topic: Economics

topic: Economics

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Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.

‘Healthy humans without a healthy planet is a logical fallacy’: Interview with Dr. Sakib Burza
- Brought up watching nature’s grandeur in Indian Kashmir, Dr. Sakib Burza’s early inspiration in medicine began at home before he went on to work with Indigenous and local communities in tropical forest regions.
- Having worked in communities responding to the impacts of droughts and climate shocks, he says improved planetary health is crucial for better human health, and that health problems are often the symptoms of climate change or environmental problems.
- At Health In Harmony, he leads medical projects with rainforest communities through the concept of radical listening and supporting their medical needs and livelihoods.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Dr. Burza lays out his argument for how and why the health of people and the planet are connected, and actions that can improve the state of both.

Can ‘degrowth’ solve our ecological, social & economic problems?
- Economist Tim Parrique speaks with co-host Rachel Donald on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast about the economic model known as “degrowth.”
- According to the Lund University researcher, degrowth originated in France in 2002 to address the current “limitless growth” economic model that stretches the ecological limits of the planet — the so-called Planetary Boundaries — unsustainably.
- The degrowth concept seeks to provide sustainable development pathways for low- and middle-income countries while stabilizing quality of life in wealthy nations, via producing and consuming less in the latter.
- Recent research indicates that the United States wastes 65% of its economic output on things that do not provide essential or quality-of-life needs, bolstering the argument that the economy could be strongly scaled back to decrease its impact on the environment.

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.

Beyond ‘no,’ more positive visions for conservation need communication (commentary)
- “I have become increasingly concerned that [environmentalists’] ongoing failures stem at least partially from really bad messaging,” a new op-ed states.
- “We are so focused on being against things that we keep missing an opportunity to be for something…We desperately need new climate-friendly visions for our economies and governance systems that we can all get behind, not just a laundry list of what not to do,” the Cambridge scholar continues.
- Some environmentalists are starting to push more positive communications and the development of transformative visions for conservation, such as developing “socio-bioeconomies” to replace existing economic models.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cacao and cupuaçu emerge as Amazon’s bioeconomy showcases
- A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
- Selling high-end chocolate made from both of these closely related pods increases the value of the products and also allows local communities to earn higher incomes, thereby giving them an incentive not to deforest.
- Portable biofactories are also set to teach traditional communities how to make bean-to-bar premium chocolate products, helping to increase the value of the raw cacao by up to 2,000%.
- These projects are part of an emerging bioeconomy in the Amazonian region, which experts say will keep the rainforest standing while also lifting the region’s population out of poverty.

U.N. ‘stocktake’ calls for fossil fuel phaseout to minimize temperature rise
- The U.N. climate change agency published a new report Sept. 8 confirming that while there has been progress on climate change mitigation since the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015, more needs to be done to limit the global rise in temperatures at 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels.
- The report is an element of the global stocktake, a Paris Agreement-prescribed inventory of progress toward climate-related goals.
- The authors of the report called for phasing out fossil fuels and ramping up renewable energy.
- The global stocktake process will conclude at the U.N. climate conference (COP28) beginning Nov. 30 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Indonesian voters want a clean energy plan, but candidates haven’t delivered
- Candidates running in Indonesia’s presidential election next year must make clear their plans for transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, policy experts say.
- A survey shows young Indonesians, who make up the majority of potential voters, view environmental issues in general, and a just energy transition in particular, as crucial issues for a new president to tackle.
- However, none of the three hopefuls who have declared their candidacies to date have addressed these issues, with the survey reflecting a sense of pessimism among respondents.
- Indonesia, a top greenhouse gas emitter, has said it aims to hit net-zero emissions by 2060 and retire its existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, but continues to build more coal plants to serve its growing metal-processing sector.

‘In business to save the planet,’ Patagonia says people & planet should be the priority of corporations
- In the words of its founder, outdoor gear company Patagonia exists to “force government and corporations to take action in solving our environmental problems.”
- In 2022, the company made headlines when founder Yvon Chouinard announced the transfer of company ownership ($3 billion in assets and $100 million in annual profits) to a nonprofit and a trust, the dividends of which would go to environmental advocacy organizations, making “Earth the only shareholder.”
- Joining our podcast to discuss Patagonia’s 50-year legacy is environmental action and initiatives director Beth Thoren, who shares the company’s theory of change, discusses how traditional capitalism is no longer working for people or the planet, and its poignant “Not Mars” campaign.
- “If we continue to live in the world where shareholder value is the only thing that is valued, we will burn up and die,” she says.

Ecuador referendum halts oil extraction in Yasuní National Park
- Millions of people participated in a nationwide referendum to determine whether crude oil should remain in the ground indefinitely at a site inside Yasuní National Park in Ecuador’s eastern Amazon.
- More than 5.2 million people voted in favor compared with 3.6 million against, solidifying protections for Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation.
- The referendum took place alongside presidential and legislative elections as well as a referendum on halting mining in the Chocó Andino de Pichincha. That referendum received nearly 70% support from voters.

Protecting the Amazon requires fresh thinking, veteran ecologist argues
- An ecologist and conservation biologist with 30 years of experience living in the Amazon region, Tim Killeen wants conservationists to think outside the box when it comes to incentivizing Amazon protection.
- He likens changing the deforestation pathway of the Pan Amazon to “turning an ocean liner” in that “pressure must be applied to the rudder of state” over a long period of time to drive change.
- That change, he says, must come from taking into consideration a variety of economic factors and pressures that each state in the Amazon faces, to provide viable ideas and solutions that incentivize forest protection.
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Killeen shares some key points from the second edition of his book, A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness; what inspired him to work in conservation; his advice for up-and-coming conservationists; and what gives him hope.

What can solve growing conflicts between agricultural giants and communities in Cameroon?
- Tensions between local communities and large-scale agriculture companies are running high in Cameroon and disputes over land and environmental impacts have increased over the years.
- The Cameroonian government views industrial agriculture companies as drivers of future economic development and is encouraging the sector’s development, but their establishment is marred in land issues arising from colonization.
- The government’s adopted solutions to conflicts have proved ineffective, and it is struggling to implement adequate measures to curb disputes.
- Civil society groups and organizations are calling for the reform of Cameroon’s land policy as communities turn to popular protests as a way to meet their demands.

The state of the Amazon: Chapter 1 of “A Perfect Storm”
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023.

Ecuador to boost protection of Galápagos in biggest debt-for-nature deal ever
- Ecuador has launched a debt-for-nature deal that will wipe out some $1 billion in interest payments in exchange for boosting its protection of the waters around the Galápagos Islands.
- Much of the funding will focus on managing the newly established Hermandad Marine Reserve, the existing Galápagos Marine Reserve, and sustainable fishing and climate resilience efforts.
- The deal would also finance an endowment to generate ongoing funding for marine conservation in the Galápagos Islands.
- This is the world’s largest debt-for-nature deal to date.

Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- A new bill under debate in Peru’s congress seeks to reevaluate the existence of every Indigenous reserve for isolated peoples to determine whether to keep them or scrap them completely.
- The bill would shift decision-making power into the hands of regional governments and include economic interests in the evaluation process, changes which human rights and environmental experts call legally flawed and a human rights violation.
- Some regional governments and companies backing the proposed bill have questioned studies confirming the existence of isolated peoples and seek to place oil exploitation, logging and economic development as a priority.
- In the event of the bill’s approval, all open proceedings relating to Indigenous reserves and Indigenous peoples in isolation would be suspended.

To restore large carnivore populations, make people wealthier, study finds
- Encouraging sustainable social and economic development is the best way to prevent the extinction of carnivores such as lynx, bears and lions, according to a new study.
- Researchers found that social and economic factors, such as people’s quality of life, were more closely associated with declines of these species than purely environmental features like habitat loss or climate change. As people become wealthier, they are more likely to tolerate large carnivores.
- A key example is western Europe, where populations of grey wolves have increased by 1,800% since the 1960s due to better quality of life for people and slower economic growth on the continent.
- Rapid economic development often comes at the expense of other species, so advanced economies may need to provide financial assistance to help prevent these species from going extinct.

To replace Western food imports, Cameroon gives community lands to ‘no-name’ agro-industry
- The Cameroonian government has allocated 95,000 hectares of land – three times the size of Cameroon’s capital – to the company Tawfiq Agro Industry, to develop an agro-industrial facility aimed at reducing expensive Western food imports.
- This immediately drew backlash from local communities and farmers, who would lose their lands in the process and have not seen an environmental and social management plan.
- The State plans to reconsider the amount of land granted to the company, and will ensure any impact on communities is mitigated, a state representative unofficially tells Mongabay. This promise is not written in official documents and has not been shared with locals.
- Tawfiq highlights the project’s economic potential, whose overall investment of an estimated $150 million (100 billion CFA francs) over 10 years should generate 7,500 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs.

If the US aspires to climate leadership, it must break its addiction to the products driving forest destruction (commentary)
- At the COP27 climate summit this week, the U.S. government reiterated its commitment to ending global deforestation, a significant driver of the climate emergency.
- Yet, as a recent major investigative report by Earthsight and Mongabay showed, the U.S. is continuing to contribute to illegal deforestation overseas through its unfettered consumption of the goods which result from it.
- This opinion piece argues that if the U.S. truly aspires to leadership on forests, the U.S. must first get its own house in order, improving and better enforcing existing legislation banning imports of stolen timber and urgently passing draft legislation extending such controls to ‘forest risk commodities’ like beef and soy.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Carbon offsets: A key tool for climate action, or a license to emit?
- The carbon offset market has existed for 25 years, and experts say there are still fundamental problems in its structure. Some question the underlying concepts, and refuse to consider it a tool for climate action.
- Part of the issue is that transparency is low. Buyers and sellers of carbon offsets often never meet and are separated by numerous intermediaries with their own profit incentives: registries, verifiers, and brokers. It’s not clear who buys offsets or which emissions are offset.
- Most experts say the offset market is not meant to contribute meaningful change to emissions, but rather to be an extra tool to channel funds toward sustainable development when companies are failing to transition from fossil fuels.

Lack of finance prevents Bangladesh farmers from diversifying their rice crops
- About 15 million farmers in Bangladesh grow just five to six rice varieties, despite the availability of more than 130 different rice varieties, giving rise to an effective monoculture that leaves farmers at higher risk from pests and diminishing yields.
- Observers attribute this to a lack of support from the government to help farmers explore other rice varieties, which typically have lower yields and fetch lower prices than the most popular varieties.
- Lack of financial support means many farmers have to take out high-interest microcredit loans for their operational expenses, which in turn compels them to grow the most profitable rice varieties, locking them in a vicious cycle.
- Observers have called on the government to do more to incentivize farmers to diversity their rice crops, pointing to long-term benefits in the form of improved soil health and resilience to pest attacks.

Sri Lanka fuel shortage takes massive toll on efforts to save wildlife
- Sri Lanka continues to face the brunt of the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, with depleted foreign reserves resulting in acute fuel shortages nationwide.
- The shortages and limited rations are affecting conservation efforts, including the timely treatment of wild animals, regular patrolling to thwart poaching, and mitigation actions to limit human-elephant conflict.
- Fuel allocations for the wildlife conservation department have been halved, and both wildlife and forest officials say this has made operations extremely difficult.
- The threat of forest fires also looms as the dry season gets underway, which typically calls for more patrols to prevent burning by poachers and forest encroachers.

Bad weather knocks down Brazil’s grain production as ‘exhaustively forewarned’
- Brazil’s agricultural GDP declined by 8% in the first quarter of 2022 due to a severe drought in the country’s south caused by a rare triple-dip La Niña.
- In Rio Grande do Sul, the nation’s southernmost state, 56% of last year’s total soy harvest was lost, harming thousands of farmers.
- Scientists warn that climate change will make Brazil’s southern region, an agribusiness stronghold, widespread crop losses more common.
- Despite warnings, climate denial in the agriculture sector is getting in the way of mitigation efforts as the government of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby push an anti-environmental agenda.

Study tracks global forest decline and expansion over six decades
- Globally, there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square miles) in forest area between 1960 and 2019, according to a new study. That’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
- The study showed that most forest loss occurred in “lower-income” countries as their economies grew, which are found primarily in the tropics. Forests in wealthier countries tended to expand.
- The authors say their findings confirm the forest transition theory, which links countries’ economic development to changes in land use.
- International organizations like the U.N. and rich countries should provide support to less-industrialized, forested countries to allow them to find economically beneficial alternatives to deforestation, the study authors say.

As stronger storms hit Bangladesh farmers, banks are climate collateral damage
- Farmers in coastal areas of Bangladesh are increasingly defaulting on their loans due to climate change-driven storms that are destroying the farms they put up as collateral.
- Agricultural loans for the year to May 2022 amounted to the equivalent of $3 billion, or a fifth of the value of all loans distributed in Bangladesh.
- Increasingly frequent and severe storms therefore pose as much of a threat to the country’s financial sector as to farming communities and the environment.
- The warming of the sea in the Bay of Bengal as a result of climate change is supercharging storms, giving them more energy, helping them to drive tidal surges farther inland and dump larger volumes of rain than before.

Podcast: Blockchain for conservation? Maybe, but leave the crypto out
- The increasingly popular blockchain technology is being used for conservation finance purposes, but it comes with some significant downsides, both functional and environmental.
- The “mining” process for popular cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, is highly energy intensive, comparable to the annual electricity usage of entire nations.
- Journalist Judith Lewis Mernit and author Brett Scott join the Mongabay Newscast to discuss these environmental impacts, complications, and the relationship of our financial systems with our ecological ones.

Did Wall Street play a role in this year’s wheat price crisis?
- In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global wheat spot and future prices skyrocketed, at one point by as much as 54% in just over a week.
- Wheat prices had already been rising over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the World Food Programme to warn that hundreds of millions of people were at risk of going hungry.
- Analysts say the crisis isn’t one of availability but rather one of prices, with some arguing that far too little attention is being paid to the role that speculative gambling by Wall Street has played in pushing up food prices this year.
- As climate change-related droughts and other weather disasters threaten wheat harvests in some countries, food security advocates say it’s time to move to a system that’s less vulnerable to external shocks.

