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topic: Land Grabbing
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Bird populations are mysteriously declining at an Amazon park in Ecuador & beyond
- The number of individual birds found at the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve has dropped by half, according to a study published earlier this year.
- Other studies have shown a similar trend in preserved rainforests, pointing to habitat deterioration and pesticides as the usual causes of widespread bird decline in the Northern Hemisphere, but this does not explain the phenomenon in tropical sites.
- Researchers point to a few possible causes for the declines, such as signs of reduction in insect abundance, but climate change is the common suspect in all cases.
Indigenous leader’s killer is convicted in Brazil, but tensions over land remain
- Bar owner João Carlos da Silva was on April 15 sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of Indigenous land defender and teacher Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau four years earlier.
- Ari’s murder became symbolic of the struggle land defenders in Brazil face when protecting their ancestral territories, including constant threats and sometimes deadly violence.
- The Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory faces fresh threats after a national lawmaker claimed its current boundaries are wrong and vowed to reduce the area in favor of local cattle ranchers and farmers.
- It’s one of several territorial setbacks that Indigenous lands across Brazil are currently facing; others include a territory in Paraná state whose demarcation process has been suspended, and one in Bahía state that could potentially be auctioned off.
‘Our rights are on trial in Brazil’: Interview with Indigenous movement pioneer Brasílio Priprá
- In an interview with Mongabay, Brasílio Priprá, one of the pioneers of the Free Land Camp, the largest event of the Brazilian Indigenous movement, looks back on its 20 years of existence.
- Priprá, who has been active in the Indigenous movement for 40 years, has seen few changes, but enough to keep fighting for his rights.
- Land demarcation has been the main demand over the two decades of the Free Land Camp. Since 2019, marco temporal, a legal thesis that aims to restrict Indigenous land rights, has made this demand more pressing.
- Priprá shares his thoughts on the impacts of marco temporal on Indigenous rights, Brazil’s environmental goals and the future of the country for all citizens.
New ban threatens traditional fishers in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state
- Legislation in effect since Jan. 1 has banned fishing in Mato Grosso state rivers for five years, with heavy opposition from environmental defenders and traditional fishers.
- The bill affects part of the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, the Cerrado savanna and part of the Pantanal wetland, one of the largest continuous wet areas on the planet.
- Experts consider fishers in the region guardians of the rivers and fear the bill could eliminate traditional fishing in the state.
Goldman Prize honors Brazilian investigation linking JBS & deforestation
- Marcel Gomes, the executive secretary at investigative journalism outlet Repórter Brasil, is one of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize winners.
- Gomes coordinated an international investigation in December 2021 on JBS’ beef chain, using a powerful data platform on Brazilian livestock, investigative teams in different countries and a grassroots network of Indigenous communities, local NGOs and small-scale farmers.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Marcel Gomes said the Repórter Brasil series pressured big European retailers to stop selling illegally sourced JBS beef and public authorities to monitor big beef companies.
- Also known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Environmental Prize honored five other environmental activists on April 29.
Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
- The number of fires shows no signs of easing as Brazil’s Roraima faces unprecedented blazes, and several Amazonian countries, including Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela, registered record-high outbreaks in the first quarter this year.
- Fire outbreaks in primary (old-growth) forest in Brazil’s Amazon soared by 152% in 2023, according to a recent study, rising from 13,477 in 2022 to 34,012 in 2023.
- Fires in the mature forest regions are the leading drivers of degradation of the Amazon Rainforest because the biome hasn’t evolved to adapt to such blazes, according to the researchers.
- The fires are a result of a drought that has been fueled by climate change and worsened by natural weather phenomena, such as El Niño, which has intensified dry conditions already aggravated by high temperatures across the world, experts say.
Activists file last-gasp suit as Indonesia fails again to pass Indigenous bill
- Lawyers for Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance have initiated legal proceedings against the government for its failure to pass a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights.
- The suit seeks to compel Indonesia’s parliament to expedite passage of the bill, which has remained deadlocked for more than a decade amid intransigence by elected representatives.
- “It still needs to be discussed,” a senior parliamentarian from the Golkar party said earlier this month.
- However, few expect any progress over the next few months, with a new parliament to be sworn in on Oct. 1 and a new president on Oct. 20.
A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.
- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.
- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.
Mexico’s avocado industry harms monarch butterflies, will U.S. officials act? (commentary)
- Every winter, monarch butterflies from across eastern North America migrate to the mountain forests in Mexico, but those forests are threatened by the rapidly expanding avocado industry.
- Avocado production in Mexico is tied to deforestation, water hoarding and violence, and much of the resulting crop is exported to the U.S.
- Conservation groups are urging the U.S. State Department, USDA and USTR to ban imports of avocados from recently deforested lands in Mexico.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
- The state of Pará has created two new conservation areas along the Amazonian coastline, placing almost all of its mangroves under federal protection.
- The two reserves mean that an additional 74,700 hectares (184,600 acres) have been included in the largest and most conserved continuous belt of mangroves on the planet.
- The process to create the reserves took more than 13 years and faced several setbacks; the final outcome has been celebrated by environmentalists as a victory for local communities and biodiversity.
- The new extractive reserves allow resident populations to engage in traditional and sustainable extractive practices such as fishing and hunting, while keeping out big businesses, such as commercial aquaculture or logging.
Snack giant PepsiCo sourced palm oil from razed Indigenous land – investigation
- In the last few years it is likely that PepsiCo has been using in its production palm oil from deforested land claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in eastern Peru, a new investigation has found.
- Palm oil from Peru enters PepsiCo’s supply chain via a consortium that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, the second largest palm oil producer in the country which has been associated with deforestation and violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In the last three years, further deforestation occurred within the company’s land, the investigation found.
- Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people.
- PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products containing Peruvian palm oil that could be linked to deforestation. The company has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
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.
World Bank’s IFC under fire over alleged abuses at Liberian plantation it funded
- An investigation into the International Finance Corporation’s handling of human rights abuses at a project it financed in Liberia, the Salala Rubber Corporation, is expected to severely incriminate the World Bank’s private lending arm.
- The World Bank’s Compliance Advisory Ombudsman investigated whether the IFC did enough to address allegations of gender-based violence, land grabbing and unfair compensation by its client, Socfin, between 2008 and 2020.
- It’s anticipated that the report will find the finance institution didn’t act to prevent Socfin from violating its legal obligations to local communities and protect the environment; this finding would follow closely on a damning report into similar failures to hold another IFC client, Bridge International Schools in Kenya, to account
- The IFC missed a February deadline to respond to the CAO report and submit an action plan; the delay comes as a new remedial action framework for the IFC is due to be finalized and released
Resort in Philippines’ protected Chocolate Hills sparks uproar, probes
- A video of a resort cut into the Philippines’ Chocolate Hills, a protected area, has caused public outrage in the island nation.
- The public outcry has prompted government investigations into the resort, which received approval at the local level but failed to obtain environmental permits required by national law.
- The controversy comes as tourism makes a post-pandemic comeback in the Philippines, prompting questions about how the industry can be managed more sustainably.
Under the shadow of war in the DRC, a mining company acts with impunity
- In Walikale, a territory located in the eastern DRC, Indigenous Twa people accuse the Canadian and South African-owned mining company Alphamin Bisie Mining SA of obtaining mining rights without consulting all the communities affected by the company’s activities.
- An analysis by Mongabay highlights several inconsistencies in the process of receiving mining and exploration permits that violate the law.
- For years, the Indigenous communities of Banamwesi and Motondo have been unsuccessfully calling on the mining company to recognize that it is occupying part of their community forests. In an exchange with Mongabay, Alphamin Bisie denies they are affected and says they will clarify these matters with the communities.
- In light of the conflict devasting the eastern DRC and government officials’ silence in addressing the communities’ situation, inhabitants and civil society representatives say the conflict is being used as a cover for the violations of the law taking place around them.
Fanned by El Niño, megafires in Brazil threaten Amazon’s preserved areas
- Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.
- In February alone, the number of hotspots detected in this northernmost Amazonian state hit an all-time high of 2,057.
- According to IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, 23% of the outbreaks recorded in Roraima are in Indigenous areas, affecting at least 13 territories.
- The Roraima state government says controlled fires in private areas are allowed with a permit, but the large number of fires this year indicates criminal activity.
Indonesian nickel project harms environment and human rights, report says
- A new report highlights land rights violations, deforestation and pollution associated with a massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera.
- Community members accuse the developers of the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) of land grabbing and of polluting rivers and the sea.
- The Indonesian government has billed its nickel policy as a push toward clean energy, but mining of the metal has resulted in at least 5,331 hectares (13,173 acres) of deforestation on Halmahera alone.
- The report calls on global automakers sourcing their nickel from IWIP to exert pressure on the miners and smelters to prevent environmental and human rights harms.
In the Brazilian outback, the half-century Kapinawá struggle for sacred ground
- The Catimbau Valley, in the backlands of Pernambuco state, is one of the most biodiverse areas in the Caatinga dry forest and also an archaeological treasure, with the second-largest collection of rock inscriptions in Brazil.
- It’s also the sacred and ancestral territory of the Kapinawá, a people who discovered their Indigenous identity in the mid-1970s amid a war against land-grabbers.
- Part of the Kapinawá lands became an Indigenous territory, while the remaining area was later transformed into a national park in 2002; those who live there complain about the numerous restrictions they now face.
- While fighting to reclaim their lands, the Kapinawá turn the Caatinga into a laboratory for experiments in agroecology, combining biodiversity preservation and food production.
Grassroots efforts and an Emmy-winning film help Indigenous fight in Brazil
- The 2022 documentary “The Territory” won an Emmy award this January, shining a light on the Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous people and the invasions, conflicts and threats from land grabbers in their territory in the Brazilian Amazon from 2018 to 2021.
- After years of increasing invasions and deforestation in the protected area, experts say the situation has slowly improved in the past three years, and both Indigenous and government officials in the region “feel a little safer.”
- Grassroots surveillance efforts, increased visibility of the problems, and a more effective federal crackdown against invaders have helped tackle illegal land occupiers and allowed the Indigenous populations to take their land back.
- Despite the security improvements, however, the territory still struggles against invasions and deforestation within the region, experts say.
Lula’s ambitious green agenda runs up against Congress’s agribusiness might
- With reduced support in Brazil’s Congress following the 2022 elections, the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been unable to prevent the passage of bills dismantling environmental safeguards in favor of agribusiness interests.
- Throughout 2023, the agribusiness caucus managed to push through legislation undermining Indigenous rights to land and slashing regulations on pesticides.
- The same election that brought Lula back to power in Brazil also led to a conservative Congress that’s more right-wing, better-organized, and aware of its powers, according to experts.
- One bright spot is a drop in Amazon Rainforest deforestation, a headline figure for Lula’s international diplomacy; but more progress is needed to give Brazil a prominent place in international environmental advocacy, experts say.
Jokowi’s land reform agenda stalls as conflicts nearly double, report shows
- Land conflicts in Indonesia have nearly doubled under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as his administration pursues an investor-first economic agenda that has sidelined local communities and the environment, a new report shows.
- There were 2,939 pending disputes affecting 1.75 million households in the nine years to date of the Jokowi administration, compared to 1,520 disputes involving 977,000 households during the 10 years of the previous administration.
- The report by the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) says the government has largely failed in its reform agenda, having previously promised to register community-owned lands and redistribute expired concessions back to communities.
- A key driver of land disputes are infrastructure projects that the Jokowi administration has designated as projects of “national strategic importance,” which gives the government eminent domain rights to evict entire communities.
With half its surface water area lost, an Amazonian state runs dry
- Water bodies across the Brazilian state of Roraima have shrunk in area by half over the past 20 years, according to research from the mapping collective MapBiomas.
- Today, locals are facing even drier times amid a severe drought in the Amazon, which has led to record-low levels of water in the rainforest’s main rivers.
- Since 1985, Roraima’s agricultural area has grown by more than 1,100%, with experts pointing to crops as one of the state’s main drivers of water loss.
Violent evictions are latest ordeal for Kenya’s Ogiek seeking land rights
- On Nov. 2, a joint force of the police, the Kenya Forest Service and the Kenya Wildlife Service moved to evict 700 Ogiek households from the edges of the Maasai Mau Forest.
- But the African Court on Human and People’s Rights had in 2017 ordered the government to recognize the Ogiek claim to the forest, involve them in its management, and pay damages for earlier evictions.
- The government still hasn’t acted on the court’s rulings, instead accusing the Ogiek of responsibility for the destruction of as much as 2,800 hectares (7,000 acres) of forest.
- But the African Court found no evidence the Ogiek are responsible for this damage, and Ogiek leaders want collective titles to the forest to be formally granted, so the group’s members can live in peace on their ancestral land.
Outcry as Brazil Congress overrides president to revive anti-Indigenous law
- Brazil’s Congress has pushed through a new law that includes several anti-Indigenous measures that strip back land rights and open traditional territories to mining and agribusiness.
- It includes the controversial time frame thesis, requiring Indigenous populations to prove they physically occupied their land on Oct. 5 1988, the day of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution; failure to provide such evidence will nullify demarcated land.
- The decision provoked outrage among activists, who say the new law is the biggest setback for Indigenous rights in Brazil in decades.
- Both President Lula and the Supreme Court have previously called the measures in the bill unconstitutional and against public interests, and Indigenous organizations announced they will challenge the law.
Activists slam ‘independent’ probe by Indonesian palm oil giant into violations
- A report commissioned by Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari into alleged violations allegedly by its subsidiaries on the island of Sulawesi failed to investigate key issues such as community rights, NGOs say.
- The investigation was triggered by multiple media and NGO reports on the long-running conflict between three AAL subsidiaries and local communities in Central Sulawesi province who allege the companies grabbed their land.
- The investigation failed to verify whether AAL’s subsidiaries had obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local and Indigenous communities before operating in the area, according to Walhi and Friends of the Earth US.
- Instead, the verification focused on proving whether the communities in the area had legal permits to their land that overlaps with AAL’s concessions, resulting in biased and inaccurate findings, the NGOs say.
Chinese gold miners ‘illegally’ tearing up Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- An NGO report and complaints by villagers allege a Chinese company has been mining gold inside one of Cambodia’s largest protected areas years before it was license to do so.
- Late Cheng Mining Development was awarded an exploratory license in March 2020 spanning 15,100 hectares (37,300 acres) inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, and an extraction license in September 2022.
- Local villagers say the company has likely been operating in the region since early 2019; villagers who spoke to Mongabay requested anonymity, citing fears of reprisals from the authorities.
- A report by the Bruno Manser Fonds and testimony from locals also allege the company’s mining activities risk contaminating waterways that villagers rely on.
Sieged by mining and megaprojects, the Munduruku push for land rights in the Amazon
- In the face of threats from illegal mining and major infrastructure projects, the Munduruku people of the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory have for years performed annual “self-demarcation” expeditions to protect the land and press for official protection.
- The land is in the final stages of getting state protection, but previous right-wing administrations delayed demarcation.
- The Munduruku say they now hope that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will sign its protection, which, given the vast array of threats to their land and culture, they say can’t come soon enough.
As RSPO celebrates 20 years of work, Indigenous groups lament unresolved grievances
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its annual conference in Jakarta to celebrate 20 years of growth and impact — but activists and Indigenous communities say they’ve been waiting years for RSPO to resolve ongoing conflicts and long-standing complaints.
- Indigenous groups and local communities that have lost their lands and forests say the RSPO grievance system has left them without justice or resolution.
- While the RSPO says it has improved its methods of dealing with grievances, affected communities say their complaints have been dismissed for lack of evidence, they have awaited answers for years and their voices aren’t being heard.
Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
- Papua New Guinea boasts the third largest rainforest in the world and houses about 7% of the planet’s biodiversity, including threatened species found nowhere else in the world.
- In recent years, fraudulent practices in the logging and agriculture industry have resulted in massive forest loss across the country while road network expansion plans threaten to further fragment forests and open them up for resource exploitation.
- Satellite data and imagery show logging activity on the rise in PNG, particularly in the province of Oro.
- Conservationists and officials say forest laws must be tightened in PNG and local communities included in decision-making to reduce forest loss, while incentivizing communities to conserve the remaining forests.
Guatemala braces for unprecedented year of deforestation in Maya reserve
- Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve is facing increased pressure from cattle ranching and farming at the same time that droughts threaten to spark an unprecedented wave of fires.
- A tumultuous government transition could also leave environmental agencies without enough funding and resources to keep up with the increased fires, which could further hinder efforts to tackle deforestation.
- The areas that have been traditionally badly hit by deforestation include Laguna del Tigre National Park and Sierra del Lacandón National Park, but there are signs that informal settlers are pushing into new parts of the reserve.
Paradise lost? Brazil’s biggest bauxite mining firm denies riverine rights
- Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), Brazil’s largest bauxite producer, launched a new mining project in the Amazon region in 2019 but failed to notify and consult four impacted traditional riverine communities that have been established for generations. The villages say their lives are heavily impacted.
- MRN’s stance of no significant impact is backed by IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, because it only is required to recognize Indigenous and Quilombola populations as legitimate traditional peoples guaranteed prior, free, informed consultation — a right enshrined in international law.
- Other traditional riverine communities are being denied such a right, say critics who are calling on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to instruct IBAMA to reduce the impact of mining on riverine communities.
- Action by IBAMA could help preserve the way of life for hundreds of traditional riverine people likely to be affected by a series of new mines planned by MRN. The ruling could also act as a precedent for other traditional communities not currently guaranteed prior, free, informed consultation.
