Sites: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia
Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia
topic: Rainforest Conservation
Social media activity version | Lean version
Study challenges use of charismatic wildlife as umbrella species for conservation
- A new study from Indonesia’s Leuser forests challenges the traditional use of charismatic “umbrella species” like tigers and rhinos to represent ecosystem biodiversity.
- Researchers found that focusing on these well-known species neglects other important wildlife and may not accurately represent overall biodiversity.
- Instead, the study proposes a data-driven approach using camera-trap data to identify the most suitable umbrella species based on their association with higher levels of community occupancy and diversity.
- The study identified the sambar deer and Sunda clouded leopard as better umbrella species than tigers and rhinos in the Leuser Ecosystem, highlighting the need for a more comprehensive approach to wildlife conservation that includes multiple species, not just the most charismatic ones.
Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests
- A new study indicates that significant networks of informal, unmapped and unregulated roads sprawl into forest-rich regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
- Slipping beneath the purview of environmental governance, construction of these “ghost roads” typically precede sharp spikes in deforestation and represent blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, the study says.
- The authors underscore that the relentless proliferation of ghost roads ranks among the gravest of threats facing the world’s remaining tropical forests.
- The findings bolster a growing momentum toward the development of AI-based road-mapping systems to help conservation biologists and resource managers better keep track of informal and illegal road networks and curb associated deforestation rates.
A short walk through Amazon time: Interview with archaeologist Anna Roosevelt
- Anna Roosevelt has been working in the Amazon for four decades and her pivotal research has changed the knowledge of the rainforest’s occupation.
- In an interview with Mongabay, she explains how her research led to evidence of much older Amazon settlements than previously thought, challenging a decades-long scientific consensus about how Indigenous people related to the forest.
- “One reason I was able to make some great discoveries is because of how opinionated archaeologists in the mid-20th century were. I only benefited from their mistakes,” she said.
- Roosevelt said the recent hype regarding the “garden cities” in Ecuador is “annoying”, as it is not a new discovery and it ignores older research from Latin American archaeologists.
How to reward tropical forest conservation: Interview with Tasso Azevedo
- A new initiative led by Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment plans to financially reward conservationists of the planet’s tropical forests.
- In an interview with Mongabay, one of the system’s creators, Tasso Azevedo, details the financial instrument, called Tropical Forests Forever.
- Countries that join the system will receive a fixed amount for each hectare of forest preserved or recovered, but the amount will be deducted if they allow deforestation.
- The Brazilian government estimates that $250 billion is needed to kickstart the operation.
UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo
- The government of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo will continue to move forward with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations.
- In a letter, the U.N. calls in question the transparency of the agreement and the state’s approach to the human rights law principle of free, prior and informed consent.
- The agreement was signed by state officials and a representative of a Singaporean company in 2021. Shortly after news of the deal became public, some Indigenous groups in the state said they hadn’t been consulted or informed about the deal covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests.
- The U.N. letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development.
Toilet paper: Environmentally impactful, but alternatives are rolling out
- While toilet paper use is ubiquitous in China, North America, parts of the EU and Australia, its environmental impact is rarely discussed. Environmentalists recently began urging people to be more aware of the real price paid for each roll — especially for luxury soft, extra-absorbent TP made from virgin tree pulp.
- Though not the global primary source of tissue pulp, large tracts of old-growth forest in Canada and Indonesia are being felled today for paper and tissue products, impacting biodiversity and Indigenous communities. Eucalyptus plantations to provide pulp for TP are mostly ecological deserts, and put a strain on water supplies.
- The environmental impacts of toilet paper occur all along its supply chain. Making TP is an energy- and water-intensive process, and also requires toxic PFAS and other chemicals. Upon disposal, toilet paper can become an insoluble pollutant that resists wastewater treatment and adds bulk and chemicals to sewage sludge.
- Many large tissue makers are investing in improved technologies to lighten this impact. But emerging markets in the developing world, beyond the reach of environmental watchdogs, are raising alarms. Bidets, recycled paper, bamboo, sugarcane and other alternative pulp sources offer more environmentally friendly options.
Palm oil deforestation persists in Indonesia’s Leuser amid new mills, plantations
- Deforestation for palm oil persists in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, including inside a national park that’s supposed to be off-limits to plantation activity, a new investigation has found.
- The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) characterizes the current deforestation trend as a “death by a thousand cuts,” with a large number of small operators hacking away at the ecosystem, in contrast to past deforestation carried out by a small number of large concession holders.
- RAN’s investigation also identified two new palm oil processing mills near the deforesting concessions, indicating that the presence of the mills, which need a constant supply of palm fruit, may be a driver of the ongoing deforestation.
- There’s a high risk that mills in the area may ultimately be supplying deforestation-linked palm oil to major global consumer products companies, including those with stated no-deforestation policies.
New report details rights abuses in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ project
- Human Rights Watch has detailed forced evictions, property destruction and violence against Indigenous communities living within a REDD+ carbon offset project area in southwest Cambodia.
- Trade of carbon credits from the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project were suspended last year amid similar allegations, and the project’s carbon certifier recently announced it’s expanding its ongoing investigation.
- Residents told Mongabay that Wildlife Alliance, the NGO that manages the project, has effectively outlawed their traditional methods of farming and livelihood, including restricting their access to sustainable forest products.
- Wildlife Alliance has denied the allegations, suggesting HRW has an agenda against carbon offsetting projects, but says it’s making improvements in response to the allegations.
Squeezed-out Amazon smallholders seek new frontiers in Brazil’s Roraima state
- As infrastructure projects and soy plantations pump up land values in the Brazilian Amazon, smallholders are selling up and moving to more distant frontiers, perpetuating a cycle of displacement and deforestation.
- The isolated south of Roraima state has become a priority destination for these migrants, who buy land from informal brokers with questionable paperwork; much of the land has been grabbed from the vast undesignated lands of the Brazilian government.
- Although the appetite for land grabs has diminished since the start of the Lula administration, the region has seen an increase in deforestation in recent years.
Ten years since anti-deforestation pledge, corporate world still not doing enough
- Global Canopy released its Forest 500 list of the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions connected to deforestation-linked commodities, including beef, leather, soy, palm oil, timber, pulp and paper.
- This is the organization’s 10th report, showing that numerous companies haven’t done enough to remove deforestation from their supply chains over the last decade.
- The report found 30% of companies still haven’t developed a single deforestation policy for their supply chains, while others have developed policies but failed to implement them in a meaningful way.
- The few companies with strong, long-term goals aren’t always doing enough to meet them, according to the report.
Tech to recover rainforest: Interview with Osa Conservation’s Carolina Pinto & Paulina Rodriguez
- Osa Conservation is a nonprofit organization working to monitor and protect biodiversity in the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
- The peninsula is home to plants and animals seen nowhere else on the planet, and is estimated to harbor 2.5% of the global terrestrial biodiversity.
- The organization uses a wide array of tech tools — from camera traps to acoustic recorders and GPS tags — to study, monitor and protect animals such as sea turtles, jaguars and spider monkeys.
- However, the harsh terrain, weak internet connectivity and the remote nature of the ecosystem are proving to be hurdles to quicker and more efficient deployment of tech tools.
Road project promising access to Indigenous Waorani is ushering in deforestation
- A new road in Ecuador’s Pastaza province is under construction to improve access to the interior of the country’s Amazonian region.
- The 42-kilometer (26-mile) project will connect Indigenous Waorani communities to urban centers and aims to reduce food transportation costs.
- Construction of the road, however, hasn’t been managed well by the environment ministry, critics say, and has attracted deforestation along its route, according to a newly published report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
- The project has been met with mixed reactions from communities, according to the president of the Waorani Nation, and an Indigenous guard group has been deployed to ensure environmental standards are being met.
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.”
New tool aims to help palm oil firms comply with deforestation regulations
- A new online tool launched by web-based monitoring platform Palmoil.io aims to help companies check their compliance with deforestation regulations for palm oil.
- PlotCheck enables companies to upload plot boundaries without having to store it in the cloud, thereby working around concerns on data security and privacy.
- The tool analyzes the plot for deforestation based on publicly available satellite data; it also displays data on historical deforestation in the plot as well as palm oil processing mills in the proximity.
- “The output is going to be a statement which companies can submit to authorities to prove that their shipment is deforestation-free,” said Leo Bottrill, founder of Palmoil.io.
Why the Amazon’s small streams have a major impact on its grand rivers
- An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
- Researchers from several universities will assess the conservation status of 100 streams spread between the municipalities of Santarém and Paragominas, at the confluence of the Tapajós and the Amazon, which were first analyzed in 2010.
- The impact of dirt roads and their network of river crossings, which causes sediment load, siltation, erosion and changes in water quality, was one of the factors that caught researchers’ attention in the initial time-series study.
- Experts say that local development models should ideally start from water to land, rather than the other way around, given the importance of water for the rainforest, its biodiversity, and the inhabitants who depend on both.
‘Cowboys’ and intermediaries thrive in Wild West of the carbon market
- A host of different players have crowded into the voluntary carbon trade as its value has grown.
- Motivated by the potential for profit, a concern for climate change or some combination of the two, these companies and organizations link the credits generated by projects, such as those that fit in the forest conservation scheme known as REDD+, with buyers, often companies and individuals in the Global North looking to compensate for their climate impacts.
- Some groups say they help shoulder the burden of tasks like marketing so that the communities and project staff on the ground can focus on the “change-making work.”
- But others, sometimes called “carbon cowboys,” seem interested in the money to be made from trading carbon. Some have faced allegations that they don’t bring the necessary expertise to their work, or that they don’t adequately inform local communities about the intended projects and the potential pitfalls.
Forest carbon credits and the voluntary market: A solution or a distraction?
- Voluntary carbon markets and forest carbon credits have faced widespread criticism that reached a zenith in 2023.
- Media reports detailed concerns about their dubious climate benefits, respect for communities and land rights, and their use by Global North companies to avoid the difficult task of decarbonizing their operations.
- Supporters of forest conservation strategies like REDD+ say that they can and should play a role, as healthy forests can absorb a significant amount of atmospheric carbon. They also say REDD+ brings much-needed funding to protect and restore forests, not only for their carbon, but because of the biodiversity and communities they support.
- As 2023 draws to a close, and with it the U.N. climate conference in Dubai (COP28), proponents of the voluntary carbon trade are working to increase the “integrity” of markets in ways they hope make them a viable tool to deal with climate change.
Indigenous-led coalition calls for moratorium on terrestrial carbon trade
- The Pathways Alliance for Change and Transformation (PACT), a coalition of Indigenous, community and nonprofit organizations, published a paper in September 2023 calling for a moratorium on the forest carbon trade out of concern for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- PACT says a pause in selling carbon credits is needed until protections for the land rights of these communities are laid out “explicitly, proactively, and comprehensively.”
- In December at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai, carbon markets experienced a setback after negotiators failed to agree on texts to articles in the 2015 Paris climate agreement meant to guide the carbon trade.
The year in rainforests: 2023
- The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines.
- While the data is still preliminary, it appears that deforestation declined across the tropics as a whole in 2023 due to developments in the Amazon, which has more than half the world’s remaining primary tropical forests.
- Some of the other big storylines for the year: Lula prioritizes the Amazon; droughts in the Amazon and Indonsia; Indonesia holds the line on deforestation despite el Niño; regulation on imports of forest-risk commodities; an eventful year in the forest carbon market; rainforests and Indigenous peoples; and rampant illegality.
For forests, COP28 was better than expected, but worse than needed
- The COP28 climate summit in Dubai was a mixed bag for forest conservation as climate mitigation.
- The final text included the goals from the 2021 Glasgow Declaration, which calls for halting deforestation by the end of the decade.
- However, the summit failed to make progress on paying countries to keep forests standing to offset emissions elsewhere, which has run into trouble following carbon offset scandals.
- Observers say the COP30 summit in Brazil in 2025 will see a larger push for forest protection.
Shrinking civil space and persistent logging: 2023 in review in Southeast Asia
- Home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest and some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Southeast Asia has seen conservation wins and losses over the course of 2023.
- The year was characterized by a rising trend of repression against environmental and Indigenous defenders that cast a shadow of fear over the work of activists in many parts of the region.
- Logging pressure in remaining tracts of forest remained intense, and an El Niño climate pattern brought regional haze crises generated by forest fires and agricultural burning returned.
- But some progress was made on several fronts: Most notably, increasing understanding of the benefits and methods of ecosystem restoration underpinned local, national and regional efforts to bring back forests, mangroves and other crucial sanctuaries of biodiversity.
New dams in Cambodia pit ‘green’ hydropower against REDD+ project
- The recent approval of two hydropower dams in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains could undermine a REDD+ carbon project in the area.
- The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project relies on keeping the forests in this region standing — a goal researchers say is “completely incompatible” with the forest clearing and flooding necessitated by the new dams.
- The lack of transparency inherent in both the carbon market and the Cambodian government means that the fate of the Cardamoms remains unclear for now.
COP28 cements goal to halt forest loss in 7 years, but where’s the money?
- While COP28 in Dubai included a goal to halt and reverse forest loss by the end of the decade, tropical forest nations say they are still not seeing the funding required to keep forests standing.
- The Democratic Republic of the Congo says it has not seen any of the $500 million pledged to it two years ago to protect the Congo Basin rainforest, the second-largest in the world.
- As forest nations wait for funding, some are controversially turning to untapped fossil fuel reservoirs underneath the forests.
- While carbon credits have come under fire this year, many at COP28 still say they see carbon credits as one way to bring in much needed funding to keep carbon and wildlife-rich forests standing.
Major soy producers announce improved deforestation commitments—with caveats
- Eight soy producers published a statement last week committing to halting deforestation in the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco biomes by 2025 and the conversion of “non-forest primary native vegetation” by 2030.
- The companies include ADM, Amaggi, Bunge, Cargill, COFCO, LDC, Olam Agri and Viterra.
- Conservation groups have pointed out that without an immediate ban on deforestation, the new commitments would allow soy producers to continue clearing forests in years to come.
Tropical deforestation increases even as a few hotspots see respite, new data shows
- Emissions from deforestation in tropical forests rose by 5% in 2022, even as temperate forests strengthened their role as carbon sinks, according to data from a carbon mapping tool developed by nonprofit CTrees.
- According to the data, emissions from deforestation saw a dip in Indonesia and the Congo Basin in 2022; in Brazil, however, emissions continued to rise through 2022, and only started dropping this year.
- The JMRV platform uses satellite imagery and machine learning to map forests and non-forest lands around the world to monitor forest cover, carbon stocks and emissions.
- In addition to broader global data, the tool can also help local jurisdictions monitor and verify their carbon stocks to keep track of their emissions-reduction progress under the Paris climate agreement.
How a group in Ecuador protects 10% of the world’s bird species
- The Jocotoco Foundation, an Ecuadorian non-profit organization, has carved out a distinctive approach to nature conservation in Ecuador, leveraging a mix of approaches to preserve habitats critical for endangered bird species and other wildlife.
- The group, which now has 15 reserves across Ecuador that protect 10% of the planet’s bird species, works with a range of partners, including local communities.
- Martin Schaefer, Jocotoco’s head, told Mongabay the group adapts its approach depending on local conditions and circumstances: “For each species, we analyse its threats, whether we, as Jocotoco, can make a difference and by how much. Then, we review what the best approach may be.
- Following Rhett Ayers Butler’s visit to Jocotoco’s Narupa Reserve in July, Schaefer spoke about the organization’s work, the global challenges facing wildlife, and the shifting tides of public perception towards the environment.
Guatemala braces for unprecedented year of deforestation in Maya reserve
- Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve is facing increased pressure from cattle ranching and farming at the same time that droughts threaten to spark an unprecedented wave of fires.
- A tumultuous government transition could also leave environmental agencies without enough funding and resources to keep up with the increased fires, which could further hinder efforts to tackle deforestation.
- The areas that have been traditionally badly hit by deforestation include Laguna del Tigre National Park and Sierra del Lacandón National Park, but there are signs that informal settlers are pushing into new parts of the reserve.
Panama copper mine to close after Supreme Court rules concession unconstitutional
- Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals (FQM), will have to shut down the Cobre Panamá mine after the country’s highest court ruled the concession contract unconstitutional.
- One of the challenges to the constitutionality of the contract focused on tendering, a process in which companies are invited to bid on a project, ensuring a fair market and competition.
- Last year, the mine produced over 86,000 tons of copper, around 1% of the world’s total production and 5% of Panama’s GDP. But the operation is also exacerbating a current drought and threatening migratory birds, protestors said.
