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topic: Forest Destruction
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Pushback grows against nickel mining in Indonesian marine paradise of Raja Ampat
- The Indonesian government has suspended nickel mining in the Raja Ampat archipelago following public outcry and investigations that revealed environmental violations, including illegal mining on small islands and deforestation by several companies.
- Raja Ampat, one of the world’s most biodiverse marine regions, is threatened by sedimentation, pollution and habitat destruction linked to mining, endangering coral reefs, mangroves and Indigenous communities.
- Despite government claims that operations on one of the islands, Gag, are environmentally compliant, critics say inspections are superficial and driven by political and economic agendas, ignoring broader regional damage.
- Environmental groups warn mining could resume quietly once the outrage fades, and urge the government to establish no-go zones to protect Raja Ampat, challenging rhetoric that frames local resistance as foreign interference.
Lack of funds, cattle ranchers challenge Brazil’s sustainable farmers
In 2005, the Brazilian government created PDS Brasília, a sustainable settlement in the state of Pará. The settlement was designed to encourage 500 families to practice small-scale family farming, while also collectively using a standing forest to harvest its fruits and nuts, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reported in March. The 19,800-hectare (49,000-acre) settlement was created following the […]
Gold rush moves closer to Amazon’s second-tallest tree
Illegal gold miners are now operating very close to the second-tallest tree in the Amazon Rainforest, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reported in April. Six giant trees, including a red angelim (Dinizia excelsa) that stands 85 meters (279 feet) tall, are found inside the Iratapuru River Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil’s Amapá state. Despite the area’s protected status, […]
Orangutan habitat under siege as palm oil company clears forest in Borneo
- Indonesian palm oil company PT Equator Sumber Rezeki (ESR), part of First Borneo Group, has begun clearing critical orangutan habitat in West Kalimantan province, threatening high conservation value (HCV) forests and the survival of the critically endangered Bornean orangutan.
- Despite only partial clearing so far, conservationists warn that ESR plans major expansion, risking the loss of up to 10,000 hectares (about 25,000 acres) of forest, and further undermining Indonesia’s biodiversity and climate goals.
- First Borneo Group has a long record of large-scale deforestation through multiple subsidiaries, prompting major palm oil buyers like Nestlé and Musim Mas to suspend or end sourcing from the group, though some companies remain linked via supply chains.
- Environmental groups are calling for an immediate halt to ESR’s land clearing, comprehensive ecological audits, and urgent action from companies still sourcing from First Borneo Group to prevent a potential ecological disaster for orangutans and the region’s forests.
Nepal farmers regret planting government-hyped eucalyptus
In the late 1970s, Nepal launched a reforestation project to restore its massively deforested lands in the southeastern Terai landscape. However, the main tree of choice, eucalyptus, after showing initial signs of success has now proven detrimental to the region’s soil moisture and fertility, Mongabay contributor Mukesh Pokhrel reported in February. To prepare for the […]
Betting on future forest carbon storage endangers Paris Agreement targets
- The carbon storage capacity of forests is widely recognized as a crucial factor in curbing global warming and preventing climate catastrophe.
- But a new study finds that the future potential for forest CO2 storage is being overestimated, with global forest health (along with the ability of forests to go on storing carbon) vulnerable to increasing disturbances including wildfires, disease, pests and deforestation.
- Scientists argue that the very real threat of declining forest carbon storage capacity necessitates far faster decarbonization efforts, along with urgent action to monitor and conserve forests, and prevent widespread deforestation.
- Delaying action by as little as five years could incur huge economic costs and jeopardize climate goals, researchers found.
Beyond reforestation, let’s try ‘proforestation’
- “Proforestation” describes the process of allowing existing forests to continue growing without human interference as they achieve their full ecological potential for carbon sequestration and biodiversity.
- Old forests sequester a higher amount of carbon than younger ones, with large, old trees containing the most carbon.
- Many species are old forest specialists, relying on ancient forests for survival. Losing these forests may mean their extinction.
An Australian state promised to turn native forest into a national koala park. It’s still being logged
- The Labor Party of Australia’s New South Wales state made a 2023 campaign promise to establish a Great Koala National Park to protect the iconic endangered marsupial.
- However, since taking power, it has allowed logging of native forest to continue inside the proposed park boundaries for almost two years, partly justifying it with concerns for the timber industry.
- An independent analysis, using the state forestry corporation’s own data, shows logging intensified inside the proposed boundaries following the campaign announcement, but the state forestry corporation denies the data.
- Forest and park experts corroborated the logging claims to Mongabay, and say logging of native hardwoods is ecologically unsustainable and unnecessary for a timber industry that relies almost entirely on commercially grown pine.
An Ecuadorian hotspot shows how forests can claw back from destruction
- The Ecuadorian Chocó Forest is a little-known biodiversity hotspot, under immense pressure from deforestation.
- A joint German-Ecuadorian team is studying how this tropical forest ecosystem rebounds after clearing.
- The project, called the Reassembly Research Unit, is based out of a lab in the Jocotoco Foundation’s Canandé Reserve.
- The findings so far indicate that tropical forests have a remarkable capacity to heal, given suitable conditions. The findings can inform vital regeneration strategies.
Indigenous people cut down trees as solar energy remains inaccessible and costly in DRC
- Solar energy, which researchers say offers much potential to meet the Democratic Republic of Congo’s energy needs, remains largely unaffordable and out of reach for Indigenous Batwa people and rural residents.
- Mongabay visited villages off the power grid in the DRC’s Tanganyika province, where Indigenous people and local communities aspire to have access to electricity and embrace a new way of life.
- As electricity remains out of reach, despite a handful of solar panels, most rely on cutting wood from forests and savannah for firewood and charcoal — spiking deforestation in the region.
- Researchers and environmentalists suggest government subsidies, favorable taxes, and investing in cheaper Chinese solar panels to make solar energy more accessible and affordable for Indigenous and rural communities. Hydropower dams, say some, also offer cheaper long-term solutions but can come with environmental costs.
Surge in legal land clearing pushes up Indonesia deforestation rate in 2024
- Indonesia’s deforestation increased in 2024 to its highest level since 2021, with forest area four times the size of Jakarta lost; 97% of this occurred within legal concessions, highlighting a shift from illegal to legal deforestation.
- More than half of the forest loss affected critical habitats for threatened species like orangutans, tigers and elephants, particularly in Borneo and Sumatra.
- Key industries driving deforestation include palm oil, pulpwood, and nickel mining, with significant deforestation in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua; a new pulp mill in Kalimantan in particular may be driving aggressive land clearing.
- Despite an existing moratorium on new forest-clearance permits, there’s no protection for forests within existing concessions, allowing continued deforestation, and spurring calls for stronger policies to safeguard remaining natural forests.
Indonesian company defies order, plants acacia in orangutan habitat
- The Indonesian company PT Mayawana Persada has shifted focus from clearing peatlands in western Borneo to planting acacia on previously cleared lands in defiance of a government order to restore damaged peatlands.
- The lands are home to the critically endangered Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), and any habitat loss pushes the animal closer to extinction.
- Mayawana Persada’s concession spans nearly 140,000 hectares (345,900 acres), overlapping with more than 83,000 hectares (205,100 acres) of carbon-rich peatlands and more than 90,000 hectares (222,400 acres) of Bornean orangutan habitat.
As Sumatra loses mangroves to oil palms, local fishers also suffer
- Interviews in Kwala Langkat, a fishing village in Indonesia’s Langkat district, along the Malacca Strait, suggest fisheries incomes have collapsed after local elites ripped out a mangrove ecosystem to establish a new oil palm plantation.
- In June, Mongabay reported that police had arrested three residents of Kwala Langkat village in connection with alleged criminal damage to a structure used on the oil palm plantation.
- More than a third of the world’s population today lives within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the coast, a more than 50% increase in absolute terms compared with 30 years ago.
Nepal’s top court to rule next month on law allowing development in protected areas
- Nepal’s Supreme Court has completed hearings on a petition challenging changes to conservation laws and permitting infrastructure development in protected areas. A ruling is expected by Dec. 20.
- The law being challenged allows the government to designate areas within national parks as falling outside “highly sensitive zones” and thus opening them up to development projects like roads and hydropower.
- Conservationists argue this new definition threatens habitats and undermines decades of conservation progress.
- Conservationists fear that the law could exploit natural resources, displace local communities, and shrink critical habitats, jeopardizing Nepal’s protected area system and wildlife.
Study: REDD+ doesn’t work without Indigenous peoples, but fails to engage them
- Climate policies like REDD+ often fail to prioritize Indigenous peoples, undermining their effectiveness in tackling the root causes of deforestation and climate change, according to a recent study.
- The authors propose 12 principles to improve climate policies, based on themes such as supporting Indigenous territorial defense and their rights, encouraging Indigenous-led climate initiatives, and directing climate funding to these populations.
- Indigenous-led initiatives like RIA in the Amazon offer a feasible alternative to REDD+ and emphasize the importance of compensating them for their ecological services; however, they face challenges in getting adequate funding.
- Experts suggest that the lessons learned from REDD+ could be applied to the development of biodiversity credits to help make this emerging climate solution more inclusive from the get-go.
Cambodian logging syndicate tied to major U.S. wood flooring supply chains
- Cambodian companies producing engineered hardwood flooring for the U.S. market are getting their timber from a company described as a cartel that’s been repeatedly accused of illegally logging inside protected areas.
- Angkor Plywood is the sole supplier of plywood to flooring manufacturers based in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone, and claims the wood comes from its acacia and eucalyptus plantations.
- However, watchdog groups, industry insiders and independent media, including Mongabay, have long documented evidence of Angkor Plywood and its supplier, Think Biotech, felling tropical hardwoods inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary.
- AHF Products, which claims to be the biggest U.S. wood flooring manufacturer, runs a factory in the Sihanoukville SEZ, but denies any protected wood entering its supply chain — a claim industry veterans question, given Angkor Plywood’s notoriety.
In Bolivia, Indigenous communities struggle to rebuild as wildfires return
- Wildfires are sweeping across Bolivia, concentrated in the Chiquitano dry forests of the eastern department of Santa Cruz, with experts warning the fires are on track to be the worst in the country’s history.
- The fires are largely the result of slash-and-burn practices used by industrial agriculture to clear land for large-scale farming and cattle pastures.
- This year’s burning comes as fires return to the country after a devastating fire season in 2023 that devastated tropical regions in Bolivia’s La Paz and Beni departments, including for the first time in the Pilón Lajas Indigenous reserve.
- Communities have received little recovery support from local and national authorities and are continuing to rebuild and take measures to prevent fires amid fears that last year’s destruction will repeat itself.
Prospect of mining is a bitter pill for Afro-Brazilian community known for its honey
- In northern Brazil’s Piauí state, the vast Afro-Brazilian enclave of Lagoas is home to 119 communities, making it the largest of its kind in the semiarid Caatinga biome and one of the region’s largest producers of organic honey.
- In 2019, the mining company SRN Mineração obtained a temporary permit to prospect for iron ore in the region, posing a threat to the communities’ beekeeping livelihoods as it could contaminate or destroy the bees’ food sources.
