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topic: Forest Loss
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Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally
- The biggest deforestation hotspot for palm oil in Indonesia is located on a small island off the southern Borneo coast, new data show.
- Up to 10,650 hectares (26,317 acres) of forest — one-sixth the size of Jakarta — were cleared from 2022-2023 inside the concession of PT Multi Sarana Agro Mandiri (MSAM), part of the influential Jhonlin Group.
- Activists say the company’s operations may be illegal, given the questionable process through which it obtained its permits.
- However, law enforcers have ignored calls to investigate, and previous efforts by journalists to expose the group’s business practices have led to their criminal prosecution on hate speech charges.
Desperation sets in for Indigenous Sumatrans who lost their forests to plantations
- The seminomadic Suku Anak Dalam Indigenous people have lived in two areas of what is now Jambi province on Indonesia’s Sumatra island for generations, but an influx of plantation interests has shrunk the customary territory available to their society.
- More than 2,000 Suku Anak Dalam have lost their land to oil palm and rubber plantations, which have also led to a loss of the native trees from which community members collect forest honey to sell.
- Several Suku Anak Dalam interviewees said state-owned rubber plantation company PT Alam Lestari Nusantara had failed to properly compensate them for their land.
- The company did not respond to several requests for comment.
Indonesian company defies order, still clearing peatlands in orangutan habitat
- Indonesian Pulpwood producer PT Mayawana Persada is continuing to clear peatlands on critical Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) habitat, despite a government order to stop clearing.
- An NGO coalition analysis found that 30,296 hectares (74,900 acres) of peatland, including 15,560 hectares (38,400 acres) of protected lands, had been converted as of March; 15,643 hectares (38,700 acres) of known Bornean orangutan habitat were cleared between 2016 and 2022.
- Conservationists are calling on the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to revoke the company’s permits.
UK’s Drax targets California forests for two major wood pellet plants
- Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), a California state-funded nonprofit focused on rural economic development, along with the U.K.’s Drax, a global maker of biomass for energy, have signed an agreement to move ahead on a California project to build two of the biggest wood pellet mills in the United States.
- The mills, if approved by the state, would produce 1 million tons of pellets for export annually to Japan and South Korea, where they would be burned in converted coal power plants. The pellet mills would represent a major expansion of U.S. biomass production outside the U.S. Southeast, where most pellet making has been centered.
- GSNR promotes the pellet mills as providing jobs, preventing wildfires and reducing carbon emissions. California forest advocates say that cutting trees to make pellets —partly within eight national forests — will achieve none of those goals.
- Opponents note that the U.S. pellet industry is highly automated and offers few jobs, while the mills pollute rural communities. Clear-cutting trees, which is largely the model U.S. biomass firms use, does little to prevent fires and reduces carbon storage. Pellet burning also produces more emissions than coal per unit of energy produced.
Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities
- Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, considered one of the best-protected nature reserves in the world, has seen a spike in deforestation on its fringes from the expansion of illegal coca cultivation and mining, and new road construction.
- The forest loss appears to be affecting the ancestral lands of several Indigenous communities, including the Harakbut, Yine and Matsiguenka peoples, according to a new report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
- The report found that 19,978 hectares (49,367 acres) of forest have been cleared in the buffer of the reserve over the past two decades.
- According to Indigenous leaders, the state is doing “practically nothing” to address deforestation drivers in the buffer zone, and they warn that if left unchecked, the activity will spread into the protected area itself.
Protected areas bear the brunt as forest loss continues across Cambodia
- In 2023, Cambodia lost forest cover the size of the city of Los Angeles, or 121,000 hectares (300,000 acres), according to new data published by the University of Maryland.
- The majority of this loss occurred inside protected areas, with the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary recording the highest rate of forest loss in what was one of its worst years on record.
- A leading conservation activist says illegal logging inside protected areas is driven in part by demand for luxury timber exports, “but the authorities don’t seem to care about protecting these forests.”
- Despite the worrying trend highlighted by the data, the Cambodian government has set an ambitious target of increasing the country’s forest cover to 60% by 2050.
Alis Ramírez: A defender of the Colombian Amazon now living as a refugee in New Zealand
- Because of her opposition to mining, indiscriminate logging in forests and the social and environmental consequences of oil exploration, María Alis Ramírez was forced to abandon her farm in Caquetá, in southern Colombia, and move across the world.
- The various threats she received because of her work as an environmental defender forced her and her family to first move to New Zealand, where she arrived as a refugee in 2019.
- According to reports by human rights organization Global Witness, Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental and land defenders.
- In New Zealand, she says she can live with a sense of tranquility that would be impossible in Colombia. Although Alis Ramírez is now safe, she has not stopped thinking about her country, the jungle and the river that was alongside her throughout her childhood.
Tropical forest loss puts 2030 zero-deforestation target further out of reach
- The overall rate of primary forest loss across the tropics remained stubbornly high in 2023, putting the world well off track from its net-zero deforestation target by 2030, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute.
- The few bright spots were Brazil and Colombia, where changes in political leadership helped drive down deforestation rates in the Amazon.
- Elsewhere, however, several countries hit record-high rates of forest loss, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Laos, driven largely by agriculture, mining and fires.
- The report authors call for “bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives … to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries.”
Enviva bankruptcy fallout ripples through biomass industry, U.S. and EU
- In March, Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer for industrial energy, declared bankruptcy. That cataclysmic collapse triggered a rush of political and economic maneuvering in the U.S. (a key wood pellet producing nation), and in Europe (a primary industrial biomass energy user in converted coal plants).
- While Enviva publicly claims it will survive the bankruptcy, a whistleblower in touch with sources inside the company says it will continue failing to meet its wood pellet contract obligations, and that its production facilities — plagued by chronic systemic manufacturing problems — will continue underperforming.
- Enviva and the forestry industry appear now to be lobbying the Biden administration, hoping to tap into millions in renewable energy credits under the Inflation Reduction Act — a move environmentalists are resisting. In March, federal officials made a fact-finding trip to an Enviva facility and local communities who say the firm is a major polluter.
- Meanwhile, some EU nations are scrambling to find new sources of wood pellets to meet their sustainable energy pledges under the Paris agreement. The UK’s Drax, an Enviva pellet user (and also a major pellet producer), is positioning itself to greatly increase its pellet production in the U.S. South and maybe benefit from IRA subsidies.
Report links pulpwood estate clearing Bornean orangutan habitat to RGE Group
- NGOs have accused PT Mayawana Persada, a company with a massive pulpwood concession in Indonesian Borneo, of extensive deforestation that threatens both Indigenous lands and orangutan habitat.
- In a recent report, the NGOs also highlighted links that they say tie the company to Singapore-based paper and palm oil conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE).
- RGE has denied any affiliation with Mayawana Persada, despite findings of shared key personnel, operational management connections, and supply chain links.
- The report also suggests the Mayawana Persada plantation is gearing up to supply pulpwood in time for a massive production boost by RGE, which is expanding its flagship mill in Sumatra and building a new mill in Borneo.
PalmWatch platform pushes for farm-to-fork traceability of palm oil
- PalmWatch, an online, open-source tool, is seeking to bring greater transparency to the global palm oil supply web, to better help consumers trace the impact of the commodity.
- A key hurdle to transparency has long been the fact that batches of palm oil and their derivatives sourced by consumer brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo potentially contain product from hundreds of mills processing palm fruit from thousands of plantations.
- By scraping various websites with mill disclosure data and standardizing the information in one place, PalmWatch can come up with a supply chain map that can link specific mills, suppliers and consumer brands to harms associated with palm oil.
- Advocacy groups have welcomed the launch of the tool, saying it will allow for improved targeting of campaigns to get brands to push for more sustainable practices in their supply chains.
Palm oil deforestation persists in Indonesia’s Leuser amid new mills, plantations
- Deforestation for palm oil persists in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, including inside a national park that’s supposed to be off-limits to plantation activity, a new investigation has found.
- The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) characterizes the current deforestation trend as a “death by a thousand cuts,” with a large number of small operators hacking away at the ecosystem, in contrast to past deforestation carried out by a small number of large concession holders.
- RAN’s investigation also identified two new palm oil processing mills near the deforesting concessions, indicating that the presence of the mills, which need a constant supply of palm fruit, may be a driver of the ongoing deforestation.
- There’s a high risk that mills in the area may ultimately be supplying deforestation-linked palm oil to major global consumer products companies, including those with stated no-deforestation policies.
Studies still uncovering true extent of 2019-20 Australia wildfire catastrophe
- Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires burned with unprecedented intensity through a total of 24 million hectares (59 million acres), an area the size of the U.K.
- New research shows total costs incurred to the tourism industry from that single bushfire season may be 61% higher than previously calculated.
- Up to 1.5 billion wild animals may have perished in the fires, and new research is uncovering the cost to individual species as a result of the fires.
- One study published shows 15% of all known roost locations of the gray-headed flying fox, Australia’s largest bat species, may have been directly impacted by the fires.
Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Curichi Las Garzas is a natural refuge where thousands of wood storks (Mycteria americana) arrive each year to reproduce before continuing their journey.
- Land grabbers have destroyed 300 of the protected area’s 1,247 hectares in the municipality of San Carlos, planting rice and soybean crops.
- The encroachers claim to have endorsement from the INRA (Bolivia’s National Institute of Agrarian Reform), but the INRA has denied this and has asked the mayor to intervene. In the last three months, more than 4,500 deforestation alerts have been recorded along with a peak of 42 fire alerts, the highest number for the last 10 years.
Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Amboró National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area is located in the Santa Cruz department of central Bolivia, at the confluence of three different ecosystems: the Amazon, the northern Bolivian Chaco and the Andes.
- Amboró has been losing forest cover to illicit activities such as the cultivation of coca crops for the production of cocaine.
- National and departmental officials say Amboró authorities aren’t doing enough to keep encroachers out of the park.
- But rangers in Amboró say they don’t have enough resources to effectively enforce regulation.
In Brazil’s soy belt, community seed banks offer hope for the Amazon
- In Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso, monoculture has replaced large swathes of the Amazon rainforest and ushered in changes in climate patterns, including severe droughts and scarce rains, according to climate experts.
- Traditional and Indigenous peoples are looking to counter the impacts of large-scale soy plantations in the region by setting up community seed banks and reforesting degraded lands with species native to the Amazon.
- Experts say seed initiatives could play a key role in restoration efforts as Brazil scrambles to rehabilitate 60,000 square kilometers (23,160 square miles) of deforested land by 2030 and agribusiness faces global demands to reverse the damage it has inflicted on the Amazon.
- Seed banks could also help restore the biodiversity being lost in the Amazon, preserve species central to Indigenous cultures, and mitigate climate change, locally and globally.
In Colombia, race is on to save 8 rare tree species found nowhere else
- Researchers from Colombia’s Humboldt Institute are working with residents of the Claro River Basin in Antioquia department to conserve eight tree species in serious danger of going extinct.
- The species are endemic to Colombia: five are found only in the middle section of the Claro River Basin, while the others have been recorded in the neighboring departments of Santander and Caldas.
- Of the eight tree species being studied, Matisia serpicostata presents the most worrisome situation: only one specimen has been found in the area.
- Researchers and residents have established three tree nurseries to grow these species from seeds and cuttings, and eventually plant the seedlings in the wild.
Palm oil deforestation makes comeback in Indonesia after decade-long slump
- Deforestation for oil palm plantations has increased for the second year in a row in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, bucking a decade-long decline in forest loss.
- A third of the 2023 deforestation occurred on carbon-rich peatlands, raising the potential for massive greenhouse gas emissions as these areas are cleared and drained in preparation for planting.
- Historically, deforestation for plantations in Indonesia was concentrated on the island of Sumatra, but the surge in the past two years has been mostly on the islands of Indonesian Borneo and Papua.
From murder to mining, threats abound in Colombian Amazon Indigenous reserves
- A reporting team has analyzed the impact of environmental crimes in 320 Indigenous reserves that are part of the Colombian Amazon biome. According to Global Forest Watch, more than 19,000 hectares (more than 47,000 acres) of tree cover were lost in 218 of these reserves in 2022.
- Illegal coca crops were also recorded in 88 reserves, with illegal mining-related impacts reported in at least 10 reserves.
- Illegal groups that exercise territorial control with weapons are threatening Indigenous governance and keeping inhabitants confined to their territories.
Freeing trees of their liana load can boost carbon sequestration in tropical forests
- Lianas are woody, vining plants, many of which thrive in areas where forest has been disturbed — often to the detriment of the trees they use to climb towards the sun.
- New research shows that liana cutting is a low-cost natural climate solution that can boost the amount of carbon absorbed by a tree.
- The study’s results indicate that freeing just five trees per hectare of their liana load could remove 800 million tons of C02 from the atmosphere over a 30 year period if applied across 250 million hectares of managed forest.
- Liana cutting is also seen as a way for foresters and conservationists to work together, improving both the forest’s power to sequester carbon and the quality of the timber that is being logged, as well as a way to generate income for local communities.
Study: Singapore biodiversity loss is bad — but not as bad as previous estimate
- A recent study concludes that Singapore has lost 37% of its species since the construction of the city began in 1819.
- While high, the figure is significantly lower than a 2003 estimate of 73% species loss during the same period, a difference the authors of both the current study and the 2003 estimate attribute to more advanced statistical modeling.
- Although 99% of Singapore’s forests have been wiped out, extinction rates have leveled off and all remaining primary forest is protected, which researchers say presents an opportunity to conserve remaining species and work to reintroduce animals that have gone locally extinct.
New dams in Cambodia pit ‘green’ hydropower against REDD+ project
- The recent approval of two hydropower dams in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains could undermine a REDD+ carbon project in the area.
- The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project relies on keeping the forests in this region standing — a goal researchers say is “completely incompatible” with the forest clearing and flooding necessitated by the new dams.
- The lack of transparency inherent in both the carbon market and the Cambodian government means that the fate of the Cardamoms remains unclear for now.
Smallholders and loggers push deeper into Sumatra’s largest park
- Kerinci Seblat National Park on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has lost more than 4% of its primary forest cover over the past 20 years, satellite data from Global Forest Watch show.
- Much of the deforestation is driven by nearby communities logging and farming, in particular potatoes, and possibly also illegal gold mining.
- The park hosts a diversity of wildlife like nowhere else — tigers, elephants, helmeted hornbills and barking deer, among others — but these are now threatened by loss of habitat and poaching.
- Kerinci Seblat was at one point a stronghold of the Sumatran rhino, but this critically endangered species has since gone extinct from the park.
Calls for FSC to drop Canada’s Paper Excellence over ties to deforester
- Green groups have gathered mounting evidence that Canada’s biggest pulp and paper company, Paper Excellence, is effectively controlled by notorious Indonesian deforester the Sinar Mas Group, via its subsidiary, Asia Pulp & Paper.
- They are now calling on the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies millions of hectares of Paper Excellence-managed forests as well as 42 of the company’s mills, to cut ties with it.
- APP was in 2007 “disassociated” from the FSC and remains barred from membership due to “destructive forestry practices”; its control of Paper Excellence should lead to the same outcome for the Canadian company, activists say.
- Both companies have denied allegations of controlling ties — despite the fact that Paper Excellence’s sole shareholder is the son of the APP chair and previously directed APP’s China business, among other revelations.
Kenyan government again evicts Ogiek communities from Mau Forest
- On Nov. 2, the Kenyan government began demolishing houses and evicting Indigenous Ogiek from the Maasai Mau Forest.
- The evictions are taking place despite a 2017 ruling by an African court of human rights that acknowledged the Ogiek’s claim to the forest as well as their traditional role in preserving it.
- Kenya Forest Service officials say they are acting against people who are living and farming in the forest illegally.
Deforestation continues in Kenya’s largest water capturing forest, satellites show
- New satellite data shows ongoing tree cover loss in Kenya’s largest water catchment, the Mau Forest, despite protection efforts.
- More than 19% of tree cover was lost between 2001 and 2022, mostly due to agriculture.
- Unclear boundaries and limited enforcement allow illegal logging and agricultural expansion to continue, degrading protected reserves.
- Conservationists argue stronger monitoring and enforcement is urgently needed to save Mau Forest and preserve its rich biodiversity and water resources.
Drug trafficking imperils national park and Indigenous reserves in the Peruvian Amazon
- Deforestation for illegal drug production is on the rise in and around Otishi National Park, Asháninka Communal Reserve and Machiguenga Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon.
- During aerial reconnaissance, Mongabay Latam reporters observed clearings, trails and unauthorized airstrips in the park and Indigenous reserves.
- The NGO Global Conservation is beginning work to train members of Indigenous communities to monitor and enforce forest protection regulations.
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.
Sumatran Indigenous seafarers run aground by overfishing and mangrove loss
- Many among Indonesia’s Duano Indigenous community have hung up their fishing nets in response to recent environmental and economic shifts.
- A study published in October found that intact mangroves were associated with up to a 28% increase in fish and shellfish consumption among coastal communities.
- Duano elders say young people from the community are increasingly retiring from the community’s traditional livelihood to take up poorly paid casual work.
Deforestation surges in hotspot of critically endangered Bornean orangutans
- Deforestation within a pulpwood concession that overlaps with key orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo has escalated in recent months.
- Concession holder PT Mayawana Persada cleared 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of forest between January and August, or 40 times the size of New York’s Central Park, of which 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) were areas identified as orangutan habitat.
- In July alone, the company cleared 4,970 hectares (12,300 acres), the highest monthly deforestation figure recorded.
The Amazon’s archaeology of hope: Q&A with anthropologist Michael Heckenberger
- A professor at the University of Florida, Michael Heckenberger has been visiting and studying Indigenous peoples at the Upper Xingu River for decades and says the Amazon is already facing its tipping point: “It’s a tipping event.”
- In this interview for Mongabay, he tells how he and his colleagues have been practicing an “archeology of hope” — helping the Indigenous peoples in the region to prepare for climate change, using ancestral knowledge pulled out from archaeological research.
- “It should be the default, not the exception, to assume that there were Indigenous people living or dwelling in some way on almost every inch of Brazilian land,” he says about the marco temporal thesis, which aims to limit new Indigenous territories, now being discussed in Brazilian Congress.
Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict
- Following petitions by Indigenous communities in Palawan, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a writ mandating a nickel mining project and associated government agencies respond to the communities’ environmental concerns.
- The issuance of the writ is an initial step in a legal process activists say they hope will result in the permanent suspension of the nickel mine, which is operating within a protected area.