Vizzuality data set aims to give companies full view of supply chain impacts
- Sustainability technology company Vizzuality has published an open-source data set that can help companies evaluate how much their products are contributing to ecological degradation and accelerating climate change.
- The data set is also available through LandGriffon, an environmental risk management software.
- The software maps supply chains and calculates the impacts of several environmental indicators, including deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, loss of natural ecosystems, and biodiversity loss resulting from agricultural production.
Jurisdictional REDD+ ready to fund forest-positive, socially-inclusive development in the Amazon and beyond (commentary)
- Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD) is designed to fund regional transitions to forest-positive, socially-inclusive rural development. It is fundamentally different than private forest carbon projects, which have come under scrutiny for overstating their climate benefits.
- JREDD rewards forest carbon emissions reductions already achieved across entire jurisdictions–states and nations–and provides a platform for the full participation of Indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers; it features a leadership role for governments that are becoming more transparent and inclusive in the process.
- The steep decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon means that several states are poised to issue a large volume of high-integrity, verified JREDD credits from 2024 onward. If the demand for these credits is sufficient, sales revenues could help states tame extensive forest frontiers with transparency and accountability, inspiring other regions to do the same.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Carbon counting without the guesswork: Q&A with FCL proponent Jerry Toth
- REDD+ projects aim to incentivize efforts that maintain standing forests, rather than cutting them down, by providing payments based on the carbon emissions kept out of the atmosphere.
- But REDD+, which is short for “reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,” has been widely criticized lately, in part because skeptics say that the accounting methods are open to manipulation by developers aiming to sell more credits — credits that many not represent a verifiable climate benefit.
- One alternative is the forest carbon ledger (FCL). FCL seeks to value the total amount of carbon in a forest and would provide payments based on how well that storage is maintained over time.
- Mongabay spoke with Jerry Toth, co-founder of a conservation group working to protect and restore the last remaining remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador called the Third Millennium Alliance (TMA). Toth said FCL may provide a more robust alternative to REDD+ carbon accounting.
In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Wildfire poses significant health risks to Indonesians, particularly children under 5, who especially suffered the effects of the 2019 haze.
- Farmers have long used fire in cultivation, and the risks to health and environment have grown significantly as deforestation and drainage have made peatlands particularly susceptible to fire.
- In 2022, women from the Indonesian part of Borneo formed “the Power of Mama,” a unit to fight hazardous wildfires and their causes.
Amazon deforestation has a regional, not just local impact: study
- A new study found that deforestation in the Amazon doesn’t just raise temperatures in the areas where the deforestation took place but rather throughout the entire region.
- Researchers analyzed satellite readings of surface temperatures at 3.7 million different data points across the Amazon where forest loss had occurred between 2001 and 2020.
- They found that localized deforestation had a strong impact on regional warming.
Critical questions remain as carbon credit deal in Sabah presses forward
- Details around a secretive “nature conservation agreement” signed in 2021 between a Singaporean company and the government of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, remain elusive.
- Several internationally known companies that work in climate mitigation have said they’re not affiliated with the agreement, despite implications by Jeffrey Kitingan, a deputy chief minister and the deal’s primary backer, that they are involved.
- Kitingan also revealed that Hoch Standard, the Singaporean company, is controlled by a single director through another company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
- Kitingan said the project is moving forward, leading to renewed calls from civil society, Indigenous and research organizations for the release of more details about the agreement.
Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop
- A new Greenpeace report alleges that pulp and paper giant APP continues to clear forests and develop peatlands 10 years after adopting its landmark 2013 pledge to stop destroying natural forests for its plantations.
- The report identifies 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of deforestation in APP supplier concessions or companies connected to APP between February 2013 and 2022 — an area the size of New York City.
- APP has also changed the start date of its no-deforestation policy from 2013 to 2020, which would allow the company at some point in the future to accept new suppliers that deforested between 2013 and 2020.
- APP denies allegations of continued deforestation and says its suppliers have ceased forest conversions since 2013; the company also says it has committed to peatland restoration.
Environmental groups speak out against arrival of Mennonite farmers to Suriname
- Mennonite farmers from Bolivia, Mexico and Belize are looking to buy thousands of hectares of land in Suriname. Conservation groups and Indigenous communities say it would be disastrous for the environment.
- Areas opened up by the Mennonites could provide new access for mining and logging, as well as jeopardize Indigenous communities’ campaign to obtain land rights.
- Faced with a lack of government transparency, a press conference demanding answers and publicizing the risks of large-scale agriculture was held by WWF, Conservation International, SAFE, Tropenbos International and Green Growth Suriname, among other environmental groups.
Origami-inspired sensor platforms tumble like leaves to study forests
- Scientists have developed a tiny, lightweight, shape-shifting platform that can hold a variety of environmental sensors and be dropped from drones to study far-flung locations.
- The design for the platforms, known as microfliers, was inspired by origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.
- Each microflier can snap between two shapes while in the air, allowing them to have different trajectories and thus disperse across a larger area when they land.
- Though they haven’t been used in any scientific studies yet, microfliers could be useful for the large-scale deployment of environmental sensors measuring and transmitting data on pressure, temperature, humidity, or lighting conditions, among others.
Plan to bring Mennonite farmers to Suriname sparks deforestation fears
- Investors from Argentina and the Netherlands have spent the past several years trying to bring Mennonite farming communities to Suriname from Belize, Mexico and Bolivia.
- Mennonite farmers have faced criticism for clearing thousands of hectares of forest across Latin America, often in protected areas and Indigenous territories.
- The company behind the project is called Terra Invest Suriname & Guyana, and plans to purchase as much as 30,000 hectares (about 74,000 acres) for approximately 1,000 Mennonite families.
Communities track a path of destruction through a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Illegal logging persists deep in the heart of Cambodia’s Chhaeb-Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary amid government inaction and even complicity with the loggers.
- Routine patrols by local activists and community members have painstakingly documented the site of each logged tree in the supposedly protected area, even as these community patrols have been banned by the authorities.
- Mongabay reporters joined one of these patrols in April, where a run-in with rangers underscored complaints that the authorities crack down harder on those seeking to protect the forest than on those destroying it.
- A government official denied that the logging was driven by commercial interests, despite evidence to the contrary, instead blaming local communities for cutting down trees to build homes.
Restoring degraded forests may be key for climate, study says
- Scientists have found that focusing on restoring degraded forests, which cover more than 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) globally, can enhance forest carbon stocks more efficiently than replanting in deforested areas, with natural regrowth being a cost-effective method.
- In Central America’s “Five Great Forests,” there’s a goal to restore 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) by 2030. The study identified 9.8 million hectares (24.2 billion acres) as top restoration priorities, with 91% being degraded forests.
- Restoring just 5% of these priority zones was calculated to potentially sequester 113 million tons of CO2, equivalent to taking more than 20 million cars off the road for a year.
- The research emphasizes the importance of involving local communities in restoration planning and suggests that current forest management practices, like those in the timber industry, need to adapt for more sustainable outcomes.
VIDEO: The truth about Cambodia’s Prey Lang sanctuary | Chasing Deforestation
- Chasing Deforestation is a series that explores the world’s most threatened forests through satellite data and reporters on the ground.
- Cambodia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, and the situation in the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary which spans four provinces is emblematic of the problem.
- Preliminary satellite data from Global Forest Watch indicate that deforestation in Prey Lang in 2023 is set to surpass both 2022 and 2021, with the latter year marking the highest recorded forest loss since the start of the century.
- In the latest episode of Chasing Deforestation, reporter Gerry Flynn investigates what’s happening inside the protected area.
Logging route cut into Cambodia’s Prey Lang from Think Biotech’s concession
- A road carved from a reforestation concession into the heart of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia appears to be facilitating the illegal logging and trafficking of valuable timber, a Mongabay investigation has revealed.
- The road originates in the concession of Think Biotech, a company previously implicated in forestry crimes, but its director denies being involved in the new road.
- The road had advanced 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the ostensibly protected Prey Lang before authorities ordered a crackdown — one that activists say was just for show and targeted only small-time loggers.
- Community groups and activists say Prey Lang’s forests are being decimated at alarming rates, with satellite data showing nearly the same amount of forest cover loss in the past five years as in the previous 18.
Defending a forest for tree kangaroos and people: Q&A with Fidelis Nick
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) has worked for more than two decades now with communities in the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea to benefit the three species of tree kangaroo that reside in the region.
- Several dozen communities signed on to a moratorium on hunting tree kangaroos, and today, species numbers are substantially higher than they were before the TCA’s work began.
- The communities have also benefited from the TCA’s economic development projects, which have included rabbit rearing, rainwater catchment systems, and solar-powered lighting installations.
- The TCA has also been working toward official government recognition of the proposed Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area. However, progress toward gazetting the protected area appears to have stalled, and mostly foreign logging companies continue to operate in the area, putting pressure on the forests of the Torricellis.
Swab a leaf and find a species. Or 50, thanks to eDNA
- A new study has highlighted swabbing leaves as a potentially effective way to gather DNA samples of vertebrates in terrestrial ecosystems.
- Researchers identified 50 species of animals in Kibale National Park in Uganda by swabbing leaves there for a little over an hour.
- This easy and cost-effective method could potentially help scientists and wildlife managers apply environmental DNA, or eDNA, analysis more widely to terrestrial settings.
- Sampling and analysis of eDNA has been gaining popularity among researchers as an effective and non-invasive way to survey large ecosystems, especially in aquatic settings; its use in terrestrial environments has, however, faced a few restrictions.
Forest restoration can fare better with human helping hand, study shows
- A two-decade-old experiment in the tropical rainforest of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, is beginning to reveal that human-assisted restoration of logged forests can increase the speed of an ecosystem’s recovery.
- The researchers also found that planting a diverse suite of seedlings, instead of only one species, led in just one decade to greater biomass and forest complexity.
- The study provides more weight to the argument that greater forest species diversity in general — and specifically for restorations — delivers more ecosystem services, possibly including carbon sequestration.
- However, there is the possibility that the particular life cycle of the type of trees used in this study — hardwood tropical species from the Dipterocarpaceae family, chiefly found in Southeast Asia — could have especially enhanced diversity in this case.
EU bill and new green policies spur progress on Brazil’s cattle tracking
- Brazilian banks have created new rules for releasing credit to meatpackers and slaughterhouses in Amazonian states in which their clients must implement traceability and monitoring systems by 2025 to show that their cattle didn’t come from illegal deforestation.
- Even the powerful Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) recognizes the cattle tracking demand and proposes a traceability model to the federal government.
- A new study shows that existing cattle companies’ zero-deforestation commitments have reduced Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 15% and that the devastation could be halved by scaling up the implementation of supply chain policies.
- The ideal animal tracking model is individual, but experts defend a middle-of-the-road solution to reduce illegal deforestation based on cross-referencing from inter-ranch cattle transport data and the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).
‘We don’t have much time’: Q&A with climate scientist Pierre Friedlingstein
- “It’s not going in the right direction yet,” Pierre Friedlingstein tells Mongabay of the effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals; a member of the IPCC and a climate professor, he says he’s mildly optimistic about the trend in global emissions.
- Friedlingstein says he’s hoping deforestation will go down in the coming years in Brazil, but he’s not sure that Indonesia, another major global carbon sink, is ready to go in the right direction at the moment.
- He says the COVID-19 pandemic showed that climate is still “not on the top of the list” of government priorities, given that all nations sought to boost economic growth after lockdowns, despite the carbon emissions they incurred.
Peru signs $20-million debt-for-nature swap with focus on Amazon rainforest
- Peru struck a $20 million debt-for-nature swap agreement with the U.S. that transfers debt payments to conservation initiatives like improving protected areas and natural resource management.
- The deal also included four NGOs: Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund. The groups donated a combined $3 million in addition to the $15 million contributed by the U.S.
- This is the third debt-for-nature swap deal struck with Peru. The U.S. has now made 13 debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps in Latin America and 22 worldwide.
In Panama, an Indigenous kingdom fights for its right to the forest
- Panama’s Indigenous Naso kingdom has spent decades fighting for land rights in the form of a comarca. But after finally getting one in 2020, struggles to demarcate and protect the land have become increasingly overwhelming.
- The Naso lack the resources to establish the borders of their territory, which makes preventing farming and other drivers of deforestation extremely difficult.
- During a patrol accompanied by Mongabay, some Naso residents encountered Indigenous Ngäbe living within the comarca and began a heated discussion, revealing just how difficult community-led conservation can be in practice.
How the Amazon’s ‘greatest devastator’ sold cattle to a Carrefour supplier
- Arrested by Brazilian Federal Police, cattle rancher Bruno Heller and relatives have already received over $5 million in environmental fines. He is also suspected of land grabbing.
- Heller transported cattle from a family farm fined for environmental violations to two other properties free from environmental implications — this maneuver is an indication of the so-called “cattle laundering.”
- A Frialto Group meatpacking plant confirmed that it slaughtered 249 animals for the Heller family. The facility supplies Carrefour, but the French retail company states that the meat from animals raised by Heller did not reach its supermarkets.
Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
- Cambodia expanded the coverage of its protected areas by 1.06 million hectares (2.62 million acres) in July and August, a flurry of subdecrees shows.
- However, civil society groups have expressed skepticism about the lack of consultation involved in the process and the ability of authorities to police this much larger area, given the ineffective enforcement of existing protected areas.
- Much of the newly protected land appears to be corridors neighboring existing protected areas, where homes and farms are already established.
- This has raised concerns about a surge in conflicts over land and access to natural resources, particularly affecting Indigenous communities.
REDD+ projects falling far short of claimed carbon cuts, study finds
- New research reveals that forest carbon credits are not offsetting the vast majority of emissions that providers claim.
- A team of scientists looked at 26 REDD+ deforestation-prevention project sites on three continents, leading to questions about how the developers calculate the impact of their projects.
- The researchers found that about 94% of the credits from these projects don’t represent real reductions in carbon emissions.
- Verra, the world’s largest carbon credit certifier, said the methods the team used to arrive at that conclusion were flawed, but also added it was in the process of overhauling its own REDD+ standards.
What drives and halts tropical deforestation? Analyzing 24 years of data
- Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 320 studies covering a period of 24 years, to identify the key drivers of tropical deforestation.
- Deforestation is driven largely by agriculture and cattle ranching, building roads, expanding cities into forests, and population growth.
- Factors halting deforestation include steeper, less accessible terrain, stronger protections for parks and reserves, Indigenous land management, commodity certification programs, and payments for ecosystem services.
- Researchers say they hope the study can be “a resource to guide policies and management toward actions that help reverse deforestation.”
A tale of two biomes as deforestation surges in Cerrado but wanes in Amazon
- Brazil has managed to bring down spiraling rates of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest in the first half of this year, but the neighboring Cerrado savanna has seen a wave of environmental destruction during the same period.
- The country’s second largest biome, the Cerrado is seeing its highest deforestation figure since 2018; satellite data show 3,281 hectares (8,107 acres) per day have been cleared since the start of the year through Aug. 4.
- The leading causes of the rising deforestation rates in the Cerrado are a disparity in conservation efforts across Brazil’s biomes, an unsustainable economic model that prioritizes monocultures, and escalating levels of illegal native vegetation clearing.
- Given the importance of the Cerrado to replenish watersheds across the continent, its destruction would affect not just Brazil but South America too, experts warn, adding that the region’s water, food and energy security are at stake.
Ecuador referendum halts oil extraction in Yasuní National Park
- Millions of people participated in a nationwide referendum to determine whether crude oil should remain in the ground indefinitely at a site inside Yasuní National Park in Ecuador’s eastern Amazon.
- More than 5.2 million people voted in favor compared with 3.6 million against, solidifying protections for Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation.
- The referendum took place alongside presidential and legislative elections as well as a referendum on halting mining in the Chocó Andino de Pichincha. That referendum received nearly 70% support from voters.
Mexico announces 13 new protected areas, with more to come
- Mexico introduced six new national parks and seven flora and fauna protection areas covering 17,918 hectares (44,276 acres) to be overseen by the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp).
- The protected areas are located in the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Oaxaca and Guerrero.
- Mexico now has 200 federally protected areas.
Congo Basin’s elephants boost carbon capture, but need salt-licks to survive
- Forest elephants’ browsing habits play a vital role in shaping their habitat, allowing large, carbon-dense tree species to thrive.
- The elephants frequent muddy, mineral-rich clearings called baïs which are a unique feature of the Congo Basin rainforest.
- Researchers are studying elephants and baïs in neighboring Republic of Congo and Central African Republic to better understand the relationship between forests, clearings, and the pachyderms that knit them together.
Can upcoming referendum in Ecuador stop oil drilling in Yasuní National Park?