- Community leaders say they weren’t consulted by the mining company and that it continues to disrespect their presence and traditions by prospecting less than 100 meters (330 feet) from their most important shrine.
Cambodian environment minister bans logging at tycoon’s Cardamoms hydropower project
- Cambodia’s environment minister has ordered a ban on forest clearance at a hydropower project site where activists and media, including Mongabay, previously reported indications of illegal logging.
- The Stung Meteuk hydropower project is being developed by a company under Ly Yong Phat, a ruling party senator notorious for a long history of environmentally and socially destructive businesses.
- In April, Mongabay documented the illegal logging operations at the project site, where logging routes had been cut leading into the nearby Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Activists have welcomed the order to halt forest clearance, but say they’re skeptical the ban will be enforced against such a powerful figure, noting that timber processing continues at the site.
As Ghana pushes mining in forests, a cautionary tale from a fading forest
- A third of the Apamprama Forest Reserve, in Ghana’s gold-rich Ashanti region, has disappeared in little more than 20 years.
- Satellite data show that forest loss has accelerated since 2018, when mining company Heritage Imperial received permission to prospect for gold inside the reserve.
- Green campaigners cited Apamprama’s destruction in decrying a recent push by the Ghanaian government to encourage industrial mining, including inside forest reserves.
- In public statements, Heritage Imperial representatives said the company operates legally inside the reserve, but experts told Mongabay that legal permissions don’t protect forest ecosystems from the corrosive effects of mining.
Ghana hollows out forests and green protections to advance mining interests
- The Ghanaian government has significantly ramped up the approval of mining permits under legislation passed in late 2022, intensifying concerns about runaway environmental damage.
- The country is already the top gold producer in Africa, but much of the mining is done in forest reserves and other biodiverse ecosystems.
- The government has long cracked down on artisanal illegal gold miners, but activists say the real damage is being wrought by industrial operations, both legal and illegal.
- A debt default in 2022 has seen Ghana lean even more heavily on its gold to mitigate the crisis, prompting warnings that such a policy is neither economically nor environmentally sustainable.
The promise of ecocide law, from boardroom to courtroom (commentary)
- An international movement to designate ecocide – the causing of wanton damage to the environment – a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, is being led by nations including Peru, Brazil, the Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, and Belgium with Scotland potentially next in joining their ranks.
- Environmental degradation affects everyone, and businesses are not immune, either: climate change and ecosystem collapse can drive up costs, pushing corporations and even entire economies toward the brink.
- “Ecocide law not only addresses the unsustainable nature of 21st century capitalism, but also moves toward a future where business and nature need not be at odds,” a member of Scotland’s Parliament and an author contend in a new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Expanding the colonization of the Brazilian Amazon through gold mining
- Gold mining has played a significant role in the colonization of the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, starting with the bandeirantes in the 18th century and reignited by the garimpeiros in the 1970s.
- The gold rush continued in the placer mining camps called garimpos across the region, extending to other states including Rondônia, Amazonas, Roraima and Amapá, and several Indigenous lands have been encroached upon.
- With increased political influence over decades, the gold mines continued to persistently invade Indigenous territories, notably the Yanomami and the Macuxi, while several rivers have been polluted by mercury and cyanide from the extractive industry.
Brazil’s wildcat mining is deeply rooted in its politics and thirst for minerals
- Brazil has had a long history of gold mining, going all the way back to the Portuguese empire. In the 1970s, as the country opened its forests for migration, many families headed for the recently discovered gold fields in Carajás, Tapajós, Roraima, Madre de Dios and the Guiana Coast and started exploring them, with support by governments.
- Wildcat miners or garimpeiros extract ‘free gold’ from secondary deposits using placer-mining technology. Gold-bearing mineral formations typically are classified as primary (hard-rock) or secondary (alluvial) deposits. In some regions, the success of the garimpeiros has attracted the interest of corporations, who know that alluvial gold is an indication of greater deposits being present.
- Garimpeiros have long been in conflict with Indigenous communities, who complain about their negative environmental impacts. But a renewed expansion of placer mining has also negatively impacted communities residing on agricultural landscapes.
Hydropower dams further undermine REDD+ efforts in Cambodia
- Five hydropower dams are currently being built in the Cardamom Mountains with reservoirs set to collectively span more than 15,000 hectares (37,065 acres) across protected forests.
- Three of these new dams encroach on forests where REDD+ projects are currently operating, pitting “green” energy infrastructure against conservation goals.
- Residents living nearby one of the dam sites fear that history may repeat as hydropower dams have typically been used to illegally extract valuable timber.
History repeats as logging linked to Cambodian hydropower dam in Cardamoms
- Loggers are targeting protected forests in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains using the cover of a new hydropower dam
- The dam is being built by Ly Yong Phat, a wealthy Cambodian tycoon with ties to the top tiers of government and a long history of environmental vandalism in the Cardamoms
- Timber from the Stung Meteuk hydropower dam has already been sold via a government-facilitated auction, but some timber may have been illegally logged
- The dam also overlaps significantly with the Samkos REDD+ project which is still under validation and verification
Sugarcane megaproject poses latest threat to Papua’s forests, communities
- Activists have warned of wide-ranging environmental and social impacts from a plan to establish 2 million hectares (nearly 5 million acres) of sugarcane plantations in Merauke district, in Indonesia’s Papua region.
- The plan calls for deforesting an area six times the size of Jakarta, even as the government touts the green credentials of the project in the form of the bioethanol that it plans to produce from the sugar.
- Activists have also warned that the project risks becoming yet another land grab that deprives Indigenous Papuans of their customary lands and rights without fair compensation.
- They add the warning signs are all there, including close parallels to similarly ambitious projects that failed, the alleged involvement of palm oil firms, and government insistences that this richly forested region of Indonesia doesn’t have much forest left.
If forests truly drive wind and water cycles, what does it mean for the climate?
- Theoretical physicists Anastassia Makarieva and Viktor Gorshkov developed the controversial “biotic pump” theory more than a decade ago, which challenges traditional climate and hydrological science.
- The theory posits that forests drive moisture-laden air currents, thereby governing wind and rain and implying that further global forest loss could have unknown effects on weather and water supplies.
- While yet to be disproven or validated, some scientists say it’s vitally important to study and test this theory, and potentially include it in climate-modeling scenarios.
- Makarieva joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss the theory and its implications for future climate modeling with co-host Rachel Donald.
Activists decry latest arrests of East African oil pipeline opponents
- On June 2, police arrested four villagers in a northwestern district of Tanzania, along the route of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
- The men had all spoken out against the pipeline at a May 25 event organized by civil society groups from Uganda and Tanzania, who say the arrests are part of a pattern of harassment of the project’s opponents.
- Activists and other people affected by the pipeline have been arrested in the past, then released without charge, but sometimes compelled to report regularly to the police.
- The villagers arrested were detained overnight without explanation, and then released without being charged with any crime.
#AllEyesonPapua goes viral to highlight threat to Indigenous forests from palm oil
- Two Indigenous tribes from Indonesia’s Papua region are calling for public support as the country’s Supreme Court hears their lawsuits against palm oil companies threatening to clear their ancestral forests.
- Large swaths of Awyu customary forest lie inside three oil palm concessions that are part of the Tanah Merah megaproject, in Boven Digoel district, while part of the forest of the Moi tribe falls within a concession in Sorong district.
- The cases now being heard mark the latest chapters in long-running legal battles by the tribes to prevent the concession holders from clearing the forests to make way for oil palms.
- Using the hashtag #AllEyesonPapua, in a nod to the #AllEyesonRafah campaign, the tribes and their supporters have gone viral with their cause as they seek to save the forests on which their livelihoods — and lives — depend.
‘Non-market’ solutions to deforestation need more support, advocates say
- In a report released May 29, three environmental groups called for a shift away from carbon markets and toward “non-market” solutions to deforestation.
- The Paris Agreement has a clause calling for such solutions, which the groups said could include financing for Indigenous groups, payment for ecosystem services, and debt relief.
- The report criticized carbon markets, saying incentives for brokers and project developers are misaligned with global environmental priorities.
Is the extractive sector really favorable for the Pan Amazon’s economy?
- The Pan Amazon is an important source for several key industrial raw materials. Although financially, its minerals sector is minor within the world economy, the economy of Amazonian countries is highly dependent on extractive activities.
- Extractive industries in the region play a strategic role. Without them, Brazil would suffer a major economic disruption from mineral revenues, and the impact would be catastrophic for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
- Most other countries in the Pan Amazon region return only a portion of royalties from revenues to local jurisdictions, while corporate income taxes go to the central government. However, despite criticism on lack of investment in Amazonian hinterlands, local governments continue to support extractive industries.
- None of the money from royalties is allocated to conservation, nor is any allocated to the remediation of the environmental impacts linked to its exploitation.
Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island
- The Lanun Indigenous community of Indonesia’s Belitung Island have responded to increasing environmental damage by building their capacity in skills such as advocacy and mediation.
- At issue is the growth in illegal mining and forest clearing by the plantation industry on land that the Lanun consider to have long been theirs.
- In 2021, UNESCO announced this area of Indonesia would become an international geopark, which required joint applications by government and local communities to conserve a landscape of global significance.
Snack giant PepsiCo sourced palm oil from razed Indigenous land – investigation
- In the last few years it is likely that PepsiCo has been using in its production palm oil from deforested land claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in eastern Peru, a new investigation has found.
- Palm oil from Peru enters PepsiCo’s supply chain via a consortium that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, the second largest palm oil producer in the country which has been associated with deforestation and violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In the last three years, further deforestation occurred within the company’s land, the investigation found.
- Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people.
- PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products containing Peruvian palm oil that could be linked to deforestation. The company has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.
Protected areas bear the brunt as forest loss continues across Cambodia
- In 2023, Cambodia lost forest cover the size of the city of Los Angeles, or 121,000 hectares (300,000 acres), according to new data published by the University of Maryland.
- The majority of this loss occurred inside protected areas, with the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary recording the highest rate of forest loss in what was one of its worst years on record.
- A leading conservation activist says illegal logging inside protected areas is driven in part by demand for luxury timber exports, “but the authorities don’t seem to care about protecting these forests.”
- Despite the worrying trend highlighted by the data, the Cambodian government has set an ambitious target of increasing the country’s forest cover to 60% by 2050.
Tropical forest loss puts 2030 zero-deforestation target further out of reach
- The overall rate of primary forest loss across the tropics remained stubbornly high in 2023, putting the world well off track from its net-zero deforestation target by 2030, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute.
- The few bright spots were Brazil and Colombia, where changes in political leadership helped drive down deforestation rates in the Amazon.
- Elsewhere, however, several countries hit record-high rates of forest loss, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Laos, driven largely by agriculture, mining and fires.
- The report authors call for “bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives … to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries.”
Resort in Philippines’ protected Chocolate Hills sparks uproar, probes
- A video of a resort cut into the Philippines’ Chocolate Hills, a protected area, has caused public outrage in the island nation.
- The public outcry has prompted government investigations into the resort, which received approval at the local level but failed to obtain environmental permits required by national law.
- The controversy comes as tourism makes a post-pandemic comeback in the Philippines, prompting questions about how the industry can be managed more sustainably.
