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On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Indigenous women in Indonesian Borneo often have to combine domestic responsibilities with food cultivation, known as behuma in the dialect of the Dayak Pitap community in South Kalimantan province.
- Swidden agriculture relies on burning off discarded biomass before planting land in order to fertilize soil and limit pest infestations. But a law enforcement campaign to tackle wildfires has seen criminal prosecutions of at least 11 Borneo women for using fire to grow small-scale food crops from 2018-2022.
- Dayak women and several fieldworkers say the practice of burning is safe owing to cultural safeguards against fires spreading that have been passed down families for centuries.
- Indonesia’s 2009 Environment Law included a stipulation that farmers cultivating food on less than 2 hectares (5 acres) were exempt from prosecution, but Mongabay analysis shows prosecutors and police have pressed charges against small farmers using other laws.
Environmental defenders paid the price during Panama’s historic mining protests – report
- Last year’s protests against a copper mine in Panama resulted in injuries, lost eyesight and several deaths, according to a new report from the Foundation for Integral Community Development and the Conservation of Ecosystems in Panama (FUNDICCEP) and Panamanian National Network in Defense of Water.
- The protests were in response to a new contract for the Cobre Panamá copper mine operated by Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals (FQM).
- Environmental defenders are concerned that another crackdown could take place should there be protests against renewed mining negotiations with the government of President-elect José Raúl Mulino, who takes office July 1.
Impunity and pollution abound in DRC mining along the road to the energy transition
- In the DRC’s copper belt, pollution from the mining of cobalt and copper, critical minerals for the energy transition, is on the rise and polluters are ignoring their legal obligations to clean it up.
- Cases of pollution have caused deaths, health problems in babies, the destruction of crops, contaminated water and the relocation of homes or an entire village, residents and community organizations say.
- Mining is the economic lifeblood of the region and the state-owned mining company, Gécamines, is a shareholder in several other companies — some accused of these same rights abuses.
- Mongabay visited several villages in Lualaba province affected by pollution and human rights violations to assess the state of the unresolved damage — and whether companies are meeting their legal obligations.
Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally
- The biggest deforestation hotspot for palm oil in Indonesia is located on a small island off the southern Borneo coast, new data show.
- Up to 10,650 hectares (26,317 acres) of forest — one-sixth the size of Jakarta — were cleared from 2022-2023 inside the concession of PT Multi Sarana Agro Mandiri (MSAM), part of the influential Jhonlin Group.
- Activists say the company’s operations may be illegal, given the questionable process through which it obtained its permits.
- However, law enforcers have ignored calls to investigate, and previous efforts by journalists to expose the group’s business practices have led to their criminal prosecution on hate speech charges.
Final cheetah conservationists freed in Iran, but the big cat’s outlook remains grim
- In April, the last four cheetah conservationists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation jailed in 2018 for alleged espionage were released from prison in Tehran; four of their colleagues had been released earlier, while one had died in custody.
- The case had a chilling effect on scientific collaboration and efforts to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), which is today found only in Iran, with fewer than 30 believed to remain in the wild.
- The cheetah faces a range of threats, chief among them vehicle collisions: some 52% of cheetah deaths in Iran are due to road accidents.
- Saving the species will require a comprehensive and coordinated effort, and international scientific cooperation is crucial — but conservation work has been hampered by complex geopolitical dynamics, including sanctions.
The Narwhal makes waves in Canada for environmental journalism
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, co-founder of the award-winning Canadian nonprofit news outlet The Narwhal, Emma Gilchrist, speaks with co-host Rachel Donald about their successes covering the most vital environmental news in the nature-rich nation.
- Gilchrist discusses what’s special about Canada’s natural legacy, the state of environmental reporting there, how she sees The Narwhal filling the gaps in historically neglected stories and viewpoints, and why something as universally appreciated as nature can still be a polarizing topic.
- She also details a legal battle her organization is involved in that could have significant implications for press freedom in Canada.
Indonesia resumes lobster larvae exports despite sustainability, trade concerns
- The Indonesian government will resume a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae, initially just to Vietnam, in exchange for investment in its own lobster-farming industry.
- The ban has met with controversy since it was introduced in 2016; a subsequent attempt to lift it failed after the fisheries minister at the time was arrested for taking bribes to issue export permits.
- The current minister says the lifting this time around is based on pragmatic considerations, with law enforcement efforts failing to stop the smuggling of lobster larvae.
- Critics say the move will benefit Vietnam more than it will Indonesia, given that the former’s far more advanced lobster-farming industry generates far more value from the sale of mature lobsters than Indonesia ever could from the sale of larvae.
No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death
- Samuel Abayateye, a 38-year-old father of two, was working as a fisheries observer when he was reported missing from his assigned vessel in October 2023.
- After a body missing its head, forearms and feet that Abayateye’s family says closely resembled him washed ashore in December, the Ghana Police Service opened an investigation.
- Five months later, Abayateye’s family said they still haven’t received any information from the authorities investigating the case, or the results of a DNA test to confirm the identity of the body.
- A fisheries observer told Mongabay the case has sown fear among observers appointed to monitor and report on illegal fishing in fleets operating in Ghana. Fishing industry experts say the case highlights the dangers faced by observers, whose job is critical to ensuring fishing vessels comply with the law.
New illegal logging threatens Liberia’s forests amid vague ban
- Large-scale commercial operators are evading Liberian forestry regulations by illegally processing wood destined for export on-site in forests.
- Timber milled in forests with chainsaws is legally restricted to the production of boards by artisanal loggers for sale on the domestic market, but reporting by Liberian newspaper The Daylight and research by U.S.-based NGO Forest Trends has found large-scale operators producing thicker blocks of high-value wood for export.
- Chainsaw-milled timber isn’t entered into the country’s timber-tracking system, meaning producers can evade sustainable forestry regulations as well as taxes and benefits due to local communities.
- The country’s Forestry Development Authority says it has banned production of this type of timber, but campaigners say it has done little to publicize the ban or prevent traffickers from exploiting this loophole.
Forest officer’s killing highlights Bangladesh authorities’ waning power
- The recent killing of a forest officer by illegal quarriers in Bangladesh has raised questions about the effectiveness of law enforcement amid intensifying encroachment into protected forests.
- Sajjaduzzaman, 30, was struck by the quarriers’ truck after confronting them for digging up a hillside in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar.
- Attacks on forest officers by people illegally logging, quarrying, hunting or carrying out other forms of natural resource extraction are a long-running problem, with around 140 officers attacked over the past five years.
- Experts have called for a more coordinated approach from various government law enforcement agencies to support the Forest Department in keeping encroachers out of protected areas.
Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.
As fires ravaged Indonesia in 2023, some positive trends emerged, data show
- Indonesia’s 2023 fire season saw 1.16 million hectares (2.87 million acres) of land and forest go up in flames, and while this was five times higher than in 2022, experts highlight a positive trend.
- The fires were exacerbated by an intense El Niño weather system, unlike in 2022; the last time similar conditions prevailed, in 2019, the area affected by fires was much larger, suggesting fire mitigation efforts may be working.
- Most of the burning occurred in scrubland and areas of degraded forest rather than in intact forests, meaning greenhouse gas emissions from the burning were also much lower than in 2023.
- But a worrying trend highlighted by the numbers is that severe fires are now occurring in four-year cycles, intensified and exacerbated by the impacts of a changing climate.
Island-building and overfishing wreak destruction of South China Sea reefs
- The offshore islets and reefs of the South China Sea have been the stage of intense geopolitical standoffs for decades, as the region’s coastal states compete for territorial control of the productive maritime area that includes oil and gas fields and reef and oceanic fisheries.
- A new investigation based on satellite monitoring and fisheries data reveals that overfishing, giant clam harvesting and island-building have devasted significant portions of the region’s shallow coral reefs.
- Experts say the direct loss of some of the world’s most diverse marine ecosystems is not the only cost, citing likely consequences for distant fisheries that depend on spawning grounds on some of the now-obliterated reefs.
- Actions by China and Vietnam were found to be by far the most egregious; however, experts say the onus lies on all South China Sea coastal states to work together toward solutions that will ensure the long-term protection and health of remaining reefs.
Indonesian court jails environmentalist for flagging illegal farms in marine park
- An Indonesian court has sentenced an environmental activist to seven months in jail for a Facebook post in which he criticized the growing problem of illegal shrimp farms operating inside a marine park.
- The court found that Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan had “created unrest” because of his post, under a controversial 2008 law on online speech that’s been widely used to silence environmental and human rights activists.
- Three other activists face similar charges in the case, which centers on their efforts to highlight the presence of illegal shrimp farms inside Karimunjawa National Park, which is supposed to be a protected area.
- Fellow rights activists have lambasted the ruling against Daniel, saying it sets a dangerous precedent for exploitation of the justice system to silence and criminalize individuals.
Cambodian official acquitted in trial that exposed monkey-laundering scheme
- A U.S. court has acquitted a senior Cambodian official accused of involvement in smuggling wild-caught and endangered monkeys into the U.S. for biomedical research.
- Kry Masphal was arrested in November 2022 and has been detained in the U.S. since then, but is now free to return to his job as director of the Cambodian Forestry Administration’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity.
- Evidence presented at his trial in Miami included a video of him appearing to acknowledge that long-tailed macaques collected by Cambodian exporter Vanny Bio Research were in fact being smuggled.
- The Cambodian government has welcomed news of the acquittal, while animal rights group PETA says that despite the ruling, “the evidence showed that countless monkeys were abducted from their forest homes and laundered with dirty paperwork.”
Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Four environmental activists in Indonesia face up to 10 months in jail for “hate speech” after complaining online about the proliferation of illegal shrimp farms inside a marine park.
- Karimunjawa National Park, which is supposed to be a protected area, has seen the number of such farms inside its borders proliferate in recent years, which groups like Greenpeace have linked to ecosystem degradation.
- Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan is the first of the four members of the #SaveKarimunjawa movement to go to court; a verdict in his case is expected on April 4.
- All four men have been charged under a controversial 2008 law on online speech, which critics say has been abused vigorously by the Indonesian state to stifle dissent and opposition.
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.
Madagascar takes key step toward improving transparency of its fisheries
- Madagascar recently released its first fisheries transparency report, part of an effort to open up, democratize, and improve the sustainability of its fisheries sector.
- The report is a key step in a process defined by the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), a Seychelles-based nonprofit.
- It contains important information on traditional, artisanal and industrial fisheries, a list of the laws and regulations governing the sector, tenure arrangements, and access agreements — including previously undisclosed information.
- It also assesses the country’s transparency according to the availability and accessibility of data from six thematic areas as outlined by the FiTI Standard.
Impunity for Cambodia’s exotic pet owners as trade outpaces legislation
- High-profile interventions by Cambodia’s former leader and weak legislation have allowed the illegal wildlife trade to persist largely in the open.
- The case of a gas station menagerie in western Cambodia is emblematic of the ease with which even endangered species can be bought and sold.
- The collection, owned by a police officer, includes cockatoos from Indonesia, marmosets and parakeets from South America, and a native gibbon.
- Authorities said they were aware of the collection, but were “following the format” set in the wake of their 2023 seizure of peacocks from a breeder, which culminated in them having to return the birds after then-prime minister Hun Sen criticized their actions.
Indonesia unveils plan to launch a satellite network for maritime monitoring
- Indonesia plans to launch a satellite constellation starting in July to monitor its marine and fisheries resources more effectively.
- This constellation of 20 nanosatellites aims to actively manage conservation efforts and ensure economic benefits from marine resources.
- The satellites will feature radio frequency, imaging and vessel-tracking equipment, allowing officials “to know every condition in Indonesia from one [data] center.”
- Challenges such as budget cuts and low compliance among fishing companies underscore the need for technological solutions to protect Indonesia’s vast marine areas.
With drop in illegal fishing comes rise in piracy, study in Indonesia finds
- Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal fishing is driving an increase in maritime piracy, a new study shows.
- In recent years, the government has taken harsh measures against illegal fishers, including banning foreign fishing vessels from its waters, and blowing up those it seizes.
- However, researchers say the crackdown’s success, without addressing the drivers of illegal fishing, including poverty, “can inadvertently shift effort from fishing to piracy.”
- Illegal fishing costs an estimated $3 billion in lost revenue for Indonesia, the world’s second-biggest producer of wild-caught seafood.
No sea change on marine policy from candidates as Indonesia heads to polls
- None of the three candidates running in Indonesia’s Feb. 14 presidential election have presented meaningful policy changes for the country’s coastal communities and marine resources, observers say.
- Indonesians are voting in the biggest single-day election in the world, but the failure by candidates to prioritize maritime issues is a major omission for the world’s biggest archipelagic country.
- Observers say the interests of fishing communities continue to be subordinated to those of industry and developers when it comes to competition for space and resources, and that none of this looks set to change under any of the three candidates.
- They also note that issues such as poverty in coastal areas, threats to marine ecosystems, and the marginalization of coastal communities persist despite the significant role these communities play in Indonesia’s fisheries sector.
Report shows Peru failed to stop Amazon deforestation for palm oil and cacao
- A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals that about 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of Amazon forest in the Peruvian regions of Loreto and Ucayali have been cleared after being purchased by several palm oil and cacao companies between 2012 and 2021.
- The investigation stresses that systemic failures in Peru’s governance, particularly in land title allocation, have allowed corporations to acquire land unlawfully, deforest without permits, disregard environmental rules, avoid fines and violate community rights. Between 2012 and 2018, almost all deforestation in Loreto and Ucayali had no legal permits, the report says.
- Some of the palm oil from these companies has been shown to enter the supply chains of major multinational companies, including Kellogg’s, Nestlé and Colgate.
- Peru’s recent approval of its new forest law, which pardons all historical illegal deforestation on rural properties or areas cleared for agriculture, will only give a license to these companies to continue damaging the environment, the EIA warns.
African Parks vows to investigate allegations of abuse at Congolese park
- In late January, the Daily Mail published allegations that rangers working with African Parks at Odzala-Kokoua park in the Republic of Congo had beaten and raped Baka community members.
- In a statement, African Parks said it had hired the U.K.-based law firm Omnia Strategy to investigate the allegations, which were raised in a letter sent to a board member by the advocacy group Survival International last year.
- African Parks said it became aware of the allegations through that letter, but in 2022, a local civil society group in the Republic of Congo released a statement accusing rangers of committing “acts of torture.”
Indonesia and Spain sign agreement to protect migrant fishing workers
- Indonesia and Spain have signed an agreement that will see Spanish regulators recognize competency certification issued by Indonesia for Indonesian fishing vessel workers.
- The move is part of efforts to boost protection of Indonesian migrant fishing workers in a global industry notorious for the exploitation and abuse of migrant deckhands.
- According to the fisheries ministry, some 1,000 Indonesians worked aboard Spanish fishing boats in 2021, earning on average about 1,000 euros ($1,075) per month.
- At home, Indonesia is also working to enhance training, certification, and protection for its large population of fishers and boat crews.
Indonesian palm oil firm fined for fires sues expert a second time over testimony
- Environmental law experts say palm oil company PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa (JJP) is attempting to shirk its liability and fines for a forest fire by suing an expert witness who testified against it.
- The lawsuit is the second that JJP has filed against Bambang Hero Saharjo, an expert on fire forensics at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB); the company dropped its previous lawsuit against him in 2018.
- The company blames Bambang, who testified about the extent of the fire damage on JJP’s concession, for the high amount that it was fined, saying his testimony was “false and exaggerated.”
- Bambang and fellow experts refute this, saying JJP’s repeated lawsuits are a frivolous attempt to avoid having to take responsibility or to pay; to date, the company hasn’t paid any of the $36.7 million that it was fined for the fire.
Indonesia offers lobster larvae exports to Vietnam in exchange for investment
- Indonesia is seeking investment from Vietnam to develop Indonesia’s fisheries sector, especially the lobster farming industry, the country’s fisheries minister said during a visit to Hanoi.
- In exchange, Indonesia could supply up to 300 million lobster larvae to Vietnam and would stop seizing Vietnamese fishing boats encroaching into Indonesian waters, instead just turning them back.
- Jakarta banned exports of lobster larvae in 2016 to prevent the overharvesting of wild population from the country’s rich waters, but smuggling remains rampant.
- Despite concerns about potential harm to the domestic aquaculture industry, the government plans to finalize a decree to resume exports, citing the economic benefits and potential to reduce smuggling.
Spain sanctions fishing vessels for illegally ‘going dark’ near Argentine waters
- The Spanish government sanctioned 25 of its vessels for illegally turning off their satellite tracking devices while fishing off the coast of Argentina between 2018 and 2021.
- Experts say ships that “go dark” by turning off their trackers often do so to partake in illicit behavior, such as crossing into a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) without authorization.
- While some have praised the Spanish government’s actions, one expert says he doesn’t believe the sanctions go far enough.
- Most fishing activity in this region is also unregulated and unmonitored, which raises environmental concerns.
2023 fires increase fivefold in Indonesia amid El Niño
- Nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres, an area 15 times the size of Jakarta) burned in Indonesia between January and October 2023, according to environment and forest ministry data; El Niño and burning for new plantations contributed to this.
- 2023 was the worst fire season since 2019, when that year’s El Niño brought a prolonged dry season and fires so severe, they sent billowing smoke across Malaysia and Singapore.
- In the absence of local jobs, some people burn abandoned farmlands and turn them into new plantations as a way to make a living and survive.
Forest restoration planned for Colombia’s Farallones de Cali National Park
- Farallones de Cali National Park, located on the Pacific coast, will undergo long-term habitat restoration to reverse the damage done by illegal gold mining, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development said in an announcement late last month.
- The $3.7-million project could take several decades because of the severity of the environmental damage done by illegal mining, which has deforested the park and polluted its rivers with mercury.