End of impunity for Indigenous killings in sight for Brazil’s Guajajara
- Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state.
- Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo for a documentary film nine months before his death, returned to Arariboia in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
- “If those invaders had managed to kill us both, me and Paulo, they were going to hide us in the forest. Who would find us? Nobody was ever going to find me or Paulo again in a forest of that size,” Laércio says of his will to warn the guardians about Paulo’s murder, even as he suffered four gunshot wounds.
- Justice may soon be on the horizon for the Guajajara people: Paulo’s case will be the first killing of an Indigenous defender that will go before a federal jury, likely in the first half of 2024, after a court in late October denied a motion by those accused to try the case in state court.
‘We won’t give up’: DRC’s Front Line Defenders award winner Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke
- Olivier Ndoole Bahemuke, Africa winner of the 2023 Front Line Defenders Award, is an environmental lawyer and community activist.
- He has spent 15 years working in defense of communities in and around Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Because of his activism in a region dominated by armed conflict and the illicit exploitation of natural resources, including gold and coltan, his life has been threatened on numerous occasions and he currently lives in exile.
- Defending the environment is becoming increasingly dangerous: Nearly half of the 194 human rights defenders killed in 2022 were environmental defenders.
Disturbing graves is latest violation attributed to East African oil pipeline
- Faith-based climate justice organization GreenFaith says the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), will disturb at least 2,000 graves along its 1,441-kilometer (895-mile) route from Uganda’s Lake Albert to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
- Surveys in affected communities found numerous cases where residents said TotalEnergies, the French oil giant leading the project, had disturbed and disrespected the graves of their families and ancestors, despite their best efforts to alert the company to their presence.
- TotalEnergies says the process of identifying and relocating burial sites, and paying compensation to affected people, has been carried out in line with international standards.
- Since its inception in 2017, the EACOP project has been dogged by criticism over its environmental, social and climate change impacts.
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.
Calls grow to repurpose land squandered in Cambodia’s concession policy
- The mismanagement of large swaths of Cambodia’s land by the country’s elites under the policy of economic land concessions has displaced thousands of rural families and accounted for 40% of total deforestation.
- With even the government seeming to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of ELCs as an economic driver, calls are growing to return the land to dispossessed communities or repurpose them in other ways.
- One expert says the role of local communities will be central to the success of any reformation of the ELC system and will need to be carefully considered to avoid the pitfalls of the old system.
- Another proposes giving land currently owned by nonperforming ELCs to agricultural cooperatives managed by communities, placing more negotiating power in the hands of farmers rather than concessionaires.
Amazon recovery offers hope of big rewards but poses equally big challenges
- While deforestation rates have plunged, up to 80 million hectares (198 million acres) of the Brazilian Amazon have already been destroyed, most of it on private and undesignated public lands.
- Reforestation pledges have promised to replant more than 12 million hectares (30 million acres) in the coming decade.
- Carbon credit enthusiasts say they believe the market could inject billions into the region and pay for reforestation.
- Experts are skeptical that either of these plans would work at the scale needed, as landowners often see value in clearing the forest.
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.
Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.
Lula partially blocks anti-Indigenous land rights bill, but trouble isn’t over
- Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva partially blocked a controversial bill that dramatically violates Indigenous rights, a month after the Supreme Court ruled out its core article.
- While some Indigenous activists lament that the bill wasn’t fully rejected, many hail the partial veto as a win for human rights and the protection of the Constitution.
- The vetoed bill now returns to Congress, where Lula’s decision will be upheld or rejected; if rejected, the time frame bill will be enacted, in a major blow to Indigenous rights and environmental protection, experts say.
- The veto sparked outrage among Brazil’s powerful rural lobby, which vowed to reject Lula’s changes to the bill, although any decision made in Congress can be challenged in the Supreme Court.
Mine in ‘world cobalt capital’ displaces locals and monks under questionable circumstances
- Local residents living in the DRC’s ‘cobalt capital of the world’ are being forced to relocate in order to make way for a mine owned by Chinese company COMMUS (Compagnie miniere de Musonie).
- The relocation process is being done under questionable circumstances, including providing compensation payments under the table which don’t always meet amounts needed to buy a decent home, contradictory statements, lack of consultation, and few traces of written documentation to fact-check claims made by local government officials, the mining company and displaced people.
- The demand for cobalt, a critical mineral for the clean energy transition, is expected to increase and lead to the eviction of communities who find themselves living above their deposits, say energy experts.
- The mining company’s lawyer says the relocation process is happening fairly, payments are calculated alongside officials and civil society groups, and the land and buildings, like schools, rather belong to the company’s owners.
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.
Brazil strikes intruders of Amazon’s most deforested Indigenous land
- On Oct. 2, federal agencies descended upon the Native Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacajá territories in the state of Pará in an attempt to remove non-Indigenous people from the land.
- Human rights activists praise the move as Indigenous communities within these lands continue to struggle against soaring levels of deforestation and decades-old conflicts with outsiders.
- Insiders say that federal agencies are temporarily relocating Indigenous people to villages far from invader settlements to ensure their safety.
- The Parakanã people from the Apyterewa Territory lament that local authorities in Pará are rallying in Brazil’s capital Brasília to suspend operations and allow the illegal invaders to remain on the land.
Indonesian police slammed after protester demanding rightful land is shot dead
- Indonesian police have reportedly shot dead one protester and injured two others in a flareup of yet another land dispute between communities and outside investors.
- Residents of the mostly Indigenous Dayak village of Bangkal in Central Kalimantan province have since Sept. 16 protested over palm oil company HMBP’s failure to allocate land to them as required by law.
- Police claim the protesters attacked security forces in the Oct. 7 clash, but video and witness accounts from the ground strongly suggest otherwise.
- Activists say the Bangkal case is emblematic of how the Indonesian government prioritizes commercial interests over those of communities, including using excessive force against protesters.
Amazon drought cuts river traffic, leaves communities without water and supplies
- Falling water levels in the rivers and lakes of the Brazilian Amazon are restricting the flow of ships and boats, the main form of transport in the region and the only means of access to health and education facilities for many communities.
- This year’s drought is exacerbated by two simultaneous natural events, the main one being El Niño, that inhibit the formation of rain clouds, further reducing the already low rainfall recorded during the dry season.
- More than 100 Amazonian river dolphins were found dead in a lake in Amazonas state, likely due to high water temperatures and low water levels, according to researchers.
- The state of Amazonas is preparing for the worst drought in its history, which will affect 500,000 people by the end of October; the federal government has created a task force to mitigate the impacts, promising to send water, food and medicine.
10 years after land grab, local Nigerian farmers continue fight against palm oil producer
- A decade after transnational palm oil company Wilmar took control of a derelict oil palm plantation, local residents continue to fight for the farmlands, forests and rivers they use.
- The government leased land from several local communities in 1962, but abandoned it in the 1970s.
- In 2012, against the backdrop of a drive to expand Nigeria’s palm oil production, the land was transferred to Wilmar in a move bitterly resisted by local residents.
- Critics say expanding oil palm plantations are accelerating deforestation and local residents complain that Wilmar has encroached on their farms and wastewater from the plantation has contaminated watercourses.
Brazil Supreme Court quashes time frame proposal in win for Indigenous rights
- Brazil’s Supreme Court voted against the highly controversial time frame proposal, a legal challenge that would have stripped Indigenous rights and opened up traditional territories to mining and agribusiness.
- Indigenous people and organizations hailed the decision as a victory for human rights in Brazil after years of protesting against the legal challenge.
- Activists remain cautious, however, as ministers seek to reach a middle ground between ruralists and Indigenous people, which could affect demarcation processes and encourage economic activities on traditional land.
- The points proposed for a possible agreement include compensating non-Indigenous people for land granted to Native communities and allowing economic activities such as agribusiness on traditional territories.
EU bill and new green policies spur progress on Brazil’s cattle tracking
- Brazilian banks have created new rules for releasing credit to meatpackers and slaughterhouses in Amazonian states in which their clients must implement traceability and monitoring systems by 2025 to show that their cattle didn’t come from illegal deforestation.
- Even the powerful Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) recognizes the cattle tracking demand and proposes a traceability model to the federal government.
- A new study shows that existing cattle companies’ zero-deforestation commitments have reduced Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 15% and that the devastation could be halved by scaling up the implementation of supply chain policies.
- The ideal animal tracking model is individual, but experts defend a middle-of-the-road solution to reduce illegal deforestation based on cross-referencing from inter-ranch cattle transport data and the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).
Investors over islanders as Indonesia uses force to push development project
- A plan to build the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel factory on an Indonesian island has met with protests from locals set to be evicted for the multibillion-dollar project.
- Security forces have cracked down hard on the protesters, raising concerns about human rights violations, including the use of rubber bullets and tear gas at a middle school.
- The government has justified its response and its insistence on pushing the project through, saying it’s of strategic national importance and that the investors must be accommodated.
- Critics have pointed out that the government previously championed local residents’ rights when it came to disputes like these, and that the U-turn shows preferential treatment for “big capital” over local communities.
Meatpacking giant and Amazon deforester JBS bid for NYSE listing challenged
- Environmental groups have filed complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Brazilian meat-processing company JBS’s bid to list on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the year.
- JBS, the number one beef producer in Brazil, and among the top three meat processors in the United States, has been implicated in multiple land-clearing investigations in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes. Brazil’s forests are vital to the storage of carbon and to preventing catastrophic climate change.
- The latest audit by Brazilian authorities in the Amazonian state of Pará found that JBS had the lowest environmental compliance rate among large meatpackers there, with one out of six cows coming from dubious or illegal sources.
- JBS’s total deforestation footprint may be as high as 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) in its direct and indirect supply chains, a 2020 study found. Environmentalists say a surge in new JBS investments via the NYSE could convert far more Brazilian rainforest to ranches, leading to climate disaster.
How the Amazon’s ‘greatest devastator’ sold cattle to a Carrefour supplier
- Arrested by Brazilian Federal Police, cattle rancher Bruno Heller and relatives have already received over $5 million in environmental fines. He is also suspected of land grabbing.
- Heller transported cattle from a family farm fined for environmental violations to two other properties free from environmental implications — this maneuver is an indication of the so-called “cattle laundering.”
- A Frialto Group meatpacking plant confirmed that it slaughtered 249 animals for the Heller family. The facility supplies Carrefour, but the French retail company states that the meat from animals raised by Heller did not reach its supermarkets.
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.
Will Brazil’s Supreme Court rule against Indigenous land rights? (commentary)
- On the 30th of August, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court is set to rule on the Marco Temporal, a legal argument that would severely limit Indigenous peoples’ land rights.
- Bill 490 was overwhelmingly approved by representatives of the Lower House of Congress and introduces a time frame to create Indigenous territories, reduces the area of Indigenous lands, and opens Indigenous areas to mining and infrastructure projects, among other changes.
- “If the Supreme Court determines the Marco Temporal is valid …all legal recourse for future land titling would be blocked, and titled territories could be at risk as communities could be obligated to prove their claim within the new, limited framework,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
New concession in Botum Sakor National Park handed to Cambodia’s Royal Group
- Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park continues to be carved up and its ostensibly protected land awarded to private developers with close links to the country’s ruling party.
- In the latest development, approved Jan. 25 but only announced Aug. 14, local conglomerate Royal Group was awarded a 9,968-hectare (24,631-acre) concession that adjoins another land parcel it received in the park in 2021.
- This leaves Botum Sakor with 20,000 hectares (less than 50,000 acres) of land that’s not in private hands, or just one-ninth of its original area when it was declared a national park in 1993.
- Civil society groups have expressed concern over the lack of transparency surrounding the new concessions being issued in Cambodia’s protected areas, especially when the recipients are tycoons with reputations for illegal logging, forced evictions and environmental destruction.
The deceptions of the Amazon Summit in Belém (commentary)
- The summit of the eight Amazon countries held in Belém produced many statements of good intentions but no concrete commitments.
- No agreement was reached either on ending oil extraction in the Amazon or on ending deforestation, not even only “illegal” deforestation.
- Urgent but politically difficult topics were not discussed, such as foregoing plans to build roads opening rainforest areas and the need to end the legalization of land claims on government land.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Can upcoming referendum in Ecuador stop oil drilling in Yasuní National Park?
- On Aug. 20, Ecuadorians will vote in a binding referendum on whether they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.
- Environmentalists have been fighting for this referendum for nearly 10 years; meanwhile, drilling in ITT began in 2016, and today 225 wells produce 54,800 barrels of oil per day.
- But the decision won’t be easy for Ecuadorians, as oil has been a major driver of economic growth for the country since the 1970s. Exports today account for more than 10% of the country’s GDP.
- In August, Ecuadorians will also vote on whether or not to allow mining to continue in the Andean Choco forest. This is not the first time a referendum has been used in an attempt to control large-scale extractive projects in the country, and it likely won’t be the last.
Amazon Summit nations agree on saving rainforest — but not on conservation goals
- Leaders of eight Amazonian nations signed the Belém Declaration on Aug. 8, strengthening regional coordination and laying out a list of intentions to save the rainforest.
- Environmental organizations lament the lack of consensus over zero-deforestation targets among the nations and criticize the failure to mention fossil fuel exploration in the declaration.
- The declaration strongly asserts Indigenous rights and recognizes the need to protect their territories, however, activists expressed frustration that no specific goals or targets were defined.
- Alongside the Amazon nations, the two Congos, Indonesia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also signed another declaration on Aug. 9 demanding that developed countries fulfill their promises of extensive climate change financing.
Brazilian authorities launch probe into ‘Amazon’s largest single deforester’
- The suspect, Bruno Heller, destroyed 6,500 hectares (16,100 acres) of Amazon Rainforest for cattle ranching — an area larger than the island of Manhattan — according to authorities.
- The public forests illegally invaded in the Novo Progresso region of Pará state were divided into smaller properties and registered in the Rural Environmental Registry in the name of stooges, several of them were Heller’s relatives.
- Areas along the BR-163 highway that runs through this part of Pará have long been a target for land grabbers, but the criminal business became more attractive after land prices rose with the highway fully paved in 2019.
- Experts say the high availability of unallocated public forests boosts land grabbing and deforestation and that these areas must be allocated quickly — such as for protected areas, reserves, or Indigenous lands — to discourage illegal occupation.
Amazon Summit sparks hope for coordinated efforts from the rainforest nations
- From Aug. 7-9, eight Amazonian nations will meet in Brazil hoping to agree on future joint strategies that will protect the rainforest while sustainably developing the region.
- A pre-summit in the three days before the event will unite thousands of civil society representatives to thrash out proposals that will be delivered to the heads of state to guide their discussions and decision-making.
- Experts and conservationists have hailed the event as Brazil’s most critical environment summit so far this year and could be a turning point for the future of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Some organizations demand greater Indigenous inclusivity in the Amazon Summit debate, although experts believe Amazonian populations will play an important role in shaping policies during the three-day conference.
In Brazil’s Amazon, a ‘new agricultural frontier’ threatens protected lands
- Deforestation in the southern region of Amazonas state, long one of the best-preserved slices of the Brazilian Amazon, is spreading rapidly as illegal gold miners, farmers, ranchers and land grabbers advance in the region.
- The four municipalities leading destruction in this region – Apuí, Novo Aripuanã, Manicoré and Humaitá – together accounted for nearly 60% of deforestation alerts detected in Amazonas in the first six months of the year.
- Environmental advocates and Indigenous leaders say the destruction is threatening the way of life of communities that depend on the forest for survival and splintering an important ecological mosaic brimming with plant and animal species
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.
Cambodian conglomerate sparks conflict in Botum Sakor National Park
- For decades Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park has been carved up and the land handed out to companies as economic concessions, at the expense of the ecosystem and local communities.
- In 2021, a massive swath of the park, including its densest expanse of forest, was handed over to the Royal Group, led by politically connected business tycoon Kith Meng.
- While the companies developing the national park promised jobs, as well as homes with running water and electricity, and access to schools and health centers, none of this has materialized, affected residents say.
- Royal Group’s presence, and the threat of more companies grabbing a piece of the park, has instead sparked disputes that residents acknowledge they’re likely to lose.
Divided by mining: Vale’s new rail track fractures an Amazon Indigenous group
- In 1985, mining giant Vale opened a railroad that cuts through the Mãe Maria Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Since being built, the railroad has driven away game, cut off access to important water bodies and disrupted the Indigenous peoples’ way of life by introducing compensation money paid by Vale into the daily life of the villages.
- Now, the mining giant has secured permission to build a second railroad track.
- Indigenous leaders say that not only will the railroad extension cause greater environmental damage, but also that the company reached the agreement by using “divide and conquer” tactics over the years and by applying other maneuvers they consider unethical.
Forests in the furnace: Cambodians risking life and liberty to fuel garment factories
- Entire villages in parts of Cambodia have turned to illegal logging of natural forests to supply the firewood needed by garment factories churning out products for international fashion brands.
- Mongabay spoke with several people who acknowledged the illegal and dangerous nature of their work, but who said they had no other viable means of livelihood.
- The work pits them against rangers they accuse of heavy-handed tactics, including the seizure or destruction of their trucks and equipment, arrests, and extortion.
- 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.
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.
Bill stripping Peru’s isolated Indigenous people of land and protections scrapped
- A bill proposing to strip lands and protections of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact was rejected by three congressional commissions at the end of June — permanently shelving it before it could reach Congress.