- On Aug. 20, Ecuadorians will vote in a binding referendum on whether they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.
- Environmentalists have been fighting for this referendum for nearly 10 years; meanwhile, drilling in ITT began in 2016, and today 225 wells produce 54,800 barrels of oil per day.
- But the decision won’t be easy for Ecuadorians, as oil has been a major driver of economic growth for the country since the 1970s. Exports today account for more than 10% of the country’s GDP.
- In August, Ecuadorians will also vote on whether or not to allow mining to continue in the Andean Choco forest. This is not the first time a referendum has been used in an attempt to control large-scale extractive projects in the country, and it likely won’t be the last.
Asian elephants’ picky diet helps shape their forest home, study shows
- A new study based on close observations of the foraging behavior of Asian elephants in a Malaysian forest highlights the “profound” impact of the giant herbivores on plant and tree diversity.
- The findings suggest that by selectively feeding on their preferred food plants, such as grasses, palms, liana vines and fast-growing trees, elephants are can shape the structure of their rainforest home.
- The researchers call for more conservation focus on elephants given their important influence on forest ecosystem health and globally important processes like carbon sequestration.
- The team also suggests the findings could be applied to practical conservation solutions aiming to restore wildlife corridors and improve the condition of reserves for megafauna species.
Protecting the Amazon requires fresh thinking, veteran ecologist argues
- An ecologist and conservation biologist with 30 years of experience living in the Amazon region, Tim Killeen wants conservationists to think outside the box when it comes to incentivizing Amazon protection.
- He likens changing the deforestation pathway of the Pan Amazon to “turning an ocean liner” in that “pressure must be applied to the rudder of state” over a long period of time to drive change.
- That change, he says, must come from taking into consideration a variety of economic factors and pressures that each state in the Amazon faces, to provide viable ideas and solutions that incentivize forest protection.
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Killeen shares some key points from the second edition of his book, A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness; what inspired him to work in conservation; his advice for up-and-coming conservationists; and what gives him hope.
In Sabah, natural capital agreement surfaces again, despite critics
- In October 2021, an agreement signed without public knowledge by members of the Sabah state government, a Singaporean firm and an Australian consultancy committed 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of land in the Bornean state to a 100-year carbon deal.
- Since Mongabay surfaced news of the agreement in November 2021, the project has stalled in the face of a wave of criticism about its origins and planned implementation.
- In recent weeks, the proponents of the deal, including Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan, have publicly resumed efforts to bring the agreement into force.
- Civil society groups opposed to the project say that concerns remain over Indigenous rights and lack of transparency or details about the planned project.
Cameroon government again opens way for logging in Ebo Forest
- Cameroon’s government is again planning to open a portion of Ebo Forest to logging, despite its status as a refuge for numerous endangered species including gorillas and chimpanzees.
- A local leader of the Indigenous Banen community, who have a claim to the territory they were expelled from in the 1950s and 60s, says most Munen are opposed to the move.
- The same portion of Ebo was briefly opened for logging in 2020, but the government reversed course. Local politicians have remained intent on reclassifying parts of the forest.
- Activists say the latest reclassification failed to meet legal requirements, particularly regarding consultation of local communities.
Forest campaign group renews charge that carbon credit verification schemes are flawed
- A new assessment conducted by Rainforest Foundation UK raises fresh concerns about the validity of carbon offsetting schemes.
- The campaign group claims that all the leading carbon credit verification schemes have allowed millions of credits to enter the voluntary carbon market which do not accurately represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
- RFUK is calling for a shift in emphasis to measures like global carbon levies and debt relief for poor countries, which it says would address root causes of emissions.
- Verra and several REDD+ project managers told Mongabay RFUK’s analysis is ideologically motivated, insisting that while verifying credits is not perfect, it is producing genuine, positive results.
XPRIZE Rainforest finalists named for top conservation technology award
- The California-based XPRIZE Foundation that organizes competitions incentivizing innovations in health, energy and other sectors, has announced the six finalists for its rainforest biodiversity competition.
- Aimed at developing novel technologies for biodiversity mapping, XPRIZE Rainforest comes with a $10 million prize.
- Mongabay staff writer Abhishyant Kidangoor attended the semifinals in Singapore last month and spoke with Peter Houlihan, executive vice president of biodiversity and conservation at XPRIZE, to learn more about why the competition was launched and how, as Houlihan says, it has become a movement.
Study confirms surge in deforestation in Indigenous lands under Bolsonaro
- A study found a 129% increase in deforestation within Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon between 2013 and 2021.
- As a result, an estimated 96 million metric tons of carbon was released in the atmosphere during that period.
- Researchers attribute the trend to illegal extractive activities, cattle ranching and land grabbing by invaders and some Indigenous people.
- Though the amount of deforestation within Indigenous territories is still small compared to deforestation outside of them, the study authors say reducing deforestation in these lands should be a priority to guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples and help Brazil meet its forest conservation goals.
From cardamom to carbon: Bold new Tanzanian project is regrowing a rainforest
- Farmers in eastern Tanzania are regrowing rainforest trees on part of their land.
- The farmers receive payments from the sale of carbon credits to supplement their incomes and to compensate them for loss of land and cash crops.
- So far, close to 270,000 trees have been planted on 200 hectares (494 acres) of farms located on the flanks of the Nguru Mountains.
- Nguru’s forests, home to a wealth of unique animal and plant species, are under increasing pressure from farmers who fell trees to grow crops, including valuable cardamom spice.
The value of mountains: Q&A with Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa
- John Lyakurwa grew up fascinated by the chameleons he found on his family’s coffee farm on Mount Kilimanjaro.
- That passion inspired him to study conservation science, to specialize in herpetology, and to research a unique group of forest toads in remote parts of Tanzania.
- Lyakurwa’s research takes him regularly to the Eastern Arc Mountains, a biodiversity hotspot threatened by agriculture.
- He says raising awareness about the unique and diverse creatures that live in the mountains and their forests can help to preserve them and the benefits they bring to humans.
Drug trafficking fuels other deforestation drivers in the Amazon: report
- The 2023 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime looks at the impact of organized crime on deforestation and pollution in the Amazon rainforest.
- While coca cultivation is often discussed as the main driver of deforestation connected to drug trafficking, the report argues that it has a minimal impact compared to some other peripheral activities.
- Drug trafficking is intimately connected to cattle ranching, illegal mining, wildlife trafficking and land grabbing, all of which have major environmental footprints in the Amazon.
Forests in the furnace: Cambodians risking life and liberty to fuel garment factories
- Entire villages in parts of Cambodia have turned to illegal logging of natural forests to supply the firewood needed by garment factories churning out products for international fashion brands.
- Mongabay spoke with several people who acknowledged the illegal and dangerous nature of their work, but who said they had no other viable means of livelihood.
- The work pits them against rangers they accuse of heavy-handed tactics, including the seizure or destruction of their trucks and equipment, arrests, and extortion.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
Forests in the furnace: Can fashion brands tackle illegal logging in their Cambodian supply chains?
- Global fashion brands touting sustainability claims continue to buy from their contract factories in Cambodia that burn illegally logged wood in their boilers.
- Mongabay reached out to 14 international brands that listed factories identified in a report as using illegal forest wood, but they either didn’t respond or evaded questions on illegal logging in their supply chains.
- One prominent brand, Sweden’s H&M, has developed an app that allows its partner factories to identify deliveries of forest wood, but industry insiders say there are ways to circumvent it, and that the government should be playing a bigger role in the issue.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
Timber harvests to meet global wood demand will bring soaring emissions: Study
- At a time when the world desperately needs to reduce its carbon emissions, global timber harvests to meet soaring demand for wood products — including paper and biomass for energy — could produce more than 10% of total global carbon emissions over coming decades, a new groundbreaking study finds.
- Global wood consumption could grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, creating a demand for timber that would result in a “clear-cut equivalent” in area roughly the size of the continental U.S., adding 3.5 to 4.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually for years to come.
- The study scientists warn that flawed national climate policies and faulty carbon accounting are failing to accurately forecast these potential carbon emissions resulting from the cutting of natural forests.
- The researchers point out that less natural forests need to be cut to meet the rising global demand for wood products. That demand could partially be met by increasing wood production in already existing plantation forests.
Scientists hope to tech the heck out of eDNA sampling with drones, robots
- The collection of DNA samples with the assistance of drones and robots was a recurring theme at the semifinals of a $10 million competition to identify automated rainforest conservation solutions.
- At least half of the 13 teams used drones and robots to retrieve genetic samples left behind by wildlife on tree canopies, water and air.
- As the field of environmental DNA, or eDNA, evolves, there’s rising interest in using automated technology to collect samples from difficult terrain.
- While limitations continue to exist, scientists say they’re hopeful that the gaps will be filled as the field of eDNA continues to grow.
What’s in store for Colombia’s forests? New modeling tries to predict.
- In an attempt to chart some outcomes for the future of Colombia’s forests, the Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy (FABLE) consortium looked at three different directions the country could take with its current policies.
- One was more passive, while the others were more hands-on and creative. All of them relied on evolving agriculture, forestry and bioenergy trends, represented by a model known as GLOBIOM-Colombia.
- Overall, FABLE found that the country will need a more consistent and innovative approach to deforestation to meet many of its conservation goals.
The Amazon saw record deforestation last year. Here’s why.
- An estimated 1.98 million hectares (4.89 million acres) of forest were cleared in 2022, a 21% increase from 2021.
- It was the worst year for deforestation since 2004, according to Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Amazon Project (MAAP), which analyzed satellite readings from Global Forest Watch.
- The deforestation was caused by cattle ranching, agriculture, mining and road projects in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Miyawaki forests are a global sensation, but not everyone’s sold on them
- The Miyawaki method is an afforestation technique for cultivating fast-growing groves of native plants, with the dense, mixed planting intended to simulate the layers of a natural forest.
- Originally developed by Japanese ecologist Akira Miyawaki in the early 1970s for Nippon Steel, the method has been adopted by various Japanese corporations, which planted Miyawaki forests both domestically and overseas.
- Although the popularity of Miyawaki forests has skyrocketed in India, some ecological restoration practitioners question the method’s applicability to the country’s diverse ecological environments.
Meet the tech projects competing for a $10m prize to save rainforests
- Thirteen teams took part in the semifinals of a $10 million competition that aims to identify technologies that would automate the assessment of rainforest biodiversity.
- During the semifinals in Singapore, a wide array of projects that incorporated drones, robots and machine learning were tested by the teams.
- The teams that move to the next round, to be announced in July, will get one year to improve their projects ahead of the finals in 2024.
Venezuela’s environmental crisis is getting worse. Here are seven things to know.
- A new report from the Venezuelan Observatory for Political Ecology (OEP) details the most pressing environmental issues facing Venezuela.
- They include oil spills, illegal mining, deforestation, tourism, poor waste management, water shortages and climate change.
- The Venezuelan government has done very little to address these problems, the report said, and has even turned a blind eye to them in order to improve the country’s economy.
Militarized conservation: Insecurity for some, security for others? (commentary)
- The militarization of conservation has been heavily criticized by critical social scientists, Indigenous rights activists and NGOs for resulting in human rights violations and the marginalization of Indigenous and local communities.
- In war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), field research and interviews by Dr Fergus O’Leary Simpson of University of Antwerp finds that many Indigenous and local people perceive armed park guards in Kahuzi-Biega National Park as a source of insecurity while others see them as a source of stability. The effects on broader conflict and instability are mixed.
- The authors of this op-ed, Dr Fergus O’Leary Simpson and Professor Lorenzo Pellegrini of Erasmus University Rotterdam, argue that militarized conservation presents the only viable means of conservation law enforcement in regions like the eastern DRC, where multiple armed actors violently compete for control of land and resources within protected areas.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Global study of 71,000 animal species finds 48% are declining
- A new study evaluating the conservation status of 71,000 animal species has shown a huge disparity between “winners” and “losers.” Globally, 48% of species are decreasing, 49% remain stable, and just 3% are rising. Most losses are concentrated in the tropics.
- Extinctions skyrocketed worldwide with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, especially since World War II, when resource extraction and consumption rates soared, and the planet saw exponential growth in human population to 8 billion by 2022.
- Habitat destruction, especially in the tropics, is the major driver. But a confluence of human activities, ranging from climate change, to wildlife trafficking, hunting, invasive species, pollution and other causes, are combining to drive animal declines.
- The research also revealed that one-third of non-endangered species are in decline. These data, say the researchers, could provide an early warning for preemptive conservation action by spotlighting species slipping downhill, but where there’s still time to act — and prevent extinction.
Competing for rainforest conservation: Q&A with XPRIZE’s Kevin Marriott
- The semifinal testing for a $10 million competition to identify technology that automates the assessment of rainforest biodiversity is underway in Singapore.
- The five-year competition is organized by California-based nonprofit XPRIZE Foundation.
- From robotic dogs to drones and novel methods to gather environmental DNA, 13 teams are competing for a place in the finals next year.
Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
- Indigenous communities with land rights in Brazil’s Amazon not only curb deforestation, but better restore deforested land in their territories than the privately owned and unincorporated lands around them.
- Secondary forest coverage on previously deforested lands grew 5% inside Indigenous territories with tenure over the 33-year research period. This is 23% more growth than directly outside their borders.
- Secondary forests are around two years older on average inside Indigenous territories than outside their borders.
- Some scientists worry that reforestation research and policies are distracting from a much larger issue in the Amazon: the deforestation of old-growth forests. But these authors say policies that support Indigenous land rights can help stop deforestation and restore forests.
Shipibo communities create Indigenous guard to protect Peruvian Amazon from deforestation
- The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo peoples, living in Peru’s Ucayali department, near the border with Brazil, have created an Indigenous guard that will help patrol this part of the Amazon and protect their land and resources.
- Indigenous leaders say the rainforest is being destroyed by drug trafficking, logging, oil palm plantations, oil spills, new highways, illegal fishing, and expanding Mennonite communities.
- A lack of government assistance has forced the 175 Indigenous communities to coordinate their own patrols, covering more than 8 million hectares (about 20 million acres).
- So far, the Indigenous guard has made 45 interventions against illegal fishermen, but is still in the process of organizing the various communities and fine-tuning their logistics.
Head of Verra, top carbon credit certifier, to leave in June
- David Antonioli is the founding CEO of Verra, the world’s most prominent carbon credit standards organization.
- Antonioli will leave the post in June amid increasing scrutiny of carbon markets and credits, as well as the methodologies by which they are certified to ensure they provide climate benefits that do not come at the expense of communities.
- Indigenous groups and forest communities are often key participants in restoration and protection efforts to boost carbon sequestration.
- But they say that little of the financing for climate mitigation flows directly to them, and they also want a more prominent role in the discussions about climate change mitigation projects and the future of mechanisms like carbon credits and markets.
A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
- An online tool developed last year by the NGO Global Witness aims to monitor and expose deforestation linked to the indirect supply chain of Brazilian meat company JBS.
- Brazil Big Beef Watch, a Twitter bot, uses satellite data and cattle transit permit data to identify whether a ranch where deforestation was detected is part of JBS’s supply chain.
- Environmentalists have often criticized JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, for being opaque about its indirect supply chain and its inability to take action.
- The new tool, Global Witness says, aims to serve as a way to call on JBS to take action and for the company’s financers to stop backing it until JBS can prove that its supply chain is deforestation-free.
Second chance for Lula as controversial Amazon dam goes up for renewal
- In the biological and cultural hotspot of the Volta Grande in Brazil’s Amazon, Indigenous communities and scientists have teamed up to monitor the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric project, one of the biggest in the world.
- The dam complex has diverted 80% of the Xingu River’s water flow, significantly affecting the aquatic life in the Volta Grande river bend and pushing the entire ecosystem toward collapse, along with the local communities who rely on it.
- The complex’s environmental license, which lasts six years and dictates the amount of water flowing through Belo Monte, is currently up for review by the federal environmental protection agency, IBAMA.
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva played a key role in pushing for the construction of Belo Monte, and now, back in power, can influence a new path for the environment and local communities, activists say.
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.
Inaugural Indigenous women’s forum spotlights Congo Basin conservation
- This week, leaders from Indigenous women’s organizations, environment and land management groups and philanthropists are meeting in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, for a forum aimed at strengthening the role of Indigenous women in Congo Basin land management and conservation.
- Organizers hope the forum will result in a fund for Central African Indigenous women supporting biodiversity and climate resilience.
- Research shows that 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found in territory managed by Indigenous peoples, yet Congo Basin countries receive scarce funding for conservation.
