2013 ruling, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court removed indigenous peoples’ customary forests from state control. This is the Jokowi administration’s first act of follow up to the decision.
- The action by Jokowi comes at a time when Indonesia’s main indigenous peoples organization is considering withdrawing its support for the president, the only candidate the organization has ever endorsed.
FSC certification gives boost to rainforest community
- The 371,000-hectare Iwokrama forest reserve was awarded FSC certification in October 2016.
- Iwokrama is renowned for its collaborative forest management approach with surrounding communities, including the Amerindian community of Fairview.
- Fairview is the only Amerindian community within the Iwokrama forest and is closely involved in a portion of its management.
Karen people call for a peace park instead of big hydropower in their homeland
- Despite decades of conflict and widespread deforestation, the Salween Basin is one of Asia-Pacific’s most biodiverse ecoregions.
- To protect this diversity, a group of Karen leaders, local people and NGOs have called for the creation of a 5,200-square kilometer park that would function as an indigenous-led protected area. The proposed park includes existing community forests, as well as the site of the planned Hat Gyi dam.
- The stated aspirations of the park are “peace and self-determination, environmental integrity, and cultural survival,” a stark contrast to the conflict, environmental degradation and oppression of minorities that have historically defined development projects in Myanmar.
Community rights: A key to conservation in Central America
- The report, released yesterday, highlights several success stories in Central America and Mexico where local communities are running effective conservation programs.
- It underlines rights-based conservation as an important tool, but cautions that many indigenous and local communities still lack officially recognized land rights.
- The report urges local communities be more involved when conservation programs are proposed for their land.
- Mongabay went on-location in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, where a community forest concession is experiencing less deforestation than the reserve’s core, due in part to an approach that balances conservation with industry.
Corrupt logging practices in Liberia could mar new era in community forestry
- The agreements allow communities to sign contracts with logging companies on their own and entitling them to as much as 55 percent of the revenue stream from logging.
- Liberian government officials say that in the past year alone, 128 communities have applied for these forestry permits.
- In the remote Garwin chiefdom, one community may have been duped into giving away its land rights and future logging profits.
Hectare by hectare, an indigenous man reforested a jungle in Indonesia’s burned-out heartland
- In 1998, a Dayak Ngaju man named Januminro started buying up and reforesting degraded land not far from Palangkaraya, the capital of Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province.
- Today the forest spans 18 hectares and is home to orangutans, sun bears and other endangered species.
- Januminro uses funds from an adopt-a-tree program to operate a volunteer firefighting team. He has big plans to expand the forest.
‘We are revolutionaries’: Villagers fight to protect Myanmar’s forests
- Deforestation has been trending upward in the Tanintharyi region of southern Myanmar, with the area losing 6 percent of its tree cover in 14 years. Mines and new roads are among the threats to its forest.
- A committee formed by a community in Tanintharyi is working to preserve the remaining forest of the Kamoethway river valley.
- The organization – Rays of Kamoethway Indigenous People and Nature – has established nine different conservation zones in the region.
- But members say another conservation project established by Myanmar’s government and funded by oil and gas companies is threatening the community and its conservation efforts.
Youth, women, indigenous group pay the price of logging in Kenya
- Members of the Ogiek indigenous group have been subject to evictions from their forest homeland as part of a government effort to restore the Mau forest, a critically important watershed where deforestation and illegal logging are persistent problems.
- Many Ogiek are impoverished, living in camps for displaced persons. Children with poor access to schooling are turning to work in the region’s thriving timber industry.
- A new law giving local communities more control over their forests may improve the situation, but advocates say it needs to go further in specifically addressing the needs of marginalized women and children.
What are South Sumatrans doing to prevent another haze crisis?
- Residents are still digging canals to drain peatlands, which dries out the soil and makes it prone to burning in the dry season.
- Villagers near pulp and paper supplier PT Bumi Mekar Hijau’s concession, much of which burned last year, say they are upset with the company.
- A small number of residents have been enlisted to serve as part of a Fire Care Community Group to patrol the area, but a local official says it needs to be expanded.