- The bill, which was proposed by a congressman from Peru’s oil-rich Loreto region and supported by the regional government and businessmen, aimed to shift responsibility for the creation of Indigenous reserves from the national government to the regional governments and re-evaluate whether to keep existing Indigenous reserves.
- Indigenous organizations, civil society and Peru’s Ministry of Culture, responsible for creating Indigenous reserves, say the proposed bill was illegal and would have endangered the lives of isolated communities.
A standing Amazon Rainforest could create an $8 billion bioeconomy: Study
- The Brazilian Amazon could create an $8 billion bioeconomy each year by preserving the rainforest, promoting sustainable agricultural practices and commercializing regional products, a new study has found.
- If current deforestation and emission trends continue, the Amazon faces irreversible degradation that will devastate Brazil and beyond, experts warn.
- Growing the bioeconomy depends on elevating Indigenous knowledge and providing local communities the tools to produce and sell hundreds of forest-grown products.
- It will take an investment of more than $500 billion by 2050 to implement a new economy, but the costs of not doing this “could be much higher,” say the study authors.
As one Brazilian state takes up carbon trading, others may fall for the ‘illusion’
- A recent agreement will allow the Brazilian state of Tocantins to sell carbon credits to Swiss oil-trading company Mercuria.
- Proponents see the deal as an opportunity for Tocantins to obtain financial resources that will support the state’s environmental policies.
- However, carbon offsets are hotly debated and many experts say the carbon market does more harm than good for the environment and global greenhouse gas emissions.
- The deal is likely to have a ripple effect on surrounding Amazonian states, experts say, leading to future carbon offset deals and prolonging the global use of fossil fuels.
Indonesia’s Mandalika megaproject still trampling on Indigenous community’s rights: Report
- U.N. human rights experts have raised concerns about the Mandalika tourism development megaproject in Indonesia for a third year running, a record number for a project of this scale funded by a multilateral development bank.
- The concerns revolve around alleged violations by the security forces against local and Indigenous communities in the Mandalika region of the island of Lombok, which the government plans to turn into a “New Bali” with resorts, hotels and a racetrack.
- The U.N. experts say reports of intimidation, impoverishment and disenfranchisement of the Indigenous communities in Mandalika continue to flood in, despite the U.N. having flagged the project since 2021.
- NGOs have called on the $3 billion Mandalika project’s main funder, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), to suspend its financing and launch an independent investigation into the alleged human rights violations.
Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Brazil’s controversial bill 490 was overwhelmingly approved in the country’s Lower House by representatives and farmers, including political allies of President Lula’s party.
- The bill introduces a time frame to create Indigenous territories, reduces the area of Indigenous lands and opens Indigenous areas to mining and infrastructure projects, among other changes.
- According to opponents of the bill, this breaks with land rights guaranteed in the Constitution to Indigenous peoples. Proponents of the bill argue that more land should rather be given to farmers and economic development projects.
- The text now goes to the Senate, the majority of which are conservative and in favor of the reduction of the area of Indigenous territories. If approved, it goes to President Lula, who can veto the bill or be overridden by Congress.
The counterstrike: Brazilian Congress moves to block Lula’s environmental agenda
- The Brazilian Congress approved a series of actions to dismantle the president’s ambitious environmental agenda, including attacks on Indigenous people’s rights and stripping powers of ministers.
- Among the changes is the approval of the controversial time frame thesis for Indigenous lands, which can reduce new demarcations, shrink approved territory and open Indigenous areas for mining and infrastructure projects.
- Some of the actions can be reversed by the Senate, Lula and the Supreme Court, but experts see the move as a major defeat for the president.
Agro giants buy grains from farmers fined for using Indigenous land in Brazil
- Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, Amaggi, ADM do Brasil, Viterra and General Mills bought soy and corn in an area where “grain laundering” is admitted by producers and civil servants.
- The illegal crops came from areas on the border of the Amazon Rainforest which had restrictions for production, but the real origin of the grains were concealed through paperwork.
- The revelations come from a joint investigation by the Brazilian news outlets Repórter Brasil and O Joio e o Trigo.
World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
- Brazil could face losses of $317 billion per year as well as biodiversity depletion and severe social setbacks for millions of people if Amazon deforestation continues, a new report from the World Bank warns.
- The value is seven times higher than profits from commodities taken from the rainforest, the report concludes.
- Experts say that infrastructure development connecting coastal cities, rather than within the Amazon Rainforest, can help boost Brazil’s economy and improve social conditions while reducing pressure on the forests.
- Development efforts must be supported by strong forest governance and international backing in order to be effective, according to experts.
Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- The ongoing development of an entirely new capital city from the ground up in Indonesia has alarmed environmental and Indigenous rights activists, who have warned of both deep ecosystem and social impacts.
- The government has justified the plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta, on the island of Java, to Indonesia Borneo as a way of ensuring a greater share of development beyond the country’s western islands.
- Mongabay has already reported on the risks to the wider Bornean region and the additional pressures on marine ecosystems that are a biodiversity haven.
- In response, Myrna Asnawati Safitri, the deputy for environment and natural resources at the government agency overseeing the development, reached out for an exclusive interview where these and other thorny questions were addressed.
‘Many features of the Amazon are man-made’: Q&A with archaeologist Eduardo Neves
- Research shows that the human presence in the world’s largest tropical rainforest dates back much further and was much more varied than previously thought.
- Archeologist Eduardo Neves has studied human occupation of the Amazon for 30 years and found evidence of rice, manioc and palm tree cultivation dating back thousands of years.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Neves talks about the new understanding of the Amazon: “The diversity of the Amazon, the presence of many large nut trees and fruit-bearing palm trees, is a result of Indigenous practices.”
- The old paradigm about the agricultural limitations of the rainforest has been shelved, according to Neves. “The Amazon Rainforest is not only a natural heritage, but [also] a biocultural heritage.”
‘I’ll keep fighting’: Indigenous activist and Goldman winner Alessandra Munduruku
- Indigenous leader and human rights activist Alessandra Korap Munduruku was one of the six winners of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize.”
- The award recognizes her relentless resistance to illegal mining within the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, including prospecting attempts by mining giant Anglo American.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Alessandra discusses what the prize means to her, the policy changes she’s seeing in Brazil, and the current crisis in the Munduruku territory.
- While she praises some actions of the current government, she says her fight isn’t over yet, as she warns of possible environmental issues arising from upcoming infrastructure projects.
Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy
- How does public land in the Brazilian Amazon, including chunks of protected areas and Indigenous territories, end up under private ownership?
- This investigation unveils the network of realtors and engineers who take advantage of Brazil’s disjointed land registration system to launder stolen land.
- Experts say the CAR land registry in particular, which was meant to prevent environmental crimes, has instead made land grabbing easier than ever.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
‘Don’t buy Brazilian gold’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Júnior Hekurari Yanomami
- Júnior Hekurari Yanomami is a leader of the Yanomami people in Roraima state, Brazil, where he founded an organization to aid his people after working as a health worker.
- In a Mongabay interview, the Indigenous leader called for a boycott of Brazilian gold and said he hoped for efforts to find long-term solutions to keep illegal miners out of the Yanomami territory.
- In early March, Júnior led a campaign to raise international awareness about Amazonian gold by awarding wooden statuettes to Oscar nominees.
Namibia’s first peoples struggle to access their traditional lands (commentary)
- Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program receives significant backing.
- Two CBNRM land conservancies are sited in the last strongholds for Indigenous communities in southern Africa, the Ju/hoansi San and the !Kung San.
- However, research suggests that the conservancies’ natural resources often benefit traders, herders, and trophy hunting guides more than the Indigenous peoples, who too often are unable to access their traditional lands.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
‘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.
Report sums up Bolsonaro’s destruction legacy and Amazon’s next critical steps
- A damning report confirms what many environmentalists already knew: that the destruction of nature in Brazil from 2019 to 2022 was a deliberate campaign of sabotage led by the government of the time.
- The report compiled four years of data to describe record levels of land invasions, illegal mining and Amazon deforestation under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.
- Against this challenging scenario, experts have mostly praised President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s initial actions in his first 100 days, especially his efforts to address the health crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory.
- However, key actions remain pending, they say, including the quashing of anti-environmental bills and an end to the plan to pave a controversial highway through the Amazon Rainforest.
To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- A new toll road in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is under construction to improve access to the interior of Borneo, including to the nation’s new capital city, Nusantara.
- Construction of the road, however, poses immediate environmental risks, as the route cuts through a forested area with high conservation value that connects the Sungai Wain protected forest, coastal mangroves, and Balikpapan Bay.
- Prior to road construction, the integrated forest and coastal ecosystem supported populations of orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- Conservationists say the construction of this toll road belies the Indonesian government’s claims that the development of the new capital will be green and sustainable.
Indonesian Indigenous group AMAN wins Skoll Award for defending land rights
- Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance, AMAN, has won a 2023 Skoll Award for Social Innovation for its work in advocating for Indigenous rights.
- The group’s work includes mapping Indigenous territories and lobbying for legislation that supports and protects Indigenous rights to their lands.
- AMAN says the award fuels its spirit to work even harder, as there’s still much work to be done, with many Indigenous communities still lacking legal recognition of their land rights and an Indigenous rights bill being stalled in Parliament.
- Four other organizations have won this year’s award, including Conexsus, a Brazilian NGO that promotes sustainable forest management and forest-based economies by centering community-led efforts and Indigenous ecological knowledge.
RSPO suspension of Brazil palm oil exporter tied to Mongabay land-grabbing report
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a members organization including palm oil growers, traders, manufacturers, retailers, banks, investors and others — has had its certificate “temporarily suspended” since February.
- In December 2022, Mongabay published a yearlong investigation revealing that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma in northern Pará state derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau. Part of the area overlaps ancestral land claimed by Indigenous peoples and Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — including two cemeteries, which is at the center of a seven-year legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Just a few weeks after the publication of the investigation, representatives from the certifiers contacted Quilombola leaders “to understand the denouncements” published by the report, they went to the region and carried out audits in all affected communities; soon after, IBD Certifications Ltd. suspended Agropalma’s RSPO certificate.
- Assurance Services International (ASI), which evaluates the work of certifiers, confirmed that “the report was a reason for ASI to conduct a compliance assessment to IBD, the certifier of Agropalma, at the Certificate Holder’s premises.” University professors hired by ASI as local experts also cited the Mongabay investigation and this reporter when they contacted other key sources quoted in the report, as shown in email correspondence seen by Mongabay.
Sámi rights must not be sacrificed for green energy goals of Europe (commentary)
- Last week, the European Commission released the Critical Raw Materials Act for minerals used in renewable energy and digital technologies.
- It mandates that EU countries should be extracting “enough ores, minerals and concentrates to produce at least 10% of their strategic raw materials by 2030,” and part of that looks likely to come from mines on Indigenous Sámi land.
- Mines already sited there have caused pollution, devastated ecosystems, poisoned reindeer forage, and taken away their reindeer grazing areas. “How can this transition be sustainable if it destroys our land and violates our Indigenous and human rights?” a new op-ed asks.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Indonesia’s plan to build its new capital city on an expiring logging concession in eastern Borneo has sparked concerns among environmental and human rights observers about the larger eco-social impacts to the rest of the island.
- The administration of President Joko Widodo, who made the decision and will leave office next year, has made glowing promises of a green and sustainable development: claiming minimal forest clearance, respect for Indigenous and local communities’ rights, and a net-zero carbon emission design.
- Mongabay visited the site of the project last October to see its progress, observe firsthand some of the earliest impacts from the construction of the city and supporting infrastructure, and speak with the people most likely to be affected.
- Clearing of mangroves and high-conservation forest areas, land conflicts with Indigenous communities, and potentially large-scale displacements are already happening, calling into question whether the $34 billion project’s benefits will outweigh its downsides.
Palm oil plantation linked to Wilmar faces accusations in Liberia
- A report released by the Liberian and Dutch affiliates of Friends of the Earth says the Maryland Oil Palm Plantation in Liberia is abusing its workers and rural villagers.
- The company is owned by Côte D’Ivoire-based SIFCA, which is itself nearly 30% owned by the Singapore-based agribusiness giant Wilmar.
- Friends of the Earth’s Liberian affiliate said the company has polluted local waterways, beaten villagers it accuses of stealing palm fruit, and withheld pay from its contractors.
The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon
- This is the story of how three individual landowners engineered the single-largest instance of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The clearing of 6,469 hectares (or 15,985 acres) of forest in the southern part of Pará state could earn them nearly $20 million in profit at current land prices.
- The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms, or plant grass and sell it for cattle ranching.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
US pledges Amazon Fund donation, renewing hope for the rainforest
- Recent talks between the presidents of Brazil and the U.S. have spurred hope for a renewed global commitment to protect the Amazon Rainforest.
- The U.S. has pledged to work with Brazil to strengthen the protection of the Amazon, including offering “initial support” to the recently revived Amazon Fund.
- Reports claim the U.S. will initially donate $50 million toward the fund, inciting disappointment among some experts who claim billions, not millions, are required to eliminate deforestation.
- However, many environmentalists praise the collaboration as giving credibility to Brazil’s environmental agenda and claim it could encourage more countries to donate.
JBS is accused of misleading investors with suspicious green bonds
- The global NGO Mighty Earth has filed a complaint against the beef giant JBS with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing the company of misleading investors in a sustainability-linked bonds issuance that raised $3.2 billion for the company in 2021.
- The bonds were attached to JBS’ promise to reduce its climate footprint and become net-zero by 2040. According to Mighty Earth, these targets don’t include cattle enteric fermentation and deforestation, which account for 97% of JBS’ emissions.
- JBS argues it can’t measure its indirect emissions and that it has always been transparent with investors about the scope of its commitments.
- The case will probably be analyzed by SEC’s recently created Climate and ESG Task Force, which has already punished heavyweights such as the mining company Vale and the international financial group Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Indigenous communities in Latin America decry the Mennonites’ expanding land occupation
- A team of journalists followed in the footsteps of five Mennonite colonies that have been reported for clearing forests by Indigenous communities and locals in Bolivia, Colombia, México, Paraguay and Perú. Many of these cases are being investigated by prosecutors and environmental authorities.
- Authors of a recent study to understand the extension of Mennonite presence in the region say that the expansion will continue as the colonies grow in size and continue to pursue farming, creating new colonies.
- Many of these cases are being investigated by prosecutors and environmental authorities.
Australian niobium mining project instills 16 years of anxiety for Malawi communities
- In 2006, Australian mining firm Globe Metals & Mining began exploring for rare earth metals niobium and tantalum in Malawi’s Kanyika hills, confirming in 2012 its intention to begin commercial mining.
- The metals will be used in the manufacture of high-tech equipment like electric vehicle batteries and gas and wind turbines.
- For villagers being relocated for the mine, these high-tech goods hold little appeal when compared with the loss of their land, and with the 16 years they have been living in limbo while awaiting relocation.
Q&A: Climatologist Carlos Nobre’s dream of an Amazon Institute of Technology
- Three decades ago, Carlos Nobre projected a not-very-encouraging scenario for the Amazon. Today, he witnesses the beginning of the forest’s savannization, but he says he believes that the scenario can still be reversed.
- As an internationally renowned expert when it comes to the world’s largest tropical forest, Nobre is leading a project that intends to bring Amazonian countries together in developing research and educational centers focused on a “standing forest economy.”
- In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, he detailed the project of the Amazon Institute of Technology (AmIT) and spoke about what must be done to prevent the Amazon from reaching a point of no return.
Dammed, now mined: Indigenous Brazilians fight for the Xingu River’s future
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, but faces opposition from Indigenous communities.
- In addition to the environmental impacts, experts warn of the risk of the proposed tailings dam rupturing, which could flood the area with 9 million cubic meters (2.4 billion gallons) of toxic waste.
- The same region is already suffering the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which diverts up to 85% of the flow of the Xingu River, leading to a mass decline in fish that traditional riverside dwellers and Indigenous people rely on.
- The Belo Sun project was legally challenged last year, prompting supporters to harass and intimidate those who oppose the mine’s construction; tensions in the region remain high.
Deforestation ‘out of control’ in reserve in Brazil’s cattle capital
- Forest destruction has ravaged Triunfo do Xingu, a reserve earmarked for sustainable use that has nonetheless become one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fires burned swaths of the reserve in recent months and forest clearing has surged, with satellite images showing even the most remote remnants of old-growth rainforest were whittled away last year.
- Advocates say the forest is mainly giving way to cattle pasture, although illegal mining and land grabbing are gaining ground.
- The destruction, facilitated by lax environmental regulation, is placing pressure on nearby protected areas and undermining agroforestry efforts in Triunfo do Xingu, advocates say.
Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.
Brazilian archbishop is threatened for defending Indigenous peoples — even during Mass
- Dom Roque Paloschi, president of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and archbishop of Porto Velho in the state of Roraima, Brazil, has been under attack because he denounced Indigenous people’s rights violations.
- It has always been risky to live in Amazonia and defend social-environmental issues, but Paloschi says the situation has worsened greatly in the last four years — the period that coincides with Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- In 2021, 355 attacks against Indigenous people were reported in Brazil — the most since 2013, according to a CIMI report.
Video: In Brazil’s Amazon, Quilombolas fight major palm oil firm for access to cemeteries
- Areas along the Acará River in northern Pará state are at the center of a six-year legal battle where Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — accuse Agropalma, the country’s second-largest palm oil exporter, of land-grabbing over their ancestral lands, including cemeteries, as revealed by Mongabay’s yearlong investigation.