Indigenous groups voice support for REDD+, despite flaws
- A letter published May 9 and signed by a group of Indigenous-led organizations backs a mechanism for providing compensation in return for forest protection efforts known as REDD+, which is short for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.”
- The aim of REDD+ is to provide results-based funding for economic development tied to those protection efforts, with financing coming from credits sold to companies and individuals to account for their carbon emissions.
- But critics question how carbon credits are calculated, and others have concerns about the lack of consent and participation by Indigenous and local communities most affected by REDD+ work.
- The letter argues that REDD+, in despite its shortcomings, is one of the few direct funding flows to communities for climate-related work, and they call for greater inclusion in the broader conversation about REDD+ and carbon credits and offsets.
World’s ‘largest’ tropical reforestation project slowed by Covid, Bolsonaro, fires
- In 2017, Conservation International launched what was dubbed the “largest tropical forest restoration in the world” and slated for the Brazilian Amazon. Despite a goal of completing the project by the end of this year, CI is less than 20% of the way there.
- According to project managers, the initiative has been slowed by two main factors: the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2019-2022 presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
- But fire, once a rarity in the Amazon, has also played a role, destroying 2,700 hectares (nearly 6,700 acres) of restoration areas in 2021 alone.
- Still, the initiative is moving ahead across the “arc of deforestation,” with organizers hoping to prove it’s possible to restore the rapidly receding southern edge of the Brazilian Amazon before a large part of the rainforest biome hits a tipping point and changes over to savanna — releasing huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere.
The U.S. has cataloged its forests. Now comes the hard part: Protecting them
- In April 2022, President Biden instructed the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to do a thorough inventory of forested public lands as a part of his climate mitigation strategies to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.
- The new study, released April 20, identifies a total of 112.8 million acres of mature and old-growth forests on federal lands across all 50 states, an area larger than the state of California.
- Forest advocates largely heralded the new inventory, so long as it serves as a road map for putting those millions of acres off-limits to logging so the forests and their biodiversity can remain intact to fight climate change.
- The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have long supported logging for timber and other wood products on the majority of lands they oversee. During a 60-day public comment period, forest advocates will argue that all forests in the inventory be fully protected from logging.
High-carbon peat among 1,500 hectares cleared for Indonesia’s food estate
- A number of reports have found that an Indonesian government program to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country has led to deforestation.
- More than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of forests, including carbon-rich peatlands, have been cleared in Central Kalimantan province for the so-called food estate program, according to a spatial analysis by the NGO Pantau Gambut.
- Last year, the NGO Kaoem Telapak detected 100 hectares (250 acres) of deforestation in food estate areas in North Sumatra.
- Villagers whose lands have been included in the program have also reported an increase in the severity of floods since their forests were cleared to make way for the food estates.
Indigenous women in Colombia protect rich Amazonian wetland from overfishing
- Dozens of Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon are monitoring, managing, raising awareness and restoring a wetland ecosystem impacted by overfishing.
- After partnering with environmental organizations to establish a fishing agreement in the area, they have witnessed the increase and recovery of fish species such as sardines, catfish and the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas).
- The wetland area of Lake Tarapoto, located in the department of Amazonas in southern Colombia, provides a habitat for numerous aquatic animals and supports the livelihoods of 22 Indigenous communities.
World’s newest great ape faces habitat loss, multiple threats: Will it survive?
- Scientists designated the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) as a new species in 2017, and it was immediately noted as being the rarest and most threatened great ape with fewer than 800 individuals in western Indonesia.
- The IUCN estimated the apes’ population fell by 83% in recent decades, and the species continues to face grave threats due to habitat loss, a gold mine, a hydroelectric plant and the expansion of croplands.
- While some conservation efforts offer hope, researchers say a coordinated plan is needed to ensure the species survives.
Reconnecting ‘island habitat’ with wild corridors in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this third story, the NGO Saving Nature works to create wild corridors to reconnect fragmented patches of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.
Mountain islands: Restoring a transitional cloud forest in Costa Rica
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by ocean as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, and greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soil and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this second story, two tourists vacationing in Costa Rica and stunned by the deforestation they see, buy degraded land next to Chirripó National Park and restore a transitional cloud forest.
From ukuleles to reforestation: Regrowing a tropical forest in Hawai‘i
- This three-part Mongabay mini-series examines grassroots forest restoration projects carried out within isolated island ecosystems — whether those islands are surrounded by water as on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, or cloud forest mountaintop habitat encircled by lowlands in Costa Rica, or forest patches hemmed in by human development in Brazil.
- Reforestation of degraded island habitat is a first step toward restoring biodiversity made rare by isolation, and to mitigating climate threats. Though limited in size, island habitats can be prime candidates for reforestation because extinctions are typically much higher on isolated habitat islands than in more extensive ecosystems.
- Scientists mostly agree that the larger the forest island habitat, the greater its biodiversity, and the more resilient that forest system will be against climate change. Forests also store more carbon than degraded agricultural lands, and add moisture to soils and the atmosphere as a hedge against global warming-intensified drought.
- The projects featured in this series are small in size, but if scaled up could become big forest nature-based climate solutions. In this first story, two ukulele makers strive to save Hawai‘i’s koa tree, found nowhere else in the world. In the process they restore a biodiverse tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano.
Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
- A new study supports mounting evidence that deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest correlates with a reduction in regional rainfall.
- Experts say this research reinforces the findings of other studies that claim the Amazon is leaning toward its “tipping point” and the southern regions are gradually becoming drier.
- Environmentalists see this research as an opportunity to reshape conservation activism and policy towards local communities.
Mobilizing Amazon societies to reduce forest carbon emissions and unlock the carbon market (commentary)
- Brazil could generate $10 billion or more from the global voluntary carbon market over the next four years through the sale of credits from Amazon states’ jurisdictional REDD+ programs; some states are already finalizing long-term purchase agreements.
- This funding would flow to those who are protecting the forest – Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, farmers, businesses, and government agencies – and the prospect of this funding could mobilize collective action to reduce emissions from illegal deforestation and degradation.
- Rapid progress in reducing emissions from Amazon deforestation and forest degradation – which represent half of Brazil’s nation-wide emissions – would also position Brazil to capture significant international funding for its national decarbonization process through the regulated carbon market that is under development through the UN Paris Agreement.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Conservationists decry palm oil giants’ exit from HCSA forest protection group
- Palm oil giants Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) and IOI Corporation Berhad have withdrawn from the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a mechanism that helps companies reach zero deforestation targets by distinguishing forest lands that should be protected from degraded lands that can be developed.
- The companies’ exit brings the total number of firms quitting the HCSA to four, with Wilmar International and Sime Darby Plantation stepping away from the committee in 2020.
- Environmentalists say this points to a startling industry trend in which industry giants are shirking responsibility for their harmful business practices.
- Both GAR and IOI say they remain committed to using the HCSA toolkit.
Chinese investment continues to hurt Latin American ecosystems, report says
- China has taken a special interest in deepening ties with Latin America over the last twenty years, providing billion in loans for mines, electric grids, trains and roads. But many of the country’s projects ignore regulations protecting the environment and local and Indigenous peoples.
- A report delivered this month to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explores 14 cases from nine Latin American countries in which there was some example of an environmental or human rights violation.
- The cases include mines, hydroelectric dams, oil fields, trains and animal processing plants across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
France seeks EU okay to fund biomass plants, burn Amazon forest to power Spaceport
- As the European Union finalizes its third Renewable Energy Directive (REDIII), France is seeking an exemption to enable the European Space Agency and French Space Agency to build and operate two biomass power plants in French Guiana. An estimated 5,300 hectares of Amazon rainforest would need to be cut and biomass crops grown on the cleared land to service the power plants.
- The biomass would be burned to help power Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The exemption request — which would allow EU and French public subsidies to flow to a France-based bioenergy plant builder — comes as the EU moves toward banning commodities contributing significantly to global deforestation.
- This latest move by France comes soon after it won an appeal of a 2021 court ruling in French Guiana that blocked massive Amazon clearcutting for croplands to provide liquid biofuels for three new, large power plants to make energy for the Fr. Guiana populace. Decisions on the REDIII exemption and liquid biofuels plan could come in March.
- Environmentalists are decrying the French Guiana biomass plans — and French President Emmanuel Macron’s passive support of them — not only for the Amazon deforestation it will cause, but because biomass burned to produce energy has been scientifically shown to release higher levels of carbon emissions than coal.
Bolivia has a soy deforestation problem. It’s worse than previously thought.
- Recently released satellite data from Bolivia shows that soy plantations were responsible for over 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of deforestation between 2001 and 2021.
- Nearly a quarter of the deforestation was caused by Mennonite communities, who purchased the land legally in hopes of expanding their simple, rural lifestyles.
- This better understanding of Mennonite activity in Bolivia comes from a new data set from Global Forest Watch, which combined soy plantation mapping with forest loss imagery to determine soy-driven deforestation.
Companies, big banks are still lagging on deforestation regulations: report
- Global Canopy’s annual Forest 500 report reviews the top 350 most influential companies and 150 financial institutions exposed to deforestation risk in their supply chains and investments.
- While many entities have developed some policies on deforestation, they’re not keeping up with the best practices needed for improving forest-risk supply chains, the report said.
- However, a new deforestation supply chain law in the European Union could force many of the largest companies and financial institutions to implement stricter regulations moving forward.
Palm oil plantation linked to Wilmar faces accusations in Liberia
- A report released by the Liberian and Dutch affiliates of Friends of the Earth says the Maryland Oil Palm Plantation in Liberia is abusing its workers and rural villagers.
- The company is owned by Côte D’Ivoire-based SIFCA, which is itself nearly 30% owned by the Singapore-based agribusiness giant Wilmar.
- Friends of the Earth’s Liberian affiliate said the company has polluted local waterways, beaten villagers it accuses of stealing palm fruit, and withheld pay from its contractors.
Kew Gardens joins local partners to save tropical plants from extinction
- The U.K.’s Kew Gardens does far more than preserve and display 50,000 living and 7 million preserved specimens of the world’s plants; it also educates the public about the importance of plant conservation via its famous London facility.
- In 2022, Kew Gardens identified 90 plants and 24 fungi completely new to science. They include the world’s largest giant water lily, with leaves more than 3 meters across, from Bolivia; and a 15-meter tree from Central America, named after the murdered Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres.
- The institution is working actively with local partners in many parts of the world, and especially in the tropics, to save these species in-situ, that is, where they were found. When Kew can’t do this, it saves seeds in its herbarium, carrying out ex-situ conservation.
- Kew researchers, along with scientists from tropical nations, are also working together to ensure that local communities benefit from this conservation work. The intention is to save these threatened plants for the long term, helping slow the pace of Earth’s current extinction crisis — the only one caused by humans.
Updated guide gives practical advice for buyers of tropical forest carbon credits
- An updated guide written by eight conservation and Indigenous organizations offers a detailed path forward for companies that want to compensate for their carbon emissions in addition to decarbonizing their supply chains.
- Though the carbon market faces criticism over the true value it brings to climate change mitigation, proponents say it can complement earnest efforts to decarbonize supply chains if used properly.
- The updated Tropical Forest Credit Integrity guide calls for due diligence on the part of companies to ensure the credits they purchase will result in climate gains.
- The authors of the guide also stress the importance of including Indigenous peoples and local communities in decisions about offset efforts.
New reserve in Ecuador secures over 3 million acres of forest
- The Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka Reserve covers 1,237,395 hectares (3,057,671 acres) of Andean and Amazonian forests in the Morona Santiago province of eastern Ecuador.
- The area has cloud forests, sandstone plateaus, Amazonian lowlands and floodplain forests that are home to thousands of species, many of them endemic.
- The reserve is intended to help protect against drivers of deforestation like mining, logging and cattle ranching.
- Indigenous Shuar and Achuar communities participated in a thorough consultation process to ensure that the reserve was meeting their vision for the future of the area.
Forest modeling misses the water for the carbon: Q&A with Antonio Nobre & Anastassia Makarieva
- An expanded understanding of forests’ role in moisture transport and heat regulation raises the stakes on the health of the Amazon Rainforest and the need to stop cutting trees.
- The biotic pump theory, conceived by scientists Anastassia Makarieva and the late Victor Gorshkov, suggests that forests’ impact on hydrology and cooling exceeds the role of carbon embodied in trees.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Makarieva and Brazilian scientist Antonio Nobre explain how the theory makes the case for a more urgent approach by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to protect the Amazon.
Indigenous communities threatened as deforestation rises in Nicaraguan reserves
- Nicaragua’s Bosawás and Indio Maíz biosphere reserves both experienced deforestation at the hands of illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers last year.
- Deforestation of the country’s largest primary forests has been a violent, ugly process for Indigenous communities, who were granted land titles and self-governance in the area in the 1980s but don’t have the resources to protect themselves.
- Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders believe the situation will only get worse moving into 2023, as gold mining accelerates and the government cracks down on opponents.
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.
Logging threats loom over tree kangaroo refuge in Papua New Guinea
- Logging is threatening the Torricelli Mountains, a biodiversity-rich forested range in Papua New Guinea known for its tree kangaroos and other threatened species of birds and mammals.
- Community conservation efforts have helped to increase the numbers of tree kangaroos, once nearly pushed to extinction by hunting and logging, in conjunction with development projects for the people of the Torricellis.
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance, a Papua New Guinean NGO, has led an effort to protect the area, but the government has yet to officially designate what would be the Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area.
- Satellite imagery shows the loss of forest and an increase in roadbuilding over the past two years. And residents of the Torricellis say that representatives of logging companies have been trying to secure permission to log the region’s forests.
From Japan to Brazil: Reforesting the Amazon with the Miyawaki method
- Reforestation using the Miyawaki method seeks to restore nature to its original state with results that can be seen in around six years.
- Miyawaki works around three concepts: trees should be native, several species should be randomly planted, and the materials for the seedlings and the soil should be organic.
- The method is suitable for urban areas, which gives it a significant capacity to connect human beings with nature, with benefits for the health and well-being of the population.
- Different from other reforestation methods that may seek a financial return, like agroforestry, the motivation of the Miyawaki method is purely ecological.
Indigenous people protect some of the Amazon’s last carbon sinks: Report
- A new report says forests managed by Indigenous communities tend to be carbon sinks rather than carbon sources, while areas under different management are often less predictable.
- Areas of the Amazon titled or under formal claim by Indigenous people have been some of the most secure and reliable net carbon sinks over the past two decades, sequestering more carbon than they’ve emitted.
- But Indigenous communities are feeling increasing outside pressure from economic development projects, one reason the report argues that Indigenous-managed forests must be secured.
For Indigenous Brazilians, capital attack was ‘scenario of war’ akin to deforestation
- The morning after protesters attacked government buildings in Brazil’s capital, Mongabay spoke with Indigenous Congresswoman Célia Xakriabá, who compared the act of vandalism to forest destruction: “This is this scenario of war when you deforest.”
- * Célia Xakriabá had just returned from seeing the damage to the National Congress building: “When they [the rioters] were there also in the Green Room, it made me remember that it is this scenario of war when the repossession takes place in the [Indigenous] territory.”
- One of the immediate effects of the attack was the temporary suspension of the official inauguration of longtime activist Sonia Guajajara as Brazil’s first minister of Indigenous peoples and Anielle Franco as minister for racial equality.
- The two women were finally sworn in on Jan. 11 at the Presidential Palace, despite the missing glass on the walls, the destroyed gallery of photos of former presidents, and a swath of destruction throughout the building. “[This] is the most legitimate symbol of this secular Black and Indigenous resistance in Brazil!” Sonia Guajajara said.
‘Funai is ours’: Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency is reclaimed under Lula
- Some 300 people reunited at the headquarters of Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, in Brasília to mark a “new era” for the institution and its “reopening” under the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
- Under the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro, Funai’s officials said they were “forced to not fulfill our mission” regarding Indigenous peoples’ rights.
- Joenia Wapichana, who was the first ever Indigenous woman elected to Brazil’s Congress played a central role thwarting Bolsonaro’s bid to undermine Funai, has been appointed the president of the institution.
- Funai’s formal name has also been changed from the National Indian Foundation to the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples — a request from Native peoples leaders accepted by Lula and issued on his very first day in office.
From deforestation to restoration: Policy plots path to Amazon recovery
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new president, took office and promised to halt deforestation and to restore degraded land but plans to regenerate deforested areas remain unclear.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon at the COP27 climate summit provided the scientific basis to guide debates and decisions around the large-scale recovery of deforested and degraded areas.
- The most significant opportunity for large-scale and low-cost restoration is concentrated in public forests, protected areas and Indigenous lands that have suffered recent degradation.
- For areas with high levels of degradation, especially on private lands, productive restoration models capable of providing sustainable economic development are the main bet.