In Cambodia, an official’s cashew factory churns out timber from a protected forest
- A senior Cambodian official notorious for illegal logging appears to be carving out a vast swath of forest in what’s supposed to be a protected area in the country’s north.
- Satellite imagery suggests some 3,100 hectares (7,700 acres) of protected forest could be lost in a concession that activists and anonymous officials say has been awarded to a company led by Ouk Kimsan.
- Kimsan, who’s also the deputy governor of Preah Vihear province, denied owning a concession inside Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary — despite his company stating the opposite on its website.
- Community activists, who manage a slice of the protected area, say their complaints about illegal logging have been ignored by the provincial government, and blame a culture of corruption.
Conservationists aim to save South America’s super tiny wild cat, the guina
- The Americas’ smallest wild cat, the guina (Leopardus guigna), is superbly adapted to its home range in Chile and Argentina. But the region is severely affected by deforestation and increasing human population, putting the cat’s future at risk.
- The increase in people in the guina’s habitat has particularly severe consequences, including roads, fences, fires, cattle and, especially, attacks by dogs. The cats are also hunted by people due to their reputation as chicken killers.
- Conservation experts and authorities agree that solutions to save the guina must include local people. They have turned their attention to the people living outside protected areas to help conserve one of South America’s most endangered cats.
- New, groundbreaking environmental legislation in Chile hopefully will also help the cause of the guina and other species impacted by deforestation.
India’s new forest rules spark dismay — and hope: Q&A with activist Soumitra Ghosh
- India has recently adopted amendments to its forest laws that have sparked an outcry from activists and NGOs that say the changes severely weaken protections for biodiversity, forests and the people who depend on them.
- However, journalist-turned-activist Soumitra Ghosh says the new rule changes merely codify what had been happening for years: a gradual dilution of the regulatory powers for protecting India’s forest and environment laws, beginning with a system called “compensatory afforestation,” which he says commodified India’s forests.
- Ghosh talked with Mongabay about the history of India’s forest laws, as well as his hopes that despite the “draconian” new amendments, forests will still be protected since their primary authority still lies with the communities that live within and depend upon them.
‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars
- Researchers have launched a new book that catalogs hundreds of plant species from Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that have known medicinal uses.
- The book draws on the knowledge of Indigenous communities who have found a use for these plants over the course of generations, and whose livelihoods and cultures are closely intertwined with the fate of these species.
- The book also serves to highlight the imperiled situation of Prey Lang and its native species as deforestation by politically linked timber-trafficking networks continues to destroy vast swaths of this ostensibly protected area.
- “If the current trends of deforestation continue,” the authors warn, “an immense body of knowledge about nature will be lost, reducing the resilience and adaptability of future generations.”
Chinese gold miners ‘illegally’ tearing up Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- An NGO report and complaints by villagers allege a Chinese company has been mining gold inside one of Cambodia’s largest protected areas years before it was license to do so.
- Late Cheng Mining Development was awarded an exploratory license in March 2020 spanning 15,100 hectares (37,300 acres) inside Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, and an extraction license in September 2022.
- Local villagers say the company has likely been operating in the region since early 2019; villagers who spoke to Mongabay requested anonymity, citing fears of reprisals from the authorities.
- A report by the Bruno Manser Fonds and testimony from locals also allege the company’s mining activities risk contaminating waterways that villagers rely on.
New study pushes for protection of one of Africa’s ‘least understood treasures’
- A new study reveals the extent of a tropical water tower in Angola, which performs the same role as snow-capped mountains in the Northern Hemisphere.
- The Angolan Highlands Water Tower contains peatlands and freshwater lakes that supply major rivers in the region, and the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta in Botswana.
- Despite this vital hydrological role, the water tower currently has no formal protection.
- The team behind the study hopes it will help to strengthen the case for recognition of a vast portion of the water tower as a Ramsar Site of International Importance.
Disturbing graves is latest violation attributed to East African oil pipeline
- Faith-based climate justice organization GreenFaith says the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), will disturb at least 2,000 graves along its 1,441-kilometer (895-mile) route from Uganda’s Lake Albert to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
- Surveys in affected communities found numerous cases where residents said TotalEnergies, the French oil giant leading the project, had disturbed and disrespected the graves of their families and ancestors, despite their best efforts to alert the company to their presence.
- TotalEnergies says the process of identifying and relocating burial sites, and paying compensation to affected people, has been carried out in line with international standards.
- Since its inception in 2017, the EACOP project has been dogged by criticism over its environmental, social and climate change impacts.
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.
Calls grow to repurpose land squandered in Cambodia’s concession policy
- The mismanagement of large swaths of Cambodia’s land by the country’s elites under the policy of economic land concessions has displaced thousands of rural families and accounted for 40% of total deforestation.
- With even the government seeming to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of ELCs as an economic driver, calls are growing to return the land to dispossessed communities or repurpose them in other ways.
- One expert says the role of local communities will be central to the success of any reformation of the ELC system and will need to be carefully considered to avoid the pitfalls of the old system.
- Another proposes giving land currently owned by nonperforming ELCs to agricultural cooperatives managed by communities, placing more negotiating power in the hands of farmers rather than concessionaires.
Community forest association helps hold the line to protect Mount Kenya forest
- The volunteer members of the Chehe Community Forest Association are playing an active role in protecting forests on the southwestern slopes of Mount Kenya.
- Despite this, 20% of the Afromontane forests in this region have been lost to fire, illegal logging and invasive species over the past 20 years.
- The forest association’s chair says some local residents continue to encroach on forest reserves in the area — and that enforcement could be stronger.
Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop
- A new Greenpeace report alleges that pulp and paper giant APP continues to clear forests and develop peatlands 10 years after adopting its landmark 2013 pledge to stop destroying natural forests for its plantations.
- The report identifies 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of deforestation in APP supplier concessions or companies connected to APP between February 2013 and 2022 — an area the size of New York City.
- APP has also changed the start date of its no-deforestation policy from 2013 to 2020, which would allow the company at some point in the future to accept new suppliers that deforested between 2013 and 2020.
- APP denies allegations of continued deforestation and says its suppliers have ceased forest conversions since 2013; the company also says it has committed to peatland restoration.
Sumatran Indigenous seafarers run aground by overfishing and mangrove loss
- Many among Indonesia’s Duano Indigenous community have hung up their fishing nets in response to recent environmental and economic shifts.
- A study published in October found that intact mangroves were associated with up to a 28% increase in fish and shellfish consumption among coastal communities.
- Duano elders say young people from the community are increasingly retiring from the community’s traditional livelihood to take up poorly paid casual work.
‘Wasn’t us,’ fire-hit Indonesia claims as Malaysia chokes on poor air quality
- Malaysia has blamed forest fires in neighboring Indonesia of causing smoke that has sent air quality levels to unhealthy levels across much of the country.
- Air quality in Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Malaysia have worsened in recent days, with more than a dozen regions recording unhealthy air quality.
- Indonesian officials have denied that fires in their jurisdiction are to blame, and accused their Malaysian counterparts of misreading the data.
- Indonesia dismissed that same source of data in 2019, however, when fires in Sumatra and Borneo also spread to Malaysia and Singapore.
Indonesian children locked out of school as El Niño haze chokes parts of Sumatra & Kalimantan
- Poor air quality over several Indonesian cities and outlying rural areas has forced local authorities to cut class times or close schools altogether.
- Air pollution on Oct. 5 in one area of Palangkaraya far exceeded the level at which air quality is classified dangerous to human health.
- The government of Jambi province has closed schools until Oct. 7, after which it will review whether to reopen for in-person teaching.
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.
Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict
- Following petitions by Indigenous communities in Palawan, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a writ mandating a nickel mining project and associated government agencies respond to the communities’ environmental concerns.
- The issuance of the writ is an initial step in a legal process activists say they hope will result in the permanent suspension of the nickel mine, which is operating within a protected area.
- While the legal process is currently on hold due to a court recess, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued the mine a cease-and-desist order the same day the court issued the writ.
New concession in Botum Sakor National Park handed to Cambodia’s Royal Group
- Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park continues to be carved up and its ostensibly protected land awarded to private developers with close links to the country’s ruling party.
- In the latest development, approved Jan. 25 but only announced Aug. 14, local conglomerate Royal Group was awarded a 9,968-hectare (24,631-acre) concession that adjoins another land parcel it received in the park in 2021.
- This leaves Botum Sakor with 20,000 hectares (less than 50,000 acres) of land that’s not in private hands, or just one-ninth of its original area when it was declared a national park in 1993.
- Civil society groups have expressed concern over the lack of transparency surrounding the new concessions being issued in Cambodia’s protected areas, especially when the recipients are tycoons with reputations for illegal logging, forced evictions and environmental destruction.
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.
Indonesia claims record-low deforestation, but accounting raises questions
- Official data show Indonesia lost an area of forest two-thirds the size of London in 2021-2022, marking a third straight annual decline.
- The government attributes the continued drop to various forest protection policies, such as permanent ban on new permits to clear primary forests and peatlands as well as forest fire mitigation.
- However, data from the University of Maryland show Indonesia’s primary tree cover loss actually increased by 13% in 2022 compared to 2021 data — the first increase since 2017.
- The disparity in data comes from differences in methodology and definitions of deforestation and forests adopted by UMD and the Indonesian government.
Forests in the furnace: Cambodia’s garment sector is fueled by illegal logging
- An investigation has found factories in Cambodia’s garment sector are fueling their boilers with wood logged illegally from protected areas.
- A Mongabay team traced the network all the way from the impoverished villagers risking their lives to find increasingly scarce trees, to the traders and middlemen contending with slim margins, up to the factories with massive lots for timber supplies.
- The garment industry association denies that any of its members uses forest wood, but the informal and opaque nature of the supply chain means it’s virtually impossible to guarantee this.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
Nearly 85% of Indonesian peatlands aren’t protected, study shows
- This article has been withdrawn from publication by Mongabay.
New data show 10% increase in primary tropical forest loss in 2022
- Globally, the tropics lost 4.1 million hectares (10.1 million acres) of primary forest in 2022, 10% more than in 2021.
- These losses occurred despite the pledges of 145 countries at COP26 in 2021 to increase efforts to reduce deforestation and halt it by 2030; the new data, from the University of Maryland, puts the world far off track for meeting the goal of zero deforestation.
- According to Frances Seymour of World Resources Institute, there is an urgent need to increase financing for protecting and restoring forests.
Can community payments with no strings attached benefit biodiversity?
- A recent study published in the journal Nature Sustainability examines the idea of a “conservation basic income” paid to community members living in or near key areas for biodiversity protection.
- The authors argue that unconditional payments could help reduce families’ reliance on practices that could threaten biodiversity by providing financial stability and helping them weather unexpected expenses.
- But the evidence for the effectiveness of these kinds of cash transfers is scant and reveals that they don’t always result in outcomes that are positive for conservation.
A mega-highway threatens South America’s vulnerable Gran Chaco
- Dubbed the new Panama Canal, the 2,290-kilometer (1,423-mile) Bioceanic Corridor will connect Chile to Brazil via Argentina and Paraguay and aim to reduce freight transport costs.