- One of these areas is Our Lady of Battle Cemetery, where Mongabay witnessed in November 2021 Quilombolas celebrating the Day of the Dead for the first time in decades. They say access to the area was hampered since it became Agropalma’s “legal reserve” — the proportion of land that the Brazilian legislation obliges a private property owner to maintain in its natural state — in the 1980s.
- In this video, Mongabay exhibits what is called a “historic moment” and firsthand footage and interviews with Quilombolas going to this cemetery for the first time. This video also has impressive images of palm trees just a few steps from the graves at Livramento Cemetery, completely surrounded by Agropalma’s crops. Quilombolas accuse Agropalma of destroying three-quarters of its area to make way for its plantations; the company denies.
- “To support future lawsuits,” prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma.
‘We’re not going to give Lula a free pass’: Q&A with Indigenous leader Beto Marubo
- Despite his criticisms of the previous Workers’ Party (PT) administrations when it came to environmental issues, Beto Marubo, an Indigenous leader from Brazil, says he believes that the incoming president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will be able to make Brazil a major player on the world stage in climate and environmental matters again from 2023 onward.
- Beto says he believes that pressure from civil society is more important than ever in ensuring the government-elect reassumes environmental protection commitments and in preventing the agribusiness lobby from sabotaging advances, as happened in Lula’s previous administrations.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Beto, a member of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), condemned the current government for the increases in deforestation and criminality in his region under its watch and reaffirmed his call for justice for the brutal murder of his friend Bruno Pereira and the journalist Dom Phillips in June this year.
Video: Stolen Quilombola cemeteries in the Amazon, and the probe that revealed it all
- Palm oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in products ranging from chocolate to cookies to lipstick, but its production in a corner of the Brazilian Amazon may be linked to a land grab from traditional communities, including cemeteries, a year-long investigation by Mongabay’s Karla Mendes has revealed.
- Prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma, the country’s second-largest palm oil exporter.
- In November 2021, Mendes went to Pará’s Alto Acará region to investigate these land-grabbing claims, and shares her reporting journey in this behind-the-scenes video, including witnessing a historical Day of the Dead celebration at a cemetery that the Quilombolas say they were locked out of by Agropalma.
- Mendes also witnessed another cemetery hemmed in by Agropalma’s oil palms, where Quilombolas accuse the company of planting the trees over the graves of their loved ones, and investigated other palm oil-linked issues reported by local communities, including water pollution and the threat of displacement from the paving of a trucking road.
Island shopping: Cambodian officials buy up the Cardamoms’ coast
- A buying spree by Cambodia’s wealthy and politically connected elites has put the fate of a string of small islands in the balance, affecting the livelihoods of local fishers.
- Resort developments threaten the Koh S’dach archipelago’s seagrass and coral ecosystems, which harbor rare and threatened marine life.
- Local fishers have also found themselves locked out of their traditional fishing grounds by the developers, leading to a loss of earnings.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Major Brazil palm oil exporter accused of fraud, land-grabbing over Quilombola cemeteries
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), is accused of a wide range of land-grabbing allegations in Pará state.
- The claims allege that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma was derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau, which is at the center of a legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Quilombola communities say that part of the area occupied by Agropalma overlaps with their ancestral land, including two cemeteries visited by Mongabay. In one of them, residents claim that just one-quarter of the cemetery remains and that the company planted palm trees on top of the graves, which the company denies.
- There are also other financial interests in the land at stake, researchers say, pointing to the company’s moves into bauxite mining and the sale of carbon credits in the areas subject to litigation, further intensifying the disputes.
‘Panic’ sets in as armed groups occupy, deforest Colombian national park
- Once covering an expanse of more than 2,140 square kilometers (826 square miles) of the Colombian Amazon Rainforest, Tinigua National Natural Park has lost 29% of its forests over the past 20 years; the majority of this loss has occurred since 2018.
- Satellite data and monitoring suggest forest loss has kept a quick pace in 2022.
- Authorities say illegal cattle ranching, coca growing and land-grabbing are driving deforestation in the park, much of it reportedly done at the hands of armed groups affiliated with FARC dissident factions.
- Local communities have also reportedly been threatened by these groups.
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.
Indigenous communities in Peru ‘living in fear’ due to deforestation, drug trafficking
- Between 2021 and 2021 the territory of the Indigenous Kakataibo community of Puerto Nuevo lost 15% of its tree cover.
- Satellite data suggest forest loss in the community territory may have accelerated in 2022.
- Residents say outsiders are invading the territory and clearing forest to grow coca crops for the production of cocaine.
- The presence of armed groups is deterring government intervention.
U.N. report calls for the ban of mercury trade and its use in gold mining
- Small-scale gold mining is the key driver of global mercury demand, according to a U.N. report on the highly toxic metal, with South America accounting for 39% of this demand.
- Hair samples taken from Indigenous communities in the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazonian regions showed mercury levels in excess of the safe limit prescribed by the World Health Organization.
- In Brazil specifically, mercury use has risen with the boom in illegal mining that has been largely overlooked — and in some cases even encouraged — by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Report offers a road map to restore the rule of law in the Brazilian Amazon
- Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will have to supercharge many of the same policies that he employed in his first two terms to bring Amazon destruction rates down from their record highs, a new report says.
- The report, by a group of development, security and conservation think tanks, lists 92 proposals for Lula when he takes office at the start of 2023, centered around ending the culture of criminal impunity that flourished under the outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro.
- Experts say the absence of law enforcement in the Amazon has strengthened a criminal ecosystem that profits from land grabbing, illegal logging, mining, and wildlife and drug trafficking.
- The Bolsonaro administration has encouraged this in large part by weakening environmental enforcement agencies and putting loyalists in their top posts.
Tensions boil in Sumatra over a palm oil promise villagers say has yet to be kept
- In West Sumatra province, tensions in a three-decade-old land conflict spiked this year after several residents of Nagari Aia Gadang village were detained by police.
- The dispute centers on the community’s entitlement to a proportion of oil palm company PT Anam Koto’s concession under Indonesia’s plasma program.
- Residents of Nagari Aia Gadang say the company’s refusal to cede the land has held back local livelihoods, elevating risks that parents will not be able to afford to send their children to school.
In Brazil’s soy belt, Indigenous people face attacks over land rights
- In Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous people seeking to reclaim their ancestral lands have been subjected to threats and violence by farmers and security forces, according to Indigenous residents and rights activists.
- In June, tensions escalated in the Guapo’y Mirim Tujury community when a military police operation to evict the Guarani-Kaiowá from part of a farm they were occupying left one Indigenous resident dead and injured at least nine other residents, including children, according to advocates.
- The incident was the latest in a decades-long struggle for land rights and demarcation, which has led to the deaths of 608 Guarani-Kaiowá people in Mato Grosso do Sul between 2003 and 2021.
- The violence has continued since the Guapo’y Mirim Tujury operation: in July and September, two Guarani-Kaiowá leaders were killed in the region, with Indigenous residents blaming farming interests for the deaths.
Podcast: How the Indigenous Shuar regained their ancestral forest
- “Ecuador had not declared community protected area management by Indigenous peoples until Tiwi Nunka Forest. This area is the first of its kind in Ecuador, and one of the few in the entire Amazon,” says our first guest on this episode, Felipe Serrano.
- Serrano is the Ecuador country director for Nature and Culture International, which helped the Shuar people in their struggle to reclaim this territory and get the forest included in Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas.
- We also speak with journalist Paul Koberstein about the flawed basis for the U.S. State of Washington’s new and unusual climate solution: cutting down forests.
- The state claims that it’s more effective to store carbon in wood products than it is to keep forests standing, but as Koberstein shares, research shows that only a small percentage of the carbon remains in wood products, and the rest is lost to the atmosphere, so activists are pushing for a change in policy.
As banks fund oil pipeline, campaigners question their environmental pledges
- Activists say some banks that have signed up to the Equator Principles are failing to live up to their pledge of properly assessing the environmental and social risks of the projects they finance.
- South Africa’s Standard Bank and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are facilitating funding for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project (EACOP).
- When fully operational, crude oil flowing through pipeline will generate 34 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
- Activists say EACOP, which will run 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) across many ecologically sensitive areas, has also affected 12,000 households who have been inadequately compensated.
There is not enough land to meet many of the world’s climate pledges, says new study
- National climate pledges would collectively require 1.2 billion hectares (about 3 billion acres) of land, researchers have found in a new study, The Land Gap Report.
- More than half of this land is already currently used for something else. This demand for land will put pressure on ecosystems, Indigenous lands, smallholder farmers and food security.
- Protecting existing forests and securing Indigenous and community land rights are more effective than carbon capture plans requiring land-use change, including reforestation.
- Indigenous leaders are calling for updates and transparency at the upcoming U.N. climate conference, COP27, concerning funding pledges at last year’s conference.
Illegal agricultural project moves ahead on Brazilian Indigenous lands
- Marked by a fine for illegal deforestation, Agro Xavante, an initiative created with the blessing of President Bolsonaro, moves ahead with leasing public lands and a failure to conduct prior consultation with the local population.
- Called Indigenous Independence Project, the initiative determines that 80% of the net profits go to the rural producers, with the Xavante people receiving 20%.
- The very essence of the project makes it unconstitutional because, according to the Brazilian Constitution, the Indigenous peoples enjoy the exclusive use of their territories, with the sole right to the exploitation of the natural resources contained therein.
Activists slam Bolsonaro rule change seen as ending demarcation of Indigenous lands
- The Brazilian government has drawn up a new statute for Funai, the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, without the input of Indigenous peoples.
- Indigenous rights activists say the structural changes will hinder the body’s functioning and effectively end the demarcation of new Indigenous territories across the country.
- The move is the latest attempt by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to undermine Funai, according to insiders and observers.
- Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 on a campaign promise to stop demarcating Indigenous territories and to “deliver a blow to the neck” of Funai.
How an Indigenous family under siege became a symbol of resistance in the Amazon
- Neidinha, Almir and Txai Suruí are leading the fight against invaders destroying two of the most threatened Indigenous territories in the Brazilian state of Rondônia: the Sete de Setembro and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reserves.
- Indigenous territories in Rôndonia have been the target of a recent wave of illegal activities such as land invasions, illegal mining and illegal logging, while their defenders have been threatened and even killed.
- The violence faced by defenders of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory has been captured in the documentary “The Territory” (“O Território”), released in Europe and the U.S. in August and in Brazil in September, in which part of the production team was made up of local Indigenous leaders.
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.
Mangroves and wildlife in Bornean bay at risk from Indonesia’s new capital
- Experts and activists say the construction of Indonesia’s new capital city upstream of Balikpapan Bay on the island of Borneo fails to mitigate against damage to the marine ecosystem.
- The stretch of coast between the bay and the mouth of the Mahakam River is packed with mangroves, which host a rich diversity of marine and terrestrial life, including proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- The government has said the construction of the new capital, Nusantara, will include retaining a large swath of mangrove forest, but zoning details show most of it won’t be protected against development.
- The $33 billion planned city will in 2024 take over as the Indonesian capital from Jakarta, and its full construction will be completed by 2045, according to the government’s plans.
Cambodia’s elites swallow up Phnom Penh’s lakes, leaving the poor marooned
- Lakes in Phnom Penh are fast being filled in and parceled off as prime real estate to wealthy and politically connected individuals.
- Families who have for generations fished and practiced aquaculture on the lakes and surrounding wetlands face eviction and the loss of livelihoods.
- At the same time, experts warn that filling in these natural rainwater reservoirs risks exacerbating flood intensity and damage in the Cambodian capital.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Sulawesi islanders grieve land lost to nickel mine
- The Harita Group holds a nickel mining concession covering about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) on Wawonii Island.
- The arrival of the mine has divided the community between those who support the development and farmers hoping to retain their fruit and nut trees.
- One man described his grief as the grave of his son was exhumed and moved as a result of the mine.
Conservatives tighten grip on Brazil Congress, hampering environmental agenda
- Brazilians elected a more conservative Congress in the Oct. 2 ballot, with supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro and the agribusiness lobby winning seats in both the lower and upper houses.
- Experts say that if former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins the runoff presidential vote on Oct. 30, he could curtail some of the pressure from the agribusiness caucus and reverse the past four years of destructive policies for the Amazon.
- Two Indigenous women and former environment minister Marina Silva are expected to lead the opposition against the agribusiness, mining and logging agenda in Congress, after winning seats in the lower house.
In the Amazon, Bolsonaro’s far right may retain power even if Lula wins
- While polls show former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead in the upcoming elections, far-right ideology persists in the Amazon region.
- Bolsonaro’s allies lead the polls for governor in five of the nine Amazon states: Acre, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Roraima and Amazonas.
- In all Amazonian states, polls indicate that the two presidential candidates are tied, in contrast to national polls.
- Experts say that even if most states choose right-wing governors, the federal government will determine the future of the Amazon rainforest.
European bill passes to ban imports of deforestation-linked commodities
- Imports of 14 types of commodities into the European Union will soon have to be verified for possible association with deforestation in the countries in which they were produced.
- That’s the key provision in a bill passed on Sept. 13 by the European Parliament, which initially targeted soy, beef, palm oil, timber, cocoa, and coffee, but now also includes pork, lamb and goat meat, as well as poultry, corn, rubber, charcoal, and printed paper.
- The bill still needs the approval of the Council of the EU and the national parliaments of the 27 countries in the bloc, but is already considered a historic step against deforestation.
- In Brazil, experts have welcomed the bill as a means of tackling the demand-side pressures driving increasing levels of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, while the agribusiness lobby has denounced it as unfair.
Can Two New Bills Reshape Indigenous Rights and Illegal Gold Mining in Suriname?
- Two bills currently before Suriname’s parliament aim to recognize the rights of the country’s Indigenous inhabitants and tackle the forest-poisoning mercury pollution associated with gold mining.
- But both bills face an uphill battle: Suriname has repeatedly refused to recognize Indigenous rights, making it one of the few Amazonian countries to do so, while gold mining is the backbone of the country’s economy.
- A key provision in one of the bills is the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), which would make it illegal to open mining concessions on Indigenous land without the community’s consent.
- The other bill, on stopping the illegal mercury trade, threatens to ruffle the feathers of powerful individuals with links to the gold industry, including Suriname’s current vice president.
Report lists Indigenous territories under greatest pressure in the Amazon
- Apyterewa, the territory of the Parakanã people, continues to be the main target of deforestation by land grabbers among the Indigenous territories of the Amazon, a report by Imazon shows.
- The advance of land grabbing in the area known as the “deforestation belt” is used as a form of political pressure for reducing and questioning legally recognized areas.
- Despite increasing pressure, Indigenous territories still have the lowest deforestation rate among protected areas, proving their effectiveness as a preservation policy.
- Indigenous representatives and civil society advocates criticize the federal government for reducing vigilance and putting forward bills to explore Indigenous land.
‘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.
Commodity kings Cargill, Bunge buying soy from stolen Indigenous land, report says
- Commodity-trading giants Cargill and Bunge source some of the soy used in products like chicken feed and pet food to land where Indigenous communities have suffered violence and displacement, according to a new report from Earthsight, an organization investigating environmental and social injustices.
- The companies have ties to a 9,700-hectare (24,000-acre) soy farm in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul that operates on the ancestral land of the Guarani Kaiowá, an Indigenous group that has spent the last several decades fighting forced eviction.
- Earthsight has documented supply chain links between soy from the Brasília do Sul farm and chicken retailers like KFC, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi and Iceland, as well as German supermarket chains like Rewe Markt, Netto Marken-Discount, Lidl, Aldi and Edeka.
- Earthsight said Cargill and Bunge need to take a firmer stance on Indigenous rights rather than passing off responsibility to intermediaries or deferring to legal loopholes.
Toxic rare earth mines fuel deforestation, rights abuses in Myanmar, report says
- Highly toxic rare earth mining has rapidly expanded in northern Myanmar, fueling human rights abuses, deforestation and environmental contamination, an investigation by the NGO Global Witness has found.
- People living near mining sites have seen surrounding land polluted and waterways contaminated by the chemicals used to extract the rare earth minerals that are used in smartphones, home electronics and clean energy technology, such as electric cars and wind turbines.
- The investigation found that China has outsourced much of its rare earth mining industry to Myanmar’s Kachin state, where more than 2,700 heavy rare earth mines have proliferated over an area the size of Singapore since 2016.
- There is a risk of minerals mined illegally in Myanmar making their way into products manufactured by several global brands, the investigation says.
Organized crime drives violence and deforestation in the Amazon, study shows
- Increasing rates of both deforestation and violence in the Brazilian Amazon are being driven by sprawling national and transnational criminal networks, a study shows.
- Experts say criminal organizations engaged in activities ranging from illegal logging to drug trafficking often threaten and attack environmentalists, Indigenous people, and enforcement agents who attempt to stop them.
- In 2020, the Brazilian Amazon had the highest murder rate in Brazil, at 29.6 homicides per 100,000 habitants, compared to the national average of 23.9, with the highest rates corresponding to municipalities suffering the most deforestation.
- Experts say the current government’s systematic dismantling of environmental protections and enforcement agencies has emboldened these criminal organizations, which have now become “well connected, well established and very strong.”
Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- For the first time in Brazil, the killing of an Indigenous land defender is expected to be tried before a federal jury — escalated to that level because of what prosecutors say was an aggression against the entire Guajajara Indigenous community and Indigenous culture.
- Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was killed in an alleged ambush by illegal loggers in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in November 2019; two people have been indicted to stand trial in the case.
- The impending trial stands out amid a general culture of impunity that has allowed violence against Indigenous individuals and the theft of their land — including the killings of more than 50 Guajajara individuals in the past 20 years — to go unpunished.
- It could also set an important legal precedent for trying those responsible for the recent killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira.
Amazon rainforest activist under threat in Brazil plans to flee his home
- Erasmo Theofilo, an agroecologist, founded a farmers’ cooperative in one of the most hostile corners of the Amazon to defend landless and poor rural workers and promote sustainable farming practices.
- He has been the target of death threats, ambushes and attempts on his life for his work in the municipality of Anapu, in Pará state, where U.S.-born nun Dorothy Stang was killed for her activism in 2005.
- Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office at the start of 2019, land conflicts and deforestation in the Amazon have surged, with a recent report showing that Pará is the most dangerous for land rights defenders.
- Theofilo told Mongabay he believes he will never be safe in Anapu again, even if the land conflicts are resolved, and is planning to leave for good with his family.
Swiss pledge to stop illegal gold imports from Brazil Indigenous reserves
- Switzerland imported 24.5 tonnes of gold in 2021, at least a fifth of which came from Brazilian Amazon states. Evidence indicates most of it is mined illegally on Indigenous lands. Illicit mining operations have resulted in major Amazon deforestation, widespread mercury poisoning and soaring violence.
- With the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro unresponsive to the escalating crisis, an independent delegation of Indigenous people along with others travelled to Switzerland in May to plead with major gold refiners to end the importation of illicit Brazilian gold.
- This week, the refiners published a statement pledging to remove illegal gold mined within Brazilian Indigenous reserves from their supply chains. If the initiative is fully followed, experts say it could be a game changer that could undermine the, until now, lucrative illegal gold trade.
- Canada, the world’s biggest importer of gold from the Brazilian Amazon, has made no such agreement.
Deaths of Phillips and Pereira shine light on a region of the Amazon beset by violence
- Brazilian police reported on June 15 that they had found the bodies believed to be those of Brazilian Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips deep in the western Amazon.
- The bodies were found not far from where the pair disappeared on June 5, in the Vale do Javari region, considered the most violent region of Brazil, where criminal groups vie to seize land occupied by Indigenous and traditional communities.
- Similar conflicts occur all over the Amazon, with some land grabbers admitting that they will, if necessary, use violent methods to achieve their goals.
- The Brazilian Senate has launched an investigation into the disappearance of Pereira and Phillips, but observers say it’s unlikely to deliver the far-reaching change required to tackle the violence.
In Indonesian Borneo, a succession of extractive industries multiplies impacts, social fractures
- Much of the landscape of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province has been transformed, its formerly vast forests razed for logging, monocrop agriculture and open-cast coal mining.
- A recently published study analyzes how waves of extractive industries have affected the inhabitants of one village in the province
- The cumulative impacts of these industries were found to be severe, but also to vary depending on multiple factors including ethnicity, gender, wealth and age. Women, young people and recently arrived migrants were found to be disproportionately affected.
A hidden crisis in Indonesia’s palm oil sector: 6 takeaways from our investigation
Last week, Mongabay, BBC News and The Gecko Project released a joint investigation into a scheme that was intended to help lift millions of Indonesians out of poverty and cut them in on the spoils of the global palm oil boom, but has instead been plagued by allegations of exploitation and illegality. Indonesia produces millions […]
Push for potash mine in Brazil’s Amazon looms over Indigenous people
- A Canadian-backed company seeking to mine potash in the Brazilian Amazon has finally begun a consultation process with Indigenous inhabitants — more than a decade after it arrived and started prospecting.
- Potássio do Brasil has promised jobs and prosperity for the municipality of Autazes, but Indigenous Mura communities say they’re worried the mine could pollute their rivers, killing the fish they depend on.
- But their resistance is undermined by the government’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge their land claims; officially recognized Indigenous territories in Brazil are off-limits to mining.
- The proposed mine is part of a wider push to exploit the Amazon by President Jair Bolsonaro, who says the potash project specifically will ease Brazil’s reliance on fertilizers imported from sanctions-hit Russia.
‘The promise was a lie’: How Indonesian villagers lost their cut of the palm oil boom
- An investigation by Mongabay, BBC News and The Gecko Project estimates that Indonesian villagers are losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year because palm oil producers are failing to comply with regulations requiring them to share their plantations with communities.
- The “plasma” scheme was intended to lift communities out of poverty. But it has become a major source of unrest across the country, as government interventions fail to compel companies to deliver on their commitments and legal obligations.
- Palm oil from companies accused of withholding profits from communities is flowing into the supply chains of major consumer goods firms like Kellogg’s and Johnson & Johnson. Some have pledged to investigate.
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.
Analysis: Myanmar’s gemstone riches bring poverty and environmental destruction
- Myanmar is endowed with rich reserves of jade, rubies and other gemstones, but endemic corruption and poor regulation mean little wealth has flowed to ordinary citizens.
- The jade-mining hotspot of Hpakant, in Kachin state, is emblematic of the problem: There are currently no licensed mines in the area, but jade extraction nonetheless continues at a massive scale.
- The speed and size of these poorly regulated operations results in both massive environmental damage and human casualties, as scavengers flock to unstable dumpsites to hunt for jade left behind by machines.
Podcast: Who owns the companies destroying rainforests in the heart of New Guinea?
- New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, also contains the world’s largest planned oil palm plantation.
- Covering 2,800 square kilometers (1,100 square miles) the Tanah Merah project is nearly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
- However, the true owners of the seven concessions that make up the project remain hidden through a shroud of corporate secrecy.
- We speak with Philip Jacobson, senior editor at Mongabay, and Bonnie Sumner, investigative reporter at the Aotearoa New Zealand organization Newsroom, to discuss the project from inception to present day, the involvement of a New Zealand businessman, and where the project could go next.
Rangers in DRC gorilla park abused Indigenous villagers, report says
- According to a new investigative report by Minority Rights Group (MRG), 20 Indigenous Batwa were killed, 15 women were raped and 2 children were burnt alive by park guards and soldiers in the DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP), home to the critically endangered eastern lowland gorilla.
- The acts were committed between 2019 and 2021 under the knowledge and paramilitary support of U.S and German government agencies and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), say the report’s researchers who obtained evidence through interviews with eyewitnesses and park guards involved in the attacks.
- WCS denies allegations brought against the organization, saying it had no involvement in military operations. The KBNP bulletin denied similar reports of violence during a visit by the government agency that manages the park in February.
- German government agencies and a cabinet secretary are calling for an independent investigation into allegations of abuses, which MRG says is just the “tip of the iceberg”. According to sources, another investigation is underway.
Best-preserved part of Brazil’s Amazon, home to isolated tribes, faces ‘decimation’
- An area of forest larger than England could be cleared by 2050 in one of the best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon, a new report warns.
- It says the main drivers of deforestation in the Middle Purus region of Amazonas state are illegal logging, neglect by government institutes, and the paving of the BR-319 road.
- The Middle Purus region is home to two areas where isolated Indigenous people were recently discovered, the Jacareúba-Katawixi Indigenous Territory and the Mamoriá Grande River region, but both have been without formal protection since temporary decrees were allowed to expire last year.
- The road-paving project, revived by the Bolsonaro administration in 2020 after being shelved in 1988, also threatens a surge in the deforestation rate, giving land grabbers and illegal loggers greater access to previously remote areas of forest.
NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.
Podcast: Tree kangaroos may be key to New Guinea forest conservation
- New Guinea is home to 12 of 14 species of the elusive, charismatic tree kangaroo.
- Conservationists in Papua New Guinea have been fighting for decades to establish protected areas using these species as a flagship species for these conservation efforts. PNG is now on the cusp of passing legislation aimed at creating a network of them.
- The Torricelli mountain range in northern PNG, home to the critically endangered tenkile tree kangaroo, has been in the crosshairs of a road project threatening to encroach upon the region, but the government is in the process of reviewing a draft proposal to halt the road for now.
- We speak with Jim Thomas of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance and Lisa Dabek and Modi Pontio of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program for this episode to explore what’s known about these intelligent marsupials, and the successes from nearly two decades working in PNG to conserve both them and the forests they inhabit.
Brazil Congress fast-tracks ‘death package’ bill to mine on Indigenous lands
- Thousands of protesters, including celebrities, activists and 150 Indigenous people from eight ethnic groups, gathered for the biggest environment protest ever held in Brazil’s capital against a series of bills dubbed the “death package” by critics.
- Protesters say the slate of five key bills will cause unbridled environmental damage and violate Indigenous rights by encouraging commercial activities in vulnerable regions and invasions of Indigenous territories.
- While the protests were taking place, the lower house of Congress voted to fast-track one of those bills, which would allow mining on Indigenous lands — an activity that’s banned under Brazil’s Constitution.
- While some lawmakers say they oppose the bills and will vote against them, the bills enjoy the support of President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful agribusiness lobby.
To fight invaders, Munduruku women wield drone cameras and cellphones
- Three young women from the Munduruku Indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon run an audiovisual collective that uses social media to raise awareness about illegal invasions of their territory.
- “Many people no longer believe what we say, they only believe what they see,” says Aldira Akai, who, at 30, is the oldest member of the collective.
- The Munduruku living in the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory say the anti-Indigenous rhetoric of the Jair Bolsonaro administration has emboldened illegal loggers and miners, and put native defenders under greater risk.
- The impact of illegal logging and mining in Sawré Muybu has seen deforestation surge to 146 hectares (361 acres) in 2020, up from 105 hectares (259 acres) the previous year.
In Brazil, Indigenous Ka’apor take their territory’s defense into their own hands
- In the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state, the Ka’apor people have taken the defense of their land into their own hands following years of neglect and corruption by the state.
- They have created a self-defense force to retake logging sites and access roads from illegal loggers, and established a network of settlements at each site to make their gains permanent.
- The strategy has paid off: in the first three years of the effort, from 2013-2016, the Ka’apor burned 105 logging trucks and closed 14 access roads, and managed to reduce the deforestation rate in their reserve significantly.
- But the illegal loggers, part of criminal organizations linked to local politicians, have reacted with violence against the Ka’apor, resulting in attacks on villages and the murder of five Indigenous people.
New IPCC climate report stresses Indigenous & local land rights 58 times: let’s respond with a concrete tenure plan (commentary)
- Actions to strengthen land access and tenure security of Indigenous and local communities are central to one of the new IPCC report’s five areas recommended for systemic change.
- Ramping up the recognition of land rights could help to preserve enough of the natural world to pull the climate back from the brink, the authors of a new op-ed argue.
- “We need a plan now, one with targets and deadlines, and crucially in terms of land rights, detail on how it will be monitored and enforced. Let’s do this before COP27 or we may run out of time,” they write.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
In Brazil, evicted Indigenous residents fight to reclaim their community
- Some 2,260 families, many of them Indigenous, were displaced in March 2020 when authorities dismantled the Monte Horebe informal settlement on the outskirts of Manaus, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
- Two years later, many of the displaced residents continue to struggle with precarious housing, deepening poverty and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, Indigenous leaders say.
- The Indigenous community is now fighting to reclaim the Monte Horebe settlement, asking a court to order authorities to compensate residents and allow them to return to the area.
- Informal settlements provide a lifeline for vulnerable Indigenous people forced to cities in search of employment, education or health care, but a crackdown by the authorities on these settlements threatens Indigenous people’s right to housing, community leaders say.
At a disputed Native massacre site, tribes brace for a new, lithium-driven rush
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved an open-pit lithium ore mine in northern Nevada, despite protests by Native tribes to protect the disputed sacred site.
- Lithium is in high demand as the key component in batteries that fuel electric vehicles and cellphones, raising environmental concerns about its extraction.
- The U.S. government is ramping up production of lithium all along the domestic supply chain to meet its clean energy goals.
John Deere and Brazilian bank team up to equip farmers deforesting the Amazon
- Farmers whose properties have been embargoed by environmental authorities in Brazil for deforestation have still been able to access government-subsidized loans to buy John Deere tractors, an investigation has found.
- The five farmers identified in the investigation received a combined 28.6 million reais ($5.4 million) in loans under a program administered by the state-owned Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and underwritten by John Deere Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. farm equipment manufacturer.
- Under Central Bank rules, farms that have been embargoed for deforestation are barred from accessing credit, but a loophole allows the farm owners to apply on the basis of a different property; in some cases, lender oversight was so lax that the farmers didn’t need to resort to this subterfuge.
- In addition to being embargoed, some of the farmers also had outstanding fines for environmental violations; one of them still owed 18 million reais ($3.4 million), yet went on to receive 11 million reais ($2.1 million) in loans.
Can ecotourism save Cambodia’s ‘ghost parks’?
- Cambodia’s 2021 signing into law of Sub-decree No. 30, which removed official protection from some 127,000 hectares of land formerly included in national parks, reserves and wildlife sanctuaries in Koh Kong province, has conservationists concerned about the ecological integrity of southern Cambodia.
- But experts caution that other protected areas in the country are hardly faring better, claiming that “a lack of commitment and vision, systemic corruption at varies levels and competing interests by state and private actors” is contributing to the rapid degradation of Cambodia’s remaining protected forest.
- There is some agreement between conservationists and government officials that the country does not have the resources to effectively manage its protected areas.
- As a solution, some point to Africa, where public-private ecotourism partnerships have been successful at preserving habitat. But others disagree.
Endangered wildlife face perilous future as vital habitat loses protection in Cambodia
- In March 2021, this imbalance has widened into a chasm as Cambodia’s government signed Sub-decree No. 30 into law, effectively revoking protection from some 127,000 hectares of land in reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in the southern province of Koh Kong province.
- One of the protected areas affected is Peam Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary, which lost almost a third of its total land area to the sub-decree — meaning these habitats are now for sale.
- Peam Krasop is home to species threatened with extinction, such as the hairy-nosed otter — the world’s rarest otter species — and the fishing cat.
- Researchers say the degradation of these habitats could result in “trophic cascades“ in which the loss of key species destabilizes entire ecosystems , which in turn may lead to further loss.
How a ‘dirty gambling company’ may have set the standard for habitat destruction in Cambodia
- Union Development Group (UDG) is a Chinese company that was granted a 36,000-hectare concession in Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park in 2008, followed by an additional 9,100-hectare concession granted in 2011. Much of Botum Sakor National Park’s forests have been cleared by UDG and other companies.
- On Sep. 15, 2020, the United States Treasury Department, sanctioned UDG for “serious human rights abuses and corruption,” noting that UDG had enlisted the support of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces to evict and harass residents, and also managed to skirt the 10,000-hectare limit on land concessions by “falsely registering as a Cambodian-owned entity.”
- In 2021, the Cambodian government signed into law Sub-decree No. 30, which transformed some 127,000 hectares of protected land in Koh Kong province into state-private land.
- Conservationists, researchers and local residents interviewed by Mongabay worry that the sub-decree will mean that many other parts of Koh Kong province will follow in the destruction of Botum Sakor.
Mau Forest rehabilitation still overshadowed by forced evictions
- More than 50,000 people have been forcefully evicted from Kenya’s ecologically important Mau Forest in the past decade.
- With few options to relocate, evicted smallholders and others continue to enter the forest in search of grazing and fuel.
- The Kenya Water Tower Agency has built electrified fencing, but encroachers have torn sections of this down.
- Enlisting evictees to create tree nurseries and support for alternative livelihoods points the way to more constructive approaches.
Attack on environmental lawyer’s home alarms DRC rights defenders
- Armed men, including two dressed in police uniform, attacked the home of Congolese lawyer Timothée Mbuya earlier this month and told family members they were sent to kill him.
- Mbuya is also facing a defamation lawsuit after publishing a report alleging encroachment of a protected area by a farm owned by former DRC president Joseph Kabila.
- Campaigners say both the lawsuit and the violent assault on the lawyer’s home fit a pattern of harassment of environment and human rights activists in the country.
Déjà vu for Indigenous villagers in Brazil as floods leave them homeless again
- A community of Indigenous Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe peoples has been made homeless for the second time in three years after the rain-swollen Paraopeba River flooded their houses and swept away their possessions.
- In 2019, the same village was left uninhabitable after the collapse of a tailings dam belonging to mining giant Vale polluted the river, causing health problems among the community and taking away their access to clean water.
- Authorities say the community can’t return to Naô Xohã village because their houses and land are now contaminated by heavy metals from the Paraopeba River’s toxic mud; the residents are currently sheltering in local schools and rely on donations.
- They are now fighting to be relocated to new land, but are still waiting for a final resolution from Vale after three years of negotiations.
Total’s oil pipeline gets go-ahead from Ugandan MPs despite secret terms
- Uganda’s parliament has passed a bill approving the construction of a controversial pipeline that will cut through high-biodiversity areas and displace thousands of people.
- Critics say the bill was rushed through parliament to pave the way for a secretive agreement between the government and French oil giant TotalEnergies, the pipeline’s operator.
- The $3.5 billion heated oil pipeline will run 1,445 kilometers (898 miles) from Uganda’s Lake Mwitanzige, in the Albertine Rift, to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania.
- The new bill that undergirds it holds “supremacy” over all existing legislation other than Uganda’s Constitution, making it “very difficult” for laws that offer environmental and social protections to be upheld in the event of a conflict.
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.
‘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.