For restoration, microbes below ground are just as crucial as the plants above
- Planting soil microbiome like fungi together with trees as a part of ecosystem restoration could lead to an average 64% increase in plant growth, a new study has found.
- The research suggests that managed landscapes like farmland and forestry plantations have the greatest potential for restoration using soil organisms as they cover half of Earth’s habitable land area.
- Southeast Asia, in particular, presents an interesting case study for incorporating microbial communities in forest restoration, as it has vast swaths of degraded land that could be restored.
Dollars and chainsaws: Can timber production help fund global reforestation?
- As global reforestation commitments grow, how will companies, governments and communities pay to restore forest ecosystems and help sequester carbon over the long-term?
- One option: Grow and sell timber on the same plots of land where reforestation work is underway, as exemplified by pioneering restoration projects in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, where a single harvest of fast-growing eucalyptus grows up amid restored native trees. Eucalyptus sales then help pay for long-term restoration.
- Another approach is to concurrently grow tree plantations and forest restorations on separate, often adjacent, plots of land, with a large portion of the profits from timber harvests going to support the long-term management of the reforestation projects.
- But some scientists and forest advocates worry that projects or businesses that become overreliant on timber revenues to finance restoration could undermine an initiative’s environmental benefits, and lock in unintended harvesting within native ecosystems. Experts ask: Can we truly pay for new trees by cutting others down?
President Lula’s first pro-environment acts protect Indigenous people and the Amazon
- Effective Jan. 2, Brazil’s President Lula issued six decrees revoking or altering anti-environment-and-Indigenous measures from his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, acts highly celebrated by environmentalists and activists.
- One of the decrees annuls mining in Indigenous lands and protected areas, another resumes plans to combat deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and a third reinstates the Amazon Fund, a pool of funding provided to Brazil by developed nations to finance a variety of programs aimed at halting deforestation that was stalled under Bolsonaro.
- Right afterward, Norway announced the immediate release of already available funding for new projects as “President Lula confirmed his ambitions to reduce deforestation and reinstated the governance structure of the Amazon Fund.”
- In an unprecedented act in Brazil’s history, Lula also created the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, complying with his promise to native people who supported his candidacy “to combat 500 years of inequality.”
Series of small dams pose big cumulative risk to Amazon’s fish and people
- Small hydropower plants and small-scale fish farming in the Brazilian Amazon basin are often thought to cause negligible environmental harm, yet a new study reveals their cumulative damage is greatly underestimated and can be more impactful than large dams.
- Dwindling fish populations caused by the construction of thousands of small dams has impacted the livelihoods of millions of Indigenous and riverside people who depend on fishing for food, income and culture.
- Small hydropower plants and aquaculture farming are encouraged through economic incentives, simple licensing procedures, and loose requirements for environmental impact assessments before construction.
- More than 350 dam proposals in the Amazon basin are under consideration and 98 medium-sized dams will be prioritized in Brazil as of next year, ensuring the construction of hydropower plants will continue.
New app tells donors what communities need to stop deforestation: Q&A with Health In Harmony
- Nonprofit organization Health In Harmony has been working with rainforest communities to improve access to health care, education and alternative sources of income, and now has a new app to directly connect donors to communities.
- The organization aims to work on intersectional solutions to help communities improve their lives while also weaning them off practices that drive deforestation.
- Health In Harmony’s new app, which includes images and video, enables people from around the world to make donations to implement community-driven solutions.
Amazon’s tallest tree at risk as deforestation nears
- Paru State Forest in the state of Pará was Brazil’s fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, sparking concern for the region’s giant trees — including the tallest in the Amazon.
- The Paru State Forest is the world’s third-largest sustainable-use tropical forest reserve and, together with other conservation units in the region, belongs to a 22 million-hectare (54.3 million-acre) protected mosaic known as the Calha Norte of the Amazon River.
- Deforestation caused by cattle ranchers, illegal land-grabbers and gold miners is advancing in and around the conservation unit, which experts say shouldn’t be happening due to the region’s protected status.
- A new advisory board was formed this November to protect the Paru State Forest for the next two years by monitoring the use of natural resources and deforestation in the area.
Threatened cloud forests key to billions of dollars worth of hydropower: Report
- Payments for the provision of water by cloud forests for hydropower could produce income for countries and bolster the case for the forests’ protection, a new report reveals.
- These fog-laden forests occur on tropical mountains, with about 90% found in just 25 countries.
- Cloud forests are threatened by climate change, agricultural expansion, logging and charcoal production, and studies have shown that the quality and quantity of water that these forests generate is tied to keeping them healthy.
Bill threatens more oil extraction, roads in Guatemala’s protected forests
- A bill in Guatemala’s congress would renew a contract for the current oil and gas pipeline in Laguna del Tigre National Park and make it easier to contract future drilling.
- The region’s largest oil reserves pass from southern Mexico through the Petén department and into Belize, making Laguna del Tigre National Park an ideal focus of development, some environmentalists warn.
- Additional development could lead to the creation of roads, making it easier for illegal loggers, drug traffickers and land grabbers to move into the park, as happened when the original oil field was created in the 1980s.
How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon
- As Brazil prepares to turn the page on the Bolsonaro government, finding sustainable and economically viable alternatives for the Amazon region remains challenging.
- Advocates tout agroforestry as a sustainable farming alternative to soy monocultures and cattle ranching. It can restore degraded pastures and provide a stable income for small farmers.
- One such project is RECA, a sustainable farming cooperative and an agroforestry pioneer in Brazil’s Amazon, with more than 30 years of experience.
- Yet expertise, financing, scale, science and technology are significant challenges.
Population cycles explain white-lipped peccary’s ups and downs, study shows
- A new study attributes the regular disappearance of white-lipped peccaries in South America to natural population cycles.
- White-lipped peccaries are a keystone species and ecosystem engineers whose absence can have a detrimental effect on tropical forest health.
- Using scientific research, historical records and Indigenous lore, researchers have discovered regular boom and bust population cycles, often synchronized over huge areas.
- The researchers believe these cycles are caused by peccary populations outgrowing their habitat and warn that the species requires large expanses of intact forest to survive and thrive.
Rare, critically endangered gecko making dramatic recovery in Caribbean
- The Union Island gecko (Gonatodes daudini), known for its jewel-like markings, has seen its population grow from around 10,000 in 2018 to around 18,000 today — an increase of 80%.
- The gecko’s wild population had shrunk to one-fifth its size after becoming a target for exotic pet collectors.
- Fauna & Flora International, Re:Wild and local partners like Union Island Environmental Alliance and St. Vincent and the Grenadines Forestry Department to develop a species recovery plan that included greater protected area management and expansion.
To be effective, zero-deforestation pledges need a critical mass, study shows
- The importance of rapidly halting tropical deforestation to achieve net-zero emissions was a key message at this year’s climate summit, but corporate efforts to this end have stalled for decades.
- Cattle, soy and palm oil are the main commodities driving deforestation and destruction of other important ecosystems. Zero-deforestation commitments from the companies that trade in those commodities are seen as an important way to reduce deforestation globally.
- A new study compares the effectiveness of corporate commitments to reduce soy-related deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, showing that zero-deforestation commitments can reduce deforestation locally, but only if there is widespread adoption and implementation among both small and big soy traders.
- Overall, the study points to the limitations of relying just on supply chain agreements to reduce regional deforestation and protect biodiverse ecosystems, and highlights the need for strong public-private partnerships.
What can Half or Whole Earth conservation strategies do for orangutans?
- In a recent study, a team of researchers attempted to predict how the application of two global conservation ideas, Half-Earth and Whole Earth, would impact orangutan conservation on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia.
- Numbers of all three species of orangutans continue to drop due to habitat loss and killing by humans, despite an estimated $1 billion spent on conservation efforts in the past two decades.
- The researchers surveyed orangutan experts about their thoughts on the application of the two ideas on Borneo; the resulting analysis predicts continued declines for Bornean orangutans under both Half-Earth and Whole Earth paradigms, though they report that the species would fare better under Half-Earth.
- Proponents of the Whole Earth paradigm argue that the authors of the study misinterpreted some of the idea’s central tenets, however.
Despite pledges, obstacles stifle community climate and conservation funding
- As science has increasingly shown the importance of conservation led by Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), donors have begun to steer funding toward supporting the work these groups do.
- In 2021, during last year’s COP26 U.N. climate conference, private and government donors committed $1.7 billion to secure the land rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- But a recent assessment of the first year of the pledge shows that little of the funding goes directly to them, often going first through international NGOs, consultancies, development banks and other intermediaries.
- Most aid intended to support IPLC-led conservation work follows this path. Now, however, donors and IPLC leaders are looking for ways to ease the flow of funding and channel more of it to work that addresses climate change and the global loss of biodiversity.
Where is the money? Brazil, Indonesia and Congo join forces in push for rainforest protection cash
- Representatives of the world’s three forest giants – Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have signed a cooperation agreement in Jakarta calling for more funding to help protect half of the world’s rainforests.
- The statement follows a loss of 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) of primary forest in the three countries in 2021, most notably due to skyrocketing deforestation rates in Brazil, responsible for almost 50% of global deforestation last year, according to data by the Global Forest Watch.
- Critics say the joint statement lacks action and real commitment. Others say it is a step in the right direction, and international cooperation is urgent to protect the world’s rainforests.
- At COP27, Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president-elect called on rich countries to pay into their 2009 promise of $100 billion for helping less developed countries face climate change and promised to reverse deforestation trends in his upcoming mandate.
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.
Deforestation is pushing Amazon to ‘point of no return’: WWF report
- A new report from the World Wildlife Fund, called the Living Amazon Report, warns that threats to the Amazon have gotten worse in recent years, and could result in the disappearance of the biome if more drastic action isn’t taken.
- Around 18% of Amazon forests are lost and another 17% are highly degraded, the report said.
- If more drastic action isn’t taken, the report said the biome could transition from forest to savanna and push global warming above the safe threshold of 1.5°C.
Growing soy on cattle pasture can eliminate Amazon deforestation in Brazil
- Expanding soy cultivation into underutilized cattle pastureland would help prevent massive deforestation and carbon emissions compared to the current practice of clearing new forest for farmland, a new study says.
- Experts say that Brazil, the world’s No. 1 soy producer and beef exporter, has enough pastureland lying unused that would allow soy production to increase by more than a third without any further deforestation.
- Researchers warn that if Brazil continues with its current method of soy cultivation, it would end up clearing 5.7 million hectares (14 million acres) of Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna into cropland over the next 15 years.
- Environmentalists have welcomed intensifying agriculture as a solution to deforestation, but have raised concerns about the potential for increased pesticide use, biodiversity loss, and the expansion of cattle ranching into forested areas.
Ethiopia’s honey forest: People and wildlife living in sweet harmony
- Earlier this year, the Gura Ferda forest in southwest Ethiopia was surveyed to assess its conservation potential.
- By some estimates, wet forests contain up to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity and Gura Ferda hosts numerous endemic plant and animal species.
- Despite its unique characteristics, biodiversity and importance for local wildlife, the forest is not formally protected.
- Ecologist and expedition leader Julian Bayliss says making the forest a community conservation area would allow local communities to continue to play a leading role in protecting the forest.
Ecuador’s Indigenous Siekopai communities sue for title in protected area
- Approximately 800 Siekopai occupy territory in the Western Amazon along the Ecuador-Peru border but haven’t been able to obtain a constitutionally guaranteed title to their ancestral land in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.
- After years of requests, they decided to file a lawsuit against the government in hopes that they will finally gain control of Pë’këya, the ancestral and spiritual home of their peoples.
- The Siekopai are world renowned for their knowledge of local flora and fauna, which they use in many of their traditional ceremonies.
Successes and struggles: Brazil’s 20-year Amazon reforestation carbon sink project
- The Peugeot-ONF Forest Carbon Sink project, implemented more than 20 years ago in northwestern Mato Grosso state, within the “arc of deforestation” of the Brazilian Amazon, has achieved significant ecological restoration and carbon sequestration results.
- Reforesting 2,000 hectares of degraded cattle pasture on the São Nicolau Farm in Cotriguaçu municipality, the project has been Verra certified for reducing carbon emissions, with 394,400 metric tons of CO2 sequestered to date, equal to 85,000 cars taken off the road for a year. This CO2 reduction is being traded as carbon credits on Pachama, an online marketplace.
- Today, São Nicolau Farm is a living laboratory documenting the dynamics of forest restoration and carbon capture in the Amazon. The farm also offers ecotourism, training and educational opportunities.
- But Brazil’s volatile sociopolitical context is posing major risks to the project. Threats include a rising wave of forest crime, along with weakened environmental regulations, and controversial development proposals for the rainforest biome.
Brazil may fail Paris Agreement targets by 137% if Bolsonaro stays in office
- Brazil could fail greenhouse gas emissions targets set in the Paris Climate Agreement by 137% in 2030 if President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policies continue, according to a new study.
- Up to 23% of the Brazilian Amazon could be deforested, turning much of the region into a savanna if the current trend isn’t reversed.
- With Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, heading for a runoff against Bolsonaro in late October, specialists say the results could represent the beginning of a new era for environmental policy, but it would take an intense mobilization of civil society for a significant change.
Malaysia revokes oil palm concession near UNESCO-listed Bornean park
- The government of the Malaysian Borneo state of Sarawak has revoked a controversial oil palm concession adjacent to the UNESCO-listed Gunung Mulu National Park.
- The state has not released information confirming why the 4,400-hectare (10,900-acre) concession was revoked, but it had been the subject of protests and a lawsuit by Penan, Berawan and Tering Indigenous communities who said it threatened their livelihoods.
- Indigenous activists are celebrating the cancellation of the concession as a victory, and have called on the state government to also suspend a planned infrastructure development project in the area.
Podcast: Could Brazil’s election decide the fate of the Amazon?
- In a new podcast dialogue with Mongabay’s top tropical forest news commentator (and CEO), Rhett A. Butler, we catch up on the biggest trends and news, like the upcoming Brazilian presidential election, which could alter the outlook for the Amazon going forward should Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva win: with 2022 looking like the worst year for Brazilian Amazon deforestation in 15 years, Lula’s campaigning on Amazon conservation and has a long track record on the topic.
- We also discuss Norway and Indonesia, which just renewed a previously canceled REDD+ agreement, in which Norwegians will pay to keep Indonesian forests standing.
- And the European Parliament voted in favor of a bill banning the import of 14 commodities linked to deforestation, setting a policy precedent requiring entities to track the supply chain of common goods derived from both legal and illegal deforestation into the EU.
- We discuss how these trends and new/renewed initiatives could change the prospects for global tropical forests amid the context of tipping points that some experts say we may have already passed.
How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- Scientists warn that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from a lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna. This point may be reached when 25% of the forest is lost.
- In a newly released report, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes.
- However, when the map is divided into thirds, it shows that 31% of the eastern Amazon has been lost. Moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to half of all rainfall across the Amazon. The 31% figure is critical, the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.”
- Experts say the upcoming elections in Brazil could have dramatic consequences for the Amazon, and to avert the tipping point we must lower emissions, undertake ambitious reforestation projects, and build an economy based on the standing forest. Granting and honoring Indigenous land tenure and protected areas are also key strategies.
More droughts are coming, and the Amazon can’t keep up: Study
- Up to 50% of rainfall in the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as moisture is recycled from the trees to the atmosphere.
- In severe droughts, when the forest loses more water to evaporation than it receives from rain, the trees begin to die. For every three trees that die due to drought in the Amazon rainforest, a fourth tree, even if not directly affected by drought, will also die, according to a new study.
- As trees are lost and the forest dries up, parts of the Amazon will rapidly approach a tipping point, where they will transition into a degraded savanna-like ecosystem with few to no trees.
- The southern and southeastern Amazon are the most vulnerable regions to tipping. Here, deforestation and fires are at their most extreme, driven largely by cattle ranching and soy farming.
Tiny new tree frog species found in rewilded Costa Rican nature reserve
- On a private nature reserve in Costa Rica, Donald Varela-Soto searched for the source of a shrill frog call for six months. What he found turned out to be a new species, a tiny green tree frog that has been named Tlalocohyla celeste.
- Scientists think the Tapir Valley tree frog may be critically endangered. Its only known habitat is the 8-hectare (20-acre) wetland within the Tapir Valley Nature Reserve, which adjoins Tenorio Volcano National Park.
- Varela-Soto and a partner bought the reserve, a former cattle pasture, to protect and restore forest and provide habitat connectivity for wildlife, including the native Baird’s tapir. The reserve has since become a living laboratory for different restoration techniques.