- The highway crosses the Gran Chaco, one of the world’s most threatened biomes, which has already lost a fifth of its forest since 1985 due to agricultural expansion.
- Conservationists warn that the highway will lead to a surge in deforestation and an increase in the number of vehicle collisions, putting both people and wildlife at risk.
- Mitigating the environmental and social risks associated with the highway requires stronger political will and more robust implementation of protective regulations, experts say.
U.S. conservation investment routed to eucalyptus expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado
- The Timberland Investment Group (TIG), owned by investment bank BTG Pactual, is expanding its planted forest operations in the Cerrado. Its newest office is next door to the world’s soon-to-be largest paper and pulp factory, under construction.
- U.S. President Joe Biden pledged $50 million toward the initiative, claiming it would help conserve Latin America’s most critical ecosystems. The funds have not yet been released, but TIG has already started acquiring new land.
- From 2018-22, BTG Pactual financed $1.67 billion in forest-risky products including soy, beef, timber and pulp and paper, according to Forests & Finance data analyzed by Mongabay.
- The planted forest industry advertises environmental benefits and is increasingly joining bids for green finance. Critics say stored carbon is released after harvest and these monoculture plantations are distracting funds and attention away from real biome conservation.
License to Log: Cambodian military facilitates logging on Koh Kong Krao and across the Cardamoms
- Cambodia’s largest island, Koh Kong Krao, off its southwest coast, is covered in largely untouched old-growth forest, but recent satellite imagery shows deforestation is spreading.
- Much of the forest cover loss is in areas tightly controlled by Marine Brigade 2, a navy unit stationed on the island that has historically been accused of facilitating the illicit timber trade.
- Residents of the island said the navy controls almost every aspect of life there, with provincial officials afraid to intervene or investigate the military’s actions on Koh Kong Krao.
- Cambodia’s military has long been a key factor in illegal logging across the country, and reporters found evidence of its continued involvement in logging across the Cardamoms.
Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
- Old-growth forest in Central Cardamom Mountains National Park is being cleared to make way for the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, but the environmental impacts remain opaque.
- NGOs and the Ministry of Environment provide minimal oversight to prevent illegal loggers from exploiting the project site, and former loggers detailed how bribes facilitate the illicit timber trade.
- Prison officials maintained that the timber is used in a skills development program, but former inmates alleged that officials have been exploiting prison labor to craft luxury furniture.
New research finds slow forest recovery in the Andes — and ways to improve
- New research led by the University of Oxford could help governments better prioritize restoration and conservation interventions across the tropical Andes.
- The study evaluated how mountain forests in the region recovered over a 15-year period, identifying four possible recovery trajectories, ranging from natural to arrested.
- Andean tropical mountain forests are some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, but so far studies on how these ecosystems bounce back after disruption have been limited; researchers estimate that restoration is stalling in 73% of the area studied.
- Between 2001 and 2014, about 5 million hectares (about 12.3 million acres) of woody vegetation has been cleared in the tropical and subtropical Andes, altering mountain forests and their ecosystem services.
Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Two years since the Feb 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Indigenous activists continue their struggle to protect the Salween Peace Park, an Indigenous Karen-led protected area, from conflict.
- The park was subject to military-led deadly airstrikes in March 2021 and renewed violence in the vicinity of the park continues to force people to flee their homes into the forest.
- The Salween Peace Park was launched in 2018 and encompasses 5,485 square kilometers (nearly 1.4 million acres) of the Salween River Basin in one of Southeast Asia’s most biologically rich ecoregions.
- With many examples around the world, peace parks seek to preserve zones of biodiversity and cultural heritage using conservation to promote peacebuilding. The SPP includes more than 350 villages, 27 community forests, four forest reserves, and three wildlife sanctuaries.
Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- The ongoing development of an entirely new capital city from the ground up in Indonesia has alarmed environmental and Indigenous rights activists, who have warned of both deep ecosystem and social impacts.
- The government has justified the plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta, on the island of Java, to Indonesia Borneo as a way of ensuring a greater share of development beyond the country’s western islands.
- Mongabay has already reported on the risks to the wider Bornean region and the additional pressures on marine ecosystems that are a biodiversity haven.
- In response, Myrna Asnawati Safitri, the deputy for environment and natural resources at the government agency overseeing the development, reached out for an exclusive interview where these and other thorny questions were addressed.
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.
Study shows mountain forests being lost at ‘alarming rate,’ especially in Asia
- More than 7% of mountain forests worldwide were lost between 2001 and 2018, with rates of loss almost doubling after 2010.
- Forest loss varied by region, with tropical mountains losing forests almost three times faster than temperate forests and more than eight times faster than boreal forests.
- The expansion of farming into highland areas of Southeast Asia was a significant cause of this accelerated rate in the tropics during the study period.
- Protected areas help reduce mountain forest loss within their boundaries, particularly in high-biodiversity areas where farming and ranching are the leading causes of deforestation.
To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- A new toll road in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is under construction to improve access to the interior of Borneo, including to the nation’s new capital city, Nusantara.
- Construction of the road, however, poses immediate environmental risks, as the route cuts through a forested area with high conservation value that connects the Sungai Wain protected forest, coastal mangroves, and Balikpapan Bay.
- Prior to road construction, the integrated forest and coastal ecosystem supported populations of orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
- Conservationists say the construction of this toll road belies the Indonesian government’s claims that the development of the new capital will be green and sustainable.
Brazil pulp and paper company Klabin touts ‘green’ image despite mining interests
- Brazilian pulp and paper manufacturer, Klabin S.A. has registered mining interests in over 190 areas located across three of the country’s states.
- Over the last decade, Klabin has extracted minerals worth almost 83 million reais (more than $16 million), but since mining represents less than a tenth of its annual revenues, the company is not legally bound to officially declare its mining operations.
- Klabin has been searching for minerals in protected areas in the states Paraná and São Paulo without notifying environmental agencies; mineral surveying could threaten Brazil’s Atlantic forest and the livelihoods of quilombo communities.
- Companies that have invested in Klabin, which include the world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock, high-profile banks and pension funds, have mostly refused to comment on Klabin’s involvement in mining.
Deforestation threatens local populations in Republic of Congo’s Sangha
- Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts were recorded around Ouesso, in the northwestern Republic of the Congo.
- Logging has drastically impacted the country’s forest cover.
- In 2016, the Congolese authorities awarded 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of logging concessions to businesses, the majority of which had broken environmental and social standards.
- More recently, mining by Chinese companies (the land in north-west Congo is rich in iron and gold) has accelerated the destruction of ecosystems.
Mechanization of illegal gold mining threatens Ghana’s forests
- In Ghana, illegal miners known as galamseyers are carrying out an increasing share of the country’s gold production.
- In recent years, these miners have been sourcing machinery from China.
- The mechanization of gold mining is accelerating the destruction of forests and farms, as well as polluting waterways in northern and eastern Ghana.
Forests & finance: Setbacks for a rare bat, and progress for an oil pipeline
- As much as three-quarters of forests flanking Mozambique’s Mount Namuli have been lost since 2006, researchers say, threatening the newly described Namuli horseshoe bat.
- Environmentalists fear a new pipeline linking oil fields in Niger to the Atlantic coast in Benin will damage forest and wetland habitat along its length.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Changing circumstances turn ‘sustainable communities’ into deforestation drivers: Study
- Subsistence communities can drive forest loss to meet their basic needs when external pressures, poverty and demand for natural resources increase, says a new study unveiling triggers that turn livelihoods from sustainable into deforestation drivers.
- The impact of subsistence communities on forest loss has not been quantified to its true extent, but their impact is still minimal compared to that of industry, researchers say.
- Deforestation tends to occur through shifts in agriculture practices to meet market demands and intensified wood collecting for charcoal to meet increasing energy needs.
- About 90% of people globally living in extreme poverty, often subsistence communities, rely on forests for at least part of their livelihoods—making them the first ones impacted by forest loss.
Indonesia and Malaysia assail new EU ban on ‘dirty commodities’ trade
- The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have lambasted the EU regulation that will ban the trade of “dirty commodities,” including palm oil sourced from illegal plantations and deforestation.
- They argue that the regulation will harm the palm oil industry by increasing the cost of production.
- Activists, however, see the regulation as an opportunity for palm oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to have their palm oil globally recognized as legal and sustainable.
Fishers on Indonesia’s Batam Island suffer as mangrove cover declines
- Fishing is becoming a meager profession in Indonesia’s industrial and resort hub of Batam.
- Satellite imagery shows that only 1.5% of the island’s landmass still retains mangrove habitat.
- Construction of dams, industrial estates and reservoirs are the primary causes of mangrove destruction, according to researchers and local environmental nonprofit Akar Bhumi.
For Indonesian smallholders, EU deforestation rule is a threat — and an opportunity
- Small farmers in Indonesia could be excluded from the European palm oil supply chain under a new EU deforestation regulation because they’re far from being able to comply, a new survey shows.
- The main challenges they face are in meeting traceability, legality and sustainability requirements, given the largely informal nature of transactions at the farm level and the lack of awareness about the need for documents like land titles and plantation certificates.
- The country’s main oil palm smallholder union has called on the EU to provide support for small farmers to be able to comply, such as setting a premium price for certified legal and deforestation-free palm oil.
Amazon’s tallest tree at risk as deforestation nears
- Paru State Forest in the state of Pará was Brazil’s fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, sparking concern for the region’s giant trees — including the tallest in the Amazon.
- The Paru State Forest is the world’s third-largest sustainable-use tropical forest reserve and, together with other conservation units in the region, belongs to a 22 million-hectare (54.3 million-acre) protected mosaic known as the Calha Norte of the Amazon River.
- Deforestation caused by cattle ranchers, illegal land-grabbers and gold miners is advancing in and around the conservation unit, which experts say shouldn’t be happening due to the region’s protected status.
- A new advisory board was formed this November to protect the Paru State Forest for the next two years by monitoring the use of natural resources and deforestation in the area.
Scientists plead for protection of peatlands, the world’s carbon capsules
- As the United Nations Biodiversity Conference begins, a group of researchers from more than a dozen countries are calling for worldwide peatland protection and restoration for the protection of species and because of the vast amounts of carbon they contain.
- In a signed statement released Dec. 1, more than 40 scientists note that peatlands contain twice as much carbon as is found in all the world’s forests.
- As long as peatlands remain waterlogged, that carbon will stay in the soil; but if they’re degraded or drained, as around 12% of the world’s peatlands have been, they quickly become a source of atmospheric carbon.
- The scientists are asking for a more prominent role in international negotiations to address climate change and species’ global loss.
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.
Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Myanmar communities decry disempowerment as forest guardians since 2021 coup
- Within the shrinking civic space and violent aftermath of Myanmar’s February 2021 military coup, community-level efforts to safeguard Myanmar’s vast tracts of forest from development are buckling under the pressure of rampant resource extraction.
- Representatives of Indigenous peoples and local communities recently highlighted the challenges facing IPLCs in the country, many of whom have been displaced by conflict and estranged from their ancestral lands and forests.
- Environmental defenders and Indigenous rights activists are among those targeted for arrest and detention by military-backed groups.
- Activists are questioning how the world can seriously address global climate change when environmental defenders are actively being prevented from taking action.