- The 196,364-hectare (485,226-acre) national park is an important biological corridor along Colombia’s Pacific coast.
Illegal gold mining threatens Indus River water and biodiversity in Pakistan (commentary)
- The Indus River in Pakistan is being extensively disturbed by unregulated mining of the river’s bed (‘placer mining’) for gold.
- Numerous operations employing an estimated 1,200 heavy machines dig daily into the riverbed and dump buckets of sediment and rocks into screening devices, destroying habitat and muddying the water flowing downstream.
- “It is crucial to the development for the region’s economy and environmental preservation efforts to regulate placer gold blocks along the Indus River,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
‘Shark dust’ helps researchers ID threatened species in Indonesia fish trade
- Researchers have developed a new tool to identify a wide range of threatened and protected sharks being processed at fish factories in Indonesia.
- The method relies on DNA analysis of “shark dust,” the tiny fragments of skin and cartilage swept from the floors of fish-processing plants and export warehouses.
- From 28 shark dust samples collected from seven processing plants across Java Island, they found the genetic sequences of 61 shark and ray species.
- About 84% of these are CITES-listed species, meaning there are official restrictions in place on the international trade in these species.
Ecuador court ruling leaves a legal gray area in environmental consultation
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court struck down a controversial decree that tried to reform how environmental consultations for large-scale infrastructure projects are carried out with communities.
- Environmental and Indigenous groups had filed a motion with the court, calling the decree unconstitutional, and the court agreed, saying consultation processes can only be regulated through an organic law issued by the National Assembly, not through an executive decree.
- However, in a rare move, the court also deferred its ruling, allowing the decree to remain in place until after the National Assembly creates the needed laws.
- Lawyers say the ruling doesn’t clear up the confusion, and the multiple interpretations of the Constitution, that lie at the heart of Ecuador’s consultation processes.
Video: For farmer imprisoned over wildfires, fear and poverty linger
- Sarijan, a farmer in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, spent seven months in jail for setting a controlled fire on his land in 2019.
- Throughout the ordeal, he says he experienced violence in jail and extortion by the authorities.
- Sarijan is one of at least 200 farmers in Indonesian Borneo prosecuted for this offense since 2016, amid a crackdown by the government on land burning.
- To this day, Sarijan hasn’t resumed farming his land; as a result, he now has to buy food instead of growing it, driving an increase in his living costs.
Traditional small farmers burned by Indonesia’s war on wildfires
- An investigation by Mongabay based on court records and interviews shows police in Indonesia are increasingly charging small farmers for slash-and-burn practices.
- Prosecutions surged following a particularly catastrophic fire season in 2015, in response to which Indonesia’s president threatened to fire local law enforcement chiefs for not preventing burning in their jurisdictions.
- Most of those prosecuted were small farmers cultivating less than 2 hectares, and many were of old age and/or illiterate; several alleged they suffered extortion and abuse during their legal ordeal.
- Experts say law enforcers should be more judicious about the charges they bring, noting that a “targeted fire policy” should differentiate between various kinds of actors, such as traditional farmers, land speculators, and people hired to clear land by plantation firms.
Peru’s crackdown on illegal gold mining a success, but only briefly, study shows
- Peru’s state intervention against illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios region succeeded in halting the activity for a couple of years, pushing miners into concessions allowing mining, according to recent research.
- Operation Mercury, which ran between 2019-2020, led to the abandonment of almost all targeted illegal mining sites in La Pampa, an area found in the buffer zone of a major national park.
- But while there’s been some forest regeneration in the affected areas since then, this has been undone by even higher rates of deforestation in the legal mining areas where the miners have moved into.
- Experts also say the effort has been unsustainable, as law enforcement in the area has waned and miners have started to come back, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a major role in cutting enforcement budgets.
Report shines partial light on worst labor offenders in opaque fishing industry
- In recent years, examples of forced labor on industrial fishing vessels have commanded headlines in prominent media outlets. Yet ship owners are rarely held to account, often because it’s hard to identify who they are.
- A new report from the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), a consortium of international NGOs, examined cases of reported forced labor on 475 fishing vessels since 2010.
- The authors could only identify the legal owners (often a company) of about half the vessels, and could only identify the beneficial owners (the people who ultimately keep the profits) of about one-fifth of the vessels.
- Of the accused vessels for which it could identify legal owners, half are owned by Asian companies, and nearly one-quarter are owned by European companies.
Indonesia welcomes new Singapore regulation to help curb lobster smuggling
- A new reexport regulation in Singapore could help stem the smuggling of lobster larvae from neighboring Indonesia.
- The city-state is a key destination for the contraband and a transit point for lobster larvae reexported to third countries like Vietnam and China.
- Under the new regulation, reexporters in Singapore will have to get health certificates for live animals from the country of origin, which in theory should be impossible for smugglers.
- Indonesian authorities have cautiously welcomed the plan, but say both countries must work more closely on the long-running problem.
Remediation overdue: South American countries fail to enforce oil cleanup laws
- Existing legislation in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia provides for the remediation of environmental damage, though experts point to a “lack of political will” to enforce the laws.
- Bolivia is pressing ahead with its plans to expand activity of its hydrocarbon sector, while in Ecuador, there is an ongoing debate in international courts over an emblematic pollution case.
- In Peru, not a single environmental liability has yet been fully dealt with, while in Colombia a law has just been passed that will seek to catalog the damage caused by the oil industry.
Burn now, pay later: Fines trickle in from Indonesia’s crackdown on forest fires
- Ten years since a landmark lawsuit over forest fires, the palm oil company at the center of the case has finally begun paying its $23 million fine in installments.
- The case against PT Kallista Alam (KA) was supposed to set an example for how the government is cracking down on companies that allow burning in their concessions, but has instead highlighted the difficulty of collecting on the fines.
- KA has paid just $3.6 million of its total fine, and despite a 2021 regulation barring fine payments in installments, the company has been allowed to stagger its payments over time.
- The company is one of 22 sued by the government since 2013 for fires; 14 of these have been found liable and ordered to pay a combined 5.6 trillion rupiah ($353 million), but only one has paid in full.
As fire season worsens, Indonesian activists report four companies for burning
JAKARTA — Activists have reported four companies — two industrial forest firms and two palm oil firms — to the local police over fires in their concessions in Central Kalimantan as Indonesia is grappling with its worst fire episode since 2019. According to satellite image analysis done Sept. 2-10, the activists found a total of […]
Report: Half of MSC-certified ‘sustainable’ tuna caught with controversial gear
- Tuna fisheries often rely on fish aggregating devices (FADs), floating human-made structures that fish congregate around, which makes it relatively easy to catch them, but which have also raised concerns about high rates of bycatch, capture of juvenile tuna, and pollution.
- Despite these concerns, the number of tuna fisheries using FADs that are certified sustainable under the standards of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries, has soared, and FAD-fished tuna now account for more than half of all MSC-certified tuna, according to a new report from France-based nonprofit BLOOM Association.
- The report contends this constitutes a weakening of MSC standards in order to meet market demands for tuna.
- The MSC has refuted this claim, pointing to steps that certified fisheries are taking to reduce and study the impact of FADs.
Indonesia renews effort to resume controversial lobster larvae exports
- The Indonesian government is drafting a new policy that could allow the resumption of lobster larvae exports, which were banned in 2016 to prevent overharvesting of wild stocks.
- The fisheries ministry says a resumption is necessary to boost local fishers’ earnings and develop the domestic aquaculture industry.
- However, critics say the new policy mirrors a previous attempt to resume exports in 2020, which spawned a corruption scandal that led to the fisheries minister at the time being jailed.
- The ministry says this time around the policy will be monitored and enforced more strictly, although questions still remain over how sustainably lobster larvae can be harvested from the wild.
Report: Half of plantations in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland are illegal
- Nearly half of plantations in Riau province, Indonesia’s palm oil heartland, are illegal, according to a new report by the Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of NGOs based in Sumatra.
- With the illegal plantations spanning 2.52 million hectares (6.23 million acres) of land — an area nearly the size of Hawai‘i — Riau is home to more than half of illegal oil palm plantations in Indonesia.
- EoF has called on the government to focus its amnesty program, which gives operators of illegal plantations a grace period of three years to obtain the proper permits, in Riau.
- It has also called for greater transparency in the amnesty program to avoid corruption in the process.
Small wins for Indigenous Malaysian activists in dispute with timber giant
- For decades, Indigenous activists in the Malaysian state of Sarawak have found themselves in conflict with timber giant Samling.
- In September, Samling agreed to withdraw a lawsuit it filed against SAVE Rivers, a local NGO that publicized concerns about the company’s treatment of people living in and around two areas under the company’s management.
- Samling also lost certification for its Ravenscourt Forest Management Unit, one of the areas of concern in its lawsuit against SAVE Rivers.
- Activists in Sarawak say they will continue in their fight to empower Indigenous communities questioning Samling and other industrial giants’ plans for their land and resources.
Experts slam massive ‘discount’ in fines for Indonesian palm oil billionaire
- Environmental experts have criticized an Indonesian court ruling that extends a palm oil billionaire’s sentence for corruption by just one year while slashing his fines by nearly 95%.
- The country’s highest court of appeal upheld the initial conviction of Surya Darmadi for conspiring with a local official to illegally obtain licenses for his oil palm plantation, but cut his fines from $2.7 billion to just $144 million.
- Experts who testified in Surya’s prosecution say the latest ruling sets a bad precedent for future law enforcement against corruption and environmental crimes in the country.
- And without fines, they warn, there can be no efforts to recover the carbon-rich and biodiverse peat ecosystems in Sumatra that Surya’s plantations destroyed.
Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict
- Following petitions by Indigenous communities in Palawan, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a writ mandating a nickel mining project and associated government agencies respond to the communities’ environmental concerns.
- The issuance of the writ is an initial step in a legal process activists say they hope will result in the permanent suspension of the nickel mine, which is operating within a protected area.
- While the legal process is currently on hold due to a court recess, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued the mine a cease-and-desist order the same day the court issued the writ.
Fisherwomen fight plan for coastal salt farms on Indonesia’s Madura Island
- A group of women in Sumenep district of East Java province is leading a protest against the local government’s proposal to develop a salt farm on 20 hectares (49 acres) of land on the coast of Gersik Putih village.
- In 2009, the local government issued land titles on 73 hectares (180 acres) of land along the coast of Tapakerbau hamlet in Gersik Putih, and all of it was to become salt farms.
- The fishers say the plan could jeopardize their fishing jobs and the sustainability of the marine ecosystem on which they have for generations depended for their livelihoods, and they say they believe the salt ponds have exacerbated the flooding there in recent years.
- The protest in Sumenep is one of many against plans for the development of coastal aquaculture in Indonesia, a country that has the world’s second-longest coastline.
EU deforestation-free rule ‘highly challenging’ for SE Asia smallholders, experts say
- Millions of small-scale farmers in mainland Southeast Asia are at risk of losing access to European forest commodity supply chains unless serious action is taken to help them comply with the new EU deforestation-free regulation, experts say.
- Smallholders produce significant quantities of the region’s forest-related commodities, but many lack the technical capacity and financial capital to meet the hefty due diligence requirements of the new rule.
- Without support for vulnerable communities to comply, experts say farmers could be exposed to land grabbing, dispossession and other abuses, with some left with no choice but to retreat into forested landscapes to eke out a living.
- Sustainability groups, meanwhile, say the new EU rule is an opportunity to move forest commodity sectors toward improved responsibility, sustainability and transparency.
Indonesian regulator gets 12 years’ jail for palm oil permit bribery
- An Indonesian court has sentenced a senior land agency official to 12 years in prison for taking bribes from palm oil and mining companies to expedite their permits.
- Muhammad Syahrir, formerly the head of the land agencies in Riau and North Maluku provinces, was found guilty of taking the equivalent of $1.38 million in bribes from various companies over the course of five years.
- In addition to the jail sentence, the court also imposed fines totaling $1.5 million; failure to pay could incur additional prison time of up to three and a half years.
- The case has spurred calls for a sweeping evaluation of the permitting process, not just in the palm oil industry, but across all sectors in Indonesia, where bribery is common.
Court ruling spares Papua forest from further clearing for palm oil
- An Indonesian court has rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies operating in the Tanah Merah mega oil palm plantation project in the country’s Papua region.
- The ruling means the companies are legally required to stop clearing forest in their concessions and preserve what remains.
- Activists and Indigenous Awyu people living in the area have welcomed the ruling, but point out that communities in the concession areas still don’t have legal recognition of their ancestral rights to these forests.
- They’ve called on the government to formally recognize their ancestral rights and ensure the companies’ permits to the concessions are revoked.
Small-scale fishers in Indonesian isles flag use of banned net by outsiders
- Fishers on a group of small islands in the Java Sea are calling for a crackdown on larger boats using a banned type of seine net in their waters.
- The Masalembu Islands, which lie in one of the most heavily trafficked fishing zones in Indonesia, have frequently seen boats from elsewhere encroach into the near-shore zone that’s reserved for small-scale traditional fishers.
- The local fishers say these bigger boats typically use a cantrang net, banned by the fisheries ministry but still in widespread use amid a lack of law enforcement.
- The fishers have petitioned the government to clearly designate the traditional fishing zone that should be strictly off-limits to these cantrang boats.
South Africa community members decry traditional leaders’ power amid mine plans
- Community members, commercial farmers and environmentalists are raising concerns that Jindal’s proposed $2 billion iron ore mine project, slated to be one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, could be allowed to exploit the mineral without community consent — but only with that of their leader.
- Due to the structure of South African law, traditional leaders tend to see themselves as the sole decision-makers in their communities and approve of extractive projects for their stated economic benefits in the region.
- Many communities sit on valuable resources like platinum and titanium, and there is a significant possibility that with the current structure of the law, people will be removed from their lands to make way for extractive industries, say land policy researchers.
- Traditional leaders maintain that it is important for the law to recognize traditional authorities after decades and centuries of fighting for formal recognition after colonization.
Indonesia, Singapore to work more closely against lobster larvae smugglers
- Indonesia has called for Singapore’s commitment to shut its borders to illegal exports of lobster larvae.
- Indonesia has since 2021 banned exports of wild-caught lobster larvae, but Singapore still permits their import, serving as both a key market and a regional trading hub.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of larvae and baby lobsters costs the country billions of rupiah in lost revenue and threatens the declining wild population of the shellfish.
- The fisheries ministry puts the latest estimate of potential wild lobster stock in Indonesian waters at 27 billion, but many of the officially sanctioned fishing zones are overfished, with the rest being harvested at maximum capacity.
Indonesia permit payoff raises alarm about palm oil industry corruption
- The ongoing trial of an Indonesian official accused of taking bribes from palm oil companies to expedite their permits has prompted calls for greater scrutiny into corruption in the sector.
- Muhammad Syahrir, formerly the head of the land agencies in Riau and North Maluku provinces, is accused of taking 20.9 billion rupiah ($1.36 million) in bribes from various companies over the course of five years.
- In the case at the center of the trial, Syahrir is alleged to have solicited the equivalent of $228,000 from palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari to renew its right-to-cultivate permit, known as an HGU.
- Environmental law experts say the secrecy around HGU permits is what allows corruption to flourish, and have renewed calls for the government to make the permit data publicly accessible.
Falcon trafficking soars in Middle East, fueled by conflict and poverty
- Worth thousands of dollars, migratory falcons are increasingly targeted by trappers in the Middle East, notably in Syria, where their value skyrocketed during the war.
- In Jordan, Iraq and Syria, authorities struggle to contain trafficking, which takes place nearly in the open; in Iraq and Syria, wildlife protection is hardly a priority given prevalent political instability and spiraling poverty.
- Experts say the capture and trade of falcons is driving the decline of wild populations in the Middle East.
- This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.
Indonesian illegal shark and ray exports remain rampant amid poor monitoring
- Indonesia allows the trade of some endangered shark and ray species, but illegal exports remain rampant and unchecked.
- Mongabay-Indonesia conducted an investigation earlier this year to learn about the regulations, the loopholes and the challenges within the complex trade and fisheries of sharks and rays.
- The investigation found that the lack of oversight in the field was the leading cause of illegal shark and ray trade in the country.
- Indonesia is home to more than a quarter of the world’s 400 known shark species; a fifth of all shark species are endangered.
Madagascar signs new ‘sustainable’ tuna deal with the EU
- In late June, Madagascar and the European Union struck a new four-year deal allowing fishing vessels flagged to EU countries to resume harvesting tuna in Madagascar’s waters after an unusual four-and-a-half-year gap.
- The EU says the deal benefits Madagascar by providing key funding to support fisheries governance, and civil society groups praised the Madagascar government for creating a more inclusive and transparent negotiating process than in the past.
- However, critics contend that the deal offers little benefit to the citizens of Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, and enables European vessels to exacerbate the overfishing of Indian Ocean tuna stocks.
Indonesian oil palm firm slapped with $61m fine for fires on its plantation
- Indonesia’s Supreme Court has upheld a $61 million fine against palm oil company PT Rafi Kamajaya Abadi for fires on its oil palm plantation in western Borneo.
- The fires burned an area spanning 2,560 hectares (6,326 acres), or more than seven times the size of New York City’s Central Park.
- To date, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry has filed lawsuits against 22 companies for fires on their concessions, 13 of which have been found liable and must pay fines after exhausting all avenues of appeal.
Most Indonesian palm oil firms not sharing land with small farmers as required: audit
- Only 21% of Indonesian oil palm plantation companies have fulfilled their legal obligations to allocate land for smallholder farmers under a scheme called plasma, a new government audit shows.
- To address the lack of compliance by companies, the government has established a task force.
- The task force will also address other issues in the plantation industry, such as tax avoidance.