Benefits of Community Forest Management in Madagascar not evenly distributed: report
- The benefits of community-based forestry are well known. A 2014 study by the World Resources Institute, for instance, showed that deforestation rates were as much as 11 times lower in forests licensed to local communities.
- Madagascar became one of the first countries in the southern hemisphere to adopt the legal framework for CFM in the mid-1990s.
- Dr. Ranaivo Rasolofoson of the University of Copenhagen and Bangor University and his team found that while CFM has generally had positive impacts on the living standards of households across Madagascar, some households benefit more than others.
Policy makers meet to discuss forest conservation and ‘the future of humanity’
- At the conference, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Norway’s minister of climate and environment, Vidar Helgesen, signed an agreement pledging stronger collaboration on forests and climate change.
- Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary, Thomas Silberhorn, announced an increase in his country’s contribution to 200M Euros.
- Several speakers at the conference urged more inclusion and consideration of Indigenous Peoples.
10 conservation “fads”: how have they worked in Latin America?
- A 2013 editorial in the journal Conservation Biology described 10 conservation methods that emerged since the late 1970’s as fads, “approaches that are embraced enthusiastically and then abandoned.”
- The fads on the list were: the marketing of natural products from rain forests, biological diversity hotspots, integrated conservation and development projects, ecotourism, ecocertification, community-based conservation, payment for ecosystem or environmental services, REDD+, conservation concessions, and so-called integrated landscapes.
- Mongabay consulted seven conservation experts on how the 10 fads played out in Latin America, a region that is not only a hotbed of biodiversity but also of conservation activity.
Controversial park plans in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve
- Mirador-Rio Azul National Park is one of the best-conserved protected areas in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, where illegal logging and agriculture, forest fires, looting, and drug trafficking have contributed to deforestation.
- A plan to increase tourism to the area and redraw the boundaries of the park and adjacent community forest concessions aims to prevent these threats from compromising the area’s rainforest and important archaeological sites.
- Yet the plan has drawn widespread opposition from local communities, environmental NGOs, and the government agency charged with managing the reserve. Opponents say the plan would threaten the region’s ecology, local livelihoods, and community forest concessions that have successfully protected the rainforest.
Indonesia to rezone 3.8m of protected peat that was damaged or converted
- In May, the Indonesian forestry ministry disclosed that nearly half of the 8.4 million hectares of peatland protected under the 2011 forestry moratorium has been damaged or converted to other uses.
- Last week, the ministry announced it would issue a regulation to provide legal status for these areas.
- Areas that have been turned into small-scale plantations and agricultural lands by local people will be rezoned as social forestry, while areas converted by large companies could be investigated and sanctioned.
Communities lead the way in rainforest conservation in Guatemala
- The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which covers one-fifth of Guatemala, is one of the most important tropical forest areas north of the Amazon and contains dozens of ancient Mayan archaeological sites.
- The best way to protect the reserve’s rainforest—better than national parks—has turned out to be nine community concessions, forest allotments where locals earn a living from the carefully regulated extraction of timber and plants.
- However, the community concessions’ future remains unclear, with contracts set to expire in the coming years and powerful forces opposing them.
Successes and many challenges in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve
- The Maya Biosphere Reserve, which covers one-fifth of Guatemala, is one of the most important tropical forest areas north of the Amazon.
- The reserve is a gem of biological and cultural heritage, with more than 500 species of birds, numerous endangered and iconic wildlife species, and dozens of ancient Mayan archaeological sites.
- The reserve’s multiple-use zone has generally succeeded at reducing deforestation and providing sustainable livelihoods for communities living there. But deforestation remains a huge problem in the reserve as a whole, pushed along by complex factors, including illegal settlement by landless migrants, oil development, and the presence of drug traffickers, cattle ranchers, and other armed groups.
Kenya’s forests squeezed as government pressures environment groups
- The Kenyan government has accused some civil society groups of militancy, terrorism, being espionage fronts for foreign powers, money laundering, tax evasion, or failing to account for donor funding.
- Human rights groups say the accusations are meant to justify deregistering targeted groups, effectively closing them down by paralyzing their operations.