- Today, the Tapir Valley Nature Reserve hosts species such as jaguars, collared peccaries, and tapirs, and many birds. Ecotourism provides income for Varela-Soto’s family and others. The reserve has been hailed as “a great example of how wildlife and humans can co-exist.”
Protecting global forests with a limited budget? New study shows where and when to start
- A newly published study identifies where and when to protect forests with the goal of protecting the maximum number of additional plant species over a 50-year period.
- The greatest return on investment would come mostly from forest conservation within Melanesia (around New Guinea), South and Southeast Asia, the Anatolian peninsula (Turkey), northern South America and Central America.
- Many of the highest-conservation-priority areas fall within lower-income tropical countries, so substantial international funding is likely needed to conserve and restore forests.
- An estimated 80% of the planet’s biodiversity lies within Indigenous peoples’ territories, and securing Indigenous communities’ land rights can be an equitable, low-cost, and effective way to protect the environment.
Fighting extractive industries in Ecuador: Q&A with Indigenous rights activist María Espinosa
- Human rights defender Lina María Espinosa has been an outspoken critic of Ecuador’s push for increased mining and oil development. But her work has also made her a target of death threats.
- This year, national protests by Indigenous communities pushed the government to revoke a decree that would have expanded oil investment. It also announced major reforms to the country’s mining plan.
- But Espinosa and members of CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) say the government needs to do more. This month, they’ll sit down with government officials to negotiate future policies.
Indigenous activists in Borneo claim win as logging firm removes equipment from disputed area
- After NGOs captured satellite and drone imagery they said showed timber firm Samling operating in deep forest and culturally sensitive sites in the Malaysian Bornean state of Sarawak, Indigenous activists filed a police report and planned to mount a blockade July 16.
- According to Penan Indigenous organization Keruan, the firm removed its equipment by July 15, a move the organization counts as a win for forest conservation.
- The area is slated for inclusion in the Upper Baram Forest Area (UBFA), a new conservation project led by the government and approved by the International Tropical Timber Organization.
- Samling denies encroaching on recognized Indigenous land, and said the UBFA has not been approved by the government or discussed with the company, which holds the timber concession for the most of the forest included in the project area.
In Congo, a carbon sink like no other risks being carved up for oil
- New research has revealed that the peatlands of the Congo Basin are 15% larger than originally thought.
- This area of swampy forest holds an estimated 29 billion metric tons of carbon, which is the amount emitted globally through the burning of fossil fuels in three years.
- Beginning July 28, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two-thirds of these peatlands lie, will auction off the rights to explore for oil in 27 blocks across the country.
- Scientists and conservationists have criticized the move, which the government says is necessary to fund its operations. Opponents say the blocks overlap with parts of the peatlands, mature rainforest, protected areas, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Restoring Mexico’s ‘Garden of Eden’ is a process of deep regeneration
- The region of Los Tuxtlas in the Mexican state of Veracruz is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve — a volcanic mountain range clad in rainforest and home to more than 800 vertebrate species and several different primary forest ecosystems, including lowland jungle.
- In the past several decades, deforestation and contamination have spiked in Los Tuxtlas, and several species once found in the area have gone locally extinct.
- Environmental organizations warn that at the current rate of deforestation, complete loss of the region’s native biodiversity is inevitable.
- To tackle deforestation, private entities like La Otra Opcion and communities like Benito Juarez have established reserves where they implement a variety of agroforestry, reforestation and ecotourism initiatives designed to protect and regenerate the region and boost environmental awareness and sustainable livelihoods among the locals.
$245-million initiative to create and maintain protected areas in Colombia
- Heritage Colombia is a $245-million initiative to support the creation, expansion and improvement of 32 million hectares (nearly 80 million acres) of protected land and marine areas in the country over the next decade.
- It’s a Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative, meaning that conservation funding was secured from the public and private sector for wide-reaching, long-term projects.
- If Heritage Colombia is successful, the country will see 26% of its land territory and 30% of its oceans under protection, meeting some of its 30×30 commitment eight years early.
A conservation failure in Sumatra serves a cautionary tale for PES schemes
- A World Bank-funded conservation project in Indonesia led to higher rates of deforestation after the project ended, a new study shows, serving as a cautionary tale about the risks of failing to sustain such initiatives over a long enough time period.
- The payment for ecosystem services project was supposed to reward villages for halting deforestation and taking up sustainable livelihoods from 1996-2001.
- In the years after the project ended, however, participating villages that had received the payments lost up to 26% more forest cover from 2000-2016 than non-participating villages, the study shows.
For Ecuador’s A’i Cofán leaders, Goldman Prize validates Indigenous struggle
- Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, young leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe in Ecaudor, led a movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining.
- In recognition of their struggle, they were awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize, widely known as the “Green Nobel.”
- The A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe forced the Ecuadoran state to revoke 52 gold mining concessions that threatened their territory and were awarded without the prior consultation stipulated in the country’s Constitution.
‘That’s a scam’: Indian firm’s REDD+ carbon deal in the DRC raises concern
- Environmental and human rights advocacy organizations say an Indian company has misled communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, convincing them to sign away the rights to sell carbon credits from the restoration, reforestation or avoided deforestation of locally managed forests.
- These forests, managed under a structure known by the French acronym CFCL, provide communities with control over how land is managed while giving them access to the resources the forests provide, proponents of the initiative say.
- But the contracts, the implications of which were not fairly or adequately explained to community members, may restrict their access to the forests for generations to come, the advocacy groups say.
- These organizations and the communities are now calling on the Congolese government to cancel the contracts.
Loggers close in on one of the world’s oldest biosphere reserves
- An EL PAÍS/Planeta Futuro investigation exposes plans to open timber transport roads in a tropical forest connected to the Yangambi Man and Biosphere Reserve. The area, in northeastern DRC, is a wildlife corridor and a haven for chimpanzees, pangolins and Afrormosia, an endangered tree species traded in global markets.
- The timber, including hardwoods regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), is exported to the EU and the US.
- UNESCO is preparing an audit to salvage DRC’s three Man and Biosphere Reserves through better governance arrangements. They will also review the zoning of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve to preserve high-conservation value areas.
- Mongabay has partnered with EL PAÍS/Planeta Futuro to publish this work in English. This story was produced with the support of the Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center.
For companies shopping for quality carbon credits, a new guide offers help
- The newly published Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide aims to help companies looking to make smarter purchases of tropical forest credits, one strategy for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
- Tropical forests carbon credits allow companies to offset their carbon emissions by paying for the conservation of forests.
- The guide says companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests.
- It also urges them to be transparent about carbon credit purchases and establish a good-faith relationship with local and Indigenous communities.
At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury
- When the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, the world’s biggest, was designated 30 years ago, the Brazilian army cleared out the illegal gold miners operating there.
- Today, miners are back in force, encouraged by the anti-Indigenous and anti-environment rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has vowed to open up the reserves to mining.
- The illegal activity has destroyed forests and contaminated rivers with mercury and has also brought with it violence, disease and death for the 27,000 Yanomami living in the heart of the Amazon.
- As it marks the 30th anniversary of its establishment, the Yanomami reserve faces of the prospect of losing up to a third of its area to mining — a very real prospect if a key Bolsonaro bill clears Congress.
New near-real-time tool reveals Earth’s land cover in more detail than ever before
- A new tool co-developed by Google Earth Engine and the World Resources Institute is being billed as the planet’s most up-to-date and high-resolution global land cover mapping data set, giving unprecedented levels of detail about how land is being used around the world.
- The launch of the tool this week marks a big step forward in enabling organizations and governments to make better science-based, data-informed decisions about urgent planetary challenges, the developers say.
- Named Dynamic World, it merges cloud-based artificial intelligence with satellite imagery to give near-real-time global visualizations of nine types of land use and land cover.
- The tool is likely to be important for a variety of purposes, the developers say, such as monitoring the progress of ecosystem restoration goals, assessing the effectiveness of protected areas, creating sustainable food systems, and alerting land managers to unforeseen land changes like deforestation and fires.
Can conservation technology help save our rapidly disappearing species? | Problem Solved
- Humanity knows, in a best-case scenario, only 20% of the total species on Earth.
- Yet humans have, at a minimum, increased species extinction 1,000 times above the natural extinction rate, raising concerns among field monitoring experts who worry they may be “writing the obituary of a dying planet.”
- The establishment of protected areas often depends on the ability of conservationists to effectively monitor and track land-based species — but is this happening fast enough?
- For this episode of “Problem Solved,” Mongabay breaks down three of the most innovative pieces of conservation technology and how they can advance the field of species monitoring, and ultimately, conservation.
End old-growth logging in carbon-rich ‘crown jewel’ of U.S. forests: Study
- A recent study of the Tongass National Forest, the largest in the United States, found that it contains 20% of the carbon held in the entire national forest system.
- In addition to keeping the equivalent of about a year and a half of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere, the forest is also home to an array of wildlife, including bald eagles, brown bears and six species of salmon and trout.
- Scientists and conservationists argue that the forest’s old-growth trees that are hundreds of years old should be protected from logging.
- They are also hoping that efforts by the administration of President Joe Biden are successful in banning the construction of new roads in the Tongass.
In the DRC’s forests, a tug-of-war between oil and aid
- At the COP26 climate summit, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Féelix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced a $500 million aid package to protect forests in the Central African country.
- Part of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, the announcement was one of the top headlines at the summit.
- Now, with the DRC set to auction off oil blocs in carbon-rich peatlands, questions are being raised about whether the package addresses the threat posed by industrial logging and oil drilling.
Chinese companies linked to illegal logging and mining in northern DRC
- An investigation by EL PAÍS/Planeta Futuro finds evidence of illegal extraction of endangered tree species, precious minerals and strategic metals headed for global markets.
- The investigation reveals that Chinese-owned companies use ‘complaisance’ permits to log and export CITES II-listed Afrormosia, which international demand pushed to extinction in other African countries, and flags irregularities in the latest export quota. European countries will consider stricter measures on imports from the DRC.
- Military-protected concessionaires have been illegally mining gold, diamonds and rare metals with prospecting licenses for more than a year. They use mercury, a neurotoxic pollutant, in waters communities use to fish, bathe and drink.
- Mongabay has partnered with EL PAÍS/Planeta Futuro to publish this investigation in English. This story was produced with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center.
Government inaction sees 98% of deforestation alerts go unpunished in Brazil
- A new study has found that Brazil’s environmental enforcement agencies under President Jair Bolsonaro failed to take action in response to nearly all of the deforestation alerts issued for the Amazon region since 2019.
- Nearly 98% of Amazon deforestation alerts weren’t investigated during this period, while fines paid by violators also dropped, raising fears among activists that environmental crimes are being encouraged under the current administration.
- Environmental agencies at the state level did better, but in the case of Mato Grosso state, Brazil’s breadbasket, still failed to take action in response to more than half of the deforestation that occurred.
- In an unexpected move, Bolsonaro on May 24 issued a decree raising the value of fines for falsifying documents to cover up illegal logging and infractions affecting conservation units or their buffer zones, among other measures.
Fossil evidence confirms persistence of prehistoric forests in Brunei
- A recent study published in the journal PeerJ reports the excavation of fossilized leaves from ancient forests at least 4 million years old in Brunei on the island of Borneo.
- More than 80% of the leaves the team found were from the Dipterocarpaceae family, trees that remain dominant today, confirming their long-standing role in anchoring Borneo’s species-rich ecosystems.
- The discovery adds to the urgency to protect these forests from logging or development for agriculture because once they’re gone, they will be difficult to get back, the authors say.
Investors force Home Depot to review wood-sourcing policy over logging concerns
- Some of Home Depot’s plywood is allegedly sourced from vulnerable forests in Ecuador’s Chocó region and the Brazilian Cerrado, and conservationists and investors have pressured the home improvement giant to clean up its supply chain.
- At the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting last week, a proposal passed requiring Home Depot to reevaluate policies related to sustainability certifications of wood suppliers.
- Although the proposal doesn’t technically force the company to change its policies, conservationists are confident it will lead to tangible action.
Researchers compile largest-ever photo database of Amazon wildlife
- Researchers have compiled more than 154,000 records of camera trap images form the Amazon Rainforest, recording 317 species of birds, mammals and reptiles.
- This is the first study to compile and standardize camera trap images from across the Amazon at this scale, and covers Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
- The authors say this camera trap data set opens up opportunities for new studies on forest fragmentation, habitat loss, climate change, and the human-caused loss of animals “in one of the most important and threatened tropical environments in the world.”
Oil exploration in DR Congo peatland risks forests, climate and local communities
- The Democratic Republic of Congo is putting 16 oil exploration blocks up for auction, including nine in the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale.
- Environmentalists warn that oil exploration and infrastructure for production could release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peatland and threaten the rights of local communities.
- The Congolese government says it needs to exploit its natural resources in order to generate income to develop the country, much as countries in other parts of the world have done before it.
To conserve the vibrant diversity of Central Africa’s forests, include Indigenous people (commentary)
- Aspects of traditional BaAka culture and knowledge are intimately tied to their dependence on and respect for the forest. This relationship with the forest has allowed the BaAka to thrive in the Congo Basin for millennia.
- Colonialism and the creation of protected areas in Central Africa have led to the forced removal of BaAka Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in the region, in addition to reported human right abuses.
- To address these injustices effectively and equitably, conservation practitioners working in Central Africa should adopt a human rights-based conservation approach which acknowledges and supports the critical ways in which the BaAka lead local conservation efforts and incorporates their forest tenure rights as a measure of overall conservation success.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay or any institutions the author is affiliated with.
Deforestation-neutral mining? Madagascar study shows it can be done, but it’s complicated
- The Ambatovy mine in Madagascar achieved no net forest loss by curbing deforestation in its biodiversity offsets, an analysis in the journal Nature Sustainability concluded.
- Project developers create biodiversity offsets, sites where they undertake conservation work, to make up for environmental destruction caused by their extractive operations.
- Ambatovy, which operates an open-pit nickel mine in Madagascar, carved out four biodiversity offsets to make up for biodiversity loss in its mining site, located in the species-rich eastern rainforest of the island nation.
- By slowing deforestation in these four offsets, the mine made up for forest loss in its mining concession; however, there isn’t enough data to ascertain how the measures impacted biodiversity, and previous research indicates that the mine’s offsets reduced impoverished communities’ access to forest resources.
As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.
Asia’s troubled trees need better conservation to reach restoration goals: Study
- South and Southeast Asia’s 19,000 tree species form the foundations of some of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests, as well as provide irreplaceable ecosystem services and underpin the livelihoods and diets of hundreds of millions of people.
- However, roughly three-quarters of the land deemed most important to protect regional tree diversity lies outside of protected areas, according to a new study that evaluates the distribution and threats facing 63 native tree species.
- The findings question whether countries will be able to fulfill their ambitious forest restoration targets; in particular, the researchers are concerned that crucial seed resources that could support reforestation efforts are being lost.
- The researchers recommend a more coordinated approach to conservation planning within the region, including improved cross-border collaboration and a holistic, landscape approach that integrates trees into production systems outside of protected areas.
Saving old-growth forests: Q&A with Amazon Watch’s Leila Salazar-López
- A new documentary called “The Last Stand,” released on Earth Day 2022, goes inside the protests against the logging of the Fairy Creek old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada.
- Leila Salazar-López, executive director of Amazon Watch, an NGO dedicated to fighting deforestation and protecting the rights of Indigenous communities in the world’s biggest rainforest, spoke in the film about the larger implications of cutting down old-growth forests.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Salazar-López talks deforestation in the Amazon, the flaws of carbon offset policies, and the important role that Indigenous and local people play in conserving the last of Earth’s old-growth forests.
Beyond CO2, tropical forests a ‘cool’ solution to climate crisis, study finds
- Forests, increasingly looked to for their role in addressing climate change, can draw carbon from the atmosphere, but they also have more localized impacts on temperature and weather.
- Forests are responsible for about 0.5°C (0.9°F) of cooling globally when their ability to sequester carbon and these biophysical effects are considered, a recent study has found.
- Tropical forests, with their speedy uptake of carbon and the local cooling they provide — by humidifying the air, for example — are considered a “double win” for the climate.
History on the walls: Graffiti brings Manaus’s Indigenous roots to light
- Graffiti artists are painting murals recounting the history of Indigenous people and honoring their culture in the capital of Amazonas, the Brazilian state with the largest Indigenous population.
- Indigenous community leaders say they hope the movement will increase the visibility of Indigenous people living in cities, who often face poverty, housing insecurity and stigma that discourages many from maintaining their culture and identity.