Protecting the peatlands and woodlands in Angola’s ‘source of life’
- As negotiations over slowing climate change unfold at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, a group of scientists and conservationists is pushing for recognition of the Angolan Highlands as a vital carbon sink.
- The network of rivers, lakes and peatlands surrounded by miombo woodland in these highlands together maintain the year-round flow of water into the Okavango River Basin, and ultimately the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta in Botswana.
- Isolated for decades by civil war, in peacetime the Angolan Highlands have increasingly attracted returning populations to log, drain its bogs, and clear forests for agriculture.
- The National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project is pushing for protection of vital parts of the highlands to safeguard their role as a “water tower” for countries in the region — and prevent the peatlands from turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source.
Indigenous lands hold the world’s healthiest forests – but only when their rights are protected
- The world’s healthiest tropical forests are located in protected Indigenous areas (PIAs), according to a new study.
- However, research shows that forests with minimal human modification exist only on protected Indigenous lands. Indigenous lands that are unprotected lower forest integrity.
- Researchers believe the lower integrity of forests on Indigenous lands is due to mineral, oil, and gas deposits that are located on their lands and financial incentives for Indigenous people to deforest in unprotected areas.
- According to the researchers, strengthening Indigenous peoples’ land rights is critical to reaching global conservation and climate goals.
As banks fund oil pipeline, campaigners question their environmental pledges
- Activists say some banks that have signed up to the Equator Principles are failing to live up to their pledge of properly assessing the environmental and social risks of the projects they finance.
- South Africa’s Standard Bank and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are facilitating funding for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project (EACOP).
- When fully operational, crude oil flowing through pipeline will generate 34 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
- Activists say EACOP, which will run 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) across many ecologically sensitive areas, has also affected 12,000 households who have been inadequately compensated.
Report: Leaders’ vow to slow forest loss rings hollow ahead of climate talks
- Countries are nowhere close to meeting the goal of ending deforestation by 2030 announced in Glasgow in 2021, a new assessment shows.
- Indonesia is the only country that is moving in the right direction, registering declining deforestation rates in each of the past five years, which means tropical Asia as a whole is the only region on track to end forest loss.
- The world added forests the size of Peru between 2000 and 2020, but these gains don’t make up for the erasure of natural primary woodland, the report authors warn.
As Brazil starts repaving an Amazon highway, land grabbers get to work
- Paving work has begun on a stretch of highway running through one of the remotest and best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon — even as questions about the project’s permits abound.
- BR-319 was built in the 1970s to connect the Amazonian cities of Manaus and Porto Velho, but a 405-kilometer (250-mile) “Middle Stretch” fell into disrepair, making the road virtually impassable and killing the flow of traffic.
- Conservation experts have long warned against repaving the Middle Stretch, warning that improved access to this carbon-rich region will lead to a surge in deforestation, burning and land grabbing.
- With the repaving underway, this is already happening, raising concerns about unchecked forest loss that would have massive ramifications for the global climate.
British Columbia delays promised protections as old growth keeps falling
- Two years after British Columbia’s majority party promised a logging “paradigm shift” to conserve what’s left of the province’s tall old growth forests, Mongabay observed dramatic clear cutting on Vancouver Island in forests slated for protection. Old growth harvesting continues across British Columbia (BC) today.
- The BC minister of land management told Mongabay that the government, in partnership with First Nations, has deferred logging on 1.7 million hectares of old growth forests. But critics contest those numbers and note that much of these deferrals are for scubby alpine forests that aren’t in danger of being logged.
- First Nation leaders have been tasked by the government to determine which old growth forests to protect. This presents Indigenous communities with an economic conundrum, as many tribes will lose much-needed logging revenue if they choose conservation.
- Today, BC has many second-growth tree plantations that give the appearance of vast wooded expanses. But as Mongabay observed in July, these tree farms are “ecological deserts” that store less carbon than tall tree old growth and harbor little biodiversity as BC experiences intensifying climate impacts partly due to decades of overlogging.
Industrial mining’s tropical deforestation footprint spills beyond concessions
- Indonesia, Brazil, Suriname and Ghana account for 80% of all tropical deforestation linked directly to industrial mining, a new study has found.
- In two out of three tropical countries, large-scale mineral extraction leads to forest loss when effects over a wider area, beyond formal mining concessions, are considered.
- “We have to look beyond the mine fence,” Stefan Giljum, the lead author of the paper, said. “What is needed is a forest conservation plan for a whole region integrating all the activities that are going on.”
- It’s difficult to quantify forest destruction linked to the mining sector as a whole because both the indirect effects on surrounding areas and the impacts of artisanal mining are hard to pin down.
‘Brazilians aren’t familiar with the Amazon’: Q&A with Ângela Mendes
- Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance.
- In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
- She also reflects on the culture of impunity that allowed the masterminds of her father’s murder to evade justice, and which she says persists in Brazil today.
- But she also holds out hope for change, noting that Brazilians are largely concerned about the environment, but that they need to channel this concern into concrete actions, including in the national elections coming up in October.
Study tracks global forest decline and expansion over six decades
- Globally, there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square miles) in forest area between 1960 and 2019, according to a new study. That’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
- The study showed that most forest loss occurred in “lower-income” countries as their economies grew, which are found primarily in the tropics. Forests in wealthier countries tended to expand.
- The authors say their findings confirm the forest transition theory, which links countries’ economic development to changes in land use.
- International organizations like the U.N. and rich countries should provide support to less-industrialized, forested countries to allow them to find economically beneficial alternatives to deforestation, the study authors say.
Cambodian government cancels development of Phnom Tamao forest amid outcry
- Cambodia’s prime minister has intervened to stop the destruction of a forest outside the country’s capital, but not before developers managed to clear between 500 and 600 hectares (nearly 1,250-1,500 acres) in a week.
- More than half of the Phnom Tamao forest had been parceled out to politically connected tycoons, prompting widespread condemnation from conservationists, environmental activists, and the general public.
- Environmental activists and local communities have welcomed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s order canceling all the developments in the forest, but say the damage already done is extensive.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Hundreds of iconic Barbary macaques feared dead in Morocco forest fire
- A wildfire has burned through half of the Bouhachem Forest Reserve in northern Morocco, one of the few remaining refuges of the Barbary macaque.
- The fire forced the evacuation of more than 900 families from 15 villages in this region of the Rif mountains, destroying homes and crops and killing livestock.
- In recent months, exceptionally hot, dry conditions have prevailed in Morocco and around the Mediterranean and Western Europe, with observers saying climate change is exacerbating the conditions that produce forest fires in the region.
- The largest trees in the Bouhachem reserve have largely survived, but the burning of the forest understory will have a massive impact on the availability of grazing for villagers’ livestock, as well as food for macaques and other species.
Palm oil producer mired in legal troubles still razing Sumatran forest
- A palm oil company has resumed clearing forest in its concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth where tigers, orangutans and rhinos coexist.
- Analysis of satellite imagery by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows the company, PT Cemerlang Abadi (CA), cleared 309 hectares (761 acres) of secondary and regenerating forests between September 2021 and February 2022.
- RAN says it’s possible that palm oil from trees grown on this deforested land may have entered the global supply chain, as CA isn’t blacklisted by any of the major brands or traders that buy palm oil.
Consumer countries mull best approach to end deforestation abroad
- Major global consumers like the U.K., the U.S. and the EU are debating how best to reduce the amount of tropical deforestation resulting from the production of the commodities they import.
- Some experts argue that laws should restrict any products tinged with deforestation, while others say regulations should allow in imports that come from areas that were deforested legally in the countries in which they were produced.
- The debate involves questions around sovereignty, equality, and, ultimately, what strategy will best address the urgent need to stem the loss of some of the world’s most important repositories of carbon and biodiversity.
In Indonesian Borneo, a succession of extractive industries multiplies impacts, social fractures
- Much of the landscape of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province has been transformed, its formerly vast forests razed for logging, monocrop agriculture and open-cast coal mining.
- A recently published study analyzes how waves of extractive industries have affected the inhabitants of one village in the province
- The cumulative impacts of these industries were found to be severe, but also to vary depending on multiple factors including ethnicity, gender, wealth and age. Women, young people and recently arrived migrants were found to be disproportionately affected.
Indonesian official charged, but not jailed, for trading in Sumatran tiger parts
- A local politician previously convicted of corruption has been charged in Indonesia for allegedly selling Sumatran tiger parts.
- Ahmadi, 41, the former head of Bener Meriah district in Aceh province, was arrested on May 24 with two alleged accomplices — but he wasn’t detained, pending an investigation.
- Critics say the authorities’ refusal to jail him is emblematic of a core problem in Indonesian wildlife conservation, which is the impunity that powerful politicians and officials enjoy when keeping and trading in protected species.
- Aceh province, at the northern tip of Sumatra, is believed to hold about 200 of the world’s remaining 400 Sumatran tigers — the last tiger endemic to Indonesia following the extinction in the last century of the Bali and Javan subspecies.
Drivers of Colombia’s peacetime deforestation weave a complex web
- When the Colombian government signed a historic peace accord with the paramilitary group FARC in 2016, conservationists waited to see what peace would mean for the environment.
- New research shows how the forces driving deforestation in both war and in peace varied across the Colombian countryside between 2001 and 2018.
- Researchers found that cattle ranching, coca cultivation, and the size of municipalities were strong predictors of forest loss across this period, but that their respective importance varied across localities.
- Researchers say that considering the local drivers of forest loss can help improve both peacebuilding and environmental outcomes.
2021 tropical forest loss figures put zero-deforestation goal by 2030 out of reach
- The world lost a Cuba-sized area of tropical forest in 2021, putting it far off track from meeting the no-deforestation goal by 2030 that governments and companies committed to at last year’s COP26 climate summit.
- Deforestation rates remained persistently high in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s two biggest expanses of tropical forest, negating the decline in deforestation seen in places like Indonesia and Gabon.
- The diverging trends in the different countries show that “it’s the domestic politics of forests that often really make a key difference,” says leading forest governance expert Frances Seymour.
- The boreal forests of Eurasia and North America also experienced a spike in deforestation last year, driven mainly by massive fires in Russia, which could set off a feedback loop of more heating and more burning.
Amid extinctions, forest corridors aim to save rare birds in Brazil’s northeast
- A project in northeastern Brazil is working to connect fragments of the Atlantic Forest in an effort to save endemic bird species from extinction.
- The Atlantic Rainforest of the Northeast Project plans to reforest 70 hectares (173 acres) in the states of Pernambuco and Alagoas by 2023.
- Monitoring in Pernambuco’s Serra do Urubu region has shown an increase in bird diversity, from 105 species recorded in 2005, to 287 in 2021.
- Despite the progress being made, the situation remains fragile, with seven bird species having gone extinct in the Atlantic Forest in recent decades, and a strong tradition of keeping birds in cages still persisting.
Countries that sanctioned Myanmar’s junta are still buying their timber: Report
- Despite sanctions imposed following the February 2021 coup, Myanmar exported more than $190 million worth of timber, including to countries that have sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a new report from Forest Trends.
- The continued trade highlights the challenges of effectively enforcing sanctions, the report authors say; a lack of reporting on the timber trade from within the country also emphasizes the military regime’s purposeful lack of transparency.