- Attempts to quash civil society are no anomaly among unscrupulous Kenyan politicians, but the extent to which these attempts are harming the country’s fragile ecosystems is new.
Cambodia declares protected area in hotly contested Prey Lang forest
- Prey Lang has been the subject of a massive grassroots effort to save it — one that has seen environmentalists and journalists killed.
- Cambodia has launched a big offensive against illegal logging, but some are skeptical that the main operators will actually be targeted.
- Prey Lang was one of five forests to receive the protected status late last week.
Mexican conservation success threatened by wave of mining concessions
- Mexico is known internationally for its environmental achievements. It is a pioneering country in Community Forestry Management (CFM), biodiversity protection, Payments for Environmental Services (PES) and climate change policy. This past year, Mexico was one of the first countries to complete its Intended Nationally Determined Commitments (INDCs) for the Paris climate talks.
- Yet civil society organizations in Mexico have rung the alarm that these achievements are at risk due to intensified exploration and production in the mining and hydrocarbon sectors. Passed in 2014, sweeping energy reforms have opened up huge swaths of the national territory to energy prospecting. There are 888 currently active mining projects, making Mexico’s mining industry the fourth largest in the world.
- Many of these concessions overlap with protected areas and areas of social land tenure that local communities have managed and depended upon for generations.
Kenya aims to reverse deforestation, plant 20 million new trees
- The campaign is part of a wider strategy by the Kenyan government to increase forest cover, restore degraded land, protect habitats for many species including endangered birds and mammals, and contribute to efforts to tackle climate change.
- The goal is to not only restore primary forests by planting indigenous trees, but to also improve food security for Kenyans by planting trees on farms in order to restore soil fertility, provide shade for other crops, and produce fruits, nuts, and medicines.
- Degraded areas in all five of Kenya’s Water Towers — Mount Kenya, the Aberdares, Mount Elgon, the Cherangani Hills, and the Mau Complex — will be targeted; Kakamega Forest, Kenya’s only rainforest, will be a primary target of the 20 Million Trees initiative as well.
Maroon 5 musicians voice support for community forestry in Guatemala
- Concerned that wood used in guitars and other instruments be sustainably sourced, members of the American bands Maroon 5 and Guster visited Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve in December.
- While there they met with governmental officials, the Association of Forest Communities of Peten, and locals involved in the harvest, processing, and export of certified wood from community forest concessions.
- Citing reduced deforestation and benefits to communities in the concessions, the musicans urged Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales to extend the concessions’ contracts, several of which are set to expire within the next decade.
Guatemala’s REDD+ program draws a range of opinions and results
- In only 50 years, between 1950 and 2000, the area lost to logging in Guatemala is about the size of Holland.
- GuateCarbón has developed a “community forest model” within a third of the Maya Biosphere, the largest reserve north of the Amazon region that has an extension of 8,400 square miles.
- The origin of REDD dates back to 1988, when Guatemala became the world’s first experimental field project.
Killing of Guatemalan activist in the Maya Biosphere Reserve raises alarm
- Walter Manfredo Méndez Barrios led a farming cooperative involved in sustainable timber harvest and actively opposed hydroelectric dams in the department of Peten. Reports filed by him contributed to the arrest of wildlife poachers and land usurpers.
- The 36-year-old father of six had been receiving threats since last year, according to media reports.
- His murder on March 16 was just the latest in a string of killings of outspoken community and cooperative leaders, as well as park rangers, during the 26 years since the Maya Biosphere Reserve was created.
Indigenous forest activist released from prison amid Cambodian crackdown
- Ven Vorn, imprisoned since October, was convicted of harvesting forest products without authorization and sentenced to one year in prison. However, the judge suspended the remaining seven months of his sentence, allowing his release.
- Vorn was arrested after leading a successful campaign to halt construction of a hydropower dam in the Chong indigenous people’s homeland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains.
- His release occurred even as other environmental activists from the region remain in prison or in exile, part of a wider crackdown by the Cambodian government against its opponents.
Some Indigenous groups wary of REDD+ following Paris Climate Agreement
- REDD+ is a United Nations program, and part of the Paris Climate Agreement, that allows industrial nations to fund forest protection in tropical developing countries as a greenhouse gas emissions mitigation strategy.