Indonesia slammed for ‘bowing down’ in amnesty for illegal oil palm estates
- The Indonesian government says it has no other option in dealing with illegal plantations than to legalize them under an amnesty program.
- Activists have lambasted the justification, saying it signals the state’s capitulation to environmental violators.
- They say the government has the option of taking legal action against the plantation operators, for which there’s already legal precedent.
- The amnesty program is set to run until the end of this year, with the aim of legalizing illegal plantations spanning an area the size of the Netherlands.
West African fishers strike for fair wages and ‘respect’ on EU-owned vessels
- African fishers, mostly from Senegal and Ivory Coast who work on dozens of EU vessels that operate in West Africa and the Indian Ocean, took part in a strike that lasted from June 5-8, alleging wage violations.
- Vessels owned by EU companies are allowed to fish in foreign countries’ waters through agreements between the EU and the host nations. However, a third of such vessels operating in West Africa use flags of other countries and evade labor rights provisions agreed to under these pacts.
- Fishers who participated in the strike told Mongabay they were fighting for more than fair wages, saying that African sailors were not treated with respect on European boats despite doing some of the most arduous jobs.
- Seafarers’ unions called off the strike after the Senegalese government initiated negotiations with vessel owners and unions. Talks are expected to conclude in five months.
Despite lawsuit, Casino Group still sells beef from Amazonian Indigenous territory
- A new investigation shows that farms located in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon supplied two JBS meatpacking plants that sell beef to brands of the French supermarket giant.
- In most cases, animals were not transferred directly from ranches in the Indigenous land to JBS, but went through different farms before arriving at slaughterhouses, when it was no longer possible to differentiate between cattle from the Indigenous land and others.
- This maneuver is known as ‘cattle laundering’ and aims to hide any potentially illegal origin of the animals.
- Casino said its suppliers are required to detail the supply route and that it directly rechecks all farms, but it’s up to meatpackers to monitor indirect suppliers; meanwhile, the meatpacker says it has no control over indirect suppliers.
Civil society changes up campaign against jailed Kalimantan farmers
- In April, three farmers from Kinjil village in Central Kalimantan were arrested on suspicion of oil palm theft from land controlled by a plantation firm following a land dispute.
- The farmers’ case has been taken up by a coalition of civil society groups, and a complaint has been lodged with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
- Several complaints have been launched against companies associated with Bumitama Agri Ltd., a Singapore-based plantation firm tied to Indonesia’s Harita Group.
Jokowi focuses on El Niño as Indonesia’s dry season heats up
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo warned officials to anticipate risks from the first El Niño since the 2015 Southeast Asia wildfires crisis.
- Dry season conditions had emerged in 52% of Indonesian territory by early July, according to the country’s weather forecaster.
- Officials hope reforms enacted since the 2015 disaster will lessen the severity of wildfires as El Niño conditions become more pronounced.
Element Africa: Ghanaian communities challenge mining regulation and Shell spills more oil in the Niger Delta
- Anger rises as Shell pipeline contaminates river and farms in southeastern Nigeria.
- Activists call for new mining legislation to be scrapped as Ghana’s government grants license to mine gold in a forest reserve.
- Also in Ghana, residents march in protest against a community mining scheme.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
Alleged torturers roam free as Indonesia struggles to bring charges in palm oil slavery case
- Prosecutors in Indonesia have still not charged the majority of men implicated in a slave-labor scandal at a local official’s oil palm plantation.
- The New York Times reported that only 13 of some 60 men, including military and police officers, remain free despite dozens of victims and witnesses accusing them of human trafficking and torture.
- The official, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, was jailed last year in a bribery case but never charged in the human trafficking case for enslaving the victims under the guise of a drug rehabilitation program.
- Prosecutor said a reliance on local police investigators whose own colleagues had participated in the forced-labor scheme had impeded their work.
Palm oil giants face corruption charges as Indonesia probe widens
- Indonesian prosecutors have charged three palm oil giants with corruption relating to a cooking oil shortage across the country last year.
- Permata Hijau, Wilmar International and Musim Mas are alleged to have benefited from the criminal actions of their executives, who were convicted earlier this year in the same case.
- The executives were found to have bribed a top trade ministry official to issue the companies with permits to export their palm oil for a high price rather than sell it domestically at a capped rate.
- Industry watchdogs have welcomed efforts to prosecute the companies, but say these must be accompanied by an overhaul of the industry in general.
Element Africa: offshore oil threatens fisheries, gold mining topples homes and forests
- Mensin Gold’s mine at Bibiani threatens Ghanaian villagers’ health and homes.
- Fishers fear impacts of cross-border oil and gas exploration in waters shared by Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
- Illegal miners in a forest reserve in Ghana are brazenly shooting back at law enforcement agents.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
In Indonesia, companies defy government’s decision to revoke their permits
- Logging, plantation and mining companies have continued to operate and have been mired in conflicts with communities since their permits were targeted for revocation by the Indonesian government, a new report says.
- In Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua alone, four palm oil companies cleared 943.3 hectares (2,331 acres) of forests in the first four months of 2023 — an area three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
- Civil groups have been calling on the government to redistribute the revoked concessions to local and Indigenous communities, but they say their calls haven’t been heard.
Indigenous groups turn to Brazil’s highest court to stop police violence
- Brazil’s largest coalition of Indigenous groups has filed a motion with the country’s highest court in response to escalating police brutality against Indigenous peoples in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
- In the first seven months of 2022, 759 violent incidents with police were recorded, involving a total of 113,654 families and 33 killings in land-related conflicts in rural areas of the country, marking a 150% increase from the first six months of 2021.
- Most cases of violence are tied to disputes over non-demarcation lands; Indigenous peoples, attempting to reclaim their ancestral territory, often run into conflicts with landowners, such as farmers or developers, which end in forceful police interventions.
- The Indigenous coalition is requesting the installation of GPS equipment and recording systems on security officers’ uniforms and vehicles, as well as measures aimed to improve their training and public protocols to protect human rights.
Warfare for wildlife: Q&A with Rosaleen Duffy
- Rosaleen Duffy is a professor of international politics at Sheffield University in the U.K. and a longtime critic of military and law enforcement tactics in the conservation world.
- In 2021, she published “Security and Conservation” with Yale Press, drawing on anonymous interviews with dozens of conservation practitioners, as well as funders, private military companies, government officials and the private sector.
- Duffy is currently the principal investigator for a U.K. government-funded project analyzing the links between the legal and illegal wildlife trade in European brown bears, European eels, and songbirds.
Latest environmentalist arrest shocks Vietnam’s battered civil society
- Prominent Vietnamese environmentalist Hoang Thi Minh Hong has been arrested, becoming the latest civil society activist to face charges of tax evasion.
- Hong’s NGO, the Center of Hands-on Action and Networking for Growth and Environment (CHANGE), shut down last year amid intense pressure on civil society groups in the country.
- Another leading environmentalist, Goldman Environmental Prize winner Nguy Thi Khanh, was also jailed on tax evasion charges, but released from prison five months early on May 13.
- Fellow activist Dang Dinh Bach, jailed for five years for tax evasion, plans to begin a hunger strike “to the death” on June 24.
Palm giants Wilmar, Indofood, RGE fined over Indonesian cooking oil shortage
- The Indonesian government’s business competition watchdog has ruled seven companies, including subsidiaries of palm oil giants Wilmar, Salim Group and Asian Agri, guilty of restricting sales of cooking oil amid an acute shortage in early 2022.
- The watchdog, the KPPU, has fined the companies $4.75 million for hoarding cooking oil after the government capped the retail price in response to a price surge.
- Wilmar says it’s disappointed with the ruling and is considering filing an appeal.
- A Wilmar board member was earlier this year convicted and jailed for redirecting palm oil meant for the domestic market to the export market, where prices were higher.
Landmark Nepal court ruling ends impunity for wealthy wildlife collectors
- Wildlife collectors in Nepal will have to declare their collections to the government, under a landmark ruling spurred by the perceived injustice of the country’s strict wildlife protection laws.
- The May 30 Supreme Court ruling caps a legal campaign by conservationist Kumar Paudel to hold to account wealthy Nepalis who openly display wildlife parts and trophies, even as members of local communities are persecuted for suspected poaching.
- Under the ruling, the government must issue a public notice calling on private collectors to declare their wildlife collections, and must then seize those made after 1973, the year the wildlife conservation act came into effect.
- Conservationists and human rights advocates have welcomed the ruling, but say “only time will tell if the government will take this court order seriously or not.”
Illegal trawling ravages Tunisian seagrass meadows crucial for fish
- The largest remaining seagrass meadows in the Mediterranean are in Tunisia’s Gulf of Gabès, a hotspot for biodiversity and fishing.
- But illegal bottom trawling and industrial pollution are destroying this unique habitat, a natural nursery to numerous species of fish and other marine fauna.
- Hundreds of trawlers ply their trade overtly with little consequence, and most of the catch makes its way to Europe, skirting laws designed to prevent the entry of illegally caught seafood.
Early release for imprisoned climate activist as Vietnam aims for net zero goals
- Vietnamese climate activist Nguy Thi Khanh was quietly released from prison this month, five months earlier than scheduled.
- No reasoning has been given for Khanh’s release, which has not been formally announced or discussed in local media, but activists note that Vietnam will require international financing to pursue its decarbonization goals, including a recently signed power development plan.
- Three prominent environmental activists remain imprisoned in Vietnam. One, Dang Dinh Bach, has announced plans to begin a hunger strike “to the death” on June 24.
Indonesian audit finds taxes unpaid on 22 million acres of oil palm plantations
- An Indonesian government audit finds that taxes are not paid on some 9 million hectares (22.2 million acres) — an area three times the size of Belgium — don’t pay taxes, an Indonesian government audit finds.
- Luhut Pandjaitan, a top government official, says the government will impose penalties on plantation owners who don’t pay taxes rather than take them to court.
- Activists have called on the government to address the root causes of the issue, which is irregularities in the permit issuance process.
Targeting 3% of protected areas could accelerate progress on 30×30 goals, says Global Conservation’s Jeff Morgan
- In December, world leaders adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, targeting the conservation of 30% of Earth by 2030.
- However, Jeff Morgan, founder of Global Conservation, points out that simply designating protected areas is not enough to safeguard nature. His organization, therefore, focuses on strengthening protection within UNESCO World Heritage Sites in lower and middle-income countries, utilizing cost-effective technologies for law enforcement against poaching, illegal logging, and more.
- Global Conservation currently operates across 22 national parks and 10 marine parks in 14 countries and aims to expand its work to 100 sites by 2033. Morgan believes that this focus on existing national parks and habitats is the most efficient and cost-effective way to achieve climate goals.
- Morgan recently spoke with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler about Global Conservation’s approach.
Trapping holds back speed of bird recovery in a Sumatran forest, study shows
- A decade of protection and natural regeneration of tropical forests has helped bird populations increase in the southern lowlands of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, a new study says.
- However, it adds that continued wild trapping is preventing the reforestation effort from achieving its greatest results.
- The Harapan Forest, which straddles the provinces of Jambi and South Sumatra, in 2007 became the site of Indonesia’s first ecosystem restoration concession to recover biodiversity in the region after commercial selective logging ceased in 2005.
- Since 2004, Indonesia has awarded 16 licenses for ecosystem restoration concessions, including for the Harapan Forest, covering an area of 623,075 hectares (1.54 million acres) in Sumatra and Borneo, according to 2018 government data.
Corruption threatens timber traceability in Nkok, Gabon
- Gabon enjoys 88% forest cover, with selective logging helping protect this ecological and economic resource.
- Timber processed in the country’s Nkok Special Investment Zone (SIZ) is required to be harvested in line with European Union certifications for sustainability.
- However, TraCer, the monitoring system meant to ensure the traceability of wood entering the Nkok SIZ, was recently suspended by Gabon’s Ministry of Water and Forests.
- While TraCer was quickly reinstated, its suspension points to issues surrounding forest management and the Gabonese timber industry, including trafficking scandals involving the Ministry of Water and Forests.
Indonesia legalizes illicit oil palm farms in program slammed as opaque
- Indonesia has legalized oil palm plantations one and a half times the size of London that were operating illegally in forest areas.
- Critics say the amnesty scheme effectively whitewashes the crimes of setting up plantations inside areas zoned as forest, where deforestation, wildfires and land conflicts are rife.
- To qualify for amnesty, plantation operators must pay fines and apply for the requisite licenses, but the process to date hasn’t been transparent, prompting concerns over backroom deals.
- With the deadline for the amnesty program ending this November, shortly before campaigning for next year’s elections begin, activists have also warned of the potential for operators to bribe candidates and officials in exchange for amnesty.
With little will to fight it, corruption is major risk for Indonesian palm oil
- Indonesia’s top 50 palm oil companies have weak antigraft measures, rendering the industry highly prone to corruption, according to a new report by Transparency International Indonesia.
- It found that practices such as political lobbying and revolving door practices among the 50 companies are barely regulated, and many companies don’t disclose their tax data.
- Some companies also don’t have antibribery policies and programs that extend to all staff, including executives and directors, the report says.
- On average, the 50 companies scored 3.5 out of 10 on six criteria, such as anticorruption programs, lobbying activities and data transparency.
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.
Can a new regional pact protect the Amazon from environmental crime? (commentary)
- Police, prosecutors, money-laundering experts and others convened last week in Brazil to tackle drug and environmental crimes like illegal mining and logging that are growing in scale across the Amazon.
- The group resolved to move law enforcement beyond occasional raids and periodic destruction of machinery used by organized crime syndicates and toward a concerted and pan-Amazonian push for local, regional and global cooperation on law enforcement.
- While acknowledging the increasing scale of these crimes, participants were optimistic: “We are living in a new moment to fight environmental crime and protect the Amazon,” said the newly appointed director for Amazon environmental crime with Brazil’s federal police, for example.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
For Dutch farming crisis, agroforestry offers solutions: Q&A with Lennart Fuchs & Marc Buiter
- The Dutch government aims to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030 by downsizing and closing farms, sparking a wave of farmer protests and a surprising win for a new agrarian political party.
- Agricultural and environmental experts are calling for the need to introduce food system solutions that both address farmer livelihoods while tackling the climate and environmental crises.
- Agroforestry, agroecology and silvopasture — climate change and conservation solutions that can be profitable — are among the solutions they say can contribute positively to the country’s nitrogen goals.
- Mongabay spoke with two Dutch agricultural experts — Lennart Fuchs from Wageningen University & Research, and Marc Buiter from the Dutch Food Forest Foundation — on how agroforestry could be part of a solution that works for both farmers and the environment.
‘Impact assessments need a shake-up’: Q&A with Georgine Kengne & Morgan Hauptfleisch
- Environmental and social impact assessments as they’re implemented in development projects across Africa need a “shake-up” to ensure they’re fit for purpose, experts say.
- Georgine Kengne, from the WoMin African Alliance, says the ideal ESIA process would be one in which “the government and the mining company are not just colluding to make profits.”
- Morgan Hauptfleisch, a professor of nature conservation in Namibia, says the fundamental problem is that ESIAs and other safeguards can simply be ignored with little consequence other than fines that the companies just budget for anyway.
- Mongabay spoke with both Kengne and Hauptfleisch about ESIAs, community participation, and the underused tool that is the strategic environmental assessment (SEA).
Element Africa: Claims of mining encroachment in DRC and broken promises in SA
- Activists say Canada-registered miner Alphamin Bisie has been operating outside its concession in the DRC’s North Kivu province, and encroaching into community forests.
- Police in South Africa have arrested seven activists protesting against Anglo American Platinum for what they say is the mining giant’s failure to report back on its social and work commitments to the mining-affected community.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.
Herders turn to fishing in the desert amid severe drought, putting pressure on fish population
- As Northern Kenya’s unabating drought continues, a growing wave of pastoralists are finding it challenging to keep their livestock alive and are switching to fishing in Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake.
- However, environmentalists, fishing authorities, and some fishers worry that potential overfishing and increased pressures on fish populations will cause a collapse in fish stocks and the lake’s ecosystem.
- Authorities are also concerned about the rampant use of illegal fishing gear, such as thin mesh nets that catch undersized fish in shallow breeding zones, and an illegal tilapia smuggling network draining the lake by the tons.
- Though no studies have yet been done to assess fish populations, some environmentalists and fishers are calling for better enforcement of regulations to keep livelihoods afloat.
Indonesian palm oil billionaire gets 15 years for corruption
- A Jakarta court has sentenced palm oil tycoon Surya Darmadi to 15 years in prison for corruption that allowed him to establish illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia’s Riau province.
- The court also ordered him to pay more than $2.7 billion in fines and restitution for the environmental and social damage caused by the illegal plantations, believed to be the costliest corruption case in Indonesia’s history.
- Surya fled Indonesia in 2014 after being charged in another corruption case, and only surrendered to the authorities last year.
- Palm oil from his plantations was exported to six countries: India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Kenya, Italy and Singapore.
Treacherous pits and lakes left in the wake of Cameroon’s abandoned mining sites
- Inactive mining sites in Cameroon are continuously abandoned without restoration by foreign companies, leaving behind huge pits in the ground that later form into artificial lakes which endanger local populations and damage ecosystems.
- In January, a 13-year-old boy drowned in one of these lakes near Yaoundé, left behind by the quarry company Transatlantique Cameroon Ltd, a subsidiary of the Chinese consortium Cameroon Meilan Construction Conglomerate (CMCC).
- In 2021 and 2022, the Cameroonian NGO Forests and Rural Development (FODER) identified more than 700 mining pits in Cameroon, including 139 which had become artificial lakes, claiming the lives of more than 200 people.
- Cameroonian legislation obligates mining companies to refill mining pits after their operations. Despite this, the law is not being adhered to or enforced.
Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- A wave of recent closures of environment organizations in Vietnam, as well as the arrests of NGO leaders, reflects the difficult position that activists face in the one-party state.
- Nonprofit organizations have an unclear legal status in the country, and are vulnerable to pressure from the state as well as from powerful private interests.
- Though the communist-led government has at times recognized the value of NGOs as partners in implementing social and environmental programs, it has also attacked the concept of civil society as a threat to official ideology and morality.
Liberian courts rubber-stamp export shipment of illegal logs
- On Jan. 16, a timber company won a controversial lawsuit in Liberia, when a court ordered forestry officials there to allow a shipment of illegally harvested ekki logs to be exported overseas.
- The ruling was the latest chapter in a years-long saga that environmentalists say points to a breakdown of regulation in Liberia’s forestry sector.
- An unpublished report on the case prepared by Liberia’s Ministry of Justice and obtained by Mongabay implicates senior Liberian officials in serious violations of laws meant to protect the country’s forests.
- Sources told Mongabay the seized logs have been the subject of a heated dispute behind closed doors between President George Weah’s administration and international donors.
Violence in Brazil’s Amazon are also crimes against humanity, lawyers tell international court
- Three organizations, including Greenpeace Brazil, filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) pressing for the investigation into a network of politicians, law enforcement and business executives they suspect are responsible for systematic attacks against land defenders.
- They documented over 400 murders, 500 attempted murders, 2,200 death threats, 2,000 assaults and 80 cases of torture that occurred between 2011 and 2022.
- Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is one suspect in these crimes, yet the organizations say the attacks are part of a larger system operating in Brazil, and will likely continue even when he’s out of office.
- If the criminal court choses to go forward with this case, it will be the first time they investigate crimes against humanity committed in the context of environmental destruction.
Poisoned by pesticides: Health crisis deepens in Brazil’s Indigenous communities
- A recent report reveals communities in Brazil’s Mato Grosso region are contaminated by the agriculture industry’s increasing use of pesticides. About 88% of the plants collected, including medicinal herbs and fruits, on Indigenous lands have pesticide residue.
- Samples discovered high levels of pesticides in ecosystems and waters far from crop fields, including carbofuran — a highly toxic substance which is banned in Brazil, Europe and the U.S.
- Experts blame the lack of control by government officials for widespread environmental damage and an escalating health crisis among Indigenous populations, as communities report growing numbers of respiratory problems, acute poisonings and cancers.
- A spokesperson for the biggest agrochemical companies operating in Brazil disputes the findings of the report and numbers of people far from crop regions affected by pesticide usage.
Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park suffering increasing mining deforestation: report
- Satellite imagery analyzed by NGO Amazon Conservation revealed that illegal mining operations in Yapacana National Park, located in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, are clearing protected forest much faster than previously thought.
- Over 750 hectares (1,870 acres) of deforestation took place between 2021 and 2022 in the mining area of the park.
- Although law enforcement carried out raids in the area last December, many experts believe the problem will persist amid government complacency.
Indonesia prosecutors decry ‘lenient’ sentences in palm oil corruption case
- An Indonesian court has found a top trade ministry official, a prominent economist and three palm oil executives guilty for violating requirements to ensure supplies of palm oil for the domestic market.
- The five were convicted of conspiring to export crude palm oil to the international market, where prices are higher, rather than allocating it for the Indonesian market, where the government had imposed a price cap.
- Executives from three companies — the Permata Hijau Group, Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, and Musim Mas — were among those jailed.
- Prosecutors and anticorruption activists say the sentences and fines imposed by the court are far too lenient in light of the suffering they caused to the public; prosecutors say they will appeal for stronger sentences and higher fines.
For Indonesian smallholders, EU deforestation rule is a threat — and an opportunity
- Small farmers in Indonesia could be excluded from the European palm oil supply chain under a new EU deforestation regulation because they’re far from being able to comply, a new survey shows.
- The main challenges they face are in meeting traceability, legality and sustainability requirements, given the largely informal nature of transactions at the farm level and the lack of awareness about the need for documents like land titles and plantation certificates.
- The country’s main oil palm smallholder union has called on the EU to provide support for small farmers to be able to comply, such as setting a premium price for certified legal and deforestation-free palm oil.
Indonesia’s ‘essential’ mangroves, seagrass and corals remain unprotected
- Much of Indonesia’s mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs fall outside protected areas, according to a recently published report.
- Indonesia currently has 284,000 square kilometers (110,000 square miles) of marine area under protection, and plans to expand the size of its MPAs to 325,000 km2 (125,000 mi2) by the end of this decade, or 10% of its total territorial waters.
- Less than half of seagrass and coral reefs, and less than a fifth of mangroves, lie within currently protected areas, which experts say could thwart efforts at effective marine conservation.
- The country is home to some of the most diverse marine life on the planet, especially in its eastern region that falls within the Pacific Coral Triangle, an area renowned for its richness of corals and reef fish.
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.
Fighting wildlife trafficking in Peru: Q&A with prosecutor Alberto Caraza
- The department of Loreto, in northeast Peru, shares a nearly uninhabited border with Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, making it ideal for illegal logging and wildlife trafficking.
- A law passed in November allows prosecutors to treat wildlife traffickers as organized crime groups with harsher sentences.
- Loreto prosecutor Alberto Yusen Caraza Atoche, who specializes in environmental crime, spoke to Mongabay about protecting the department’s vast Amazonian rainforest, and how Peru’s recent political upheaval impacts that work.
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.
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.
New criminal code rings alarms for environmental protection in Indonesia
- Indonesia has passed an overhauled criminal code that experts and activists say will weaken environmental protections and make it easier to persecute environmental defenders.
- Among the controversial provisions in the heavily criticized bill: an exemption from prosecution for companies that violate environmental laws; reduced punishment and the choice to pick a fine over a jail sentence for convicted violators; and a higher burden of proof for environmental crimes.
- It could also be used to prosecute environmental defenders who protest public works projects, on the pretext of insulting the president.
- The new code will not go into full effect until 2025, giving opponents time to challenge it at the Constitutional Court.
Podcast: How reporters uncovered a massive illegal shark finning operation
- Podcast host Mike G. speaks with Mongabay reporters who conducted recent investigations revealing a major and illegal shark finning operation by one of China’s largest fishing fleets, and the involvement of a major Japanese company, Mitsubishi, in buying that fleet’s products.
- Through an exhaustive interview process with deckhands who worked throughout the company’s fleet, the team showed that Dalian Ocean Fishing deliberately used banned gear to target sharks across a huge swath of the western Pacific Ocean.
- The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission is currently meeting to discuss policies that would crack down even further on use of this gear, and we speak with Phil Jacobson who is there covering the event.
- We also speak with Japan-based reporter Annelise Giseburt who was able to verify that the illegal operation benefited greatly from selling a massive share of its tuna catch to the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi.
Environmental peacebuilding must pay more attention to armed groups (commentary)
- State and non-state armed groups often play crucial roles in conflict and cooperation over natural resources.
- Environmental peacebuilding examines how addressing resource conflict and improving governance can serve as a stepping stone for broader efforts at peace.
- Though much research and programming of this sort speaks of governments and communities as the main conflict parties, armed parties should also be considered conflict actors in their own right.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In South Africa, a community says no after a coal miner said go
- A South African court has ordered one of the country’s largest coal mines to redo an environmental impact assessment for expanding its footprint by nearly 18 square kilometers (7 square miles).
- The court agreed with residents of Somkhele who said that the pre-2016 public participation process to expand the mine — and extend its productive life — was seriously flawed.
- Communities around the mine are deeply divided; the traditional authority and some residents support its extension and the jobs and income this would provide, while others stand firm against the destruction of their homes and way of life.
- The new EIA process is allowing community members to raise a range of concerns about the mine’s social and environmental impacts.
‘I have anger every day’: South African villagers on the mine in their midst
- Rural families removed from their homes in Somkhele, in northern KwaZulu-Natal province, to make way for a giant coal mine are suffering from collective trauma, a new report has found.
- A psychologist evaluated members of 26 of the 220 families displaced and found alarming levels of clinical depression and suicidal feelings.
- He found they had been traumatized by witnessing the exhumation of family graveyards as well as the loss of both income and cultural space provided by cattle encosures.
- The report, commissioned by a law firm representing opponents of the mine, recommends that the mine rehabilitate polluted land and water resources and make greater financial compensation available to allow families who wish to leave to reestablish themselves elsewhere.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court rules President Widodo not liable in 2015 fires
- Indonesia’s highest court has ruled President Joko Widodo not liable in the 2015 fires, overturning three previous court rulings that found him to be liable for the disaster.
- The plaintiffs, a group of citizens and environmental activists affected by the 2015 fires, have lambasted the court’s decision, saying it raises questions over the government’s seriousness in tackling the annual fire problem.
- The plaintiffs also questioned the process behind the ruling, saying they hadn’t been given the chance to refute new evidence presented by the government.
Probe finds Vietnam faltering in bid to curb wildlife trade, animal suffering
- In recent years, authorities in Vietnam have made a series of pledges to curb illegal wildlife trade and the sale and consumption of dog meat.
- However, a new investigation by animal rights groups reveals that protected wildlife species are still being sold at wet markets, where animal suffering and public health risks are rife.
- The findings also indicate the dog meat industry shows few signs of abating, with slaughterhouses and restaurants still doing business despite calls to phase out the industry in major cities.
- Experts say sustained and coordinated efforts from provincial authorities, enforcement agencies and the public will be needed to fully curb the practices throughout the country.
Illegal bottom trawling widespread inside Mediterranean marine protected areas
- A new “atlas” reveals widespread illegal bottom trawling inside Mediterranean marine protected areas.
- The atlas, an interactive online map, shows thousands of days of apparent bottom-trawling activity in areas where it is banned, in 2020 and 2021.
- Bottom trawlers can damage the seabed, destroy coral and sponge habitats, and catch unintended species at a high rate.
- The findings demonstrate “the lack of enforcement and transparency in the Med, which is the most overfished sea in the world,” an atlas coordinator told Mongabay.
Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Following the impacts of palm oil alliance: Violated regulations and penalty proceedings
- The journalistic partnership behind a 2021 database gathering information on the penalties for environmental violations given to palm oil producers in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras has added two more countries: Costa Rica and Brazil
- In these six Latin American nations, between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 companies and individuals involved in the palm oil industry, according to the details offered by authorities in response to requests from the journalists working on the database.
- The handing over of incomplete documents and lack of information are, once again, a common feature of how authorities across the region respond to journalists’ requests. In 181 cases, it was impossible to understand the stage of the penalty proceedings, while in 42 cases there was no concrete information on whether a sanction or fine had been applied. In 47 instances, the exact nature of the environmental violation committed by the target of the proceedings was not specified.
Support rangers to protect wildlife & habitats for the future (commentary)
- The average ranger works almost 90 hours a week: over 60% have no access to clean drinking water on patrol or at outpost stations, and over 40% regularly lack overnight shelter when afield.
- Funding can support significant improvements in the working conditions of rangers, enabling them to work more effectively toward reducing the illegal wildlife trade and human-wildlife conflicts.
- The winner of the 2022 Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award shares his thoughts about the situation and how increased support is good for wildlife, people, and habitats in this new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
EU ‘moving the goal posts’ with new timber requirement, Indonesia says
- In 2011, Indonesia began the process of ensuring that its timber exports to the European Union met strict legality verification standards, which the EU duly recognized in 2016.
- Now, a new bill threatens to undermine this progress by revoking the “green lane” access for imports of Indonesian timber and subjecting them to addition checks for deforestation links.
- “You can’t suddenly change your mind by saying ‘I’m not willing to accept [Indonesian timber products] because they’re not sustainable enough,’” says Arif Havas Oegroseno, the Indonesian ambassador to Germany.
- The official adds that Indonesia is willing to take the matter to the World Trade Organization — a move that other tropical forest countries, including Brazil and Ghana, have also hinted at.
Dog shooting highlights Sri Lanka’s need for stricter animal cruelty laws
- Sri Lanka’s outdated laws on animal welfare are 115 years old and were introduced when the country was under the British yoke.
- With violence toward animals reported on more frequently, animal rights groups are calling for tougher laws to combat cases of animal cruelty.
- The current punishment for mistreating an animal is $0.27 and is among the lowest in South Asia.
- A proposed animal welfare law has not been adopted despite being placed on the parliamentary agenda on 44 occasions.
Fished out at sea and smoked out on land, Senegal fishers take on a fishmeal factory
- A fishers’ collective in Cayar, east of Dakar, says a fishmeal factory there is jeopardizing livelihoods and endangering public health.
- Analysis in September of water from a lake revealed pollution by biodegradable organic matter causing deoxygenation that is harming aquatic life.
- Some residents of Mbawane, in Cayar municipality, say the fishmeal company’s operations are a good thing, making use of surplus fish which would otherwise rot on the beach.
Labor groups seek to build on Indonesian palm oil court win in new cases
- Last year, Indonesia’s Supreme Court ordered one of the world’s largest palm oil companies to make severance payments worth tens of thousands of dollars, handing palm oil workers an important victory in a labor dispute.
- Asserting the decision as a new precedent, activists and union groups are mounting a case for two new lawsuits against the company, London Sumatra, on behalf of 200 workers over unfair dismissals.
- Indonesia is the world’s top palm oil producer but allegations of labor abuses have dogged the industry.
Indonesian lobster larvae bound for Singapore reveal role of smuggling network
- Two recent seizures of lobster larvae shipments destined for Singapore have prompted an investigation by Indonesia into a smuggling network operating between the two countries.
- The shipments had an estimated value of $2.2 million, and were the latest in a string of attempts to smuggle the larvae to buyers in Singapore, Vietnam and China.
- Indonesia has banned the export of wild-caught larvae in an effort to its lobster stocks, and is encouraging the growth of the domestic lobster-farming industry.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal exports cost the country $64 million in lost revenue in 2019 alone, according to official data.
Big data monitoring tool aims to catch up to Indonesia’s booming online bird trade
- A web-trawling tool developed by researchers in Indonesia has identified more than a quarter of a million songbirds in online listings from a single e-commerce site between April 2020 and September 2021.
- More than 6% of these were species listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List, including the Javan pied starling (Gracupica jalla) and the straw-headed bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus), both critically endangered.
- In a newly published paper, the researchers say the online bird trade is highly successful thanks to well-developed e-commerce infrastructure such as internet and shipping services.
- The researchers have proposed the adoption of their tool by Indonesian authorities to monitor the online bird trade, given the absence of any other platform to crack down on trafficking.
Indonesia amnesties 75 companies operating illegally inside forest areas
- As many as 75 companies that operate illegally inside forest areas in Indonesia have been pardoned under an amnesty scheme.
- These companies paid fines totaling 222.7 billion rupiah ($14.93 million) to receive the pardons.
- Hundreds more plantation and mining companies will be pardoned, officials say, as the government has identified at least 616 companies operating illegally inside forest areas.
Vietnam’s Human Rights Council bid under fire after environmentalists jailed
- Fifty-two winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize have signed on to a letter calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to vote against Vietnam’s bid for membership.
- The letter cites the imprisonment of Nguy Thi Khanh, founder of Hanoi-based GreenID and Vietnam’s first Goldman Prize winner, on tax evasion charges, as well as the case of Dang Dinh Bach, an environmental lawyer and former director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center, also imprisoned on tax-related charges.
- Noting that the UN General Assembly has declared a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to be a universal human right, the letter asks how Vietnam will uphold this right with these experts behind bars and many in civil society concerned about the possibility of more arrests.
Indonesia urged to update fisher training program to international standards
- Many Indonesian seafarers on domestic and foreign boats lack proper training for safety and fishing operations, which experts say leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and endangerment.
- Fisheries and human rights observers are calling for a revamp of the government’s fisher training program ahead of a scheduled evaluation of measures to protect maritime workers at home and overseas.
- Indonesia in 2019 ratified an International Maritime Organization (IMO) convention on the protection of crews working aboard domestic and foreign boats, and its progress on implementing it is due for an assessment in 2024.
- Indonesia, one of the world’s largest fish producers, is home to some 2.3 million people who identify as fishers and boat crews working on domestic and foreign-flagged fleets.
Human pressures strain Lake Tanganyika’s biodiversity and water quality
- As fishing pressure has increased on Lake Tanganyika, its level has also been rising, inundating shoreline communities.
- Sedimentation as a result of farming, infrastructure projects and deforestation is causing the water level to rise and the lake to expand.
- This has not led to an increase in fish populations, however, and what little data exist suggest that the lake’s overall biodiversity–probably including hippos and Nile crocodiles–is declining.
- An EU-funded plan to coordinate management of the lake by all countries that share it aims to address some of the knowledge gaps, but is itself hobbled by budget constraints.
Trial of palm oil tycoon Surya Darmadi begins in Jakarta
- Surya Darmadi returned to Indonesia on Aug. 15 and was arrested by awaiting officers at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
- Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office has estimated total losses amounting to almost $7 billion, including damages incurred by communities.
- Environmental groups have spent decades documenting harmful activities by Surya’s companies.
Indonesia pursues agreements to protect its fishers on foreign vessels
- The Indonesian government says it hopes to sign agreements with other governments to improve protection of its citizens working in those countries’ fishing industries.
- Indonesia is thought to be the largest source of labor in the global fishing fleet, but Indonesian deckhands are often subject to predatory recruitment processes, labor abuses, and even deadly working conditions.
- In May 2021, the Indonesian government signed one such agreement with the South Korean government, addresses key issues such as recruitment and placement mechanisms, and a dedicated training center for Indonesian fishers.
- The Indonesian foreign ministry is now seeking similar agreements with Taiwan and China, with the latter’s fishing fleet accounting for nearly as much activity in distant waters as the next four top countries combined.