- The authors call on countries to do more to cut off the junta’s access to natural resource revenues by extending financial sanctions to the banking sector.
- According to the report, effective implementation of sanctions is one of the most important actions the international community can take to support the citizens of Myanmar.
Making room in the Atlantic Forest for the largest primate in the Americas
- The destruction of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has created countless isolated forest patches surrounded by pastures, cities or monoculture plantations, with serious consequences for northern muriquis, the largest primate in the Americas.
- Considered critically threatened, northern muriquis depend on connectivity between different groups to survive; when females reach sexual maturity, they migrate to other groups, ensuring the species’ genetic diversity.
- In Minas Gerais state, a pioneering project by the Muriqui Institute of Biodiversity and Comuna do Ibitipoca is working to rescue isolated muriquis, release them into a restored forest area, and create forest corridors to allow them to move around.
- Conservationists say private landowners, such as Comuna do Ibitipoca, will be key to creating these corridors, given that 80% of the remaining patches of Atlantic Forest lie within private lands.
Can a reforestation project stop land grabs? Villagers in the DRC give it a try
- Kinandu village residents in southern Democratic Republic of Congo are taking part in a reforestation initiative in the miombo woodlands while land grabs are simultaneously on the rise.
- The fear of losing the land on which they were born and raised, coupled with an awareness of the environmental degradation they took part of, is inspiring residents to own forest concessions and restore the land.
- However, restoration largely depends on whether residents and stakeholders will change the way they produce essential goods, such as maize and charcoal.
- The government should continue to support the project after it ends in July 2022, says Jonathan Ilunga, professor of the University of Lubumbashi’s faculty of agronomy and deputy director of the Open Forests Urban Observatory.
Palm oil and pulpwood the usual suspects as Papua deforestation persists
- Indonesia’s Papua region lost total forest area the size of Manhattan last year, with much of the deforestation attributed to pulpwood and palm oil companies, according to a new report.
- Using satellite imagery and on-the-ground investigations, environmental NGO Pusaka recorded 5,810 hectares (14,357 acres) of deforestation in the region.
- One observer says this continued loss of forest highlights the disconnect between the Indonesian government’s rhetoric about tackling deforestation and what it actually allows to happen on the ground.
A mayor in the Philippines took on a mine, and lost her job over it
- When nickel mining firm Ipilan Nickel Corporation began felling trees in a protected forest in its concession area in Brooke’s Point, Palawan, Mayor Mary Jean Feliciano moved aggressively to stop them.
- After sending cease-and-desist orders and failing ultimately to prevent the felling of 7,000 trees, she used her authority to shut down the company’s operations and demolish onsite facilities.
- The company fought back, claiming it had the legal right to cut trees on the concession, and that Feliciano’s actions amounted to an abuse of authority.
- The Philippine Ombudsman sided with the company, ruling in July 2021 that Feliciano be suspended without pay for a year.
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.
Tukupu: The women of the Kariña community, guardians of Venezuela’s forests
- Tukupu is Venezuela’s first Indigenous forest business, sustainably managing and reforesting 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of the Imataca Forest Reserve in the south-east of the country.
- The business is led mainly by women who have used their ancestral knowledge to restore over 312 hectares (770 acres) of forest, reforest another 113 (280 acres) and dedicate 189 (468 acres) to agroforestry.
- According to the FAO, the equivalent of more than 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions have been avoided, either directly or indirectly, through the project.
- One of the key points of the project has been to figure out how the resources from the forest can be commercialised in a sustainable way that also benefits members of the community.
Liberian villagers threaten to leave mining agreement, citing broken promises
- Communities in Liberia have threatened to withdraw from an agreement they made with a mining company two years ago, on the grounds that none of the promised benefits have materialized.
- Much of the dispute hinges on the interpretation of the agreement, which mandates Switzerland-headquartered Solway Mining Incorporated to make payments to communities, but doesn’t make clear how or when to do so.
- Solway denies any wrongdoing, while the mining ministry has questioned the relevance of the agreement, saying it’s not legally required for exploration to proceed.
- But community members say the company is “proceeding wrongly”: “Solway is a big disappointment. We don’t see the schools and health centers they promised us.”
Attack on environmental lawyer’s home alarms DRC rights defenders
- Armed men, including two dressed in police uniform, attacked the home of Congolese lawyer Timothée Mbuya earlier this month and told family members they were sent to kill him.
- Mbuya is also facing a defamation lawsuit after publishing a report alleging encroachment of a protected area by a farm owned by former DRC president Joseph Kabila.
- Campaigners say both the lawsuit and the violent assault on the lawyer’s home fit a pattern of harassment of environment and human rights activists in the country.
Here’s how science is trying to conserve the monarch butterfly’s forests
- A team of Mexican scientists are developing a successful experiment that allows for the recovery and maintenance of endemic trees in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve that provide a habitat for monarch butterflies every winter.
- The team is employing a mix of natural restoration, soil conservation and active reforestation that has so far achieved a survival rate of 83 to 84 percent, at least three times more successful than some government reforestation programs.
- According to Dr. Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, one of the researchers of the project, forests where monarch butterfly colonies are located are becoming more susceptible to climate events through unusual foliage loss and increased woodland mortality.
- Researchers have started to implement the “assisted migration” of oyamel firs (Abies religiosa) to higher altitudes in the reserve, where they can best resist changing climatic conditions.
Total’s oil pipeline gets go-ahead from Ugandan MPs despite secret terms
- Uganda’s parliament has passed a bill approving the construction of a controversial pipeline that will cut through high-biodiversity areas and displace thousands of people.
- Critics say the bill was rushed through parliament to pave the way for a secretive agreement between the government and French oil giant TotalEnergies, the pipeline’s operator.
- The $3.5 billion heated oil pipeline will run 1,445 kilometers (898 miles) from Uganda’s Lake Mwitanzige, in the Albertine Rift, to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania.
- The new bill that undergirds it holds “supremacy” over all existing legislation other than Uganda’s Constitution, making it “very difficult” for laws that offer environmental and social protections to be upheld in the event of a conflict.
Indonesian research center for medicinal plants displaces incense harvesters
- Incense harvesters in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province say the construction of a new center for research into medicinal plants threatens their livelihoods.
- The government says the center will boost Indonesia’s food and drug security, and maximizing the economic potential of Indonesia’s wealth of medicinal plants.
Coastal deforestation fuels more frequent storms in West Africa, study warns
- Storms are hitting the densely populated coastal pocket of West Africa twice as frequently as 30 years ago, a new study says.
- Declining forest cover is fueling this increased storm frequency in the coastal regions of southern West Africa.
- With the loss of forests, the daytime temperature difference between land and sea is widening, generating stronger winds and feeding convective storms.
- “The coastal location of deforestation in SWA [southern West Africa] is typical of many tropical deforestation hotspots, and the processes highlighted here are likely to be of wider global relevance,” the study authors write.
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.
Josefina Tunki: ‘If we have to die in defense of the land, we have to die’
- Josefina Tunki, the first woman to preside over the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA), an Indigenous association in Ecuador, faces death threats due to her opposition to mining on Indigenous lands.
- The Ecuadoran government has granted 165 concessions to mining companies — for copper, gold and molybdenum — that covers 56% of PSHA territory in the Condor mountain range in southeastern Ecuador.
- Tunki’s election as president of the PSHA has revealed structural sexism, but it has also shown hope to a generation that sees women like her in positions of power.
- This report is part of a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam and La Barra Espaciadora (The Space Bar).
Dual pressures of hunting, logging threaten wildlife in Myanmar, study shows
- Combating illegal logging in Myanmar’s Rakhine state helps preserve wildlife populations, but is insufficient without addressing unsustainable local hunting pressures, according to new research.
- Researchers used camera trap data from between 2016 and 2019 to investigate the effects of environmental and human factors on medium to large mammals.
- Common species regularly targeted for bushmeat were negatively affected by increased human presence, they found, highlighting the pressures of illegal hunting on their populations.
- By contrast, threatened species were generally unaffected by human presence, but were positively linked to continuous stretches of evergreen forest, indicating their vulnerability to illegal logging, deforestation and habitat loss.
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.
Indonesia’s three most consequential forestry stories of 2021
- 2021 marked an inflection point for the fate of Indonesia’s rainforests, the largest expanse outside the Amazon and the Congo Basin.
- The year started out with news of a record drop in the deforestation rate in 2020, which the government attributed to its policies but which some observers say was due more to outside factors such as the pandemic.
- This was also the year that a moratorium on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations came to an end, with experts warning of an impending wave of forest clearing now that the policy has expired.
- Land conflicts pitting local and Indigenous communities against agribusiness companies and developers saw an increase despite the pandemic-driven economic slowdown, with observers pointing to a lack of effective conflict-resolution mechanisms.
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.
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.
2019 fires in Indonesia were twice as bad as the government claimed, study shows
- Independent researchers have identified 3.11 million hectares (7.68 million acres) of areas that were burned during Indonesia’s 2019 fires, nearly double the official government estimate.
- The new analysis used satellite imagery that was less constrained by cloud cover and smoke, and the Google Earth Engine to more efficiently identify burn scars.
- Activists have welcomed the new methodology to more accurately map burned areas, but say that government officials are likely to push back against findings that contradict the official narrative.
- David Gaveau, a co-author of the new study, was deported from Indonesia last year after publishing preliminary findings of a larger burned area than the government claimed, although officials denied the deportation was linked to the findings.
Where does the Greater Mekong’s illegal timber go?
- Not all lumber is created equal; within the Greater Mekong region, high-quality hardwoods such as Burmese teak and rosewood are particularly valuable and have been logged almost to commercial extinction.
- Burmese rosewood is highly sought after in China for furniture, while Burmese teak is popular in the European shipbuilding sector as decking for superyachts.
- Recognizing their role in Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, European Union member states developed a common position in 2017 acknowledging imports of Myanmar timber into the EU to be against the law due to their high risk of illegality.
- However, shipments continue to leak into the region through countries where enforcement is weaker, including Italy and Croatia.
Indonesian peat restoration has more benefits than it costs, study finds
- The benefits of effective Indonesian peatland restoration — blocking drainage canals to restore water levels and reestablishing vegetation cover — will outweigh the cost of restoration, according to a new study.
- Following the severe fire season of 2015 that destroyed vast swaths of peatland, the administration of President Joko Widodo has targeted restoring 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) of degraded peatland across the archipelago.
- The authors of the new study used satellite data and models to estimate that, if completed, peatland restoration would have contributed significant reductions for 2004-2015 in fire losses and damages, CO2 emissions, PM2.5 particle emissions, health-related losses, and land-cover losses.
- Indonesia has 21 million hectares of peatland that stores an estimated 57 million metric tons of carbon, roughly 55% of the world’s tropical peatland carbon.
In Colombia, threatened women of the Wayuú community continue to fight rampant mining
- The Wayuú Women’s Force, founded in 2006, is an Indigenous organization that denounces the coal mining that has dammed and contaminated rivers, leaving much of La Guajira without water.
- Members of the organization have received death threats but continue to train women to stand up for their human rights.