- Some indigenous groups resisted REDD+ inclusion in Paris, expressing concerns that it could result in their claims to traditional lands being negated by governments and corporations. Some feel that REDD+ safeguards against such land grabs are weak, and that indigenous groups will be left out of REDD+ project planning by national governments.
- The Wapichan indigenous group has spent years petitioning Guyana’s government to recognize their traditional land claims, and now worry that a REDD+ project known as the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) could deprive them of control of their lands. A recent breakthrough announcing formal government/Wapichan land talks could bode well for REDD+ in Guyana and around the world.
Lack of land rights for local communities could scare away investment
- Analysts find that most conflicts that occur between development projects and local communities involve situations in which the communities lack rights to their land.
- These disputes could damage the financial bottom line of an operation, which may scare off future investment in a region.
- The report’s authors say that this could serve as a wakeup call to governments, and provide further incentive to grant communities tenure to the land on which they have been living and depending for generations.
Guatemala’s Christmas season isn’t nice to the native pinabete tree
- The pinabete pine tree from Guatemala has been cut down for decades, and there are few left that grow as tall as they used to be, 45 meters high.
- In 1979, pinabetes occupied an area of 274 square miles. In 1999, that went down to 151; today, it’s estimated to be only 96 square miles.
- Poor Mayan families call the tree “tzin´chaj” or “pashaque”; using it mostly as firewood or to decorate their temples.
Community plants green shoots of hope in the land of the lost Javan tiger
- Communities near Meru Betiri National Park have embarked on a reforestation and forest rehabilitation initiative with NGO assistance.
- Economic incentives include the sale of produce grown in the area and carbon credits from protecting it.
- The community is looking at various carbon-dense trees to maximize the value of their contribution to the program.
Land rights and access to credit in Sulawesi community brings prosperity to land
- Fourteen cooperatives in Indoneisa’s Pinrang regency have petitioned the government for greater management rights to their land.
- One of the cooperatives secured 313 hectares under the community plantation forest, or HTR, scheme.
- White teak has become one of the Bulu Dewata cooperative’s main crops.
A Borneo village maps its land to protect against encroachers
- With assitance from NGOs, residents of Punan Adiu village in North Kalimantan have finished mapping their customary territory.
- At certain moments, the mapping campaign exposed latent conflicts between Punan Adiu and its neighbors, but residents were able to reach a compromise.
- Indigenous rights advocates hope the process can become a model for other communities.
Bali’s mountain dwellers govern with ancient palm leaf treatises
- Residents of Tenganan in the hills of eastern Bali produced forestry regulations that predate the 11th century. The village still adheres to them.
- The local Aga people are trying to negotiate a balance between maintaining the environment and accommodating foreign tourists.
- According to a local regulation on collective ownership, individuals within the village can neither draw up deeds for local land nor transfer parcels to people outside the community.
The indigenous community whose forest is their supermarket
- Local people have mapped their customary forest but still must deal with companies who are given permits to exploit their land.
- Residents derive a variety of benefits from the surrounding environment, including food, medicine and cultural inspiration.
- The central government has recognized local people with an “ecolabel” for their dedication to customary law and local wisdom.
An indigenous declaration in Kalimantan looks to make history
- Dayak Tombun people in Central Kalimantan want President Jokowi to officialize their rights to the land they spent years mapping with NGO assistance.
- Jokowi has already said he backs a stalled domestic law on indigenous rights and the creation of a specialized task force, but advocates want him to expedite these reforms.
- Villagers say mapping indigenous forests will result in greater protection of tree cover because it will leverage centuries of local knowledge.
Advances from oil palm interests leave Sulawesi village unmoved
- The village of Rumbia has repeatedly turned down advances from oil palm companies who want to develop their land.
- Even officials from the local government have tried to convince Rumbia to try oil palm, but residents have remained steadfast.
- Instead, they grow timber species and harvest palm sugar. Last year, the village received an environmental prize from the president.