- While the legal process is currently on hold due to a court recess, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued the mine a cease-and-desist order the same day the court issued the writ.
Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
- Cambodia expanded the coverage of its protected areas by 1.06 million hectares (2.62 million acres) in July and August, a flurry of subdecrees shows.
- However, civil society groups have expressed skepticism about the lack of consultation involved in the process and the ability of authorities to police this much larger area, given the ineffective enforcement of existing protected areas.
- Much of the newly protected land appears to be corridors neighboring existing protected areas, where homes and farms are already established.
- This has raised concerns about a surge in conflicts over land and access to natural resources, particularly affecting Indigenous communities.
Can land titles save Madagascar’s embattled biodiversity and people?
- Through its Titre Vert or Green Title initiative, the Malagasy government is opening up a path to land ownership for its most vulnerable citizens in the hopes it will help tackle hunger, internal migration, and forest loss.
- The state is using the initiative to lean on potential migrants to remain in the country’s deep south, where five years of failed rains have left 2 million people hungry, instead of migrating north, where they are often blamed for social tensions and for destroying forests.
- This March, the Malagasy government started work on a Titre Vert enclave in the Menabe region, a popular destination for migrants from the drought-hit south, to dissuade them from clearing unique dry forests to grow crops.
- Critics say the government is holding people back in a rain-starved region without providing enough support; in Menabe, backers of the project hope to provide ample assistance to get migrants out of the forests and onto their feet.
Cambodia awards swath of national park forest to tycoon Ly Yong Phat’s son
- A Cambodian tycoon notorious for his association with illegal logging has expanded his grip over the country’s largest national park, with a swath of forest awarded to his son’s rubber company.
- This gives Ly Yong Phat, a ruling party senator, and his family members effective control of tens of thousands of hectares of land inside Botum Sakor National Park.
- The carving up of the park, awarded in parcels to politically connected tycoons, has led to widespread deforestation that’s driven both people and wildlife out of Botum Sakor.
- Longtime residents evicted by Ly Yong Phat’s various operations in the park have protested to demand their land back, but to no avail, with many even being jailed for their activism.
Indonesia claims record-low deforestation, but accounting raises questions
- Official data show Indonesia lost an area of forest two-thirds the size of London in 2021-2022, marking a third straight annual decline.
- The government attributes the continued drop to various forest protection policies, such as permanent ban on new permits to clear primary forests and peatlands as well as forest fire mitigation.
- However, data from the University of Maryland show Indonesia’s primary tree cover loss actually increased by 13% in 2022 compared to 2021 data — the first increase since 2017.
- The disparity in data comes from differences in methodology and definitions of deforestation and forests adopted by UMD and the Indonesian government.
Forests in the furnace: Cambodia’s garment sector is fueled by illegal logging
- An investigation has found factories in Cambodia’s garment sector are fueling their boilers with wood logged illegally from protected areas.
- A Mongabay team traced the network all the way from the impoverished villagers risking their lives to find increasingly scarce trees, to the traders and middlemen contending with slim margins, up to the factories with massive lots for timber supplies.
- The garment industry association denies that any of its members uses forest wood, but the informal and opaque nature of the supply chain means it’s virtually impossible to guarantee this.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
Poverty-fueled deforestation of Nigerian reserve slashes hope for rare chimps
- Less than 20 year ago, Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve was regarded as a potential conservation site for endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- But between 2001 and 2022, the reserve lost nearly half of its old growth forest cover, a trend that shows no sign of stopping.
- Akure-Ofosu’s forest is being lost due to the proliferation small-scale farms within the reserve.
- Facing an unemployment rate surpassing 50% and a soaring level of poverty, many Nigerians have few options other than to settle in the country’s protected areas and hew farms from forest.
Report links paper giant RGE to Indonesia deforestation despite pledges
- A new investigative report alleges that the supply chain of one of the world’s largest producers of wood pulp and products, Royal Golden Eagle, is tainted with wood from deforestation in Indonesia.
- The allegation comes despite the company having adopted a no-deforestation policy since 2015.
- The report also reveals a chain of offshore shell companies pointing to RGE’s control of a new mega-scale pulp mill in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province.
- This new mill threatens large-scale deforestation once it’s in operation, due to its huge demand for wood, the report says.
Avocados: The green gold that wipes western Mexico’s forests from the map
- In Jalisco, avocado orchards are spreading and dominating the landscape: In 2010, there were about 8,400 hectares (about 20,750 acres) of this monoculture, and by 2021, that area had tripled.
- Satellite images show what is lost with the expansion of the Persea americana monoculture: Since 2019, at least 5,160 ha (12,750 acres) have turned from forests to avocado orchards.
- The loss of forest cover could continue indefinitely, especially after the United States government authorized the commercialization of avocados harvested in Jalisco in July 2022.
Soy: The agro-industry that devastates the Maya jungle
- Hopelchén is today one of the leading soybean producers in the country. Occupying that place has had a very high cost for biodiversity. In 20 years, this municipality in Campeche lost at least 153,809 hectares (380,070 acres) of tree cover, representing three times the area of Cozumel island.
- The expansion of soybeans in that region has gone hand in hand with processes of leasing and privatization of lands that were previously communal lands under collective ownership and government subsidies that benefit, above all, large producers.
- In the last seven years, the environmental authorities have not authorized any change in the use of forestland in Hopelchén. Clearing continues and has intensified in recent years, according to satellite images.
Planting deforestation: The forests that Mexico loses to agribusiness
- Every year in Mexico, at least 47,770 hectares (118,042 acres) of forests and jungles are cleared to establish agricultural fields. This forest cover is equivalent to the total area occupied by Cozumel, one of the largest islands in Mexico.
- Territories previously inhabited by biodiverse forests are now dominated by monocultures such as avocado, soybean, sugar cane and palm oil.
- Land clearing by agribusiness has progressed unimpeded for decades in various regions of the country. The engines that encourage it are, among others, government subsidies, a growing market, ignored environmental laws and, primarily, disdain for forested territories.
In Indonesia, companies defy government’s decision to revoke their permits
- Logging, plantation and mining companies have continued to operate and have been mired in conflicts with communities since their permits were targeted for revocation by the Indonesian government, a new report says.
- In Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua alone, four palm oil companies cleared 943.3 hectares (2,331 acres) of forests in the first four months of 2023 — an area three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
- Civil groups have been calling on the government to redistribute the revoked concessions to local and Indigenous communities, but they say their calls haven’t been heard.
Illegal settlements, hunting and logging threaten a state reserve in Mexico
- The Balam-Kú State Reserve, in southern Mexico, is facing strong pressures from illegal activities.
- Between December 2022 and February 2023, 510 deforestation alerts were recorded within the reserve’s limits.
- Most of this forest loss is happening in the municipality of Candelaria, where illegal settlers are clearing forests for ranching and agriculture without the necessary permits.
Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.
- The Amazon Rainforest’s protected areas accounted for the highest rate of carbon stock, according to the unprecedented study.
- The results can help policymakers and conservationists assess areas for protection to fight climate change — and not just forests.
Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
- Old-growth forest in Central Cardamom Mountains National Park is being cleared to make way for the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, but the environmental impacts remain opaque.
- NGOs and the Ministry of Environment provide minimal oversight to prevent illegal loggers from exploiting the project site, and former loggers detailed how bribes facilitate the illicit timber trade.
- Prison officials maintained that the timber is used in a skills development program, but former inmates alleged that officials have been exploiting prison labor to craft luxury furniture.
Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- Fires affected some 1.8 million hectares in Argentina in 2022.
- Many of the country’s 2022 fires occurred in the country’s northern Chaco region and were largely caused by industrial agriculture coupled with drought conditions, according to Indigenous residents and researchers.
- The arid Gran Chaco is the second-largest forest in South America after the Amazon, and extends across 110 million hectares and portions of four countries—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia
- Experts said deforestation of Argentina’s Chaco is affecting Indigenous communities’ access to resources.
U.S. traders flouting sanctions on buying Myanmar teak, report says
- A new report shows that U.S.-based timber traders continued to import thousands of metric tons of Myanmar timber, despite sanctions imposed following the February 2021 military coup and brutal crackdown on citizens.
- More than 3,000 metric tons of teak, a material highly prized in the manufacture of luxury furniture and yachts, were imported into the U.S. since February 2021, the report says.
- Claims that imported timber is coming from stockpiles harvested and set aside prior to the 2021 coup are dubious, the report says, and the accuracy of timber tracing technology to verify legality in this time of conflict in Myanmar is highly questionable.
- The report calls on U.S. authorities to do more to regulate the timber trade and enforce sanctions to make sure companies and the public are not unwittingly financing the “brutal” military regime.
Study shows 10 million acres of Colombian rainforest at risk without new policies
- Researchers from the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute Sinchi analyzed the potential future of the Colombian Amazon Rainforest up until 2040; the results, based on analyzing 18 years of data from forest monitoring, show three possible future scenarios depending on deforestation policies.
- With current trends, loss could amount to 2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of Amazon Rainforest. However, in the worst-case scenario — if extractivist policies are implemented — deforestation could reach 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres).
- On the other hand, if the cattle ranching industry is reduced and sustainable development achieved, at least 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of forest could be saved by 2040.
Corruption threatens timber traceability in Nkok, Gabon
- Gabon enjoys 88% forest cover, with selective logging helping protect this ecological and economic resource.
- Timber processed in the country’s Nkok Special Investment Zone (SIZ) is required to be harvested in line with European Union certifications for sustainability.
- However, TraCer, the monitoring system meant to ensure the traceability of wood entering the Nkok SIZ, was recently suspended by Gabon’s Ministry of Water and Forests.
- While TraCer was quickly reinstated, its suspension points to issues surrounding forest management and the Gabonese timber industry, including trafficking scandals involving the Ministry of Water and Forests.
High-carbon peat among 1,500 hectares cleared for Indonesia’s food estate
- A number of reports have found that an Indonesian government program to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country has led to deforestation.
- More than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of forests, including carbon-rich peatlands, have been cleared in Central Kalimantan province for the so-called food estate program, according to a spatial analysis by the NGO Pantau Gambut.
- Last year, the NGO Kaoem Telapak detected 100 hectares (250 acres) of deforestation in food estate areas in North Sumatra.
- Villagers whose lands have been included in the program have also reported an increase in the severity of floods since their forests were cleared to make way for the food estates.
‘They have conned us out of our lands’: Conflict brews in Peru as Mennonite settlers clear forest
- Mennonite groups began arriving in the Peruvian town of the district of Padre Márquez in Peru’s Loreto region in 2020.
- Settling near the town of Tiruntán, one Mennonite colony has cleared hundreds of hectares of old growth rainforest since 2021.
- Tiruntán community members claim they were given plots of public land by the town mayor, which were then sold to “the Mennonites, some Chinese business owners, and a logging company” in an effort to get around regulations that prohibit the clearing of forested land.
- Similar situations are playing out in other parts of Peru, as well as elsewhere in South America.
Expansion of Mennonite farmland in Bolivia encroaches on Indigenous land
- Mennonites first began settling in Bolivia in the 1950s, primarily in the department of Santa Cruz.
- Today, Bolivia’s Mennonite population numbers around 150,000, most of whom are involved in mechanized, industrial agriculture.
- As Mennonite colonies continue to expand, so too are their massive crop fields, which are putting pressure on Santa Cruz’s Indigenous Territories and other protected areas.
Indigenous communities and Mennonite colonies clash in Colombia
- In 2015, three Mennonite colonies arrived in Colombia, attracting controversy due to deforestation for large-scale agriculture in protected areas and Indigenous territories.
- Residents and advocates of Indigenous communities in the Puerto Gaitán municipality of Colombia’s Meta department said Mennonite colonies have cleared their ancestral forests and threatened their leader’s lives.
- An attorney representing the region’s Mennonite colonies refuted these allegations.
- This publication is part of a journalistic alliance between Rutas del Conflicto and Mongabay Latam.
Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
- Satellite data and imagery show the expansion of large agricultural fields whittling away at already-fragmented tracts of primary forest in eastern Paraguay’s Pindo’I Indigenous Territory over the past several years.
- Deforestation in Indigenous territories is illegal in Paraguay.
- Indigenous residents and advocates told Mongabay that the clearing is being done by one of the region’s Mennonite colonies; a representative from the colony refuted these claims.
- Deforestation for large-scale agriculture is also expanding in western Paraguay, which sources attribute to other Mennonite colonies.
Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- A Mongabay investigation indicates that a three-star military general who also serves as a top interior ministry official appears to be the notorious illegal logger known as Oknha Chey.
- Family and business ties link Meuk Saphannareth to logging operations in northern Cambodia that satellite imagery shows are clearing forest well outside their concession boundaries.
- Officials at the provincial level could not give a clear answer as to why the concession had seemingly been awarded to Oknha Chey, while the interior ministry ignored Mongabay’s questions about the allegations against Saphannareth.
- Some names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
Deforestation threatens local populations in Republic of Congo’s Sangha
- Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts were recorded around Ouesso, in the northwestern Republic of the Congo.
- Logging has drastically impacted the country’s forest cover.
- In 2016, the Congolese authorities awarded 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of logging concessions to businesses, the majority of which had broken environmental and social standards.
- More recently, mining by Chinese companies (the land in north-west Congo is rich in iron and gold) has accelerated the destruction of ecosystems.
Carbon uptake in tropical forests withers in drier future: Study
- A new study incorporating satellite data on organic material, or biomass, in tropical forests with experimental data about the effects of temperature and precipitation suggests that forests may lose substantial amounts of carbon by the end of the 21st century.
- Even with low continued carbon emissions, tropical forests, especially those in the southern Amazon, could lose between 6.8 and 12% of their aboveground carbon. With higher emissions, they could lose 13.3 to 20.1% of their carbon stores.
- The results highlight the need to reduce global temperatures rapidly to maintain the healthy forests best able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
- The team reported their findings Feb. 6 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Forests & finance: Setbacks for a rare bat, and progress for an oil pipeline
- As much as three-quarters of forests flanking Mozambique’s Mount Namuli have been lost since 2006, researchers say, threatening the newly described Namuli horseshoe bat.
- Environmentalists fear a new pipeline linking oil fields in Niger to the Atlantic coast in Benin will damage forest and wetland habitat along its length.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Temperature extremes, plus ecological marginalization, raise species risk: Studies
- In a business-as-usual carbon emissions scenario — humanity’s current trajectory — two in five land vertebrates could be exposed to temperatures equal to, or exceeding, the hottest temperatures of the past decades across at least half of their range by 2099. If warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F), that number drops to 6%, according to a new study.
- More than one in eight mammal species have already lost part of their former geographical range. In many cases, this means those species no longer have access to some (or sometimes any) of their core habitat, making it much more difficult to survive in a warming world.
- When animal populations continue to decline in an area even after it has been protected, one possible explanation may be that the conserved habitat is marginal compared to that found in the species’ historical range.
- In the light of recent pledges to protect 30% of the planet’s surface, it is important to prioritize the right areas. The focus should be on conserving core habitat — which is often highly productive and already intensively used by humans — while respecting the rights and needs of Indigenous people, many of whom have also been pushed to the margins.
Indonesia and Malaysia assail new EU ban on ‘dirty commodities’ trade
- The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have lambasted the EU regulation that will ban the trade of “dirty commodities,” including palm oil sourced from illegal plantations and deforestation.
- They argue that the regulation will harm the palm oil industry by increasing the cost of production.
- Activists, however, see the regulation as an opportunity for palm oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to have their palm oil globally recognized as legal and sustainable.
The EU banned Russian wood pellet imports; South Korea took them all
- In July 2022, the European Union responded to the war in Ukraine by banning the import of Russian woody biomass used to make energy. At roughly the same time, South Korea drastically upped its Russian woody biomass imports, becoming the sole official importer of Russian wood pellets for industrial energy use.
- The EU has reportedly replaced its Russian supplies of woody biomass by importing wood pellets from the U.S. and Eastern Europe. But others say that trade data and paper trails indicate a violation of the EU ban, with laundered Russian wood pellets possibly flowing through Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to multiple EU nations.
- EU pellet imports from Turkey grew from 2,200 tons monthly last spring to 16,000 tons in September. Imports from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reportedly rose too, even though neither has a forest industry. A large body of scientific evidence shows that woody biomass adds significantly to climate change and biodiversity loss.
- Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer, which operates chiefly in the Southeast U.S., may be the big winner in the Russian biomass ban. Since the war began, Enviva has upped EU shipments, and also announced a 10-year contract with an unnamed European customer to deliver 800,000 metric tons of pellets annually by 2027.
For Indonesian smallholders, EU deforestation rule is a threat — and an opportunity
- Small farmers in Indonesia could be excluded from the European palm oil supply chain under a new EU deforestation regulation because they’re far from being able to comply, a new survey shows.
- The main challenges they face are in meeting traceability, legality and sustainability requirements, given the largely informal nature of transactions at the farm level and the lack of awareness about the need for documents like land titles and plantation certificates.
- The country’s main oil palm smallholder union has called on the EU to provide support for small farmers to be able to comply, such as setting a premium price for certified legal and deforestation-free palm oil.
Amazon’s tallest tree at risk as deforestation nears
- Paru State Forest in the state of Pará was Brazil’s fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, sparking concern for the region’s giant trees — including the tallest in the Amazon.
- The Paru State Forest is the world’s third-largest sustainable-use tropical forest reserve and, together with other conservation units in the region, belongs to a 22 million-hectare (54.3 million-acre) protected mosaic known as the Calha Norte of the Amazon River.
- Deforestation caused by cattle ranchers, illegal land-grabbers and gold miners is advancing in and around the conservation unit, which experts say shouldn’t be happening due to the region’s protected status.
- A new advisory board was formed this November to protect the Paru State Forest for the next two years by monitoring the use of natural resources and deforestation in the area.
The Netherlands to stop paying subsidies to ‘untruthful’ biomass firms
- On December 5, 2022, Mongabay featured a story by journalist Justin Catanoso in which the first ever biomass industry insider came forward as a whistleblower and discredited the green sustainability claims made by Enviva — the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy.
- On December 15, citing that article and recent scientific evidence that Enviva contributes to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast, The Netherlands decided it will stop paying subsidies to any biomass company found to be untruthful in its wood pellet production methods. The Netherlands currently offers sizable subsidies to Enviva.
- Precisely how The Netherlands decision will impact biomass subsidies in the long run is unclear. Nor is it known how this decision may impact the EU’s Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) certification process, which critics say is inherently weak and unreliable.