- In addition to their work in La Guajira, the Wayuú women are developing ways of holding companies all over the world accountable for their negative environmental impact.
Why has illegal logging increased in the Greater Mekong?
- In recent decades, rich tropical forests of the Greater Mekong region have been steadily depleted by the world’s growing appetite for timber.
- Recognizing the impact of the timber trade on natural forests, governments in the Greater Mekong region have come up with laws to regulate logging and timber exports.
- However, insufficient political will and collusion between officials, businesspeople and criminal groups means enforcement is often limited.
- There is a clear need to strengthen local laws and enforcement, but pressure from foreign governments, businesses and consumers can help.
The Greater Mekong region: A hotspot of wildlife and crime
- The global illegal timber trade generates up to $152 billion a year, accounting for up to 90% of deforestation in tropical countries and attracting the world’s biggest organized crime groups.
- Illegal logging is today responsible for 15% to 30% of global timber production. Estimates vary because complex international supply chains make it difficult to ensure the timber has been lawfully handled at every stage.
- Illegal logging is devastating forests in the Greater Mekong region, which consists of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and parts of China.
In Sumatra, a snare trap costs a baby elephant her trunk, then her life
- A female elephant calf in Indonesia has died days after her rescue and an emergency amputation by conservation authorities in Aceh province.
- Authorities link the elephant’s death to the severe wounds on her trunk believed to have been inflicted by a snare trap set by wildlife poachers.
- Veterinarians amputated half of her trunk, and reported that the elephant appeared to be recovering from the procedure. She died on Nov. 16.
- Snare traps, typically made of steel or nylon wire and usually set for bushmeat like wild boar, are indiscriminate in what they catch, resulting in the capture of non-target species, as well as females and juvenile animals.
One in five hectares of oil palm in Indonesia is illegal, report shows
- A fifth of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, are operating illegally inside forest areas that are off-limits to commercial agricultural activity, a new report from Greenpeace shows.
- Half of these plantations are operated by corporations, and the other half by smallholders, indicating that nearly a third of registered palm oil companies in Indonesia have illegal plantations.
- These illegal plantations occupy protected areas such as national parks and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and overlap with the habitat of threatened wildlife like orangutans and tigers.
- Many of the companies identified in the report are members of so-called sustainability certification schemes like the RSPO and ISPO, pointing to a failure by these initiatives to address unsustainable practices.
Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.
Starving and injured Sumatran tiger dies in captivity, Indonesian officials report
- A severely injured and emaciated Sumatran tiger has died in captivity after being captured from the wild, Indonesian conservation authorities reported.
- The adult female tiger was caught following a series of deadly tiger attacks on villagers living near Kerinci Seblat National Park.
- Conservation authorities speculate an outbreak of African swine fever that has affected the area’s population of wild boars likely forced the tigers to roam farther from the forests and into human settlements in search of food.
- Fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild, with the big cat’s population plunging in line with widespread destruction of its forest habitat, primarily due to logging and expanding oil palm and pulpwood plantations.
Planned copper mine raises fears for biodiversity hotspot in Jordan
- The Jordanian government plans to carve out almost a third of the Dana Biosphere Reserve to allow mining for copper in the biodiverse area.
- With more than 800 different plants and 215 bird species, Dana is home to about a third of Jordan’s flora, almost half of the country’s mammals, and half of all the bird species.
- Local communities and conservationists have expressed alarm over the plan, warning of irreversible environmental destruction, water and air pollution, and loss of habitat for rare wildlife.
- They also say the environmental impact assessment for the project has never been published, and cite the dangers of long-term contamination, pointing to 2,000-year-old copper mines that continue to pose a toxic threat.
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.
COP-26: Amazonia’s Indigenous peoples are vital to fighting global warming (commentary)
- The United Nations Climate Change summit, the 26th conference of the parties (COP-26), held in Glasgow Scotland through November 12, is important both for the future of the global climate and for Amazonian Indigenous peoples.
- Uncontrolled climate change threatens the Amazon forest on which Indigenous peoples depend, and Indigenous peoples in turn have an important role as guardians of the forest.
- Decisions on how international funds intended to avoid greenhouse gas emissions are used represent both opportunities and risks for the climate, for the forest, and for Indigenous peoples.
- Indigenous voices need to be heard at COP-26, as empowered stakeholders threatened by climate change, and for the invaluable traditional wisdom these peoples can contribute to global warming solutions. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
BR-319 highway hearings: An attack on Brazil’s interests and Amazonia’s future (commentary)
- Brazil’s proposed reconstruction of the BR-319, a highway connecting Manaus (in central Amazonia) with the “arc of deforestation” in southern Amazonia, would bring deforesters to vast areas of what remains of the Amazon forest.
- The forest areas in western Amazonia that would be opened by planned roads connecting to the BR-319 are vital to maintaining rainfall that supplies water to São Paulo and other major urban and agricultural areas outside the Amazon region.
- Holding public hearings allows a “box to be checked” in the licensing process — a key step in obtaining official approval for the highway project. The hearing was held despite impacted Indigenous peoples not having been consulted, among other irregularities.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
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.
Math campus multiplies threats to Rio de Janeiro’s dwindling Atlantic Forest
- A plan to create a new mathematics campus with student accommodation in Rio de Janeiro is being challenged by residents as it calls for the removal of 255 trees in a patch of the already severely diminished Atlantic Forest.
- A study shows the construction site sits on a slope that poses a high geological risk, leaving residents worried about flooding and landslides in an area already affected by intense rainfall.
- Experts say there are irregularities in the licensing granted to the construction, and environmental laws are not being respected.
- The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), which is building the new campus, says all its licenses are in order, that it will reforest the area, and that the educational and social benefits will be worth it.
Paper giants’ expansion plans raise fears of greater deforestation in Indonesia
- Two paper giants, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), plan to significantly expand their production capacity in Indonesia.
- Activists warn that these plans could lead to increased deforestation of natural forest and peatlands in Indonesia to plant the pulpwood trees needed to meet this capacity, exacerbating the annual fire season.
- They say the projects are benefiting from the Indonesian government’s deregulation initiative that strips away environmental and social protections across a wide swath of industries, including pulp and paper.
- In response to the expansion plans, a coalition of 33 NGOs has sent a letter to APP’s financiers and buyers, asking them to refrain from doing business with the company.
‘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.
The Pantanal is burning again. Will it be another devastating year?
- Fires have reignited in the Pantanal region of South America, the world’s largest tropical wetland, a year after it lost 30% of its biome to the catastrophic fires of 2020.
- With more than 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of the Pantanal already burned, some experts say this year’s fires could be nearly as devastating as last year’s if the situation is not carefully managed and the current fires are not contained.
- Others are not as concerned, noting that fire is part of the natural ecological process in the Pantanal, and that this year’s fires aren’t nearly as damaging or substantial as last year’s.
- One marked difference between 2020 and 2021 is this year’s increased efforts to fight the fires, with government agencies, NGOs and communities working together to protect the Pantanal.
Illegal logging reaches Amazon’s untouched core, ‘terrifying’ research shows
- Satellite imagery shows that logging activity is spreading from peripheral areas of the Amazon toward the rainforest’s core, according to groundbreaking research.
- The satellite-based mapping of seven of Brazil’s nine Amazonian states showed a “terrifying” pattern of logging advance that cleared an area three times the size of the city of São Paulo between August 2019 and July 2020 alone.
- At the state level, lack of transparency in logging data makes it impossible to calculate how much of the timber production is illegal, experts say.
- Evidence of cutting in Indigenous reserves and conservation units — where logging is prohibited — make clear that illegal logging accounts for much of the activity, according to the report.
Should tree plantations count toward reforestation goals? It’s complicated
- Globally, tree-planting projects are becoming all the rage, but many are counting on old habits of planting monoculture plantations and calling them forests.
- Still, some researchers say there are ways to make plantation trees aid in actual restoration projects, including innovative projects in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.
- Reforestation and restoration projects will require monitoring and scrutiny to make sure they are living up to their commitments in regard to both climate and biodiversity.
Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
- As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue in Myanmar, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat.
- On Sept. 6, environmental and democracy activist Kyaw Minn Htut became one of the latest political prisoners; authorities had detained his wife and 2-year-old son a day earlier.
- He had openly challenged the military and reported on illegal environmental activities, making him a “well-known and well-hated” target, fellow activists said.
- Some 20 environmental organizations across the world have signed a statement calling for Kyaw Minn Htut’s release.
Spike in deforestation detected in Papua concession linked to South Korea’s Moorim
- Satellite imagery has detected 965 hectares (2,384 acres) of tree loss from January to May this year in a concession run by a subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua.
- The findings appear to corroborate an earlier investigation, using drone images, that showed signs of clearing in peat swamp areas in the concession.
- Besides the alleged deforestation, Indigenous communities in the area have also reportedly been denied the right to give their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to the project.
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies Moorim’s paper products as sustainable, says its takes these allegations “very seriously”; Moorim did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment.
Italian firms flout EU rules to trade in illegal Myanmar timber, report says
- Negligible fines and inadequate enforcement are turning Italy into a hotspot for illegal Myanmar timber, a new report has found.
- The report identified 27 Italian traders that have been importing Burmese teak into Europe despite a long-held common position acknowledging timber imports from Myanmar to be against the law.
- In June, the EU further imposed sanctions on the only possible source of legal timber in the country; yet traders did not confirm they would stop imports, the report said.
- Italian traders are exploiting the country’s inadequate enforcement to ship timber to the rest of Europe and circumvent the EU’s sanctions and timber regulations, the researchers wrote.
North American paper industry merger sets off environmental alarms
- Canadian firm Paper Excellence plans to acquire U.S. pulp and paper giant Domtar, with shareholders overwhelmingly approving the proposed merger.
- The acquisition signals Paper Excellence’s expansion in North America, something that environmentalists say will threaten Canada’s boreal forest.
- This is because Paper Excellence is reportedly controlled by the owners of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, which has a long track record of deforestation, forest and peat fires, and human rights violations.
Next to India’s capital, a village looks to the past for its forest’s future
- For generations, a community outside India’s capital has worked to protect their sacred grove from outside interests like mining and real estate.
- Despite being a biodiversity hotspot, the protection status of this grove under India’s Forest Conservation Act remains in limbo.
- But conservationists and experts say they hope new archaeological findings will help the community get more secure legal protection for their grove.
Indonesian pulpwood firms told to protect peat are doing the opposite: Report
- Pulpwood companies in Indonesia are continuing to plant on degraded peatlands inside their concessions, despite being required to protect and restore these ecosystems, a new report shows.
- The report focuses on 16 pulp and paper producers and found all of them in violation of peat protection and rehabilitation regulations.
- Among the violations are planting and harvesting acacia trees in previously burned peatlands, and digging new canals to drain peatland.
- Among the companies highlighted in the report are subsidiaries of two of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world, APP and APRIL.
An Ecuadoran town that survived illegal miners now faces a licensed operator
- The town of La Merced de Buenos Aires, in Ecuador, gained notoriety when it was invaded by illegal miners in 2017; for almost two years, the area was plagued by violence, prostitution and drug addiction.
- Authorities evicted the miners in 2019, but now the land may become home to legal mining operations, which many residents emphatically oppose.