Podcast: Community empowerment and forest conservation grow from the galip nut in Papua New Guinea
- Galip nuts are a well-known, traditional agricultural product in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
- Papua New Guineans are currently reaping the economic and environmental benefits of this nut via agroforestry led by local communities and women entrepreneurs.
- In this episode, we speak with Dorothy Devine Luana, PNG-based owner of DMS Organics, a galip nut grower and processor, and Nora Devoe, research program manager for a project of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), focused on the potential of the galip nut industry to sustainably empower PNG communities.

International funding nowhere near enough for Indonesia to cut emissions: Study
- Indonesia will have to come up with its own funding schemes to have any chance of achieving its carbon emissions reduction target by 2030, a new study says.
- The government has calculated that it needs $323 billion in funding from the international community to slash emissions by 41%, but received just $6.4 million between 2007 and 2019, the study found.
- It found that Indonesia faced difficulties accessing international climate grants, with donors often prioritizing their own interests or preferring countries with lower incomes than Indonesia.
- A potential source of funding could be the sale of government debt that’s a combination of environmental (green) bonds and Islamic-compliant bonds, known as sukuk, the study says.

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.

Malaysian officials dampen prospects for giant, secret carbon deal in Sabah
- The attorney general of the Malaysian state of Sabah has said that a contentious deal for the right to sell credits for carbon and other natural capital will not come into force unless certain provisions are met.
- Mongabay first reported that the 100-year agreement, which involves the protection of some 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) from activities such as logging, was signed in October 2021 between the state and a Singapore-based firm called Hoch Standard.
- Several leaders in the state, including the attorney general, have called for more due diligence on the companies involved in the transaction.
- Civil society representatives say that a technical review of the agreement is necessary to vet claims about its financial value to the state and its feasibility.

Zimbabwe’s forests go up in smoke to feed its tobacco habit
- Tobacco farmers are responsible for a fifth of the total annual deforestation in Zimbabwe, cutting down trees to burn in their curing barns.
- While the practice is not permitted, enforcement remains lax, and solutions such as establishing woodlots have not proved fast or scalable enough to address the problem.
- With Zimbabwe expected to produce 300,000 metric tons of tobacco by 2025, which will require burning 10 times as much wood, the current situation is unsustainable, officials warn.

Have we reached peak palm oil? (commentary)
- Palm oil prices have rocketed since the outbreak of COVID-19, but the surge in deforestation that usually accompanies this isn’t happening.
- Mark Gregory asks whether the market for one of the biggest drivers of tropical deforestation in the world is waning, and what it means for the fight to protect forests.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indonesia’s clean energy transition must start with clean rivers (commentary)
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has touted hydropower as key to the country’s transition away from coal, which currently dominates the national energy mix.
- But while Indonesia has a wealth of major rivers with the potential to high power-generating capacity, more than half are degraded and polluted.
- With Indonesia set to showcase its clean energy transition when it hosts the G20 summit later this year, this is the time to start cleaning up the country’s rivers, writes Warief Djajanto Basorie.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Rainforests in 2022: A look at the year ahead
- Between rising deforestation in the Amazon, new financial and political commitments to reduce deforestation, and growing interest in “nature-based solutions” like conservation and reforestation, 2021 may prove to have been a fateful year for the world’s tropical rainforests.
- So what should we expect in 2022? Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler provides a brief look at what may be some of the major storylines for tropical forests in the coming year.
- He picks 12 issues to watch, ranging from the post-COVID recovery to carbon markets to geopolitics.

Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal
- An Indigenous leader in Sabah is suing the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo over an agreement signing away the rights to monetize the natural capital coming from the state’s forests to a foreign company.
- Civil society and Indigenous organizations say local communities were not consulted or asked to provide input prior to the agreement’s signing on Oct. 28.
- Further questions have arisen about whether the company, Hoch Standard, that secured the rights under the agreement has the required experience or expertise necessary to implement the terms of the agreement.

Indonesia’s ‘green’ electricity plan undermines its climate vows, activists say
- Indonesia has published its new 10-year electricity generation plan that it claims is “green” but that still calls for a large portion of the country’s energy mix to come from coal
- Clean energy activists say the plan threatens to undermine Indonesia’s emissions reduction efforts, including a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
- The new plan calls for adding 40.8 gigawatts of new electricity by 2030, including half from renewable energy and a third from coal.
- Even then, the government’s definition of “renewable” includes questionable sources such as biomass (burning wood pellets), gasified coal, and nuclear.

Forest finance expected to advance under new TREES standard and LEAF Coalition
- The latest edition of the TREES standard for forest carbon crediting attempts to bring together the best of what the private sector can do and the best of what governments can do to protect forests. It is explicit about how projects can be integrated into jurisdiction-level accounting.
- While effectively directing capital to forest communities on the ground, REDD+ projects have been dogged by methodological problems and what in some cases appear to be spurious claims of climate impact.
- The designers of TREES say that with its jurisdictional scale and transparent carbon accounting guidelines, it will better address the main credibility risks so far associated with REDD+ carbon credits.
- Almost 15 years after the original REDD framework, many regard TREES and the LEAF Coalition announced in April 2021 as the first real attempt at credible REDD+ implementation at scale.

Wildfires turn up the heat on farmers growing Indonesia’s ‘hottest’ pepper
- Farmers in the south of Indonesian Borneo have built up a reputation and a lucrative industry around their Hiyung chili pepper, said to be the hottest in the country.
- The pepper grows well in the swampy peat soil of the region; farmers here began planting it after their rice crops failed in the same acidic soil.
- But the chili peppers, which local officials say have elevated farmers’ income to six times the local average, are under threat from the perennial fires that sweep across Indonesia’s drained peatlands.

The Possible Meat: A Brazilian farmer shows ranching can regenerate the Cerrado
- Matheus Sborgia, a Brazilian chef, decided to bet on regenerative agriculture after inheriting his grandfather’s cattle ranch in the heart of the Cerrado.
- Sborgia embraced the idea of holistic management and rotational grazing preached by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean ecologist who became famous for his provocative idea that to save the planet from climate change, instead of reducing livestock farming, we would have to increase it.
- Instead of letting his 200 cows range freely, Sborgia lets them eat everything in a small plot of land before moving them on to another plot; by the time they cycle back the original plot has already regenerated.
- The Brazilian Cerrado is one of the country’s most overgrazed regions. It suffered one of its worst wildfire seasons ever during the past year, and while the ranches around Sborgia’s property were dry, his own land was green and full of life.

Brazil guts agencies, ‘sabotaging environmental protection’ in Amazon: Report
- A new report documents draconian budget cuts to Brazilian environmental monitoring and firefighting of 9.8% in 2020, and 27.4% in 2021 — reductions, analysts say that were inflicted by the Bolsonaro administration in “a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies.”
- Brazil’s environmental agencies under Bolsonaro have also been subjected to nearly 600 administrative and rules changes, invoked by presidential executive order and resulting in massive environmental deregulation.
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared, with an increase of 34% in the last two years, even as capacity to punish environmental criminals fell sharply due to funding shortages. Fines imposed for illegal deforestation, instead of rising during this Amazon environmental crime wave, fell by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
- Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental agencies and protections, two Indigenous leaders — Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Paiter Surui Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.”

‘Certified’ palm oil linked to worse social, ecological outcomes for Indonesian villagers
- The development of oil palm plantations across Indonesia, including those certified as sustainable, has had mixed outcomes for the social and ecological well-being of nearby communities, a new study shows.
- In Sumatra, where oil palm has been cultivated for longer than on other islands and where rural residents have largely switched to a market-based economy, there’s a marginal net positive impact from the presence of plantations.
- In Indonesian Borneo, however, where villagers tend to rely on subsistence-based livelihoods, socioecological conditions have worsened in the wake of plantation certification.
- The study authors say their findings flag the risk of “unintended indirect impacts of pushing large-scale industrial oil palm into frontier forest areas where local communities still rely heavily on environmental services.”

Brazilian and international banks financing global deforestation: Reports
- According to a new report, some of the world’s biggest Brazilian and international banks invested US$153.2 billion in commodities companies whose activities risked harm to forests in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since 2016 when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.
- These investments were made primarily in forest-risk commodities companies that include beef, soy, pulp and paper, palm oil, rubber and timber producers. The big banks are failing to scrutinize and refuse loans to firms profiting from illegal deforestation, said several reports.
- Banco do Brasil offered the most credit (US$30 billion since 2016), for forest-risk commodity operations. BNDES, Brazil’s development bank, provided US$3.8 billion to forest-risk companies. More than half of that amount went to the beef sector, followed closely by the pulp and paper industry.
- “Financial institutions are uniquely positioned to promote actions in the public and private sector and they have an obligation with their shareholders to mitigate their growing credit risks due to the degradation of natural capital and their association with industries that intensively produce carbon,” said one report.

Peruvian Indigenous groups thwart oil drilling in their territory — for now
- An immense oil concession known as Lot 64 overlaps with much of the Indigenous Achuar Nation’s 8,020-square-kilometer (3,100-square-mile) homeland, as well as a portion of the neighboring territory of the Wampis people.
- The Achuar and the Wampis say they do not consent to drilling for oil on Lot 64, and thus, any exploitation of the lot would be illegitimate under Peruvian law.
- They argue that drilling for oil and transporting it to the coast would almost certainly contaminate rivers vital to their existence in this corner of the Amazon.
- In July, the private company that had a 75% stake in the concession withdrew from its contract, but the Indigenous communities see this as a temporary victory, as the government-backed oil company, Petroperu, has indicated it will seek a new partner to tap into Lot 64’s reserves.

Crisis in Venezuela: Non-governmental organizations adapt to survive
- Many non-governmental organizations in Venezuela — which many analysts now call a failed state — have decided to reduce their operations to stay alive.
- As Venezuelan inflation rates soar, environmental NGOs are learning to skillfully juggle currency exchange rates that complicate their international funding.
- Alliances between NGOs, volunteerism, along with the efficient use of small donations from businesses, are all helping keep environmental organizations going, as they prioritize which of their programs should survive and which must be cut or passed on to other groups.

The best news of 2020? Humanity may never hit the 10 billion mark
- A new study in the Lancet finds our global population may never reach 10 billion.
- A population slowdown will pose challenges, but it could also give us a better chance of avoiding ecological collapse.
- Population slowdown is not a reason for concern, but rather for celebration. Thank birth control and women’s education.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Friday night follies: Brazil cuts deforestation funding, then restores it
- More than 500 major fires were reported in the Amazon as of last week, most of them illegal. Which is why it seemed a strange moment for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro administration to announce it was defunding all deforestation and firefighting efforts by government agencies in the Amazon forest and Pantanal wetlands biomes.
- The cuts, totaling R $60 million (US $11.1 million), would have come from the budgets of IBAMA, the nation’s environmental agency, and ICMBio, its national parks agency. Within hours of the funding reduction announcement, the government reversed itself and restored the money taken away.
- Since then experts have argued theories as to the reason for the government’s erratic actions. Some say it is a means of making a show of the anti-environmental policy the administration would truly like to put forward, but cannot for fear of international censure. Others see it as political maneuvering with the Bolsonaro administration.
- Analysts point out that the budget cuts made no fiscal sense, since IBAMA’s most expensive contracts for helicopter and vehicle rentals to curb deforestation and do firefighting are paid up through April 2021 by the Amazon Fund, money mostly provided by Norway and Germany, with more than R $60 million available.

Brazil green recovery plan could boost economy, add jobs, cut emissions: Report
- If Brazil shifts to a low carbon economy, carbon emissions would be cut by a third while also creating jobs, benefiting economic growth and infrastructure, according to a recent report by the World Resources Institute.
- Brazil’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan could provide an opportunity to implement long-term solutions across multiple sectors that could reduce carbon emissions and Amazon deforestation.
- Study authors hope that the economic benefits of the plan will push the current Jair Bolsonaro administration to adopt a green agenda, even if conservation is not a priority.
- “Climate denial is at a peak, but cost-benefit will be the leading decision-maker, whether or not it benefits the environment.… Due to post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans, we have a window of opportunity that will close in a year and a half or less.” — World Resources Institute Climate Policy Director Carolina Genin.

Analysis: Vietnam’s leadership flex shows how to drive electricity reform
- Vietnam’s Communist Party leadership has instituted a top-down reform of the country’s electricity sector in response to the need to shift away from coal and its growing list of associated problems.
- The country’s new energy strategy puts greater emphasis on renewables, including wind and solar, abandoning a decade-long commitment to investing in and subsidizing coal.
- The move is also helped by recent technological developments that have made generating renewable power at scale more economically feasible than ever.

Amazon gold mining wipes out rainforest regeneration for years: Study
- New research looking at Amazon artisanal gold mining in Guyana has found that the destroyed Amazon forest at mining sites shows no sign of recovery three to four years after a mine pit and tailings pond are abandoned, likely largely due to soil nutrient depletion.
- In addition, mercury contamination at the sites drops after a mine is abandoned; mercury is used to process gold. Mercury being a chemical element, it does not break down but can bioaccumulate, so its onsite disappearance means the toxin is possibly leaching into local waters, entering fish, and poisoning riverine people who eat them.
- The solution would be the proper restoration of mine sites, especially the proper filling in of mine holes and tailing ponds imitating replacement by natural topsoil. Better regulations, much bigger fines and other penalties, along with enforcement of mining laws would also help seriously curb the problem, say researchers.
- But so long as the price of gold continues topping $1,700 an ounce (as it did during the 2008 U.S. housing crisis), or $2,000 an ounce (its current price during the still escalating COVID-19 pandemic), it seems likely that there is little that can curb the enthusiasm of poor and wealthy prospectors alike for digging up the Amazon.

We need a green life support plan (commentary)
- Tourism — much of it nature-based – comprises 2% of sub-Saharan African nations’ GDP, which can rise to up to 38% for some countries. It is also critical to sovereign credit analysis, giving countries access to capital markets, external financing and funds to support government programs, including nature-based tourism. But with the collapse of international tourism in response to COVID-19, sub-Saharan African countries are facing credit rating downgrade risks, putting conservation funding at risk.
- Without income from nature-based tourism, many small- and medium-size enterprises in the nature-based tourism sector risk closure, and wildlife conservation will be seriously compromised as landowners and locals could be incentivized to convert conserved land into agriculture production and partake in illegal activities such as overfishing, with significant negative results for countries’ nature-based assets.
- With the long-term sustainability of these nature-dependent economies threatened, the authors argue for standardized, methodical and systemic funding for the conservation, protection and restoration of the natural capital.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

A Brazilian forest community shows certified timber really does work
- In Pará, the Brazilian state with the highest deforestation rate, communities inside Tapajós National Forest have for the past 15 years run one of the most successful native timber management projects.
- Eighteen of the 24 communities in the conservation area are part of the project, which involves an average of 130 people. Forest management is their main source of income.
- In 2013, the communities earned FSC certification.
- Today, their products are sold around the world, thanks to partnerships with renowned designers to produce quality sustainable furniture and decorative objects.

World Bank-funded factory farms dogged by alleged environmental abuses
- The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has provided funding totaling $120 million to Ecuadoran pork and chicken producer Pronaca, despite widespread and evidence-backed concerns about the effects of industrial-scale livestock farming on water sources, air quality and the climate.
- IFC investments are intended to boost the economies of developing countries.
- But the Pronaca case and others described in a series by Mongabay in cooperation with The Guardian newspaper and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism raise questions about the impacts of these investments on local communities and the environment.
- Mongabay spoke with residents of the province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, where Pronaca has more than 30 farms, who said that complaints to the IFC’s Compliance Adviser/Ombudsman over the past decade have done little to improve the situation.

The sponge with the secret recipe: A cancer-fighting chemical
- Scientists have discovered that a common sea sponge growing in Indonesian waters produces a chemical called manzamine A that has been shown to fight cervical cancer cells in the lab.
- They say that if it can be produced at scale, manzamine A could be used to fight a wider variety of cancers as well as infectious diseases.
- Cultivating the sponge Acanthostrongylophora ingens at scale would also be beneficial to coastal communities and the Indonesian economy at large, the scientists say.
- And because the sponge has a high tolerance for poor-quality water, its cultivation can help purify contaminated water, buffer unspoiled reefs from pollution, and otherwise enhance the marine ecosystem.

Indonesia’s $300m geothermal play risks being undercut by cheap coal
- The Asian Development Bank has granted Indonesian power developer PT Geo Dipa Energi (GDE) a $300 million loan to expand two geothermal plants in Java.
- But the plants will be supplying the Java-Bali grid that is already 40% overcapacity,thanks to a glut of cheap power from coal-fired power plants.
- Clean-energy observers also say the expansion of the plants carries the risk of environmental damage, including land subsidence from groundwater extraction, and deforestation to build new wells.
- Indonesia plans to generate 23% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2025, but growth in renewables is far outstripped by existing and new coal-fired plants, 10 of which came online last year alone.

In the Amazon, a farmer practices the future of sustainable cattle ranching
- A cattle farmer in Tefé, Brazil, has turned his ranch into a new standard for ranching in the forest — one that’s more profitable and more productive, while using less land.
- This type of farming eliminates the need for clearing new areas of forest for new pasture, a practice that has made cattle ranching one of the major drivers of deforestation in Brazil.
- Under the rational grazing system, cattle are grazed in a fenced-off plot of pasture, then rotated to another plot to allow the soil and vegetation in the previous plot to recover.
- Using land that has already been degraded and abandoned is one solution recommended for raising cattle in the Amazon region; there are an estimated 50 million hectares (125 million acres) of such land in Brazil that could be used for this purposed.

Economists put a price tag on living whales in Brazil: $82 billion
- Last year, a team of four economists published a report suggesting that living whales have a high market value for the services they provide in terms of ecotourism, carbon sequestration, and fishery enhancement. Each whale is worth about $2 million USD, they estimated.
- The economists, in collaboration with two conservation organizations, Instituto Baleia Jubarte and the Great Whale Conservancy, estimated that Brazil’s whale population is worth $82 billion.
- The team says it hopes the notion of valuing whales in Brazil, as well as in other coastal nations, can help protect whales from common fatalities like ship strikes, fishing gear entanglement, and deliberate hunting.

Healing the world through ‘radical listening’: Q&A with Dr. Kinari Webb
- Kinari Webb is a medical doctor and founder of Health in Harmony, a nonprofit aimed at curbing global warming by protecting rainforests and empowering the human communities that live within them.
- Over the past 10 years, Health in Harmony has helped lift communities in Indonesian Borneo from poverty by providing sustainable, local livelihoods that have dramatically reduced their reliance on logging.
- Webb says she and her colleagues were able to accomplish this by listening to what communities really needed and to their ideas about possible solutions; she says Health in Harmony’s model could be applied to other communities around the world, even those in developed countries.
- On a larger scale, Webb says governments need to stop prioritizing economic growth; she says the COVID-19 crisis highlights the danger of reliance on global supply chains, and that working together and moving toward a “regenerative economy” would help humanity weather future pandemics — as well as prevent them from happening in the first place.

Trendy, cheap, and dirty: Fashion is a top global polluter
- The fashion industry is a major global polluter and source of greenhouse gas emissions, driven in large part by the “fast fashion” business model that treats cheap clothing as a perishable good that can be disposed of after brief use.
- Globalization has aided this trillion-dollar trend, allowing brands to outsource different links of their supply chains to countries with little to no environmental and labor protections in order to keep costs down.
- That has led to widespread pollution and labor rights abuses, particularly against women workers, epitomized by the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013, in which more than 1,134 workers were killed. This week, to marks the seventh anniversary of the tragedy and advocates for a return to a more sustainable “slow fashion” model have launched the “Fashion Revolution Week.”
- A newly published review paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment highlights the environmental consequences of fast fashion, fashion’s complex international supply chain, and proposes solutions to bring us into a cleaner fashion future.

80 percent of conservation careers negatively affected by COVID pandemic (commentary)
- A survey of 330 conservationists and 67 conservation employers in March/April 2020 shows that nearly 80% of conservationists have been negatively impacted by COVID-19, while about nine in ten employers have been impacted.
- Despite these challenges, COVID-19 could create new opportunities to re-write our planet’s future if we heed warnings, remain optimistic, and focus our efforts as a conservation community.
- COVID-19 also shows the speed and scale of changes governments around the globe can take to tackle threats. Conservation Careers argues issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change should be taken as seriously.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Coconut farmers in Southeast Asia struggle as palm oil muscles in on them
- Indonesia and the Philippines account for most of the world’s coconut production. But as the palm oil industry expands, helped along by generous government subsidies, coconut farmers are struggling to adapt.
- In 2010, palm oil overtook coconut oil as the top-selling oil in most Philippine grocery stores. Most of it was imported from Indonesia or Malaysia, but now the Philippines is trying increase its own production.
- Oil palm is a much more industrialized crop than coconut, which is dominated by smallholders. But while the low price of palm oil has given it an advantage, demand has risen for high-quality coconut products due to health and sustainability concerns.
- Some coconut farmers say they need the same kind of support from the government that palm oil companies get if they are going to survive.

Overworked, underpaid and lonely: Conservationists find a new community online
- Created by a 26-year-old Australian, a new online community called Lonely Conservationists is bringing together young and struggling conservationists.
- Members post about their experiences, including unpaid jobs, financial woes, mental health issues, and, of course, loneliness.
- The community has succeeded in creating a space for candid, sympathetic conversations about the difficulties of working in conservation.

Response to one pandemic, COVID-19, has helped ease another: Air pollution
- Air pollution has significantly decreased over China amid the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, signaling unanticipated implications for human health.
- It is estimated that air pollution caused an extra 8.8 million premature deaths globally in 2015 alone, representing an average of a three-year shortening of life expectancy across the human population, and shortening lives on a scale greater than malaria, war and violence, HIV/AIDS, and smoking.
- The two-month drop in pollution may have saved the lives of 4,000 children under the age of 5 and 73,000 adults over the age of 70 in China, according to environmental resource economist Marshall Burke — significantly more than the global death toll from the COVID-19 virus at the time of calculation.
- Burke says we should not think of this as a “silver lining” or a “benefit” of the pandemic, given that COVID-19’s impact on public health and the broader disruption it is causing — lost incomes, inability to receive care for non-COVID-19 illnesses and injuries, etc. — could have far-reaching implications.

US economy will take biggest hit if we continue with business as usual: report
- New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally.
- Researchers found that if we simply continue under the status quo, the global economy will lose at least $479 billion a year, adding up to nearly $10 trillion in losses by 2050, as compared to the “baseline” scenario in which there is no change in ecosystem services over the next 30 years.
- Of the 140 countries included in the study, the United States stands to take the biggest economic hit, losing $83 billion per year by 2050 under this “business as usual” scenario that includes intense consumption of energy and raw materials, widespread land-use change, ongoing rises in greenhouse gas emissions, and continued loss of biodiversity.

Mortgaging the future: Report details risks of resource-backed loans
- A recent report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute finds that billions of dollars in loans backed by the value of a country’s natural resources may be putting these often-developing economies at risk.
- China is a major player in providing such “resource-backed loans,” which can help countries finance critical infrastructure projects.
- But the terms of these loans are frequently unclear, potentially saddling the borrowing countries with untenable debt levels.
- The hasty push to extract resources could also sideline the input of local communities, and it may lead to harming the environment.

Mining could topple community-managed forests in Mexico: New film
- Community residents in the state of Puebla in southeastern Mexico are concerned about the exploration for gold currently underway in their region.
- Mining concessions currently cover around 30% of the state.
- Opponents of the project say it will sap vital water sources and destroy the local economy, which is currently based on sustainable management of forests for timber, farming and ecotourism.

In Indonesian renewables bill, activists see chance to move away from coal
- Indonesia’s parliament is drafting a bill on renewable energy that will be included in its docket of priority legislation for passage this year.
- Energy industry observers and activists have welcomed the move and called for policies to transition the country away from its heavy reliance on coal.
- Coal accounts for the majority of Indonesia’s energy mix, and looks to remain that way through to at least 2025, even though the country has vast untapped potential to generate power from geothermal, solar, wind and wave.
- Observers are also wary of the government’s definition of what constitutes new and renewable energy, which includes nuclear, gasified and liquefied coal, hydrogen, and even palm oil biodiesel.

For Ecuador, a litany of environmental challenges awaits in 2020
- For its size, Ecuador has the highest annual deforestation rate of any country in the Western Hemisphere.
- Experts say they believe that slowing the spread of deforestation and improving water management systems should be national priorities in 2020.
- In addition to oil exploitation, Ecuador is also facing the expansion of large-scale mining operations in high-biodiversity areas with large numbers of endemic species and in indigenous territories.
- The country’s ongoing economic crisis and a dependence on fossil fuels will likely continue to fuel clashes with communities protecting their territories.

NGOs reject new oil palm plantation in southern Cameroon
- Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife proposes to reclassify 60,000 ha of a logging concession for oil palm plantations.
- Until 2016, Forest Management Unit 09-025 had been selectively logged and remains a resource for local people, as well as an important buffer zone for an adjacent national park.
- Though no impact assessment, public consultation, or decree formalising the reclassification have taken place, Camvert SARL has begun setting up a nursery for oil palm saplings.
- Civil society and local communities fear the classification process is rigged; they are calling for government to instead make FMU 09-025 a community forest or add it to Campo Ma’an National Park.

Analysis: Floating solar power along the dammed-up Mekong River
- This year, the first floating solar power generating system in Southeast Asia was deployed on a reservoir in Vietnam.
- Floating solar power systems are being written into the energy master plans of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines as well as Vietnam, and into the calculations of investment banks.
- The technology presents an alternative to additional hydroelectric power projects.

Malaria surges in deforested parts of the Amazon, study finds
- A recent study found that deforestation significantly increases the transmission of malaria, about three times more than previously thought.
- The analysis showed that a 10 percent increase in deforestation caused a 3.3 percent rise in malaria cases.
- The study’s authors analyzed more than a decade of data showing the occurrences of malaria in nearly 800 villages, towns and cities across the Brazilian Amazon.
- They also controlled for the “feedback” from malaria, by which a rise in the incidence of the disease actually slows deforestation down.

Industrial palm oil investors struggle to gain foothold in Africa
- Twenty-seven concessions intended for industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa have either failed or been abandoned in the last decade.
- Of the 49 that remain, less than 20 percent of the allocated land has been developed.
- Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby recently announced its intention to withdraw from Liberia after years of conflict with communities and environmental groups.

Is the rhino horn trade a cartel? Economic analysis suggests it works like one
- Economist Adrian Lopes used data modeling to explore the links between rhino horn suppliers in India and South Africa.
- His findings suggest a market model in which suppliers in the two countries collude rather than compete, setting a quantity and price that maximizes profits all around.
- Lopes’s research also indicates that stricter conservation laws can reduce the number of rhinos being killed, but that corruption and institutional instability can erode those gains.

Life on the Amazon oil frontier: From exploration to ecotourism
- Petroamazonas’s entry into the region in 2013 divided the community, with some saying it brought opportunities, while others say it destroyed the environment and way of life, and failed to deliver on promised jobs.
- Many expect ecotourism to be their only hope for economic salvation as the oil industry expands in the Amazon rainforest. Particularly among indigenous communities here, It is an increasingly common perspective.
- While the idea of turning to ecotourism is an increasingly common view among indigenous communities here, experts say the industry is complicated, and that to work it must be managed by the community itself, with conservation in mind.

Venezuelan crisis: Caring for priceless botanical treasures in a failed state
- Venezuela’s Botanical Garden of Caracas was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Its 70-hectare (173-acre) garden, National Herbarium and Henri Pittier Library are considered a national, and international treasure, and a vital repository of Latin American and global natural history utilized frequently by researchers.
- But a devastating drought that started two years ago, plus massive thefts of equipment (ranging from air conditioners to computers, plumbing and even electrical wiring), plus a failed electrical and public water supply, have all combined to threaten the Garden’s priceless collections.
- The annual botanical garden budget has been slashed to a mere $500 per year, which has forced staff to rely on innovative conservation solutions which include crowd funding to pay for rainwater cisterns, as well as volunteer programs in which participants contribute not only labor, but irrigation water they bring from home.
- As Venezuela’s government grows increasingly corrupt and incompetent, and as the national economy spirals out of control with hyperinflation topping 1.7 million percent in 2018, the botanical garden’s curators have no ready answers as to how to go about preserving the rare plants they tend on into the future.

New roads in Papua New Guinea may cause ‘quantum leap’ in forest loss
- Papua New Guinea intends to nearly double its existing network of roads between now and 2022.
- A new study raises concerns about the impacts of building these roads through tropical forest environments on local communities, sensitive habitats and vulnerable species.
- The authors of the paper, published July 24 in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest that the country would reap more benefits and avoid future debt by investing in existing roads, many of which are largely unusable because of flagging maintenance.

Colombian investors push Pacific port project, threatening biodiversity hotspot
- Colombian President Iván Duque has pushed the construction of Tribugá Port in the Pacific department of Chocó as an economic priority for the country’s coffee-growing heartland, to increase exports to international markets.
- But the plan to build the port has provoked a fierce outcry from environmental and human rights activists, as well as local tourism operators, pushing 70 organizations to sign a declaration against its construction.
- Endangered species such as hammerhead sharks, nesting sea turtles and humpback whales visit the area on an annual basis to mate, raise their young, and migrate through.

In Indonesia, a land ‘left behind’ weighs its development alternatives
- After defeating a plan to turn much of the Aru Islands into a series of giant sugar plantations, indigenous people in the eastern Indonesian archipelago are mulling how to raise their standard of living without sacrificing their rich environment.
- Time may be short: Indonesia’s minister of agriculture appears to be pushing another corporate-backed agribusiness plan in Aru involving Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, an up-and-coming tycoon better known as Haji Isam. The two visited Aru together last year.
- Some Aruese believe development focused on tourism or fisheries would be a better fit for the delicate, small-island ecosystem, home to some of Indonesia’s last best rainforest and famous for its birds-of-paradise.

Amazon rural development and conservation: a path to sustainability?
- Oil palm production in Brazil continues to be conducted on a small scale as compared to the nation’s vast soy plantations. Total oil palm cultivation was just 50,000 hectares in 2010. Today, that total has risen to 236,000 hectares, 85 percent of which is in Pará state.
- While environmentalists fear escalated oil palm production could lead to greater deforestation, Brazil possesses 200 million hectares (772,204 square miles) of deforested, degraded lands, three quarters of which is utilized as pasture, most of it with low productivity that could be converted to oil palm.
- The Rurality Project offers an example of sustainable oil palm production through its recruitment of small-scale growers to boost local economies. But, the bulk of Amazon palm oil is produced on large plantations managed by big firms, like Biopalma, many of which have poor socioenvironmental records.
- If oil palm is to become a large-scale reality in Brazil, without major deforestation, growth will need to be backed by strong regulation and enforcement. But critics say the Bolsonaro government is backing weak regulation that encourages land speculation and deforestation.

Despite fiery campaign rhetoric, Chinese-backed projects in Malaysia steam ahead
- In 2018, Mahathir Mohamad unseated Najib Razak as prime minister in Malaysia’s elections, on a platform that relied heavily on anti-Chinese rhetoric.
- In his first months in office, Mahathir suspended or canceled a number of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, including the 688-kilometer (428-mile) East Coast Rail Link, a planned railway line that raised serious concerns for environmentalists.
- In the year since, Mahathir has walked back his campaign rhetoric, and most major infrastructure projects are set to be relaunched, albeit at lower costs.

Audio: New CITES head on next COP, reining in online wildlife trafficking, and more
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we speak with Ivonne Higuero, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — better known by its acronym, CITES.
- Signatories to CITES will meet later this summer for the eighteenth meeting of the Congress of the Parties (or COP). The meeting was originally to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka last May, but a series of terrorist bombings in the South Asian country during Easter services in April forced CITES officials to postpone the meeting until August and move it to Geneva, Switzerland.
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Huigero, the first woman to ever serve as CITES secretary general, discusses how her background as an environmental economist informs her approach to the job, how CITES can tackle challenges like lack of enforcement of CITES statutes at the national level and the online wildlife trade, and what she expects to accomplish at the eighteenth congress of the parties to CITES.

National parks: Serving humanity’s well-being as much as nature’s
- A new study finds that living near a protected area in the developing world decreases poverty and increases childhood health.
- Parks with tourism or multi-use were the best at delivering benefits to local populations.
- There is an untold part of this story: conflict with wildlife was not incorporated into the study.

Why sustainability should be on your plate when you travel (commentary)
- In Vanuatu, as in other popular destinations across Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, farming and tourism can support one another while making our holidays more sustainable.
- According to one survey, 60 percent of food consumed by tourists in Vanuatu was imported, all of which could have been produced in-country. Food makes up to 35 percent of tourists’ spending.
- So how can we encourage the tourism industry to work with local agriculture to increase demand for regional ingredients and boost farm livelihoods, making both sectors more resilient and sustainable?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds
- A dam in southern Ethiopia built to supply electricity to cities and control the flow of water for irrigating industrial agriculture has led to the displacement and loss of livelihoods of indigenous groups, the Oakland Institute has found.
- On June 10, the policy think tank published a report of its research, demonstrating that the effects of the Gibe III dam on the Lower Omo River continue to ripple through communities, forcing them onto sedentary farms and leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
- The Oakland Institute applauds the stated desire of the new government, which came to power in April 2018, to look out for indigenous rights.
- But the report’s authors caution that continued development aimed at increasing economic productivity and attracting international investors could further marginalize indigenous communities in Ethiopia.

Chinese banks risk supporting soy-related deforestation, report finds
- Chinese financial institutions have little awareness about the risks of deforestation in the soy supply chain, according to a report released May 31 from the nonprofit disclosure platform CDP.
- China imports more than 60 percent of the world’s soy, meaning that the country could play a major role in halting deforestation and slowing climate change if companies and banks focus on stopping deforestation to grow the crop.
- Around 490 square kilometers (189 square miles) of land in Brazil was cleared for soy headed for China in 2017 — about 40 percent of all “converted” land in Brazil that year.
- As the trade war between the U.S. and China continues, China may increasingly look to Latin America for its soy, potentially increasing the chances that land will be cleared to make way for the crop.

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.

Global warming is exacerbating global economic inequality: Study
- New research finds that global warming has exacerbated global economic inequality, making already-wealthy nations even richer while slowing economic growth in poorer countries.
- According to the study, published in PNAS late last month, between 1961 and 2010 rising temperatures led to a 17 to 30 percent decrease in per-capita wealth in the world’s poorest countries. Meanwhile, the wealthy countries that are the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters have seen their per-capita GDP grow about 10 percent higher today than they would have in a world without warming.
- Poor countries that, by and large, have not enjoyed the benefits of fossil fuel energy have been made relatively poorer by the energy consumption of wealthy countries — but renewable energy sources might offer a partial solution to both the climate crisis and global inequality.

Most communities not seeing promised oil palm payoff in Borneo, study finds
- A new study analyzing standards of living over a 14-year period across more than 5,000 villages in Indonesian Borneo finds that oil palm development can have both positive and negative impacts on various aspects of a village’s well-being. The key difference: how intact their forest was to begin with.
- For market-based communities, which have already experienced a higher rate of previous forest degradation, oil palm expansion brought a mixed bag of impacts. These villages saw an increase in “basic” and “financial” well-being over all time scales when compared with similar communities without new plantations, but also suffered more rapid detriment to “environmental” and “social” factors.
- The impacts were much starker for subsistence-based communities, which depend upon the forest for their livelihoods. These villages suffered overall decreases in all well-being categories in the wake of new oil palm development when compared to similar communities without. The proportion of houses without access to electricity and toilets increased with the influx of migrant workers.

Group helps illegal bird traders transition into different lines of business
- Instead of focusing on putting bird poachers and illegal traders behind bars, an NGO in Indonesian Borneo is creating incentives for them to stop.
- It’s a unique approach in the Southeast Asian country, where conservation efforts have tended to focus on calls for tighter law enforcement and more rigorous punishment.
- The group, Planet Indonesia, has identified more than 100 small bird shops in and around Pontianak, the biggest city in western Borneo, and says many of them are pondering changing professions. It’s know-how and capital that’s holding them back.

Forestry reforms could fall short without PM’s backing in Ukraine
- Ukraine’s prime minister called for “a massive crackdown” on his country’s timber sector after allegations of widespread corruption and illegality.
- The London-based NGO Earthsight first revealed the potential illegalities in a July 2018 report, and since then, independent investigations from WWF Ukraine and the EU’s Technical Assistance and Information Exchange have corroborated Earthsight’s findings.
- A reform package that would allow for independent enforcement of Ukraine’s forestry laws and increased transparency has been approved by the country’s cabinet of ministers, but it still lacks the signature and public backing of Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

California’s Tropical Forest Standard could be the state’s most important climate action (commentary)
- This week, the California Air Resources Board will meet to decide if it will adopt a set of comprehensive requirements for large-scale programs to reduce tropical deforestation emissions, known as the Tropical Forest Standard.
- Approving this Standard, with its robust social and environmental safeguards, is the most important thing California can do right now for the climate (including its own climate), for the Amazon and other tropical forests, and for the people who live in them.
- Adopting California’s Tropical Forest Standard, which doubles down on the most rigorous best practices for social and environmental safeguards, would send exactly the message that governments, farmers, and indigenous and local communities now most need to hear.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Audio: How the social sciences can help conservationists save species
- On this episode, we take a look at how the social sciences can boost conservation efforts.
- Our guest is Diogo Verissimo, a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Oxford in the UK and the Institute for Conservation Research at the US-based San Diego Zoo Global. Verissimo designs and evaluates programs that aim to change human behavior as a means of combating the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife products.
- While we all come in contact with marketing campaigns nearly every single day of our lives, conservationists have been much slower to employ marketing principles in the interest of influencing human behaviors that are harmful to the planet. We discuss with Verissimo the intersection of social marketing and conservation science — in other words, how the social sciences can provide us with a better understanding of human motivation and behavior and help create a more sustainable world.

Study games out oil palm development scenarios in Borneo
- The study authors quantify what will happen under a business as usual (BAU) approach, a strict conservation plan (CON), and expansion guided by sustainable intensification (SUS-INT).
- Under a BAU scenario, all land currently zoned for corporate oil palm concessions are utilized to their maximum capacity.
- At the other end of the spectrum, the CON scenario considers what will happen if Indonesia’s 2011 forest moratorium preventing new concessions on primary forest and peatland is applied to all currently undeveloped land, and companies adhere to zero-deforestation commitments.
- In between the two, the SUS-INT option considers what would happen if plantations are expanded only in non-forested and non-peat areas, while yields are increased through improved cultivars and intensive management.

The crisis in the European tropical timber sector in Central Africa (commentary)
- European concessionaires in Africa are gradually selling their assets to Asian investors, who have substantial capital and operate in markets that accept lower-quality wood. This has led some Europeans to wonder whether they are truly on a level playing field with some of their Asian competitors.
- Withdrawal of European companies is associated with decline in FSC certification. Rougier and Wijma represented nearly 700,000 certified hectares in Cameroon, but their Chinese successors are not necessarily maintaining those certifications.
- A reduction in forest taxation for certified concessions seems to be the simplest solution, providing international donors compensate producing countries for the resulting loss of tax revenue.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Tracking the shift of tropical forests from carbon sink to source
- Improved maps of carbon stocks, along with a better understanding of how tropical forests respond to climate change, are necessary to meet the challenge of keeping the global temperature below a 2-degree-Celsius (3.6-degree-Fahrenheit) rise, according to scientist Edward Mitchard of the University of Edinburgh.
- Currently, tropical forests take up roughly the same amount of carbon as is released when they’re cleared or degraded.
- But climatic changes, which lead to more droughts and fires resulting in the loss of tropical trees, could shift the balance, making tropical forests a net source of atmospheric carbon.

Forest communities pay the price for conservation in Madagascar
- In a two-year investigation of a REDD+ pilot project, a team of researchers spoke with more than 450 households affected by the establishment of a large protected area called the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, a 3,820-square-kilometer (1,475-square-mile) tract of rainforest in eastern Madagascar.
- The REDD+ project, supported by Conservation International and the World Bank, was aimed at supporting communities by providing support for alternative livelihoods to those communities near the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor protected area.
- They found that the REDD+ project’s preliminary studies identified less than half of those negatively affected by the Corridor’s designation.
- The team also discovered that the value of the one-off compensation, in the form of support to pursue other livelihoods, fell far short of the opportunity costs that the communities are likely to face as a result of losing access to the forest in the coming decades.

EU demand siphons illicit timber from Ukraine, investigation finds
- Corrupt management of Ukraine’s timber sector is supplying the EU with large amounts of wood from the country’s dense forests.
- The London-based investigative nonprofit Earthsight found evidence that forestry officials have taken bribes to supply major European firms with Ukrainian wood that may have been harvested illegally.
- Earthsight argues that EU-based companies are not carrying out the due diligence that the EU Timber Regulation requires when buying from “high-risk” sources of timber.

Indonesia turns to green finance for development projects
- Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is turning to green finance markets to fund new development projects it promises will be both environmentally and socially friendly.
- In issuing these ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ bonds, Indonesia joins a growing number of developing countries seeking to appeal to ecologically and socially conscious international investors.
- But critics question just how green and sustainable these bonds really are, highlighting concerns about greenwashing.

Hunting, fishing causing dramatic decline in Amazon river dolphins
- Both species of Amazon river dolphin appear to be in deep decline, according to a recent study. Boto (Inia geoffrensis) populations fell by 94 percent and Tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis) numbers fell by 97 percent in the Mamirauá Reserve in Amazonas state, Brazil between 1994 and 2017, according to researchers.
- Difficult to detect in the Amazon’s murky waters, both species are listed as “Data Deficient” by the IUCN. But researchers maintain that if region-wide surveys were conducted both species would end up being listed as Critically Endangered.
- The team noticed scars from harpoon and machete injuries on the dolphins they caught. Interviews with fishermen confirmed the team’s suspicions: dolphins were being hunted for use as bait. The mammals also get entangled in nets and other fishing gear, are hunted as food, eliminated as pests, and suffer mercury poisoning.
- Researchers believe the passage and enforcement of new conservation laws could save Amazon river dolphins, and halt their plunge toward extinction. But a lack of political will, drastic draconian cuts to the Brazilian environmental ministry budget, and continued illegal dolphin hunting and fishing make action unlikely for now.

Government subsidies serving to prop up destructive high-seas fishing: study
- More than half of fisheries on the world’s high seas would be running a loss without the billions of dollars in government subsidies that keep the ecologically destructive industry afloat, a recent study suggests.
- The researchers described the annual subsidies as being far in excess of the net economic benefit from fishing in these international waters.
- They called for greater transparency by governments and substantial reforms of high-seas fisheries in a bid to improve the management of the industry they labeled as ecologically and economically unsustainable.

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.

Natural gas project that promised economic boom leaves PNG in ‘worse state’: report
- Proponents of PNG LNP, an ExxonMobil-led natural gas project in Papua New Guinea, predicted it would bring massive economic benefits to landowners and to the country as a whole.
- According to two recent reports by the Jubilee Australia Research Centre, PNG’s economy is worse off than it would have been without the project.
- Jubilee Australia also links the PNG LNG project to an upswing of violence in the areas around the plant.

Higher incomes, not higher carbon dioxide levels, drive forest gains, study finds
- New research indicates that higher levels of economic development, rather than carbon dioxide, are responsible for some countries’ gains in forest cover.
- The findings contradict several climate change models that point to the role that higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere can play as a “fertilizer” for plants.
- Policy decisions should account for the role that development plays in the health of forests, the authors say.

Indonesia may achieve renewables target, but still favors coal for power
- Indonesia is set to achieve its target for renewables portion in the national energy mix by 2025, but the country will still rely heavily on coal in the next 10 years, according to revisions in the national electricity plan.
- The new plan also sees cuts to the country’s target to install additional electricity capacity across the archipelago by 2027 amid stagnant demand, slower-than-projected economic growth, and state utility PLN’s financial concerns over the glut of idle power in some parts of the nation.
- Energy activists, however, argue that the trims are still not enough to solve PLN’s financial woes or to reduce Indonesia’s dependence on health- and environment-damaging coal.

Carbon pricing could save millions of hectares of tropical forest: new study
- Recently published research in the journal Environmental Research Letters found that setting a price of $20 per metric ton (about $18/short ton) of carbon dioxide could diminish deforestation by nearly 16 percent and the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by nearly 25 percent.
- The pair of economists calculated that, as things currently stand, the world stands to lose an India-size chunk of tropical forest by 2050.
- In addition to carbon pricing, stricter policies to halt deforestation, such as those that helped Brazil cut its deforestation rate by 80 percent in the early 2000s, could save nearly 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles).

Roads, dams and railways: Ten infrastructure stories from Southeast Asia in 2017
- Southeast Asia is one of the epicenters of a global “tsunami” of infrastructure development.
- As the countries in the region work to elevate their economic standing, concerns from scientists and NGOs highlight the potential pitfalls in the form of environmental degradation and destruction that roads, dams and other infrastructure can bring in tow.
- Mongabay had reporters covering the region in 2017. Here are 10 of their stories.

Kenyan farmers reap economic, environmental gains from ABCDs of agroforestry
- In Kenya’s Rift Valley, rural communities are implementing agroforestry to respond to new challenges brought by climate change.
- The Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) program trains farmers in agroforestry techniques that increase their resilience and food security in the face of hotter, drier growing conditions.
- ABCD improves the economic prospects of those who implement it through diverse, year-long harvests and new markets for edible produce and wood products.
- Agroforestry is also a main facet of Kenya’s goal to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Climate Treaty, since it sequesters a large amount of carbon in woody plants both above and below ground.

Leading US plywood firm linked to alleged destruction, rights violations in Malaysia
- An investigation has found that Liberty Woods, the top importer of plywood in the US, buys wood from a Malaysian company that has faced numerous allegations of environmentally unsustainable logging and indigenous rights violations.
- Environmental NGOs have accused the timber industry in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, of clearing too much forest too quickly, polluting streams and rivers and failing to obtain consent to log from local communities.
- Satellite imagery analysis in 2013 showed that, between 2000 and 2012, Malaysia had the world’s highest deforestation rate.
- In Sarawak, where logging company Shin Yang is based, only 5 percent of forests remain relatively untouched.

Birdwatching poised to take flight in Colombia, study reveals
- A new study identifies 67 communities with high potential for developing birdwatching ecotourism in Colombia.
- The country is home to more than 1,900 bird species, including 443 rare birds ‘highly valued by bird watchers.’
- The authors present ecotourism as an alternative to mining and logging as rural communities look for ways to develop economically after a decades-long conflict.

‘SALT’ alliance aims to tackle illegal fishing on a global scale
- The Seafood Alliance for Legality and Traceability (SALT) alliance announced today at the Our Ocean conference in Malta aims to bring together representatives from seafood companies and seafood-producing and -consuming countries to decrease illegality in the fishing sector.
- Scientists reported that between 11 million and 26 million metric tons (12.1 million and 28.7 million tons) of the worldwide catch is illegal or unreported, costing as much as $23.5 billion a year.
- A year-long process headed by the NGO FishWise that will seek input from a variety of stakeholders begins this month.

Activists spy silver lining as officials warn of financial clouds over coal-fueled grid
- Indonesia’s state-owned power utility PLN has recently reported a slowdown in annual sales, suggesting that electricity demand is not rising as expected.
- With slow sales, rising costs and financial obligations elevating PLN’s risk, senior government officials have called on the company to scale back plans to expand the country’s electricity infrastructure.
- Green activists view this as an opportunity to renew calls to halt building of planned coal-fired power plants and switch to renewable energy.

CETA: environmentally friendly trade treaty or corporate Trojan horse?
- As early as September 21st, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) could come into provisional effect, linking international commerce between Canada and all of the nations in the European Union (EU).
- Supporters claim CETA includes new mechanisms that make it a blueprint for future trade treaties, chief among them the replacement of the controversial Investor State Dispute System (ISDS), with the new investor court system (ICS).
- Opponents argue CETA’s rules guarantee numerous benefits for foreign investors and transnational corporations, while the agreement includes no enforceable rules to guarantee labor rights, environmental protection or food safety. “Profit comes before people and the planet,” argues one expert.
- Though it could come into provisional effect as early as this week, big roadblocks remain before CETA is fully approved, with resistance possible from the public, NGOs and government.

The financial case against coal power in Indonesia
- A recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warns that Indonesia’s coal-based electricity strategy risks wasting $76 billion over the next 25 years.
- IEEFA is among a small group of non-profits focusing on the economics of fossil fuels, rather than emphasizing environment and public health concerns.
- Indonesia, a major coal producer, relies heavily on large, fossil-fueled power plants for electricity, but there are some signs that policymakers are increasingly open to developing small-scale and renewable options.

Amazonian city drags down fish stocks in 1,000-kilometer shadow
- A study of tambaqui, a popular table fish, in the Brazilian Amazon found that fish caught near the city of Manaus are half the size of those upriver.
- Boats that buy the fish have brought the demand into the forest surrounding the city, and with holds full of ice, they’re able to travel further to bring tambaqui back to Manaus’ markets.
- The fishers living in the relatively pristine forest along the Purus River reported that tambaquie are smaller and harder to catch than they were previously, a trend extended 1,000 kilometers from Manaus, the researchers found.

Probing rural poachers in Africa: Why do they poach?
- Researchers interviewed 173 self-admitted rural poachers living in the margins of Ruaha National Park in Tanzania to understand why they harvest bushmeat.
- While poverty was a major factor, not all poachers were destitute; a sizeable proportion say they poach to supplement their income.
- How the villagers view their financial status compared to others reflected their poaching activities.
- Conservation strategies should adopt a multidimensional approach to target those who are well-off in addition to the poor, according to the researchers.

Environmental costs, benefits and possibilities: Q&A with anthropologist Eben Kirksey
- The environmental humanities pull together the tools of the anthropologist and the biologist.
- Anthropologist Eben Kirksey has studied the impact of mining, logging and infrastructure development on the Mee people of West Papua, Indonesia, revealing the inequalities that often underpins who benefits and who suffers as a result of natural resource extraction.
- Kirksey reports that West Papuans are nurturing a new form of nationalism that might help bring some equality to environmental change.

Trophy hunters overstate contribution of big game hunting to African economies: Report
- Humane Society International (HSI) timed the release of the report to coincide with the start of Safari Club International’s (SCI) annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 1.
- US-based SCI, one of the world’s largest trophy hunting advocacy organizations, released a report in 2015 that claimed trophy hunting-related tourism contributes $426 million annually to the economies of eight African countries and creates more than 53,400 full- and part-time jobs.
- But the HSI report, prepared by Melbourne, Australia-based consultancy Economists At Large, found that SCI had “grossly overstated the contribution of big game hunting to eight African economies and that overall tourism in Africa dwarfs trophy hunting as a source of revenue,” according to a statement.

Deforestation rises with incomes in developing economies
- The research pulled together economic data from 130 countries and every border on earth.
- For the first time, economic data proves that, in poorer countries, per capita income gains often come at the cost of forest cover.
- The researchers also expected that reforestation would occur in richer countries as income levels rose, but their research did not bear that out.

How local elites earn money from burning land in Indonesia
- Members of political parties and local figures are organizing farmers to burn land for sale to a variety of large and small buyers, a new study shows.
- These elites pocket most of the profits from this destructive and illegal activity. Village officials who administer land documents and the workers who carry out the burning also receive a cut.
- For the fires to stop, the study says, these actors must be disempowered through law and policy.

Elephant poaching costs African nations $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue
- The elephant poaching crisis does not harm elephants alone, it is bad for the economy too, according to a new study.
- The loss of elephants to wildlife trafficking is costing African countries about $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue, the study found.
- The tourism revenue lost due to declining elephants exceeds the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop the decline of elephants in east, west and southern Africa, the researchers found.

Mongabay Newscast episode 4: Inside scoop on new Netflix documentary “The Ivory Game;” orangutan habitat under threat in Indonesia
- Crosta discusses how Chinese demand is driving the multi-billion dollar trade in ivory, as well as EAL’s project WildLeaks and the undercover investigations in mainland China and Hong Kong that have helped expose the illegal ivory being laundered through legal ivory markets.
- We also speak with Mongabay contributor and Borneo Futures founder Erik Meijaard, who recently wrote a piece entitled, “Company poised to destroy critical orangutan habitat in breach of Indonesia’s moratorium.”
- And of course we cover the top news on Mongabay.com for the past two weeks!

Failed economic development plans drive deforestation in Andean Amazon
- Cultivation of coca, the plant from which the drug cocaine is extracted, has long been considered a “deforestation multiplier” in the Andean Amazon rainforests of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.
- But a study published in the journal BioScience last month by a team of researchers with New York’s Stony Brook University found that most deforestation in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru isn’t caused by coca cultivation.
- The researchers hope that their study will help us learn from the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Mother Nature and a hydropower onslaught aren’t the Mekong Delta’s only problems
- Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, home to nearly 20 million people, is one of the most highly productive agricultural environments in the world, thanks in part to an elaborate network of canals, dikes, sluice gates and drainage ditches.
- On the strength of Delta agriculture, Vietnam has gone from a chronic importer of rice to a major exporter.
- But farmers in the region are critical of the government’s food security policies, which mandate that most of the Delta’s land be devoted to rice production. And many of them are taking measures to circumvent those rules, in ways that aren’t always friendly to the environment.
- That’s just one example of how water and land-use policy in the Delta is undermining efforts to protect the vulnerable region from climate change and upstream development.

A cost-benefit analysis of securing indigenous land rights in the Amazon
- According to the report, the investments required to secure land rights for indigenous communities would be modest, but could generate billions of dollars in returns economically, environmentally, and socially — a boon not just for local communities but the global climate, as well.
- According to the report, between 2000 and 2012 the annual deforestation rates in tenure-secure indigenous forests were significantly lower than outside those areas.
- “The estimated economic benefits for a 20-year period are: $54–119 billion for Bolivia; $523–1,165 billion for Brazil; and $123–277 billion for Colombia,” the report states.

Indonesia exploring new model to fund national parks
- The environment ministry’s budget for conservation was recently slashed by parliament.
- To fill the gap, the ministry is exploring a mechanism to seek foreign funding, the ministry’s director for nature conservation told Mongabay.
- The mechanism could build on a model established last year in Raja Ampat district, in which a special authority was set up to manage the district’s protected areas using tourism revenue.