In revising its criminal code, Indonesia risks unraveling environmental laws
- Indonesia’s plan to revise its outdated criminal code could lead to a systematic weakening of existing environmental laws, experts warn.
- The latest draft of the code contains provisions that would make it more difficult to prosecute environmental crimes, such as dumping toxic waste in rivers and setting forest fires, the experts say.
- They note also that it makes punishment more lenient and lets companies off the hook, while potentially making it easier to prosecute environmental defenders.
- The experts have called on the government and lawmakers to go back to the drawing board and ensure that environmental crimes are treated as the extraordinary crimes that they are.
‘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.
Indonesia backtracks on plan criticized for ‘privatizing’ fisheries resources
- Indonesia will not go ahead with a plan to allow foreign and domestic fishing companies to operate for up to 30 years under a contract system.
- The plan was widely criticized by small-scale fishers and marine experts, who said it threatened to turn a public resource into a private one for the highest bidders.
- The fisheries ministry now says it will revert to a quota-based system for allocating fishing permits, under which new investors will be eligible for “special permits” of up to 15 years.
- Experts say details of the new fisheries management system must be made public, given that the “special permit” scheme looks suspiciously like the axed contract system.
No permit? No problem for palm oil company still clearing forest in Papua
- A field observation by Greenpeace Indonesia has confirmed reports that a palm oil company has resumed clearing land on its concession in Indonesia’s Papua region despite its permit having been revoked.
- As of June, the company, PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), had cleared more than 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, according to data from Greenpeace Indonesia.
- The resumption of land clearing has prompted the district head to reprimand PNM, and raised the possibility that the company is committing a crime.
Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
- A sting operation led by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service has netted notorious alleged poacher Simon Ernesto Valoi and an associate in possession of eight rhino horns.
- Conservationists say Valoi and other poaching kingpins have operated freely from Massingir district to poach thousands of rhinos just across the border in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
- Valoi’s arrest, following the January sentencing of another major rhino horn trafficker to 30 years in jail, may be a further sign that Mozambique’s law enforcement authorities are successfully targeting high-level poachers.
Cut off from Sundarbans and denied compensation, Bangladesh communities face arrest
- The first month of a three-month ban on anyone entering Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangrove forest has seen 59 people from forest-dependent communities arrested, sparking criticism of the government’s approach.
- Community members and conservation activists have called for an end to the arrests, and have faulted the government for not giving the compensation it promised to the communities to help tide them over during the June-August ban.
- The government, which says the ban is necessary to ease pressure on the Sundarbans’ wildlife during the breeding season, says the compensation still hasn’t been approved by the state treasury.
- Some 600,000 people depend directly or indirectly on the Sundarbans’ resources for their livelihood, which includes fishing and harvesting honey; tourists are also banned from entering the world’s largest mangrove forest during this three-month period.
Ban on use of destructive net fails to make an impact in Indonesia, experts say
- Fisheries observers say a year-old ban on a seine net considered unsustainable and destructive has been largely ineffective.
- Reports show fishers continue to use the square-meshed cantrang net despite the ban, and can even modify the diamond-meshed replacement introduced by the fisheries ministry.
- While in theory the replacement net should allow juvenile fish to escape, in practice it’s used much the same way as the cantrang, threatening already depleted fish stocks around the country.
- Observers blame the continued violations on authorities’ reluctance to crack down on the hugely popular cantrang for fear of angering the millions-strong and politically important demographic of fishing communities.
Myanmar wildlife trade remains opaque, despite focus on border hubs
- Myanmar supports some of the last refuges of rare and threatened species, such as tigers, leopards and pangolins, but lax law enforcement and porous borders make it a hotbed of illegal wildlife trade, imperiling the country’s remaining biodiversity.
- While a lot is known about flagrant trade in notorious markets in towns bordering China and Thailand, much of the trade with Myanmar remains opaque, new research shows.
- One-quarter of prior studies on the country’s wildlife trade have focused on just two border trade hubs, while little is known about patterns of domestic wildlife trade and consumption.
- The researchers call on authorities to establish a central wildlife crime database to promote data sharing of enforcement and research knowledge; further research on poaching motives; and improved enforcement of existing wildlife laws.
As Jakarta chokes on toxic air, Indonesian government stalls on taking action
- Jakarta’s air pollution has been worsening recently, with the Indonesian capital routinely ranked top of the list of the world’s most polluted major cities.
- Much of the pollution is generated outside the city, in the industrial estates and coal-fired power plants in neighboring provinces, but there’s been no effort by the national government to coordinate action on this transboundary pollution.
- Activists say the national government hasn’t done much at all to address the problem, instead opting to appeal against a court ruling ordering it to tackle the air pollution.
Twenty years since a massive ivory seizure, what lessons were learned? (commentary)
- In late June 2002, a container ship docked in Singapore with a massive shipment of ivory, which was seized.
- It was the largest seizure of its kind since an international ban on the ivory trade had come into force in 1989, and the lessons learned from it would change the way the illegal wildlife trade was investigated and tackled.
- But it’s unfortunate that some of the biggest lessons from that event still have not been put into practice, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Study: Marine governance in Indonesia pursues exploitation over sustainability
- Marine spatial planning in Indonesia over the past 300 years has historically and systematically supported profit-oriented activities at the cost of the ocean ecosystem and coastal communities, a recent paper says.
- Researchers found that little had changed despite decades of attempts to reform marine governance to support more sustainable uses of sea resources in Indonesia.
- They also found that coastal communities, traditional and small-scale fishers had lost much of their control and influence over marine areas, while ruling elites at the national level gradually gained more of it.
- The fisheries sector has long been important to the food security of Indonesia, with most of the country’s more than 270 million inhabitants living in coastal areas.
Indonesian palm oil audit a chance to clean up ‘very dirty’ industry
- The Indonesian government plans to audit all palm oil companies operating in the country, in a bid to tackle an ongoing shortage and high prices of cooking oil.
- Experts attribute the crisis to the fact that the country’s palm oil industry is dominated by a small number of big companies.
- These companies have large concessions, in excess of the limit imposed by the government, allowing them to wield outsized power to dictate prices, policies and supplies.
- Analysts say the audit should address this land ownership issue, as well as other problems that plague the industry, such as lack of clear data and transparency.
Indonesia’s Sangihe islanders score legal victory over mining company
- Residents of Sangihe Island in Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a Canadian-backed company planning to mine gold on their island.
- In its ruling, the court in the city of Manado declared the environmental permit issued to miner PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS) and ordered the local government to revoke it.
- The judges found that the permit was issued without following the proper procedures, and that the environmental impact analysis was inadequate.
- The victory comes a month after another court, in Jakarta, rejected a separate lawsuit by the villagers seeking to have TMS’s mining contract revoked; the court said the case was outside its jurisdiction.
Indonesia issues long-delayed rules to protect migrant fishing workers
- Indonesia has issued a much-anticipated decree to boost the protection of Indonesian deckhands working aboard foreign commercial and fishing vessels.
- Former migrant deckhands have previously described conditions in which they experienced overwork, withholding of wages, debt bondage, and physical and sexual violence.
- The decree was supposed to have been issued in March, but was held up for want of signatures; it was finally issued this month ahead of a lawsuit against the government over the delay.
- Marine activists have welcomed the decree, which they say should help improve the global fisheries sector, given that vessels where worker abuse is rife also tend to be engaged in illegal fishing activities.
Study casts doubt on sustainability of regulated blood python snakeskin trade
- There’s no evidence to show that the trade in blood pythons from Indonesia, coveted for their skins for making luxury fashion items, is sustainable, a new study shows.
- In fact, the evidence indicates that much of the trade, which involves slaughtering and skinning the snakes by the tens of thousands every year, may be illegal.
- The species isn’t considered threatened or protected in Indonesia, the main producer of blood python skins, and exports are governed by CITES, the convention on the international wildlife trade.
- The study’s author calls on the Indonesian government to enforce stricter monitoring and scrutiny of annual harvests, traders to abide by the regulations, and global buyers to shift away from exotic leather and use alternatives.
Legal and illegal cannabis: A cause for growing environmental concern
- Legalization of cannabis for medicinal and recreational use is an expanding global trend in the U.S. and globally, while the illicit market continues to feed large swaths of demand.
- Both the legal and illegal markets are linked to environmental challenges such as freshwater use, land-use change, toxic and nutrient pollution, and climate change-contributing CO2 emissions.
- Emerging legal cannabis businesses in the U.S. are subject to strict regulation, but many operate in ways that can contribute to environmental harms.
- While the scope of damage from booming legal growing operations is now being better assessed, the impacts of illicit clandestine operations remain mostly undetermined.
Legal defeats pile up for palm oil companies stripped of permits in Papua
- Two more palm oil companies in Indonesia that sued a local official for revoking their permits have had their lawsuits rejected.
- They join a growing list of palm oil firms being held to account for legal and administrative violations that were uncovered in a May 2021 audit of oil palm concessions across West Papua province.
- Four other lawsuits filed on similar grounds by other companies have also been thrown out since December 2021.
- Activists have welcomed the verdict, saying it’s an opportunity for the government to give the concessions back to the Indigenous communities who live on the land.
Bangladesh ban on resource hunting in Sundarbans leaves communities facing hardship
- The Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal, the world’s largest stretch of mangroves, is a rich ecosystem of hundreds of species of flora and fauna. It’s also rich with natural resources for the communities living nearby, but is considered an ecosystem under threat.
- In a first-of-its-kind conservation effort, the Bangladesh government is implementing a complete ban on entry into the forest for three months, from July to August, which it says is the breeding season for the local wildlife.
- The communities surrounding the mangroves, who depend on the forests for food and resources, say this ban will affect their livelihoods and push them into hardship.
- Conservationists have also labeled the ban “inappropriate,” expressing concern about its timing — given that not all species here share the same breeding season — and its target, saying that tourists, and not local communities, are responsible for much of the pollution and disruption to the ecosystem.
In Sierra Leone, local fishers and foreign trawlers battle for their catch
- At wharfs across the Freetown peninsula in Sierra Leone, local fishers say in recent years it’s become harder to get a good catch. They blame foreign trawlers for overexploiting the country’s fish stocks.
- Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources says it has systems meant to curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, but enforcement remains a challenge.
- In 2019, China signed a fisheries agreement with Sierra Leone that includes a promise to build a $55 million harbor, but some fishers say boats owned by its citizens are among the worst offenders.
Easing of crackdown sees Vietnam boats encroach into Indonesian waters
- Illegal fishing by Vietnamese vessels in Indonesian waters has ramped up this year, with locals and fisheries observes blaming a dearth of patrols by Indonesian authorities.
- Vessel-tracking data and satellite imagery showed more than 100 instances of Vietnamese fishing vessels in the North Natuna Sea, inside Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), between February and April.
- At the same time, enforcement against illegal fishing appears to have eased, with no Vietnamese vessels seized in Indonesian waters so far this year, compared to 54 between 2020 and 2021, and 234 between 2015 and 2019.
- Fishers and observers say these incursions threaten fish stocks that had recovered during the period of strict enforcement, and have called on the government to boost patrols.
Slick operator: Indonesian cooking oil probe may spread to biodiesel industry
- A top economist in Indonesia has been charged for his alleged role in helping palm oil companies export the commodity instead of selling it domestically — a practice blamed for a shortage of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- The arrest of Lin Che Wei, who prosecutors allege was “involved in every palm oil policy,” also puts the spotlight on the state palm oil fund that he helped create and that disproportionately channels subsidies to many of the same companies implicated in the cooking oil scandal.
- President Joko Widodo has called for a thorough investigation to “find out who is playing a game here,” but the palm oil lobby has pushed back against what it says is a vilification of the industry — even threatening to stop producing cooking oil for the domestic market.
- The cooking oil shortage has battered domestic trust in Indonesia’s powerful palm oil industry, whose reputation abroad has long been tarnished by its links to deforestation, labor abuses, and conflicts with Indigenous and local communities.
‘It’s just a bird’: Online platforms selling lesser-known Indonesian species
- Social media and online marketplaces are known to offer up a variety of wildlife, opening new avenues for traffickers.
- A recent survey of online trade shows that a lesser-known Indonesian species, the pink-headed fruit dove, is being openly sold on Facebook and online marketplaces.
- Experts say the trade in this and other “inconspicuous” species is fueled in part by rising demand overseas, which stimulates interest in collecting them domestically, where they’ve historically not been kept captive.
- They call for existing laws to be enforced locally, and for online platforms to do more to address the presence of wildlife traders on their platforms.
Scheme to stop ‘conflict minerals’ fails to end child labor in DRC, report says
- Much of the world’s supply of coltan, tin and tungsten minerals is extracted using child and forced labor, despite an industry mechanism meant to guarantee responsible supply chains, a new report alleges.
- The investigation by campaign group Global Witness found major failures in the chain of custody for minerals produced in the provinces of North and South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The findings, which align with previous investigations by Congolese NGOs and the United Nations, point to large amounts of ore from unvalidated mines entering the supply chain, including from areas known to be under control of militias and rogue army units.
- The International Tin Supply Chain Initiative says the report is inaccurate and fails to account for progress made in recent years, but has not yet refuted any of the evidence provided.
Indonesia’s revocation of palm oil, mining permits marred by ‘maladministration’
- Indonesia’s environment ministry may have committed maladministration in announcing the revocation of nearly 200 permits for logging, plantation and mining concessions, the country’s office of the ombudsman says.
- If the concession holders were negligent in managing their concessions, as the ministry claimed, then the problem should have been detected much earlier and dealt with case by case, indicating a failure by officials to periodically review the permits, the ombudsman says.
- It adds that the environment ministry has no authority to revoke oil palm concessions, whose final permits fall under the remit of the land ministry to do so.
- Environmental law experts had warned shortly after the revocations were announced in January that the government had left itself wide open to lawsuits from the affected companies; at least one coal-mining company has already filed suit for the return of its concessions.
California subpoenas ExxonMobil over plastic pollution
- California Attorney General Rob Bonta has subpoenaed ExxonMobil as part of an investigation into the role fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have played in the widening plastics crisis.
- The California Department of Justice is looking into whether ExxonMobil deliberately misled the public about the harmful effects of plastic and the difficulties of recycling it.
- In response, ExxonMobil has said the company shares society’s concerns about the plastics crisis, and that it is working to address the issue with advanced recycling technology.
- Environmental experts have welcomed the investigation, saying it’s time for the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries to be held accountable for the role they have played in this environmental issue.
Court setback doesn’t sway Indonesian villagers fighting a mining firm
- Residents of remote Sangihe Island in Indonesia will mount an appeal after their lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island was thrown out by a court on a technicality.
- Their case centered on concerns that the operations of PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS), linked to Canada-based Baru Gold Corp., would cause widespread destruction on their island home.
- They alleged in their lawsuit that there were several administrative violations that should have nullified the contract issued to TMS by the government, but the court said the matter was out of its jurisdiction.
- The same court issued a similar dismissal in a previous case involving a coal-mining company, but an appeal by the plaintiffs in that instance led to the company’s permit being revoked; given that precedent, the Sangihe islanders say they still have a fighting chance.
Coal miner Bayan sues Indonesian investment chief over loss of land
- Indonesian coal miner Bayan Resources is suing Indonesia’s investment board head over a decision to revoke its permits.
- The revocation effectively reduces by 16% the total area of concessions held by five Bayan subsidiaries in Borneo.
- The move reflects the latest ruling in a long-running dispute between Bayan and another coal miner, PT Senyiur Sukses Pratama (SSP), over parts of their respective concessions that overlap.
- The revocation was announced as part of a sweeping series of permit revocations ordered by President Joko Widodo in January to retake land from companies that the government says have failed to exploit them to the utmost.
Brazil bill seeks to redraw Amazon borders in favor of agribusiness
- A new bill before Brazil’s Congress proposes cutting out the state of Mato Grosso from the country’s legally defined Amazon region to allow greater deforestation there for agribusiness.
- Under the bill, known as PL 337, requirements to maintain Amazonian vegetation in the state at 80% of a rural property’s area, and 35% for Cerrado vegetation, would be slashed to just 20% for both.
- The approval of the bill would allow for an increase in deforestation of at least 10 million hectares (25 million acres) — an area the size of South Korea — and exempt farmers from having to restore degraded areas on their properties.
- Environmental law specialists warn that the departure of Mato Grosso from under the administrative umbrella of the Legal Amazon would set off a domino effect encouraging the eight other states in the region to push for similar bills.
Forest loss shows stopgap decrees failing to protect Brazil’s isolated Indigenous
- Decrees issued by the Brazilian government to protect Indigenous territories from outside threats have failed to deter illegal deforestation and may even be encouraging invaders who are betting on them not being renewed, critics say.
- In the first two months of this year, 116 hectares (287 acres) were deforested for cattle pasture and mining in Indigenous lands supposedly protected by these decrees, according to Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples.
- Despite the figure representing an 83% reduction in deforestation from a year ago, Indigenous rights groups say deforestation continues to threaten isolated Indigenous peoples, especially in the absence of government action against the illegal occupation of their lands.
- Ancestral land rights are at the heart of protests currently underway in Brasília, where thousands of Indigenous people have converged for the country’s largest annual Indigenous demonstrations.
Outcry in Malaysia as failure to replant forests sparks ‘cover-up’ accusation
- Critics of a government plantation scheme have slammed the program following revelations that only a fraction of forest reserves cleared for plantations over the past decade have actually been replanted.
- An investigation by environmental news site Macaranga found that only 5% of the 77,331 hectares (191,089 acres) of forest reserves cleared in Pahang state for plantations between 2012 and 2020 were replanted.
- A Pahang state opposition lawmaker has called the program a “cover-up” for a logging scheme, while an environmental activist has criticized the government for its lack of accountability.