- Also in December, Australia became the first major nation to reverse its designation of forest biomass as a renewable energy source, raising questions about how parties to the UN Paris agreement can support opposing renewable energy policies, especially regarding biomass — a problem for COP28 negotiators to resolve in 2023.
Australia rejects forest biomass in first blow to wood pellet industry
- On December 15, Australia became the first major economy worldwide to reverse itself on its renewable classification for woody biomass burned to make energy. Under the nation’s new policy, wood harvested from native forests and burned to produce energy cannot be classified as a renewable energy source.
- That decision comes as the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Vietnam and other forest nations continue gearing up to harvest their woodlands to make massive amounts of wood pellets, in order to supply biomass-fired power plants in the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.
- In the EU, forest advocates continue with last-ditch lobbying efforts to have woody biomass stripped of its renewable energy designation, and end the ongoing practice of providing large subsidies to the biomass industry for wood pellets.
- Science has found that biomass burning releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than coal. Australia’s decision, and the EU’s continued commitment to biomass, creates a conundrum for policymakers: How can major economies have different definitions of renewable energy when it comes to biomass?
Up to half of tropical forestland cleared for agriculture isn’t put to use, research shows
- Agriculture is the primary driver of tropical deforestation, accounting for 90% or more of forest loss, yet researchers have found that up to half of total land cleared is not put into active agricultural production.
- The gap between what’s cleared and what’s used for agriculture shows that “we have to fix agriculture and we have to fix deforestation,” according to one of the researchers.
- Tropical deforestation is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, but the research shows there is no simple fix, as humanity’s increasing food needs coincide with the need for conservation.
As EU finalizes renewable energy plan, forest advocates condemn biomass
- The EU hopes to finalize its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) soon, even as forest advocates urge last minute changes to significantly cut the use of woody biomass for energy and make deep reductions in EU subsidies to the wood pellet industry.
- Forest advocates are citing a new commentary published in Nature that argues that the EU’s continued expansive commitment to burning forest biomass for energy will endanger forests in the EU, the U.S. and elsewhere — resulting in a major loss in global carbon storage and biodiversity.
- Changing RED to meet forest advocate recommendations seems unlikely at this point, with some policymakers arguing that woody biomass use is the only way the EU can achieve its 2030 coal reduction target. The woody biomass industry is pressing for sustained biomass use and for continued subsidies.
- Russia’s threat of reducing or cutting off its supply of natural gas to the EU this winter is also at issue. In the EU today, 60% of energy classified as renewable comes from burning biomass. If RED is approved as drafted, bioenergy use is projected to double between 2015 and 2050, according to the just published Nature commentary.
‘Amazing first step’ as EU law cracks down on deforestation-linked imports
- The European Union has agreed to adopt a law that will ban the trade of commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation.
- The law will be the first of its kind in the world, and aims to tackle deforestation caused by the EU’s consumption of various agricultural commodities that are the main drivers of global forest loss, including palm oil, cattle, rubber, soy and cocoa.
- Green groups have lauded the law, but say it falls short on several key points, including failing to protect other wooded ecosystems like savannas, and providing limited rights protection for Indigenous peoples.
No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron
- A land dispute that has simmered for a decade pits an Indigenous community inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary against a politically well-connected rubber company.
- The company, Sambath Platinum, cut off the Indigenous Kuy residents of the village of Ngon from the forests from which they have gathered herbs and medicinal plants for generations.
- The community have followed all the procedures to obtain a communal land title, but continue to be stonewalled by various government ministries, but now face questionable criminal charges.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Whistleblower: Enviva claim of ‘being good for the planet… all nonsense’
- Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world. The company has, from its inception, touted its green credentials.
- It says it doesn’t use big, whole trees, but only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees” in the production of woody biomass burned in former coal power plants in the U.K., EU and Asia. It says it only sources wood from areas where trees will be regrown, and that it doesn’t contribute to deforestation.
- However, in first-ever interviews with a whistleblower who worked within Enviva plant management, Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso has been told that all of these Enviva claims are false. In addition, a major recent scientific study finds that Enviva is contributing to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast.
- Statements by the whistleblower have been confirmed by Mongabay’s own observations at a November 2022 forest clear-cut in North Carolina, and by NGO photo documentation. These findings are especially important now, as the EU considers the future of forest biomass burning as a “sustainable” form of renewable energy.
Indigenous community in Peru losing forests to timber, drug, land trafficking
- The Indigenous community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu, located in northern Peru, has been facing illegal timber, drug and land trafficking for the past several years.
- Satellite data and imagery suggest deforestation associated with these incursions has increased in 2022.
- The community lacks a communal land title to their territorial forests; experts say this is opening the door to setters who are using threats to bar regional authorities from intervening.
- Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu is one of a number of Indigenous communities in the region contending with deforestation from outsiders.
Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
- In 2021, the Global Mangrove Alliance, a consortium of NGOs, published “The State of the World’s Mangroves,” the first snapshot study compiled from satellite imagery intended to provide an up-to-date record of global mangrove forest cover.
- The second installment of the report, published in September, draws on improved and updated maps.
- The report shows a decline in the overall rate of mangrove loss and outlines concrete actions to halt the loss for good and help mangroves begin regaining ground.
Report: Leaders’ vow to slow forest loss rings hollow ahead of climate talks
- Countries are nowhere close to meeting the goal of ending deforestation by 2030 announced in Glasgow in 2021, a new assessment shows.
- Indonesia is the only country that is moving in the right direction, registering declining deforestation rates in each of the past five years, which means tropical Asia as a whole is the only region on track to end forest loss.
- The world added forests the size of Peru between 2000 and 2020, but these gains don’t make up for the erasure of natural primary woodland, the report authors warn.
In new climate deal, Norway will pay Indonesia $56 million for drop in deforestation, emissions
- This year, Norway will pay Indonesia $56 million for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
- Both countries struck a new climate deal in September, in which Norway will provide support for Indonesia’s bid to curb deforestation and forest degradation, with the aim that Indonesia’s forests will turn into a carbon sink by 2030.
- Norway was supposed to pay the $56 million in 2020 under its previous climate agreement with Indonesia, but the Nordic country failed to pay, resulting in Indonesia terminating the original agreement.
As Brazil starts repaving an Amazon highway, land grabbers get to work
- Paving work has begun on a stretch of highway running through one of the remotest and best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon — even as questions about the project’s permits abound.
- BR-319 was built in the 1970s to connect the Amazonian cities of Manaus and Porto Velho, but a 405-kilometer (250-mile) “Middle Stretch” fell into disrepair, making the road virtually impassable and killing the flow of traffic.
- Conservation experts have long warned against repaving the Middle Stretch, warning that improved access to this carbon-rich region will lead to a surge in deforestation, burning and land grabbing.
- With the repaving underway, this is already happening, raising concerns about unchecked forest loss that would have massive ramifications for the global climate.
The Amazon will reach tipping point if current trend of deforestation continues
- A report by the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) claims that 26% of Amazon forests have transformed irreversibly and show high levels of degradation.
- The savannization of the Amazon is already visible in Brazil and Bolivia, while Ecuador, Colombia and Peru seem to be heading in the same direction.
- The report also seeks to make visible the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting the Amazon, and to ensure that Indigenous people are at the center of the fight against climate change.
World’s smallest primate is fading into extinction, scientists fear
- The Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae) could soon disappear as the human imprint on its forest habitat in western Madagascar grows.
- Another team of researchers warned that the Milne-Edwards’s sifaka (Propithecus edwardsi), a species native to the tropical rainforests of eastern Madagascar, could vanish in 25 years.
- “The risk of extinction accelerates dramatically when we take into account deforestation and climate extremes,” said Eric Isai Ameca y Juárez, a specialist in biodiversity loss and climate change at Beijing Normal University, but added that deforestation alone could wipe out the sifaka.
- About a third of the tree cover inside Menabe Antimena National Park, where the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur is found, has disappeared since 2015.
Palm oil firms not acting fast enough on no-deforestation vows: Report
- Only 22% of companies sourcing or producing palm oil in Indonesia have public and comprehensive no-deforestation policies, a new report by London-based nonprofit CDP says.
- The report also finds that only 28% of companies have robust public no-deforestation commitments that cover 100% of production and include a cutoff date before 2020.
- In light of the report, experts are calling for more companies to adopt robust no-deforestation policies that incorporate social elements including remediation, restoration, compensation of past harms, and/or commitment to protect rights and livelihoods of local communities.
EU votes to keep woody biomass as renewable energy, ignores climate risk
- Despite growing public opposition, the European Parliament voted this week not to declassify woody biomass as renewable energy. The forest biomass industry quickly declared victory, while supporters of native forests announced their plan to continue the fight — even in court.
- The EU likely renewed its commitment to burning wood as a source of energy largely to help meet its target of cutting EU carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, something it likely couldn’t achieve without woody biomass (which a carbon accounting loophole counts as carbon neutral, equivalent to wind and solar power).
- Scientific evidence shows that burning wood pellets is a major source of carbon at the smokestack. The European Union also likely continued its embrace of biomass this week as it looks down the barrel of Russian threats to cut off natural gas supplies this winter over the EU’s opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- While the EU decision maintains that whole trees won’t be subsidized for burning, that natural forests will be protected, and that there will be limits to logging old growth and primary forests, these provisions include legal loopholes and were not backed with monitoring or enforcement commitments. No dates were set for biomass burning phase down.
Zero-deforestation commitments ‘fundamentally limited’ in tackling deforestation, study argues
- Researchers found that while 90-99% of tropical deforestation in 2011-2015 was driven by agricultural industries, only 45-65% of the cleared land was actually used to grow crops or raise cattle.
- The rest of the cleared land was the result of activities such as speculative clearing and out-of-control agricultural fires, the study says.
- The researchers also concluded that because three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by domestic demand, corporate zero-deforestation pledges geared toward expert markets are limited in their ability to reduce this forest loss.
Indonesia and Norway give REDD+ deal another go after earlier breakup
- Indonesia and Norway have embarked on another REDD+ scheme that will see the latter pay the former to keep its forests standing, after a previous attempt failed because of lack of payment.
- Indonesia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, and the bulk of its greenhouse gas emissions comes from land-use change, forest degradation, and deforestation.
- Officials from both countries say it’s of mutual benefit to both countries, and to the world, to preserve Indonesia’s forests boost their capacity to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
- Under the new deal, payments still outstanding from the previous agreement, which was terminated in 2021, will be honored.
‘Brazilians aren’t familiar with the Amazon’: Q&A with Ângela Mendes
- Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance.
- In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
- She also reflects on the culture of impunity that allowed the masterminds of her father’s murder to evade justice, and which she says persists in Brazil today.
- But she also holds out hope for change, noting that Brazilians are largely concerned about the environment, but that they need to channel this concern into concrete actions, including in the national elections coming up in October.
Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports
- Multiple recent reports show that deforestation has greatly increased in Venezuela’s Amazonian states of Bolívar and Amazonas, largely due to illegal mining, expanded agriculture and fires.
- Venezuelan protected areas have been especially hard hit, with illegal incursions and major deforestation occurring inside Caura, Canaima and Yapacana national parks.
- Soaring deforestation rates are blamed partly on Colombian guerrillas operating illegally within Venezuela’s borders, an invasion that one report alleges has been supported by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
- Forest loss has been well confirmed via satellite, while ground truthing has been obtained via firsthand accounts.
Poverty-fueled deforestation threatens Kenya’s largest water catchment
- Mau Forest is East Africa’s largest native montane forest and Kenya’s largest water catchment.
- Olpusimoru Forest Reserve is one of Mau Forest’s protected areas, but its forest cover has been greatly reduced by logging, fuelwood collection and other poverty-driven human pressures.
- Beginning in 2018, thousands of families that had established themselves inside the forest reserve’s boundaries were evicted by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, part of a wider push that saw more than 30,000 people evicted from the broader Mau Forest Complex.
- Despite government intervention and civil society initiatives to assuage poverty in the region, signs of fresh logging, charcoal burning and overgrazing are evident in Olpusimoru Forest Reserve.
Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
- Southern Nigeria’s vast Niger Delta boasts Africa’s most extensive mangrove forests — and some of the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves.
- Efforts to extract oil and gas have resulted in numerous oil spills, which have damaged the region’s biodiversity, as well as the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- Niger Delta mangroves are also affected by logging, farming and urban expansion, and are being replaced by invasive nipa palm.
- Research suggests Niger Delta’s mangroves could be gone within 50 years at the current rate of loss.
Study tracks global forest decline and expansion over six decades
- Globally, there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square miles) in forest area between 1960 and 2019, according to a new study. That’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
- The study showed that most forest loss occurred in “lower-income” countries as their economies grew, which are found primarily in the tropics. Forests in wealthier countries tended to expand.
- The authors say their findings confirm the forest transition theory, which links countries’ economic development to changes in land use.
- International organizations like the U.N. and rich countries should provide support to less-industrialized, forested countries to allow them to find economically beneficial alternatives to deforestation, the study authors say.
Cambodian government cancels development of Phnom Tamao forest amid outcry
- Cambodia’s prime minister has intervened to stop the destruction of a forest outside the country’s capital, but not before developers managed to clear between 500 and 600 hectares (nearly 1,250-1,500 acres) in a week.
- More than half of the Phnom Tamao forest had been parceled out to politically connected tycoons, prompting widespread condemnation from conservationists, environmental activists, and the general public.
- Environmental activists and local communities have welcomed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s order canceling all the developments in the forest, but say the damage already done is extensive.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
No permit? No problem for palm oil company still clearing forest in Papua
- A field observation by Greenpeace Indonesia has confirmed reports that a palm oil company has resumed clearing land on its concession in Indonesia’s Papua region despite its permit having been revoked.
- As of June, the company, PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), had cleared more than 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, according to data from Greenpeace Indonesia.
- The resumption of land clearing has prompted the district head to reprimand PNM, and raised the possibility that the company is committing a crime.
Palm oil producer mired in legal troubles still razing Sumatran forest
- A palm oil company has resumed clearing forest in its concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth where tigers, orangutans and rhinos coexist.
- Analysis of satellite imagery by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows the company, PT Cemerlang Abadi (CA), cleared 309 hectares (761 acres) of secondary and regenerating forests between September 2021 and February 2022.
- RAN says it’s possible that palm oil from trees grown on this deforested land may have entered the global supply chain, as CA isn’t blacklisted by any of the major brands or traders that buy palm oil.
Brazil’s new deforestation data board sparks fear of censorship of forest loss, fires
- A new council set by the Brazilian government to vet deforestation and forest fire data from the country’s space agency has been widely slammed as a political ploy to aid President Jair Bolsonaro’s reelection bid.
- The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) has provided and analyzed deforestation and forest fire data in the Amazon since 1988 and is globally renowned for its monitoring expertise, but was left out of the new council.
- The Bolsonaro government has questioned the credibility of INPE’s data since taking office in 2019, drawing outrage from scientists and researchers for claiming that data showing a spike in deforestation under Bolsonaro was false.
- Experts have raise concerns that the new council could prevent the release of annual deforestation data, scheduled at the same time as this year’s elections, that are expected to show an alarming increase in both forest loss and fires.
Kenyan hunter-gatherers forced to farm now face increased evictions from their forest
- The Indigenous Sengwer people in Kenya’s Embobut Forest have gone through a drastic change in livelihood, from hunting-gathering to herding and commercial farming in the forest, leading to tensions with forestry officials.
- The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) says the practices are key drivers in the loss of 13,782 hectares (34,056 acres) of forest cover in the past 37 years, and has tightened its monitoring of the forest, leading to mass evictions and fines for those who choose to stay.
- The Embobut Forest is part of the Sengwer’s ancestral lands and was turned into a protected area in the 20th century, leading to a settlement ban; British colonial officials also forced hunting peoples to become farmers, giving the Sengwer little alternatives for land and livelihood, locals say.
- Other tribal groups and pastoralists are drawn to the forest by droughts elsewhere and commercial possibilities as the demand for meat grows.
‘Lost’ Amazonian cities hint at how to build urban landscapes without harming nature
- Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a Pre-Columbian urban settlement that spans more than 4,500 square kilometers (1,737 square miles) in Bolivia’s Llanos de Mojos region, in the Amazon rainforest.
- This is the latest proof that large, complex urban societies existed in the Amazon before the arrival of the Spanish, challenging the idea that the rainforest was always a pristine, untouched wilderness.
- Some experts say we could learn from these Indigenous urban planning strategies, which, with a sophisticated land and water management system, show us how cities and the rainforest once co-existed without degrading the environment.
Results of mining tax for reforestation in the DRC leave more questions than answers
- Mining and logging companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are liable to pay a deforestation tax to restore areas impacted by their activities.
- However, after about twenty years since the tax was implemented, reforested areas are few and far between.
- Environmentalists and locals question what the taxes collected from mining companies is being used for, with corruption and financial mismanagement seen as a source of the problem.
- The National Forest Fund (FFN), environmental ministry and political officials did not respond to Mongabay requests for comment.
EU Parliament’s Environment Committee urges scale back of biomass burning
- The European Parliament’s Environment Committee this week made strong, but nonbinding, recommendations to put a brake on the EU’s total commitment to burning forest biomass to produce energy. While environmentalists cautiously hailed the decision, the forestry industry condemned it.
- A key recommendation urges that primary woody biomass (that made from whole trees) to produce energy and heat no longer receive government subsidies under the EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
- Another recommendation called for primary woody biomass to no longer be counted toward EU member states’ renewable energy targets. Currently, biomass accounts for 60% of the EU’s renewable energy portfolio, far more than zero-carbon wind and solar.
- The Environment Committee recommendations mark the first time any part of the EU government has questioned the aggressive use of biomass by the EU to meet its Paris Agreement goals. A final decision by the EU on its biomass burning policies is expected in September as part of its revised Renewable Energy Directive.
Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Satellites have detected forest clearing within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area (APA) this year, a legally protected area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
- Despite its status, 35% of the primary (or old-growth) forest within the APA was lost between 2006 and 2021, making it one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- The APA was created in 2006 to serve as a buffer for vulnerable surrounding areas, such as the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the massive Terra do Meio Ecological Station, but deforestation has spilled over into both.
- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, but land grabbing and mining have also increased in recent years, with invaders emboldened by the rhetoric and policies of the current government.
Deforestation-neutral mining? Madagascar study shows it can be done, but it’s complicated
- The Ambatovy mine in Madagascar achieved no net forest loss by curbing deforestation in its biodiversity offsets, an analysis in the journal Nature Sustainability concluded.
- Project developers create biodiversity offsets, sites where they undertake conservation work, to make up for environmental destruction caused by their extractive operations.
- Ambatovy, which operates an open-pit nickel mine in Madagascar, carved out four biodiversity offsets to make up for biodiversity loss in its mining site, located in the species-rich eastern rainforest of the island nation.
- By slowing deforestation in these four offsets, the mine made up for forest loss in its mining concession; however, there isn’t enough data to ascertain how the measures impacted biodiversity, and previous research indicates that the mine’s offsets reduced impoverished communities’ access to forest resources.
2021 tropical forest loss figures put zero-deforestation goal by 2030 out of reach
- The world lost a Cuba-sized area of tropical forest in 2021, putting it far off track from meeting the no-deforestation goal by 2030 that governments and companies committed to at last year’s COP26 climate summit.
- Deforestation rates remained persistently high in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s two biggest expanses of tropical forest, negating the decline in deforestation seen in places like Indonesia and Gabon.
- The diverging trends in the different countries show that “it’s the domestic politics of forests that often really make a key difference,” says leading forest governance expert Frances Seymour.
- The boreal forests of Eurasia and North America also experienced a spike in deforestation last year, driven mainly by massive fires in Russia, which could set off a feedback loop of more heating and more burning.
Countries that sanctioned Myanmar’s junta are still buying their timber: Report
- Despite sanctions imposed following the February 2021 coup, Myanmar exported more than $190 million worth of timber, including to countries that have sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a new report from Forest Trends.
- The continued trade highlights the challenges of effectively enforcing sanctions, the report authors say; a lack of reporting on the timber trade from within the country also emphasizes the military regime’s purposeful lack of transparency.
- The authors call on countries to do more to cut off the junta’s access to natural resource revenues by extending financial sanctions to the banking sector.
- According to the report, effective implementation of sanctions is one of the most important actions the international community can take to support the citizens of Myanmar.
FSC-certified Moorim Paper linked to massive forest clearing in Indonesia’s Papua
- A subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim has cleared natural forests a tenth the size of Seoul in Indonesia’s Papua region over the past six years, a new report alleges.
- The report, published by various NGOs, alleges that the cleared areas consisted of primary forests serving as a habitat for threatened species and a source of livelihood for Indigenous Papuans.
- Moorim’s Indonesian subsidiary, PT Plasma Nutfah Marind Papua (PNMP), which holds the concession to the land, also allegedly cleared the forests without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous and local communities.
- Moorim has denied the allegations, but the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies its paper products as being sustainably sourced, says it has begun assessing the case to determine whether there’s enough substantial information to indicate a violation of its policies.
Deforestation on the rise as poverty soars in Nigeria
- Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve was established to help protect what is now one of largest remaining tracts of rainforest in Nigeria, and is home to many species.
- But fire and logging is rampant in the reserve, with satellite data showing it lost 44% of its primary forest cover in just two decades; preliminary data indicate deforestation may be increasing further in 2022.
- Sources say poverty is the driving force behind the deforestation of Akure-Ofosu and other protected areas in Nigeria.
- According to the World Bank, 4 in 10 Nigerians – about 80 million people – were living below in poverty in 2019, with the COVID-19 pandemic pushing another 5 million people below the poverty line by 2022.
Deforestation for palm oil falls in Southeast Asia, but is it a trend or a blip?
- Deforestation for oil palm cultivation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea dropped in 2021 to its lowest level since 2017, according to a new analysis by Chain Reaction Research (CRR).
- This marks the second straight year of declining palm-linked deforestation in this region, which produces more than 80% of the world’s palm oil, despite the price of the commodity hitting all-time highs last year and this year.
- Researchers attribute the decline in deforestation to an increasing number of companies adopting no-deforestation policies, and smaller companies without such commitments simply running out of forest to clear.
- But concerns over future deforestation persist as the Indonesian government ramps up its palm-oil based biodiesel program, which sources some of its palm oil from companies that are known deforesters.
Activists vow to take EU to court to fight its forest biomass policies
- The European Union continues burning forest biomass to produce energy, a policy science has shown to be climate destabilizing, destructive to forests and biodiversity. International NGOs and their lawyers — to stop the EU going further down what they see as a path of planetary endangerment — is ready to take the EU to court.
- The plaintiffs contend that the European Union is violating its own rules dictating that European Commission policies be based in “environmentally sustainable economic practices” for companies, investors and policymakers.
- Activists argue that the EU, in creating its current bioenergy and forestry policies, has disregarded numerous scientific studies demonstrating the environmental harm done by forest biomass — the harvesting and burning of wood pellets to make electricity. Some legal experts say the activists’ bid to be heard in court is a long shot.
- A November study adds data and urgency to the ongoing battle. Researchers found that unless current policies change, global demand for biomass-for-energy will triple by 2050, further impacting intact forests ability to act as carbon sinks and undermining emissions-reduction requirements under the Paris Agreement.
From teak farms to agroforestry: Panama tests reforestation strategies
- Panama is racing to restore 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres) of forest by 2025 to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets under the Paris climate agreement. The nation’s public and private sectors have embarked on various forest restoration and reforestation efforts to meet that goal.
- The government is currently financially incentivizing teak plantations, an industry that proponents say is a win-win for the economy and environment, but which critics say pushes out native tree species, reduces biodiversity, and can indirectly even contribute to further deforestation.
- A long-running research project overseen by the Smithsonian Institute is studying agroforestry and other innovative techniques to help determine which ones offer the best ecological, social and economic silviculture outcomes.
- Included in this groundbreaking work is research into restoring tropical forests on land degraded by cattle, efforts to improve forest hydrology, and silviculture techniques that could replace teak with other more eco-friendly high value trees.
As rising seas destroy Ghana’s coastal communities, researchers warn against a seawall-only solution
- Some 37% of Ghana’s coastal land was lost to erosion and flooding between 2005 and 2017.
- Severe storm surges flooded several communities in 2021, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people.
- Research indicates around 340 million people worldwide will be affected by global warming-fueled sea level rise by the middle of the century. Ghana’s government is responding to the growing crisis by fortifying some coastal areas with seawalls, but researchers say relying on seawalls alone may do more harm than good.
- This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center.
Palm oil and pulpwood the usual suspects as Papua deforestation persists
- Indonesia’s Papua region lost total forest area the size of Manhattan last year, with much of the deforestation attributed to pulpwood and palm oil companies, according to a new report.
- Using satellite imagery and on-the-ground investigations, environmental NGO Pusaka recorded 5,810 hectares (14,357 acres) of deforestation in the region.
- One observer says this continued loss of forest highlights the disconnect between the Indonesian government’s rhetoric about tackling deforestation and what it actually allows to happen on the ground.
In Kenya, a community regrew its forest — and redefined reforestation success
- What started as a group effort to find a solution to deforestation has seen a rural community in Kenya successfully regenerate 50% of their once denuded forest by planting at least 300,000 trees in just five years.
- The efforts of the Mirema Community Forest Association (CFA) caught the attention of the Kenya Forest Service, which stepped in to offer technical and management support.
- Key to the initiative’s success has been the combination of natural regeneration of existing trees in the forest, and the planting of native, nursery-grown seedlings.
- The KFS says it now expects the entire 810 hectares (2,000 acres) of the Mirema Forest to be restored by 2027, and is working on exporting the community’s methods to other reforestation projects across Kenya.
As Australia faces new fire reality, forest restoration tactics reevaluated
- More than 24 million hectares (59 million acres) burned during Australia’s devastating “Black Summer” bushfire season of 2019-2020, which formed part of a confirmed climate change-driven trend of worsening fire weather and larger, more intense forest fires.
- Scientists are still assessing the extent of the damage and are calling for a greater focus on understanding the effects of fires. Bushfires in Australia have been worsening for more than two decades as escalating drought places pressure on forest resilience and recovery.
- Since 2003, alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) and mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnens), the world’s tallest flowering plant, have been the focus of Victoria state’s largest post-fire reseeding effort ever. But the Black Summer fires caused foresters to reevaluate the effectiveness and future of this initiative.
- With future wildfires expected to see ferocity equal to the 2019-20 fire season, forest managers are questioning traditional tree restoration approaches, with some even wondering if regrowing forests is viable. Researchers are actively testing more interventionist approaches, such as replanting seeds and seedlings with genetically fire-resilient traits.
A mayor in the Philippines took on a mine, and lost her job over it
- When nickel mining firm Ipilan Nickel Corporation began felling trees in a protected forest in its concession area in Brooke’s Point, Palawan, Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano moved aggressively to stop them.
- After sending cease-and-desist orders and failing ultimately to prevent the felling of 7,000 trees, she used her authority to shut down the company’s operations and demolish onsite facilities.
- The company fought back, claiming it had the legal right to cut trees on the concession, and that Feliciano’s actions amounted to an abuse of authority.
- The Philippine Ombudsman sided with the company, ruling in July 2021 that Feliciano be suspended without pay for a year.
‘We should be pretty concerned’: Study shows only 15% of coastal regions still intact
- A new study has found that only 15.5% of the world’s coastal regions remain intact, while the majority of coastal areas are either highly or extremely impacted by human activities such as fishing, agriculture and development.
- The nations with the largest swaths of undamaged coastlines included Canada, Russia and Greenland.
- The researchers only had access to data up to 2013, so their findings are likely to be an underestimation.
- The study also did not factor in the impacts of climate change, which would place additional pressure on coastal regions.
Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.
Polluting with impunity: Palm oil companies flout regulations in Ecuador
- Community residents and researchers alike decry what they say is dangerous pollution leaching into soil and waterways from oil palm plantations and palm oil extraction mills in Ecuador.
- In July 2020, Ecuador’s government passed a law to strengthen and develop the production, commercialization, extraction, export and industrialization of palm oil and its derivatives.
- The law also prohibits oil palm plantations from being established within zones where communities’ water sources are located, and requires the existence of native vegetation buffers between plantations and water bodies.
- But critics say the regulatory portion of the law has been largely toothless and that the government has turned a blind eye to the social and environmental costs of the country’s rapid plantation expansion.
Community in Ecuador punished for trying to stop alleged palm oil pollution
- A legal loophole allowed palm oil companies in Ecuador to establish plantations on ancestral land that belongs to small communities.
- Community residents say that agricultural chemicals and waste from plantations and palm oil processing mills is polluting the water sources on which they depend.
- In an effort to stop the contamination of their water and the degradation of their land, residents of the community of Barranquilla spent three months occupying the access road to plantations surrounding their village in 2020.
- In retaliation, the company that owns and operates the plantations, Energy & Palma, sued four members of the community for lost profits; in Sep. 2021, courts ruled in the company’s favor and ordered the four to pay $151,000 to the company.
Zimbabwe’s forests go up in smoke to feed its tobacco habit
- Tobacco farmers are responsible for a fifth of the total annual deforestation in Zimbabwe, cutting down trees to burn in their curing barns.
- While the practice is not permitted, enforcement remains lax, and solutions such as establishing woodlots have not proved fast or scalable enough to address the problem.
- With Zimbabwe expected to produce 300,000 metric tons of tobacco by 2025, which will require burning 10 times as much wood, the current situation is unsustainable, officials warn.
Tukupu: The women of the Kariña community, guardians of Venezuela’s forests
- Tukupu is Venezuela’s first Indigenous forest business, sustainably managing and reforesting 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of the Imataca Forest Reserve in the south-east of the country.
- The business is led mainly by women who have used their ancestral knowledge to restore over 312 hectares (770 acres) of forest, reforest another 113 (280 acres) and dedicate 189 (468 acres) to agroforestry.
- According to the FAO, the equivalent of more than 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions have been avoided, either directly or indirectly, through the project.
- One of the key points of the project has been to figure out how the resources from the forest can be commercialised in a sustainable way that also benefits members of the community.
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.
Despite sanctions, U.S. companies still importing Myanmar teak, report says
- U.S. timber companies undercut sanctions to import nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, according to a new report.
- Advocacy group Justice for Myanmar said in its report that firms have been buying timber from private companies acting as brokers in Myanmar, instead of directly from the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions.
- With MTE under military control, Myanmar’s timber auctions have become more opaque, making it difficult to take action against companies circumventing sanctions.
Dual pressures of hunting, logging threaten wildlife in Myanmar, study shows
- Combating illegal logging in Myanmar’s Rakhine state helps preserve wildlife populations, but is insufficient without addressing unsustainable local hunting pressures, according to new research.
- Researchers used camera trap data from between 2016 and 2019 to investigate the effects of environmental and human factors on medium to large mammals.
- Common species regularly targeted for bushmeat were negatively affected by increased human presence, they found, highlighting the pressures of illegal hunting on their populations.
- By contrast, threatened species were generally unaffected by human presence, but were positively linked to continuous stretches of evergreen forest, indicating their vulnerability to illegal logging, deforestation and habitat loss.
Agricultural frontier advances in Nicaraguan biosphere reserve
- The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua encompasses some 1.8 million hectares, as well as smaller protected areas such as Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge, the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception, Bartola Nature Reserve, and the Solentiname Islands.
- The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve lost around 600,000 hectares of forest between 2011 and 2018.
- Satellite data show forest loss has intensified in the northern and central parts of the reserve since 2018, and only fragmented portions of primary forest remain.
- Sources said that the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the National Forestry Institute are responsible for ensuring the effective conservation of the country’s protected areas, but that they are not currently fulfilling their monitoring duties.
How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.
‘Rampant forest destruction’ wracks reserve as cattle ranching advances in Brazilian Amazon
- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station comprises some 3.37 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, and is home to hundreds of species – including some that are threatened with extinction.
- But despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with satellite data showing deforestation doubling in 2021.
- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land speculators spilling over from the neighboring Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become the most deforested slice of the Brazilian Amazon in recent years.
- Pending legislation could make it even easier to legalize illegitimate land claims, providing hope to land speculators and cattle ranchers that they could soon receive land titles for land they have deforested and occupied illegally.
Indonesia’s three most consequential forestry stories of 2021
- 2021 marked an inflection point for the fate of Indonesia’s rainforests, the largest expanse outside the Amazon and the Congo Basin.
- The year started out with news of a record drop in the deforestation rate in 2020, which the government attributed to its policies but which some observers say was due more to outside factors such as the pandemic.
- This was also the year that a moratorium on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations came to an end, with experts warning of an impending wave of forest clearing now that the policy has expired.
- Land conflicts pitting local and Indigenous communities against agribusiness companies and developers saw an increase despite the pandemic-driven economic slowdown, with observers pointing to a lack of effective conflict-resolution mechanisms.
‘Unprecedented’ fires in Madagascar national park threaten livelihoods and lemurs
- Ankarafantsika National Park protects an oasis of dry forest in northern Madagascar, providing vital habitat to critically endangered lemurs and other wildlife.
- In September and October, fires raged across the southern portion of the park, burning more than 40 square kilometers (15 square miles).
- While fire is a natural part of Ankarafantsika’s ecosystems, researchers say fire on this scale is “unprecedented” and amounting to a “conservation crisis.”
- The fires are also drying out the landscape and reducing neighboring communities’ crop yields, which conservationists warn could have knock-on effects for nearby forests as people turn to natural resources to survive.
How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.
Slashed forest protections ignites land grabbing frenzy in Brazilian Amazon
- Earlier this year, Rondônia’s legislative assembly voted to pass a law that reduced the extent of Guajará-Mirim State Park by roughly 50,000 hectares and reduced another nearby reserve to a sliver.
- The move effectively removed protections from nearly a quarter of the park, and critics say it “gave a free pass” to outsiders to move in, deforest and lay claim to land.
- Rondônia’s top court annulled the law in November, ruling the reduction of the park’s limits to be unconstitutional.
- But sources say the invasions into the park are continuing, and are
inching closer to vulnerable Indigenous and traditional communities in neighboring reserves.
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.
Where does the Greater Mekong’s illegal timber go?
- Not all lumber is created equal; within the Greater Mekong region, high-quality hardwoods such as Burmese teak and rosewood are particularly valuable and have been logged almost to commercial extinction.
- Burmese rosewood is highly sought after in China for furniture, while Burmese teak is popular in the European shipbuilding sector as decking for superyachts.
- Recognizing their role in Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, European Union member states developed a common position in 2017 acknowledging imports of Myanmar timber into the EU to be against the law due to their high risk of illegality.
- However, shipments continue to leak into the region through countries where enforcement is weaker, including Italy and Croatia.
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.
Why has illegal logging increased in the Greater Mekong?
- In recent decades, rich tropical forests of the Greater Mekong region have been steadily depleted by the world’s growing appetite for timber.
- Recognizing the impact of the timber trade on natural forests, governments in the Greater Mekong region have come up with laws to regulate logging and timber exports.
- However, insufficient political will and collusion between officials, businesspeople and criminal groups means enforcement is often limited.
- There is a clear need to strengthen local laws and enforcement, but pressure from foreign governments, businesses and consumers can help.
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.
With loss of forests, Bali villages find themselves vulnerable to disaster
- Bali’s Penyaringan village was hit by flash floods in September, which some have linked to the ongoing loss of its forest.
- While the village’s forest has been designated as a protected area, it’s still subject to encroachment by villagers for the planting of short-lived crops, a practice known locally as ngawen.
- To regulate the practice and regenerate the forest, the village formed a management body that restricts the extent and types of crops that villagers can grow and requires them to also plant trees.
In Brazil, an agribusiness haven’s green pivot leaves many skeptical
- The Amacro project was conceived in early 2020 as an agribusiness hub in a heavily deforested part of the Brazilian Amazon, but a year later is being touted as a hub for sustainable business.
- Now renamed the Abunã-Madeira Sustainable Development Area (ZDS), it stretches across 32 municipalities in the states of Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia, which last year accounted for nearly a quarter of the total deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The ZDS project aims to attract investments into a wide range of sectors, from agroforestry and fish farming, to tourism and logistics, as well as the agribusiness, while promising to avoid deforestation through technology to help boost agricultural productivity.
- Despite these green claims, prosecutors and nonprofit researchers say the prospect of new investment is already boosting land grabbing and deforestation in the area, and argue the best way to halt deforestation is to create protected areas — something that’s not included in the ZDS project.
Forests for sale: How land traffickers profit by slicing up Bolivia’s protected areas
- Shortly after Bolivia’s Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area was established in February 2021, authorities began receiving reports of invasions and deforestation in and around the new protected area.
- Local sources say land traffickers are illegally buying up plots of protected land to resell, often repeatedly, to third parties.
- Mongabay spoke with one of these third parties, a man who said he purchased access to land in Bajo Paraguá from land traffickers before being evicted by the same traffickers so that they could sell the land to someone else.
- The man said traffickers have resorted to threats of violence to intimidate local communities from reporting incursions.
Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Construction on Bali’s second major toll road, stretching from the island’s western tip to its urban center in the south, is set to begin this year.
- Environmental advocates say the project will obstruct water flows to dozens of irrigation sites across the island’s west.
- Some worry the project could impede conservation efforts in West Bali National Park.
The Greater Mekong region: A hotspot of wildlife and crime
- The global illegal timber trade generates up to $152 billion a year, accounting for up to 90% of deforestation in tropical countries and attracting the world’s biggest organized crime groups.
- Illegal logging is today responsible for 15% to 30% of global timber production. Estimates vary because complex international supply chains make it difficult to ensure the timber has been lawfully handled at every stage.
- Illegal logging is devastating forests in the Greater Mekong region, which consists of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and parts of China.
Indigenous groups call for gov’t intervention as land grabbers invade Bolivian protected area
- Bajo Paraguá – San Ignacio de Velasco Municipal Protected Area was created on February 12, 2021, to protect 983,000 hectares (about 2,429,045 acres) of primary forest in the Chiquitania region of Bolivia.
- But despite its new protected status, residents are reporting invasions and human settlements in Bajo Paraguá, claiming the colonizers were land traffickers.
- On-site investigation and satellite data and imagery show ongoing deforestation.
- Local leaders, including those of Indigenous groups that live in Bajo Paraguá, are calling for government intervention – while also alleging connections between land grabbers and government officials.
Côte d’Ivoire braces to save what’s left of its single-digit forest cover
- The Côte d’Ivoire government says it will work to pretect its remaining forests, following a national inventory that shows the country’s forest cover has declined to less than 9%.
- Forests are under pressure from expanding agriculture, including extensive cocoa and cashew plantations.
- The country’s southeastern Tanoé-Ehy forest shows a possible path forward; it’s the focus of a community-based forest management project, with efforts to declare it a voluntary natural reserve.
One in five hectares of oil palm in Indonesia is illegal, report shows
- A fifth of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, are operating illegally inside forest areas that are off-limits to commercial agricultural activity, a new report from Greenpeace shows.
- Half of these plantations are operated by corporations, and the other half by smallholders, indicating that nearly a third of registered palm oil companies in Indonesia have illegal plantations.
- These illegal plantations occupy protected areas such as national parks and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and overlap with the habitat of threatened wildlife like orangutans and tigers.
- Many of the companies identified in the report are members of so-called sustainability certification schemes like the RSPO and ISPO, pointing to a failure by these initiatives to address unsustainable practices.
Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.
COP26: E.U. is committed to forest biomass burning to cut fossil fuel use
- At COP26, Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s executive vice president, made clear that the E.U. is committed to ending its addiction to oil, gas and coal, but only if it can use the bridge of burning forest biomass to get to an eventual goal of fully utilizing truly renewable energy sources, like wind and solar.
- Timmermans maintains that the E.U. is committed to only burning “the right kind of biomass: You can collect dead wood, you can collect those elements of the forests that are no longer alive, fallen down, etc. That constitutes a serious amount of biomass.… As long as your definition is sustainable… we can work with biomass.”
- A forestry industry representative agrees: “The biomass we are currently using in Europe is about 95% based on local resources — that is residues from forestry and wood processing originating from Europe… We are currently harvesting significantly less than is regrowing annually in Europe.”
- But critics say whole trees are being burned to make wood pellets and ask how the E.U. can commit to both biomass burning and protecting carbon-storing forests. “No amount of allegedly nicer forest management can overcome the basic problem of large, immediate emissions from burning tons of biomass daily,” said one activist.
COP26: Surging wood pellet industry threatens climate, say experts
- With the U.N. climate summit (COP26) in its second week, Earth is on track to warm by 2.7° Celsius (4.86° Fahrenheit) by 2100, a catastrophic forecast based on projected carbon emissions. However, analysts say that those projections exclude major emissions currently escaping from biomass-burning power plants.
- A carbon accounting loophole in global climate change policy classifies burning woody biomass for energy as “carbon neutral,” and is accepted by the U.N. and many of the world’s nations. But scientists have proven otherwise, even as the forestry industry gets massive subsidies to produce millions of tons of wood pellets annually.
- Those subsidies are fueling rapid growth of the biomass industry, as forests are cut in the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Russia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The E.U. and U.K. are the largest biomass energy market, but with rapid expansion now occurring in Japan and South Korea, the biomass boom is just beginning.
- Scientists and activists say that to avoid disastrous global warming impacts, forest large biomass subsidies must end, which will make the industry unprofitable and free up funding for real climate solutions. But the topic is not even on the COP26 agenda, and action on the biomass burning issue anytime soon seems unlikely.
New restoration “Playbook” calls for political, economic, and social change
- Leading forest and climate experts have come up with a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration that accounts for climate change and forest loss as not just biophysical and environmental problems, but also deeply political, economic and social issues.
- It defines 10 principles for effective, equitable, and transformative landscapes that its authors say could be game-changing if followed.
- The playbook discusses the importance of ending fossil fuel subsidies and shifting those resources toward ecosystem restoration, renewable energy, and supporting the land rights of local and Indigenous communities that are protecting forests.
- The authors invite IUCN members and leaders at COP26 in Glasgow to consider adopting the Playbook to guide biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation in forests and, more broadly, call for structural changes from local to international scale.
Scientists urge Biden to remove logging, fossil fuels, biomass from budget bills
- More than 100 scientists have issued an open letter urging U.S. President Joe Biden and members of Congress to remove provisions promoting logging, forest biomass and fossil fuels from the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and reconciliation (Build Back Better) bills.
- Both bills contain provisions for logging for lumber and for forest biomass energy, with the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 5.
- Although the infrastructure bill promises $570 billion in tax credits and investments to combat climate change, it also includes a mandate for 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of “additional logging on federal public lands over the next 15 years.”
- “The logging and fossil fuel subsidies and policies in the Reconciliation and Infrastructure Bills will only intensify the rate and intensity of our changing climate,” the letter states.
Indonesia’s flip-flop on zero-deforestation pledge portends greater forest loss
- Indonesia says it never actually agreed to end deforestation by 2030 when signing up to a global pledge to halt and reverse forest loss at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.
- The country’s forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, says the pledge is unfair if it means that the country has to stop clearing its forests, since it still has to develop its economy to improve the welfare of its people.
- She says the government must not stop developing “in the name of carbon emissions, or in the name of deforestation.”
- Environmentalists say this indicates Indonesia has no intention of respecting the pledge; and in light of recent weakening of environmental safeguards, the country might see deforestation continue well into the future.
Indigenous lands under siege as buffalo frenzy grips the Amazon
- Deforestation is rising in Autazes, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, according to satellite data and local sources.
- Indigenous leaders say the clearing is now encroaching on the 18 Indigenous reserves that lie scattered across Autazes, some of which are still awaiting full demarcation.
- Most of the razed lots are being turned into grazing pastures for herds of domestic water buffalos, which thrive in the floodplains that characterize the region.
- Indigenous community members say that in addition to clearing forest for pasture, buffalo farming is polluting their water sources and roaming buffalos are invading communities’ subsistence farms.
COP26 deforestation-ending commitment must hold leaders accountable (commentary)
- Yesterday at COP26 world leaders announced an agreement to reverse and end deforestation within a decade.
- But lacking language on transparency, regular milestones, a binding legal framework, and a focus on human rights, this commitment may fail as others have before it.
- The New York Declaration on Forests of 2014 pledged to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030, yet rates of forest loss have been 41% higher in the years since. If world leaders are sincere about ending deforestation this time, there is one simple message: prove it.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
COP26 Glasgow Declaration: Salvation or threat to Earth’s forests?
- The U.N. climate summit underway in Glasgow, Scotland, served as a venue this week to announce the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use to the world. Signed by 100 countries representing 85% of the globe’s forested land, it pledges to end or reduce deforestation by 2030.
- The declaration comes on the heels of the failed 2014 New York Declaration for Forests–which had more than 200 national, private and civil service supporters–that promised to cut deforestation by 50% by 2020 and end it by 2030. Since then, deforestation has risen, contributing an estimated 23% of total carbon emissions.
- While some hailed this week’s Declaration, others warned that it’s $19.2 billion could be used to convert natural forests to plantations, which under current U.N. rules are counted as “forests.” Plantations to produce palm oil, paper or wood pellets (burnt to make energy), lack biodiversity and are less efficient at storing carbon.
- Said one NGO critical of the Glasgow Declaration: “Just as we must wind down use of fossil fuels, it’s also time for the industrial logging development model to be retired. Countries should apply an absolute moratorium on any further conversion of [natural] forests [to industrial plantations] — whether technically ‘legal’ or ‘illegal.’“
COP-26: Amazonia’s Indigenous peoples are vital to fighting global warming (commentary)
- The United Nations Climate Change summit, the 26th conference of the parties (COP-26), held in Glasgow Scotland through November 12, is important both for the future of the global climate and for Amazonian Indigenous peoples.
- Uncontrolled climate change threatens the Amazon forest on which Indigenous peoples depend, and Indigenous peoples in turn have an important role as guardians of the forest.
- Decisions on how international funds intended to avoid greenhouse gas emissions are used represent both opportunities and risks for the climate, for the forest, and for Indigenous peoples.
- Indigenous voices need to be heard at COP-26, as empowered stakeholders threatened by climate change, and for the invaluable traditional wisdom these peoples can contribute to global warming solutions. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
BR-319 highway hearings: An attack on Brazil’s interests and Amazonia’s future (commentary)
- Brazil’s proposed reconstruction of the BR-319, a highway connecting Manaus (in central Amazonia) with the “arc of deforestation” in southern Amazonia, would bring deforesters to vast areas of what remains of the Amazon forest.
- The forest areas in western Amazonia that would be opened by planned roads connecting to the BR-319 are vital to maintaining rainfall that supplies water to São Paulo and other major urban and agricultural areas outside the Amazon region.
- Holding public hearings allows a “box to be checked” in the licensing process — a key step in obtaining official approval for the highway project. The hearing was held despite impacted Indigenous peoples not having been consulted, among other irregularities.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
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.
Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Recent satellite data has shown a marked increase in the loss of tree cover in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province.
- Many of the alerts were near new or existing logging roads, indicating that the forest loss may be due to timber harvesting.
- Oil palm production is also growing, altering the face of a province that had more than 98% of its primary forest remaining less than a decade ago.
- The surge in land use changes has affected not only the environment in East New Britain, but also the lives of the members of the communities who depend on it.
Green groups call for scrapping of $300m loan offer for Borneo road project
- The Asian Development Bank is considering a $300 million loan proposal from the Indonesian government to fund a road project in Borneo.
- The 280-kilometer (170-mile) project across North and East Kalimantan provinces are designed to boost economic growth and further the integration of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industries.
- Environmental groups around the world have urged the ADB to impose stricter environmental and social requirements for the project to reduce its expected impacts on the environment and the Indigenous communities living in the region.
- Indigenous peoples like the Dayak rely on the forests staying intact, as do critically endangered species such as Bornean orangutans.
Math campus multiplies threats to Rio de Janeiro’s dwindling Atlantic Forest
- A plan to create a new mathematics campus with student accommodation in Rio de Janeiro is being challenged by residents as it calls for the removal of 255 trees in a patch of the already severely diminished Atlantic Forest.
- A study shows the construction site sits on a slope that poses a high geological risk, leaving residents worried about flooding and landslides in an area already affected by intense rainfall.
- Experts say there are irregularities in the licensing granted to the construction, and environmental laws are not being respected.
- The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), which is building the new campus, says all its licenses are in order, that it will reforest the area, and that the educational and social benefits will be worth it.
Forest biomass-burning supply chain is producing major carbon emissions: Studies
- U.S., U.K., and E.U. policymakers are failing to count the carbon emissions cost of the forest biomass industry, according to two new first-of-their-kind studies. Though biomass burning is legally classified as carbon neutral, the research found that none of the parties involved is counting emissions generated along the supply chain.
- One study estimated that wood pellets made in the U.S. and burned in the U.K. led to 13-16 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2019 alone, equal to the emissions of up to 7 million cars. Should biomass burning be instituted by other nations in the near future, a process already underway, the result could be climatically catastrophic.
- The findings should be carefully considered as representatives of the world’s nations prepare to meet for the COP26 climate summit in Scotland, said experts. “These studies make clear that current energy policy doesn’t match the overwhelming science on the impacts of biomass,” said a member of the U.K.’s House of Lords.
- However, there are presently no official plans to address the forest biomass carbon accounting issue at COP26, though NGOs are investigating inroads to negotiations.
Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.
To predict forest loss in protected areas, look at nearby unprotected forest
- To predict deforestation risk in a protected area, look at the condition of its surrounding forests, according to a new study.
- The study, which analyzed satellite images of protected forests worldwide, found nearby forest loss to be a consistent early warning signal of future deforestation in protected areas.
- Researchers said national park agencies can use their proposed model to predict how vulnerable protected areas in their countries are to deforestation, and prioritize conservation efforts accordingly.
- But even as these agencies work to protect forests, they should take into account the needs of local communities living in the area, the researchers said.
Paper giants’ expansion plans raise fears of greater deforestation in Indonesia
- Two paper giants, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), plan to significantly expand their production capacity in Indonesia.
- Activists warn that these plans could lead to increased deforestation of natural forest and peatlands in Indonesia to plant the pulpwood trees needed to meet this capacity, exacerbating the annual fire season.
- They say the projects are benefiting from the Indonesian government’s deregulation initiative that strips away environmental and social protections across a wide swath of industries, including pulp and paper.
- In response to the expansion plans, a coalition of 33 NGOs has sent a letter to APP’s financiers and buyers, asking them to refrain from doing business with the company.
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.
For companies eyeing net-zero carbon emissions, ‘no clue how to get there’
- Voluntary carbon markets have become the go-to for companies trying to achieve net-zero carbon, but curbing emissions is still most important, executives said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Voluntary carbon markets can drive huge amounts of finance into developing countries for conservation, serve as a price indicator for carbon, and help companies offset emissions, but must play a secondary role to decarbonization, they said.
- The business leaders added that companies recognize the need to curb emissions, but are struggling with choosing and implementing effective decarbonization solutions.
- The root of the problem is a lack of robust carbon measurement technology and methods, they said.
Forest finance expected to advance under new TREES standard and LEAF Coalition
- The latest edition of the TREES standard for forest carbon crediting attempts to bring together the best of what the private sector can do and the best of what governments can do to protect forests. It is explicit about how projects can be integrated into jurisdiction-level accounting.
- While effectively directing capital to forest communities on the ground, REDD+ projects have been dogged by methodological problems and what in some cases appear to be spurious claims of climate impact.
- The designers of TREES say that with its jurisdictional scale and transparent carbon accounting guidelines, it will better address the main credibility risks so far associated with REDD+ carbon credits.
- Almost 15 years after the original REDD framework, many regard TREES and the LEAF Coalition announced in April 2021 as the first real attempt at credible REDD+ implementation at scale.
When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.
Study fails to find link between increased deforestation and COVID lockdowns
- Macroeconomic analysis suggests deforestation trends have not changed significantly in the past year as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Lockdowns and layoffs, and the unprecedented stimulus spending in response to them, were expected to lead to a spike in deforestation, but this wasn’t the case, the analysis shows.
- Still, campaign groups say there are signs of unsustainable expansion plans among the forest products sector in Asia.
- Conservationists are calling on world leaders to use the climate change conference later this year to make recovery programs more sustainable.
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.
Deforestation sweeps national park in Brazil as land speculators advance
- Between January and early September, 3,542 deforestation alerts have been confirmed in primary forest within Campos Amazônicos National Park, according to satellite data, representing a 37% jump over the average amount of forest loss for the previous five years.
- Much of the occupation of the Campos Amazônicos park is happening through illegitimate land claims, fueled by hopes that protections on the park may be loosened in the future, environmentalists say. Even though the park is under federal protection, this hasn’t stopped invaders from falsely registering slices of it as their property.
- Environmentalists warn the social and environmental impacts could be devastating. Campos Amazônicos wraps around the Tenharim do Igarapé Preto Indigenous Reserve, which was until recently under attack by illegal miners who descended on the territory in search of cassiterite; sources say the fresh incursions into Campos Amazônicos could put the area back at risk.
- The park also holds one of the most striking enclaves of cerrado in the Amazon rainforest, housing stretches of shrubs, grasslands and dry forest typical of the savanna biome.
Campos Amazônicos is also part of the Southern Amazon Conservation Corridor that represents one of the best-preserved stretches of the rainforest.
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.
Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
- As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue in Myanmar, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat.
- On Sept. 6, environmental and democracy activist Kyaw Minn Htut became one of the latest political prisoners; authorities had detained his wife and 2-year-old son a day earlier.
- He had openly challenged the military and reported on illegal environmental activities, making him a “well-known and well-hated” target, fellow activists said.
- Some 20 environmental organizations across the world have signed a statement calling for Kyaw Minn Htut’s release.
Borneo’s bearded pigs and traditional hunters adapted to oil palms. Then came swine fever
- Oil palm expansion and urbanization have altered the traditional hunting of bearded pigs by the Indigenous Kadazandusun-Murut (KDM) community in Sabah, Malaysia, a new study has found.
- Researchers interviewed 38 hunters on changes in pig behavior and hunting practices before the African swine fever (ASF) epidemic hit Sabah in 2021.
- They found that even though pig hunting patterns have changed dramatically, the activity remains a cornerstone of KDM communal culture for food, sport, gift-giving, festivals and celebrations.
- As ASF devastates wild pig populations, the researchers’ findings highlight a need for long-term hunting management that conserves both the bearded pig and Indigenous cultural traditions.
Spike in deforestation detected in Papua concession linked to South Korea’s Moorim
- Satellite imagery has detected 965 hectares (2,384 acres) of tree loss from January to May this year in a concession run by a subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua.
- The findings appear to corroborate an earlier investigation, using drone images, that showed signs of clearing in peat swamp areas in the concession.
- Besides the alleged deforestation, Indigenous communities in the area have also reportedly been denied the right to give their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to the project.