- Fearing cultural erasure, Indigenous activists are urging Indigenous people to embrace their ancestry and identify themselves as Indigenous in Brazil’s next census, expected to begin in August 2022.
- As Indigenous people in cities reclaim their identities, occupying public spaces through street art is playing a key role in the fight to make Indigenous people in urban areas more visible.
Study: Most biodiversity hotspots lack formal protection in Borneo and Sumatra
- A new study published in Animal Conservation finds that most predicted biodiversity hotspots in Borneo and Sumatra fall outside formally protected areas, with only 9.2% and 18.2% of the modeled species richness located within protection zones on the respective islands.
- The researcher team conducted the largest camera-trap survey ever undertaken in Borneo and Sumatra, and used multiple criteria to determine the relationship of 70 species to the surrounding habitat and how animal communities are assembled.
- The study concluded that carnivorous mammals can be used as an umbrella species to assist in the development of holistic management plans in areas where multiple species coexist.
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.
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.
In Rio de Janeiro, a forest slowly returns to life, one species at a time
- Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca National Park has become a laboratory for the reintroduction of locally extinct species.
- A study shows that, of the 33 species of large and medium-sized mammals that used to occur in the Tijuca National Park area, only 11 remain today.
- A forest full of large trees but empty of animals is a forest on its deathbed, conservationists say, because animals’ interactions with plants play a crucial role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem.
- In the severely degraded and fragmented Atlantic Forest, where Tijuca is located, forests devoid of large animals such as tapirs, woolly spider monkeys and jaguars are a common phenomenon with serious consequences for the plant life.
Researchers turn to drones for that big-picture view of the forest canopy
- Scientists need to collect data fast to understand how forests are changing due to climate change and deforestation.
- In a recent study, scientists flew drones over the forest canopy to learn more about tree mortality. The drones revealed new patterns because of the large areas they can cover. According to one researcher, a single drone can cover an area in a few days that would take a team a year on foot.
- Drones are also helping local and Indigenous communities monitor forest fires and deforestation as well as harvest resources more sustainably.
- Yet experts say that the useful tool should complement, and not replace, fieldwork done on the ground.
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.
NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.
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.
Tropical deforestation emitting far more carbon than previously thought: Study
- Carbon emissions due to tropical deforestation are accelerating, a new study has found.
- Using detailed maps of forest change as well as aboveground and soil carbon deposits, the researchers demonstrate that annual emission more than doubled between 2015-2019, compared with 2001-2005.
- Though the study reveals that the world has not met its commitments to stem deforestation, the authors say it also reveals that investments in forest protection and restoration are critical to addressing climate change.
WWF report calls forests a vital public health solution
- A new report from WWF lays out the evidence for how forests directly impact public health.
- Forests not only act as reservoirs for potentially contagious diseases, but also filter water and air pollution that can otherwise lead to illnesses like cancer and diabetes.
- The report makes a case that forests also help alleviate food insecurity and malnutrition while improving mental health, among other benefits.
- It calls on conservationists and public health experts to work more closely and view forests as a public health tool.
Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.
Sabino Gualinga, Amazon shaman and defender of the ‘living forest,’ passes away
- Sabino Gualinga was a yachak, or shaman, from the Kichwa nation of Sarayaku in Ecuador’s Amazon Rainforest, best known for his testimony before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where he explained the idea of the “living forest” and helped win a ruling in favor of his community.
- Gualinga, who spent his entire life in the Amazon, passed away on Feb. 8 at the age of either 97 or 103, depending on whether one consults the state or church registries.
- Gualinga had long taught the Sarayaku community that the forest is alive, which includes the flora, fauna and protective beings that look over all elements of the forest and live among humans.
- The Sarayaku community has since developed this worldview into a political declaration known as Kawsak Sacha, or “living forest” in Kichwa, demanding this sacred connection to their territory be legally recognized.
As Australia faces new fire reality, forest restoration tactics reevaluated
- More than 24 million hectares (59 million acres) burned during Australia’s devastating “Black Summer” bushfire season of 2019-2020, which formed part of a confirmed climate change-driven trend of worsening fire weather and larger, more intense forest fires.
- Scientists are still assessing the extent of the damage and are calling for a greater focus on understanding the effects of fires. Bushfires in Australia have been worsening for more than two decades as escalating drought places pressure on forest resilience and recovery.
- Since 2003, alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) and mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnens), the world’s tallest flowering plant, have been the focus of Victoria state’s largest post-fire reseeding effort ever. But the Black Summer fires caused foresters to reevaluate the effectiveness and future of this initiative.
- With future wildfires expected to see ferocity equal to the 2019-20 fire season, forest managers are questioning traditional tree restoration approaches, with some even wondering if regrowing forests is viable. Researchers are actively testing more interventionist approaches, such as replanting seeds and seedlings with genetically fire-resilient traits.
Malaysian officials dampen prospects for giant, secret carbon deal in Sabah
- The attorney general of the Malaysian state of Sabah has said that a contentious deal for the right to sell credits for carbon and other natural capital will not come into force unless certain provisions are met.
- Mongabay first reported that the 100-year agreement, which involves the protection of some 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) from activities such as logging, was signed in October 2021 between the state and a Singapore-based firm called Hoch Standard.
- Several leaders in the state, including the attorney general, have called for more due diligence on the companies involved in the transaction.
- Civil society representatives say that a technical review of the agreement is necessary to vet claims about its financial value to the state and its feasibility.
Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.
What went wrong with conservation at Kahuzi-Biega National Park and how to transform it (commentary)
- The Coercive Conservation paradigm prevents local communities from accessing their lands, leading to human rights abuses, corrupt resource extraction, and loss of habitat and wildlife.
- Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which expelled Indigenous Batwa people in 1975, is now overrun by refugees, militias, and mining, while ecoguards reportedly burn villages and kill indigenous people.
- We can transform conservation by supporting Protected Areas that integrate human well-being, are designed and managed by local communities, and are protected by local people with support from security forces, upon request.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Podcast: The 411 on forests and reforestation for 2022
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at the major forest and conservation trends coming out of 2021 and take a look ahead to 2022.
- We speak with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler, who discusses the year in rainforests that was 2021, the storylines to watch in 2022, and Mongabay’s expanding coverage of environmental science news around the world.
- We also speak with Swati Hingorani, a senior program officer at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Global Coordinator for the Bonn Challenge Secretariat. Hingorani tells us about the Bonn Challenge’s newly revamped and relaunched Restoration Barometer and how it tracks ecosystem restoration progress being made by countries around the world.
Young environmentalists ‘plant the future’ in Colombia’s Amazon
- Young people like Felipe “Pipe” Henao in Guaviare, Colombia, are using tree planting and social media to raise awareness and spread the message of protecting and valuing the environment.
- Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) recorded a nationwide deforestation rate of 171,685 hectares (424,242 acres) in 2020, with Guaviare department in the Amazon being one of the worst hit.
- Despite the damage being done, civil society efforts are already showing gains with efforts like Henao’s.
- His organization alone has connected with more than 150 companies and organizations in and around the town of Calamar and more than 1,800 families, and mobilized more than 1,000 young people to volunteer to clean rivers, protect wetlands and plant more than 60,000 trees.
As Indonesia retakes land from developers, conservation is an afterthought
- President Joko Widodo’s administration announced last week that it was cancelling millions of hectares worth of logging, plantation and mining concessions.
- Environmental activists say this presents an opportunity to conserve these lands, which cover a combined area larger than Belgium, by redistributing them to local and Indigenous communities, and protecting areas still home to rainforest.
- However, some senior government officials say the concessions should be reissued to other companies to develop, and indicate that lands redistributed to communities will also be open to investors.
Despite sanctions, U.S. companies still importing Myanmar teak, report says
- U.S. timber companies undercut sanctions to import nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, according to a new report.
- Advocacy group Justice for Myanmar said in its report that firms have been buying timber from private companies acting as brokers in Myanmar, instead of directly from the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions.
- With MTE under military control, Myanmar’s timber auctions have become more opaque, making it difficult to take action against companies circumventing sanctions.
In the Brazilian Amazon, solar energy brings light — and new opportunities
- A village on the banks of Brazil’s Negro River is running 132 solar panels as part of a pilot project aimed at bringing clean energy and economic opportunity to remote communities in the Amazon.
- The scheme promises to bring reliable energy to the community of Santa Helena do Inglês, in northern Amazonas state, addressing frequent power cuts that have long plagued the remote village and thwarted efforts to develop sustainable income streams.
- The solar energy supply is helping the community — a former logging hub that now lies within a protected reserve — generate income from fishing and ecotourism, without encroaching on the forest.
Community control of forests hasn’t slowed deforestation, Indonesia study finds
- A new study has found that Indonesia’s social forestry program, which gives local communities access to manage the country’s forests, hasn’t led to a reduction in overall deforestation.
- The study found that forest loss in community-titled forests aimed at conservation actually increased.
- Possible explanations include lack of capacity and resources for communities to manage their forests, as well as lack of financial incentives for them to not clear their forests.
Rainforests in 2022: A look at the year ahead
- Between rising deforestation in the Amazon, new financial and political commitments to reduce deforestation, and growing interest in “nature-based solutions” like conservation and reforestation, 2021 may prove to have been a fateful year for the world’s tropical rainforests.
- So what should we expect in 2022? Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler provides a brief look at what may be some of the major storylines for tropical forests in the coming year.
- He picks 12 issues to watch, ranging from the post-COVID recovery to carbon markets to geopolitics.
Groups welcome decline in deforestation in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem
- Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem experienced a decline in deforestation in 2021, after an increase in forest loss in 2020 linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a satellite analysis by local forest watchdog HAkA.
- Leuser, known for being the last place on Earth where critically endangered Sumatran rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans coexist, lost 4,472 hectares (11,051 acres) of its forests as of November 2021, compared to 7,331 hectares (18,115 acres) in 2020.
- Conservationists attribute the decline to an increase in monitoring efforts as well as greater scrutiny of palm oil producers operating in the landscape, by brands and buyers with zero-deforestation commitments.
- Despite the drop in deforestation, experts warn against complacency, noting that forest clearing is still taking place inside oil palm concessions, and areas of primary forest are still zoned for production, which means they can still be legally cleared.
In round 2 of Philippine geothermal project, tribes dig in for a greater say
- Mount Apo National Park on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao is home to the country’s highest peak and is also a sacred area for the Manobo Indigenous people.
- Plans in the 1980s to establish a geothermal power plant there faced fierce resistance at first.
- But a royalty agreement with Manobo landowners and a long list of environmental and economic commitments by the plant developer has since seen the project become a model of success.
- Now, tribal leaders say the developer is looking to expand the project onto more ancestral lands, for which the tribes want a greater say in steering governance and development initiatives.
How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.
Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.
The Congo Basin’s 10 most consequential stories from 2021
For the Congo Basin, 2021 proved to be an up-and-down year. Funding commitments totaling in the billions of dollars were announced that would help forested countries preserve some of the highest-quality tropical rainforest left on the planet. And research into the world’s largest tropical peatland, which is found in the Congo Basin, continues to expand […]
Australia’s rainforest species gain ground through landscape linkages
- Corridors of planted rainforest trees — landscape linkages — are a straightforward, but costly, on-ground action that can repair past damage and bolster ecosystem resilience in Australia’s Wet Tropics region.
- In the Atherton Tablelands wildlife corridors, now in their third decade, the diversity of naturally regenerating plant species has increased, with trees, vines, rattans, shrubs, palms, ferns and orchids colonizing the planted sites.
- The corridors are providing connectivity and additional habitat for a range of rainforest wildlife, including some threatened by climate change.
- To thoroughly measure the biodiversity outcomes of the linkages, monitoring would need to be more regular, and target a broader range of taxa.
California is the world’s number one importer of Amazonian oil, report finds
- California is the biggest importer of oil from the Amazon rainforest, with Ecuador being the largest exporter, a report from Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch finds.
- The report comes months after Indigenous organizations filed a motion to protect 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 and the Ecuadorian president announced plans to double the country’s oil production.
- Ecuador’s ministry of the environment and water told Mongabay that it is “encouraging extractive activities to compensate for biodiversity loss” and that it is adapting secondary legislation to further comply with Indigenous rights and environmental regulation.
How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.
Global ayahuasca trend drives deforestation in Brazil’s Acre state
- The growing popularity and increased commercialization of ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew, may be harming the Amazon forest where its two key ingredients grow.
- In the Brazilian state of Acre, regulations in place since 2010 have done little to curb the threats to the native Psychotria viridis shrub and the Banisteriopsis caapi vine.
- Traditional proponents of ayahuasca say the absence of meaningful environmental safeguards leaves the authorities powerless to act against the outside forces clearing rainforest for these increasingly rare and valuable plants.
Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal
- An Indigenous leader in Sabah is suing the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo over an agreement signing away the rights to monetize the natural capital coming from the state’s forests to a foreign company.
- Civil society and Indigenous organizations say local communities were not consulted or asked to provide input prior to the agreement’s signing on Oct. 28.
- Further questions have arisen about whether the company, Hoch Standard, that secured the rights under the agreement has the required experience or expertise necessary to implement the terms of the agreement.
The past, present and future of the Congo peatlands: 10 takeaways from our series
This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay published a four-part series on the peatlands of the Congo Basin. Only in 2017 did a team of Congolese and British scientists discover that a […]
Oil highway bears down on uncontacted Indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Yasuní
- The construction of a controversial oil road in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park has expanded rapidly during the pandemic, and has now reached the buffer area of a core zone that’s home to uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
- The groups are the last two Indigenous nations living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador, and the oil project puts them in imminent danger, activists warn.
- They’re concerned about state-owned PetroEcuador’s plans to continue building the road and other oil platforms within the buffer zone, something that was made legal under a 2019 executive order.
- Conservationists say this order violates the rights of the two nations in voluntary isolation, and the Constitutional Court is now reviewing a challenge filed against it.
Brazil’s Suzano boasts its pulpwood plantations are green; critics disagree
- Suzano, the world’s largest pulp exporter, is strongly promoting a new green agenda. Its plantations, now being grown in association with native forests, could help curb the global climate crisis, the company says.
- Some conservation groups agree, and are working with the firm to ensure it gets greener.
- But other environmentalists say that the expansion of eucalyptus monoculture is causing widespread environmental damage in Brazil. Plantation carbon sequestration is minimal, they argue, while pulpwood factories are highly polluting and eucalyptus forests lack the biodiversity of rainforests.
- Moreover, they say, eucalyptus plantation expansion is resulting in the usurpation of natural lands and the expulsion of traditional and Indigenous communities who have much more to offer in the fight against climate change and efforts to protect intact forests.
Carbon and communities: The future of the Congo Basin peatlands
- Scientific mapping in 2017 revealed that the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale in the Congo Basin are the largest and most intact in the world’s tropics.
- That initial work, first published in the journal Nature, was just the first step, scientists say, as work continues to understand how the peatlands formed, what threats they face from the climate and industrial uses like agriculture and logging, and how the communities of the region appear to be coexisting sustainably.
- Researchers say investing in studying and protecting the peatlands will benefit the global community as well as people living in the region because the Cuvette Centrale holds a vast repository of carbon.
- Congolese researchers and leaders say they are eager to safeguard the peatlands for the benefit of everyone, but they also say they need support from abroad to do so.
Camera trap study shows conservation efforts ‘are working’ on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula: Video
- The largest-ever camera trap study in Central America, on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, has revealed how human disturbance affects where animals live and how they’re grouped.
- Protected areas and healthy forests held a greater diversity of animals as well as larger species like tapirs, jaguars and pumas, while places with more human activity had fewer species, which tended to be smaller, more common animals like opossums and agoutis.
- The camera trap study, begun in early 2018, shows many species have recovered completely in the forest reserves around Corcovado National Park, indicating that conservation efforts over the past 30 years have been largely effective.
- Local conservation groups are now focused on creating wilderness corridors so larger species like jaguars can rebound in neighboring forests.
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.
Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.
Betty Rubio, the tech-savvy Kichwa leader defending threatened territory
- In 2018, Betty Rubio became the first woman president of her region’s Indigenous federation, a role in which she faces threats from narcotrafficking, logging and illegal mining.
- The Kichwa leader says her grandfather warned her about the risks of deforestation, so today she’s participating in an environmental monitoring project to detect illegal activities in the Amazon.
- In Peru, where only 4% of presidencies in Indigenous communities are held by women, Betty tries to encourage her female colleagues to take leading positions in their organizations.
Holding agriculture and logging at bay in the Congo peatlands
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin are perhaps the most intact in the tropics, but threats from logging, agriculture and extractive industries could cause their rapid degradation, scientists say.