Death of last river dolphin in Laos rings alarm bells for Mekong population
- Earlier this year, the last Irrawaddy river dolphin in a transboundary pool between Cambodia and Laos became entangled in fishing gear and died, signifying the extinction of the species in Laos.
- The transboundary subpopulation had dwindled from 17 individuals in 1993, with experts blaming a range of factors — from the use of gill nets and other illegal fishing practices, to overfishing, genetic isolation, and the effects of upstream dams on river flow and prey availability.
- With the loss, there are now just an estimated 89 Irrawaddy dolphins left in the Mekong River, all within a 180-km (110-mi) stretch in Cambodia, where they face the same range of threats that wiped out the transboundary group.
- Authorities and conservationists say they are now resolved to strengthen protections and improve public awareness of the dolphins’ vulnerability to ensure the species has a future in the Mekong.
In Gabon, a community’s plea against logging paves the way for a new reserve
- Gabon’s environment minister has announced an immediate end to the logging of the Massaha ancestral forest in the country’s northeast, setting his administration a two-month deadline to finalize technical questions for permanent protection of the site.
- The move follows his visit to Massaha to gain a better understanding of the motives behind the community’s request to declassify the logging concession and grant it protected area status.
- Minister Lee White also ordered the Chinese company that holds the logging concession, Transport Bois Négoce International (TBNI), to “leave quickly” and “preserve the area.”
- This is a precedent-setting case in the country’s management of forests, representing the first time an area will be declared protected at the request of the resident community.
Stranded coal barge spills cargo, disrupts fishery in Indonesian waters
- An Indonesian coal barge that ran aground off East Java has reportedly spilled much of its cargo and disrupted the local fishery.
- Local fishers blame the spill for turning the water in the area dark and affecting their fishing activities.
- An environmental group has called for an investigation by fisheries and environmental agencies into the incident.
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal, but has paid a heavy price for that standing, including the massive deforestation wrought to mine the fossil fuel, as well as the numerous environmental and safety incidents associated with transporting and burning it.
Countries that sanctioned Myanmar’s junta are still buying their timber: Report
- Despite sanctions imposed following the February 2021 coup, Myanmar exported more than $190 million worth of timber, including to countries that have sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a new report from Forest Trends.
- The continued trade highlights the challenges of effectively enforcing sanctions, the report authors say; a lack of reporting on the timber trade from within the country also emphasizes the military regime’s purposeful lack of transparency.
- The authors call on countries to do more to cut off the junta’s access to natural resource revenues by extending financial sanctions to the banking sector.
- According to the report, effective implementation of sanctions is one of the most important actions the international community can take to support the citizens of Myanmar.
PNG suspends new carbon deals, scrambles to write rules for the schemes
- Papua New Guinea’s government is working to create new regulations governing voluntary carbon schemes, which are arrangements negotiated directly between developers and resource owners.
- While the new laws are developed, the country’s environment ministry has imposed a moratorium on new voluntary carbon deals in the country.
- The moratorium, and development of a stronger legal framework, comes after “significant red flags” were raised over a proposed carbon credit deal in the country’s Oro province.
‘A risky business’: Online illegal wildlife trade continues to soar in Myanmar
- A new report from WWF shows that trade in protected wild animals and their body parts in Myanmar via the social media platform Facebook rose by 74% in 2021 compared to the previous year.
- The scale of the online trade, the purpose of the trade, and the species seen in the trade are all of major concern in terms of impacts on biodiversity and the potential risks to public health from disease transfer, according to the report.
- Posts advertising live civets and pangolins as wild meat, as well as posts referring to their commercial breeding potential are a particular concern, argue the report authors. Both species are considered to be potential vectors in passing zoonotic diseases to humans.
- The report calls on online platforms to do more to monitor their platforms and take swift action, and for greater involvement and collaboration from multiple sectors to strengthen enforcement, disrupt the illegal wildlife trade, and increase awareness of the health risks posed by illegally traded wildlife.
How many orangutans does $1 billion save? Depends how you spend it, study finds
- A recent study evaluating spending on orangutan conservation, calculated to amount to more than $1 billion over the past 20 years, found wide variations in the cost-effectiveness of various conservation activities.
- The study found habitat protection to be by far the most effective measure, followed by patrolling.
- By contrast, habitat restoration; orangutan rescue, rehabilitation, and translocation; and public outreach were found to be less cost-effective.
- The study relied on building a model that correctly accommodated numerous factors, something both the researchers and outside experts highlight as a challenge.
In Benin, the line between conservation and counterinsurgency blurs
- On Feb. 8-10, a series of roadside bombings in northern Benin’s W National Park killed seven employees of the conservation group African Parks, including four rangers and a French anti-poaching trainer.
- The attack is suspected to have been carried out by Islamist militants based in the forests of neighboring Burkina Faso, raising fears that violence in the Sahel is spilling over into Benin, with the country’s national parks as its front line.
- Over the border in Burkina Faso, militants have targeted forestry and conservation officials, hoping to capitalize on local discontent over park restrictions and gain new recruits.
- According to some researchers, African Parks has been thrust into the uneasy role of border security and “counter-terrorism” in northern Benin.
Oil spill contaminates wildlife, beaches and protected areas in Peru
- On Jan. 15, a refinery owned by Spanish oil company Repsol spilled nearly 12,000 barrels of oil into the sea off Lima, Peru, as it was pumping the oil from a tanker.
- Experts have questioned why the refinery of La Pampilla was operating that day, when there were unusually high waves caused by the Tonga volcano eruption and tsunami.
- Peru’s Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA) has fined Repsol for similar spills on at least three prior occasions, and this time the company could be hit with more than $37 million in fines.
- The spill has spread beyond the Lima coast and out toward islands that are part of a network of protected nature reserves, posing serious threats to marine life and to artisanal fishermen.
In Brazil, a forest community fights to remain on its traditional land
- Traditional communities living within the limits of the Jureia-Itatins Ecological Station, a formally protected area in São Paulo state, are expecting a crucial ruling to decide whether they can remain on their traditionally occupied land.
- These communities, known as Caiçaras, were established centuries ago along the southern coastline of Brazil, but the state forestry foundation, which manages the protected area, demolished the houses of some inhabitants in 2019, alleging violations of the strong restrictions on human activity it had imposed.
- The ensuing legal battle has seen the Caiçara families win a decision to be allowed to rebuild their homes, but this was overturned just days later on environmental concerns raised by the forest foundation.
- However, several studies show that the presence of these communities in conservation areas helps protect biodiversity instead of destroying it, and other Brazilian government agencies already recognize the need to work with traditional communities as the best “guardians of the forest.”
Fate of Indonesian rainforest the size of Belgium hangs in the balance (commentary)
- With the sudden announcement of a mass revocation of plantation permits at the start of the year, did Indonesia just save a forest the size of Belgium? Or open the floodgates for its destruction?
- Bizarrely, no one really knows, though the answer will have big implications for the planet.
- And one giant, controversial palm plantation development in the heart of a pristine tract of forest, whose permits were among those canceled, will be a crucial test.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
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.
Civil conflict in Cameroon puts endangered chimpanzees in the crosshairs
- Declared a national park in 2009, Mount Cameroon hosts an array of biodiversity, including endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- Efforts to protect the area have been complicated by an armed conflict, the Anglophone crisis, that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and pushed both refugees and armed combatants into the area’s forests.
- The conflict compounds existing conservation challenges including population pressure, land clearing and conversion, demand for bushmeat, and weak law enforcement.
Indonesian ex-minister gets sentence cut for ‘good work’ fueled by corruption
- Indonesia’s top appeals court has slashed the jail sentence for Edhy Prabowo, the country’s former fisheries minister, from nine years to five.
- In their ruling, the judges said a lower court had been unduly harsh in its sentencing, and specifically praised Edhy’s “good work” in lifting a ban on lobster larvae exports.
- But it was precisely over this policy that Edhy was arrested in 2020 and subsequently convicted in 2021: He was found guilty of collecting nearly $2 million in bribes from crony-linked companies that were awarded the lucrative export contracts.
- Fisheries observers have criticized the latest ruling, saying it fails to reflect the severity of Edhy’s crime.
Indonesian fishing boat found with banned trawl net highlights enforcement challenges
- A vessel seized for fishing in an off-limits area in Indonesia may have also been using a type of trawl net that’s been banned for its destructive impact on fish stocks.
- The KM Sinar Samudra was seized off the Natuna Islands on Feb. 18, and a subsequent inspection found a banned cantrang trawl net on board.
- The boat’s captain denied the net was ever used for fishing, and police have chosen not to pursue charges over the use of illegal fishing gear.
- Fisheries observers say the case highlights the challenge of policing the type of gear that fishers use in one of the world’s biggest fishing nations.
Campaigners against dog meat trade take on one Indonesian city at a time
- An estimated 7% of Indonesia’s 270 million people eat dog meat, a practice the World Health Organization has linked to the spread of rabies.
- Dog Meat Free Indonesia, an advocacy group, is campaigning city by city to get authorities to crack down on the trade, appealing to animal welfare, public health, and religious sensibilities.
- Authorities at the national and subnational levels have in recent years responded by issuing regulations effectively banning the sale of dog meat for human consumption.
Cold case: Half-hearted prosecution lets ivory traffickers escape in Uganda
- More than three years since Ugandan authorities seized a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales, no one has been prosecuted for the trafficking attempt.
- Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the bust, but they vanished after being granted bail.
- Wildlife trade investigators have questioned the commitment of the Ugandan authorities to pursue the case, saying their efforts to find the suspects since then appear half-hearted at best.
- They add the failure to prosecute this case is a missed opportunity to break up a major trafficking network moving wildlife parts from East and Central Africa to Southeast Asia.
Thai authorities demolish resorts in parks, but struggle to prosecute encroachers
- More than a twenty luxury resorts and mansions illegally built in national parks in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex have been demolished or ordered to be demolished since October 2020.
- Officials say prosecutions for encroachment rarely succeed, due to legal ambiguities created by legislation that allows people to remain on land they owned prior the declaration as a national park.
- Under the law, residents allowed to remain on park land cannot transfer land outside of their families, but one park official estimates that close to 20% of this land has, in fact, been sold.
- The owners of the newly demolished buildings include retired military generals and prominent businesspeople.
In a biodiversity haven, mining drives highest ever recorded levels of mercury
- A recent study has found that forests in the southwestern Peruvian Amazon collect mercury from the atmosphere that’s used in artisanal small-scale gold mining in the Madre de Dios region.
- The study’s authors found “the highest ever recorded” levels of mercury from the “throughfall” that ends up on the forest floor when the leaves fall or rain washes the mercury from their surfaces.
- Mercury is highly toxic, causing neurological and reproductive problems in humans and other animals.
- Organizations are looking at different ways to reduce or even eliminate the use of mercury, which miners use to bind the flecks of gold found in the region’s riverine silt.
Latest Nigeria oil spill highlights ‘wretched’ state of the industry
- An oil production vessel exploded just off the coast of Nigeria on Feb. 3, killing seven of 10 crew members on board.
- Nigeria’s monitoring of and response to oil industry incidents is poor: three weeks later, the size and impact of the spill is still unknown.
- This is the second major incident reported in the past three months, and highlights potential problems as oil majors sell aging infrastructure to locally owned companies that are ill-equipped to operate them safely.
Palm oil firm hit by mass permit revocation still clearing forest in Indonesia
- An Indonesian palm oil company stripped of its permit at the start of the year has since been actively clearing forest in its concession.
- PT Permata Nusa Mandiri was among 137 palm oil firms whose permits were revoked by the environment ministry on Jan. 6, but went on to bulldoze more than 50 hectares of rainforest since then.
- Environmental activists and local Indigenous communities have long opposed the company’s presence in Papua province, but the questionable legality of the government’s permit revocations means the firm could still be allowed to continue operating.
- The land clearance is taking place in the Jalan Korea area, a popular birdwatching and tourism destination.
When Indonesia retook land from developers, it gave them a solid case to sue
- The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke permits for plantation firms to operate in forest areas could lead to lawsuits filed by the companies, environmental law experts say.
- The permits were rescinded at the start of the year, not because of any environmental violations, but rather because the concession holders were deemed to be moving too slowly in exploiting the resources.
- But the unilateral revocations have set up an unprecedented legal mess, observers and industry representatives say, with no clarity over whether a company that has lost a permit can still operate on the basis of the other permits it still holds.
- Contributing to the confusion is the government’s persistent refusal to publicly release any data on the permits and the companies that hold them, in direct violation of a Supreme Court ruling ordering it to do so.
ReconAfrica pushes ahead with Namibia oil exploration amid claims of violations
- Canadian oil and gas company ReconAfrica has announced it will enter a second phase of petroleum exploration in Namibia.
- Campaigners and community members say the company has not conducted the environmental impact assessments necessary to extend its operations.
- The company has been accused of violating several laws by encroaching on people’s land and into untouched forests.
- Opponents of the company’s activities say they will consider legal action if the violations continue.
A mayor in the Philippines took on a mine, and lost her job over it
- When nickel mining firm Ipilan Nickel Corporation began felling trees in a protected forest in its concession area in Brooke’s Point, Palawan, Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano moved aggressively to stop them.
- After sending cease-and-desist orders and failing ultimately to prevent the felling of 7,000 trees, she used her authority to shut down the company’s operations and demolish onsite facilities.
- The company fought back, claiming it had the legal right to cut trees on the concession, and that Feliciano’s actions amounted to an abuse of authority.
- The Philippine Ombudsman sided with the company, ruling in July 2021 that Feliciano be suspended without pay for a year.
In Indonesia, a ‘devious’ policy silences opposition to mining, activists say
- Activists in Indonesia have highlighted what they say is an increase in arrests of people protesting against mining activity since the passage of a controversial mining law in 2020.
- They’ve singled out the law’s Article 162 as “a devious policy” that’s meant to quash all opposition to mining activity, even at the expense of communities and the environment.
- Of the 53 people subjected to criminal charges for opposing mining companies in 2021, at least 10 were charged with violating Article 162, according to one group.
- Groups have filed a legal challenge against the law, seeking to strike down Article 162 and eight other contentious provisions on constitutional grounds.
Zimbabwe’s forests go up in smoke to feed its tobacco habit
- Tobacco farmers are responsible for a fifth of the total annual deforestation in Zimbabwe, cutting down trees to burn in their curing barns.
- While the practice is not permitted, enforcement remains lax, and solutions such as establishing woodlots have not proved fast or scalable enough to address the problem.
- With Zimbabwe expected to produce 300,000 metric tons of tobacco by 2025, which will require burning 10 times as much wood, the current situation is unsustainable, officials warn.
Vietnam’s timber legality program not making a dent in risky wood imports
- Despite new regulations to clean up Vietnam’s timber sector, importers continue to bring large volumes of tropical hardwood into the country from deforestation hotspots in Africa and Asia for use in products sold domestically.
- In 2018, Vietnam signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU to eliminate illegal timber from the country’s supply chains and boost access to the strictly regulated European markets.
- However, importers say the new legality requirements introduced in 2020 to verify the legitimacy of timber brought into the country are “too confusing,” and customs data indicate few signs of a reduction in high-risk timber imports from countries including Cambodia, Cameroon, Gabon, Laos and Papua New Guinea.
- Although Vietnamese authorities are taking steps to improve the situation, meaningful change is expected to take time; a switch by domestic consumers to products that use sustainable, locally grown timber instead of imported tropical hardwoods could solve many underlying problems, experts say.
Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
- As killings of elephants in Africa spiked in the early 2010s, some conservation organizations claimed the ivory trade was financing armed groups like al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- According to a study published in Global Environmental Politics, those ties were overstated and strategically pushed by NGOs in order to attract funding for anti-poaching efforts.
- Despite shaky evidence for some of the claims, they helped frame wildlife trafficking as a global security issue and were subsequently repeated by policymakers from the U.S. and elsewhere.
- The study said the confluence of conservation and security policy has had “material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.”
Indonesia, Malaysia to hold joint patrols against illegal fishing
- Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to hold joint patrols against illegal fishing in the waters that connect the two Southeast Asian countries.
- The patrols are expected to beef up maritime security against illegal fishers in the Malacca Strait and the North Natuna Sea, as well as protectthe rich marine biodiversity there.
- Illegal fishing by foreign vessels inflicts losses of up to $1.4 billion a year in Malaysia, and $2 billion a year in Indonesia.
Raid against Sumatran official uncovers use of slave labor on oil palm farm
- A district head in Sumatra could face human trafficking charges after he was found to have imprisoned 48 men at his compound who worked for no pay at his oil palm plantation.
- While police and other government authorities have been reluctant to declare this a case of modern-day slave labor, advocacy groups say the evidence against Terbit Rencana Perangin Angin, the head of Langkat district in North Sumatra province, is indisputable.
- Terbit also faces charges of corruption (the raid on his compound was associated with a bribery allegation), and illegal wildlife possession (the raid also uncovered an orangutan and other protected species being kept as pets).
- While the case has captured national attention, watchdog groups say the problem of labor violations in the palm oil industry are widespread, and have called for the swift passage of a bill to boost protections for workers.
Spurred by investor-friendly law, palm oil firms sue to get licenses back
- Two palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing the local government to win back their permits that were revoked last year.
- The new filings are the latest wave of litigation in the province since authorities across West Papua’s eight districts revoked the permits of 16 palm oil companies over administrative violations.
- Lawsuits filed by three other companies were thrown out last December and earlier this month, leaving opponents of the palm oil industry hopeful of a similar outcome in the latest case.
- The staunchest opponents of the companies are the Indigenous communities who have long sought official recognition of their ancestral rights to the land and forests that fall within the oil palm concessions.