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies Moorim’s paper products as sustainable, says its takes these allegations “very seriously”; Moorim did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment.
Palm oil firms in Papua hit back with lawsuit after permits are revoked
- Three palm oil companies are suing local officials in Indonesia’s West Papua province after their permits were revoked for a series of violations.
- The companies are seeking a reversal of the revocation, which locks them out of a combined 90,031 hectares (222,471 acres) of land in Sorong district, an area larger than New York City.
- The Sorong district head says he revoked the permits after a province-wide audit found a litany of violations by plantation license holders, including violations of the rights of Indigenous communities.
- The district head has received an outpouring support from civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and a national parliamentarian, who have all condemned the lawsuits.
Italian firms flout EU rules to trade in illegal Myanmar timber, report says
- Negligible fines and inadequate enforcement are turning Italy into a hotspot for illegal Myanmar timber, a new report has found.
- The report identified 27 Italian traders that have been importing Burmese teak into Europe despite a long-held common position acknowledging timber imports from Myanmar to be against the law.
- In June, the EU further imposed sanctions on the only possible source of legal timber in the country; yet traders did not confirm they would stop imports, the report said.
- Italian traders are exploiting the country’s inadequate enforcement to ship timber to the rest of Europe and circumvent the EU’s sanctions and timber regulations, the researchers wrote.
North American paper industry merger sets off environmental alarms
- Canadian firm Paper Excellence plans to acquire U.S. pulp and paper giant Domtar, with shareholders overwhelmingly approving the proposed merger.
- The acquisition signals Paper Excellence’s expansion in North America, something that environmentalists say will threaten Canada’s boreal forest.
- This is because Paper Excellence is reportedly controlled by the owners of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, which has a long track record of deforestation, forest and peat fires, and human rights violations.
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.
Next to India’s capital, a village looks to the past for its forest’s future
- For generations, a community outside India’s capital has worked to protect their sacred grove from outside interests like mining and real estate.
- Despite being a biodiversity hotspot, the protection status of this grove under India’s Forest Conservation Act remains in limbo.
- But conservationists and experts say they hope new archaeological findings will help the community get more secure legal protection for their grove.
Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region
- Authorities are battling an outbreak of wildfires in eastern Bolivia’s Chiquitania region.
- Satellite data show fires have intensified over the past two weeks and are invading protected areas.
- The fires are destroying habitat spared by Bolivia’s extreme fire season of 2019.
- Wildfires in Bolivia are often associated with burning for agriculture, and satellite data and imagery show recent fires on agricultural land that directly preceded nearby blazes that have spread into protected forest.
What makes mapping and monitoring zero-deforestation commitments effective?
- Experts have identified 12 attributes of effective zero deforestation commitment, or ZDC, mapping and monitoring systems.
- The attribute framework can be used to guide the development of effective ZDC mapping and monitoring systems.
- Having such a framework is important as there’s not a single one-size-fits-all ZDC mapping and monitoring system that will meet the needs of all users.
Highway cutting through Heart of Borneo poised to be ‘very, very bad’
- With Indonesia planning to shift its capital from Jakarta to the Bornean province of East Kalimantan, infrastructure development pressures on the island have intensified.
- Neighboring Malaysia is adding new stretches to the Pan Borneo Highway to capitalize on spillover economic benefits; within Indonesia, East Kalimantan’s developmental gains are also expected to trickle to other provinces through the transboundary highway.
- While the new roads could spur economic development in remote villages, they also carve into protected areas in the Heart of Borneo, opening them up for resource extraction.
- In particular, the roads could fast-track development of a new “oil palm belt,” with disastrous consequences for the wildlife and Indigenous peoples of Borneo, and for global climate, experts say.
Burning forests to make energy: EU and world wrestle with biomass science
- A major political and environmental dispute is coming to a boil in the run-up to COP26 in Scotland this November, as the EU and the forestry industry push forest biomass (turning trees into wood pellets and burning them to make electricity), claiming the science shows biomass is sustainable and produces zero emissions.
- Forest advocates and many scientists sit squarely on the other side of the argument, providing evidence that biomass burning is destructive to forests and biodiversity, is dirtier than coal, and destabilizing for the climate. Moreover, they say, the carbon neutrality claim is an accounting error that will greatly increase carbon emissions.
- These views collided in July when the European Commission called for only minor revisions to its legally binding Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) in regard to biomass policy as part of the EU Green Deal. Critics say the plan, if approved by the EU Parliament in 2022, will fail to protect global forests from the wood pellet industry.
- Here, Mongabay offers a review of the science on both sides of the biomass debate, summarizing key studies and reports, and providing links to primary sources for enhanced insight into these complex issues. The EU decision to include wood pellets as part of its clean energy mix could help shape global biomass policy at COP26.
A bad fire year predicted in Brazil’s Acre state. What’s to be done?
- As of Aug. 15, 29 major fires have been set this year in the southwestern Brazilian state of Acre, burning more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), compared to just one major fire reported by the same date last year, which burned 20 hectares (50 acres).
- A recent study found that unprecedented levels of fires burned in standing rainforest in 2019, which was neither a drought nor an El Niño year, meaning the risk of forest fires is rising, even when rainfall is normal.
- The authors say this adds to mounting evidence that the discourse and policies of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which began in January 2019, have relaxed regulations and emboldened land grabbers and those who set illegal fires.
- Researchers say they hope that new platforms to monitor and predict fires, as well as educational programs about fires and fire alternatives in schools, communities and on the radio will lead to behavioral changes and less fire, but say government support and investment is needed.
2015-2016 El Niño caused 2.5 billion trees to die in just 1% of the Amazon
- New research shows how a combination of high temperatures, intense drought, and human-caused fires resulted in dramatic forest loss in the Lower Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon.
- According to the authors, forest reduction meant that one of the world’s largest carbon sinks generated almost 500 million tons of CO2 emissions, an amount higher than the annual emissions of developed countries such as the U.K. and Australia.
- Due to climate change, more frequent extreme droughts are predicted to affect most of the Amazon basin in this century; in this scenario, the 2015 El Niño could be seen as a window into the future.
Loss of mangroves dims the light on firefly populations in Malaysia
- Firefly populations along the banks of the Rembau River in Malaysia have declined drastically in the past decade due to habitat loss, a new study has found.
- Researchers, who used satellite imagery to monitor changes in land use, found that conversion of Rembau’s mangroves to oil palm plantations and dryland forests were the top two factors behind the loss.
- Remote-sensing technology could help locals better understand the impact of various land use types on mangrove ecosystems and more efficiently prioritize areas for conservation.
Meet the kitten-sized, clown-faced monkey that’s leaping toward extinction
- The buffy-headed marmoset is down to no more than 2,500 individuals scattered across dwindling patches of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.
- It faces a range of threats, from yellow fever to climate change, but the biggest one is hybridization with other marmoset species released into its habitat from the pet trade.
- Conservationists working to save the species warn that populations are declining rapidly, with little funding for studies or captive-breeding programs, and a lack of political will under the current government to act urgently.
- One possible conservation solution is to establish “safe haven” forests for unmixed buffy-headed marmosets that will exclude hybrid animals, but this will difficult and costly, experts say.
U.S., Argentine investors tied to illegal land deals, deforestation in Brazil
- Reporting by Agência Pública has revealed how investors including U.S. pension funds and an Argentine agribusiness giant may be linked to illegal land deals and deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado region.
- The investors hold large stakes in BrasilAgro, a company that specializes in buying up land and selling it to agribusiness operators.
- Under Brazilian legislation that restricts land sales to foreign entities, the acquisitions by the largely foreign-controlled BrasilAgro have come under suspicion, with an investigation launched in 2016.
- While the probe is still ongoing, it has identified what experts say is a common practice of using shell companies and other legal subterfuges to skirt the restrictions.
EU sanctions no ‘silver bullet’ against Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, experts say
- The European Union has imposed sanctions on Myanma Timber Enterprise, a state-owned entity that regulates all harvesting and sales of Myanmar timber.
- The new sanctions mean it is now illegal for businesses in the EU to directly import any timber from Myanmar.
- While the sanctions send a strong political signal to the junta, experts say their actual impact on Myanmar’s illegal timber trade could be limited.
- Local activists are urging the international community to do more as globally significant tracts of forests in the country come under threat, with illicit logging financing the military’s repressive rule.
As soy frenzy grips Brazil, deforestation closes in on Indigenous lands
- A large swath of rainforest has been cleared and was burned on the edge of the Wawi Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The fire is one of many being set to clear land for soy cultivation, much of it legally mandated, as demand for the crop sees growers push deeper into the rainforest and even into Indigenous and protected areas.
- Enforcement against forest destruction has been undermined at the federal level, thanks to budget cuts and loosened restrictions by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- The burning threatens to compound health problems in Indigenous communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, while the use of agrochemicals on the soy plantations poses longer-term hazards.
Protected areas keep adjacent lands safe, but face losing their own protection
- Safeguarding nature in one area can displace harmful activities, such as illegal logging or mining, into another, a phenomenon known as leakage or spillover; but how big is the problem?
- The first systematic review of studies examining the effects of protected areas around the globe on their surrounding areas found that less than 12% showed evidence of leakage or spillover, while the majority (54%) reduced deforestation in surrounding areas.
- Another study found that protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon overwhelmingly blocked deforestation in the surrounding forest, again suggesting that protected areas inhibit deforestation both within and outside of their boundaries.
- Experts say environmental and regulatory rollbacks that loosen restrictions on land use, shrink boundaries, or altogether eliminate protections pose a much greater threat to the Amazon than leakage, and efforts should focus on keeping protected areas permanent and improving management and enforcement of regulations.
The science of forest biomass: Conflicting studies map the controversy
- A major political and environmental dispute is heating up as the forestry industry and governments promote forest biomass — cutting trees, turning them into wood pellets, and burning them to make electricity. They claim the science shows biomass to be sustainable, with the energy produced resulting in zero emissions.
- Forest advocates and many researchers sit squarely on the other side of the argument, providing evidence that forest biomass is destructive to forests and biodiversity, is dirtier than coal, and destabilizing for the climate. Moreover, they say, the carbon neutrality claim is an error that will greatly increase carbon emissions.
- These diverging viewpoints are colliding this week as the European Commission wrangles with revisions to its legally binding Renewable Energy Directive (REDII), with recommendations to the European parliament due this Wednesday, July 14, Analysts say the EU rules counting biomass as carbon neutral are unlikely to change.
- In this exclusive story, Mongabay provides a review of the science on both sides of the forest biomass debate, summarizing key studies and reports, and providing links to these primary sources to help readers decide for themselves.
In the Colombian Andes, a forest corridor staves off species extinction
- Recognized as one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, the tropical Andes host more than 10% of the planet’s biodiversity — roughly two million species of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms — of which only 10% have been identified.
- This precious ecosystem is in peril because, in the past few decades, 75% of natural habitat has been lost largely to agricultural expansion.
- La Mesenia-Paramillo Nature Reserve in the Colombian Andes is attempting to stave off the threat by restoring 3,500 hectares (8,650 acres) of degraded land and connecting about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of intact forest with the main Andean chain as a habitat corridor.
Forest advocates press EU leader to rethink views on biomass and energy
- EU officials are currently working to finalize REDII renewable energy policy revisions and amendments by mid-July for EU parliamentary review. One component of that review is to determine whether forest biomass burning will continue to be considered carbon neutral by the 27 EU member states.
- Current science is clear: burning forest biomass to make energy is not carbon neutral, and the burning of wood pellets is dirtier per unit of electricity than burning coal. But the forestry industry and EU continue defending biomass, prompting an open letter from forest advocates harpooning the policy.
- In the leadup to the updated REDII policy revision proposals, European Commission Exec. VP Frans Timmermans says he truly values forests, but simultaneously believes that cutting them down and burning them to make electricity remains viable climate policy. More than 50% of the EU’s current wood harvest is being burned for energy.
- “Ecocide threatens the survivability of our forests. I certainly don’t underestimate the challenges we face, but still, I believe [burning forest] biomass can play a very useful role in the energy transition,” says Timmermans.
From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Indonesia is home to 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of mangroves, more than any other country.
- These coastal forests, which serve as nurseries for countless fish species and help mitigate tidal flooding and tsunami waves, are being cleared for fish farms, charcoal production, and other commercial activities.
- The Indonesian government in 2020 announced a plan to replant 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of mangroves on degraded coastline by 2024.
- But an unsung army of ordinary Indonesians has been toiling around the country for decades to save and grow mangrove forests. These are some of their stories.
Illegal loggers use pandemic as cover to ramp up activity in Sulawesi
- Illegal logging on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island has intensified by more than two-thirds during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a local NGO.
- It attributes this increase to monitoring by law enforcers having to be scaled back as part of wider mobility restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic.
- At the same time, the legal logging industry has taken a hit due to sluggish demand and being undercut by the illegal trade.
- Police have charged a senior local politician with involvement in illegal logging.
Illegal clearing for agriculture is driving tropical deforestation: Report
- In a new report, NGO Forest Trends found that at least 69% of tropical forests cleared for agricultural activities such as ranching and farmland between 2013 and 2019 was done in violation of national laws and regulations.
- The actual amount of illegally deforested land is immense during that period – 31.7 million hectares, or an area roughly the size of Norway.
- The study notes that if tropical deforestation emissions tied to commercial agriculture were a country, it would rank third behind China and the U.S.
- Forest Trends president Michael Jenkins said that when governments view forests like Indigenous peoples do – far more valuable standing than clear cut – conservation at scale is possible.
Podcast: Reforestation is booming, but deforestation rose last year
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss newly released data that shows deforestation rose last year, even while tree planting initiatives took root across the globe.
- Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler joins us to discuss the 2020 deforestation data, how that data fits into broader trends affecting the world’s forests, and what good news there is to take out of last year’s deforestation numbers.
- We also welcome Mongabay staff writer Dr. Liz Kimbrough to the program to discuss the newly launched Reforestation Directory, a database of hundreds of reforestation projects from around the world that aims to help donors find the most effective tree-planting initiatives to fund.
Companies and officials flout forest-clearing moratorium in Papua, report finds
- A new Greenpeace report has identified a litany of loopholes and violations in Indonesia’s forest and palm oil moratoriums as well as other forest protection regulations.
- The report alleges that government officials routinely flout their own regulations to continue issuing licenses to plantation companies in the country’s eastern Papua region.
- Among the alleged violations are the constant changes to maps of forest that should be off-limits for plantations, and forest-clearing permits granted to companies that don’t meet the requirements.
Leaders make bold climate pledges, but is it ‘all just smoke and mirrors?’: Critics
- Forty nations — producers of 80% of annual carbon emissions — made pledges of heightened climate ambition this week at U.S. President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate. But as each head of state took to the podium, climate activists responded by pointing to the abysmal lack of action by those nations.
- As the U.S. promised to halve its emissions by 2030, advocates noted the lack of policies in place to achieve that goal, and the likelihood of intense Republican political resistance. China promised at the summit to eliminate coal plants, but 247 gigawatts of coal power is currently in planning or development stages there.
- The UK, EU, Japan, and South Korea all pledged to do more, but all are committed to burning forest biomass to replace coal — a solution relying on a longstanding carbon accounting error that counts forest biomass as carbon neutral, though scientists say it produces more emissions than coal per unit of electricity made.
- “This summit could be a critical turning point in our fight against climate change, but we have seen ambitious goals before and we have seen them fall flat. Today’s commitments must be followed with effective implementation, and with transparent reporting and accurate carbon accounting,” said one environmental advocate.
Indonesia’s bid to control deforestation wildly off-target, experts say
- Indonesia aims to transform its forests into a carbon sink by 2030 by reducing deforestation and increasing reforestation, as the country targets going carbon neutral by 2070.
- Experts say the plan is unrealistic given the current pace of deforestation and the fact that prevailing government policies still allow for a substantial amount of forest clearing for agriculture.
- A surge in global palm oil prices could also drive further deforestation in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity.
With British Columbia’s last old-growth at risk, government falters: Critics
- British Columbia’s ruling New Democratic Party last autumn pledged to conserve 353,000 hectares (1,363 square miles) of old-growth forest. But so far, the NDP has largely failed to act on this pledge, even as forestry companies rush to procure and cut old-growth in the Canadian province.
- Unless the government acts quickly on its commitment, BC’s last old-growth could be gone in as little as 5-10 years say some forest ecologists. In addition, intense logging could mean that Canada is not going to meet its Paris Climate Agreement carbon-reduction goals.
- While the NDP promised a new policy boosting forest perseveration over forestry, critics say that — despite its rhetoric — the government continues to prop up an industry in decline to help rural communities in need of jobs.
- While it’s not now cutting BC old-growth, activists worry over the acquisition by U.K. Drax Group of BC’s largest wood pellet producer, Pinnacle Renewable Energy and its seven BC pellet mills. Drax provides up to 12% of the U.K.’s energy at the world’s largest pellet-burning plant. Its BC exports to Japan are also expected to grow.
Only 6.5% of global forests are adequately protected, study finds
- Designating land as a protected area (PA) reduces, but does not stop, deforestation, according to a recent study that found rates of deforestation are only 41% lower in PAs compared to non-PAs.
- After adjusting for PA effectiveness, they found that only 6.5% of forests are adequately protected — a far cry from the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Aichi Target of 17%.
- Larger PAs had higher levels of deforestation. Africa, Europe and South America had the highest rate of forest loss within PAs. When the effectiveness of PAs was considered, China had the lowest percentage of truly protected lands.
- As new CBD targets are negotiated, the authors, along with other scientists, propose that new targets and PA establishment include quality measures. The current targets have created “a policy incentive to value total PA area above PA effectiveness,” the paper says.
Cambodians fight the ‘cancer’ eating away at Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary
- Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in eastern Cambodia and is home to some of the country’s last large tracts of old-growth rainforest, as well as endangered wildlife and Indigenous communities.
- Like many of Cambodia’s protected areas, Prey Lang is beset by Illegal logging; satellite data show deforestation, which dropped for two years after Prey Lang was gazetted as a protected area in 2016, has been rising quickly since 2019.
- Sources say timber companies are behind the illegal logging in Prey Lang, and that the situation is being facilitated by government corruption and international complicity.
- Meanwhile, environmental activists say they are being jailed for documenting illegal logging operations in Prey Lang and silenced when speaking out against deforestation.