Scientists say Amazon biodiversity could help fuel Fourth Industrial Revolution
- A team of researchers led by climatologist Carlos Nobre of Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters published an article today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) arguing for “a new development paradigm” in the Amazon.
- Nobre and his co-authors write that the dominant economic paradigm of today, which entails intensive use of the Amazon’s natural resources, has led to “significant basin-wide environmental alterations” over the past half-century.
- Nobre is leading a multidisciplinary group comprised of science and technology experts who aim to set up public-private partnerships among key actors in Brazil and other Amazonian countries in order to bring together research and development centers, universities, and businesses to make economic use of the Amazon’s diversity of living plants, animals, and insects.

Revealed: Australian miner used arbitration threat to upend Indonesian environmental law
- In the early 2000s, Australia-based Newcrest Mining was one of 13 companies to win an exemption from Indonesia’s 1999 Forestry Law, which banned an environmentally destructive form of mining in protected forest areas.
- The companies had obtained permits from Indonesia’s military government, but when the regime fell in 1998, the newly democratized country tried to implement new rules to protect its forests.
- Newcrest responded by threatening to sue the Indonesian government in a secretive international tribunal presided over by corporate lawyers, under an instrument of international law known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
- ISDS is written into thousands of trade and investment treaties, including the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The 101 on how global trade treaties came to threaten the environment
- After World War II, well meaning protections were established to safeguard international investors and reduce financial risk in Europe’s rebuilding, and later, to protect investments made in the politically volatile developing world.
- Today, more than 3,000 international trade treaties and agreements include something called an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, a tool originally intended to protect investors making risky foreign investments.
- More recently, numerous ISDS cases — averaging around 50 per year — have been used by investors to challenge national sovereignty in order to invalidate environmental laws and access natural resources or markets.
- The signing of NAFTA in 1992 brought with it the first ever inclusion of environmental provisions in a trade treaty, yet most NAFTA ISDS cases have sided with investors over the environment.

Deforestation has been occurring continuously in New England since the 1980s
- New England, which includes the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, is often considered a prime example of a so-called “forest transition,” in which forest regions recover from widespread historical deforestation as economic development activities, especially farming and forestry operations, diminish.
- Researchers found that, while New England did undergo a forest transition phase prior to 1985, it has been in a secondary phase of deforestation ever since.
- Their results showed that more than 385,000 hectares (more than 950,000 acres) of forest has been lost since 1985 — five percent of New England’s total forest area.

Grim forecast for paper giant’s wood supply raises deforestation fears
- Asia Pulp & Paper spent decades eating through Indonesia’s vast rainforests. Then in 2013, it promised to stop logging natural forests and rely on plantation timber exclusively.
- The company’s huge new mill in Sumatra, though, will require vast quantities of wood when it starts operating this year.
- A new NGO report suggests the company will have to resume deforestation or risk shattering financial losses. APP has dismissed those concerns, promising to import wood chips if needed.

Spanish enviros threatened by government and economically stressed citizens
- Spain is one of the EU countries that the Great Recession has most affected. Unemployment rates above 20 percent, brain drain, unchecked corruption, and a fractured society have led to an increasingly risky scenario for activists across movements.
- Recent trends include increasing criminalization of social movements and violence against activists.
- Environmentalists face added pressure from a citizenry under severe economic duress with little tolerance for attitudes that may endanger much-needed jobs.

Study finds link between RSPO certification and profitability for palm oil companies
- Certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was found to increase a palm oil company’s profitability, according to a study commissioned by the RSPO.
- The findings are a boost for the RSPO, which has continuously grappled with industry claims that its certification schemes burden oil palm growers while providing few tangible benefits.
- Jan Willem van Gelder, director of the consultancy Profundo, was positive about the findings, saying they show that sustainability has an impact on profitability.

Indonesia’s antigraft agency strives to rein in the mining sector
- Indonesia’s anticorruption agency has become involved in a number of initiatives to improve governance of natural resources in the archipelago.
- One such effort, focused on the mining sector, involves 12 provinces and has resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of permits.
- This initiative, known as Korsup Minerba, recently produced an assessment of the provinces’ progress in reining in the miners under their watch.

Can privatization save parks?
- Governments are turning to the private sector to help fund management of protected areas in so-called “public-private partnerships” (PPPs).
- Proponents argue that PPPs not only offer much-needed funds to protected areas, but can improve management and conservation outcomes.
- However, critics contend that they can cede too much control to private interests and put sensitive tasks, such as security and anti-poaching efforts, on the line.

Jakarta governor proposes lighter environmental permitting
- Indonesian President Jokowi has endeavored to make it easier for companies to get permits, and Jakarta Governor Ahok is following his example.
- In January, the environment ministry rejected Ahok’s proposal to ease up on environmental permitting requirements; now, Ahok is taking his proposal straight to Jokowi.
- Jakarta is not free of environmental problems, and some express concern about the governor’s initiative.

How can banks spur the palm oil industry toward sustainability?
- Banks are starting to come up with ways to encourage sustainability in the palm oil sector, whose unbridled expansion is fueling deforestation and rights abuses across the world.
- Still, the nascent green finance industry faces a number of obstacles as it seeks to expand its influence.
- These include a lack of transparency with regard to company ownership, misguided valuations of palm oil enterprises, and more.

Do poor environmental practices affect palm oil firms’ bottom lines on a scale meaningful for investors and financiers?
- Big companies generally don’t see environmental noncompliance as a major economic risk.
- That’s because they tend to think about their business in the short term, rather than in the long term, where most environmental issues come into play.
- The material impacts of environmentally unsustainable practices can also be hard to quanify.

What’s preventing palm oil investors from going green?
- Green investment could make the palm oil industry more sustainable, but a variety of obstacles are preventing it from becoming more prevalent.
- A lack of expertise, the structural issue of short-termism, and a lack of proven materiality all keep funds from flowing toward sustainable operations.
- Additional issues specific to palm oil exist as well.

Do palm oil financiers care about sustainability?
- Sustainable finance has been touted as a solution to the palm oil industry’s links with forest destruction and rights abuses.
- The movement’s progress, however, has been hampered by the difficulty of measuring the environmental impact of things like green loans and bonds.
- Mongabay spoke to experts in the field to investigate how much investors and financiers in the palm oil sector care about their clients’ sustainability.

Report: Borneo could save billions while still meeting conservation and development goals

A Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) at Sepilok Rehabilitation Center in Sabah, Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The three nations that share Borneo could save themselves $43 billion by more closely coordinating their environmental conservation and economic development efforts, according to a report published in the journal Nature Communications. The big savings aren’t the only […]
Big surprise in the greenhouse: study finds economic costs of climate change hugely underestimated

Aerial view of Egypt’s drylands. Research has linked a changing climate with the downfall of Egypt’s Old Kingdom 4,200 years ago. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Look at most climate change projection graphs and you will see a smoothly rising red line of increasing temperature, melting ice and other impacts. But climate does not work […]
Low crop prices means time is ripe for new forest protection programs

Conservation compliance programs could reduce forest loss worldwide Old-growth rainforest in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Today, conservation compliance is a U.S. policy between governments and farmers that reward farmers with federal subsidies for good conservation practices on designated vulnerable lands. But economist Clayton Ogg believes it could now be used to save […]
Human impacts are ‘decoupling’ coral reef ecosystems

Researchers argue that predictability of ecosystem could be sign of health A largely pristine coral reef in the remote Pacific on an island largely unpopulated by humans. Photo by: Brian J. Zgliczynski. There is a growing consensus among scientists of all stripes that we have entered the age of the Anthropocene, or the epoch of […]
Employing shame for environmental change

Shame’s power: new book explores how shame can challenge environmental transgressors Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) are caught by a Chilean purse seiner off of Peru. Overfishing has become a massive global environmental problem, yet to date both governments and corporations have done little to tackle it. Photo by: C. Ortiz Rojas. In 2010, Greenpeace […]
Norway sovereign fund drops coal, tar sands, gold-mining companies

Alberta tar sands. Photo courtesy of Dru Oja Jay, Dominion. In its first-ever report on responsible investing, Norway’s pension fund announced last week that it has divested from 114 companies in the past three years due to concerns over global warming, deforestation, and sustainability as well as long-term financial viability. Worth a staggering $861 billion, […]
Accounting for natural capital on financial exchanges

Maliau Falls in Borneo. The global economy depends on natural capital such as freshwater. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last month, Norway’s stock exchange, the Oslo Børs, introduced a way for investors to use their money to promote sustainability. A new list by the stock exchange highlights green bonds, financial products issued by companies to […]
Did palm oil expansion play a role in the Ebola crisis?

Straw-colored fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) at the Zoological Garden Berlin, Germany. This species, along with other fruit bats, is present in the Ebola impacted area and may have been a carrier. Photo by: Fritz Geller-Grimm/Creative Commons 2.5. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa may have been the result of complex economic and agricultural policies developed […]
How black rhinos and local communities help each other in Namibia
- Africa’s rhinos are in a state of crisis.
- Poaching for their horn has resulted in the deaths of thousands of animals and pushed the continent’s two species—the white and black rhino—against the wall.
- Yet, despite the crisis, there are pockets of rhino territory where poaching remains rare and rhinos live comparatively unmolested.
- Indeed, one of the brightest spots for rhinos is in Namibia.

Green Climate Fund nears $7 billion after U.S. pledges $3 billion

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is suddenly looking very lively after two announcements over the weekend. The U.S. has announced an initial pledge of $3 billion to the fund, while Japan pledged $1.5 billion. This more than doubles the current amount pledged to the key fund, which is now around $6.94 billion from thirteen countries. […]
Can we stop runaway global warming? ‘All we need is the will to change’

Scientists become increasingly stark about the choices facing humanity on global warming Debris in Tacloban, Philippines after devastating Typhoon Haiyan. Higher storm surges due to climate change are worsening damage from hurricanes and other tropical storms. Photo by: Trocaire/Creative Commons 2.0 Twenty-six years after the founding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the […]
Scientific association calls on Nicaragua to scrap its Gran Canal

ATBC warns about canal’s impact on water security and indigenous people A volcanic island rises from Lake Nicaragua. Photo by Aaron Escobar/Creative Commons 2.0 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC)—the world’s largest association of tropical biologists and conservationists—has advised Nicaragua to halt its ambitious plan to build a massive canal across the country. […]
Elephants worth much, much more alive than dead, says new report

A living African elephant has 76 times the value of one poached for ivory, according to report Elephants are worth 76 times more when they’re alive than dead, according to a new analysis released this past weekend. The report follows on the heels of findings by WWF that the world has lost 50 percent of […]
Climate coup: Rockefeller announces they are dropping fossil fuel investments

Sunset. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In 1870, John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company. Rapidly becoming the world’s largest oil refiner, Standard made Rockefeller a billionaire and one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. A hundred and forty-four years later and John D. Rockefeller’s descendants have announced they are stripping fossil fuels from the […]
The Gran Canal: will Nicaragua’s big bet create prosperity or environmental ruin?

Chinese consortium pushes new canal through Nicaragua, threatening indigenous people, environment. A stealthy jaguar moves across a camera trap in Bankukuk, Nicaragua along the path of the Gran Canal. Conservationists fear the impact of the canal on Nicaragua’s already-imperiled wildlife, including far-roving jaguars. Photo by: Christopher Jordan. A hundred years ago, the Panama Canal reshaped […]
The threat of traditional medicine: China’s boom may mean doom for turtles

Growing population and traditional mindset fueling demand for wild turtles, driving some species towards extinction For thousands of years turtles have been used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments and diseases. Originally published in the journal Radiata and recently republished HerpDigest David S. Lee and Liao Shi Kun write, “[In […]
Want to save Africa’s elephants? Close all ivory markets

The only way to save the long-suffering elephants of Africa is to close every ivory market on the planet and destroy all ivory stockpiles, according to a bold new essay in Conservation Biology. Written by Elizabeth Bennett, the Vice President for Species Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the paper is likely to prove […]
Peru slashes environmental protections to attract more mining and fossil fuel investment

Aerial view of the Río Huaypetue gold mine in Peru. The mine, which was cut of the Amazon rainforest, has been blamed for large-scale environmental damage and social problems, including allegations of child labor. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In an effort to kickstart slowing investment in mining and fossil fuels, Peru has passed a […]
Booming populations, rising economies, threatened biodiversity: the tropics will never be the same

For those living either north or south of the tropics, images of this green ring around the Earth’s equator often include verdant rainforests, exotic animals, and unchanging weather; but they may also be of entrenched poverty, unstable governments, and appalling environmental destruction. A massive new report, The State of the Tropics, however, finds that the […]
Price of ivory triples in China

Ironic ivory? Ivory trinkets carved into elephants, potentially from butchered wild elephants. Picture taken in the Jatujak weekend market, Thailand in 2014. Photo by: Naomi Doak/TRAFFIC. In the last four years the price of ivory in China has tripled, according to new research from Save the Elephants. The news has worrying implications for governments and […]
Next big idea in forest conservation? Playing games to understand what drives deforestation

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Claude Garcia Ivindo National Park in Gabon. The loss of rainforest is an emerging issue in the Congo Basin. The forests of the Congo Basin are some of the wildest areas on Earth, and until now, the level of threat was comparatively low, a result of low […]
Global warming puts trillions at stake, but mitigation offers big economic gains

Two new reports this week look at the economics of global warming. The first, Risky Business, tallies the cost of climate change to the U.S., including tens-of-billions lost to destruction of coastal property, crop failures, drought, wildfires, and heatwaves. In contrast, the second report, by the World Bank, turns climate change economics on its head: […]
EPA carbon proposal may be crucial step in addressing global climate change

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) June 2nd regulation proposal hit all the expected chords. Following on the heels of a January regulation for new power plants, the Clean Power Plan focuses on all existing electric generation. By 2030, the plan aims to reduce 2005-level carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent and soot and smog-causing […]
New study finds environmental damage globally may cost more than U.S. GDP

A new study published in Global Environmental Change added up all the world’s ecosystem services – from carbon storage and crop pollination, to recreation and flood mitigation – and found, every year, nature provides $145 trillion in benefits. It also indicates that land use changes, most of which has been caused by humans, may be […]
Tipping the scale: how a political economist could save the world’s forests