‘Land mafia’ makes its mark in a Sumatran village’s fight against oil palm firm
- A government agency in Sumatra issued land titles to villagers in 2020, only to rescind them this year on the grounds that a palm oil company already holds the concession for that land.
- The flip-flop has revealed a litany of irregularities in the land-titling process and strengthened suspicions of a “land mafia” at work securing community-occupied lands for big businesses.
- The National Land Agency says more than 100 of its officials are suspected of being part of this mafia, but has done little to address the problem, and continues to violate a Supreme Court ruling that could bring greater transparency to land ownership across Indonesia.
- Activists say the land mafia have been emboldened by the government’s pro-business policies, including directives to make it easier for investors to secure land for projects.
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.
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.
Indonesians protesting against mines run growing risk of ‘criminalization’
- Indonesians defending their lands against mining operations are frequently met with criminal persecution on dubious charges, observers say.
- The people of Jomboran village on the island of Java are the latest example, with police questioning them for staging a protest at a mining site near the village.
- In 2020, 69 Indonesians were “criminalized” in with cases involving disputes with mining companies, according to data from the watchdog NGO Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam).
Oil highway bears down on uncontacted Indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Yasuní
- The construction of a controversial oil road in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park has expanded rapidly during the pandemic, and has now reached the buffer area of a core zone that’s home to uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
- The groups are the last two Indigenous nations living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador, and the oil project puts them in imminent danger, activists warn.
- They’re concerned about state-owned PetroEcuador’s plans to continue building the road and other oil platforms within the buffer zone, something that was made legal under a 2019 executive order.
- Conservationists say this order violates the rights of the two nations in voluntary isolation, and the Constitutional Court is now reviewing a challenge filed against it.
Podcast: What do two giant land deals mean for the future of Southeast Asia’s forests?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at two stories from Southeast Asia that highlight the importance of land rights and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous and local communities.
- We speak with Cynthia Ong, founder and Chief Executive Facilitator of Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), an NGO based in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, who tells us about the fallout from a story broken by Mongabay about a carbon deal signed by government officials in Sabah without consulting local communities. The deal covers more than 2 million hectares or 4.9 million acres of the state’s forests for at least the next 100 years.
- Our second guest is Gerry Flynn, a Mongabay contributor based in Cambodia who has been covering a recent government decree that made 127,000 hectares or nearly 314,000 acres of protected areas available for sale or rent. Flynn tells us why there are fears that it will amount to nothing more than a land grab by powerful interests, though the decree is ostensibly intended to make land titles available to landless families.
Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.
Lack of resolution mechanisms allow palm oil conflicts to fester in Indonesia
- An analysis of land conflicts involving palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity, shows the country lacks effective mechanisms for addressing these problems.
- The analysis of 150 cases by Indonesian and Dutch academics found that existing channels for addressing conflict between villagers and plantation firms generally “fail to produce meaningful results for the affected communities.”
- They also found that most of the violence documented in these conflicts was perpetrated by the police or security forces affiliated with the palm oil companies, and that community protest leaders frequently faced arrest and imprisonment on dubious charges.
- They called on the government to set up impartial “mediation boards” or “conflict resolution desks” at the provincial or district level, something the government says it is looking into but can’t commit to just yet.
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.
At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
- The Okomu Oil Palm Company is majority-owned by Socfin, a French-Belgian multinational that operates plantations across West and Central Africa.
- Okomu’s concession lies inside a forest reserve that was gazetted by British colonial authorities in 1912 and that was once among the most pristine rainforests in Nigeria, home to forest elephants, leopards and chimpanzees.
- For more than a decade, Okomu has been in conflict with some of the communities inside its concession over land ownership and usage rights in the reserve.
- In early 2020, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified Okomu’s main estate after an audit by the consultancy firm SCS; campaigners say the firm failed to perform adequate due diligence and that Okomu’s certification is an example of the RSPO’s shortcomings.
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.
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.
Indonesia’s leader touts green goals at COP26, but overlooks green stewards at home
- Indigenous rights advocates have lambasted Indonesian President Joko Widodo for failing to acknowledge Indigenous peoples and their role in protecting forests during his speech to other world leaders at the COP26 climate summit.
- They say this omission is emblematic of the government’s neglect of Indigenous Indonesians, who number an estimated 70 million and continue to lose their ancestral lands to extractive and infrastructure projects throughout the country.
- Advocates note that conflicts over Indigenous lands have increased under Widodo, and look likely to escalate under pro-business legislation championed by the administration.
- They also say this reality on the ground belies Widodo’s public stance at COP26, where he signed on to a pledge to end deforestation by 2030, which includes supporting Indigenous communities in their role as forest stewards.
In Peru’s Amazon, deforestation and crime sweep through Indigenous communities
- Mongabay Latam investigated the territorial security of Indigenous communities in five regions of the Peruvian Amazon: Loreto, Ucayali, Pasco, Huánuco, and Madre de Dios.
- A geospatial analysis of deforestation, illegal mining, and illicit coca crops in these five regions shows that 1,247 Indigenous communities have been affected.
- The study also revealed that 647 self-identified Indigenous communities in these five regions do not have official recognition from regional authorities to certify their existence and therefore obtain legal title to the land.
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 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.
Indigenous Papuans won their forest back from a palm oil firm, but still lack land title
- Indigenous villagers in Sorong district, West Papua province, have for years resisted the arrival of the palm oil industry into their territory, yet still saw their ancestral forests signed away by the government for an oil palm concession.
- Earlier this year, the Sorong district government revoked the concession, citing a litany of violations by the concession holder.
- The villagers have welcomed the move, but are demanding the government take further action to ensure the legal recognition of their rights to their customary forests.
- They say it’s important to prevent the customary forests from being given away to other companies in the future.
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.
Indigenous group faces eviction for ‘New Bali’ tourism project in Sumatra
- The volcanic crater lake of Toba in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province is the site of what the government is touting as a new tourism hub.
- The area has for generations been home to the Indigenous Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar, who now face eviction and have seen their farms razed to make way for the tourism resort.
- The group is filing lawsuits to prevent its eviction from what it considers its ancestral land, but faces obstacles because its customary land rights aren’t recognized by the government.
- The tourism project is one of several large ventures underway in this region; there are also power plant projects and a planned zinc mine near Lake Toba, some of them funded by Chinese investment.
Human influence on tropics predates Anthropocene, holds clues to current crisis
- A suite of studies recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examine human interactions in the tropical environment from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene and what’s now known as the Anthropocene.
- According to the editors of the volume, tropical forests are the most threatened terrestrial settings after the polar ice caps.
- Many of the studies found that humans have been living in the tropics and using its resources for millennia, impacting local ecosystems and biodiversity.
- The studies challenge the concept of the Anthropocene as a defining moment in history in which humans became a force that shaped nature.
Environmental defenders in Nicaragua denounce government crackdown as elections loom
- Indigenous communities in northeastern Nicaragua continue to suffer from violent attacks by land invaders looking to exploit the area for cattle ranching and gold mining.
- Environmental defenders are increasingly struggling to denounce the violence as President Daniel Ortega targets government critics ahead of elections scheduled for November.
- Many advocates of the Mayangna and Miskito communities have received threats from the government or felt pressure to shut down their organizations.
Facebook to block illegal sales of protected Amazon rainforest lands
- On Friday, Facebook announced it would crack down on the illegal sales of protected Amazon rainforest land via its platform, according to a blog post by the company.
- The move comes after a BBC investigation found that the company’s Marketplace product was being used to broker sales of protected lands, including Indigenous territories and national forest reserves.
- Experts raised doubts about the effectiveness of Facebook’s approach since the social media company doesn’t require users to specify the coordinates of the land they are selling.
- “If they don’t make it mandatory for sellers to provide the location of the area on sale, any attempt at blocking them will be flawed,” Brenda Brito, a Brazilian lawyer and scientist told BBC News. “They may have the best database in the world, but if they don’t have some geo-location reference, it won’t work.”
The great Koh Kong land rush: Areas stripped of protection by Cambodian gov’t being bought up
- A regulation issued earlier this year in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province purported to take land from protected areas and grant the land titles to families living in the area.
- But developments since then, and interviews with residents and brokers, paint the scheme as a massive land grab orchestrated by the country’s political elite.
- Politicians and companies have been snapping up the newly degazetted land, among them a firm suspected of being a front for pulpwood giant APP.
- Among those said to be profiting from the land grab is Ly Yong Phat, dubbed “The King of Koh Kong,” a politician and businessman with a long history of quashing the rights of those who occupy land he desires.
Brazil leads Amazon in forest loss this year, Indigenous and protected areas hold out
- Satellite imagery brings us a first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots, areas where forest cover was lost in high densities across the Amazon, amounting to more than 860,000 hectares (2.1 million acres).
- The majority of deforestation (76%) occurred in Brazil and was clustered around roads, according to a recent report from Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP); many of the areas deforested this year in Brazil have also burned.
- In Colombia, deforestation hotspots this year were in and around numerous protected areas, including Tinigua and Chiribiquete national parks, as well as Indigenous reserves, particularly Yari-Yaguara II and Nukak Maku; in Peru, rice farming and a new Mennonite colony drove recent deforestation.
- Of primary forests loss across the western Amazon between 2017 and 2020, three-quarters were outside protected areas and Indigenous territories, highlighting the importance of these key land use designations for safeguarding the remaining Amazon rainforest.
Loss of oil palm permits leaves Papuan villages uncertain and fearful
- Some Indigenous communities in West Papua who agreed to lease their lands to palm oil companies for the promise of infrastructure development and better livelihoods, have been left in limbo by a government decision to revoke the companies’ permits for various violations.
- The communities say all they want is a better life, and that while they don’t necessarily defend palm oil, they point out that the government has done little to build roads or provide electricity for their villages.
- Some of them who received early compensation payments from the companies say they’re now afraid they may have to pay it back.
- The permits were revoked following an audit that found a litany of violations by the companies, at least two of which appear to belong to a notorious alleged illegal logging kingpin.
For Brazil’s persecuted Krenak people, justice arrives half a century later
- A federal court has condemned Brazil’s federal government, the Minas Gerais state government and the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, for human rights violations against the Krenak Indigenous people committed under the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.
- Decades of reports, witness statements and evidence show torture, beatings, solitary confinement and forced labor were commonplace in the Krenak Reformatory and Guarani Farm, considered concentration camps by the Federal Public Ministry.
- Speaking Indigenous languages, drinking alcohol, and resisting land invasions by farmers were among the supposed infractions to justify the arbitrary imprisonment of Indigenous individuals deemed rebels by the regime.
- The court has ordered the federal government to organize an official ceremony for a public apology with national coverage, as well as deliver reparations.
Bridge the North-South divide for a UN Biodiversity Framework that is more just (commentary)
- The upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP-15) features proposals like the 30×30 biodiversity conservation plan that we’ve all been hearing so much about lately.
- This proposal may work well for the North, including the U.S. with its “America the Beautiful” plan, but not well for the poorer nations of the global South: any effort to build a Global Biodiversity Framework must begin with sincere listening to all parties, and learning from that listening.
- “Scientists and the conservation leaders of the global North do not know how to talk to the grassroots conservationists of the global South when it comes to biodiversity conservation,” Subhankar Banerjee argues, and urges environmental justice campaigners and Indigenous rights advocates to look very closely at the current COP-15 30×30 proposal.
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
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.
Vale told Brazil communities they were in danger. They say Vale wants their land
- Residents moved from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state over fears of impending collapses of dams operated by miner Vale are accusing the company of trying to take over their land.
- The first such evacuation was ordered in February 2019 in the municipality of Barão de Cocais, two weeks after the Brumadinho dam disaster killed 458 people.
- In the two and a half years since then, more communities have been moved, with affected residents saying Vale is stonewalling them on compensation.
- A document drawn up by state prosecutors in March confirms that there’s been interest in prospecting for minerals on the vacated land, although Vale has not responded to the accusation.
With their land on the line, Indigenous Brazilians gather for landmark ruling
- Thousands of Indigenous leaders have gathered in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, in a massive demonstration as the country’s Supreme Federal Court prepares to rule in a landmark land rights case.
- The marches, which drew about 6,000 Indigenous leaders, are believed to be the largest mobilization of Indigenous activists in more than three decades, organizers say; supporters in cities around the world, including London and San Francisco, have also staged solidarity protests.
- The case being heard will set an important precedent on whether courts can deny land claims by Indigenous people whose ancestral lands were appropriated before the Brazilian Constitution came into force in 1988.
- Indigenous leaders in Brasília have also denounced a series of other “anti-Indigenous” proposals, including a bill in Congress that would open up Indigenous lands awaiting demarcation to land grabbers, loggers and miners.
An Ecuadoran town that survived illegal miners now faces a licensed operator
- The town of La Merced de Buenos Aires, in Ecuador, gained notoriety when it was invaded by illegal miners in 2017; for almost two years, the area was plagued by violence, prostitution and drug addiction.
- Authorities evicted the miners in 2019, but now the land may become home to legal mining operations, which many residents emphatically oppose.
- More than 300 people spent over a month blocking the path of the machinery, trucks and employees of Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining S.A.
- The Ombudsman’s Office warns that confrontations will arise and has called on local, regional and national authorities to take immediate action.
Cambodian dam a ‘disaster’ for local communities, rights group says
- Rights activists allege that a Chinese-financed hydroelectric project in northeastern Cambodia has been a human rights “disaster” after it displaced nearly 5,000 Indigenous and ethnic minority people.
- In a recent report, advocacy group Human Rights Watch says communities were largely coerced into accepting inadequate compensation and provided with substandard resettlement arrangements.
- The scheme also had wide-ranging environmental impacts, affecting fishery yields across the wider Mekong Basin and flooding vast areas of forest.
- The report highlights the humanitarian and environmental shortcomings of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is advancing many similar projects across Africa and Asia.
Indonesian farmers refuse to budge for train line through karst landscape
- Farmers in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province have rejected government offers to buy their land for a railway project, saying they depend on it for their livelihood.
- The residents of Salenrang village say protecting their lands and farms will be more beneficial than selling them for the railway line, which the government is touting as a boost for the economy.
- The farmers also say the government is shortchanging them with its offers, arguing that the market rate for the land is more than five times higher.
- The land conflict in Salenrang village is one of hundreds that have popped up across Sulawesi as the government splurges on infrastructure projects.
Indigenous Brazilians fear surge in violence as ‘land-grab bill’ nears passage
- Brazil’s lower house of Congress has approved a controversial bill that could help legalize claims by land grabbers occupying public forests and Indigenous territories awaiting demarcation.
- The bill, approved last week and now headed to the Senate for a vote, is likely to further embolden invaders, activists say; Indigenous groups say they fear that violence on Indigenous territories without full federal protection will escalate in the coming months.
- The roughly 800 Indigenous territories still awaiting full demarcation are especially vulnerable as the bill could also make it more difficult for Indigenous communities to achieve full recognition of their ancestral lands, activists say.
- The legislation in question is just one of a slew of state and federal bills threatening Indigenous rights, which in turn are part of a wider pattern of attacks and violence on Indigenous lands throughout the country.
Protecting undesignated forests seen as key to slowing Amazon deforestation
- Forests in the Brazilian Amazon not designated as Indigenous territories, conservation parks, extractive reserves or other types of protected areas span an area the size of Spain and Portugal combined.
- These forests have not been designated for both technical reasons, such as the need for a management plan, and political ones: standing forest is seen by many in power as an impediment to economic activities like cattle ranching and mining.
- More than 18 million hectares (44 million acres) of this land has been illegally claimed as private property, with the number of claims surging by 232% since 2016 — a strong indication of land grabbing.
- New legislation at the federal and state levels now promises to legalize these land grabs, effectively rewarding environmental violators with legally recognized land ownership.
Why we need the government to curb Amazon deforestation? (commentary)
- Deforestation is rising in the Brazilian Amazon, with last year’s forest loss reaching the high level since 2008.
- Brazilian lawyers Daniela Castro, the founder and CEO of Impacta Advocacy, and Silvia Gonçalves, head of projects at Impacta Advocacy, argue that combatting deforestation in Brazil requires government intervention.
- “Without government action, there won’t be better days for the rainforest,” write Castro and Gonçalves. “The fact is only the government has the resources, institutions and power on a scale capable of halting deforestation.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Illegal deforestation intensifies along Brazilian highway as agribusiness hopes swell
- Highway BR-319 runs some 885 km (550 mi) from Rondonia’s capital of Porto Velho to Manaus, the Amazon’s largest city.
- Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to pave the portion of BR-319 that runs through the southern part of the state of Amazonas to ease the transportation of timber — and, eventually, soy — out of the remote, densely forested region.
- Environmentalists and researchers say this has encouraged outsiders to illegally invade and deforest large areas of intact forest.
- Satellite data and imagery shows deforestation has increased along the southern portion of the road in 2021, including in and near protected areas.
FSC dumps palm oil giant Korindo amid rights, environmental issues in Papua
- Indonesian-South Korean palm oil giant Korindo has been expelled from the Forest Stewardship Council after both parties couldn’t come into an agreement on how to verify the company’s compliance.
- Korindo was in the process of keeping its membership at the FSC, which required the company to make significant social and environmental improvements and provide remedy to the damage it had done from its operations in the Indonesian province of Papua.
- The FSC was supposed to verify the progress but the certification body and Korindo failed to agree on the process.
- Korindo plans to reenter the FSC and says it remains committed to sustainability, but activists say the disassociation means the company has failed to meet sustainability standards and sends a message to other firms accused of environmental and social violations.