The Hungry Mills: How palm oil mills drive deforestation (commentary)
- In this commentary, Earthworm Foundation’s Rob McWilliam argues that palm oil mills are playing a large role in driving the palm oil industry’s destruction of the world’s rainforests, and that this role is often ignored.
- McWilliam writes that new research shows how to end the damage palm oil mills are causing.
- This article is a commentary and the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
When a tree falls in the forest, it’s the birds that don’t make a sound, study finds
- A new study evaluated soundscape saturation in a tropical forest in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, before, during and after selective logging activities.
- It found that animal sounds promptly dropped after selective logging, but that the soundscape would recover after about a year. But two or three years after logging, soundscape saturation diminished again.
- Insects appeared to be less affected by selective logging than birds, the study found.
- Another expert not involved in the study says more realistic findings would have been obtained by recording the sounds from random locations in the forest instead of at the specific logging sites.
As Amazon forest-to-savanna tipping point looms, solutions remain elusive
- Leading scientists project that if an additional 3-8% of rainforest cover is lost in the Amazon, it may overshoot a forest-to-degraded-savanna tipping point. That shift could mean mega-drought, forest death, and release of great amounts of stored carbon to the atmosphere from southern, eastern and central Amazonia.
- Despite this warning, Brazilian Amazon deforestation hit an 11-year high in 2020. Government clampdowns on environmental crime greatly decreased deforestation in the past, but Brazil is now facing a political backlash led by President Jair Bolsonaro, resulting in agribusiness and mining expansion and deforestation.
- Market efforts to create incentives have been ineffective. A public-private plan to cut deforestation led by Mato Grosso state has not met its environmental targets, even as agricultural lands increased. Amazonas, Acre and Rondônia — Bolsonaro-aligned states — are pushing for the creation of a new agriculture frontier.
- Indigenous communities, because they’re the best land stewards, should be at the forefront of public policy to conserve the Amazon, say experts, but instead they face poverty and marginalization by the institutions responsible for securing their land rights. International response to the Amazon crisis has also lagged.
European public roundly rejects Brazil trade deal unless Amazon protected
- The gigantic trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur South American bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), if ratified, would be the biggest trade deal in history, totaling US $19 trillion.
- However, an extremely poor environmental record by the Mercosur nations, especially Brazil, has become a stumbling block to clinching the agreement. In new polling 75% of respondents in 12 European nations say the EU-Mercosur trade pact should not be ratified if Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil doesn’t end Amazon deforestation.
- France, the Parliaments of the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium’s Walloon region, have announced they will not endorse the trade pact. The ratification also finds resistance by Ireland and Luxembourg. Portugal’s government appears ready to move forward with ratification without environmental safeguards put in place.
Nearly one-third of all oak species threatened with extinction, report says
- Nearly one-third of all oak species (31%) are considered threatened with extinction, according to a new report.
- Of all 430 species of oaks, the highest number of species under threat are found in China, Mexico, Vietnam, and the United States, respectively.
- Globally, agriculture poses the biggest threat to oaks. Urban development, climate change, invasive species, plant diseases, and human disturbance have also strained oaks globally. And in Latin America, which has the highest number of endemic oak species, the use of oak for charcoal is a threat.
- Many of the threats to oaks must be tackled with “transformative systemic change,” but individual actions such as monitoring the oaks in your area, donating to local conservation NGOs, spreading awareness, and switching to more efficient fuels and stoves that do not rely on charcoal could relieve some of the pressures on threatened species.
Myanmar’s troubled forestry sector seeks global endorsement after coup
- Two days after the military coup in Myanmar on Feb. 1, the nationally privatized Myanmar Forest Products and Timber Merchants Association (MFPTMA) released a statement claiming its timber trade is fully in compliance with legal and official deforestation guidelines intended govern international exports.
- The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has publicly countered the letter, saying that Myanmar’s timber trade is highly corrupt and does not comply with international policies such as the EU’s Timber Regulation.
- Expert critics say the letter was motivated by money, and that any subsequent timber trade would directly benefit the ongoing military coup, which has been promised to last for at least a year.
- The EIA has called for placing economic sanctions on Myanmar, particularly in regard to the timber trade, until power is handed back to the democratically elected government.
Brazil guts agencies, ‘sabotaging environmental protection’ in Amazon: Report
- A new report documents draconian budget cuts to Brazilian environmental monitoring and firefighting of 9.8% in 2020, and 27.4% in 2021 — reductions, analysts say that were inflicted by the Bolsonaro administration in “a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies.”
- Brazil’s environmental agencies under Bolsonaro have also been subjected to nearly 600 administrative and rules changes, invoked by presidential executive order and resulting in massive environmental deregulation.
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared, with an increase of 34% in the last two years, even as capacity to punish environmental criminals fell sharply due to funding shortages. Fines imposed for illegal deforestation, instead of rising during this Amazon environmental crime wave, fell by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
- Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental agencies and protections, two Indigenous leaders — Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Paiter Surui Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.”
Lasers find forest gaps to aid tree mortality studies in Brazilian Amazon
- Using airborne light detection and ranging technology, more commonly known as “lidar,” a team of researchers remotely studied tree death and canopy gaps across the Brazilian Amazon.
- Gaps in the forest, the researchers found, were mostly driven by water stress, soil fertility, floodplains and forest degradation. The data also pointed to strong correlations between the patterns of tree gaps and water deficit, a lack of water that can slow down photosynthesis.
- In the southeastern and western Amazon, a pattern of 20 to 35% higher gap dynamics emerged, meaning trees are dying and creating gaps more frequently there than in other regions.
- Aircraft lidar is helpful for studying remote areas of the Amazon and could be used effectively to monitor for illegal logging and deforestation, as well as for calibrating satellite technology.
Papua tribe moves to block clearing of its ancestral forest for palm oil
- Members of the Auyu tribe of Papua, Indonesia, are demanding a halt to the operations of palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari (IAL), which appears to be gearing up to clear their ancestral forests.
- They say that the company failed to obtain the community’s consent for the project, and that it’s not clear whether it even has the requisite permits to begin operations.
- IAL’s concession is part of the Tanah Merah megaproject that is already dogged by allegations that key operating permits have been falsified.
- The Papua region is home to the world’s third-largest contiguous swath of tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo Basin, but large areas may be cleared for plantations.
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.
Only 40% of world’s forests have high ecological integrity, a new index reveals
- Of the world’s remaining forests, only 40% are intact, with high ecological integrity, according to data from a newly developed index that’s the first of its kind to measure forest conditions on a global scale.
- The Forest Landscape Integrity Index, an open-source tool created by 47 global conservation and forests experts, is a measure of human impact on forests.
- High-integrity forests are found mostly in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea; of the remaining high-integrity forests, only 27% are currently in nationally designated protected areas.
- Conserving forests is a critical part of achieving the international Sustainable Development Goals, and understanding where high-quality, intact forests remain may inform conservation planning.
Palm oil giant Wilmar unfazed as watchdogs cry foul over Papua deforestation
- Forest-monitoring groups have independently flagged the recent cutting down of natural forests inside an oil palm concession in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua.
- The concession is managed by PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS), a supplier to Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil trader, whose customers include Unilever, Kellogg’s and Nestlé.
- Wilmar’s investigation into the reports concluded that the actual deforestation is much smaller than alleged and was done by smallholder farmers and not MPHS.
- The watchdogs dispute this, however, saying the clearing occurred in areas that should have been off-limits under Wilmar’s own stated commitments to sourcing only sustainable palm oil.
As Amazon deforestation hits 12 year high, France rejects Brazilian soy
- As Brazil continues deforesting and burning the Amazon at an alarming rate, France has announced plans to drastically reduce its dependency on Brazilian soy flour and “stop importing deforestation.”
- France currently is the EU’s largest importer of Brazilian soy flour, buying 1.9 million tons annually. “Our target today is [cutting] soybean imports coming from the American continent,” said the French Minister of Agriculture and Food this week.
- While the loss of its soy sales to France is of concern to Brazilian soy producers and commodities companies, agribusiness has expressed greater anxiety over whether Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s continued anti-environmental rhetoric and policies will provoke a largescale international boycott of Brazilian commodities.
- They especially fear the president’s hardline could risk ratification of the Mercosur trade agreement between the EU and South American nations, including Brazil. This week the EU ambassador to Brazil said that the agreement is now in standby, awaiting the country’s concrete actions to combat deforestation and Amazon fires.
Planned road to bisect pristine, biodiverse Brazilian Amazon national park
- The BR-364 highway stretches for 4,325 kilometers across Brazil, ending in Acre state. Now authorities, backed by Acre’s state government and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, want to extend it with a 152-kilometer branch road through Serra do Divisor National Park, near demarcated Indigenous reserves, and to the Peru border.
- Meanwhile, the Brazilian Congress is moving a bill forward to fast track the branch road’s approval by degrading the conservation status of the national park and reclassifying it as an APA, an Área de Proteção Ambiental, which would allow timber harvesting, ranching, agriculture and mining.
- Environmentalists and Indigenous communities warn that the planned road and the reduction in protections for Serra do Divisor National Park would open up the conservation unit and a pristine portion of the Brazilian Amazon, providing access to loggers, cattle ranchers and landgrabbers.
- Though the road is still not approved, local sources say as much as 30 kilometers of forest along the route have already been cleared to the park’s border. “With each day, each year that passes, the deforestation advances further. The destruction of humans is relentless… And for us, it’s really difficult to witness,” said one Indigenous leader.
Trans-Purus: Brazil’s last intact Amazon forest at immediate risk (commentary)
- Brazil’s remaining Amazon forest is roughly divided in half by the Purus River, just west of the notorious BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway. To the west of the river lies the vast “Trans-Purus” region — intact rainforest stretching to the Peruvian border. To the east, the forest is already heavily deforested, degraded and fragmented.
- Multiple threats are now closing in on the Trans-Purus region, and expected to increase greatly with the impending “reconstruction” of the BR-319. Planned roads linked to the BR-319 would open the Trans-Purus region to land grabbers (grileiros), organized landless farmers (sem-terras) and other actors from Brazil’s “arc of deforestation.”
- A massive planned gas and oil project would also likely lead to new road connections to the other planned highways in the Trans-Purus area, opening even more of the region to invasion. Asian oil palm and logging companies are among those with a historical interest in the area.
- This last large block of intact Brazilian Amazon forest is essential for ecosystem services — maintaining biodiversity, carbon stocks, and the forest water cycling functions essential for rainfall in other parts of Brazil and neighboring countries. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Multiplying Amazon river ports open new Brazil-to-China commodities routes
- Nearly 100 major industrial river ports have been built on the Brazilian Amazon’s major rivers over the past two decades. Many of the projects have been internationally financed and built by commodities companies with little government oversight.
- These ports have transformed the region, opening it to agribusiness and the export of commodities, especially soy, to China and the rest of the world. However, this boom in port infrastructure often came at the expense of the environment and traditional riverine communities.
- Today, more than 40 additional major river ports are planned in the Amazon biome on the Tapajós, Tocantins, Madeira and other rivers, projects again being pursued largely without taking cumulative socioenvironmental impacts into account.
- “What resources do these soy men bring to our city?” asked Manoel Munduruku, an Indigenous leader. “They only bring destruction.”
Brazil’s Bem Querer dam: An impending Amazon disaster (commentary)
- Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has announced his administration’s priorities for Amazon dams, including the planned Bem Querer dam on the Rio Branco in the far-northern state of Roraima.
- Bem Querer is primarily intended to increase the energy supply to industries in locations outside of Amazonia, rather than for residents of Roraima.
- Probable environmental impacts include blocking fish migrations and flooding a riparian forest that possesses extraordinary bird diversity. Downstream flow alteration would impact protected areas, including two Ramsar wetland biodiversity sites. Riverside dwellers would also be impacted.
- Sediment flow blockage would impact fisheries and the unique Anavilhanas Archipelago, a spectacular Brazilian national park. These adverse impacts need to be fully evaluated before a decision to build is made. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Palm oil giant Korindo accused again of illegally burning Papuan rainforest
- An independent investigation based on satellite imagery has concluded that palm oil giant Korindo deliberately set fires to clear rainforest in its concession in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- Researchers from the University of London’s Forensic Architecture group and Greenpeace found that the spread and speed of the burning matched the pattern of land clearing, and didn’t appear as random as fires on neighboring concessions.
- The finding is the latest allegation of illegal burning by Korindo, which is accused of having cleared a Chicago-sized area of rainforest in Papua.
- The company accuses nearby villagers of setting the fires, but the villagers’ accounts of Korindo employees starting the fires matches with the burn periods determined by the analysis.
BR-319: The beginning of the end for Brazil’s Amazon forest (commentary)
- Brazil’s planned reconstruction of the BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) Highway paralleling the Purus and Madeira rivers would give deforesters access to about half of what remains of the country’s Amazon forest, and so is perhaps the most consequential conservation issue for Brazil today.
- The highway route is essentially a lawless area today, and the lack of governance is a critical issue in the battle over licensing the highway reconstruction project.
- The BR-319 upgrade would link the current “arc of deforestation” to central Amazonia, allowing movement of deforestation actors to all forest locations with road links to Manaus, while a planned BR-319 connecting road would open the vast forest area between the BR-319 and the Peruvian border.
- The BR-319 Environmental Impact Assessment has many flaws, including ignoring impacts beyond those adjacent to the highway. The EIA also contains passages admitting to some disastrous project impacts. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazil’s Amazon dam plans: Ominous warnings of future destruction (commentary)
- Brazil’s current 10-year Energy Expansion Plan calls for three more large dams in Amazonia by 2029, and Brazil’s 2050 National Energy Plan lists many more.
- Both plans contain ominous passages explaining that the list of dams could expand if “uncertainty” is resolved regarding current regulations protecting Indigenous peoples and protected areas for biodiversity.
- Brazil’s National Congress is considering bills to eliminate environmental licensing; a bill submitted by President Jair Bolsonaro would allow dams on Indigenous lands. Brazil’s dam-building plans to satisfy 2050 energy demand extend to neighboring Amazonian nations, including Peru and Bolivia.
- The 2050 plan essentially admits that dams on Indigenous lands and within other protected areas are not necessary because the electricity could be generated by offshore wind power. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Paper giant APRIL linked to Borneo forest clearing despite zero-deforestation vow
- One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper producers, APRIL, is alleged to have violated its own zero-deforestation commitment by sourcing wood from a company clearing rainforest in Indonesian Borneo, a new report says.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.
On a Philippine mountain, researchers describe a ‘fire flower’ orchid species
- A new wild orchid species, Dendrochilum ignisiflorum, has been described in the Philippine province of Benguet in the northern Cordilleras mountain range.
- This fiery orange orchid belongs to a genus found in high-elevation forests in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines, Borneo and Sumatra.
- The scientists who described it say the species is threatened by climate change, which could make its niche range uninhabitable.
- The mountain where it’s found is also an increasingly popular tourist spot, while the forests in the area around it are being cleared for agriculture.
Indonesia’s food estate program eyes new plantations in forest frontiers
- The Indonesian government says it will expand a national “food estate” program by establishing millions of hectares of new crop plantations in Sumatra and Papua.
- The program is currently centered in Indonesian Borneo, where it occupies the site of an identical project from the 1990s that failed spectacularly.
- To expand the project into North Sumatra and Papua, the government is seeking out private investors; but activists say this risks a repeat of the current corporate takeover of Indigenous and community lands.
- The government is also reportedly considering lifting the forest status of more than a million hectares of rainforest in Papua so that it can clear the area for farmland.
Alcoa vs. the Amazon: How the ribeirinhos won their collective land rights
- In 2009, communities of ribeirinhos (traditional riverine settlers) launched a major land rights protest in the Amazon against Alcoa, the transnational mining company. Their action led to an agreement that proved decisive not only for the ribeirinhos, but for collective land rights activists across Brazil.
- Alcoa came to Juruti, Pará state, Brazil in 2000 with big plans to mine for bauxite. At first, the 44 communities on the south bank of the Amazon River, made up of Indigenous and traditional peoples, supported the plan, hoping it would bring jobs and prosperity.
- But land rights organizers argued the mine would be a disaster for the environment, traditional livelihoods and culture. Attempts to block the mine failed. But efforts to get collective land rights recognized, along with financial compensation, were successful.
- The government granted full collective land rights, and Alcoa agreed to pay rent for occupying community land, compensate for losses and damages, and give locals an annual share in mine profits. Land rights activists have pursued similar goals — with varying success — in the Amazon ever since.
Study finds a Mexico-sized swath of intact land lost to human pressure
- A new study has found that human activities contributed to the loss of 1.9 million square kilometers (734,000 square miles) of intact land between 2000 and 2013, and that more than half of the world is under moderate or intense pressure from humanity.
- The most substantial losses occurred in tropical and subtropical grassland, savanna, and shrublands, while the most intact regions were tundras, boreal and taiga forests, deserts and xeric shrublands.
- The team is currently working on an update to produce near real-time results of land degradation for the past seven years.
- These findings can help inform policies and aid conservation monitoring efforts, according to the researchers.
Amazon meatpacking plants, a COVID-19 hotspot, may be ground zero for next pandemic
- The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines.
- But slaughterhouses are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
- Nearly a third of cases where diseases spread from animals to human beings occurred because their natural environments were invaded and destroyed, which puts Brazil’s beef industry, centered in the Amazon, at particularly high risk.
- Yet despite the economic fallout from the pandemic, the financial market keeps ignoring this risk and supporting the beef companies most exposed to deforestation in the Amazon.
In bid to protect a Philippine pangolin stronghold, little talk of enforcement
- Provincial and municipal authorities on the Philippine island of Palawan are drawing up management plans aimed at boosting protection for the Victoria-Anepahan Mountain Range, a key habitat of the Philippine pangolin.
- The 165,000-hectare (408,000-acre) is not a formally protected area, and suffers from deforestation driven by illegal logging, as well as massive poaching and illegal trade of its wildlife, including pangolins.
- The critically endangered Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis), found only in Palawan, is one of the most trafficked animals on Earth, with its population declining by up to 95% between 1980 and 2018.
- Critics of the management plan say it will be a bureaucratic waste of resources without efforts to step up enforcement measures to curb the illegal trade of pangolins and other wildlife in the mountain range.
Experts question integrity of Indonesia’s claim of avoided deforestation
- The $103.8 million is payment for 20.3 million tons of avoided emissions from 2014-2016, but observers, including on the GCF board, have questioned the way the Indonesian government arrived at that figure.
- Among the contentious points: a reference level that may be inflated, possible double counting, and persistent state neglect of Indigenous rights.