Can Elinor Ostrom’s revolutionary ideas halt climate change, improve people’s livelihoods, and save the world’s forests? “[T]here’s a five-letter word I’d like to repeat and repeat and repeat: Trust.” Thus spoke Elinor Ostrom in her 2009 Stockholm lecture, when at age 77 she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics. A […]
Dams be damned: study finds large dams are too expensive

Hydroelectric power, supplied mostly from dams, provides approximately 20 percent of the world’s electricity, an amount of energy equivalent to 3.6 billion barrels of oil. However, a recent study by researchers at Oxford University has found that large dams cost so much money and take so long to build that they may not be economically […]
China pledges $10 million to combat poaching in Africa

The Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, has pledged $10 million [see note below] to combat poaching in Africa during a visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. The fund is a part of a much larger loan package for the continent from China, totaling $10 billion in credit and $2 billion in aid. The […]
Stanford kicks coal out of its $18 billion endowment

The fossil fuel divestment campaign won a major victory today as Stanford University announced it would drop coal companies from its massive $18.7 billion endowment, the fourth largest of any American university. The action follows a petition by student group Fossil Free Stanford, five months of research by Stanford’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
Next big idea in forest conservation? Quantifying the cost of forest degradation

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Phillip Fearnside Pasture meets gallery forest in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. How much is a forest really worth? And what is the cost of forest degradation? These values are difficult to estimate, but according to Dr. Phillip Fearnside, we need to do a […]
The best of the worst: fossil-fuel extractors pave the way for the low-carbon revolution

At the end of last year, the world got some good news on the green business front concerning a very unlikely set of participants. A recent market review revealed that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Duke Energy, PG&E Corporation, American Electric Power Company, ConAgra Foods and Walmart, among others, are including shadow […]
Cocaine: the new face of deforestation in Central America

In 2006, Mexico intensified its security strategy, forming an inhospitable environment for drug trafficking organizations (also known as DTOs) within the nation. The drug cartels responded by creating new trade routes along the border of Guatemala and Honduras. Soon shipments of cocaine from South America began to flow through the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC). This […]
The price of gold: winners and losers in Latin America’s mining industry

On a Friday afternoon in June, the Plaza de Armas in Cajamarca is pulsing with life. It’s winter here, and although thick white clouds hover low in the distance, the sun in this northern Peruvian city is warm. Couples sit on benches facing one another. Kids run in the grass between flowerbeds. Men in suits […]
Ecotourism pays: study finds lower poverty where nature-based tourism is prevalent

Economists find that protected areas reduce poverty in Costa Rica A new study has quantified a point long advocated by advocates of setting aside protected areas: ecotourism pays. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), finds that communities neighboring conservation areas in Costa Rica had lower rates of poverty relative […]
Environmental groups: top secret Pacific trade agreement to sacrifice wildlife, environment

Environmental groups have blasted draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) released yesterday by WikiLeaks as potentially devastating to the environment and wildlife. The massive 12-nation free trade agreement has been negotiated in secret now for almost four years, and the information release by WikiLeaks shows that key environmental safeguards in the agreement are being […]
Making cap-and-trade work: the history and future of a proven program

While the merits for slowing climate change will be treated here as a given, the method for doing so looms elusive. In a recent article, I described pricing carbon through carbon taxes and carbon credits as a way to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and slow global climate change. As there has been some emotive controversy […]
Zoos join fossil fuel divestment movement

Last month, over a hundred representatives from zoos and aquariums around the world joined climate activism group, 350.org, pledging that their institutions would take action against global warming, including the possibility of divesting from fossil fuel companies. The effort, dubbed Zoos and Aquariums for 350, was launched during the annual meeting of the Conservation Breeding […]
America’s growing inequality helped scuttle the global climate change initiative

The link between good economic policy and climate change mitigation is instigated by policies such as the triple-bottom line, carbon limitations, and pro-environmental legislation. However, economic inequality is a little explored piece of the successful fight against climate change. For climate change mitigation and good economic policy to work, economic growth must be broad-based. Indeed, […]
David Attenborough: someone who believes in infinite growth is ‘either a madman or an economist’

Sir David Attenborough has said that people living in poorer countries are just as concerned about the environment as those in the developed world, and “exporting environmentalism” isn’t necessarily an “uphill struggle”. The veteran broadcaster said ideas about protecting the natural world were not unwelcome in less developed nations—but added that wealthier countries should work […]
Divestment campaign could cause considerable damage to fossil fuel industry

A campaign to persuade investors to take their money out of the fossil fuel sector is growing faster than any previous divestment campaign and could cause significant damage to coal, oil and gas companies, according to a study from the University of Oxford. The report compares the current fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has attracted […]
Climate change policy is just good economics

For the majority of the new century, Americans have largely stopped caring about the environment. In that time, America has suffered 9/11, two of the nation’s four longest wars, the deepest depression in 80 years, increased inequality, and incompetent or fractured leadership. There’s been a lot on the public mind. Our political and economic instability […]
Tools against climate change: carbon tax and cap-and-trade

Climate-conscious folk agree that atmospheric carbon dioxide is a key greenhouse gas and a large factor in global climate change. However, there are discrepancies in the methods chosen to address the problem. Some say that carbon emissions should be banned. Some say fossil fuels should be priced. Others say that there are nuances within each. […]
In defense of the financial industry: stocking up to end climate change

On a cross-country bus trip through the American Midwest, I watch cool morning mist rise from patchwork fields. Between the fields stand groves of dark green mid-summer trees, I am reminded that this scene is in jeopardy. The region is cited for its vulnerability to desertification associated with climate change. Increased atmospheric carbon concentration and […]
China’s growing wine industry threatening pandas and other endangered species

In 1985, Li Hua visited a valley in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau. The area was better known for its panda population, but the oenologist realized that its high altitude, hours of sunshine, sandy soil and low precipitation also offered ideal conditions for growing grapes. Li’s findings gave local authorities an idea, and over […]
Arctic melt to cost trillions

Rapid thawing of the Arctic could trigger a catastrophic “economic timebomb” which would cost trillions of dollars and undermine the global financial system, say a group of economists and polar scientists. Governments and industry have expected the widespread warming of the Arctic region in the past 20 years to be an economic boon, allowing the […]
In age of climate change, Australia’s vast coal fields could become worthless
Australia’s huge coal industry is a speculative bubble ripe for financial implosion if the world’s governments fulfill their agreement to act on climate change, according to a new report. The warning that much of the nation’s coal reserves will become worthless as the world hits carbon emission limits comes after banking giant Citi also warned […]
Local economy ruined by pesticide pollution in the Caribbean

On 15 April more than 100 fishermen demonstrated in the streets of Fort de France, the main town on Martinique, in the French West Indies. In January they barricaded the port until the government in Paris allocated €2m ($2.6m) in aid, which they are still waiting for. The contamination caused by chlordecone, a persistent organochlorine […]
Ten U.S. cities pledge to kick fossil fuel investments to the curb

The cities of San Francisco and Seattle have pulled their money out of fossil fuel companies, taking a climate divestment campaign from college campuses to local government. The campaign group 350.org said on Thursday it had won commitments from a total of 10 cities and towns to divest from 200 of leading fossil fuel companies. […]
Conservation without supervision: Peruvian community group creates and patrols its own protected area

“Rural dwellers are not passive respondents to external conservation agents but are active proponents and executers of their own conservation initiatives.”—Noga Shanee, Projects Director for Neotropical Primate Conservation (NPC), in an interview with mongabay.com. When we think of conservation areas, many of us think of iconic National Parks overseen by uniformed government employees or wilderness […]
What if companies actually had to compensate society for environmental destruction?

The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But under our current global economy, industries can often destroy and pollute the environment—degrading public health and communities—without paying adequate compensation to the public good. Economists […]
‘Carbon bubble’ could cause next global financial crisis

The world could be heading for a major economic crisis as stock markets inflate an investment bubble in fossil fuels to the tune of trillions of dollars, according to leading economists. “The financial crisis has shown what happens when risks accumulate unnoticed,” said Lord (Nicholas) Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. He […]
REDD+ and Business Sustainability: A Guide to Reversing Deforestation for Forward Thinking Companies – book review

Brian McFarland has published a concise, yet comprehensive, DōShort book titled REDD+ and Business Sustainability. REDD+ and Business Sustainability provides a detailed overview of REDD+ business case studies and industry best practices. The book also promotes REDD+ as a promising tropical forest conservation financing mechanism for forward-thinking companies who want to mitigate their greenhouse gas […]
Proposed coal plant threatens Critically Endangered Philippine cockatoo

One kilometer off the Philippine island of Palawan lies the Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary; here forest grows unimpeded from a coral island surrounded by mangroves and coral reefs. Although tiny, over a hundred bird species have been recorded on the island along with a major population of large flying foxes, while in the waters below […]
Carbon Markets or Climate Finance – book review
Carbon markets or climate finance? This is the question posed by Carbon Markets or Climate Finance, edited by Axel Michaelowa. First of all, let’s define climate finance as the financial resources used to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Carbon Markets or Climate Finance reviews the decade-long experience of the United Nations Framework Convention on […]
Planet organic: achieving sustainable food security and environmental gains

Organic vegetables for sale in Argentina. Photo by: René Piamonte. The global farmland area certified organic has expanded more than threefold to 37 million hectares since 1999, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute. The Institute argues that organic farming has the potential to contribute to sustainable food security by improving nutrition intake […]
A New Blueprint for a Green Economy – book review

Edward B. Barbier and Anil Markandya, contributing authors to 1989 classic Blueprint for a Green Economyy, have revisited the theme to implement a green economy and published A New Blueprint for a Green Economy. The central theme of A New Blueprint for a Green Economy is how we can make economies green today given what […]
Investors beware: global land grabbing ends in ‘financial damage’ and human rights violations

A fence keeps locals from their traditional lands in Liberia, where Sime Darby has planted a contested palm oil plantation. Photo courtesy of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Investing in companies that flout local community rights in developing countries often leads to severe economic losses, according to a new report from the Rights and […]
Head of IMF: climate change is ‘the greatest economic challenge of the 21st century’

Actual global carbon emissions (in black) have tracked close to the worst case scenario (brown) laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dips are related to global recessions. Graph by: Dana Nuccitelli/Skeptical Science. Climate change not debt or austerity is “the greatest economic challenge of the 21st Century,” according to Christine Lagarde, […]
Lean Design Management: Applications to Natural Resource Management
Lean Design Management is a design management process that is applied most often within the construction sector. Its applicability to natural resources management is evident through the similarities between construction management and natural resources management. Historically and philosophically, lean design management is based on lean thinking. Lean thinking’s focus is on decreasing production time and […]
Forests in Kenya worth much more intact says government report

Loita hills forest in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Kenya’s forests provide greater services and wealth to the nation when they are left standing. A landmark report by The Kenyan Government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) addresses the importance of forests to the well-being of the nation, putting Kenya among a pioneering […]
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Local and Regional Policy – a book review
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Local and Regional Policy, edited by Heidi Wittmar and Haripriya Gundimeda, provides thoughtful and actionable approaches to integrate nature’s benefits into decision-making frameworks for local and regional policy and public management institutions. Filled with numerous case studies, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Local and Regional Policy, […]
A second look at ‘Fewer, Richer, Greener: The End of the Population Explosion and the Future for Investors’
Fewer, Richer, Greener: The End of the Population Explosion and the Future for Investors (November/December 2012, Vol. 68, No. 6: 20–37), by Mr. Laurence B. Siegel provides us with a commentary of population explosion and green investment opportunities over the long-run. In the investment advice portion of Fewer, Richer, Greener: The End of the Population […]
Paradigm shift needed to avert global environmental collapse, according to author of new book The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse

Scientists and experts are increasingly concerned that we are entering an age of ecological collapse with untold impacts for future generations. In Daniel Rirdan’s new book, The Blueprint, he outlines how to avoid this fate. Author, global strategist, and speaker Daniel Rirdan set out to create a plan addressing the future of our planet. His […]
World has lost half its wetlands

A cow stands in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland which is threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture. In 2006 it was announced that 17 percent of the Pantanal had been lost to deforestation. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Half of the worlds wetlands have been destroyed in just the last 100 years, says a […]
Investors shouldn’t ignore financial risk of environmental damage

Deforestation for a palm oil plantation in Malaysia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Environmental damage poses a long-ignored risk to sovereign bonds, according to a new report by the UNEP FI (The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative) and the Global Footprint Network. The report, E-RISC Report, A New Angle on Sovereign Credit Risk, finds […]
Legislation leaves future of world’s largest temperate rainforest up in the air

Stream and forest in the Tongass National Forest, the world largest temperate rainforest located in Southeast Alaska. Photo by: Matthew Dolkas. Although unlikely to pass anytime in the near term, recurring legislation that would hand over 80,000 acres of the Tongass Rainforest to a Native-owned logging corporation has put local communities on guard in Southeast […]
Mr. Jeremy Grantham and Extreme Weather and The Financial Markets: Opportunities in Commodities and Futures

Hurricane Sandy last night over Georgia and Florida. Photo by: NASA. Mr. Jeremy Grantham, co-chair of the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and co-founder and chief investment strategist at GMO, published an online column November 14, 2012 in Nature asking scientists to speak out forcefully, publicly and directly on strategies to mitigate […]
Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation – Book Review
In Good Derivatives: A Story of Financial and Environmental Innovation, Richard Sandor, PhD has written a rich compelling first-person narrative of the development of financial futures and environmental markets over the past 40 years. With personal stories describing both failures and successes, Dr. Richard Sandor engages us with details that expand our knowledge of the […]
How to see the forest for the trees: new textbook helps to craft a global understanding of forest economics for all stakeholders

A book review of: William F. Hyde’s The Global Economics of Forestry Jungle in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Environmental economics is similar to other expanding fields, it turns out. For example, Tauhid Zaman, assistant professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Business, lamented that network analytics far too often […]
Tanzania weighs new soda ash plant in prime flamingo territory

Lesser flamingoes in Kenya. One third of the world’s lesser flamingoes nest in Tanzania’s Lake Natron. Photo by: Steve Garvie. In a choice between flamingoes and a soda ash plant, a new report shows that local residents near Lake Natron, Tanzania prefer flamingoes. This is good news for conservationists as the area is the most […]
Over 100,000 farmers squatting in Sumatran park to grow coffee

Motorbikes carrying coffee bags out of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Photo courtesy of Patrice Levang. Sumatra’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park—home to the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, and elephants—has become overrun with coffee farmers, loggers, and opportunists according to a new paper in Conservation and Society. An issue facing the park for decades, […]
Wealthy nations, excluding U.S., pledge to double funds for biodiversity

Biodiversity-rich rainforests make way for palm oil plantations in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Although negotiations came down to the wire, nations finally brokered a new deal at the 11th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Hyderabad, India; at its heart is a pledge to double resources from wealthier countries […]
India pledges over $60 million for biodiversity, but experts say much more needed

A black buck in Mahavir Harini Vanasthali National Park near Hyderabad, India. The black buck is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Habitat loss and poaching remain threats even as the black buck recovers from historical lows in the 1970s. Photo by: Pranav Yaddanapudi. The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, pledged […]
Will we need to pull carbon out of the atmosphere to save ourselves?