Killings, invasions escalate in fight for land in Brazil’s Maranhão state
- Violence has escalated in Brazil’s northeastern state of Maranhão, where rights groups have recorded a spate of land conflicts targeting Indigenous people and rural workers.
- A rural worker was killed on July 11 in the municipality of Codó after having relocated in 2019 to seek refuge from death threats related to land conflicts in the interior of the state, according to Catholic Church-affiliated Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).
- In an unrelated case, land grabbers invaded the Indigenous territory of the Indigenous Akroá Gamella group in the municipality of Codó, the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI) said.
- Maranhão has a history of impunity surrounding crimes against Indigenous people, according to a recent report that notes that most killings of Indigenous people there between 2003 and 2019 remain unresolved and are directly related to land conflicts.
Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia
- Conservationists have expressed concern over a recently published regulation that makes nearly 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land potentially available for sale or rent to politically connected businesses.
- Known as Sub-decree No. 30, the order is ostensibly meant to redistribute land to communities that had previously lost control of it after it was taken over by the Ministry of Environment and conservation NGOs to manage as protected areas.
- But activists and experts point to several features of the regulation — the proximity of some of the requisitioned land to concessions held by powerful magnates; the inclusion of uninhabited primary forest; the opacity of the land-titling process promised to local communities — that suggest it’s another form of land grabbing.
Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- Three Indigenous leaders were reportedly seriously injured after Brazilian police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters in the capital, Brasília
- The incident comes as Indigenous groups from across Brazil gather in the capital to protest against violence and invasions that they face on their own lands; the Munduruku people had to have a police escort to travel to Brasília after being attacked by illegal miners in their reserve in Pará state.
- The Indigenous protesters are also in the capital to press Congress to halt deliberations of legislation that they call the “bill of death,” that would severely undermine Indigenous rights. On the day after the confrontation, it was approved by a congressional commission and will go to a vote in the lower house.
- Among other measures, the bill would make it harder to demarcate Indigenous reserves; override Indigenous territorial sovereignty for “public interest” projects; and dismantle the current policy of non-contact with isolated Indigenous people.
With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fending off attacks and threats by settlers who reject their ancestral land rights over the territory.
- Settlers opposed to the recognition of the Tekohá Dje’y Indigenous Reserve yanked off a new identification plaque marking the reserve, threatened Indigenous leaders and tried to run residents over with a vehicle, the community alleges.
- The Indigenous group in Paraty, a municipality a four-hour drive from Rio’s capital, blames farmers and land grabbers for the attacks and for not recognizing their rights to the land; the community says authorities are not doing enough to protect them from attacks.
- The attacks come amid ongoing violence in the Yanomami and Munduruku reserves, where illegal miners have invaded Indigenous lands in search of gold. Indigenous groups are protesting in Brasília this week against a host of anti-Indigenous bills that could weaken land rights and legalize the mining.
Myanmar junta’s growing reliance on extractives for cash raises concerns
- Following the military coup on Feb. 1 and a forceful crackdown on protesters, activists are calling on companies that operate in Myanmar to sever links with the military junta.
- As the U.S., U.K., EU and Canada impose increasingly tough sanctions on the junta, future sanctions targeting revenues from the oil and gas sector are likely to have the greatest impact.
- Alongside the humanitarian crisis, advocates say they fear a return to direct military rule could also lead to a backslide in environmental protections.
- Further concerns include a surge in illegal rare earth mining in northern regions and the potential for the military to resume issuing permits for gemstone mining.
Land dispute turns violent as Sumatran Indigenous groups clash with pulpwood firm
- A recent clash between Indigenous community members in Sumatra and workers from pulpwood producer PT Toba Pulp Lestari has marred ongoing efforts to resolve a decades-long land conflict.
- The two sides have been locked in dispute over the land in North Tapanuli district since 1992, with 23 Indigenous communities claiming ancestral rights to some 20,754 hectares (51,284 acres) inside the concession granted to TPL, an affiliate of pulp and paper giant Royal Golden Eagle.
- In the wake of the recent clash, Indonesia’s national parliament has called on the police to investigate and press charges against the company for the violence against the communities.
- While a resolution is still far from being achieved, many members of the Indigenous communities defending their land claims against TPL have been met with violence and imprisonment.
Calls for independent probe after anti-mine Indonesian official dies
- Helmud Hontong, deputy head of the Sangihe Islands district in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, who was a staunch opponent of a planned gold mine in the district, died under mysterious circumstances on a commercial flight last week.
- Human rights and environmental activists have called for an independent investigation into Hontong’s sudden death, saying it might be connected to his stance against the concession that covers nearly three-fifths of the district’s land area.
- Hontong’s death is the latest in a disturbing pattern of environmental defenders dying under suspicious circumstances in Indonesia.
- Environmentalists say they’re worried that the mining activity will lead to ecological destruction in Sangihe and exacerbate any potential damage from an earthquake in this seismically active region.
Illegal miners block Indigenous leaders headed to protests in Brazil’s capital
- Illegal gold miners slashed the tires of a bus and threatened to set it on fire in a bid to block leaders in the Munduruku Indigenous Reserve from traveling to Brazil’s capital to attend planned protests this week, Indigenous groups and authorities say.
- Indigenous leaders had to be escorted by police as they tried to reach the capital and take part in protests against invasions of their lands and violence against their people, advocates say.
- The attacks come weeks after miners fired shots and set houses ablaze in the Munduruku reserve, fueling worries about more violence against Indigenous people after federal authorities retreated from the area.
- Federal prosecutors and Indigenous groups have called for firmer measures against the illegal miners and permanent protection for the Munduruku Indigenous people.
Paid in Blood: Standing up to private interests often turns deadly in Brazil
- In 2017, police officers killed 10 rural workers in Pau D’Arco, Pará, Brazil. On January 26, 2021, a survivor—Fernando dos Santos Araújo—was found shot in his home.
- His story reveals a frightening pattern in Brazil where standing up to private interests often turns deadly.
- The land remains in dispute, but the workers argue it has cost them enough already. They’ve paid in blood.
What’s the cost of illegal mining in Brazil’s Amazon? A new tool calculates it
- The launch of a gold mining impacts calculator this week — a joint project of the Federal Public Ministry and the Conservation Strategy Fund — marks a big step forward in combating illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon, experts and government agents say.
- The new tool was able to estimate damages of $431 million caused by illegal mining in 2020 on the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve, where local leaders have reported several attacks in the past month by miners, following an influx of mining activities since 2019.
- Since 2019, Brazil has exported $11 billion in gold, with Switzerland, Canada and the United Kingdom as the top importers; last year alone, these three countries imported $3.5 billion of the precious metal from Brazil.
- Improving traceability is another important step to cracking down on the environmentally devasting illegal gold market, says Sérgio Leitão, an expert in the fight against illegal mining in Brazil.
Final court ruling orders Indonesian government to publish plantation data
- An Indonesian court has upheld a landmark ruling that says all plantation data and maps are public information and thus should be made available to the public.
- The court’s decision was made in 2020, but it wasn’t until March 2021 that the court informed the plaintiff in the case, the NGO Forest Watch Indonesia.
- But the government, in this case the land ministry, has refused to comply with the order to release the data, going back to a 2017 Supreme Court ruling.
- The ministry has also refused to share the data with other government ministries and agencies, prompting even lawmakers to call on it to comply.
Brazil’s Uru-eu-wau-wau document COVID-19 victory with new video
- As of June 1, 2021, Brazil has confirmed more than 16.5 million COVID-19 cases and over 462,000 deaths, with devastation particularly severe among the Amazon’s Indigenous communities.
- But one Indigenous group has done an exceptional job protecting its people: The Uru-eu-wau-wau in Rondônia state sealed off their territory in March 2020 — no small feat considering that the federally demarcated territory suffers from an onslaught of invaders, including illegal miners, loggers and land grabbers.
- In a new video, shot entirely by Indigenous cinematographers and exclusive to Mongabay, the Uru-eu-wau-wau tell their own story of how they survived the pandemic for more than a year without a major case inside their territory.
- Their battle is ongoing as they continue resisting invasions of their reserve, where three highly vulnerable uncontacted Indigenous groups also live. The dismantling of Brazil’s rural health care infrastructure by the Bolsonaro administration has been particularly daunting to the Uru-eu-wau-wau during the pandemic.
New areas of primary forest cleared in Brazil’s ‘lawless’ Lábrea
- Satellite imagery reveals several areas of primary rainforest were cleared alongside agricultural fields in Lábrea municipality in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The deforestation occurred in four areas and covers around 2,115 hectares (5,226 acres), all in close proximity to Indigenous and protected lands.
- Lábrea municipality has been called a “crime factory,” where its remote location and lack of law enforcement act as a catalyst for illegal deforestation and land grabbing.
- Forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon hit a 14-year high for the month of May, amounting to 118,000 hectares (292,000 acres), an area roughly 20 times the size of Manhattan.
Brazil ‘Adopt-a-Park’ program may negatively impact traditional peoples
- Brazil has launched an ambitious “Adopt-a-Park” program, inviting local and transnational companies to provide goods and services and help manage 132 conservation units of all types in the Brazilian Amazon. Should the program be successful, it would be extended to preserves across Brazil.
- Private response has been weak so far, with only eight companies, five Brazilian and three transnationals, signing up. That includes French-owned supermarket chain Carrefour, U.S. beverage maker Coca-Cola, and Dutch brewer Heineken. Details as to how the initiative will function have been scant.
- The Jair Bolsonaro government says it hopes that during a time of deep federal budget cuts to environmental programs, Adopt-a-Park will add the equivalent of $600 million in goods and services to conservation coffers. But the initiative has unleashed a firestorm of criticism from socioenvironmental NGOs and traditional communities.
- They say Adopt-a-Park is a way of greenwashing Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental agenda, that the program is failing to carry out required consultations with traditional peoples — such as rubber tappers and Brazil nut gatherers, who live inside extractive reserves — and that it could further the dismantling of federal agencies.
West Papua revokes quarter of a million hectares of land from palm oil
- The local government in Indonesia’s West Papua province has revoked permits for 12 oil palm concessions that cover an area twice the size of Los Angeles.
- The move comes after a recent audit of palm oil concession holders found widespread administrative and legal violations, such as lack of necessary licenses and land abandonment.
- Activists have called on the government to follow up on the revocation by granting Indigenous peoples access to the rescinded concessions so that they can be managed in a sustainable manner, instead of granting new licenses to other investors.
- The West Papua government has vowed to do so, saying it has made various commitments to protect the province’s remaining rainforests, which are increasingly threatened by the expansion of industrial agriculture, mining and logging.
Land conflicts in Brazil break record under Bolsonaro
- Land conflicts in Brazil broke a record in 2020 for the second year running, reaching 1,576 cases — the highest since 1985, according to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).
- Activists have identified government actions as the main driver for the increase in conflicts over land, labor and water, citing cuts to environmental and social initiatives and rhetoric favoring land grabbers and illegal miners.
- Conflicts involving Indigenous peoples accounted for more than 40% of the total; Indigenous people also made up seven of the 18 victims of murders linked to land conflicts recorded by CPT last year.
- Attacks on Indigenous reserves have escalated in recent weeks, with illegal gold miners attacking the homes of Indigenous leaders on May 26 in the Munduruku reserve in the Amazon, prompting state authorities to demand a continuous presence of security forces in the region.
Drugs, fire, settlers poised to wipe out one of Paraguay’s most biodiverse forests
- San Rafael National Park/Proposed National Reserve encompasses one of the most unique, biodiverse and threatened forests in Paraguay.
- Fires in late 2020 burned an estimated 45% of the reserve, and biologists say it may take decades for the area to recover.
- Meanwhile, drug traffickers are expanding illegal marijuana plantations within San Rafael and on May 21, more than a hundred outsiders reportedly crossed into the reserve where they are clearing trees and establishing settlements.
- Despite its international categorization as a national park, a 2002 recategorization error left San Rafael unrecognized as a protected area in Paraguay, making the area ineligible for proper protection.
New clearing of forest in protected area in Brazil linked to mining
- An expansive clearing of primary forest has been detected in Tapajós Environmental Protection Area in the Brazilian Amazon, possibly driven by illegal mining activities.
- Satellite imagery from Planet confirms that the deforestation, which covers around 1,250 hectares (3,090 acres), or an area the size of a large international airport, occurred between January and February of this year.
- Mining activity is the suspected driver of this forest loss, as the cleared area surrounds a long-standing feature resembling an airstrip and partially overlaps a proposed gold mining concession.
- Several bills are pending in both Brazil’s houses of Congress that would, if approved, create loopholes for mining on Indigenous territories and grant amnesties to land grabbers.
Brazil court orders illegal miners booted from Yanomami Indigenous Reserve
- A court has ordered Brazilian authorities to remove all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve in the Amazon, following five days of attacks and intimidation by the miners against an Indigenous village.
- The federal government has still not complied with the May 17 ruling. Army officials say they are planning operations in the region, but have not provided dates. The Federal Police say a team will arrive May 21 to collect data for investigation.
- The attacks that began May 10 saw the miners shoot at the village of Palimiú, throw tear gas canisters, and station several boats nearby in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
- The violent conflict between miners and Indigenous groups follows a surge of land invasions and illegal mining in Indigenous reserves and other conservation areas, dubbed “The Bolsonaro Effect” by Brazilian researchers after its chief enabler.
‘Amazônia must live on’: Photographer Sebastião Salgado returns home with his new book
- Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
- Salgado, one of the most respected documentary photographers in the world, returned to the region four decades after gaining fame shooting the Serra Pelada gold mine and its thousands of mud-covered diggers.
- The book is also a cry for preservation of what remains of the Amazon: “My wish … is that in 50 years’ time this book will not resemble a record of a lost world,” he says.
Amazon palm oil has not lived up to its promise of sustainability (commentary)
- In this commentary, Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler says a new investigation by Mongabay-Brasil casts doubt on the Brazilian palm oil industry’s promise to usher in a new era of sustainable palm oil in the Amazon.
- “In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia,” he writes. “We were told that by limiting oil palm plantations to low-yielding cattle pasture that was long ago carved out of the region’s forests, palm oil could increase carbon storage, create more economic activity and employment, and help restore ecosystem services — all without deforestation.”
- The investigation, led by Mongabay-Brasil’s Karla Mendes, found that the palm oil industry in the Brazilian Amazon has been using agrochemicals in concentrations that are considered unhealthy in other parts of the world, exacerbating land disputes, and engaging in deforestation. The sector has also been dogged by allegations of land-grabbing by local communities and even private landowners.
- This post is a commentary, the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Settlers invading, deforesting Colombian national parks ‘at an unstoppable speed’
- Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park is experiencing one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country, and has lost more than a quarter of its primary forest since 2002.
- Sources say this deforestation is happening due to settlers who are illegally invading and establishing roads, settlements and farms in protected forest – and clearing it in the process.
- Other national parks and Indigenous territories in the Colombian Amazon are also experiencing incursions.
- Sources say they are happening at such a scale that the government has been unable to effectively stop it.
After gold miners shoot Yanomani people, Brazil cuts environmental regulation further
- With 300 votes in favor and 122 against, Brazil’s Lower House passed the draft of a bill on May 12 that withdraws environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, ranging from construction of roads to agriculture.
- The measure, which was submitted to the Senate for its appraisal, is backed by President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful conservative agribusiness lobby — the ‘ruralistas’ — who champion it as a way of slashing red tape on environmental licensing, to facilitate “self-licensing” infrastructure projects.
- Congressmen, experts and activists opposed to it are convinced the new legal framework will inevitably fast-track approval of high-risk projects, leading to deforestation and the escalation of violence against traditional communities.
- As the Lower House moved to approve it, Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state. “They [illegal miners] are not shooting to try and scare us. They want us dead,” a Yanomami leader told Mongabay.
Karipuna people sue Brazil government for alleged complicity in land grabs
- Leaders of the Karipuna Indigenous group in Brazil are suing the government for what they say is complicity in the continued invasion and theft of their land.
- Findings by Greenpeace and the Catholic Church-affiliated Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) show 31 land claims overlapping onto the Karipuna Indigenous Reserve, while 7% of the area has already been deforested or destroyed.
- The Karipuna Indigenous, who rebuilt their population to around 60 in the last few decades from just eight members who survived mass deaths by disease that followed their forced contact with the outside world in the 1970s, are seeking damages of $8.2 million, the right to permanent protection, and the cancellation of all outsider land claims to their territory.
- Land grabbing has been fueled by the political rhetoric and action of President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, who are seeking to drastically reduce protected areas in the Amazon and weaken environmental protections, activists and experts say.
‘Zero illegal deforestation’ – One more Bolsonaro distortion (commentary)
- At U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual climate summit on Earth Day, 22 April, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro promised “zero illegal deforestation by 2030.”
- “Zero illegal deforestation” can be achieved in two ways: by stopping deforestation, and by legalizing the deforestation that is taking place. The second path is in full swing.
- A series of laws facilitating “land grabbing” (which in Brazil means large-scale illegal appropriation of government land) is being fast-tracked in the National Congress with support from Bolsonaro.
- Once grabbed land is legalized, the deforestation on it can be “amnestied” and subsequent deforestation legally permitted. The end result is more deforestation. All deforestation, legal or not, causes climate change. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Drugs and agriculture cause deforestation to skyrocket at Honduran UNESCO site
- Honduras’ Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve occupies a large portion of the country’s eastern region.