- In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that it was planning to end a moratorium on the issuance of logging concessions that had been in place for nearly two decades.
- The move raised concerns among conservation groups, who say the moratorium should remain in place to protect the DRC’s portion of the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Today, timber concession boundaries overlap with the peatlands, and though some companies say they won’t cut trees growing on peat, environmental advocates say that any further issuance of logging concessions in the DRC would be irresponsible.
Governor rails against ‘bioterrorists,’ ‘carbon cowboys’ destroying PNG’s forests
- Gary Juffa, governor of Papua New Guinea’s Oro province, is one of the country’s most outspoken critics of the logging industry.
- Juffa said he’s had to resort to the courts to force out three logging firms operating in his province, and called on the international community to fight illegal loggers in PNG.
- While critical about the slow pace of global deforestation agreements, Juffa said he’s optimistic about the possibilities of carbon finance for his country; other PNG activists are more skeptical.
Layers of carbon: The Congo Basin peatlands and oil
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin may be sitting on top of a pool of oil, though exploration has yet to confirm just how big it may be.
- Conservationists and scientists argue that the carbon contained in this England-size area of peat, the largest in the tropics, makes keeping them intact more valuable, not to mention the habitat and resources they provide for the region’s wildlife and people.
- Researchers calculate that the peatlands contain 30 billion metric tons of carbon, or about the amount humans produce in three years.
- As the governments of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo work to develop their economies, they, along with many policymakers worldwide, argue that the global community has a responsibility to help fund the protection of the peatlands to keep that climate-warming carbon locked away.
Indigenous groups unveil plan to protect 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador
- A new plan called the Amazon Sacred Headwaters initiative proposes the protection of 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador by 2025, consisting of 35 million hectares (86 million acres) of rainforest.
- The Amazonian Indigenous organizations leading the plan aim to center Indigenous-led forest management and land tenure to protect endemic species and prevent approximately 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
- The proposal has received positive responses from Ecuadoran and Peruvian government officials, but faces a stumbling block in the fact that both countries rely heavily on extractive industries operating within the Amazon to help pay off foreign debt.
$1.5 billion Congo Basin pledge a good start but not enough, experts say
- At last month’s COP26 climate summit, a group of 12 international donors pledged at least $1.5 billion over the next four years to support protection and sustainable management of the Congo Basin forests.
- The pledge is part of a broader $12 billion commitment to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation worldwide by 2030.
- The 200 million hectares (500 million acres) of forests in the Congo Basin may be the last significant land-based tropical carbon sink in the world, making the forests vitally important in the global fight against climate change.
- So far, detail of the pledge remain limited, and reaction from regional experts has been mixed; but all agree that $1.5 billion is far from enough to resolve the region’s issues.
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.
The ‘idea’: Uncovering the peatlands of the Congo Basin
- In 2017, a team of scientists from the U.K. and the Republic of Congo announced the discovery of a massive peatland the size of England in the Congo Basin.
- Sometimes called the Cuvette Centrale, this peatland covers 145,529 square kilometers (56,189 square miles) in the northern Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and holds about 20 times as much carbon as the U.S. releases from burning fossil fuels in a year.
- Today, the Congo Basin peatlands are relatively intact while supporting nearby human communities and a variety of wildlife species, but threats in the form of agriculture, oil and gas exploration and logging loom on the horizon.
- That has led scientists, conservationists and governments to look for ways to protect and better understand the peatlands for the benefit of the people and animals they support and the future of the global climate.
Indigenous community saves Colombia’s poison dart frog from coca and logging
- An Indigenous community in southwest Colombia established a protected reserve in the face of illegal logging, mining and coca cultivation being carried out by criminal groups.
- The Eperãra Siapidaarã peoples are especially interested in protecting the extremely poisonous golden dart frog, which they historically used in their darts while hunting.
- Despite establishing the reserve, the community has more work to do to fend off violent non-state armed groups.
DRC environment minister panned for allegedly facilitating illegal concessions
- The Democratic Republic of Congo’s environment minister, Ève Bazaiba, has come under scrutiny over her alleged involvement in a series of illegal forest concessions.
- Bazaiba in September reportedly deployed a team from her ministry to effectively obtain local community consent for a concession that had been illegally granted by her predecessor.
- The country’s president has ordered an audit of the concessions and the suspension of all “questionable contracts,” but observers say the government hasn’t taken any action yet.
- The DRC is mulling a controversial plan to end a 19-year moratorium on industrial logging, which critics say would imperil 70 million hectares (173 million acres) of forest, an area larger than France.
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.
The last spotted ground thrush on Malawi’s lonely mountain
- An expedition to Malawi’s highest mountain sought to confirm the presence of a rare subspecies of spotted ground thrush, last spotted in 2005.
- Two birds and one nest with baby birds were found in the Chisongeli forest, the biggest intact block of Afromontane rainforest left in Malawi, which experts say lacks adequate protection.
- Illegal logging and snares threaten the birds and other endemic wildlife in the Chisongeli forest, with the ground thrush expedition finding 68 hunting snares in just one 100-meter (330-foot) transect.
- The researchers say complete protection of the forest is needed to save the last spotted ground thrush and other endemic wildlife on Malawi’s Mount Mulanje.
New global partnership aims to remove barriers to Indigenous climate finance
- At COP26, a new international coalition of organizations and investors, the Peoples Forest Partnership, announced plans to mobilize US $20 billion per year by 2030 directly to Indigenous forest conservation projects.
- The partnership believes this initiative can reduce carbon emissions from deforestation by at least 2 billion tons per year while protecting 500 million hectares of threatened tropical forests and biodiversity.
- While the partnership aims to set a high standard for equitable, accessible and culturally appropriate mechanisms for IPLCs to engage with climate finance, a consultation period is open for interested stakeholders to offer input on criteria and principles.
Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
- Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, signed a nature conservation agreement on Oct. 28 with a group of foreign companies — apparently without the meaningful participation of Indigenous communities.
- The agreement, with the consultancy Tierra Australia and a private equity-backed funder from Singapore, calls for the marketing of carbon and other ecosystem services to companies looking, for example, to buy credits to offset their emissions.
- The deal involves more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest, which would be restored and protected from mining, logging and industrial agriculture for the next 100-200 years.
- But land rights experts have raised concerns about the lack of consultation with communities living in and around these forests in the negotiations to this point.
UNESCO reiterates road project’s dangers to Papua park as Indonesia doubles down
- UNESCO has renewed its call for Indonesia to close the Trans-Papua road that runs through a national park in the easternmost region of Papua, citing environmental concerns.
- The call comes after the environment minister said UNESCO’s request is not realistic and thus the road can’t be closed since it connects multiple districts in the region.
- The government also says the road construction doesn’t violate any law, but UNESCO says the concern is on the environmental impact of the road, not on whether the project is legal or not.
- Activists in the region say the road is also meant to serve extractive industries in the park, including logging and mining.
Indonesia’s leader touts green goals at COP26, but overlooks green stewards at home
- Indigenous rights advocates have lambasted Indonesian President Joko Widodo for failing to acknowledge Indigenous peoples and their role in protecting forests during his speech to other world leaders at the COP26 climate summit.
- They say this omission is emblematic of the government’s neglect of Indigenous Indonesians, who number an estimated 70 million and continue to lose their ancestral lands to extractive and infrastructure projects throughout the country.
- Advocates note that conflicts over Indigenous lands have increased under Widodo, and look likely to escalate under pro-business legislation championed by the administration.
- They also say this reality on the ground belies Widodo’s public stance at COP26, where he signed on to a pledge to end deforestation by 2030, which includes supporting Indigenous communities in their role as forest stewards.
Indonesia’s flip-flop on zero-deforestation pledge portends greater forest loss
- Indonesia says it never actually agreed to end deforestation by 2030 when signing up to a global pledge to halt and reverse forest loss at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.
- The country’s forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, says the pledge is unfair if it means that the country has to stop clearing its forests, since it still has to develop its economy to improve the welfare of its people.
- She says the government must not stop developing “in the name of carbon emissions, or in the name of deforestation.”
- Environmentalists say this indicates Indonesia has no intention of respecting the pledge; and in light of recent weakening of environmental safeguards, the country might see deforestation continue well into the future.
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.
Infrastructure projects in Congo Basin need greater oversight, report says
- A new report by Rainforest Foundation UK says that new transport and energy infrastructure projects in the Congo Basin do not adequately account for their full environmental and social impact and may lead to irreversible degradation of this vital forest region.
- RFUK is calling for regional governments and international lenders to take a more robust and transparent approach to managing the environmental impacts of infrastructure projects to ensure that needed development takes place in a sustainable way.
- The report says infrastructure projects often conflict with the goals of REDD+ projects, and their negative impacts are not properly accounted for.
- Denis Sonwa from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), who is unaffiliated with the RFUK report, says the REDD+ schemes add weight and legitimacy to the forest sector in negotiations over infrastructure projects.
Hundreds of NGOs sign open letter calling to halt “illegal activities” in DRC’s protected areas
- Over 200 Congolese and international NGOs have signed a widely circulated open letter ahead of COP26 calling on the DRC government to crack down on “illegal activities” in protected areas.
- The planned construction of a hydroelectric plant in Upemba National Park to supply electricity to mining companies is feared to pose a threat to the region’s biodiversity.
- In Virunga National Park, the proposed construction of a university is supported by the Tourism Minister and Minister of Education, with questions surrounding their political motives.
- The DRC’s resource-rich lands have often been a magnet to mining companies, to the detriment of its biodiversity and local communities.
Indigenous Papuans won their forest back from a palm oil firm, but still lack land title
- Indigenous villagers in Sorong district, West Papua province, have for years resisted the arrival of the palm oil industry into their territory, yet still saw their ancestral forests signed away by the government for an oil palm concession.
- Earlier this year, the Sorong district government revoked the concession, citing a litany of violations by the concession holder.
- The villagers have welcomed the move, but are demanding the government take further action to ensure the legal recognition of their rights to their customary forests.
- They say it’s important to prevent the customary forests from being given away to other companies in the future.
Deforestation from cattle ranching also hurts rivers in Nicaragua, study says
- A new study highlights the adverse effects that cattle ranching has had on rivers in Nicaragua’s Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, including decreased food sources for aquatic life and the reduction in the size of fish.
- Deforestation has plagued the reserve for more than 30 years, resulting in the destruction of rainforest for cattle ranching, logging and other illegal activities.
- Local Rama and Kriol communities are carrying out patrols and starting other efforts to protect their land.
Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Recent satellite data has shown a marked increase in the loss of tree cover in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province.
- Many of the alerts were near new or existing logging roads, indicating that the forest loss may be due to timber harvesting.
- Oil palm production is also growing, altering the face of a province that had more than 98% of its primary forest remaining less than a decade ago.
- The surge in land use changes has affected not only the environment in East New Britain, but also the lives of the members of the communities who depend on it.
Green groups call for scrapping of $300m loan offer for Borneo road project
- The Asian Development Bank is considering a $300 million loan proposal from the Indonesian government to fund a road project in Borneo.
- The 280-kilometer (170-mile) project across North and East Kalimantan provinces are designed to boost economic growth and further the integration of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industries.
- Environmental groups around the world have urged the ADB to impose stricter environmental and social requirements for the project to reduce its expected impacts on the environment and the Indigenous communities living in the region.
- Indigenous peoples like the Dayak rely on the forests staying intact, as do critically endangered species such as Bornean orangutans.
Malaysia’s Indigenous Penan block roads to stop logging in Borneo
- In an attempt to block logging operations by timber company Samling, Penan Indigenous tribespeople have erected two separate blockades in Malaysian Borneo’s Baram region.
- Penan activists allege Samling is encroaching on tribal land without their consent, and say they only put up the blockades after authorities failed to respond to their complaints.
- Samling, which has been granted a license to log in both contested areas, says the allegations that it has operated without consent on Penan land are “malicious and without any truth or basis.”
- One blockade, in the Long Ajeng area, has led to tensions between villagers opposed to Samling’s presence and those in favor of it, and has been dismantled and reinstalled multiple times.
Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.
To predict forest loss in protected areas, look at nearby unprotected forest
- To predict deforestation risk in a protected area, look at the condition of its surrounding forests, according to a new study.
- The study, which analyzed satellite images of protected forests worldwide, found nearby forest loss to be a consistent early warning signal of future deforestation in protected areas.
- Researchers said national park agencies can use their proposed model to predict how vulnerable protected areas in their countries are to deforestation, and prioritize conservation efforts accordingly.
- But even as these agencies work to protect forests, they should take into account the needs of local communities living in the area, the researchers said.
Advocates call for a new human rights-based approach to conservation
- Delegates to COP15 began meeting this week to discuss a draft framework that will guide the world’s response to a worsening biodiversity crisis.
- Advocates say that a new approach to conservation based in human rights and legal recognition of Indigenous and other community land tenure is needed.
- Some have criticized the most recent draft of the world’s biodiversity plan for going easy on industry and failing to include language that would protect vulnerable people from dispossession and abuse.
‘Pristine wilderness’ without human presence is a flawed construct, study says
- A new study argues that the concept of a “pristine wilderness” that’s free from human inhabitants is a failing Eurocentric concept that may be used to expand conservation areas, a concern the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment reiterates in a policy brief about the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
- Researchers say the concept doesn’t reflect the reality of how high-value biodiversity hotspots, such as the Amazon rainforest and tropical highlands of Southeast Asia, have operated and been shaped by human presence for millennia.
- The displacement of Indigenous peoples and local communities from such landscapes for conservation purposes may have adverse impacts on the ecosystem’s integrity and lead to the degradation of biodiversity.
‘Acts of poaching and other crimes’: Cameroon plans a new road in Lobéké National Park
- Cameroon has notified UNESCO of plans to build a road in Lobéké National Park, part of the World Heritage listed Sangha Tri-National protected area.
- The country’s Minister for Forestry and Wildlife says the road will help to secure the area against cross-border poachers and others engaged in criminal activities, but conservationists are concerned it could facilitate deforestation.
- A study of Gabon’s Minkébé National Park linked heavy poaching in the north of the park to easy access via a highway just across its border with Cameroon.
Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.
For companies eyeing net-zero carbon emissions, ‘no clue how to get there’
- Voluntary carbon markets have become the go-to for companies trying to achieve net-zero carbon, but curbing emissions is still most important, executives said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Voluntary carbon markets can drive huge amounts of finance into developing countries for conservation, serve as a price indicator for carbon, and help companies offset emissions, but must play a secondary role to decarbonization, they said.
- The business leaders added that companies recognize the need to curb emissions, but are struggling with choosing and implementing effective decarbonization solutions.
- The root of the problem is a lack of robust carbon measurement technology and methods, they said.
Build around the forest, not through it, study says of Sumatra trucking road
- Researchers have identified alternative routes for a planned mining road that will cut through the Harapan forest, the largest surviving tract of lowland tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- The alternative routes will avoid thousands of hectares of forest loss as they skirt the main forest block while traversing nearby lands that are largely deforested.
- They are also potentially cheaper than the routes planned by coal miner PT Marga Bara Jaya (MBJ) because they utilize existing road networks and improve them.
- Local environmental activists have identified similar alternative routes, but the fact that the company is proposing a more destructive path points to a lack of will to minimize deforestation, poor planning, or a deliberate attempt to cut through the middle of the forest, researchers say.
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.
When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.
Fires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species
- New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades.
- Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
- Primates were the most affected, as they depend on trees for movement, food and shelter. Rare and endemic species with restricted habitats suffered the strongest impacts.
- The study assessed two decades of fires between 2001 and 2019 and confirmed the impact of environmental policies on deforestation cycles in the Amazon; law enforcement was concluded to have direct impact on the extent and volume of fires.
Indonesia terminates agreement with Norway on $1b REDD+ scheme
- The Indonesian government has decided to terminate a $1 billion deal with Norway under which Indonesia preserves its rainforests to curb carbon dioxide emissions.
- The Indonesian government says the decision is made after thorough consultations and cites lack of progress in the payment by Norway as one of the reasons for the termination.
- The Indonesian government says it remains committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite ending the agreement.
- The Norwegian government says the two governments had been engaged in discussions on a legal agreement for the transfer of the payment, and the discussions were still ongoing and progressing well up until the announcement.
Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
- As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue in Myanmar, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat.
- On Sept. 6, environmental and democracy activist Kyaw Minn Htut became one of the latest political prisoners; authorities had detained his wife and 2-year-old son a day earlier.
- He had openly challenged the military and reported on illegal environmental activities, making him a “well-known and well-hated” target, fellow activists said.
- Some 20 environmental organizations across the world have signed a statement calling for Kyaw Minn Htut’s release.
Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia