topic: Ecosystem Restoration

topic: Ecosystem Restoration

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Tackling climate change in one of Colombia’s largest wetlands
- La Mojana, a complex network of more than 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of different types of wetlands, has drastically deteriorated in recent decades.
- Thousands of farmers are working to restore their livelihoods, and the swamps, marshes and streams they inhabit.
- By doing so, they hope that floods and droughts, which are becoming more unpredictable and more severe than ever due to climate change, will affect them less.

New database unveils the role of Asian hornbills as forest seed dispersers
- Equipped with bulky beaks and impressive wingspans, hornbills are vital long-distance seed dispersers in tropical forests. But while a lot is known about the eating habits of hornbills, many mysteries still remain.
- A new study has compiled an open-source, publicly available database of Asian and New Guinean hornbill frugivory and seed dispersal research.
- The new resource aims to help researchers, students and conservation organizations pinpoint knowledge gaps so that they can target their efforts and limited resources.
- The new frugivory database could also prove useful for reforestation projects, many of which increasingly recognize the importance of planting food plants to attract natural seed dispersers, which in turn helps to further regenerate the forest.

Saving Asia’s fishing cat means protecting threatened wetland habitat
- Fishing cats are uniquely adapted to life in wetlands, possessing a double-layered coat that serves as a water barrier and insulation, partially webbed feet, ears that plug when submerged, and a curious call reminiscent of a duck.
- Spread across Asia, this small wild cat species faces myriad threats, including habitat loss, hunting and retaliatory killings, road kill, and more. Considered vulnerable across its range, the felid is also elusive and underresearched, with many knowledge gaps about its distribution and ecology.
- Conservationists are working across its range to raise the profile of this wildcat, reduce threats and understand the species. Linking its protection to equally threatened wetlands is vital, they say. Initiatives such as the Fishing Cat Project in India have achieved success in making this cat the face of these habitats.
- Multiple conservation and research projects operate in Asia under the banner of the Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance, a cooperative model that provides funding lifelines and enables international collaboration to protect this small cat.

U.S. East Coast adopts ‘living shorelines’ approach to keep rising seas at bay
- Along the U.S. East Coast, communities are grappling with the dual destructive forces of rising sea levels and stronger storms pushed by climate change, resulting in effects ranging from ‘ghost forests’ of saltwater-killed coastal trees in the Carolinas, to inundations of New York City’s subway system.
- While the usual response has been to build higher seawalls and other concrete or rock structures, a natural approach that aims to protect coastal areas with natural assets that also create habitat and are generally cheaper and less carbon intensive — ‘living shorelines’ — is increasingly taking hold.
- State agencies and landowners alike are shoring up the shore with innovative combinations of locally sourced logs, rocks and native plants and shrubs to protect homes, dunes and beaches.
- In Maine, where a trio of powerful winter storms recently pummeled the coast, living shorelines designers are in growing demand.

Indonesian capital project finally gets guidelines to avoid harm to biodiversity
- Beset by criticism over its environmental and social impacts, the controversial project of building Indonesia’s new capital city in the Bornean jungle has finally come out with guidelines for biodiversity management.
- The country’s president has hailed the Nusantara project as a “green forest city,” but just 16% of its total area is currently intact rainforest.
- The new biodiversity master plan outlines a four-point mitigation policy of avoiding harm, minimizing any inevitable impacts, restoring damaged landscapes, and compensating for residual impacts.
- The master plan considered input from experts, but several didn’t make it into the final document, including a call for the mitigation policy to extend to a wider area beyond the Nusantara site.

Malawi police arrest elephant poachers in Kasungu National Park
- Police and wildlife authorities in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park.
- Residents of villages just outside the park’s boundaries informed police about two men selling elephant meat, who were subsequently found in possession of 16.6 kg (36.6 lbs) of ivory.
- Kasungu forms part of a transfrontier conservation area that extends into Zambia, a previous poaching hotspot where authorities have spent the past five years strengthening enforcement in collaboration with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
- In July 2022, 263 elephants were translocated to Kasungu from Liwonde National Park in southern Malawi; communities have reported increased raids by elephants on farms and granaries since then, with four people killed by elephants between July and October.

Reforestation and restoration: Two ways to make the Pan Amazon greener
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Efforts to save agroforestry zones require long-term patience and heavy investment, but ensure that plantations sequester up to 20% of the carbon stored in a natural forest, and even more carbon can be retained through natural habitat restoration.
- Killeen explains that tropical areas need to retain around 70% of their canopy cover to maintain the atmospheric recycling that sustains historical rainfall levels. In the southern Amazon, this would need to be applied to 15 million hectares with an investment of between $20 and $100 billion.
- For the author, these issues are all the more urgent as the threat of climate change is accelerating the Pan-Amazonian region to an irreversible tipping point. Are carbon markets providing incentives that ‘reward’ conservation in the Pan-Amazonian region?

Rewilding Ireland: ‘Undoing the damage’ from a history of deforestation
- Eoghan Daltun has spent the past 14 years successfully rewilding 29 hectares (73 acres) of farmland on the Beara Peninsula in southwestern Ireland.
- Ireland is one of the most ecologically denuded countries in the world, only possessing about 11% forest cover but on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, co-host Rachel Donald speaks with Daltun about how he came to accomplish his rewilding feat simply by letting nature take its course and erecting a good fence, which has rapidly led to the regeneration of native forest, wildflowers and fauna.
- They also discuss the historical drivers of ecological devastation that have led to the classic, tree-less Irish landscape, from ancient times to imperial colonization and the advent of modern farming, and what the potential of rewilding is to change that and boost biodiversity.

Indonesia to offer tax perks to companies investing in reforestation of its new capital city
- The Indonesian government is appealing to the private sector for investors to help transform 82,891 hectares (204,800 acres) of barren lands around the new capital of Nusantara into tropical rainforests.
- Mining companies that are required to rehabilitate their concessions after their permits have expired will be able to count reforestation in the capital region toward their quota.
- In addition, the government is offering significant tax deductions to companies that invest in rehabilitating degraded lands.
- East Kalimantan, once covered in tropical forests and home to charismatic species and vast regions of biodiversity, is the country’s most intensely mined province with 7 million hectares (17.3 million acres) of coal mining concessions.

What principles should define natural climate solutions? A new study has some answers
- The increased popularity of natural climate solutions (NCS), which aim to protect and restore natural ecosystems to address climate change, has resulted in misunderstandings and confusion around what constitutes such a solution.
- Researchers distill five foundational principles of natural climate solutions and 15 operational principles to guide their implementation; among others, the principles include equity, emphasizing the need for practitioners to respect human rights and self-determination of Indigenous peoples.
- Researchers argue that natural climate solutions that adhere to these principles are durable and effective in tackling climate change in the long run, resulting in widespread adoption.
- While experts agree that the outlined principles reduce confusion and spur climate action, they call for tightening the definitions of some principles to strengthen the proposed framework.

UN award for Nepal’s tiger range restoration spurs euphoria amid challenges
- Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) initiative, aimed at restoring ecosystems and creating space for tigers, receives global recognition from the U.N. as one of seven World Restoration Flagships.
- Launched in 2004, the TAL initiative restored 66,800 hectares (165,000 acres) of forest and significantly increased the Bengal tiger population in the region.
- The U.N. recognition opens doors for technical and financial support to restore an additional 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) in both Nepal and India, but overcoming challenges like infrastructure expansion and human-wildlife conflict remains critical for long-term sustainability.

Mini rainforest project aims to serve as Kalimantan reforestation blueprint
- The government, researchers and companies are combining forces to build a miniature tropical rainforest in Kalimantan, hoping it will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation of barren lands in the region of Indonesia’s planned new capital, Nusantara.
- Tree species of different heights – tall, low and understory – will create layers of vegetation in a reforestation method that hasn’t been used in Indonesia before; the program is the first of its kind to reintroduce tropical rainforest into a degraded ecosystem in Indonesia.
- The project, involving Mulawarman University and three companies — Danone, PT Indo Tambangraya Megah (ITM) and PT Multi Harapan Utama (MHU) — will cover 96 hectares (237 acres) some 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) away from the government’s core area of the new capital.

Reforestation of Indonesia’s new capital city stumped by haphazard planting
- Less than a tenth of the reforestation target for Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, has been achieved to date, planners say.
- The main obstacles that experts have identified include a preference for nonnative tree species, poor planting practices and monitoring, and a general misapplication of reforestation principles.
- Officials have acknowledged that progress is off-target, but note that the government is joined by the private sector and NGOs in carrying out tree-planting efforts.
- They also say a master plan is in the works to better guide these efforts, as Indonesia prepares to inaugurate its “green forest city” later this year.

Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- A recent study warns that the ongoing construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo could destabilize the population of endangered proboscis monkeys currently thriving in the area.
- President Joko Widodo has characterized the development as green and with a minimal environmental impact, but concerns have arisen over the potential threat to the nearby Balikpapan Bay mangrove ecosystem that’s home to proboscis monkeys and other threatened wildlife.
- Scientists have advocated for sustainable development practices and emphasized the importance of respecting local biodiversity while constructing the new city, Nusantara.
- Their recommendations include legal protection for affected areas, habitat restoration, and collaboration with local stakeholders to mitigate the environmental impact.

First ever U.S. Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area declared in California
- The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Resighini Rancheria, and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community designated the first ever Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the U.S. along the northern California coast.
- The tribes plan to steward nearly 700 mi2 (1,800 km2) of their ancestral ocean and coastal territories from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California.
- As sovereign nations, the tribes say they’re not seeking state or federal agencies’ permission to assert tribally led stewardship rights and responsibilities; rather, they want to establish cooperative relationships recognizing their inherent Indigenous governance authority.
- The tribes aim to restore traditional ecological knowledge and management practices that sustained the area’s natural abundance before colonial disruption.

Nature-based recovery needed for Ukraine’s damaged protected areas (analysis)
- A group of ecologists has published the first interim analysis of the impacts of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine’s protected areas, which has been an environmental disaster.
- Conservationists and international policy makers must reckon with the damages from this invasion and support Ukraine in a nature-positive post-war recovery.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Wild by nature: Ecological restoration brings humanity and biodiversity together
- Ecological restoration is “an attempt to design nature with non-human collaborators” in response to the biodiversity crisis.
- The very idea that nature is something outside of society often hampers practical solutions, and is an impediment to restoring ecosystems, Laura Martin, associate professor of environmental studies at Williams College, argues in this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- In this podcast conversation, co-host Rachel Donald speaks with Martin about the shift in mindset required to tackle biodiversity loss that centers on a restorative approach that’s human-inclusive and mobilizes public participation rather than exclusion.

Japanese butterfly conservation takes flight when integrated with human communities
- A brilliant blue butterfly species has been declining in Japan as the grassland-mimicking agricultural landscapes its host plant relies on fade, due to urban migration, the ageing of the population, and the nation importing food from abroad.
- The key lies in preserving this traditional landscape called satoyama, a mosaic of various ecosystems like grasslands, woodlands and human uses such as farms and rice fields.
- Researchers with the University of Tokyo have teamed up with the town of Iijima in Nagano prefecture and a local agricultural cooperative to maintain this mixed landscape while reintroducing populations of the butterfly, whose population has grown.
- Though it seems counterintuitive, there are many successful global projects connected via the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative, which prevent human-dominated landscapes from reverting naturally to ecosystem types like forests that rare species aren’t adapted to.

A Brazilian NGO restores widely degraded Atlantic Forest amid mining threats
- Iracambi is a Brazilian NGO in the Serra do Brigadeiro mountain range, located in the heart of the Atlantic Forest, a biome largely destroyed by rampant deforestation.
- Leveraging partnerships with local schools and communities, Iracambi hopes to replant 1 million native trees by 2030 and restore the lost Atlantic Forest; 250,000 trees have already been planted.
- The Serra do Brigadeiro region has the second-largest reserve of bauxite in Brazil, attracting mining interests to the region.
- Relentless activism swayed a prospecting mining company to invest in important social development projects in the region, but activists remain concerned about the possible impacts mining will have on the environment and small producers’ livelihoods.

Keeping herbivores at bay helps in early stages of restoration, studies show
- Excluding herbivores from restoration areas may lead to an increase in both vegetation abundance and plant diversity, according to a new analysis.
- The global-scale analysis, which reviewed hundreds of studies, found that herbivores tend to be more common in areas undergoing restoration and can slow down vegetation recovery.
- While native herbivores play a crucial role in healthy ecosystems, researchers argue it may be beneficial to keep them from entering heavily degraded areas in the early stages of restoration.
- The impact of herbivores on restoration varies, and project managers should consider timing and local conditions when deciding whether to exclude, tolerate, or introduce herbivores.

How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
- Decades of deforestation to make way for oil palm monoculture have transformed the Kinabatangan River floodplain in east Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, dividing wildlife populations and confining many of the region’s most iconic species to small fragments of forest that cling on along the river.
- Local communities and conservation initiatives are working together to restore and reconnect pockets of remaining habitat along the river to preserve the vital wildlife corridor, but restoration in the unpredictable and often-waterlogged floodplain is notoriously difficult.
- One such initiative, Regrow Borneo, is facing the challenge by leveraging the expertise of scientists and local knowledge of community members who have been planting forests along the Kinabatangan for decades.
- They say that by focusing their approach on a model that benefits both people and wildlife, they hope their program inspires others to shift away from simply planting numbers of trees toward restoring forests where they’re most needed, including in areas that present challenging conditions.

As U.S. insurers stop covering prescribed burns, states and communities step up
- Prescribed fires are a positive land management method, but when the flames occasionally escape control, the resulting damage to land and private property also hurts this conservation tool’s reputation.
- U.S. insurance companies are thus charging increasingly unaffordable premiums for coverage of this activity or are dropping the service altogether in the wake of some particularly large recent accidents.
- As a result, many small conservation groups and private businesses are getting out of the habit of using fire to improve grassland health, boost wildlife habitat, and decrease likelihood of catastrophic wildfires.
- California is bridging this gap with a new state program that insures the activity, while prescribed fire associations, where residents and firefighters cooperate to carry out burns on private land, are increasingly popping up in communities.

A mobile solution for Kenyan pastoralists’ livestock is a plus for wildlife, too
- The use of mobile bomas, or corrals, to keep livestock safe from predators has shown a wide range of benefits for both pastoral communities and wildlife in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
- The bomas reduce the risk of disease and predation among livestock, while allowing for the regeneration of degraded grazing land, which in turn draws in more wild herbivores to the area.
- The increased wildlife presence has led to a rise in wildlife tourism, valued at $7.5 million annually in the 2,400-hectare (6,000-acre) Enonkishu Conservancy.
- Observers warn of potential downsides, however, including food insecurity as community members abandon farming in favor of more lucrative tourism work, and a rise in human-wildlife conflict as the area’s wildlife population grows.

Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop
- A new Greenpeace report alleges that pulp and paper giant APP continues to clear forests and develop peatlands 10 years after adopting its landmark 2013 pledge to stop destroying natural forests for its plantations.
- The report identifies 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of deforestation in APP supplier concessions or companies connected to APP between February 2013 and 2022 — an area the size of New York City.
- APP has also changed the start date of its no-deforestation policy from 2013 to 2020, which would allow the company at some point in the future to accept new suppliers that deforested between 2013 and 2020.
- APP denies allegations of continued deforestation and says its suppliers have ceased forest conversions since 2013; the company also says it has committed to peatland restoration.

O.K. Coral: Outlaw fisher turns reef marshal in Indonesia’s Sumbawa
- Former dynamite fisher Amiruddin has ceased using destructive fishing practices and become a marine conservationist in his native Sumbawa.
- In 2010, Amiruddin was arrested and almost died while using poison to kill fish off Sumbawa’s west coast.
- Today he has installed lattices to support coral growth in the islands where he fished with explosives and poison in his youth.

Brazil’s Indigenous communities turn to native beekeeping to recover nature
- Indigenous territories located in different Brazilian biomes — the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest — are hosting beekeeping projects aimed at both generating an income and restoring local ecosystems.
- The community projects show how these efforts, associated with agroecological food production, can improve quality of life, especially in the face of climate change impacts.
- The movement began four years ago with a crowdfunding campaign to establish beekeeping in the Amazon, and today includes 53 traditional communities involved in native beekeeping across the country.

Ken Burns discusses heartbreak & hope of ‘The American Buffalo,’ his new documentary
- Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns about his upcoming documentary, “The American Buffalo,” which premieres in mid-October.
- The buffalo was nearly driven to extinction in the late 1800s, with the population declining from more than 30 million to less than 1,000, devastating Native American tribes who depended on the buffalo as their main source of food, shelter, clothing and more.
- The film explores both the tragic near-extinction of the buffalo as well as the story of how conservation efforts brought the species back from the brink.
- Burns sees lessons in the buffalo’s story for current conservation efforts, as we face climate change and a new era of mass extinction.

First Nation and scientists partner to revive climate-saving eelgrass
- Seagrass meadows, of which eelgrass is a key species, are some of the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the ocean, and play a crucial role in sequestering carbon.
- But eelgrass is disappearing rapidly around the globe, and in Canada, questions remain about where exactly these meadows are distributed, and how effective they are at storing carbon.
- A collaborative project between marine biologists and Indigenous Mi’kmaq communities is attempting to answer these questions in eastern Canada while also restoring lost eelgrass meadows.
- The project could help with eelgrass’s long-term survival in the area, as researchers identify eelgrass populations that are more resilient to climate change, and communities work toward eelgrass conservation.

NASA satellites reveal restoration power of beavers
- A new partnership between NASA and researchers is measuring the impact of beavers reintroduced to landscapes in Idaho.
- Beavers are one of the world’s most powerful ecosystem engineers, building new habitats by slowing water flow and reducing flooding, while also boosting biodiversity.
- Beavers are all the more important in an age of rapid climate change, as they produce wetter and more resilient habitats, even in the face of wildfires.
- “NASA is interested in how satellite Earth observations can be used for natural resource management,” a member of the space agency’s Ecological Conservation Program tells Mongabay.

From debt to diversity: A journey of rewilding, carbon capture and hope
- Rewilding has transformed an English estate from a debt-ridden, conventional farm to a profitable haven of biodiversity.
- A study also shows that the rewilded farmland at Knepp absorbs more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, providing hope for climate change mitigation and soil restoration.
- The U.K. is transitioning to a new environmental land management framework offering incentives for practices that restore soil health and biodiversity, but private investment is still needed to bridge the funding gap.
- Nature restoration investment mechanisms to attract private investment are being developed using Knepp data and government funding.

Nursing oil palm plantations back to nature in Malaysian Borneo
- The Rhino and Forest Fund (RFF), a conservation NGO, is working to create wildlife corridors in eastern Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, by reforesting land converted for oil palm plantations — a strategy that includes purchasing land legally being farmed.
- RFF works closely with the Sabah government, and reports that rare species are already making use of the developing corridor, including Bornean elephants, orangutans, sun bears and clouded leopards.
- However, raising funds to buy oil palm plantations has proven challenging, with many funders more focused on preserving intact forests or shying away from any involvement with the oil palm industry.
- Unable to rely on piecemeal donations, RFF is looking for other sources of revenue, including a plan to harvest and sell oil palm fruit while restoration gets underway.

Nearly 85% of Indonesian peatlands aren’t protected, study shows
- This article has been withdrawn from publication by Mongabay.

Volunteers, First Nations work to bring back a disappearing oak prairie
- The rain-shadow regions of North America’s Pacific Northwest, stretching from British Columbia to Oregon, are home to a unique carbon-rich oak-prairie ecosystem dominated by Garry oaks and several species of grasses and shrubs, including endemic plants.
- The ecosystem also holds a special significance in the way of life for the Indigenous peoples in the region, who have stewarded it for millennia and depended on it for food.
- In the past few centuries, however, rapid urbanization, agricultural expansion, development along the coast and proliferation of invasive plants have destroyed more than 95% of the ecosystem, pushing it toward near-extinction.
- Communities, partnering with different national and regional agencies, First Nations and nonprofits, are working to restore and preserve the remnants using various strategies, many of which have borne fruit.

Science and culture join forces to restore 120 miles of Hawaiian reefs
- A new program in Hawai‘i, known as Ākoʻakoʻa, will focus on restoring 193 kilometers (120 miles) of coral reefs off the west of the Big Island, which have been in decline for the past 50 years.
- A key aspect of the program will be the building of a new research and coral propagation facility in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island.
- While the program will be largely science-driven, it will also rely on the traditional knowledge of community leaders and cultural practitioners.

Return of the lions: Large protected areas in Africa attract apex predator
- It’s a critical time for lion conservation as the species declines across Africa. Globally, the lion population has dropped by 43% over the past 21 years.
- Lions are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN, with the species facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. In many of the lion’s core ranges across Africa, populations have plummeted due to, among other reasons, habitat fragmentation and poaching.
- But some African lion populations are increasing, with the big cats spotted after years of absence in parks in Mozambique and Chad. The reason: the creation of vast protected landscape mosaics, with natural corridors stretching far beyond core protected lands, which consider the large areas lions need to roam seasonally.
- This strategy entails collaboration between multiple stakeholders and across varied land uses, including state lands and private property not formally protected. These examples are showing that conservation across landscape mosaics is possible in Africa, and offer the promise of wider benefits to ecosystems and people.

Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
- A group of locals have since 2013 tried to clean up the trash pooling in Lake Sipin in the Sumatran province of Jambi.
- Their efforts have received national attention, with their leader, Leni Haini, awarded the country’s highest environmental award in 2022 by the government.
- Indonesia has announced a plan to restore 15 lakes (Sipin isn’t included) across the country by 2024, citing their high degree of degradation, chiefly sedimentation, which has resulted in their rapid shrinking and a decline in the biodiversity they host.
- These lakes are crucial in supporting the livelihoods of millions of Indonesians, serving as a source of freshwater, a form of flood control, and a site for fish-farming and tourism.

Peatlands, Indonesia’s carbon trove, are mostly unprotected, study finds
- A new study finds that less than 16% of Indonesia’s peatlands in need of conservation measures are currently protected.
- The remainder, covering a combined area nearly twice the size of Belgium, are located outside of protected areas.
- This indicates that current conservation and restoration efforts aren’t sufficient and need to be increased, researchers say.
- They offer their study as a tool for policymakers to precisely identify peat areas where different types of interventions should be prioritized.

Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- The ongoing development of an entirely new capital city from the ground up in Indonesia has alarmed environmental and Indigenous rights activists, who have warned of both deep ecosystem and social impacts.
- The government has justified the plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta, on the island of Java, to Indonesia Borneo as a way of ensuring a greater share of development beyond the country’s western islands.
- Mongabay has already reported on the risks to the wider Bornean region and the additional pressures on marine ecosystems that are a biodiversity haven.
- In response, Myrna Asnawati Safitri, the deputy for environment and natural resources at the government agency overseeing the development, reached out for an exclusive interview where these and other thorny questions were addressed.

Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- For hundreds of years, the island nation of Japan has seen various examples of efforts to conserve its coastal ecosystems, vital to its fisheries.
- An 1897 law created protection forests to conserve a variety of ecosystem services. “Fish forests,” one type of protection forest, conserve watershed woodlands and offer benefits to coastal fisheries, including shade, soil erosion reduction, and the provision of nutrients.
- Beginning in the late 1980s, fishers across Japan started planting trees in coastal watersheds that feed into their fishing grounds, helping launch the nation’s environmental movement. Although the fishers felt from experience that healthy forests contribute to healthy seas, science for many years offered little evidence.
- New research using environmental DNA metabarcoding analysis confirms that greater forest cover in Japan’s watersheds contributes to a greater number of vulnerable coastal fish species. Lessons learned via Japan’s protection and fish forests could benefit nations the world over as the environmental crisis deepens.

Counterintuitive conservation: Fire boosts aquatic crustaceans in U.S. savannas
- In an interesting twist, two kinds of rare American freshwater crustaceans have been found to thrive after prescribed burns in their habitats.
- Populations of vernal pool fairy shrimp in Oregon and several species of threatened crayfish on the Gulf Coast increased after the removal of invasive plants, woody shrubs and trees from their habitats using fire or mechanical means.
- Fairy shrimp populations were shown to increase more than fivefold following habitat treatments that featured fire, while speckled burrowing crayfish also responded positively following fires set to favor nesting of sandhill cranes (whose own population has soared since).
- Both areas are savanna ecosystems that have relied on frequent fires over millennia — whether naturally occurring or intentionally set by Indigenous peoples — to maintain the open habitats to which myriad organisms have adapted.

Indigenous women in Colombia protect rich Amazonian wetland from overfishing
- Dozens of Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon are monitoring, managing, raising awareness and restoring a wetland ecosystem impacted by overfishing.
- After partnering with environmental organizations to establish a fishing agreement in the area, they have witnessed the increase and recovery of fish species such as sardines, catfish and the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas).
- The wetland area of Lake Tarapoto, located in the department of Amazonas in southern Colombia, provides a habitat for numerous aquatic animals and supports the livelihoods of 22 Indigenous communities.

Could biodiversity be a key to better forest carbon storage in Europe?
- A new project is reintroducing key species into Europe’s forests to help restore natural balance and boost the ability of woodlands to store carbon. But there are concerns that unless such reintroductions are made on a much wider, landscape scale, they will have little positive impact in a region so dominated by humans.
- Others argue that the best way to improve Europe’s carbon storage potential is via heavy forest management, even going so far as to clear-cut some older stands and replace them with fast-growing new forests to encourage rapid carbon uptake, and using thinnings from timber operations to burn as biomass to make energy.
- This heavy management approach has raised deep concerns within the scientific community. Many researchers say this method ignores the growing body of evidence that plantation forest monocultures are not only bad for biodiversity and store less carbon, but also increase the risk of spreading devastating diseases.
- A middle ground could see more natural management of some forests where timber is harvested, while other woodland areas are left undisturbed, with a mixture of tree species, deadwood allowed to rot where it falls, and native animals reintroduced to help restore a natural balance and healthy ecosystems.

To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- A new toll road in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is under construction to improve access to the interior of Borneo, including to the nation’s new capital city, Nusantara.
- Construction of the road, however, poses immediate environmental risks, as the route cuts through a forested area with high conservation value that connects the Sungai Wain protected forest, coastal mangroves, and Balikpapan Bay.
- Prior to road construction, the integrated forest and coastal ecosystem supported populations of orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- Conservationists say the construction of this toll road belies the Indonesian government’s claims that the development of the new capital will be green and sustainable.

In Brazil, scientists fight an uphill battle to restore the disappearing Cerrado savanna
- Countries around the world have made ambitious targets to restore native ecosystems as an important nature-based solution, with Brazil committing to restoring 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030.
- While restoration in places like the Amazon has attracted significant funding and resources, non-forested biomes like Brazil’s Cerrado savanna are struggling to attract the same resources, even as it faces some of the highest deforestation rates in years.
- Researchers working on Cerrado restoration are trying to change this, fighting an uphill battle to generate knowledge, strengthen expertise, and scale up restoration.
- But without more resources and focus on national and international policies, they warn that restoration efforts in the Cerrado won’t come close to reaching their targets.

Rewilding animals could be key for climate: Report
- A new report published in Nature Climate Change suggests that trophic rewilding, or restoring and protecting the functional roles of animals in ecosystems, is an overlooked climate solution.
- Reintroducing just nine species or groups of species (including African forest elephants, American bison, fish, gray wolves, musk oxen, sea otters, sharks, whales and wildebeest) would help limit global warming to less than the 1.5°C (2.7°F) threshold set by the Paris Agreement, according to the report.
- Animals play a significant role in how much carbon plants, soil and sediments can capture, as they redistribute seeds and nutrients and disturb soil through digging, trampling, and nest-building.
- The report emphasizes the need for a change in mindset within science and policy to take advantage of the vast potential of wildlife, while working closely with local communities to address social issues that can affect conservation efforts.

Reconnecting ‘island habitat’ with wild corridors in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this third story, the NGO Saving Nature works to create wild corridors to reconnect fragmented patches of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

Mountain islands: Restoring a transitional cloud forest in Costa Rica
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, and greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this second story, two tourists vacationing in Costa Rica and stunned by the deforestation they see, buy degraded land next to Chirripó National Park and restore a transitional cloud forest.

From ukuleles to reforestation: Regrowing a tropical forest in Hawai‘i
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by water as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soils and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this first story, two ukulele makers strive to save Hawai‘i’s koa tree, found nowhere else in the world. In the process they restore a biodiverse tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano.

How you save the world with three words (commentary)
- David Gadsden, a geographer with more than two decades of experience applying geospatial technology to address complex humanitarian and conservation challenges, argues that the “30 by 30” conservation target could catalyze progress on a range of challenging issues.
- Progress will be enabled and accelerated by new mapping tools and technologies that are increasing the accessibility and utility of geospatial data that informs decision-making in protecting and restoring ecosystems.
- “There is so much data now — from sensors, from satellites, from commercial operations — that many questions about impact that could hardly be asked 20 years ago can now be answered with a few clicks And all that data can be layered onto the same map, so everyone with an interest is working from the same framework,” writes Gadsden. “Tools that used to be highly specialized — exclusively in the hands of data professionals — are now instantly available. They’re democratizing.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Loss of wetlands threatens South Sumatra’s rich fish-preserving tradition
- Rural communities in South Sumatra, an Indonesian province that’s two-fifths wetlands, have long relied on catching freshwater fish as a source of livelihood.
- The region is renowned for its variety of preserved fish products, which are sold throughout Indonesia.
- However, the wetlands are disappearing at a rapid rate, filled in to make way for oil palm plantations and highways, and threatening the region’s long-running fish-preserving tradition.
- Today, most of the freshwater fish processed here comes from fish farms, and include exotic species not native to the region, which some say doesn’t taste as good as the traditional species.

As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Indonesia’s plan to build its new capital city on an expiring logging concession in eastern Borneo has sparked concerns among environmental and human rights observers about the larger eco-social impacts to the rest of the island.
- The administration of President Joko Widodo, who made the decision and will leave office next year, has made glowing promises of a green and sustainable development: claiming minimal forest clearance, respect for Indigenous and local communities’ rights, and a net-zero carbon emission design.
- Mongabay visited the site of the project last October to see its progress, observe firsthand some of the earliest impacts from the construction of the city and supporting infrastructure, and speak with the people most likely to be affected.
- Clearing of mangroves and high-conservation forest areas, land conflicts with Indigenous communities, and potentially large-scale displacements are already happening, calling into question whether the $34 billion project’s benefits will outweigh its downsides.

Restoration turns pastures into wildlife haven in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- After centuries of intensive deforestation, experts say fragmentation and degradation are worse in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest than in the Amazon.
- Experts say restoration can complement primary forest conservation by helping to reconnect fragments of original forest and to bring back lost biodiversity.
- The nonprofit Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve conserves 12,000 hectares (29,652 acres) of Atlantic Forest in the Guapiaçu River Basin, protecting both the environment and the water supply of 2.5 million people.
- In two decades, the nonprofit has planted 750,000 trees, seen a return of hundreds of birds, and reintroduced the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris) to Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 100 years.

Treacherous pits and lakes left in the wake of Cameroon’s abandoned mining sites
- Inactive mining sites in Cameroon are continuously abandoned without restoration by foreign companies, leaving behind huge pits in the ground that later form into artificial lakes which endanger local populations and damage ecosystems.
- In January, a 13-year-old boy drowned in one of these lakes near Yaoundé, left behind by the quarry company Transatlantique Cameroon Ltd, a subsidiary of the Chinese consortium Cameroon Meilan Construction Conglomerate (CMCC).
- In 2021 and 2022, the Cameroonian NGO Forests and Rural Development (FODER) identified more than 700 mining pits in Cameroon, including 139 which had become artificial lakes, claiming the lives of more than 200 people.
- Cameroonian legislation obligates mining companies to refill mining pits after their operations. Despite this, the law is not being adhered to or enforced.

Biodiversity conservation needs a more ecological context and transformational concept (commentary)
- Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and if we want international conservation policies that work, we need to urgently re-evaluate how we think ecosystems work, argue the authors of this op-ed.
- We can do so by measuring some core processes of the many unique ecosystems, by employing factors like proxy measuments and analyzing the local ecological and environmental processes taking place in an ecosystem.
- Nations must move away from simplistic policy based on a desire for general rules and instead embrace the complexity of their ecosystems, with the help of researchers and scientists. “Only by protecting this complexity can we protect our diversity into a changing future.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Peatland restoration in temperate nations could be carbon storage bonanza
- Much maligned and undervalued over the centuries, temperate peatlands have seen a lot damage in that time — drained for agriculture, planted with trees, mined for horticulture and fuel. But in an age of escalating climate change, people are now turning to restoration.
- As potent carbon sequesters, peatlands have only recently been given new attention, with active restoration taking place in many nations around the world. This story focuses on groundbreaking temperate peatland restoration efforts in the U.S. Southeast, Scotland and Canada.
- Every temperate peatland is different, making each restoration project unique, but the goal is almost always the same: restore the natural hydrology of the peatland so it can maximize carbon storage and native biodiversity, and improve its resilience in the face of climate change and increasingly common fires in a warming world.

Saving Masungi, a last green corridor of the Philippines: Q&A with Ann Dumaliang
- The Masungi Georeserve is an important geological region about 30 miles from Manila, within a watershed and conservation area that is home to more than 400 species of flora and fauna, several of which are rare and threatened.
- Ann Dumaliang is a co-founder of the foundation that manages conservation and geotourism in the reserve, which is threatened by illegal quarrying, logging and development.
- Masungi’s rangers have faced violent attacks in recent months, but Dumaliang, her family and colleagues are working with numerous organizations and individuals to reforest and preserve the area.

Restore linked habitat to protect tropical amphibians from disease: Study
- Amphibians across the tropics are facing a global decline, with disease caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) playing an especially significant role in losses.
- According to recent research, “habitat split” — when different types of habitat, such as terrestrial and freshwater areas, become separated — could play a role in exacerbating disease, potentially altering species’ microbiomes and weakening amphibian resistance.
- According to the study, an amphibian’s journey through altered habitat to complete its life cycle can change the composition of its microbiome (the bacterial makeup of the skin); induce chronic stress; and reduce immune gene diversity — all of which can impact disease resistance.
- Though further studies are needed, this research may offer another persuasive reason to actively restore and reconnect habitats, helping to “prime” amphibian immune systems against disease. There is also a possibility that habitat split findings among amphibians could extend to other families of animals.

Ukrainian ecologists say nature will suffer no matter war’s result (commentary)
- “As Ukrainian ecologists, we are constantly reminded of the extent to which war itself is at war with nature.”
- In a new commentary, two scientists linked to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group share their views on the current and future ecological restoration work that will be needed in their country.
- Scientists and communicators linked to the group also hail from Russia and Belarus, countries which are engaged in the conflict against Ukraine: this is unusual and touching, the authors say. “The project has a huge democratic weight: when we’re trying to do the right thing for people and for nature, nationality doesn’t matter.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

On Sumatra coast, mangrove clearing sparks scrutiny of loophole
- Last year, a 100-hectare patch of mangrove trees in eastern Sumatra was cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation.
- Residents say small landowners’ claims were packaged together to form a plantation, averting the need for environmental checks or permits required of a corporate concession.
- Mangrove restoration is a pillar of Indonesia’s climate change agenda, though the clearing of some intact forests has persisted.

Island conservation should focus on land-sea links for most impact, paper says
- A new perspective piece in PNAS explores the idea that people, wildlife and the environment of islands thrive when conservation efforts focus on restoring both the land and sea together.
- One way to restore land-sea connections on islands is to eradicate invasive species, such as rats, which can harm native island species like seabirds and crabs.
- Research has shown that terrestrial and marine ecosystems reap benefits when invasive species are eliminated from islands.

For restoration, microbes below ground are just as crucial as the plants above
- Planting soil microbiome like fungi together with trees as a part of ecosystem restoration could lead to an average 64% increase in plant growth, a new study has found.
- The research suggests that managed landscapes like farmland and forestry plantations have the greatest potential for restoration using soil organisms as they cover half of Earth’s habitable land area.
- Southeast Asia, in particular, presents an interesting case study for incorporating microbial communities in forest restoration, as it has vast swaths of degraded land that could be restored.

Restoring Hong Kong’s oyster reefs, one abandoned oyster farm at a time
- Conservationists and researchers are teaming up to restore oyster reefs across Hong Kong.
- At one site, they are repurposing concrete posts from an abandoned oyster farm that made use of traditional oyster cultivation methods dating back hundreds of years.
- Hong Kong’s oysters, and its oyster farmers, are threatened by development, warming and acidifying marine waters brought on by climate change, and toxic algae blooms due to pollution.
- By restoring the reefs, conservationists and scientists hope they can improve water quality, stabilize shorelines, and provide habitat for the city’s surprisingly rich marine wildlife.

As dry season looms, Sumatra villagers hope their peat restoration pays off
- Community-led efforts to restore degraded peatlands in Indonesia’s Riau province could be put to the test in early 2023 as the dry season sets in.
- Riau is the perennial epicenter of the burning season on Sumatra Island, and is expected to have a more intense dry season after three consecutive years of wetter-than-usual conditions due to La Niña.
- A broad coalition of local governments, communities, researchers and NGOs have been working to restore peatlands that had been drained in preparation for planting, with the hope that restoring water levels will prevent burning.
- As part of the restoration programs, communities are also adapting their farming practices, learning to prepare the land without the use of fire, and picking crops that are suited for the wetter soil conditions.

Nearly half of replanted trees die, but careful site selection can help
- A recent survey of reforestation efforts in South and Southeast Asia found that about half of trees planted as part of such projects died within a decade.
- The study also identified factors that increase the chances of survival; for example, trees planted in sites with existing forest were more likely to survive than trees planted on open land.
- The researchers also noted that few projects carry out long-term monitoring after the initial planting, even though it takes decades for forests to regrow.

Report calls on palm oil firms to make up for nearly 1m hectares of forest loss
- Palm oil companies across Southeast Asia are liable for the recovery of a Puerto Rico-sized area of forest because of their history of environmental harm, a new report shows.
- The Earthqualizer Foundation derived the figure of 877,314 hectares (2.17 million acres) based on the deforestation that the companies continued to carry out after they became aware that an increasing number of buyers had adopted sustainability policies.
- The report also calls on buyers who bought from these suppliers to shoulder some of the liability, which it said could count toward the forest restoration goals pledged by many of the buyers, including Nestlé, Kellogg’s and Unilever.
- The Earthqualizer report highlights some palm oil companies that are already undertaking recovery initiatives, but notes that these are few and far between, and any progress will need to be assessed over the long term.

Meet the Millennium Forest: A unique tropical island reforestation project
- A two-decade reforestation project on the tropical island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean has not only restored trees found nowhere else in the world, but has also involved nearly every member of the island community in the effort.
- The Millennium Forest, as it’s called, has struggled with invasive species and irregular funding, but has still managed to thrive, adding new plant species — several of them threatened and two thought to have gone extinct. The growing forest is attracting animal species to its habitat, including St. Helena’s only endemic bird.
- Ocean islands pose special challenges for forest restoration, since many plant species evolved in isolation on remote islands, and saw drastic population crashes to the point of extinction, or near-extinction, when people and invasive species arrived.
- As a result, island reforestations typically can’t match original forest composition, but must mix both native and non-native species. The Millennium Forest project has now become a legacy that the current generation is handing down to upcoming ones, according to project founder Rebecca Cairns-Wicks.

Who decides on ‘priorities’ for ecosystem restoration?
- A set of maps from research published in 2020 in the journal Nature suggested that restoring ecosystems in “priority areas” offered a cheap and effective way to slow climate change and stem the global loss of species.
- Soon after the study’s release, however, researchers from around the world raised concerns about the areas identified by the study, whether the biodiversity- and climate-related gains would be as substantial as the authors claimed, and how decision-makers might use the maps to guide policy.
- The study aimed to point out optimal spots for restoration based on the biggest boost they could provide to avoid the extinction of species and sequester the most carbon at the lowest costs. But, the authors wrote, the study did not consider “socio-economic issues,” and the maps were not intended to directly inform local implementation.
- The study’s critics say that, in spite of the authors’ intentions, investors and policymakers could use the maps in ways that might not consider the impacts on local communities.

With FSC rule change, deforesters once blocked from certification get a new shot
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has adopted a number of significant changes during its recent general assembly in Bali, chief among them moving its cutoff date for eligibility from 1994 to 2020.
- With the change, logging companies that have cleared forests since 1994, but before 2020, will be allowed to obtain certification from the body, something they weren’t allowed to do before.
- To qualify, companies will have to restore forests and provide remedy for social harms done in the 1994-2020 period in their concessions.
- The decision has sparked responses from both critics and supporters, with the former saying the new rule rewards known deforesters, and the latter saying it opens opportunities for forest restoration and remedies for Indigenous and local communities.

Drive for restoration and remedy behind some NGOs’ cautious support for FSC changes (commentary)
- Earlier this month, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) held its General Assembly in Bali.
- Grant Rosoman, a senior campaign advisor to Greenpeace International, argues that decisions made at this year’s General Assembly marked “the most significant change in direction” for the certification scheme in the last 20 years.
- Rosoman specifically identifies stakeholders’ approval of Motion 37 which will allow certification of forest areas cleared for plantations after November 1994 provided the party involved commits to restore an equivalent area of natural forest.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Mangroves and wildlife in Bornean bay at risk from Indonesia’s new capital
- Experts and activists say the construction of Indonesia’s new capital city upstream of Balikpapan Bay on the island of Borneo fails to mitigate against damage to the marine ecosystem.
- The stretch of coast between the bay and the mouth of the Mahakam River is packed with mangroves, which host a rich diversity of marine and terrestrial life, including proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- The government has said the construction of the new capital, Nusantara, will include retaining a large swath of mangrove forest, but zoning details show most of it won’t be protected against development.
- The $33 billion planned city will in 2024 take over as the Indonesian capital from Jakarta, and its full construction will be completed by 2045, according to the government’s plans.

Harpy eagle’s return to Costa Rica means rewilding’s time has come (commentary)
- An adult harpy eagle was recently photographed in northern Costa Rica, which made national headlines and waves on social media.
- Most believed these gigantic eagles had been extirpated from the region, but consistent efforts to restore forests and rewild ecosystems in the country mean they may return in greater numbers, if conditions allow.
- A new commentary argues this signals it’s time to ramp up reintroductions of animals like giant anteaters, too, and prey for eagles and also jaguars: “Why not establish herds of white-lipped peccary into Piedras Blancas National Park, where they have been absent for over 40 years?” the writer wonders.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Stamping out invasive species has successful track record on islands, study finds
- A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that efforts to remove invasive vertebrates from islands were 88% successful between 1872 and 2020.
- Invasive species can be particularly devastating to delicate island ecosystems and the unique native species they harbor.
- The researchers looked at the methods, locations and target species of 1,550 eradication attempts on nearly 1,000 islands around the world.
- The authors say the results of the research provide a guide for conservation groups, scientists and countries to take on eradication projects in an effort to encourage the resurgence of native wildlife and restore ecosystems.

Java communities rally as clock ticks on cleanup of ‘world’s dirtiest river’
- A national program to transform Java’s Citarum River into a source of drinking water expires in 2025.
- A reforestation program in uplands near the source of the river is drawing on community volunteers.
- West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil tells Mongabay that residents will see improved water quality by 2025 and that there is political will to tackle the crisis.

Let it grow: Q&A with reforestation and land restoration visionary Tony Rinaudo
- Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a community-led approach to naturally restoring degraded landscapes and ecosystems, and it’s credited with reforesting many millions of hectares of degraded land, globally.
- Though FMNR has literally sprouted in many places over time, Tony Rinaudo is the best known and most vocal proponent of this technique that’s reforested an estimated six million hectares of Niger alone.
- Encouraging cleared forests to resprout makes resilient, climate-positive agroecology practices like agroforestry possible, as crops grown in the cooling shade of trees also benefit from improved soil health and water levels.
- In a wide-ranging interview, Rinaudo shares his hopes, dreams, and insights about FMNR with Mongabay readers.

Jumbo task as Malawi moves 263 elephants to restock a degraded national park
- Over the last month, 263 elephants were relocated from Liwonde National Park to Kasungu National Park, both in Malawi.
- Liwonde, managed by African Parks, an NGO, hosts some 600 elephants, more than its ecosystem can support.
- Kasungu’s elephant population was previously decimated by poaching, but officials say the park is ready to host more elephants after years of anti-poaching and community engagement efforts.

We’ve crossed the land use change planetary boundary, but solutions await
- According to experts, we have passed the planetary boundary for land systems change — the human-caused loss of forest — and risk destabilizing Earth’s operating systems.
- Scientists calculate we must retain 85% of tropical and boreal forests, and 50% of temperate forests, to stay within Earth’s “safe operating” bounds, but the number of trees worldwide has fallen by nearly 50% since the dawn of agriculture.
- From 2001 to 2021, forest area roughly half the size of China was lost or destroyed across the planet; in 2021, tropical forests disappeared at a rate of about 10 football fields per minute.
- Despite these losses, solutions abound: Some of the actions that could bring us back into the safe operating space are securing Indigenous land rights, reforestation and landscape restoration, establishing new protected areas, redesigning food systems, and using finance as a tool

In restoring polluted rivers, Indonesia looks at restocking endemic fish
- Two reported mudflows overflowed the Serayu River on the Indonesian island of Java within the space of a week earlier this year, mucking its waters and killing off fish.
- The incidents have raised calls from conservationists and fishers for restoration and fish restocking efforts in the river.
- Fish restocking has been carried out for several decades in Indonesian rivers, mainly as an effort to increase fisheries productivity and fish populations in inland waters such as rivers, reservoirs and lakes.
- But experts say these restocking efforts often emphasize ceremony at the expense of measures to ensure success, such as post-monitoring assessment.

Scientists strive to restore world’s embattled kelp forests
- Kelp forests grow along more than one-quarter of the world’s coastlines, and are among the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But these critical habitats are disappearing due to warming oceans and other human impacts.
- Sudden recent wipeouts of vast kelp forests along the coastlines of Tasmania and California highlighted how little was known about protecting or restoring these vital marine ecosystems.
- Scientists are finding new ways to help restore kelp, but promising small-scale successes need to be ramped up significantly to replace massive kelp losses in some regions.
- Global interest in studying seaweed for food, carbon storage and other uses, may help improve wild kelp restoration methods.

Dig, dump, repeat, then watch the forest grow: Q&A with mangrove restorer Keila Vazquez
- Las Chelemeras is a group of 18 women in the Mexican port town of Chelem who, since 2010, have worked to restore and protect their local mangrove forests on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula.
- To date, they have contributed to the reforestation of approximately 50 hectares (124 acres) of mangroves, accounting for half of Chelem’s forest cover.
- “We have learned that our work is not only a job or a paycheck, but a collaboration with the environment, and that gives us satisfaction,” says Keila Vazquez, a founding member of the group.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Vazquez talks about her work with Las Chelemeras, the challenges ahead for her community, and how the reforestation of their environment has impacted younger generations.

Sea restoration projects quilt a ‘mosaic of habitats’ with striking results
- The concept of restoring more than one type of marine habitat at a time — such as oyster reefs, seagrass meadows and salt marshes — is becoming increasingly popular as scientists and conservationists learn about the advantages of this approach.
- Many studies clearly show the mutual benefits that integrated habitats provide to each other, as well as the larger benefits offered to the ecosystem.
- Yet other studies show mixed results, drawing attention to the complex nature of this approach.
- Numerous seascape restoration projects are taking place around the world, including in the coastal bays of Virginia, U.S., the sea off the coast of South Australia, and the estuaries and lochs in the U.K.

Overexploited and underprotected: Study urges action on Asia’s rosewoods
- Rosewood is one of the world’s most trafficked wildlife products: The value of the trade, driven by demand from luxury furniture markets, exceeds that of ivory.
- Despite increased legal protections and export bans in recent years, illegal logging and cross-border trade continues to decimate rosewood populations across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
- A new study reveals the threats facing isolated and fragmented populations of three rosewood species in the Greater Mekong region and identifies where conservation and restoration action could have the most benefits.
- The study recommends a variety of approaches to protect the viability of remaining natural populations and their genetic diversity, including community forestry, smallholder planting initiatives, agroforestry, and storing seeds in gene banks.

Common goals ensure forest restoration success in northern Thailand
- Twenty-five years ago, the Hmong community of Ban Mae Sa Mai village in northern Thailand began a collaboration with researchers and national park authorities to restore agricultural fields to natural forest.
- Between 1997 and 2013, they honed methods of assisted regeneration while restoring 33 hectares (82 acres) of upland evergreen tropical forest in Doi Suthep-Pui National Park.
- Monitoring teams documented the return of biodiversity and ecosystem services to the restored land, and participants founded a tree nursery that continues to supply thousands of native tree seedlings each year to nearby initiatives inspired by the Ban Mae Sa Mai model.
- However, the Hmong community face the prospect of eviction from their ancestral land, which lies within a protected area. Experts warn that disputes between authorities and the community, coupled with an increasing risk of fire due to climate change, could jeopardize the survival of the recovering forest.

Yellowstone’s wolves defied extinction, but face new threats beyond park’s borders
- Since their reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park in the Mountain West of the United States in the 1990s, the North American gray wolf has recovered, once again taking up the mantle of a keystone species in its environment.
- But the wolf’s resurgence has raised the ire of ranchers and hunters, and new laws allowing expanded wolf hunts have sprung up across the region.
- Biologists contend that wolves play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and data suggest that the threat to overall livestock numbers is exaggerated.
- Still, an entrenched fear, perhaps dating to humans’ earliest interactions with wolves, has helped to stir up a desire for vengeance against the species.

For more fish and healthier coral in Bali, focus on communities and connectivity: Study
- A new review highlights improvements that can be made to the conservation of Bali’s coral reefs, which face multiple local stressors alongside warming waters and coral bleaching.
- While there are more coral-focused conservation initiatives in Bali than elsewhere in Indonesia, not all of them are successful, the authors say, leaving much room for improvement, particularly regarding design and management of protected areas.
- The authors recommend a more coordinated approach to marine protected area management to create networks that effectively safeguard mobile species, like turtles, sharks, rays and other fish.
- The review warns that despite the successes of local initiatives, climate change remains the biggest threat to coral reefs in Bali and around the world.

Community-led coral restoration project is rare hit amid slew of misses in Indonesia
- A recent review published in Marine Policy documented 533 new coral reef restoration projects in Indonesia over the past three decades, signaling a large rise in coral reef restoration projects.
- Although Indonesia’s legal policy framework encourages wide participation in restoration activities, scientists say many of these projects have failed because they lack important monitoring or long-term evaluation.
- In Lombok, a successful community-led reef restoration project has proved to be an outlier, demonstrating the importance of community involvement and post-monitoring care for the corals.

Partnering with farmers is key to land restoration success (commentary)
- The UN declared 2021–2030 to be the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, but global initiatives aiming to tackle land degradation run the risk of failing unless they shift their approach to include farmers.
- Agricultural techniques that restore land such as agroforestry boost crop production and also positively contribute ‘ecosystem services’ such as fuelwood production, habitat creation, carbon sequestration and erosion control.
- We must acknowledge that local people have a wealth of knowledge about where they live, so tapping into this knowledge and gaining their partnership is key to long-term restoration goals, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.

Asia’s troubled trees need better conservation to reach restoration goals: Study
- South and Southeast Asia’s 19,000 tree species form the foundations of some of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests, as well as provide irreplaceable ecosystem services and underpin the livelihoods and diets of hundreds of millions of people.
- However, roughly three-quarters of the land deemed most important to protect regional tree diversity lies outside of protected areas, according to a new study that evaluates the distribution and threats facing 63 native tree species.
- The findings question whether countries will be able to fulfill their ambitious forest restoration targets; in particular, the researchers are concerned that crucial seed resources that could support reforestation efforts are being lost.
- The researchers recommend a more coordinated approach to conservation planning within the region, including improved cross-border collaboration and a holistic, landscape approach that integrates trees into production systems outside of protected areas.

Warming could nip Southeast Asian forests’ mass flowering in the bud, study finds
- Synchronous mass flowering is one of the most spectacular but least-understood phenomena in Southeast Asia’s tropical rainforests; crucially, scientists know very little about how flowering events might be affected by climate change.
- A new study looking at historical tree flowering in Malaysia has found that between 1976 and 2010, the proportion of flowering and fruiting species decreased as temperatures began to increase through that period.
- They also used models to predict future responses to climate change, finding that a rise of 1.2°C (2.2°F) in average global temperatures by the year 2100 could halve the flowering probability of Dipterocarp trees, an ecologically and economically important tree family in Southeast Asia.
- The researchers say we will likely see shifts in tree species composition in forests as those adapted to climate change are outcompeted by more adaptable species.

‘Nature has priority’: Rewilding map showcases nature-led restoration
- The Global Rewilding Alliance and OpenForests have officially launched a map of rewilding projects around the world.
- Organizations have contributed stories, photos and videos for projects in 70 countries covering 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles), and the alliance’s leaders say more will be added.
- Rewilding is a type of ecological restoration that aims to restore natural dynamics and processes to ecosystems.
- Proponents of the approach say it has the potential to address both biodiversity loss and climate change.

Traditional knowledge guides protection of planetary health in Finland
- Undisturbed peatlands act as carbon sinks and support biodiversity. Finland has drained 60% — more than 60,000 km2 (23,000 mi2) — of its peatlands, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and destroying entire ecosystems.
- But scientists and Finnish traditional and Indigenous knowledge holders are collaborating to rewild and protect peatlands and associated forests and rivers, turning them into carbon sinks again, while bringing back wildlife and supporting fishing, hunting, and even tourism, offering economic benefits to local communities.
- These Finnish collaborations are already serving as both inspiration and guide to those seeking to use rewilding to curb climate change, enhance biodiversity, create sustainable land use systems, and restore forest, freshwater and wetland ecosystems, while supporting traditional communities.
- “Rewilding is very much about giving more freedom to nature to shape our landscapes, and looking at nature as an ally in solving socioeconomic problems,” says Wouter Helmer former rewilding director of Rewilding Europe. “It’s a holistic way of putting nature back on center stage in our modern society.”

From land mines to lifelines, Lebanon’s Shouf is a rare restoration success story
- The Shouf Biosphere Reserve is a living laboratory experimenting with degraded ecosystem recovery in ways that also boost the well-being of the human communities living there.
- Previous conservation efforts in the area involved using land mines and armed guards to stem illegal logging and reduce fire risk.
- Today, the reserve builds local skills and creates jobs in a bid to help the local community through Lebanon’s severe economic crisis.
- Managers are also employing adaptive techniques to build resilience in this climate change-hit landscape.

Indigenous communities transform a Mexican desert landscape into forest
- In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, 22 communities have taken on the challenge of reviving soils depleted by centuries of overgrazing.
- Over the last two decades, they’ve managed to restore at least 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres), turning many sites into burgeoning forests.
- The task is especially challenging because the communities are starting from “less than zero” — having to find ways to restore their soil before they can even think about planting trees.
- The success of the initiative means the communities can now look forward to more options for forest-based livelihood, such as agroforestry or even selling carbon credits.

NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.

Podcast: Are ‘nature based solutions’ the best fix for climate change?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss mangrove restoration and other nature based solutions to climate change.
- We speak with Alfredo Quarto, co-founder and program and policy director of the Mangrove Action Project, who tells us about the ongoing destruction of mangrove forests around the world, why it’s so important to restore these coastal ecosystems, and what makes for successful mangrove restoration projects.
- We also speak with Norah Berk, a policy advisor on climate change and forests at the Rainforest Foundation UK, who tells us that nature based solutions have, in many cases, been co-opted by corporations that are using them as part of carbon offset schemes, and discusses why she thinks land titling for Indigenous and local communities is the solution to climate change that we should be focusing on.

Greek conservationists collaborate to protect endemic species in face of climate change
- Across Greece, conservation NGOs are working in close collaboration to study and save numerous endemic species found nowhere else.
- Often working in areas famed for Greek mythology like Mount Olympus and Mount Oiti, the plants and animals now need what seems like divine intervention to survive the ravages brought by climate change.
- Why so many endemic species? Greece has “an amazing diversity of climates and also soils. This creates an amazing diversity of life,” one conservationist tells Mongabay.

Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.

Bringing back large mammals boosts restoration of entire ecosystems: Study
- Large mammals play crucial ecological roles by influencing the behavior of other animals in the food chain and shaping the structure and composition of their environments.
- A new study that looks at global opportunities for the restoration, reintroduction and rewilding of large mammals across the world’s terrestrial ecoregions found that just 15% of the world’s land area supports intact large mammal assemblages.
- The study suggests that returning just 20 large mammal species to their historic habitats could restore intact large mammal communities across almost one-quarter of the Earth’s land area.
- The scientists behind the study recommend large mammal rewilding be incorporated into area-based conservation targets being considered under the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework and into restoration efforts under the U.N.’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.

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.

Indonesia on track with peatland restoration, but bogged down with mangroves
- Programs to restore areas of degraded tropical peatland and mangroves had mixed fortunes in their first year, with the former racing to 25% of its four-year target, and the latter achieving less than 6%.
- Officials and experts say a key obstacle to the mangrove restoration program is the opposition of the communities clearing the mangrove forests to establish shrimp and fish farms.
- Lack of funding was also an issue, with the mangrove budget slashed and redirected toward Indonesia’s COVID-19 pandemic response.
- Experts say the government needs to find a middle ground with shrimp and fish farmers, including by helping them boost their productivity so they can operate smaller farms and dedicate a greater area to rehabilitation.

Here’s how science is trying to conserve the monarch butterfly’s forests
- A team of Mexican scientists are developing a successful experiment that allows for the recovery and maintenance of endemic trees in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve that provide a habitat for monarch butterflies every winter.
- The team is employing a mix of natural restoration, soil conservation and active reforestation that has so far achieved a survival rate of 83 to 84 percent, at least three times more successful than some government reforestation programs.
- According to Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, one of the researchers of the project, forests where monarch butterfly colonies are located are becoming more susceptible to climate events through unusual foliage loss and increased woodland mortality.
- Researchers have started to implement the “assisted migration” of oyamel firs (Abies religiosa) to higher altitudes in the reserve, where they can best resist changing climatic conditions.

Australia’s rainforest species gain ground through landscape linkages
- Corridors of planted rainforest trees — landscape linkages — are a straightforward, but costly, on-ground action that can repair past damage and bolster ecosystem resilience in Australia’s Wet Tropics region.
- In the Atherton Tablelands wildlife corridors, now in their third decade, the diversity of naturally regenerating plant species has increased, with trees, vines, rattans, shrubs, palms, ferns and orchids colonizing the planted sites.
- The corridors are providing connectivity and additional habitat for a range of rainforest wildlife, including some threatened by climate change.
- To thoroughly measure the biodiversity outcomes of the linkages, monitoring would need to be more regular, and target a broader range of taxa.

Global ecosystem restoration progress: How and who’s tracking it?
- Nature-based climate solutions currently being widely touted include the restoration of the world’s degraded forests and other ecosystems in order to store more carbon. But while many restoration pledges have been made by many nations via many initiatives, the monitoring and tracking of their success remains murky.
- That’s because, while deforestation can easily be seen from satellites, effective and accurate ecosystem restoration tracking requires systems for long-term ground-truthing, for measuring carbon storage over decades, and for improvements in biodiversity and the boosting of local economies.
- Among the many ecosystem restoration initiatives now underway are the 2021 Glasgow Forest Declaration and the Bonn Challenge, along with the restoration commitments made as part of national emissions reductions plans under the Paris Climate Agreement (nationally determined contributions or NDCs).
- Strides toward better restoration tracking are being made by initiatives like the Bonn Challenge’s Restoration Barometer and the Brazilian Restoration and Reforestation Observatory — though more work is needed to secure globally accurate tracking.

Decline of threatened bird highlights planning importance of bison releases
- In a recent study, a team of biologists found that the release of American bison (Bison bison) on a small section of North American grassland led to declines in a species of bird called the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), likely because the density of the bison in the fenced-in study area was too high.
- Bison once numbered in the tens of millions on the Great Plains, but hunting drove the population down to around a thousand by the end of the 1800s.
- Concerted efforts to protect remaining wild populations and reintroduce the animal to parts of the Plains has resulted in a resurgence, and the species is no longer in danger of imminent extinction.
- However, the results of the bobolink study reveals that bison releases and reintroductions must be done carefully to avoid negative impacts on the broader ecosystem.

Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.

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.

Indonesian peat restoration has more benefits than it costs, study finds
- The benefits of effective Indonesian peatland restoration — blocking drainage canals to restore water levels and reestablishing vegetation cover — will outweigh the cost of restoration, according to a new study.
- Following the severe fire season of 2015 that destroyed vast swaths of peatland, the administration of President Joko Widodo has targeted restoring 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) of degraded peatland across the archipelago.
- The authors of the new study used satellite data and models to estimate that, if completed, peatland restoration would have contributed significant reductions for 2004-2015 in fire losses and damages, CO2 emissions, PM2.5 particle emissions, health-related losses, and land-cover losses.
- Indonesia has 21 million hectares of peatland that stores an estimated 57 million metric tons of carbon, roughly 55% of the world’s tropical peatland carbon.

Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.

Tree-planting goals miss the forest for the lack of diverse, good-quality seeds
- Ambitious plans by India, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to restore tens of millions of hectares of degraded land by 2030 could be derailed by a lack of good-quality and genetically diverse native seeds, according to a new study.
- Researchers, who surveyed tree restoration practitioners in the four countries, found a third of practitioners regularly planting seedlings of unknown origins, which can lead to their growing in unsuitable conditions and low survival rates.
- With countries pledging at the COP26 climate summit to end net forest loss, the worry is that such unsustainable restoration projects will only be another smokescreen for continued deforestation.
- Countries need to invest in their seed supply systems so they can deliver large amounts of quality seeds of diverse species and provenances, which will be key to attaining desired outcomes such as climate mitigation, food security and biodiversity benefits, the researchers said.

Hold the tree planting: Protect ecosystems first for maximum carbon storage, study says
- When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation.
- But a new study warns that other natural climate solutions should be considered first.
- By comparing different natural climate solutions against four criteria, the study proposes a hierarchy: protect ecosystems first, then improve their management, and lastly restore them.
- Protecting natural ecosystems offered the greatest climate benefits, fairly quickly, at relatively low cost, while at the same time providing other benefits for people and wildlife, such as reducing the impact of extreme weather and yielding clean air and water.

Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.

Conflict and climate change are big barriers for Africa’s Great Green Wall
- Fourteen years since the launch of Africa’s Great Green Wall project, only 4% of the 100 million hectares (247 million acres) of land targeted for restoration in the Sahel region has actually been restored.
- Billions of dollars in new funding announced this year have raised hopes that the initiative to combat desertification will gain momentum, but experts and the reality on the ground point to money being far from the only hurdle.
- Funding restoration activities will cost $44 billion, with every dollar invested generating $1.20 in returns, a recent study in Nature Sustainability calculates.
- But experts have echoed concerns captured in the research that conflict and climate change are complicating efforts on the ground, with nearly half of the area identified as viable for restoration falling within the orbit of conflict zones.

Indonesia slashes 2021 mangrove restoration target, vows to make up in 2022
- Indonesia has scaled back its target for mangrove restoration this year, but says its longer-term goal of rehabilitating 630,000 hectares (1.55 million acres) by 2024 remains unchanged.
- It blames “technical hurdles,” including the diversion of funding for the COVID-19 pandemic response, for its decision to revise its 20201 target from 83,000 hectares (205,000 acres) to 33,000 hectares (81,500 acres).
- The country is home to more than a quarter of the world’s mangroves, an ecosystem that buffers coastal communities against storm surges and sea-level rise, stores four times as much carbon as other tropical forests, and serves as a key habitat for a wealth of marine species.
- Indonesia has lost much of its mangroves to shrimp farms and logging, which have also undone previous efforts at mangrove rehabilitation.

Ambitious English rewilding project aims to give 20% of land ‘back to nature’
- Rewilding projects are multiplying in the U.K. in response to a growing awareness of the country’s serious loss of biodiversity. Britain ranked 189th out of 218 countries in the 2016 “State of Nature” report for the quality of its biodiversity and its natural condition.
- One of the most innovative projects now underway may be WildEast, which ambitiously hopes to rewild an area more than three times the size of New York City, creating interconnecting wild corridors across East Anglia, the country’s most intensely farmed region.
- The plan originated with three large estate owners, who, in addition to the commitment of their own lands, have already registered 1,000 “pledgees” for the project. However, some local residents, especially farmers, have complained that there is not enough consultation by WildEast.
- Even so, many East Anglia residents welcome the explosion in wildlife happening on the newly rewilded areas. WildEast’s long-term goal is to rewild 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres) by 2070.

After a pandemic reprieve, loggers return to a unique Madagascar forest
- Vohibola forest is one of the last primary forests standing in eastern Madagascar, and home to the world’s tiniest frogs and other rare and endangered creatures.
- For a time, in the quiet imposed by COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Vohibola got a reprieve from some of the difficulties that have long plagued it, including deforestation, fires, and timber and charcoal trafficking.
- Local people banded together to plant thousands of trees, and the forest and its wildlife seemed to be relaxing and recovering.
- Now, however, Vohibola, a community forest under the management of an underresourced group of volunteers, appears to be returning to its old normal, with incidents of illegal logging ticking back up.

Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
- Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, signed a nature conservation agreement on Oct. 28 with a group of foreign companies — apparently without the meaningful participation of Indigenous communities.
- The agreement, with the consultancy Tierra Australia and a private equity-backed funder from Singapore, calls for the marketing of carbon and other ecosystem services to companies looking, for example, to buy credits to offset their emissions.
- The deal involves more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest, which would be restored and protected from mining, logging and industrial agriculture for the next 100-200 years.
- But land rights experts have raised concerns about the lack of consultation with communities living in and around these forests in the negotiations to this point.

Study shows ‘encouraging’ results of China’s bid to protect coastal wetlands
- China’s coastal wetlands experienced a significant recovery in recent years after many decades of loss and destruction, a new study suggests.
- Satellite imagery shows that different kinds of coastal wetlands deteriorated between 1984 and 2011, but began to improve from about 2012.
- The degradation of China’s coastal wetlands is largely attributed to land reclamation, construction and other economic activities, the study suggests.
- But the nation has recently recognized the importance of coastal wetlands, and initiated several projects aiming to restore and conserve these ecosystems.

Mangrove conservation takes root with local communities on Kenya’s coast
- Mangroves are keystones of coastal ecosystems, protecting shorelines from erosion, providing habitat for fish and other marine life, and storing large amounts of carbon.
- These coastal forests are vital to local communities who have long relied on them for things like food, fuel, and construction materials.
- Kenya has lost half of its mangrove forests in the past 50 years to a combination of factors, including overexploitation by locals with limited livelihood options.
- A variety of conservation efforts in and around the southern city of Mombasa emphasize involving communities in reducing pressure on these coastal forests.

Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.

Jane Goodall launches effort in support of planting 1 trillion trees by 2030
- Primatologist and conservation icon Jane Goodall has formally joined a global effort to counter climate change and the extinction crisis by planting a trillion trees over the next decade.
- On Tuesday, Goodall announced Trees for Jane, an initiative that will raise money for carefully-vetted reforestation and forest conservation projects around the world.
- Trees for Jane is partnering with the Trillion Tree Campaign, an initiative led by the German NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, and 1t.org, a World Economic Forum project, to reach the trillion trees goal by 2030.
- If these combined efforts realize this aim, it would increase Earth’s tree cover by about one-third relative to today. Currently we’re losing about 15 billion trees a year, mostly due to deforestation.

Project works with farmers to restore Brazilian pine forests
- A project in Southern Brazil aims to restore 335 hectares (827 acres) of Araucaria moist forests and plant 250,000 seedlings of native species inside Conservation Units and Permanent Preservation Areas on small farms.
- The Araucaria tree is the symbol of the Brazilian state of Paraná, yet only 0.8% of its natural forests remain in a good state of conservation — a mere 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of the original 8 million (20 million acres) that once existed here.
- Aside from reversing tree cuts in Paraná — the state with the highest rate of deforestation in the Atlantic Forest — the project hopes to transform natural areas into economic assets through compensation programs that pay the farmers for their environmental services for keeping the forest standing.

Should tree plantations count toward reforestation goals? It’s complicated
- Globally, tree-planting projects are becoming all the rage, but many are counting on old habits of planting monoculture plantations and calling them forests.
- Still, some researchers say there are ways to make plantation trees aid in actual restoration projects, including innovative projects in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.
- Reforestation and restoration projects will require monitoring and scrutiny to make sure they are living up to their commitments in regard to both climate and biodiversity.

Mangrove restoration done right has clear economic, ecological benefits
- Much research has been done on the impact of mangrove restoration projects, but because such studies typically have their own distinct contexts, their results are not easily generalized.
- To determine the ecological and economic benefits of mangrove restoration across studies, researchers analyzed 188 peer-reviewed articles from 22 regions, mostly in East and Southeast Asia.
- They found the ecosystem functions of restored mangroves to be higher than bare tidal flats, but lower than natural mangroves.
- They also concluded that the economic benefits of mangrove restoration projects largely outweighed their costs, even at high discount rates.

Underwater gardeners restore seagrass meadows to keep oceans healthy
- The more than 70 known species of seagrass play a key role in helping mitigate climate change by sequestering large amounts of carbon, as well as providing habitats for fish and invertebrates.
- But their importance in maintaining healthy oceans has long been overlooked, with seagrasses threatened by anthropogenic activities such as destructive fishing and water pollution, often to the extent that they can’t self-recover.
- Several initiatives around the world are trying to restore seagrass meadows, including an ongoing project off the coast of Wales in the U.K., and a successful one around the coastal bays of Virginia.
- Seagrasses are important nurseries for a rich diversity of marine life, including commercially important fish, which means their loss threatens the food security of many communities that depend on these fisheries.

Global restoration now has an online meeting point
- Restor is a map-based, open-source platform created so that people can better plan, manage and monitor restoration projects. The locations of more than 50,000 restoration and conservation initiatives are now registered on the platform.
- On the platform, Restor users can view high-resolution satellite imagery of places around the globe to learn about their potential for restoration or conservation. It also allows users to see what tree species are native to a particular location.
- Currently, Restor is collecting data from restoration projects around the world. Anyone with a project can apply for access to the site where they are able to enter data about their project and ecosystem.
- Restor CEO Clara Rowe says they hope to “enable and accelerate ecological restoration … around the globe by making it easy for anyone, anywhere to engage.”

Indonesia eyes less severe fire season, but COVID-19 could turn it deadly
- This year’s forest fire season in Indonesia is expected to be less severe than in previous years, but the haze from the burning could still compound the coronavirus crisis in the country.
- Favorable weather conditions and ongoing efforts to restore peatlands point to a “relatively benign” fire season, and hence less risk of severe haze, a new report says.
- Even before the pandemic, haze from forest and peat fires was known to increase cases of respiratory infections fourfold in the hardest-hit areas; combined with COVID-19, haze this time around could stretch the country’s overwhelmed hospitals beyond breaking point.
- Indonesia has recently become the global epicenter of the disease, registering more daily cases than India and Brazil, with the country’s doctors’ association warning the health care system has “functionally collapsed.”

Nine principles for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (commentary)
- Oil drilling on Russia’s Arctic coast has led to loss of vegetation and the organic soil layer, with sediments now running into rivers: permafrost thawing is also increasing due to carbon emissions.
- Without clear parameters for what constitutes successful restoration, restoration projects in places like this may achieve one narrow objective, such as carbon capture, but may not also benefit biodiversity, or the health, wellbeing, and livelihoods of people and local communities.
- In April, a group of restoration experts met to define ‘net gain’ from restorative activities, establish a framework to help prioritize nature-based restorative activities and draft common principles for all types of ecosystem restoration, in support of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Building back Miami’s Biscayne Bay: Do natural solutions hold hope?
- A massive fish kill in August 2020 was a red flag that historically troubled Biscayne Bay in Miami had passed a biodiversity health tipping point.
- Years of scattered efforts and mixed results of various conservation actors working toward the bay’s recovery have begun to fade in favor of more collaborative, inclusive efforts.
- Scientists and citizens are now focusing their efforts on creative ways to restore biodiversity in Biscayne Bay.

U.N. declares decade of ecosystem restoration to ‘make peace with nature’
- The U.N. has declared the coming decade a time for ecosystem restoration, highlighting in a new report the importance of preventing, halting and reversing ecosystem degradation worldwide.
- It calls on the world to restore at least 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of degraded land in the next decade — an area larger than China — warning that degradation already affects the well-being of 3.2 billion people.
- The report also makes an economic case for restoration, noting that for every dollar that goes into restoration, up to $30 in economic benefits are created.
- A key message of the report is that nature is not something that is “nice to have” — it is essential to our survival, and we are a part of it.

Conservation solutions in paradise: Jamaica’s Oracabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary
- A group of local fishermen and tourism industry stakeholders established a fishing sanctuary several years ago in Oracabessa Bay in response to a decline in vital Jamaican coastal life like coral and herbivorous fish.
- Surveys indicate an increase in reef health due to the efforts despite challenges, and the conservation model is set to be replicated at multiple other sites in Jamaica.

DiCaprio, conservationists launch $43M effort to restore Galápagos Islands
- A coalition of groups, including a newly formed organization backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, have mobilized $40 million for efforts to restore degraded habitats in the Galápagos Islands, an archipelago renowned for its endemic species and central role in scientists’ understanding of ecology and evolution.
- The initiative involves more than 40 partners, ranging from local NGOs to governments to international organizations, leveraging decades of collective experience working across the archipelago. One of the groups leading the effort is Re:wild, an organization that was just formed between Global Wildlife Conservation and Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a founding board member of the new entity.
- The Galápagos initiative is Re:wild’s first project under its new brand, but the group plans to scale up its existing global work, putting renewed emphasis on the concept of rewilding, or restoring species and ecosystems to previous levels of abundance and health.

Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- As the world searches for solutions to global climate change, tree planting has become increasingly popular, with ambitious campaigns aiming to plant billions or trillions of trees.
- These projects often have other environmental goals, too, like regulating water cycles, halting soil erosion and restoring wildlife habitat. They also often have socioeconomic goals, like alleviating poverty.
- But how effective is planting trees at accomplishing all this, and how strong is the evidence for this effectiveness? To find out, Mongabay engaged a team of researchers who conducted a non-exhaustive review of relevant scientific literature.
- We detail the results below, as part of Mongabay’s special “Conservation Effectiveness” series. Research by Zuzana Burivalova, Rodrigo Mendes and Sharif Mukul.

A Madagascar-sized area of forest has regrown since 2000
- 58.9 million hectares — an area of forest larger than the island of Madagascar — has regrown around the world since 2000, finds a new assessment from Trillion Trees, a joint venture between BirdLife International, WCS, and WWF.
- The analysis estimates that the 22-25 billion trees which have regrown over the past two decades could sequester 5.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide, more than the annual emissions of the United States.
- However forest recovery is far outpaced by deforestation. Primary forest loss between 2001 and 2020 amounted to nearly 65 million hectares, whereas tree cover loss reached 411 million hectares between 2000 and 2020, according to data from Global Forest Watch.

‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
- Planting trees by the millions has come to be considered one of the main ways of reining in runaway carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
- But experts say many tree-planting campaigns are based on flawed science: planting in grasslands and other non-forest areas, and prioritizing invasive trees over native ones.
- Experts point out that not all land is meant to be forested, and that planting trees in savannas and grasslands runs the risk of actually reducing carbon sequestration and increasing air temperature.
- The rush to reforest has also led to fast-growing eucalyptus and acacia becoming the choice of tree for planting, despite the fact they’re not native in most planting areas, and are both water-intensive and fire-prone.

Hantavirus study shows restoring forests can reduce zoonotic disease risk
- Brazilian scientists have found that transmission of hantavirus, a deadly infection, could be reduced by 45% if Brazil restores its Atlantic Forest to levels mandated by its Native Vegetation Protection Law.
- Hantavirus, spresd by contact with infected rodents, can become more prevalent across a landscape when forests are cleared and rodent populations increase.
- While the study’s simulations must be confirmed by field studies, this initial research shows that lowering zoonotic disease risk through forest restoration holds promise.

New paper urges shift to ‘nature positivity’ to restore Earth
- A new paper, published by leading conservationists and the heads of various global institutions, argues for adopting a “nature-positive” goal.
- This would require restoring the Earth from 2020, placing the world on a nature positive path by 2030 to mount a full recovery by 2050.
- According to the authors, nature positivity would provide an overarching goal for nature that would coincide with the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) mission and streamline agreements for climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development into one common vision.
- The paper was released a few days before the start of the meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), where parties will provide advice on the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

In Indonesia, pulp and paper firms stoke demand that may drive deforestation
- Pulp and paper companies are expanding in Indonesia by building new mills, putting more pressure on existing pulpwood plantations to increase their production.
- According to a new NGO report, this could reverse a declining trend of pulpwood-related deforestation in recent years, with producers seen as likely to clear more forests for plantations in order to meet the demand from the new mills.
- Activists, therefore, have called on the government to provide protection foron all natural forests in Indonesia from such an expansion.

Scaling up tree nurseries is key to unlocking U.S. reforestation potential: Study
- Restoring forests in areas where they once stood is an important step toward halting climate change.
- Across the 48 states of the continental U.S., there is enough land to plant forests that could sequester the equivalent of about 5% of the greenhouse gases the country emitted in 2019.
- But to take advantage of just half of that carbon sequestration potential over the next couple decades, the country’s tree nurseries will need to more than double production in order to supply an additional 1.7 billion seedlings every year, a recent study found.
- The study also highlighted the need to develop a workforce capable of producing and planting 30 billion trees over the next two decades, something the authors say could be built into post-pandemic economic recovery measures.

Mining sites in Indonesia’s disaster-prone areas a ticking time bomb: Report
- Nearly 800 mining concessions in Indonesia are located in areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods, a new report shows.
- Environmental activists say the proliferation of these concessions shows a lax attitude by companies and the government toward environmental risk assessment.
- They warn that mining activity in these areas could lead to disaster for local communities and the environment, including spills of toxic tailings and pollution of water sources.
- Communities living near many mining concessions have voiced their concerns over such risks.

Rewilding public lands in Patagonia and beyond: Q&A with Kris Tompkins
- In the early 1990s, Kris and Doug Tompkins began buying up vast amounts of land in Chile and Argentina and setting it aside for conservation.
- Since the early 2000s, their non-profit Tompkins Conservation has donated over 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) of wilderness in Chile and Argentina, which spurred the permanent protection of nearly 6 million hectares (15 million acres) and the establishment of 13 new national parks.
- The Tompkins had performed “a kind of capitalist jujitsu move” as Kris Tompkins put it in her 2020 TED talk: “We deployed private wealth from our business lives and deployed it to protect nature from being devoured by the hand of the global economy.”
- Kris Tompkins spoke about her organization’s conservation work, rewilding, and the costs of our current industrial model during a February 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Reforested areas rival mature forests in securing water, study finds
- New research from Madagascar shows that young scrubby forests can in some ways be better at retaining water than older mature forests.
- They provide similar benefits in preventing runoff but use up lesser water, according to a recently published paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
- However, some hydrologists say the effects of evapotranspiration, water released back into the atmosphere by trees, on rainfall in areas farther afield must not be ignored.
- If scrubby forests are as efficient as older ones in retaining water, it means reforestation boosts water resources available to communities who take part in reforestation drives.

Podcast: Is ecosystem restoration our last/best hope for a sustainable future?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at the growing movement to restore degraded ecosystems worldwide. The decade of 2021 to 2030 has been declared the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
- Author Judith Schwartz joins us to discuss her 2020 book The Reindeer Chronicles: And Other Inspiring Stories of Working with Nature to Heal the Earth, which documents numerous restoration projects around the globe and highlights the ways the global ecological restoration movement is challenging us to reconsider the way we live on planet Earth.
- We’re also joined by Tero Mustonen, president of an NGO based in Finland called the Snowchange Cooperative, who tells us about the group’s Landscape Rewilding Programme, which is “rewilding” Arctic and Boreal habitats using Indigenous knowledge and science.

Indonesian police may probe coal miners over deforestation-linked floods
- The Indonesian police say they might investigate coal companies for their alleged role in recent deadly floods that struck southern Borneo.
- Critics accuse the companies of degrading the water catchment in South Kalimantan province through deforestation and sedimentation, which they allege amplified the impact of the rain-fueled floods.
- The government, meanwhile, is under fire for issuing more permits than the previous three administrations.
- Activists warn the environmental degradation in the province will only get worse under a slate of controversial deregulation measures passed by the government last year, which they say caters to coal companies at the expense of the environment.

Grim toll from Indonesia’s abandoned mines may get even worse, report warns
- The proliferation of abandoned mining pits throughout Indonesia has led to the deaths of 168 people, mostly children, from 2014-2020, according to a new report.
- Mining companies are required to fill in and rehabilitate their mining sites after their operations end, but many fail to do so, allowing the pits to fill with rainwater and become a drowning hazard.
- There has also been little to no law enforcement against companies that fail to rehabilitate their mining pits, leaving the families of those killed without any recourse to justice, activists say.
- They warn the problem will only get worse as operations at thousands of mines draw to a close and new deregulation measures undercut environmental and social safeguards.

Fruit-eating, seed-pooping animals can help restore degraded forests
- Restoring degraded forests can be expensive and complicated, but Brazilian researchers may have a simple technique to add to the restoration toolbox: enlisting fruit-eating animals to spread seeds.
- A new study shows that many species of mammals and birds will consume seeds inserted into fruits at feeders and then excrete the seeds over wide areas.
- This novel proof-of-concept study highlights the importance of plant and animal interactions to restore the natural ecology of forests people have destroyed or degraded.

Indonesia renews peat restoration bid to include mangroves, but hurdles abound
- Indonesia’s peatland restoration agency has had its mandate renewed for four more years, with the added task of restoring mangroves.
- Known as the BRGM, the agency now has the job of restoring an estimated 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of degraded peatland and mangrove ecosystems across 13 provinces.
- Experts have lauded the mandate extension and expanded scope of work, but point out a number of challenges ahead, such as government policies and legislation that undermine environmental protection in favor of economic growth.

Restaura Cerrado: Saving Brazil’s savanna by reseeding and restoring it
- The Cerrado is Brazil’s second largest biome, and the most biodiverse tropical savanna in the world. It is of vital importance for Brazil’s watersheds, for global biodiversity, and is an important but undervalued carbon stock.
- But in recent decades, half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been destroyed to make way for cattle, soy, and other agricultural commodities. In the southern Cerrado, scientists are now shifting their focus to restoring the native vegetation
- However, scientific knowledge on savanna restoration is scarce. So one collaborative network, Restaura Cerrado, is bringing together scientists, seed collectors, and the public to advance practical knowledge about restoration. The group’s goal is to achieve the means for ongoing effective Cerrado restoration.
- Restaura Cerrado is a collaboration between ICMBio, the University of Brasília, the Cerrado Seeds Network, and Embrapa (the Brazilian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Research Enterprise); together they hope to use restoration to bring sustainable development to the savanna region.

It’s time to redefine business to save the planet (commentary)
- Humanity must make an evolutionary leap from a consumer species to a restorer species, and business can lead it. How? Start by embedding trees into every financial transaction.
- With current statistics showing the loss of nature at 68% globally since 1970, it’s clear that we’re not trying hard enough, not all of us. We’re waiting for someone else to solve this, abdicating responsibility en masse.
- “If ever there was a moment to discover what we’re actually capable of it’s now, because this is not what humanity evolved for. Our ancestors didn’t fight to live just for us to shop ourselves into extinction.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Reforestation projects should include tree diversity targets, too (commentary)
- Trees can rapidly remove carbon from the atmosphere, so climate change mitigation efforts often center on reforestation efforts.
- This should not invite the planting of monocultures, but rather a diversity of native trees adapted to the areas being reforested, which support biodiversity.
- Native tree reforestation can also support local communities: “People can be employed to play the role of the spider monkey, the tapir, and the toucan,” in replanting forests, says botanist Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya who is currently working to propagate the critically endangered rainforest species, Pleodendron costaricense.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Conservationists replant legal palm oil plantation with forest in Borneo
- A small project in Malaysian Borneo aims to create a forest corridor between two large protected areas.
- The reforested land comprises an old, legal oil palm plantation, which the Rhino and Forest Fund (RFF) is working to replant with native tree species.
- The corridor is expected to help threatened species move between the Tabin and Kulamba wildlife reserves, including Bornean elephants and banteng, a type of wild cattle.
- RFF says it hopes the project will serve as a blueprint for large-scale oil palm restoration and encourage the “urgently needed restoration of many crucial areas for biodiversity conservation and climate protection.”

Rewilding key to averting mass extinctions and reducing carbon emissions
- A recent study that analyzed data from biomes all over the world, covering an area of almost 3 billion hectares (7 billion acres) that were turned from natural habitats into farmlands, concluded that rewilding is key to recovery.
- Restoring 30% of this area and preserving remaining natural habitats could remove almost half the carbon dioxide surplus humans have emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
- Restoring this area would also save 71% of animal species from extinction compared with current extinction rates, according to researchers.
- High-priority areas are concentrated in the tropics. Wetlands restoration has the highest positive impact for biodiversity conservation and forests the highest importance for climate change mitigation.

Just half of major timber and pulp suppliers committed to zero deforestation: Report
- The world’s 100 most significant timber and pulp companies score just 22.6%, on average, when assessed across 175 environmental, social, and governance indicators, according to the latest assessment by the Zoological Society of London using its Sustainability Policy Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT).
- 2020 is the first way-point towards the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests’ goal of eliminating natural forest loss by 2030, but 44% of companies still don’t have a robust commitment to halting the conversion of natural ecosystems.
- Climate change risk assessments, which are not a requirement of current forest management certification programs, are often viewed by companies as an “optional extra,” and only 4% of firms provided an assessment of their future climate risk.
- More than half of companies are committed to respecting the rights of local communities, but only 9% have published procedures for obtaining free, prior informed consent from local communities on all new developments. Just 11 firms provided evidence they’re paying all workers minimum wage.

Paper giant APP linked to Indonesia peat clearing despite sustainability vow
- Greenpeace Southeast Asia has identified nearly 3,500 hectares (8,650 acres) of peatland clearing in pulpwood plantations in Sumatra supplying Asian Pulp & Paper.
- Analysis of satellite imagery showed the clearing began in August 2018 and continued through June this year, despite APP having a “no peatland” and “no burning” policy that it also imposes on its suppliers.
- Greenpeace and local NGO Jikalahari also found evidence of fires in the concessions in question, which appeared to have been set deliberately to clear the land for planting.
- APP has denied clearing the peatland or setting the fires, calling into question the accuracy of the maps used and saying the fires spread from neighboring farms.

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.

Bison: (Back) home on the range
- The Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota plans to bring the American bison back to around 11,300 hectares (28,000 acres) of prairie on the reservation.
- Over the next five years, tribal groups will work with WWF and the U.S. Department of the Interior to release as many as 1,500 bison on the Wolakota Buffalo Range, which would make it the largest Native American-owned herd in North America.
- The Lakota people of Rosebud have an abiding connection with the bison, or buffalo, and the leaders of the project say that, in addition to the symbolic importance of returning the Lakotas’ “relatives” to their land, the herd will help create jobs, restore the ecological vigor of the landscape, and aid in the conservation of the species.

Forest fires in Indonesia set to add toxic haze to COVID-19 woes
- Forest fires have flared up in Indonesia, marking the start of the dry season and threatening to aggravate respiratory ailments amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
- Haze from forest fires sickens hundreds of Indonesians annually, mostly on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo; many of them now suffer chronic respiratory problems that puts them at high risk of suffering acutely from COVID-19.
- Studies done in Italy have linked higher levels of air pollution to higher COVID-19 mortality rates, and experts in Indonesia fear that theory will play out in the country that already has the second-highest death rate from the pandemic in Asia.
- Social distancing measures imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus are already hampering fire prevention programs, and could do the same for firefighting efforts once the dry season intensifies.

Drones in the canopy: Project aims to save the Amazon with technology
- In seeking an alternative to the develop-or-conserve dichotomy that governs policymaking over the Amazon, Brazilian scientists have come up with the Amazonia Third Way, a plan to preserve the region’s biodiversity by supercharging sustainable forestry practices with technology.
- In the second half of this year, three communities in Pará state will receive the first creative laboratories — mobile units that will bring technologies such as blockchain and drones to the cocoa and cupuaçu production processes. Future laboratories will focus on Brazil nuts, acai berries, essential oils and other products.
- The project will also rely on the help of business accelerators and the Rainforest Business School to support so-called bioeconomy start-ups and offer training courses for forest communities under this new development paradigm.

2020 ballot initiative would restore wolves to Colorado
- This month, more than 200,000 signatures were delivered to the Colorado secretary of state calling for the restoration of gray wolves to be put on the 2020 ballot.
- If passed, Initiative 107 would direct the state to develop a plan for reintroducing wolves to western Colorado by 2023.
- Mongabay reached out to wildlife biologist Mike Phillips to hear his opinion of the initiative.

The role of sustainable finance in Forest Landscape Restoration (commentary)
- To finance the major investments in Forest Landscape Restoration, help from the private and financial sector is needed.
- To increase investors’ willingness to write checks, public- funded grants play a crucial role. To get institutional investors on board, sustainable finance must mature, providing proven track records so investors can better understand risk.
- If the ambitious goals of Initiative 20×20 or the Sustainable Development Goals are to be met, all capital must be engaged, whether it’s private, public, or philanthropic.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Why is Europe rewilding with water buffalo?
- Conservationists have released 18 water buffalo onto Ermakov Island in the Danube, in the first ever such rewilding project in Ukraine.
- The water buffalo were gifted by a German-born naturalist-cum-farmer, Michel Jacobs, who has taken on a mission of saving the Carpathian’s distinct water buffalo.
- Researchers believe the water buffalo will bring new richness and diversity to the Danube by acting as ecosystem engineers.

For one Indonesian village, mangrove restoration has been all upside
- Demand for firewood in recent years led to the depletion of the mangrove forest in the Indonesian village of Paremas.
- But the local government and NGOs worked with the community to emphasize the importance of restoring the mangrove, with surprising results.
- Today, the tidal pools on the coast provide food that can both sustain the locals and provide an income, allowing families to be less dependent on the remittances sent home by mothers and fathers working arduous jobs overseas.
- In addition to protecting biodiversity, the mangroves also absorb energy from large ocean swells and stop garbage from piling up in foul-smelling sumps on the beach.

Audio: David Quammen on ecological restoration, emerging diseases, evolutionary science, and more
- Today we speak with award-winning science writer, author, and journalist David Quammen about some of the most promising and fascinating trends in conservation and evolutionary science.
- In a recent piece for National Geographic, where he is a regular contributor, Quammen profiles Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. His 2014 book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, looks at the science, history, and human impacts of emerging diseases. Quammen’s most recent book, 2018’s The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, explores the revolution in how scientists understand the history of evolution on Earth sparked by the work of Carl Woese.
- David Quammen appears on the Mongabay Newscast to discuss all of the above as well as what gives him hope that biodiversity loss and destruction of the natural world can be halted.

‘Dangerous’ new regulation puts Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands at risk
- The Indonesian government has effectively rescinded protection for much of its carbon-rich peatlands by issuing a new regulation that limits protection to the area of a peatland ecosystem where the peat is the thickest.
- Concession holders will now be allowed to exploit areas outside these “peat domes,” as long as they maintain the water table, in a mechanism seemingly borrowed straight out of the pulpwood industry playbook.
- Under previous regulations, areas with a layer of peat 3 meters (10 feet) or deeper were off-limits for exploitation, and any companies with such areas in their concessions were obliged to restore and protect them. These areas are now open to exploitation, as long as they’re not considered part of the peat dome.
- Activists warn the new regulation will encourage greater exploitation of Indonesia’s fast-diminishing peatlands, increasing the risks of fire, carbon emissions, and failure to meet the government’s own emissions reduction and peat restoration goals.

Study: Vast swaths of lost tropical forest can still be brought back to life
- A new study has once again emphasized the importance of restoring degraded tropical forests in the fight against climate change.
- Using high-resolution satellite imagery, the study identifies more than a million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) of lost tropical rainforest across the Americas, Africa and Southeast Asia as having high potential for restoration.
- The researchers say there’s no time to waste on reforestation efforts, but caution that the type of reforestation undertaken must be carefully considered.
- Countries such as China have increased their forest cover through the extensive planting of a single tree species, but studies have shown that monoculture tree plantations are inferior to natural forests when it comes to capturing carbon, hosting wildlife, and providing other ecosystem services.

Models, maps, and citizen scientists working to save the Great Barrier Reef
- As global warming drives more events that impact coral reefs, managing the Great Barrier Reef’s resilience demands comprehensive and detailed mapping of the reef bed.
- Available surveys and maps with geographically referenced field data have been limited and fragmented.
- A diverse research team recently demonstrated a successful approach, applying statistics to image data to build predictive models, integrate diverse datasets on reef conditions, and provide a comprehensive map of the Reef that informs reef management decisions.

Peat protection rule may be a double-edged sword for Indonesia’s forests
- A government regulation issued in 2016 requires logging companies to restore peat with protected status in their concessions, mostly in Sumatra, and prohibits them from developing on it.
- But activists say this prohibition threatens a massive supply shortfall for two of the world’s biggest paper producers, which they warn could push the companies to source wood from unprotected forests in other parts of Indonesia.
- Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) face a supply crunch of up to 30 percent and 25 percent respectively, according to an analysis by NGOs.
- Both companies dispute this finding, saying their supplies remain secure even as they seek to boost their output.

Human pressure on the Serengeti’s fringes threatens the wildlife within
- Spanning more than 40,000 square kilometers (15,400 square miles), the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in East Africa is one of the largest protected areas in the world.
- A new study shows that human activities at the edges of the ecosystem are affecting wildlife migrations and pushing the animals deeper into the core of the protected area.
- The displaced wildlife have less available land, triggering a cascade of events impacting soils and vegetation, putting the whole ecosystem at risk.
- The study authors are calling for broader conservation strategies that address not only protected areas, but also their surroundings and local communities.

In Indonesia, an earthquake leaves devastation on land and under the sea
- The earthquake and tsunami that hit Palu last year devastated the coral reefs off coast of the Indonesian city.
- Researchers have expressed concern that waste and sediment from sand and rock mining operations along the Palu Bay could prevent the coral from growing back.
- Local officials say more action is needed to restore the coral in the bay.

Indonesia wins $2.52 million settlement for coral damage by foreign ships
- In 2017, two foreign-flagged ships struck coral reefs in the Bangka-Belitung archipelago off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, damaging more than 18,000 square meters (4.5 acres) of reefs.
- The Indonesian government announced this month that it had reached a settlement with the operators of both ships, who have agreed to pay a combined $2.52 million for the damage.
- The government says it will allocate a third of the money to direct restoration efforts for the damaged reefs, while the rest will be collected as state revenue.

Conservation groups press world leaders to protect 30% of the planet
- Thirteen nature conservation organizations are urging world leaders to back a plan to protect 30 percent of the world’s surface and oceans by 2030.
- Recent research has shown that less than a quarter of the world’s wilderness still remains.
- The group released a statement as negotiators were meeting in Japan to begin drafting a plan to meet that goal.

Deforested, degraded land restoration a top priority for African leaders
- African leaders met at a summit to discuss land restoration across the continent on Nov. 13, ahead of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt.
- Representatives from several African countries shared their countries’ pledges to restore hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of degraded and deforested land in the coming decades.
- The summit’s leaders said they hoped the deliberations during the day-long summit would help African countries in both their contributions to international targets and to the improvement of their natural ecosystems for the benefit of their citizens.

Bear-human conflict risks pinpointed amid resurgent bear population
- New research maps out the potential risk “hotspots” for black bear-human conflict based on an analysis of conditions that led to nearly 400 bear deaths between 1997 and 2013.
- The study area covered the Lake Tahoe Basin and the Great Basin Desert in western Nevada.
- The methods used to predict risks based on environmental variables could help wildlife managers identify and mitigate human-carnivore conflict in other parts of the world, the authors write.

Absent for decades, zebras reintroduced to park in southern Tanzania
- Staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society and its partners in Tanzania released 24 zebras into Kitulo National Park on Oct. 12 and 13.
- The Kitulo Plateau in Tanzania’s southern highlands includes high-elevation grasslands, a unique habitat that requires fire and grazing animals to maintain its plant diversity.
- The reintroduction, with plains zebras from Mikumi National Park, is part of a broader effort to “rewild” the southern highlands after decades of wildlife hunting and livestock grazing.

Massive loss of mammal species in Atlantic Forest since the 1500s
- A new study examined the loss of mammal species in the Atlantic Forest, which is currently only about 13 percent of its historical size.
- Forest clearing for agriculture, along with hunting, has cut the number of species living at specific sites throughout the forest by an average of more than 70 percent.
- The researchers call for increased restoration efforts in the Atlantic Forest to provide habitat and allow the recovery of these species.

Why keep Africa’s dryland forests alive?
- Small holder farmers from 6,000 Malian households have restored 320 hectares of land through a combination of on-farm natural tree regeneration, water harvesting, moisture retention technologies, improved soil filtration, and enhanced soil humus.
- This is just one of many efforts currently underway to restore Africa’s dryland forests. There are many obstacles left to overcome, but as the Mali example clearly shows, there are successes to celebrate and build upon, as well.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, 80 percent of charcoal and firewood used by about 2.4 million people is harvested in woodlands found in the dryland areas. Experts say it’s time to start packaging these fragile yet rich and highly adaptive ecosystems into investment opportunities.

Audio: The ‘Godfather of Biodiversity’ on why it’s time to manage Earth as a system
- On this episode we welcome the godfather of biodiversity, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, to discuss some of the most important environmental issues we’re currently facing and why he believes the next decade will be the “last decade of real opportunity” to address those issues.
- Lovejoy joined the Mongabay Newscast to talk about how deforestation and the impacts of climate change could trigger dieback in the Amazon and other tropical forests, causing them to shift into non-forest ecosystems, as well as the other trends impacting the world’s biodiversity he’s most concerned about.
- He says it’s time for a paradigmatic shift in how we approach the conservation of the natural world: “We really have got to the point now where we need to think about managing the entire planet as a combined physical and biological system.”

Monitoring the ambitious land restoration commitments in Africa
- Announcements by Burkina Faso and Tanzania at the GLF Africa Conference, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya this week, brings restoration commitments under AFR100 to a total of 96.4 million hectares by 27 African countries.
- Making pledges is one thing, however, while monitoring and tracking progress in actually achieving these restoration goals is another. Attendees of the GLF Africa Conference were keenly aware of this challenge, and a variety of tools for monitoring and tracking restoration activities was a topic of much discussion.
- Restoration requires more than the planting of trees, as Charles Karangwa, an IUCN Regional Forest Landscape Restoration Coordinator, noted at the conference: “Countries must enact polices, allocate budget to restoration implementation, track and learn from their progress.”

Q&A: Esther Mwangi on why voices of local community members will be featured at GLF Africa conference
- The 2018 Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Africa Conference is set to kick off in Nairobi, Kenya this week, bringing together representatives from both the public and private sectors, as well as scientists, indigenous peoples, youth, and others, in order to bolster efforts to combat deforestation and land degradation on the African continent.
- Mongabay spoke with Esther Mwangi, a principal scientist for forests and governance at CIFOR, who is set to moderate an opening day plenary session titled “Voices of the Landscape” that will be the first time in the five-year history of the GLF that community members have constituted a plenary session.
- Thanks to the efforts of local communities, more than 5 million hectares (about 12.4 million acres) of degraded landscapes have already been successfully restored in countries like Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda. The 2018 GLF Africa Conference aims to highlight these kinds of success stories.

A new dimension to marine restoration: 3D printing coral reefs
- Australian group Reef Design Labs submerged a 3D-printed artificial coral reef earlier this month in the Maldives, with the hope that this advanced engineering method will help coral regeneration efforts.
- Their product, called Modular Artificial Reef Structure or MARS, enables the user to build and install an adjustable structure by hand rather than barge or crane.
- 3D printing cannot fix ocean acidification, bleaching, and other dire threats reefs face, but it can facilitate desperately needed research on reef restoration and resilience.

Plant communities roar back after rat removal from Pacific islands
- In a multi-year study, scientists found that tree seedlings were more than 5,000 percent more abundant after rats were eradicated from Palmyra Atoll, a group of 25 small islands in the Pacific Ocean.
- Invasive rats, brought by ships over the past few centuries, eat tree seedlings and vegetation, in addition to driving down seabird numbers.
- Managers eradicated the islands’ rats in 2011, and within a month, seedling densities had increased.

In Brazil, an island laboratory for Atlantic Forest restoration
- Anchieta Island, just off the coast of Brazil near São Paulo, has seen the worst side of humans. Now, scientists and local authorities are laboring to restore its biodiversity.
- The island is located 800 meters (about 874 yards) from the municipality of Ubatuba, in one of the few regions of Brazil where the Atlantic Forest still thrives.
- Most of the island’s original forest was devastated over a long period of human habitation, and more recent attempts to introduce foreign mammal species have also had a significant ecological impact.
- Scientists are now studying the complex interactions at play during environmental restoration, including removing some invasive species, as they embark on an intensive reforestation program.

Restoration optimism: Bringing nature back (commentary)
- As we hear tales of environmental destruction from across the world, some conservationists are working not just to conserve what is left, but to put back what has been lost.
- A new website, www.restorationevidence.org, is working to gather the evidence for what works (and what doesn’t) to restore habitats and biodiversity globally. Run by the Endangered Landscape Programme and the Conservation Evidence project (where I work), the website aims to support decision-making by conservationists by providing them with concise summaries of scientific work.
- This will help those planning and implementing restoration projects globally to make the best possible decisions about how to spend restoration funds.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Mega developments set to transform a tranquil Cambodian bay
- Sim Him has organized the planting of more than 200,000 mangrove trees in Cambodia’s Trapeang Sangke estuary. The surrounding ecosystem, which feeds thousands of families, is thriving.
- But the nearby construction of a ferry terminal and a luxury resort are upsetting the estuary’s equilibrium, and development projects continue west along the coastline from there.
- Dotted along a 25-kilometer (15.5-mile) coastal strip, no less than six large-scale developments present a direct threat to healthy mangrove forests and the fishing communities they support.
- Aside from being a nursery for sealife and a barrier to erosion, mangroves are also one of the planet’s most effective carbon neutralizers, capable of capturing and storing it for millennia.

Forests can beat humans at restoration, new study finds
- An analysis of 133 studies found natural regeneration was more effective than active, human-driven restoration at restoring tropical forests.
- The study refutes conventional wisdom that holds that actively restoring a forest is better than letting it grow back by itself.
- The authors say previous research didn’t control for key factors, which skewed results and made it seem like natural regeneration was less effective than it actually may be.
- The say large-scale restoration projects, which tend to favor active restoration, should consider natural regeneration as a way to more effectively achieve their goals while saving money that could be used to scale-up forest restoration worldwide.

Indonesian Supreme Court strikes down regulation on peat protection
- Indonesia’s Supreme Court has quashed a ministerial regulation obliging forestry companies to relinquish and protect carbon-rich concessions in protected peat areas.
- The regulation was part of a package of new rules meant to prevent a recurrence of the annual fires that burn across Indonesia’s vast peat swamp zones.
- Businesses, labor unions and politicians had expressed concern over the regulation, saying that it would result in loss of productivity and massive layoffs.
- The government says the court ruling will not hamper the nation’s efforts to protect its peatlands.

These 3 companies owe Indonesia millions of dollars for damaging the environment. Why haven’t they paid?
- The Indonesian government has been trying to collect penalties from three companies found guilty of damaging the environment.
- One of the companies is PT Kallista Alam, an oil palm plantation firm convicted of cut-and-burning rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem.
- Another is PT Merbau Pelalawan Lestari, a timber plantation firm that was ordered to pay more than a billion dollars for illegal logging.
- The government plans to establish a task force for the express purpose of collecting the penalties.

Land-swap rule among Indonesian President Jokowi’s latest peat reforms
- To prevent another round of devastating wildfires, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration has issued a series of policies governing the management of peatlands — carbon-rich swamps that have been widely drained and dried by the nation’s agribusinesses, rendering them highly flammable.
- The administration hopes a new land-swap scheme will help it claw back peat from big oil palm and timber planters, providing a means to supply the firms with additional land elsewhere in the country.
- Business associations complain about the new policy, saying it’s not feasible for a company in Sumatra to move its operations all the way to Papua.
- Environmental pressure groups, meanwhile, call the regulation an unfair boon for large firms, providing a rapacious industry with more land than the vast amounts it already controls.

Indonesia blocks major artery in haze-causing Mega Rice canal network
- The Ministry of Public Works and Housing is narrowing and installing dams in one of the largest canals built as part of the failed Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s.
- Authorities are negotiating with local residents who rely on some of the canals for transportation through the peat swamps of Central Kalimantan.
- Officials say that to really solve the problem of dried out and flammable peat, not just the largest canals but the smaller ones too will have to be blocked.

Photos: Where once were mangroves, Javan villages struggle to beat back the sea
- Mangunharjo, Bedono, Sawah Luhur — these are just some of the communities where clear-cutting mangrove forests has caused environmental disaster.
- Mangroves are removed to make way for shrimp and fish farms. But without the forests’ protection, coastal communities become dangerously vulnerable to erosion and flooding.
- In some places, residents have planted new mangroves, and managed to reclaim their home from the sea. But not everywhere.

Restoration of shattered coral reef at Raja Ampat on hold
- Indonesia has laid out its plan for restoring the damaged reef at Raja Ampat, struck by a cruise ship earlier this year.
- The plan cannot proceed until compensation talks with small ship cruise liner Noble Caledonia’s insurer have concluded.
- The privately held tour operator has pledged to cooperate with Indonesia “towards a fair and realistic settlement.”
- A scientist who assessed the damage said compensation should be higher than normal because of the area’s extreme marine biodiversity, some of the world’s richest.

Conservation group African Parks to look after West African wildlife
- The 10-year agreement includes funding of $26 million.
- African Parks and the government of Benin aim to double wildlife populations in the park by training guards and shoring up protections from poaching.
- The effort will create some 400 jobs and benefit the overall economy, say representatives of the government and the NGO.

How ‘jobless men managing the sea’ restored a mangrove forest in Java
- In the 1980s and early 90s, fish farming thrived in Brebes, on the north coast of Indonesia’s main central island of Java.
- The industry’s steady growth saw local residents chop down mangrove stands to make way for aquaculture ponds. But the development brought unintended consequences.
- In response, a group of local residents embarked on an ambitious tree-planting campaign.

As accusations fly, paper giant appears to stand by its replanting of burned peat in Sumatra
- After the 2015 fire and haze crisis, the Indonesian government barred plantation firms from replanting the peatlands that had burned in their concessions. Instead, the companies were ordered to restore the dried-out peat soil to prevent future fires.
- Some agribusinesses, however, are said to be resurrecting their drainage-dependent acacia and oil palm estates in violation of the directive from President Jokowi’s administration. One of them is Asia Pulp & Paper, an arm of the Sinar Mas conglomerate.
- APP declined to comment substantively for this article, except to imply that everything it does is in accordance with the rules. But a director in the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry explained that the company had been authorized to replant burned peat with acacia trees because, he said, it would serve to mitigate certain fire risks.
- NGOs surveyed by Mongabay rejected the contention that planting peat with drainage-dependent acacia constitutes a valid means of peatland restoration, although some were more understanding of the government’s position than others.

Hectare by hectare, an indigenous man reforested a jungle in Indonesia’s burned-out heartland
- In 1998, a Dayak Ngaju man named Januminro started buying up and reforesting degraded land not far from Palangkaraya, the capital of Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province.
- Today the forest spans 18 hectares and is home to orangutans, sun bears and other endangered species.
- Januminro uses funds from an adopt-a-tree program to operate a volunteer firefighting team. He has big plans to expand the forest.

Study suggests commercial fishing depletes key nutrients in coral reefs
- Maintaining and, where necessary, rebuilding coral reef fish communities is key to the food security and livelihoods of billions of people around the world, according to the authors of an article published in the journal Nature Communications last month note.
- A 2015 study found that reef fish biomass can take 35 to 60 years to recover from heavily depleted levels.
- The authors of the Nature Communications article write that the results of their study suggest that “in addition to well-acknowledged conservation targets such as biodiversity protection, a broader perspective that incorporates predictable impacts of fishing pressure on nutrient dynamics is imperative for effective coral reef conservation and management.”

Indonesia seeks foreign funds to aid peat restoration drive
- The head of Indonesia’s peat restoration agency said corporate social responsibility and donor funds would not be enough to meet the country’s target.
- Indonesia’s finance ministry is preparing a reform package to provide incentives to invest in peat rehabilitation.
- The environment ministry has moved to issue five timber companies with administrative sanctions for complicity in wildfires burning on their concessions.
- Three companies had their licenses altogether revoked; land from two of those concessions will be converted into a buffer zone for Tesso Nilo National Park.

Indonesia’s peat restoration chief calls for protection of all peat domes

Drainage canal dug through peat swamp in Riau Province. Photo by Rhett A Butler

The Indonesian agency set up to prevent a recurrence of last year’s devastating forest and peatland fires is calling for all peat domes in the country to be designated as protected areas. Indonesian law already prohibits development on deep peatlands, where the carbon-rich peat soil can extend for many meters below the surface. But the country’s vague peat […]
Companies asked to pitch in to Indonesia’s peat restoration drive as early fires flare in Sumatra
- Twenty-two hotspots were spotted in Riau province on Thursday, with rain expected to quell them in mid-April.
- Central Kalimantan province, the worst-hit of last year’s fire and haze crisis, continues to suffer an urgent shortage of doctors, a local politician said.
- A prominent NGO official called on Jakarta to establish a dedicated agency to see through the all-important One Map initiative.

Forest restoration: from Stone Age to drone age
- Proven methods of forest restoration exist, but they are labor intensive and expensive.
- If technology can make forest restoration easier, it is more likely to be practiced on a scale large enough to make a difference, experts say. But there is still much work to be done.
- Researchers say drones can help achieve reforestation goals now being set by the UN in order to provide habitat, resources for people, and carbon storage. For instance, in 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests committed world leaders to restore forest to 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded lands by 2030.

$1m for devising best way to map Indonesia’s peatlands
- Bad maps have undermined Indonesia’s development for a long time.
- For one, they have made it tough to fight the annual forest and peatland fires.
- Now, the government wants to establish a national standard for mapping the country’s peat. It will do so through a competition, the Indonesian Peat Prize.

Team of 6: the leadership of Indonesia’s peatlands restoration agency is now in place
- The new appointees are Hartono Prawiratmadja, Haris Gunawan, Alue Dohong, Myrna Safitri and Budi Wardhana.
- They will serve under Nazir Foead, the conservationist named head of the agency in January.
- Their goal: rewett 2 million hectares of dried peatlands, about the same area that burned in last year’s devastating fires.

Norway pledges $50m to fund Indonesia’s peat restoration
- The pledge follows last year’s fire and haze disaster, which burned 2 million hectares of land, mostly peat, in the archipelago.
- The money will support the newly created Peat Restoration Agency.
- The U.S. government also pledged $17 million for peatland restoration in Indonesia’s Jambi province.

With haze threatening return, Indonesian forestry giant pushes peatlands restoration model
- APP took a direct hit last year when several of its suppliers were identified as having fire “hotspots” in their concessions.
- While APP steadfastly denied that its companies set the fires, it was nonetheless singled out in Singapore, resulting in some stores removing its products removed en masse from shelves and the government threatening multi-million dollar fines.
- APP’s Aida Greenbury discusses the company’s efforts to turn its business model away from deforestation toward better managing natural ecosystems.

Fighting climate change means protecting forests and wildlife
- The Paris climate agreement formally recognized the role rainforests play in addressing climate change.
- But the importance of wildlife in maintaining forest function is often overlooked, says Russell A. Mittermeier.
- This post is a commentary — the views expressed are those of the author.

Indonesia appoints conservationist to save country’s declining peatlands
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has appointed conservationist Nazir Foead to head up a newly-created peatland restoration agency.
- The establishment of the agency, announced Wednesday, is seen as a critical test of Indonesia’s commitment to addressing the underlying causes of the country’s peat and forest fires.
- Foead is a well-connected conservation biologist who was the Conservation Director of WWF Indonesia before heading up the Indonesia office for the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a coalition of philanthropic foundations.

After long battle, big swath of Sumatran rainforest wins protection

In what conservationists are hailing as a major breakthrough in efforts to protect Sumatra’s fast-dwindling lowland rainforests, the Indonesian government on Wednesday finally approved an ecosystem restoration license for more than 44,000 hectares (110,000 acres) of forest bordering Bukit Tigapuluh, a national park renowned for its rich wildlife. After a long-running tug-of-war between plantation companies […]
Scientists urge U.S. to honor restoration commitment in Hawaii
- The world’s largest body of tropical scientists and conservationists is urging the U.S. government to clean up Kaho’olawe Island.
- Kaho’olawe Island was used for decades as a bombing range.
- The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) says $1B is needed for the cleanup and restoration.

Biosphere conservation: monumental action is critical to avert global environmental crisis

Human-caused changes to our biosphere—the global total of the world’s ecosystems—are now so great and alarmingly rapid that human lives and societies undoubtedly face epic challenges in the near future as our biosphere deteriorates, planetary boundaries are reached, and tipping points exceeded. We may survive, we may painfully adapt, but it is a fair bet […]
Over $8 billion invested in watersheds in 2011

How a sample payment for ecosystem services project works. Click to enlarge. Unlike cars, hamburgers, and computers, clean drinking water is a requirement for human survival. In a bid to safeguard this essential resource, more and more nations are moving toward protecting ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and streams. In fact, according to a new […]
Featured video: restoring rivers in the Tongass Rainforest
A new video highlights recent efforts to restore rivers in the Tongass Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. Industrial logging in vital watersheds have hurt salmon populations and other wildlife in the region, an issue the government, along with several partners, are now trying to rectify. The salmon industry in the region is worth […]
Seagrass beds store 20 billion tons of carbon

Researchers say restoring seagrass beds would mitigate climate change. Mangroves above and seagrass below in Vohemar Bay, Madagascar. Photo: © Keith Ellenbogen/iLCP. Just below the ocean’s surface lies a carbon powerhouse: seagrass meadows. New research in Nature Geoscience estimates that the world’s seagrass meadows conservatively store 19.9 billion metric tons of carbon, even though the […]

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