The ongoing decline in Arctic sea ice hit a new record this year that rocked even the most pessimistic predictions. The low sea ice extent hit 18 percent below the previous record set in just 2007, and was only around half the size it was in 1980. Here, NASA satellites catches a glimpse of the […]
One in eight people suffer from malnutrition worldwide

Girl in village in Madagascar. One of the world’s poorest countries, it has been estimated that about 70 percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In a world where technology has advanced to a point where I can instantly have a face-to-face conversation via online video with a friend in […]
Saving the world’s species from oblivion will cost around $80 billion a year, but still a good deal

The mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz) is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. If the world is to conserve its wealth of life—species great and small, beautiful and terrible, beloved and unknown—it will cost from $3.41-4.76 billion annually in targeted conservation funds, according to a new study in Science. […]
First REDD Textbook – Forest and Climate Change: The Social Dimensions of REDD in Latin America – Book Review

Rainforest in Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Thank you Professor Anthony Hall. After many years, we finally have a REDD textbook that can be used in the undergraduate and graduate classroom. Professor Hall has produced an excellent contribution to the growing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) literature. He has written both […]
World Bank agrees to fund project related to controversial Gibe III dam

The Turkana people fear their ecosystem will be gravely impacted by the Gibe III dam on the Omo River. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Originally refusing to provide funding to Ethiopia’s controversial Gibe III hydroelectric dam, the World Bank has now announced plans to fund the power lines that will carry generated electricity away from […]
Conflict and perseverance: rehabilitating a forgotten park in the Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s last herd of zebra run free in Upemba. Photo courtesy of the FZS. Zebra racing across the yellow-green savannah is an iconic image for Africa, but imagine you’re seeing this not in Kenya or South Africa, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Welcome to Upemba National Park: […]
Human society surpasses ‘nature’s budget’ today

Deforestation for oil palm plantations in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. As of today, August 22nd, humanity has overshot the world’s annual ecological budget, according to the Global Footprint Network, which tracks global consumption related to resource availability and sustainability. The organization looks at a variety of data […]
United States ranks near bottom on first ever energy efficiency scorecard

Popular for a time, General Motor’s Hummer brand was criticized for its lack of efficiency. The brand has now been dropped. Last month, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy released its first ever international energy efficiency scorecard, which gave the United Kingdom the top score. Using data points honed over years of rating […]
Guyana rainforests secure trust fund

Aerial view of Kaieteur Falls, Guyana. Photo © Conservation International/John Martin. The nation of Guyana sports some of South America’s most intact and least-imperiled rainforests, and a new $8.5 million trust fund hopes to keep it that way. The Guyanese government has teamed up with Germany and Conservation International (CI) to create a long-term trust […]
Saving ‘Avatar Grove’: the battle to preserve old-growth forests in British Columbia
- A picture is worth a thousand words: this common adage comes instantly to mind when viewing T.J. Watt’s unforgettable photos of lost trees.
- For years, Watt has been photographing the beauty of Vancouver Island’s ancient temperate rainforests, and documenting their loss to clearcut logging.
- The photographer and environmental activist recently helped co-found the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), a group devoted to saving the island’s and British Columbia’s (BC) last old-growth while working with the logging industry to adopt sustainable practices.
- This February the organization succeeded in saving Avatar Grove—which was only discovered in 2009—from being clearcut.

Experts: sustainable logging in rainforests impossible

Logging in Gabon, Central Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Industrial logging in primary tropical forests that is both sustainable and profitable is impossible, argues a new study in Bioscience, which finds that the ecology of tropical hardwoods makes logging with truly sustainable practices not only impractical, but completely unprofitable. Given this, the researchers recommend […]
Climate change increased the probability of Texas drought, African famine, and other extreme weather

Map shows the level of drought and dryness across the US in July 2011. Map courtesy US Department of Agriculture. Click to enlarge. Climate change is here and its increasing the chances for crazy weather, according to scientists. A prestigious group of climatologists have released a landmark report that makes the dramatic point that climate […]
Wealthy consumption threatens species in developing countries

Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss in developing countries connected to consumption abroad. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Consumption in wealthy nations is imperiling biodiversity abroad, according to a new study […]
Making reforestation work in abandoned pasturelands

Pasture with rainforest behind in the Lacandon rainforest. Photo by: Alejandro Linares Garcia. Tropical reforestation is not easy, especially in abandoned pasturelands. But a new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science finds that removing grasses prior to and after planting native tree seeds significantly improves the chances of forests to take root. […]
Agricultural area larger than Texas has been ‘land-grabbed’

Vegetables in a Congo market. Photo by: Nancy Butler. Compiling over 1,000 foreign land deals from 2000-2010, a new report finds that 702,000 square kilometers (271,043 square miles) of agricultural land worldwide has been sold-off to foreign governments or international corporations, an area larger than Texas. The report by the Worldwatch Institute finds that such […]
Rio+20 and economic perils in Europe: opportunity for linkage

This month, momentous events will occur on the global scene that will set the tone for whether 2012 will be a hopeful year or one in which dislocations and disconnects are further exacerbated by political failings. The EU will decide on its fiscal and monetary union that hinges on Greece’s recent June election, which backed […]
Ten African nations pledge to transform their economies to take nature into account

African elephants at Chobe River in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Last month ten African nations, led by Botswana, pledged to incorporate “natural capital” into their economies. Natural capital, which seeks to measure the economic worth of the services provided by ecosystems and biodiversity—for example pollination, clean water, and carbon—is a nascent, but growing, method […]
Scientists: if we don’t act now we’re screwed

Aerial view of the infamous Río Huaypetue gold mine in the Peruvian Amazon. This remote but massive gold mine is known for the destruction of primary rainforest, widespread mercury pollution, and child and slave labor. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Scientists warn that the Earth may be reaching a planetary tipping point due to a […]
Want to stop climate change: buy fossil fuel deposits

Coal truck in western China. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Governments, NGOs, and others fighting climate change should consider buying coal and oil deposits—not to exploit them, but to keep them from being exploited, according to a bold new policy paper in the Journal of Political Economy. Economist Bard Harstad with the Kellogg School of […]
Massive economic growth does little for happiness in China

Man in a rice field in China. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Economic growth alone may not raise happiness, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy Science (PNAS). Despite a stunning economic growth rate of around 10 percent per year over the last two decades, China’s people have not seem […]
Charting a new environmental course in China

An interview with the Nature Conservancy’s China Program. TNC staff and volunteers repairing signage at Meili Snow Mountain National Park in northwest Yunnan. Community benefits and ecotourism are at the heart of TNC’s program to establish national parks in China. Photo by: Tang Ling. Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) works in more than […]
Consumption, population, and declining Earth: wake-up call for Rio+20

Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American’s ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if there were one-and-a-half Earths, and not just a single blue planet, according to the most recent Living Planet Report released today. If governments and societies […]
For Earth Day, 17 celebrated scientists on how to make a better world

Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical action to create a better world for this and future generations. Compiled by 21 past winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a new paper […]
Smoking gun for bee collapse? popular pesticides

A honeybee tagged with an RFID microchip for tracking its movements. Photo © Science/AAAS. Commonly used pesticides may be a primary driver of the collapsing bee populations, finds two new studies in Science. The studies, one focused on honeybees and the other on bumblebees, found that even small doses of these pesticides, which target insect’s […]
Komitmen-komitmen kertas untuk industri Indonesia

Kelompok Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Indonesia telah menjadi sasaran banyak LSM selama bertahun-tahun karena dugaan dampak negatif terhadap hutan tropis. Hal ini memuncak dalam kampanye spektakuler yang diluncurkan oleh Greenpeace pada tahun 2011 berdasarkan Ken Barbie “dumping”. Alasannya adalah bahwa mainan bermerk Mattel dituduh menggunakan produk kertas APP yang terkait dengan tebang habis hutan […]
Innovative program seeks to safeguard Peruvian Amazon from impacts of Inter-Oceanic Highway

An interview with Arbio Left bank: Arbio’s concession area. Photo by: Arbio. Arbio was begun by Michel Saini and Tatiana Espinosa Q. in the Peruvian Amazon region of Madre de Dios. The project focuses on a protective response to the increased encroachment and destructive land use driven by development. The recent construction of the Inter-Oceanic […]
Tourism for biodiversity in Tambopata

Map, Bahuaja Sonene National Park, Grasshopper Mimicking a Wasp. Photo by: David Johnston. Research and exploration in the Neotropics are extraordinary, life-changing experiences. In the past two decades, a new generation of collaborative projects has emerged throughout Central and South America to provide access to tropical biodiversity. Scientists, local naturalists, guides, students and travelers now […]
Innovative conservation: wild silk, endangered species, and poverty in Madagascar

Moth larvae munching on a host plant. Photo by: Tom Corcoran. For anyone who works in conservation in Madagascar, confronting the complex difficulties of widespread poverty is a part of the job. But with the wealth of Madagascar’s wildlife rapidly diminishing— such as lemurs, miniature chameleons, and hedgehog-looking tenrecs found no-where else in the world—the […]
California cap-and-trade law spurs U.S. forest carbon projects

Male lion in the Okavango Delta. © National Geographic Entertainment. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Now that California’s carbon market has arrived, an Australian-based company that specializes in forest carbon offsets has jump started two forest projects with private landowners in the western U.S. The new company, Forest Carbon Partners, will make the projects available […]
Big oil makes $137 billion, gives 28 percent back to themselves
The world’s top five oil companies—BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—made a record $137 billion in 2011 beating out the previous record in 2008, reports Climate Progress. Still even as the companies made record profits they produced 4 percent less oil than the prior year. Four of the five companies spent […]
Tropical ecologist: Australia must follow U.S. and EU in banning illegally logged wood

Illegally logged tree in Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Australia should join the widening effort to stamp out illegal logging, according to testimony given this week by tropical ecologist William Laurance with James Cook University. Presenting before the Australian Senate’s rural affairs committee, Laurance argued that the massive environmental and economic costs of illegal […]
Black Swans and bottom-up environmental action

“History does not crawl, it jumps.”- Nassim Nicholas Taleb “This is an opportunity for greatness which has never been offered to any civilization… in human history before – to act as a generation to do the right thing – and if we fail to receive that opportunity to act on it then my feeling is […]
More big companies disclosing impacts on forests

Largescale clearing of Amazon rainforest for soy fields in Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. More companies are reporting on the impact of their operations on global forests, finds a new report. Eighty-seven global corporations disclosed their “forest footprint” in 2011, according to the third Forest Footprint Disclosure (FFD), which asks companies to report on […]
Wall Street Journal climate op-ed: the “equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology”
Climate scientists have struck back at the Wall Street Journal after it published an op-ed authored by 16 mostly non-climatologists arguing that global warming was not an urgent concern. The response letter, entitled Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate, recommends that the Wall Street Journal should seek input on global warming from climate […]
Wall Street Journal under attack for climate op-ed
The Wall Street Journal is under scrutiny for publishing an op-ed attacking climate science last Friday, while turning down another op-ed explaining climate change and signed by 255 researchers with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which was eventually published in the journal Science. The op-ed last Friday first garnered attention because it was signed […]
Brazilian mining company connected to Belo Monte dam voted worst corporation

The world’s second largest mining company, Vale, has been given the dubious honor of being voted the world’s most awful corporation in terms of human rights abuses and environmental destruction by the Public Eye Awards. Vale received over 25,000 votes online, likely prompted in part by its stake in the hugely controversial Brazilian mega-dam, Belo […]
California sets tough new clean car standards
The U.S. state that takes climate change most seriously—California—has unanimously approved new rules dubbed the Advanced Clean Cars program to lower carbon emissions, reduce oil dependence, mitigate health impacts from pollution, and save consumers money in the long-term. According to the new standards, by 2025 cars sold in California must cut greenhouse gas emissions by […]
Economic slowdown leads to the pulping of Latvia’s forests

Aerial view over Latvian forests—please note almost all cutting patches are fresh, not yet regenerated. Photo by: R.Matrozis, 2007. The economic crisis has pushed many nations to scramble for revenue and jobs in tight times, and the small Eastern European nation of Latvia is no different. Facing tough circumstances, the country turned to its most […]
One company behind U.S.’s top three biggest greenhouse gas emitters
The Atlanta-based Southern Company owns the top three biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. according to recent data released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Three of Southern’s coal-fired plants—two in Georgia and one in Alabama—account for around 64.74 million metric tons of total greenhouse gas emissions, higher than all of Finland’s […]

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