Philippine groups slam ‘cruel Christmas gift’ as open-pit mining ban is lifted
- On Dec. 23, Philippine Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu issued an order overturning a 2017 ban on open-pit mining.
- This follows an April 2021 decision by President Rodrigo Duterte to lift a 2012 moratorium on new mining agreements.
- The move has been welcomed by the mining industry, but slammed by environment and Indigenous rights groups as “a cruel Christmas gift” and “another blow against an already gasping state of our Philippine environment.”
More trees means healthier bees, new study on air pollution shows
- Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
- They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
- The findings add to the growing scientific evidence about the importance of afforestation in urban areas, including creating ecological corridors to connect separate landscapes.
- Air pollution is the world’s top driver of illness and death from chronic noncommunicable diseases.
Changes to Madagascar’s trawling sector raise questions and hopes
- Madagascar’s auction for nearshore trawling rights has elicited concern from civil society members, who say it was not conducted transparently and opens the door for environmental mismanagement.
- Two Chinese-backed firms won nearly half of the fishing rights. One of them has brought in vessels that were caught fishing illegally in West Africa last year, and the other, which was already fishing in Madagascar, may have violated a national fishing regulation this year.
- But observers have also welcomed other aspects of Madagascar’s fisheries management overhaul this year.
- These include the creation of the Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy, the appointment of scientist and civil society member as the new minister and the joining of FiTI, a global fisheries transparency initiative.
Madagascar’s small fishers cheer new trawl-free zone, but do trawlers obey it?
- Madagascar in July imposed a prohibition on industrial trawlers fishing in waters within 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) of the country’s coast.
- Small-scale fishers, who for years have clashed with the industrial vessels, welcomed the new rule, but say the trawlers are largely ignoring it.
- Vessel-tracking data appear to corroborate their claims, with at least 14 trawlers apparently fishing in the prohibited zone along the west coast in recent months.
- An industry executive said that any incursions by his company were uncommon and accidental. Regulators say penalties will be imposed based on the severity of the violations.
To end illegal deforestation, Brazil may legalize it entirely, experts warn
- Governmental actions have fueled skepticism about Brazil’s real commitment to its climate goals and pledges the country embraced at the COP26 U.N. climate summit.
- In 2021, the Brazilian Amazon experienced the highest deforestation rates in 15 years, almost all of it illegal, amid a weakening of environmental protections.
- Bills currently before Brazil’s parliament threaten to undermine these protections even further and incentivize logging and land grabbing.
Want a wild bird on the hush-hush in Singapore? There’s a Facebook group for that
- Singapore’s live bird trade is thriving on Facebook, where it is largely unlicensed, according to a new report from wildlife watchdog group TRAFFIC, which tracked 44 Singapore-based Facebook groups over five months.
- Researchers found hundreds of online sellers, most of them unlicensed and therefore acting illegally, and thousands of birds offered for sale, some of them smuggled from abroad or poached locally.
- Singapore’s efforts to target the illicit wildlife pet trade have so far focused on monitoring and enforcement actions at the trader level instead of imposing licensing requirements at the consumer level, the researchers said.
- They recommend implementing a compulsory wildlife-pet registration system, under which owners must prove they obtained their wildlife pets from licensed sources.
Madagascar gemstone rush puts a wetland and its community under pressure
- The discovery of gemstones near Madagascar’s largest wetland has fueled a mining boom that threatens the environment and the local community.
- The rural commune of Andilana Avaratra has seen its population nearly double as miners flock there from across Madagascar in search of beryl, a mineral family that includes gems like aquamarine.
- The mining activity, none of it permitted, has scarred a hill and threatens to wash large volumes of sediment into Lake Alaotra, a Ramsar Site that’s home to unique and endangered species.
- The miners’ presence has also led to a surge in crime and sexually transmitted diseases, with the local community seeing little in the way of benefits from the boom.
For Mekong officials fighting timber traffickers, a chance to level up
- Global wildlife trade authority CITES held a virtual workshop for customs agents and inspections officials in the Lower Mekong region of Southeast Asia on the physical inspection of timber shipments in October.
- The region’s forests are home to around 100 species of trees for which CITES restricts trade to protect their survival.
- But attendees also note that the ability to accurately identify tree species, as well as the knowledge to spot suspicious shipments, is low in the region.
- Improving that capacity will help to address illegal logging in the region, advocates say.
Papua court ruling a win for local government, Indigenous groups against palm oil
- A lawsuit by two palm oil companies to overturn a decision by a district government revoking their permits has been rejected by a court in Indonesia.
- The ruling, which can still be appealed by the firms, would allow the government of Sorong district in West Papua province to take over the companies’ concessions, which span a combined area larger than New York City.
- It also paves the way for the Indigenous communities whose territory fell within the concessions to finally have their land rights officially recognized.
- The Sorong government still faces two other lawsuits filed by a third company whose permit it also revoked; a ruling is expected before the end of the year.
Criminal indictment obscures the reality of extractives contamination (commentary)
- The jailing of Steven Donziger, a U.S. lawyer credited with helping communities in Ecuador win a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron for oil contamination, raises serious questions about the U.S. judicial system.
- Donziger’s criminal contempt proceedings exemplify what some legal scholars refer to as “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (SLAPP) — complaints that bully critics into silence and disavow wrongdoing..
- “The lack of justice afforded to Donziger has a chilling effect on human rights advocacy and curtails efforts to mend an environmental and humanitarian tragedy,” write authors Suzana Sawyer and Lindsay Ofrias.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Indonesia ranks high on legal wildlife trade, but experts warn it masks illegal trade
- Indonesia sits at No. 9 on a list of the 80 countries with the highest number of wildlife specimens legally exported abroad since 1975, new research shows.
- The legal international trade in wildlife is governed by CITES, whose trade database shows that Indonesia exported 7.7 million live animals over the past 46 years, more than a quarter of them arowana fish.
- While these trades are legal, experts say the government should try to minimize the practice and focus more on conserving wild populations of these species.
- Critics of the legal wildlife trade have long accused it of helping mask the illegal trade, primarily through the “laundering” of wild-caught animals through captive-breeding facilities.
Major clothing brands contribute to deforestation in Cambodia, report finds
- A new report suggests that the garment industry is contributing to deforestation in Cambodia due to factories relying on illegal forest wood to generate electricity.
- Garment factories were found to use at least 562 tons of forest wood every day, the equivalent of up to 1,418 hectares (3,504 acres) of forest being burned each year, according to the report.
- Between 2001 and 2019, Cambodia is reported to have lost an estimated 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres) of forest through deforestation.
- While the garment industry does contribute deforestation, experts say that economic land concessions granted by the Cambodian government for agro-industrial purposes are by far the dominant driver of forest loss.
Amid a furniture boom, timber certification is just a start, say experts
- For furniture consumers and manufacturers alike, ensuring timber is both legal and sustainable is tricky in Southeast Asia, where supply chains are blighted by illegal logging, poor forest management and scant law enforcement.
- In an effort to improve timber sustainability in the region’s furniture supply chains, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and the ASEAN Furniture Industries Council (AFIC) recent launched a four-year collaboration to promote timber certification.
- While the collaboration is a positive step, experts say even more needs to be done to prevent illegally sourced timber from entering the region’s domestic supply chains and local markets that largely operate informally and under less scrutiny than export markets.
- Experts also point out that timber certification is not a guarantee of deforestation-free products, and call on companies to publicly commit to deforestation-free supply chains and transparent reporting.
Wildlife trade hub Vietnam is also hub of impunity for traffickers, report says
- Only one in every seven wildlife seizures made in Vietnam in the past decade has resulted in convictions, a new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has found.
- Low numbers of arrests and prosecutions highlight problems of weak enforcement and a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
- Three-quarters of the shipments originated from African countries, they found, with numerous large-scale seizures indicating transnational organized crime.
- With pandemic-related restrictions easing, the worry is that the cross-border wildlife trade will come roaring back even as Vietnam struggles to follow up on investigations into past and current seizures.
Liberia loggers felling trees outside concession as government stands by
- A new report shows a case of illegal harvest of timber in Liberia has gone unpunished for more than two years.
- A 2019 audit had found that 14,000 m3 (494,000 ft3) of timber ostensibly from the TSC-A2 concession in Grand Bassa county was effectively untraceable, yet permits for the sale and export of much of the timber were still approved.
- Civil society groups are calling for tougher penalties against the companies involved, which they say appear to be happy risking modest fines against greater profits from illegal logging.
- They also say the case in Grand Bassa is emblematic of a widespread problem: “If you launch investigations into different community forests, the findings would be more illegalities.”
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.
Indonesian official busted over alleged bribe for palm oil permit
- A district head in Riau, the heartland of Indonesia’s palm oil industry, has been arrested for allegedly taking bribes from a plantation company.
- The 2 billion ($141,000) payment was allegedly in exchange for the district head, Andi Putra, facilitating the extension of a permit for palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari.
- Activists say the case is only the tip of the iceberg, with Riau blanketed in illegal plantations and plagued by corrupt officials.
- They are also worried that corruption in the palm oil industry will become more rampant in the future due to the weakening of the national anti-corruption agency.
Primary-colored poison: Lead paint still a major threat to Indonesian kids
- Nearly 70% of commercially available paints in Indonesia contain levels of lead higher than the regulatory safe limit of 600 parts per million (ppm).
- That’s the finding from an analysis of solvent-based paints in 10 Indonesian cities, which also estimates that 33 million children are exposed to lead paint on a daily basis.
- The association of paint manufacturers says it may consider adopting a safe limit of 90 ppm, the same as the World Health Organization prescribes, but that many of the small manufacturers that still use lead aren’t part of the association.
- Advocates have called for stronger regulations governing sales of lead-based paints, including lead content information to be published on paint cans.
Court convenes historic hearing in Indigenous territory on land consent issue
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court held a hearing in the Indigenous Cofan territory of Sinangoe in the northern Amazon rainforest on Nov. 15, the first time the highest court in the country agreed to travel to Indigenous territory for a court hearing.
- The hearing is a step in a review of the country’s process for free, prior and informed consultation, and how well this process in action adheres to the rights outlined in the Constitution.
- To analyze this process, the Constitutional Court selected two previous Indigenous lawsuits, including Sinangoe’s 2018 winning lawsuit against the government for selling mining concessions on their territory without first consulting with the community.
- More than 300 Indigenous leaders arrived in Sinangoe for the hearing, traveling from all over the Amazon and other parts of Ecuador to support the consultation review process, which will also have an impact on territorial struggles across the country.
Palm oil firm that dried out its land held not liable for fires that followed
- Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a ruling clearing a palm oil company of responsibility for fires in its concession in Central Kalimantan province.
- Environmental experts say this flies in the face of evidence showing that the firm didn’t have adequate equipment to tackle fires and that the fires started in areas it had recently cleared and drained.
- They warn the verdict sets a worrying precedent for future prosecutions of companies with fires on their concessions, and counters Indonesia’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land use.
Legal challenge to South Africa mine expansion looks to set new landmark
- In 2016, South Africa’s minister of minerals and energy granted one of the country’s largest anthracite coal mines the right to expand and resettle 143 families.
- The decision was challenged by a local organization that filed an application against the minister, the Department of Minerals and Energy, the mining company, and others.
- If the case is won, it would be a landmark for communities affected by mining activities across the country, as the government, traditional authorities and unions have shown support for the mine.
Relying on green labels to address our thirst for the products of deforestation would be a disaster (commentary)
- Fresh promises on forests at COP26 will be meaningless unless they are coupled with real action. A key test will come shortly after the conference concludes.
- Deforestation and associated human rights abuses are driven by overseas demand for agri-commodities like palm oil, soy and beef. They won’t be stopped until that demand is stopped. New draft EU legislation – expected to be released next week – could cut off one of the biggest sources of that demand.
- However, while decision-makers debate the finer points of the law, such as the commodities it will cover, none of these will matter if they do not address a wider problem: the flawed ‘independent certification’ schemes it looks likely to end up relying on, whether they are given a formal ‘green lane’ or not.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Study shines a light on Indonesia’s murky shark fishery and trade
- Indonesia is home to one-fifth of known shark and ray species and to the world’s largest shark and ray fishery, but a recent study reveals gaps in fisheries regulations that facilitate illegal and unregulated trade.
- Earlier this year, scientists reported that shark and ray numbers have declined globally by some 70% over the last half century, lending fresh urgency to improving fisheries regulations and limits on landings.
- The recent study revealed major discrepancies between export and import figures between Indonesia and trading partners. It also documented the complex web of domestic trade in shark and ray products and a surge in live exports.
- Authorities face challenges with verifying the origin of a vast array of processed shark and ray products, from fins and cartilage to meat and oils; new techniques that enable authorities to use DNA barcoding to identify protected species have the potential to close regulatory loopholes and protect threatened species.
Ecuador’s consultation process for Indigenous lands comes under the microscope
- Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has selected two previous legal cases, involving the Cofan (2018) and Waorani (2019) Indigenous groups, as a basis to analyze the country’s process of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and how well it adheres to the rights in the constitution.
- Judges ruled in favor of both the Cofan and Waorani in their lawsuits against the state, both of whom sued three government bodies for selling, or trying to sell, their land to oil and mining companies without properly consulting the communities.
- This review, of which the first hearing will be held in Indigenous territory for the first time in Ecuador’s history, could set new standards for FPIC in the country and grant Indigenous communities more autonomy over their land.
- The new conservative government of President Guillermo Lasso has already passed two decrees to double oil drilling and mining in the country to boost its economy, without consulting with communities who live in the regions where these projects will likely be developed.
A new 100-page report raises alarm over Chevron’s impact on planet
- An independent expert report has determined that of the 70 ongoing cases in 31 countries against Chevron, only 0.006% ($286-million) in fines, court judgements, and settlements have been paid. The company still owes another $50.5-billion in total globally.
- The largest of those payout judgements is for $9.5 billion in environmental damages representing 30,000 plaintiffs in Ecuador where the oil damage is so severe, it’s known as the “Amazon Chernobyl”.
- Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela are amongst a number of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond where there are ongoing litigations against Chevron. In the U.S. alone, there are 13 ongoing litigations against Chevron.
- The same day the report was released, international human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, lead attorney on the Chevron Ecuador case, was imprisoned. His incarceration came after nearly two years of house arrest in New York City and an intense legal battle for his freedom.
On Nigeria-Cameroon border, joint patrols throw a lifeline to threatened apes
- The rugged, isolated forests along the Nigeria-Cameroon border support a vast array of wildlife, including Cross River gorillas, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, and forest elephants.
- Historically, limited law enforcement in the border zone has left the ecosystem vulnerable to hunting and logging.
- Since the early 1990s, though, NGOs have been working alongside both governments to enhance transboundary conservation efforts, including joint patrols by rangers from both countries.
- This cross-border collaboration faces many obstacles today, including bureaucratic delays, treacherous terrain, armed poachers, and violent conflict in Cameroon, but participants remain optimistic about the potential for cooperation.
Biosurveillance of markets and legal wildlife trade needed to curb pandemic risk: Experts
- Almost 90% of the 180 recognized RNA viruses that can harm humans are zoonotic in origin. But disease biosurveillance of the world’s wildlife markets and legal trade is largely absent, putting humanity at significant risk.
- The world needs a decentralized disease biosurveillance system, experts say, that would allow public health professionals and wildlife scientists in remote areas to test for pathogens year-round, at source, with modern mobile technologies in order to help facilitate a rapid response to emerging zoonotic disease outbreaks.
- Though conservation advocates have long argued for an end to the illegal wildlife trade (which does pose zoonotic disease risk), but the legal trade poses a much greater threat to human health, say experts.
- Governments around the world are calling for the World Health Organization to create a pandemic treaty. Wildlife groups are pushing for such an agreement to include greater at-source protections to prevent zoonotic spillover.
Indonesia urged to improve policies protecting fishing vessel workers
- Maritime observers are calling on the Indonesian government to strengthen regulations for recruitment, placement, repatriation and legal reparation for crews aboard foreign and domestic fishing vessels.
- Would-be deckhands are often poorly trained, forced to sign disadvantageous contracts, and tied to onerous payment schemes.
- Once on board the vessels, these crews face potentially deadly working conditions, including overwork, physical and mental abuse, and being given substandard food.
- Experts say the Indonesian government is working far too slowly on regulations that could provide better protection for deckhands working on domestic and international vessels.
In Bali, prominent official faces backlash over illegal pet gibbon
- A public official in Indonesia has handed over a baby gibbon to conservation authorities following an outcry over his illegal possession of the endangered animal.
- I Nyoman Giri Prasta, the head of Badung district on the island of Bali, said he was giving up the siamang so that it could be rehabilitated and released into the wilds of its native Sumatra.
- Conservation authorities in Bali say they have not yet considered taking legal action; under Indonesian law, the illegal possession of protected species, like siamangs, is punishable by up to five years in prison.
- Giri Prasta is the latest in a long list of public officials known to keep protected species as pets, with enforcement of the crime still weak, conservationists say.
Women on storm-hit Philippine island lead Indigenous effort to restore mangroves
- Residents of low-lying coastal areas in archipelagic countries like the Philippines are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including the increase of powerful storms like 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan.
- Mangrove forests can buffer the impact of storm surges and high winds, but many of the Philippines’ mangrove ecosystems are severely degraded and efforts to restore them often fail.
- Busuanga Island, in the western province of Palawan, has a particularly effective mangrove restoration program, one that is spearheaded by Indigenous women who play a key role in planting, monitoring and protecting the forests.
Brazil court upholds ban on missionaries trying to contact isolated Indigenous
- Brazil’s highest court has upheld a ban on missionaries entering reserves that are home to isolated and recently contacted Indigenous people during the pandemic.
- The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Indigenous organizations against a law passed in July 2020 that allowed missionaries to remain inside these reserves despite the pandemic, in violation of Brazil’s official policy in place since 1987.