- The government says the process was transparent, and may be eligible for even more funding once it starts accounting for peatland fires in its baseline calculations.
How do we avert global warming, extinctions and pandemics? New app has answers
- A new online platform shows where best to protect land in order to safeguard biodiversity and stem carbon emissions.
- The Global Safety Net combines six primary data layers: existing protected areas, habitats where rare species live, areas of high biodiversity, landscapes inhabited by large mammals, large areas of intact wilderness and natural landscapes that can absorb and store the most carbon.
- Overall, they found that in addition to the 15.1% of the world’s land already protected, 35.3% will need to be added to fold over the next 10 years. This means that ultimately 50% of the planet’s land area will need to be protected from further degradation to keep the world under the 1.5-degree threshold and stave off ecological collapse.
- The researchers say that reducing deforestation in these areas will also reduce the risk of disease outbreak, which studies have linked to habitat loss.
Friday night follies: Brazil cuts deforestation funding, then restores it
- More than 500 major fires were reported in the Amazon as of last week, most of them illegal. Which is why it seemed a strange moment for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro administration to announce it was defunding all deforestation and firefighting efforts by government agencies in the Amazon forest and Pantanal wetlands biomes.
- The cuts, totaling R $60 million (US $11.1 million), would have come from the budgets of IBAMA, the nation’s environmental agency, and ICMBio, its national parks agency. Within hours of the funding reduction announcement, the government reversed itself and restored the money taken away.
- Since then experts have argued theories as to the reason for the government’s erratic actions. Some say it is a means of making a show of the anti-environmental policy the administration would truly like to put forward, but cannot for fear of international censure. Others see it as political maneuvering with the Bolsonaro administration.
- Analysts point out that the budget cuts made no fiscal sense, since IBAMA’s most expensive contracts for helicopter and vehicle rentals to curb deforestation and do firefighting are paid up through April 2021 by the Amazon Fund, money mostly provided by Norway and Germany, with more than R $60 million available.
Key Amazon grain route blocked by Indigenous protest over funding, Grainrail
- The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have been blockading the BR-163 highway since 17 August. The BR-163 is a primary route for soy and corn being moved from Brazil’s Amazon interior toward the Atlantic coast for export to China and the European Union.
- The closure is in protest of potentially lost federal funding that the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti use in part to self-protect the Baú and Mekrãgnoti Indigenous Territories from invasion by land grabbers and illegal loggers. The reserve covers 11.3 million hectares (43,630 square miles) in Pará state.
- A second source of conflict: GrainRail, a proposed 934 kilometer (580 mile) railroad, which would run parallel to the BR-163. The railway’s development has been approved by the Brazilian government without an internationally required Indigenous consultation, according to the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti people.
- A federal judge has ordered police to remove the blockade, but a meeting is scheduled for today and expected to run late into the evening to seek a negotiated settlement. The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti are also demanding COVID-19 assistance. So far, 403 Indigenous people from the reserves have been infected and four have died, all elders.
Harvard’s half-billion land stake in Brazil marred by conflict and abuse
- Harvard University has plowed $450 million of its $40 billion endowment in Brazil, most of it to buying up at least 405,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land in the Cerrado.
- This is a region where major landowners have racked up human rights violations against smallholder farmers and crimes against the environment.
- Most investments in land in this region are purely speculative; while the land goes unused, locals are deprived of their water sources, farmland and other resources.
- Harvard would not comment on its Brazilian investments specifically, but said it is trying to divest from unsustainable ventures. But even as it has trouble finding buyers for the farms, it continues to profit from the appreciating value of the land.
Indigenous best Amazon stewards, but only when property rights assured: Study
- New research provides statistical evidence confirming the claim by Indigenous peoples that that they are the more effective Amazon forest guardians in Brazil — but only if and when full property rights over their territories are recognized, and fully protected, by civil authorities in a process called homologation.
- Researchers looked at 245 Indigenous territories, homologated between 1982 and 2016. They concluded that Indigenous people were only able to curb deforestation effectively within their ancestral territories after homologation had been completed, endowing full property rights.
- However, since the study was completed, the Temer and Bolsonaro governments have backpedaled on Indigenous land rights, failing to protect homologated reserves. Also, the homologation process has come to a standstill, failing its legal responsibility to recognize collective ownership pledged by Brazil’s Constitution.
- In another study, researchers suggest that a key to saving the Amazon involves reframing our view of it, giving up the old view of it as an untrammeled Eden assaulted by modern exploitation, and instead seeing it as a forest long influenced by humanity; now we need only restore balance to achieve sustainability.
Favoring ayahuasca over hospitals, Indigenous Kokama see COVID-19 deaths drop in the Amazon
- The Kokama were the first Indigenous group in Brazil to be infected with COVID-19, and to date there have been more than a thousand confirmed cases and 60 deaths within the community.
- Wary of Western medicine and of the prejudice and neglect they say they suffer at hospitals, the community decided to turn to traditional healing practices, administered by shamans. Their weapon in the fight against the coronavirus is the ayahuasca ritual, considered by the Kokama their most powerful cure.
- In the past six weeks, the community has recorded just four deaths from COVID-19, compared to 56 during the previous two months, when they were still seeking hospital treatment.
- The reduction in the death rate is the result they say they expected when they shunned regional hospitals, many of which have struggled to treat patients in the midst of the pandemic and where indigenous peoples have fared particularly poorly, in favor of their traditional medicines combined with hygiene practices and social distancing.
All talk, no walk: ‘Green’ financiers still support Amazon beef industry
- Regulatory initiatives to promote responsible investment are falling short, even in Europe, where the most rigid rules haven’t been able to prevent investors continuing to pump money into the Brazilian beef industry.
- In the U.S., similarly, financial giants like BlackRock tout their green investment credentials while still investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the top three meatpackers buying cattle from the Amazon.
- In Brazil, investment guides, manuals and recommendations by various market groups, along with rules issued by the central bank, have had little effect on the flow of investments into meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva.
Paper maze and lack of transparency cloak investment in companies involved in Amazon deforestation
- Lack of transparency prevents individual investors from knowing where their money is going to and allows majors investors to cloak their contributions to meatpackers who operate in the Amazon.
- Despite a Brazilian Central Bank law, brokers ignore environmental risk assessment when suggesting clients to invest in meatpackers.
- Meatpacking and retail companies use dozens of subsidiaries and even tax havens to hide the origins of their investments.
Deforestation in the Amazon is drying up the rest of Brazil: Report
- The center-west, south and part of the southeast regions of Brazil have seen rainfall well below average in recent years.
- Agriculture is the first sector to feel the effects of the drought, with drastic losses in production. Water supply and power generation have also been impacted.
- Agribusiness suffers the consequences of drought but also causes it: Deforestation of the Amazon to clear land for livestock, farming and logging affects the rainfall regime in Brazil and other Latin American countries.
- “South America is drying up as a result of the combined effects of deforestation and climate change”, says scientist Antonio Donato Nobre.
Brazil dismantles environmental laws via huge surge in executive acts: Study
- Between March and May 2020, the government of Jair Bolsonaro published 195 infralegal acts — ordinances, normative instructions, decrees and other measures — which critics say are an indirect means of dismantling Brazil’s environmental laws and bypassing Congress. During the same period in 2019, just 16 such acts were published.
- In April, 2020 Environment Minister Ricardo Salles suggested that the administration “run the cattle” which experts say, within the context Salles used the phrase, is a euphemism for utilizing the COVID-19 crisis as a means of distracting Brazilians from the administration’s active undermining of the environmental rule of law.
- A partial study of the 195 acts has found that they, among other things, allow rural landowners who illegally deforested and occupied conserved areas in the Atlantic Forest up to July 2008 to receive full amnesty for their crimes. Another change pays indemnities to those who expropriated properties within federal conservation units.
- Shifts in administration management responsibilities have also resulted in what experts say is a weakening of regulations granting and managing national forests, and the relaxation of supervision over fisheries that could allow increased illegal trafficking in tropical fish. A study of the repercussions of all 195 acts is continuing.
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.
Goldminers overrun Amazon indigenous lands as COVID-19 surges
- Reports filed by NGOs including the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) and Greenpeace Brazil say that a major invasion of indigenous reserves and conservation units is underway, prompted by miners well backed with expensive equipment supplied by wealthy elites.
- Miners are emboldened, say the NGOs, by the inflammatory anti-indigenous and anti-environmental rhetoric of the Jair Bolsonaro administration which has sent a clear signal so far, that it has no major plans of stopping the invasions or penalizing the perpetrators.
- Through June of this year, deforestation by mining within conserved areas represented 67.9% of total tree loss in Legal Amazonia. From January to June, illegal mining destroyed 2,230 hectares (5,510 acres) of forest inside conservation units (UCs) and 1,016 hectares (2,510 acres) inside indigenous territories (TIs).
- The miners’ onslaught also poses a serious COVID-19 threat. The virus has so far infected at least 14,647 indigenous people and caused 269 deaths on indigenous lands. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is pressing for passage of legislation authorizing mining on indigenous lands; presently the bill is stalled in the house of deputies.
Photos show scale of massive fires tearing through Siberian forests
- A series of newly released images from Greenpeace International show megafires burning through the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, Russia.
- It’s estimated that fires have burnt more than 20.9 million hectares of land in Russia, and 10.9 million hectares of forest, since the start of 2020.
- The fires are being helped by unusually warm temperatures, including a reading of more than 38° Celsius (100° Fahrenheit) in the town of Verkhoyansk — the hottest on record inside the Arctic Circle.
- There are concerns that the smoke from the Siberian fires will cause respiratory problems for people living in urban areas, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Forest restoration, not just halting deforestation, vital to Amazon
- The Brazilian state of Maranhão has lost more than three-quarters of its original forest cover and the remaining old-growth forest is severely threatened, with the “Amazon forest [in the state’s west] on the edge of collapse,” say researchers. This threat heightens the importance of conserving secondary forest in the state.
- But new zoning of Legal Amazonia in Maranhão’s west passed in May will reduce the amount of standing forest farmers must preserve, which could lead to largescale legal deforestation of secondary forests and reward previous illegal deforestation.
- The State Forest Policy currently being debated for passage by the Maranhão parliament could implement safeguards to protect secondary forests (though likely won’t). Without those safeguards, warn researchers, these forests that provide important ecological services and economic benefits could further disappear.
- Scientists say that agroforestry and forest restoration should be prioritized by the Brazilian national and state governments in order to generate sustainable livelihoods and protect secondary forests, aiding in climate change mitigation, water and soil conservation, and providing sustainable livelihoods.
World’s biggest meatpacker JBS bought illegally grazed Amazon cattle: Report
- Brazil’s meatpackers have long been accused of “laundering cattle,” a process in which young calves are fattened on newly and illegally deforested lands within indigenous reserves and on other conserved tracts, then transferred to “legal ranches” where no deforestation has occurred, before being sold to meat processors who turn a blind eye.
- The Brazilian government has abetted this illicit accounting sleight of hand by not requiring tagging and tracking cattle from birth, and allowing incomplete accounting records. So laundered beef is sold to China, the European Union and other nations, as well as to Brazilian consumers, all unaware of the Amazon deforestation connection.
- Now Amnesty International has documented cases in which they allege that JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, bought cattle illegally reared on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau indigenous reserve and the Rio Jacy-Paraná and Rio Ouro Preto extractive reserves in Rondônia state, epicenter of 2019’s Amazon fires and of Brazilian deforestation.
- JBS has denied the charges, but has often had such allegations made against it in the past.
Only a few ‘rotten apples’ causing most illegal Brazil deforestation: Study
- It is well known that agribusiness — especially cattle and soy production — is the major driver of illegal deforestation in Brazil, which has seen soaring rates of forest destruction since the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Many of those agricultural commodities end up being exported to the European Union.
- But little has been done to curb the problem, partly due to lack of government will, and partly due to the fact that the precise amount of illegal deforestation linked to exported meat and soy has never been identified, while ranches and plantations and their owners mostly responsible are difficult to pinpoint.
- Now a new potentially game changing study finds that while around 20% of all agricultural exports from Brazil to the EU appear to come from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna, only about 2% of producers are responsible for the majority of that illegal deforestation.
- The study methods have the potential to advance supply chain traceability, showing that it is now possible to trace agricultural products from illegal deforested areas all the way to foreign consumers, making it far easier for nations and companies to curb deforestation — if they have the will.
Corn growers in Brazil’s Cerrado reap a hostile climate of their own making
- Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
- That’s the finding of a new study that shows the loss of native vegetation has led to more warm nights and changes in rainfall patterns, affecting corn crops that require moderate temperatures and reliable rainfall.
- The study’s authors say everyone loses from this scenario, and call for keeping the native vegetation in place as much as possible.
- International pressure and a serious commitment from agribusiness, which is largely resistant to efforts to preserve the Cerrado, might be the way to stop deforestation, they suggest.
Pandemic or not, the mission to save the rare Philippine eagle grinds on
- A critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) was rescued in the Zamboanga Peninsula in the southern Philippines during the height of the country’s COVID-19 lockdown, when all land, sea and air travel were barred.
- Despite the mobility limitations, various groups were able to exchange information and provide the much-needed proper first aid and rehabilitation for the rescued eagle, which was released back into the wild on May 20.
- There are currently seven known and identified Philippine eagles in the Zamboanga Peninsula, where there are ample protection mechanisms to support breeding eagle pairs.
- Deforestation, hunting and poaching are still the biggest threats to Philippine eagles, but recent collective efforts by various stakeholders have helped strengthen their conservation, experts say.
Prosecutors target Brazil’s environment minister over dismantling of protections
- On June 6, federal prosecutors in Brazil filed a lawsuit seeking the dismissal of the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, alleging “countless initiatives that violate the duty to protect the environment.”
- Since he took office at the start of 2019 under President Jair Bolsonaro, Salles has worked to weaken the country’s main federal environmental agencies, IBAMA and ICMBio, including slashing the number of regional positions and offices and weakening control of protected areas.
- He has also appointed police officials to key roles in supervisory agencies, frustrating experts who say those positions should go to experts who understand the issues.
- Staff report that a gag order has been in force under Salles, and that they now work in a climate of persecution and threats, both open and veiled.
World’s biggest trade deal in trouble over EU anger at Brazil deforestation
- The trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), is the biggest trade treaty ever negotiated. Signed a year ago, the US$19 trillion deal’s ratification could fail due to Brazil’s refusal to respond.
- At the end of June, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that his nation will not make “any trade agreement with countries that do not respect the Paris [Climate] Agreement,” a direct reference to the administration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who has pursued an aggressive policy to develop the Amazon.
- The Dutch parliament, Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, plus some EU parliamentarians, and NGOs are opposed to the deal, saying it brings unfair competition to EU farmers and accelerates Amazon deforestation. French and Brazilian business interests and diplomats meet this week to try and settle differences.
- Brazil’s Bolsonaro has so far been unmoved by all these objections. While the government plans to launch a PR campaign to convince the EU to ratify the trade agreement, it continues pressing forward with plans to allow industrial mining and agribusiness intrusion into Amazon indigenous reserves and conserved areas.
China and EU appetite for soy drives Brazilian deforestation, climate change: Study
- A recent study highlights how demand for Brazilian soy by Europe and China is stoking deforestation, thereby increasing carbon emissions, especially in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna biome, followed by the Amazon rainforest.
- The extent to which Brazilian soy production and trade contribute to climate change depends largely on the location where soybeans are grown. Soy exported from some municipalities in Brazil’s Cerrado, for example, contributes 200 times more total greenhouse gas emissions than soy coming from other parts of the country.
- China was the world’s largest importer of Brazilian soy from 2010 to 2015 and responsible for 51% of associated carbon dioxide emissions, with the European Union responsible for about 30%. However, EU soy imports (sourced from the northern Cerrado) were linked to more recent deforestation than China’s imports.
- The study is the first to offer an estimate of carbon emissions across Brazil’s entire soy sector. The data obtained by analyzing 90,000 supply chain streams could help policymakers curb emissions by designing low-carbon supply chains, with more effective forest conservation, and making improvements in transport infrastructure.
Brazilian government taken to court for assault on environment, climate
- The Bolsonaro government has waged an aggressive campaign to negate Brazil’s environmental laws and de-tooth its environmental protection agencies — even as deforestation rates have reached a ten year high and violence by land grabbers and illegal loggers against indigenous and traditional peoples has grown rapidly.
- In an attempt to stall the systematic deregulation, defunding and firings, socio-environmental NGOs, public prosecutors and opposition political parties have launched three lawsuits, targeting actions taken by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles and Eduardo Bim, president of IBAMA, the country’s environmental agency.
- The first suit aims to annul a recent measure signed by Bim, enabling illegally harvested Brazilian timber to be exported more easily to the U.S., EU and elsewhere. Evidence allegedly demonstrates a cozy and corrupt relationship between Bim and the forestry industry.
- The second and third suits address Amazon deforestation (demanding reactivation of the administration of the R$1.5 billion Amazon Fund) and climate change (requiring the reinstatement of administration of the R$8.5 million Climate Fund). Both these effective programs have been derailed by the Bolsonaro government.
Conservation insights from an enormous aspen clone: Q&A with ecologist Paul Rogers
- Pando is the name of a 40-hectare (100-acre) aspen forest in central Utah whose 47,000 stems share a single genome. It’s thought to be the largest and one of the oldest organisms on Earth.
- In discovering that Pando might be dying, ecologist Paul C. Rogers came to realize that the problems troubling the famous giant were a microcosm of the problems troubling aspen forests across the Northern Hemisphere, and with them the highly biodiverse set of organisms they support.
- That sparked a collaboration among aspen researchers from eight countries, who propose a conservation strategy they’re calling ‘mega-conservation.’ It aims to protect common ecosystems distinguished by a species that, like aspen, supports uncommon levels of biodiversity while facing common threats.
- Mongabay spoke with Rogers about Pando, mega-conservation, and the wisdom of thinking like an aspen forest.
Green alert: How indigenous people are experiencing climate change in the Amazon
- Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Brazilian Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
- Indigenous people believe that climate change has even affected their physical health: previously controlled diseases like measles and yellow fever, they say, have inexplicably reappeared in the rainforest, and even indigenous women’s menstrual cycles are beginning at an earlier age.
- Indigenous people have found many ways to take action and lessen the harm. These approaches include selecting and growing seeds that are more resistant to drought and heat, investing in frontline firefighters and even a smartphone app that offers information about climatic variations.
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