Punk rocker likes what he sees in Sumatra’s resin forest
- Residents of Pahmungan village in Lampung won a prestigious environmental prize for protecting their dipterocarp forest.
- They have gotten a publicity boost from Jemi Delvian, lead singer of Indonesian punk rock band Hutan Tropis.
- Creating a ‘damar’ grove is no small effort – it takes 23 years.
In the shadow of a metropolis, a community revives Java’s lost forests
- The year following strongman General Suharto’s fall was a period of intense deforestation for Mendiro village in East Java.
- Years later, locals formed an organization to reverse the damage.
- Ten thousand seedlings were planted. The villagers have since been awarded a prestigious conservation prize from the central government.
A village in Borneo turns away from palm oil
- Tanjung residents were approached in 2010 by an oil palm company that wanted to do a deal.
- Around the same time, they were also approached by two groups interested in helping the village protect its forests.
- They have since endeavored to improve and diversify their agricultural practices.
After the tsunami, a forest restored along a river in Aceh
- In Aceh Jaya, one of the regencies hit hardest by the tsunami that struck Sumatra in 2004, villagers have worked to conserve the forest in the vicinity of the Krueng Sabee River.
- They had to contend with illegal loggers lured by the immense demand for wood in the reconstruction period.
- With NGO assistance, local people planted thousands of coffee, durian, rambutan, jaloh and jabon tree saplings near the river’s headwaters.
After years of struggle and bloodshed, Peruvian community wins back its land
- Year after year, community members made a four-day boat trip to the regional capitol so they could fill out the paperwork to register all the community’s members and urge the state to recognize their land rights.
- During the process, four of the community’s leaders were ambushed and killed.
- While threats to the community and their forest still exist, their new title will help them preserve the land on which they depend.
Could canned fish soup stop government-community conflict in Sumatra?
- Lemaeh soup is a delicacy native to Rejang Lebong in Indonesia. It has been canned and exported to Japan and Europe.
- Locals were banned from harvesting coffee from customary plots when the government created a protected area. The bamboo industry is being developed to diversify income sources.
- Bamboo weaving is traditionally the lot of the ladies in the region, so women are being encouraged to participate.
A Dayak village campaigns for rights to its forests
- Residents of Sebadak Raya have rejected entreaties from oil palm companies for many years, although that might be starting to change.
- Some in the village have accepted the companies, but others view the forests spiritually as their source of life and don’t want do business with the firms.
- After villagers mapped their traditional-use forests, the government gave them rights to a portion of what they asked for. Villagers are campainging for more.
Lombok’s blooming community forest bears fruit and raises livelihoods – and haj trips
- In 1997 the land around Santong was practically a dead zone following years of untrammeled exploitation during the rule of General Suharto.
- To address this the community banded together with the local office of the Forestry Ministry and made Santong the pilot site for a community forest program.
- Today, delegations from each of the ASEAN bloc states have visited Santong to study the scheme’s successes.
From conflict to partnership, a Kalimantan community and logging company manage the forest together
- A year after the 1998 fall of Suharto, a logging company began felling trees in a concession where five villages already stood. One of Indonesia’s ubiquitous land conflicts began to set in.
- In 2000, a mediation agreement produced an agreed framework for compensation. Villagers later formed a collective action network, BP Segah, to oversee the deal.
- Today, BP Segah monitors the company’s activities to ensure transparency, serves as a public forum for complaints, manages compensation payments and more.
Powered by the land: The Sumatran village that conserves forest for electricity
- Residents of Kinangkung rely on water from the surrounding forest to power their homes.
- The microgrid is the consequence of years of a focused drive by a community to protect its ecological wealth.
- Kinangkung is just one sign that microgeneration is beginning to concentrate minds in the archipelago’s outlying areas.
Indonesian villagers transform ailing forests into oasis of fruit
- A village on the island of Lombok convinced local forestry officials to increase its management rights over its forests.
- The villagers have sometimes clashed with rangers from a nearby national park, but they have turned nutmeg and other crops into a major source of income.
- The villagers are trying to get similar regulations passed throughout Lombok.