- According to Indigenous organizations, it’s crucial to reaffirm the non-contact policy under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro that has pushed to “integrate” Indigenous people into society, and has been cozy with the evangelical movement.
- Besides the risk of disease spread, the presence of missionaries in these reserves undermines traditional cultures and social cohesion, and compels these nomadic communities to settle down, making the land more vulnerable to invasions by illegal ranchers and loggers, activists say.
A gendered approach to the illegal wildlife trade could engender an anti-trafficking revolution (commentary)
- A newly adopted UN resolution on Tackling Illicit Trafficking in Wildlife (IWT) calling for gender-mainstreaming presents a welcome opportunity for more inclusive and effective responses to IWT.
- Women represent only an estimated 3-11% of the global ranger workforce, despite available evidence strongly suggesting that greater gender equality would bring improved relationships with communities, de-escalate violence, reduce the risks of gender-based violence, and result in better community engagement and nature conservation all round.
- Creating a more enabling environment to steer more gender-responsive IWT projects could be a win-win for gender equality, human rights and conservation.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
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.
Malawi court sentences Chinese wildlife trafficking kingpin to 14 years in jail
- A court in Malawi has sentenced a Chinese national to 14 years in jail for masterminding an illegal wildlife trafficking cartel that operated across Southern Africa.
- Yunhua Lin and his accomplices, including his wife, were arrested in 2019 and found in possession of pangolin scales, elephant ivory, hippo teeth and rhino horns.
- Wildlife authorities have hailed the stiff sentence as “a message to all criminals out there that we are no longer functioning in a business-as-usual way.”
Malaysian hornbill bust reveals live trafficking trend in Southeast Asia
- The recent seizure of eight live hornbills at Kuala Lumpur International Airport confirmed experts’ suspicions that live hornbill trafficking is on the rise in Southeast Asia.
- Analysis of seizure records across Southeast Asia indicates that the incident is just the tip of the iceberg: Between 2015 and 2021, there were 99 incidents of live hornbill trafficking involving 268 birds spanning 13 species.
- Among the recent haul was a baby helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a critically endangered species hunted to the brink of extinction for its distinctive ivory-like bill casque, which is prized by collectors in parts of Asia.
- Specialists say more information on how poaching for live trade affects wild populations is urgently required; only then, they say, will it be possible to push for stronger enforcement and close loopholes that allow the illegal trade to flourish.
As tigers dwindle, Indonesia takes aim at poaching ring
- Indonesian officials recently confiscated three tiger skins from a man in Sumatra.
- They believe the perpetrator is connected to a larger ring of wildlife traffickers.
In Colombia, legal mining proves a win-win for environment, traditional communities
- As a marker of its cultural importance and low environmental impact, artisanal gold mining is permitted under Colombia’s 1991 Constitution in Afro-Colombian and Indigenous territories.
- But without formalization, a process that puts the same administrative burdens on small-scale miners as on multinational mining corporations, these miners cannot receive a fair price for the gold they sell.
- Illegal armed groups use criminal mining to fund their activities, often violating fundamental rights in the process.
- Swiss and U.S. international cooperation projects in Colombia have successfully shown how formalization of small-scale miners can protect the environment and produce legal gold, improving the incomes of the miners and boosting revenues for the state.
An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers
- In early August, reports began to surface of a major spill of toxic runoff from Angolan diamond mines into rivers that feed into the DRC’s waterways.
- The spill turned hundreds of kilometers of the Congo River’s tributaries a deep shade of red and is reported to have killed at least 12 people in the DRC.
- Satellite analysis indicates the spill originated at the Catoca diamond mine in Angola’s Lunda Sul province, whose largest shareholders are state-owned companies from Angola and Russia.
- While Catoca’s operators admitted to a spill from the mine’s tailings pool, they have downplayed its severity and deny that toxic substances were discharged.
Worked to death: How a Chinese tuna juggernaut crushed its Indonesian workers
- One of China’s biggest tuna companies, Dalian Ocean Fishing, made headlines last year when four Indonesian deckhands fell sick and died from unknown illnesses after allegedly being subject to horrible conditions on one of its boats.
- Now, an investigation by Mongabay, Tansa and the Environmental Reporting Collective shows for the first time that the abuses suffered by workers on that vessel — most commonly, being given substandard food, possibly dangerous drinking water and being made to work excessively — were not limited to one boat, but widespread and systematic across the company’s fleet.
- Moreover, migrant fishers were subject to beatings and threats to withhold pay if they did not follow orders. Many have not received their full salaries or been paid at all.
- China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, and Indonesia is widely believed to be the industry’s biggest supplier of labor. In 2019 and 2020, at least 30 fishers from Indonesia died on Chinese long-haul fishing boats, often from unknown illnesses.
Nigeria seeks transnational help to disrupt a still-brisk pangolin trade
- Nigerian law enforcement officials recorded their third-biggest seizure of pangolin scales this past July, indicating that the illegal wildlife trade hasn’t been dented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Officials seized 7 metric tons of pangolin scales, 4.6 kilograms (10 pounds) of pangolin claws and 845 kg (1,860 lb) of elephant ivory in Lagos and arrested three foreign nationals.
- Anti-trafficking advocates have welcomed the raid, but say more needs to be done to disrupt the supply end of the trade and punish those responsible to the fullest extent of the law.
Toxic spill at Angola diamond mine pollutes Congo River tributary in DRC
- In early August, toxic substances from three diamond-processing facilities in neighboring Angola polluted the Kasai River, a major tributary of the Congo.
- Researchers fear there could be severe and lasting consequences for the environment and people’s health in affected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The polluted water is moving toward Kinshasa, the capital, according to the DRC’s minister for the environment and sustainable development.
They safeguarded nature, but now Malaysia’s Mah Meri face eviction for an eco-resort
- Members of the Mah Meri Indigenous community in Malaysia are fighting an attempt to evict them to make way for the expansion of a beach resort.
- The notice, served by the Selangor state government, says the land in question belongs to the government, and has threatened legal action if the Mah Meri settlement is not cleared.
- In a countersuit, the Mah Meri say the land should have been legally recognized as Indigenous territory long before this dispute developed.
Malaysian timber giant Samling takes conflict over logging activity to court
- Plywood company Samling Group has filed a $1.18 million defamation suit against an Indigenous-led green group in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.
- The company says its business has been harmed by web posts in which advocacy group SAVE Rivers alleges the company failed to properly secure free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities in and around forest concessions.
- SAVE Rivers plans to challenge the lawsuit, the organization’s lawyers say.
- While the lawsuit is pending, the Malaysian Timber Certification Council has halted it review of conflicts between Samling and several Indigenous groups in Sarawak, saying the issues raised in the review are too close to the claims that will be argued in the lawsuit.
Nigeria seizes scales from 15,000 dead pangolins
- Authorities at the Nigeria Customs Service have announced the seizure of 7.1 tons of pangolin scales that smugglers were attempting to ship out of the country.
- According to customs officials, a raid last month in Lagos turned up 196 sacks of pangolin scales representing about 15,000 dead pangolins.
- According to the Wildlife Justice Commission, the the Netherlands-based NGO which provided intelligence to the customs service, the seizure is the ninth largest of pangolin scales since March 2019, and Nigeria’s third largest during that time span.
- Nigeria said it had arrested three foreign nationals in association with the bust.
Acquittal of Indonesian villagers protesting pollution marks rare win against SLAPP
- An Indonesian court has acquitted six villagers on the island of Bangka in a criminal case widely seen as an attempt to silence them by a company accused of polluting their village.
- Experts say the court ruling sets a precedent for future cases where environmental defenders are being censored, intimated and silenced through so-called SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) litigation.
- The villagers have since 2017 been fighting against a tapioca company, PT Bangka Asindo Agri, that operates near their community and produces waste that emits a pungent stench.
- The environment ministry has launched an investigation into the case and filed its own lawsuit against the company for unpermitted pollution; the company denies the charge and has lobbied parliament to intervene with the ministry to drop the case.
Indonesia reimposes ban on destructive seine and trawl nets in its waters
- Indonesia has banned again the use of destructive seine and trawl nets, locally known as cantrang, to protect the ocean ecosystem.
- These devices are highly effective in sweeping up large amounts of fish, but nearly half half of what they net are bycatch or discards.
- The cantrang ban was initially imposed in 2015, then subsequently eased in the face of criticism from fishers, before being revoked last year by a minister who has since been jailed on unrelated corruption charges.
- The fisheries sector in Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelagic country, plays an important role in supporting national and global food security.
Indonesia’s Gorontalo road runs into forest, swerves environmental checks
- Designated a national strategic project, the Gorontalo Outer Ring Road will connect the main air and seaports in Sulawesi Island’s Gorontalo province.
- Divided into three segments, the 45-kilometer (28-mile) road cuts through steep karst features, agricultural fields, informal settlements, and areas of protected forest.
- The project has already been plagued by graft linked to land acquisition, and construction remains unfinished.
- Now officials say that the project has not complied with legally mandated environmental checks.
Philippines banks on new fisheries management system, but rollout is rocky
- The Philippines introduced a new fisheries management framework to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in 2019.
- Under the fisheries management area (FMA) mechanism, the Philippines’ seascapes are delineated into 12 areas with each co-managed by the country’s fisheries agency and a network of local governments.
- The program has seen drastic delays in its implementation, with only six scientific advisory groups established out of the 12. Experts and various groups say the delay was in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the reallocation of state funds, and a lack of action from local mayors.
- Amid the slow rollout of the framework, artisanal fishers say they are threatened by a new bill in Congress that seeks to allow domestic commercial vessels within municipal waters, a practice that is banned under the prevailing fisheries law.
Indonesian former fisheries minister jailed for bribery in lobster exports
- Indonesia’s former fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo has been sentenced to five years in jail for taking bribes to lift a ban on lobster larvae exports in 2020.
- A court in Jakarta also fined Edhy and barred him from running for elected office for three years after his release from jail.
- Despite the conviction, anti-corruption experts were left disappointed by the relatively low sentence, given his status as a high-profile active government official at the time.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of lobster larvae cost the country some $62 million in lost revenue in 2019 alone, and depleted the wild population.
‘Technical problems’ holding up enforcement of rulings in Indonesian fire and haze cases, official says
- Plantation companies convicted of causing fires in Indonesia owe the government the equivalent of $233 million in unpaid fines, according to the environment ministry.
- The ministry is pushing courts to enforce their rulings but is facing difficulties on several fronts.
Study warns of impacts of unregulated trade in Indonesian porcupines
- The unmonitored illegal trade in porcupines across Indonesia has prompted calls from conservationists for stricter protection of the species’ population in the wild.
- A new study examining seizure data of porcupines, their parts and derivatives in Indonesia has found more than 450 of the animals in nearly 40 incidents between January 2013 and June 2020
- Indonesia is home five porcupine species, but only one is currently protected by under the law.
- The study’s author has recommended that all porcupines be categorized as protected species under Indonesian wildlife laws and listed under CITES to monitor the impacts of the trade on the wild population.
In Brazil’s most Indigenous city, prejudice and diversity go hand in hand
- São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in northern Amazonas state, is recognized as Brazil’s most Indigenous municipality: an estimated 90% of its population is Indigenous, accounting for both its urban and rural areas; the urban area alone is 58% self-declared Indigenous.
- Spread across an area the size of Cuba, São Gabriel da Cachoeira has a history marked by the arrival of Brazilian military forces in 1760 and subsequently Catholic and Protestant missionaries, organized Indigenous social movements, as well as national and international NGOs focused on defending the environment and the Indigenous peoples.
- According to the census, there are 32 indigenous ethnic groups in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, many of them unknown in the rest of the country, such as the Koripako, Baniwa, Baré, Wanano, Piratapuya, Tukano, and Dãw people.
- The municipality is the only one in the country with four official languages, in addition to Portuguese: Baniwa, Tukano, Nheengatu and Yanomami. But despite its cultural and ethnic diversity, there are frequent reports of discrimination against Indigenous people.
‘Conservation litigation’ tries to put a true price on wildlife crime
- An international team of experts says it’s possible to sue environmental and wildlife offenders for the damage they inflict upon ecosystems and biodiversity and seek compensation to help restore what has been lost.
- Several countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mexico, already have legislation that allows for this “conservation litigation,” experts say.
- There have also been several successful civil lawsuits in which environmental offenders have had to provide compensation for ecological restoration.
- However, conservation litigation is not commonly used due to a lack of understanding about its feasibility, and the difficulties of coming up with defensible, scientifically robust remedies for environmental and wildlife crimes — but experts say they hope this litigation is used more frequently in the future.
As U.K. eyes new environmental rules, some firms want to pump the brakes
- A long-anticipated U.K. environmental bill is currently in the House of Lords and is expected to pass before the global climate summit takes place in Scotland later this year.
- Environmental advocates have criticized the bill for failing to include human rights protections and allowing forms of deforestation deemed legal under local laws.
- In a consultation held by a U.K. government agency, some representatives of the meat and oilseed industries pushed back against the threat of fines for importing products or commodities linked to illegal deforestation.
CSI, but for parrots: Study applies criminological tool CRAAVED to wildlife trade
- Parrots as the most traded animal taxon have the potential to provide a primary source of data for investigating the causes and consequences of the animal trade.
- A new study applies the CRAAVED model analysis to shed new light on key drivers of the illegal parrot trade in Indonesia, home to the highest diversity of the birds and a thriving wildlife market.
- The analysis identified three main factors for which species were targeted by traffickers: how accessible parrot species are to people and traders; whether legal export of the species is possible; and whether the species is enjoyable through its color, size or mimicry.
- Other experts have welcomed the findings and their implications, but point to limitations in the CRAAVED model and the importance of considering other factors such as harvest quotas and the motivation behind wildlife crime.
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.
Wildlife trafficking, like everything else, has gone online during COVID-19
- Regional and national reports show a decline in illegal wildlife trade activities in Southeast Asia in 2020, with operations down by more than 50% across the most-traded animals.
- Despite the decrease, experts say traders have shifted from face-to-face interactions and increased their presence on online platforms.
- Authorities also reported confiscating caches of stockpiled animal parts, indicating that the trade continues amid the pandemic. Traders may be waiting for looser border controls to carry on with business, experts say.
- While these trends suggest that the trade will bounce back in a post-COVID-19 era, experts suggest strengthening enforcement collaboration, improving wildlife laws, and increasing awareness of the health risks posed by illegally poached wildlife.
New bill seeks to end Hong Kong’s days as an illegal wildlife trade hub
- Hong Kong is a leading transportation hub for the illegal wildlife trade: In the past two years, Hong Kong authorities seized more than over 649 metric tons of illegal wildlife and wildlife products across 1,404 seizures, according to a new report.
- While many seizures lead to prosecution, the people who tend to be punished are the “mules” rather than the leaders of organized criminal syndicates. Additionally, some of the largest wildlife seizures in Hong Kong have not been followed by any prosecution, possibly due to the lack of evidence.
- A new bill may change the status quo by allowing wildlife crimes to be subject to the provisions of Hong Kong’s Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance, which would allow authorities to conduct more in-depth investigations and hand out harsher penalties.
- Supporters of the bill say there is a strong possibility that it will pass into law due to strong political support and a lack of opposition.
Indigenous in Salvador: A struggle for identity in Brazil’s first capital
- The city of Salvador in Brazil’s Bahia state was one of the first established by European colonizers 500 years ago, built where settlements of Indigenous people already existed.
- Today, the predominantly Afro-Brazilian city is home to an Indigenous minority of around 7,500, many of whom are enrolled in the local university under the Indigenous quota system.
- They say they continue to face prejudice from others, who question why they wear modern clothes and use smartphones and don’t look like the pictures in history books.
- Over centuries of suffering from colonization and enslavement, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities here have forged something of a cultural alliance in an effort to keep their respective traditions alive.
Indonesian law enforcers call for financial approach to fight illegal logging
- Law enforcement officials in Indonesia have called for using anti-money-laundering statutes to go after illegal loggers.
- Illegal logging is the most common environmental crime currently handled by the country’s forestry ministry, but enforcement tends to focus on the perpetrators on the ground.
- By treating illegal timber as a commodity, say officials from the Attorney General’s Office and the anti-money-laundering agency, enforcers can take a financial crimes approach that also goes after those perpetrators higher up the trafficking chain.
- They also identified addressing corruption as a key step in tackling illegal logging, noting that perpetrators are known to bribe officials.
‘I never give up’: Q&A with Chinese environmental lawyer Jingjing Zhang
- Jingjing Zhang has been dubbed the “Erin Brockovich of China” for her work litigating against polluting companies on behalf of affected communities within the country.
- Now living in the U.S., she has switched her focus to Chinese companies operating overseas, many of them under the aegis of Beijing’s ambitious and far-reaching Belt and Road Initiative.
- But jurisdictional issues mean courts in China don’t yet hold Chinese companies accountable for their actions overseas.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Zhang talks about her career, what strategies could lead the Chinese government to establish regulations governing overseas investment, and the influence of government policy on Chinese companies.
A fatal stabbing sends a Gambian fishing village into turmoil over fishmeal
- Three Chinese-owned fishmeal factories have opened in the Gambia since 2016, sparking tensions over allegations of competition with local fishers, overfishing, illegal fishing, and pollution.
- In the town of Sanyang, unresolved disputes with the Nessim Trading fishmeal factory reached a flashpoint on March 15, triggered by the stabbing death of a Sanyang resident, allegedly by a Senegalese worker at the factory.
- Hundreds of people took to the streets in protest, some of them torching the local police station and the fishmeal factory, and destroying boats and equipment belonging to Senegalese fishers.
- The violence drove more than 250 Senegalese residents to flee to the nearby town of Batakonko.
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