- However, despite official protection and recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Río Plátano is plagued by deforestation; satellite data show the biosphere reserve lost 13% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2020.
- Deforestation shot up in 2020, nearly doubling the amount of forest loss over 2019. 2021 may be another rocky year for the biosphere reserve, with satellite data showing several “unusually high” spikes of clearing activity so far this year.
- Sources say deforestation in the reserve is being driven by logging, agriculture and the drug trade.
Indigenous Dayak man jailed after Indonesian palm oil firm alleges theft
- An Indigenous Dayak man has been arrested for allegedly stealing oil palm fruit from a company’s plantation in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province.
- The company is embroiled in a long-running conflict with five Dayak communities in the area as its concession overlaps with their ancestral lands.
- The arrest has triggered fear among the communities of further arrests if they keep trying to assert their land rights.
Deforestation ramps up in Cambodia’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary
- The forests of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary boast a plethora of wildlife – including several endangered and recently described species.
- But the habitat these animals depend on is disappearing, with 32% of Keo Seima’s primary forest cleared over past 20 years.
- Recent satellite data suggest 2021 is not starting out well for Keo Seima, with higher numbers of deforestation alerts detected than in years past.
- Major drivers of forest loss in Keo Seima include illegal logging and agriculture.
Bills before Brazil Congress slammed for rewarding Amazon land grabbers
- Two bills, one each in the upper and lower houses of Congress, would grant invaders of public forests with land titles, instead of punishing them and returning the land to the state.
- The proposals also increase the area of properties eligible for regularization without an on-site inspection, and risk exacerbating land conflicts in Brazil.
- Both bills were born from an executive order from President Jair Bolsonaro that expired in May last year.
- The backers of the bills say they would facilitate the regularization of the lands of small farmers, but environmental and land issues experts say the main beneficiaries will be land grabbers and large farmers.
Recognizing the true guardians of the forest: Q&A with David Kaimowitz
- David Kaimowitz describes his career as a “a 30-year quest to understand what causes deforestation,” one that has brought him full circle to where he started: at the issue of land rights.
- Kaimowitz, who heads the Forest and Farm Facility, based at FAO, says the evidence shows that secure communal tenure rights is one of the most cost-effective ways to curb deforestation.
- In that time, he’s also seen the discourse around the drivers of deforestation change from blaming smallholders, to realizing that a handful of large commodities companies are responsible for the majority of tropical forest loss.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Kaimowitz talks about why it took so long for Indigenous people to be recognized as guardians of the forest, the need for conservation NGOs to address social justice, and society’s capacity to effect meaningful change.
Landmark decision: Brazil Supreme Court sides with Indigenous land rights
- Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) has unanimously accepted an appeal by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people and agreed to review the process around a past case that cancelled the demarcation of their Indigenous territory.
- The Guarani Kaiowá’s decades-long fight for land rights to their ancestral territory, the Guyraroká land in Mato Grosso do Sul state, had been suspended by a 2014 ruling halting the territory’s demarcation process.
- The STF’s decision to review the process in the 2014 case, which hadn’t allowed for Indigenous consultation, is seen by analysts as a victory for Indigenous groups in Brazil, and as a setback for President Jair Bolsonaro who has declared his opposition to any Indigenous demarcation occurring during his administration.
- In a related upcoming case, the STF is expected to rule on the “marco temporal,” which requires that Indigenous people have been living on claimed lands in 1988 in order to establish a legal territory. But litigators have argued that date is unfairly arbitrary, as many Indigenous groups were forced off ancestral lands by then.
‘What other country would do this to its people?’ Cambodian land grab victims seek int’l justice
- The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in 2014 estimated that at least 770,000 people had been affected by land grabs that cover some 4 million hectares of land. Sources say Indigenous communities are more adversely affected by land grabs because the land is often central to their animist beliefs and their livelihoods, and they are even less likely to be afforded justice than ethnically Khmer victims.
- FIDH, along with Global Witness and Climate Counsel, submitted an open letter dated March 16 to Fatou Bensouda, the current prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging her to open a preliminary examination into land-grabbing in Cambodia.
- International lawyer Philippe Sands and Florence Mumba – a judge at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – announced they were drafting a definition of ecocide to be included on the list of international crimes that includes such atrocities as genocide and crimes against humanity. Their definition is expected early this year and could mean perpetrators of environmental destruction could be brought to international justice.
- As recently as June last year, the World Bank announced another $93 million would go to fund the third phase of its land tenure project in Cambodia, despite mounting allegations of abuse within the system that has led critics to accuse the World Bank of being complicit in land grabbing and the environmental damage it has caused.
Brazil prosecutors cite Mongabay probe in new legal battle against palm oil firms
- Prosecutors in Brazil say they will use findings from an investigation by Mongabay as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
- The move comes as prosecutors filed an appeal March 26 against a ruling blocking a forensic investigation into water contamination from pesticide use by Biopalma that has impacted the Tembé people of the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve in Pará state.
- Mongabay’s 18-month investigation, published March 12, revealed evidence of this pollution as well as similar cases involving two other top Brazilian palm oil companies, pointing to a potentially industry-wide pattern of disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities.
- The investigation also revealed the clearing of native forests for oil palm cultivation, as shown through satellite imagery, contradicting claims by the companies and the government that oil palm crops are planted only on already deforested land.
Podcast: Palm oil plantations and their impacts have arrived in the Amazon
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Mongabay’s contributing editor for Brazil, Karla Mendes, who recently published an investigative report that found the palm oil industry’s growth in the Brazilian Amazon is driving the same deforestation and community conflicts oil palm operations are responsible for in Southeast Asia.
- We also speak with Sandra Damiani, a researcher at the University of Brasília whose study found that both above-ground watercourses and groundwater in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve in Brazil’s Pará state were contaminated with pesticides and herbicides used on nearby palm oil plantations.
- Lastly, we speak with Felício Pontes Júnior, a federal prosecutor for the Amazon region who filed a lawsuit seven years against one of Brazil’s biggest palm oil companies, but is still fighting to do the investigation needed to prove who’s responsible for the pollution in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve.
Guarani Indigenous men brutalized in Brazilian ‘expansion of violence’
- In the 1960s and 70s, the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous group was expelled from its ancestral lands in Mato Grosso do Sul state by the Brazilian military dictatorship to expand the country’s agricultural frontier. Today, their traditional Indigenous homeland is occupied by large farms, whose owners refuse to return the property.
- A federal Supreme Court decision resulted in an order to allow the return of the Guarani Kaiowá to their former homeland where they now await the official demarcation of their territory to be approved by the federal government — an approval that still hasn’t come after the passage of ten years.
- The land dispute and standoff between the ranchers and the Guarani Kaiowá has repeatedly flared into violence over the years. In 2011, Indigenous leader Nízio Gomes was murdered in the Guaiviry community area by armed thugs.
- Violence flared yet again in Guaiviry last week when three Guarani Kaiowá men were assaulted, they say, by gunmen from the large Querência Farm. The Guarani Kaiowá say that intimidation of their community members has seriously escalated under the Jair Bolsonaro administration, which has shown hostility toward Indigenous rights.
BlackRock must commit to Indigenous rights — not just climate change (commentary)
- BlackRock is an investment management firm reportedly with $8 trillion in assets. It is also well documented for its financing of large-scale mining, fossil fuel production and agribusiness projects across Latin America doing harm to Indigenous communities in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil and elsewhere.
- The company has recently become outspoken about its position to vigorously combat climate change. But even though the United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples as the best stewards of the environment, guardians of their lands and defenders against climate change, BlackRock remains virtually silent on Indigenous issues.
- If the company’s climate change commitment is to be taken seriously by the world, then BlackRock needs to step up now and adopt an explicit “Forest and Indigenous Rights Policy.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
The art of adaption and survival: A story of Brazil’s Kadiwéu people
- The Kadiwéu Indigenous Land is located in western Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, near the Paraguay border. The protected reserve covers 539,000 hectares (1.33 million acres), spanning both the Cerrado (71%) and Pantanal (29%) biomes.
- The 1,500 Kadiwéu living in the reserve today are descended from larger Indigenous groups decimated by Portuguese and Spanish colonizers. The Kadiwéu were donated their territory by Emperor Dom Pedro II for their role in the 1864-70 War of the Triple Alliance; theirs was the first Indigenous reserve ever established in Brazil.
- The remnant Kadiwéu long seemed headed for extinction, but their culture survived and adapted. Their arts, especially pottery and body painting, were studied by international anthropologists, including Claude Lévi-Strauss. Today, the Kadiwéu are incorporating their designs into international high fashion.
- But the Kadiwéu still face challenges. Their reserve continues to be invaded by illegal loggers and land grabbers. In 2019-20, more than 40% of their reserve burned in the Pantanal biome wildfires — brought on by record drought due to climate change and irresponsible land management by ranchers. COVID-19 also looms.
Video: Communities struggle against palm oil plantations spreading in Brazilian Amazon
- Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and conflict in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are now playing out. Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their rivers and lands, and driving fish and game away.
- Federal prosecutors have pursued Brazil’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years–alleging the companies are contaminating water supplies, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples–charges the companies deny.
- This video was produced as part of an 18-month investigation into the palm oil industry in the Brazilian state of Pará.
Brazil’s isolated tribes in the crosshairs of miners targeting Indigenous lands
- The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
- Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, Funai, holds 114 reports of isolated tribes, of which 43 are within Indigenous lands targeted by mining.
- In addition to the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria, mining activity poses health threats from the mercury used in gold extraction, which contaminates rivers and fish.
- Indigenous groups have filed a lawsuit with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court against the government, demanding protection for isolated Indigenous peoples.
Palm oil conflicts persist amid lack of resolution in Indonesian Borneo
- Efforts to resolve land conflicts between palm oil companies and local communities in western Indonesian Borneo have largely failed, with many disputes festering for more than a decade, a new study shows.
- Of 32 conflicts analyzed, 66% haven’t been resolved, even though 72% have been mediated by local governments, lawmakers and police.
- The researchers say the authorities tend to not enforce the law on companies and have instead tended to take a harder line on community members protesting against the companies.
- The study also found that other avenues of redress for the community, such as filing a complaint with certification bodies like the RSPO, remain underutilized because of complicated procedures and a lack of trust in institutions.
A new app puts invisible communities in Brazil’s Cerrado on the map
- Thousands of Indigenous, quilombola, and traditional communities live in the Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse tropical savanna. But many lack access to official titles and deeds, and are not registered on official maps.
- As the agricultural frontier pushes into the northern part of the savanna, land-grabbing and violent attacks are increasing. Many of these communities risk losing their land and their resources upon which they depend.
- Now, a new smartphone app developed in collaboration with communities in the northern Cerrado and two Brazilian NGOs allows communities themselves to register their lands on the app, as well as important local sites and conflicts with farmers and land-grabbers.
- The developers of the app aim to halt the rapid and unequal development that threatens the lives and livelihoods of those working to protect the savanna, and ultimately help conserve the last remaining tracts of native Cerrado.
Facebook enabling Amazon land grabbing, deforestation, finds investigation
- BBC Brasil, in a new TV documentary, penetrated deep within criminal networks illegally selling and deforesting conserved lands — even within an Indigenous reserve. In a new twist, some land grabbers are posting the plots they’re selling on Facebook, a practice likely to bring international attention and outrage.
- The sellers may have moved to utilizing Facebook ads because the lawbreakers say they have virtually no fear of prosecution from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Since 2019, his administration has largely gutted and defunded the nation’s environmental regulatory, protection and enforcement agencies.
- When contacted by the BBC about allowing the ads to be placed on its platform, Facebook said that it was “ready to work with the local authorities” to investigate the alleged crimes but that it would not be taking independent action on its own to halt the land trade. While some ads were pulled, others remain on Facebook.
Review finds palm oil firm Golden Veroleum cleared carbon-rich Liberian forests
- The largest investor in Golden Veroleum is Singapore-based Golden Agri-Resources, itself a branch of the Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas.
- In 2018, a Liberian civil society group joined with the U.S. and Netherlands chapters of Friends of the Earth in submitting a complaint to the High Carbon Stock Approach alleging that Golden Veroleum cleared high carbon stock forests in Liberia.
- The investigation was the first of its kind by the High Carbon Stock Approach, and found that Golden Veroleum cleared more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of carbon-rich forests in Liberia’s remote southeast.
The Kalunga digitally map traditional lands to save Cerrado way of life
- The Kalunga represents a grouping of 39 traditional quilombola communities — the descendants of runaway slaves — living on a territory covering 262,000 hectares (647,000 acres) in Goiás state in central Brazil, within the Cerrado savanna biome.
- This territory has been under heavy assault by illegal invaders, including small-scale wildcat gold miners, and large-scale mining operations, as well as land grabbers who have destroyed native vegetation to grow soy and other agribusiness crops.
- To defend their lands, the Kalunga received a grant from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), supported by Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, EU, the Global Environment Facility, Japan and the World Bank. With their funding, the Kalunga georeferenced the territory, pinpointing homes, crops, soils, 879 springs, and vital natural resources.
- In February 2020, the U.N. Environment Programme and World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) recognized the Kalunga Historical and Cultural Heritage Site as the first TICCA (Territories and Areas Conserved by Indigenous and Local Communities) in Brazil, making it what UNEP-WCMC calls a “Territory for Life.”
Pandemic fails to slow agribusiness’s thirst for Cerrado’s water
- Between April and November last year, the government of the Brazilian state of Bahia authorized agribusinesses to collect nearly 2 billion liters (528 million gallons) of water a day.
- The spread of giant soybean plantations in the state’s west threatens tributaries, floodplains and sources of essential rivers such as the Corrente and the São Francisco.
- The large-scale irrigation poses a major threat to traditional communities, whose own communal farming practices have long protected the Cerrado’s water resources.
- Tensions over water management sparked a popular movement by small farmers in 2017, known as the “Water Uprising” and aimed at protecting the Cerrado’s water resources.
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.”
Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- Brazilian legislators in the Amazon state of Roraima have passed a bill legalizing garimpo wildcat mining on state lands without studies. Amendments would also legalize the use of toxic mercury in gold processing, and greatly expand the legal size of mining claims.
- Indigenous groups say the law was passed without adequate consultation, and will invite gold miner invasions of Indigenous reserves in the state, including that of the Yanomami, the largest reserve in Brazil. Since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro more than 20,000 illegal miners have been reported on Yanomami lands.
- Wildcat mining is already legal in some Brazilian Amazon states. Based on that experience, experts say that legalization in Roraima will enable fraud, with gold illegally mined in Indigenous reserves “laundered” to become “legal” gold, and illicit “conflict gold” trafficked from neighboring Venezuela laundered in Roraima.
- The Roraima garimpo mining bill now awaits the state governor’s signature.
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.
Protesters hold back military takeover of Balkans’ largest mountain pasture
- A 2019 decree by the government of Montenegro sets forth the country’s intention to set up a military training ground in the highland grasslands of Sinjajevina in the northern part of the country.
- But the pastures of Sinjajevina have supported herders for centuries, and scientists say that this sustainable use is responsible in part for the wide array of life that the mountain supports; activists say an incursion by the military would destroy livelihoods, biodiversity and vital ecosystem services.
- A new coalition now governs Montenegro, one that has promised to reevaluate the military’s use of Sinjajevina.
- But with the country’s politics and position in Europe in flux, the movement against the military is pushing for formal designation of a park that would permanently protect the region’s herders and the environment.
Lack of protection leaves Spain-size swath of Brazilian Amazon up for grabs
- Fifty million hectares (124 million acres) of undesignated forest in the Brazilian Amazon, an area the size of Spain, is under growing threat of illegal occupation and deforestation facilitated by a controversial government land registry.
- A Greenpeace Brazil study shows 62% of undesignated forest along a stretch of the BR-163 Highway has been illegally invaded and then registered by the occupiers with the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).
- CAR, a self-declaratory system, was created in 2012 to help identify those responsible for rural plots, however, combined with the current weakening of environmental agencies and of field actions against deforestation, it’s helping legitimize land grabbing.
- The problem of land grabbing in the Amazon, often by speculators looking to sell to cattle ranchers and crop growers, is not new, but the situation has intensified under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro. The Greenpeace researchers say there’s little prospect of a crackdown on land grabbing under the present political scenario.
Agribusiness giants ADM, Bunge trading in ‘conflict’ palm oil, report says
- A report by Global Witness has found that more than 100 Indonesian palm oil mills supplying agribusiness giants ADM and Bunge have been accused of land and human rights violations and environmental destruction.
- Global Witness found that neither company is addressing the majority of these allegations through their formal grievance processes, and effectively passing on this “conflict” palm oil to major consumer brands such as Nestlé, Unilever and PepsiCo.
- ADM and Bunge have denied any failure to police their suppliers, but have also pledged to look into the allegations.
Top Indonesian palm oil developments in 2020
- A persistent pandemic, fluctuating palm oil prices and escalating conflicts failed to slow the environmental and social fallouts from the growth of the palm oil industry in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity.
- There’s growing fear over accelerated deforestation to clear land for more plantations as the government continues to promote palm oil-based biodiesel — even as others refuse to recognize it as a renewable fuel.
- The country’s new palm oil frontier, in the forests of Papua, is tainted by allegations of falsified permits and violence against Indigenous communities.
- At the same time, new legislation exempts plantation operators from environmental requirements and allows for the whitewashing of illegal plantations in forests.
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