Indonesian village opts to protect mangroves, preserve livelihoods
- In May, the village of Deaga in North Sulawesi agreed to conserve 150 hectares of mangroves, which store huge amounts of carbon.
- Under the terms of the agreement, villagers can still harvest dead mangrove wood and nipa palm leaves for home-building and can pick fruit.
- The villagers want to see the protected area incorporated into the district’s spatial plan to ensure that it is respected.
Palm oil a mixed blessing in Indonesia’s peat peninsula
The Indonesian village of Dosan sits on the edge of the Kampar Peninsula, an enormous swath of peat in Riau province on the island of Sumatra. The peninsula is one of the last strongholds for the critically endangered Sumatran tiger and constitutes one of the world’s largest carbon stores. It is also fast disappearing. Over […]
Director-generals inaugurated as merger of Indonesian Environment, Forestry Ministries continues
Environment and Forestry Ministry officials line up at the inauguration ceremony for new director-generals last week. From left, ministry Secretary-General Bambang Hendroyono, Environmental and Forestry Spatial Planning Director-General San Afri Awang, Ecosystem and Natural Resources Conservation Director-General Tachrir Fathoni and Watershed and Protected Forests Director-General Hilman Nugroho, who is shaking the hand of the minister, […]
To improve food security, look to the forests, new report says
Cashew nuts grow in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: P.J. Stephenson. Forests could help alleviate global hunger, according to a new report released Wednesday during the United Nations Forum on Forests in New York. It’s a bold claim, and the report, published by the International Union of Forest Research […]
Proposed law could decimate Indonesia’s remaining forests
Illegal logging in Indonesian Borneo. Photos by Rhett A. Butler A seemingly well-intended law that aims to turn forests over to traditional users could instead lead to large-scale destruction of Indonesia’s native ecosystems, warns a prominent conservation biologist. Writing in The Jakara Globe, Erik Meijaard of the Borneo Futures Initiative explores the potential implications of […]
Mapping local communities’ efforts to protect forests in Indonesia
Local and indigenous communities play an important role managing and protecting forests. Research published in 2014 by World Resources Institute and the Rights and Resources Initiative concluded that community-managed forests experienced an average deforestation rate that is eleven times lower than land outside their borders. Legally recognized, community-managed forest amounts to 513 million hectares or […]
Communities create timber company to protect Sumatran forest
Acacia seedlings are grown and planted in and around communities in Lampung, Sumatra, to help relieve logging pressures on natural forest. Photo by Ridzki R. Sigit. The village of Pekandangan sits on the border of Register 39, a 41,000-hectare protected forest containing the headwaters of the Way Seputih River. The Way Seputih is the longest […]
Sulawesi communities build big, unique houses by sustainably managing forests
Bonoran community members sustainably harvest bamboo from the surrounding forest to build traditional houses. Photo by Eko Rusdianto. “If we don’t have forests, community grounds, burial place, and rice fields… then what will be the fate of our families?” asks Layuk Sarungallo, a traditional leader of the Ke’te Kessu area of the Bonoran Village in […]
Rapid development threatening traditional farms, forests in West Papua
Tall, forested mountains surround the village of Demaisi in West Papua. Photo by Duma Tato Sanda. A half-kilometer south of the village of Demaisi, Yohan Ullo pulls weeds from his garden. The 50 square meters of land was only recently cleared for planting. However, it has been in the rotation of his family for many […]
After 10 years vying for protection, Kalimantan community granted legal rights to community forest
Forest along a stream near Setulang. Photo by Yustinus S. Hardjanto. During Indonesia’s 2014 national census, 848 people were recorded living in the village of Setulang, an hour’s drive from Malinau, North Kalimantan (formerly part of East Kalimantan) at the confluence of the Malinau and Setulang rivers. All of them consider themselves members of the […]
Sumatran community takes charge to protect its forest, attracts REDD+ attention
The forests of the Bukit Barisan mountains support high levels of biodiversity, prevent landslides, and protect local watersheds. Photo by Sapariah Saturi. Television inspired Syafrizal to act. As he watched report after report of land conflicts exploding in Sumatra and Kalimantan, he realized nobody was safe, and his village might be next. “We were managing […]
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