- More than 300 people spent over a month blocking the path of the machinery, trucks and employees of Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining S.A.
- The Ombudsman’s Office warns that confrontations will arise and has called on local, regional and national authorities to take immediate action.
In Brazil’s Acre, smoke from fires threatens health, could worsen COVID-19
- Fires are gaining momentum in Acre, a state in southwesten Brazil 80% covered in old-growth Amazon rainforest, where a historic drought and high levels of deforestation have experts worried that this will be a bad year for fires
- Wildfires generate small particulate matter which, when inhaled, can travel into the lungs, bloodstream, and vital organs, causing serious damage, akin to cigarette smoke.
- Data from Acre’s air-quality monitoring network, the largest in the Amazon, show that during the peak burning seasons in 2019 and 2020, the rates of particulate matter hovered well above the level recognized by the World Health Organization as clean and safe for breathing
- Wildfire smoke has been linked to higher COVID-19 mortality rates, threatening to compound what is already one of the worst burdens of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world. At particular risk are Indigenous populations, who suffer mortality rates 1.5 times the average in Brazil.
A bad fire year predicted in Brazil’s Acre state. What’s to be done?
- As of Aug. 15, 29 major fires have been set this year in the southwestern Brazilian state of Acre, burning more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), compared to just one major fire reported by the same date last year, which burned 20 hectares (50 acres).
- A recent study found that unprecedented levels of fires burned in standing rainforest in 2019, which was neither a drought nor an El Niño year, meaning the risk of forest fires is rising, even when rainfall is normal.
- The authors say this adds to mounting evidence that the discourse and policies of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which began in January 2019, have relaxed regulations and emboldened land grabbers and those who set illegal fires.
- Researchers say they hope that new platforms to monitor and predict fires, as well as educational programs about fires and fire alternatives in schools, communities and on the radio will lead to behavioral changes and less fire, but say government support and investment is needed.
EU sanctions no ‘silver bullet’ against Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, experts say
- The European Union has imposed sanctions on Myanma Timber Enterprise, a state-owned entity that regulates all harvesting and sales of Myanmar timber.
- The new sanctions mean it is now illegal for businesses in the EU to directly import any timber from Myanmar.
- While the sanctions send a strong political signal to the junta, experts say their actual impact on Myanmar’s illegal timber trade could be limited.
- Local activists are urging the international community to do more as globally significant tracts of forests in the country come under threat, with illicit logging financing the military’s repressive rule.
Protected areas keep adjacent lands safe, but face losing their own protection
- Safeguarding nature in one area can displace harmful activities, such as illegal logging or mining, into another, a phenomenon known as leakage or spillover; but how big is the problem?
- The first systematic review of studies examining the effects of protected areas around the globe on their surrounding areas found that less than 12% showed evidence of leakage or spillover, while the majority (54%) reduced deforestation in surrounding areas.
- Another study found that protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon overwhelmingly blocked deforestation in the surrounding forest, again suggesting that protected areas inhibit deforestation both within and outside of their boundaries.
- Experts say environmental and regulatory rollbacks that loosen restrictions on land use, shrink boundaries, or altogether eliminate protections pose a much greater threat to the Amazon than leakage, and efforts should focus on keeping protected areas permanent and improving management and enforcement of regulations.
Tiger habitat threatened by Malaysian royals’ mining plans
- A company owned by members of Pahang state’s royal family plans to mine iron ore in a forest reserve that is home to 15 threatened species, including tigers, elephants, tapirs, sun bears and leopards.
- The area, which was until June 2019 listed as a permanent forest reserve, is part of a wildlife corridor connecting key forest complexes in Peninsular Malaysia’s Central Forest Spine.
- The planned iron mine, which came to light after the project’s environmental impact assessment was made public, is one of a spate of extractive projects recently found to be linked to Malaysian royalty.
Deforestation soars 40% in Xingu River Basin in Brazilian Amazon
- An area of forest twice the size of New York City was cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year, a rate of deforestation 40% higher than in the same period last year, a new report shows.
- The highest rates of forest loss were recorded along the path of the BR-163 “soy highway,” a major trucking route that cuts through one of the most ecologically important parts of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Deforestation was recorded in protected areas, including conservation units and Indigenous reserves, which points to a failure by the government to fight environmental crimes, according to an author of the report.
- The main driver of deforestation in Indigenous reserves is illegal mining, which activists say has been encouraged by the rhetoric and legislative initiatives of President Jair Bolsonaro.
In the Colombian Andes, a forest corridor staves off species extinction
- Recognized as one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, the tropical Andes host more than 10% of the planet’s biodiversity — roughly two million species of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms — of which only 10% have been identified.
- This precious ecosystem is in peril because, in the past few decades, 75% of natural habitat has been lost largely to agricultural expansion.
- La Mesenia-Paramillo Nature Reserve in the Colombian Andes is attempting to stave off the threat by restoring 3,500 hectares (8,650 acres) of degraded land and connecting about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of intact forest with the main Andean chain as a habitat corridor.
Forest loss in mountains of Southeast Asia accelerates at ‘shocking’ pace
- Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests, which support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet.
- A new study reveals that mountain forest loss in Southeast Asia is accelerating at an unprecedented rate throughout the region: approximately 189,000 square kilometers (73,000 square miles) of highland forest was converted to cropland during the first two decades of this century.
- Mountain forest loss has far-reaching implications for people who depend directly on forest resources and downstream communities.
- Since higher-elevation forests also store comparatively more carbon than lowland forests, their loss will make it much harder to meet international climate objectives.
Bigger is badder when it comes to climate impact of farms in the Amazon
- A 20-year analysis of satellite data shows significant temperature differences in agricultural lands in southern Amazonia, depending on farm size.
- Extensively deforested commercial farms are up to 3 °C (5.4 °F) warmer than adjacent forests, while on smaller farms this difference is 1.85 °C (3.3 °F).
- Management practices that try to balance productivity with the maintenance of essential ecosystem services, such as the water cycle, will be crucial to preserving the Amazon’s remaining forests, the study’s authors say.
In less than a generation, legal mining in Colombia deforested over 120,000 hectares
- A study by researchers in Colombia found that forest clearing by legal mining operations has increased sharply in recent years.
- The study shows that just 1% of the 8,600 legal mining concessions in the country account for 60% of the deforestation associated with the sector.
- The authors say that if mining titles continue to be granted at current rates, Colombia could lose 400,000 hectares (990,000 acres) of forest from legal mining alone over the next two decades.
Study shows it took the Amazon as we know it over 6 million years to form
- An asteroid impact near Mexico 66 million years ago triggered an ecological catastrophe that claimed nearly half of all plant species and took Amazon forests more than 6 million years to recover from.
- Colombian researchers analyzed fossilized pollen and leaves and found plant diversity declined by 45% after the impact; when plant diversity finally recovered, open forests of ferns and conifers had been replaced by dense, closed-canopy forests dominated by flowering plants.
- The researchers suggested three interlinked explanations for the sudden transition: the extinction of large-bodied dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous reduced forest disturbance; dust from the impact acted as a fertilizer; conifers were more likely to go extinct.
- In the time periods studied, Earth’s climate was warmer and CO2 levels were higher, showing that climate alone is not enough to trigger a forest-to-savanna transition, with the pace of warming and deforestation the crucial puzzle pieces that determine whether today’s forests can survive.
‘We guard the forest’: Carbon markets without community recognition not viable
- Researchers looked at 31 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that hold almost 70% of the world’s tropical forests and 62% of the total feasible natural climate solution potential, and found that most of the tropical forested countries looking to benefit from carbon markets still need to define community carbon rights.
- There is significant public and private interest to use carbon markets to fight climate change and work toward the goals of the Paris Agreement, with the global LEAF coalition pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.
- While carbon markets appear to be a win-win for protecting the forests and promoting developing economies, if implemented without meaningfully including communities, they could worsen risks faces by these communities including increasing land grabs and efforts to capture associated rents, and increasing threats of human rights violations, criminalization and conflicts.
- Studies increasingly show that Indigenous peoples and local communities are the best stewards of tropical forests, and that granting them land rights is a highly cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions.
Reforestation is booming, but deforestation rose last year
- On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss newly released data that shows deforestation rose last year, even while tree planting initiatives took root across the globe.
- Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler joins us to discuss the 2020 deforestation data, how that data fits into broader trends affecting the world's forests, and what good news there is to take out of last year's deforestation numbers.
- We also welcome Mongabay staff writer Dr. Liz Kimbrough to the program to discuss the newly launched Reforestation Directory, a database of hundreds of reforestation projects from around the world that aims to help donors find the most effective tree-planting initiatives to fund.
Indonesian omnibus law’s ‘whitewash’ of illegal palm oil shocks its architects
- Indonesian lawmakers appear outraged at a scheme from a law they already passed that grants amnesty to oil palm plantations operating illegally inside forest areas.
- The amnesty scheme gives the operators a grace period of three years to apply for the proper paperwork, including a redesignation of the forest they’re illegally occupying to a non-forest designation.
- The lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved the law last November despite near-universal criticism, have called the scheme “whitewashing” and “eco-terrorism.”
- One even expressed his own regret at not being a “forest thief” had he only known how lucrative it would be.
Indonesia’s bid to control deforestation wildly off-target, experts say
- Indonesia aims to transform its forests into a carbon sink by 2030 by reducing deforestation and increasing reforestation, as the country targets going carbon neutral by 2070.
- Experts say the plan is unrealistic given the current pace of deforestation and the fact that prevailing government policies still allow for a substantial amount of forest clearing for agriculture.
- A surge in global palm oil prices could also drive further deforestation in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity.
Landmark decision: Brazil Supreme Court sides with Indigenous land rights
- Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) has unanimously accepted an appeal by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people and agreed to review the process around a past case that cancelled the demarcation of their Indigenous territory.
- The Guarani Kaiowá’s decades-long fight for land rights to their ancestral territory, the Guyraroká land in Mato Grosso do Sul state, had been suspended by a 2014 ruling halting the territory’s demarcation process.
- The STF’s decision to review the process in the 2014 case, which hadn’t allowed for Indigenous consultation, is seen by analysts as a victory for Indigenous groups in Brazil, and as a setback for President Jair Bolsonaro who has declared his opposition to any Indigenous demarcation occurring during his administration.
- In a related upcoming case, the STF is expected to rule on the “marco temporal,” which requires that Indigenous people have been living on claimed lands in 1988 in order to establish a legal territory. But litigators have argued that date is unfairly arbitrary, as many Indigenous groups were forced off ancestral lands by then.
Only 6.5% of global forests are adequately protected, study finds
- Designating land as a protected area (PA) reduces, but does not stop, deforestation, according to a recent study that found rates of deforestation are only 41% lower in PAs compared to non-PAs.
- After adjusting for PA effectiveness, they found that only 6.5% of forests are adequately protected — a far cry from the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Aichi Target of 17%.
- Larger PAs had higher levels of deforestation. Africa, Europe and South America had the highest rate of forest loss within PAs. When the effectiveness of PAs was considered, China had the lowest percentage of truly protected lands.
- As new CBD targets are negotiated, the authors, along with other scientists, propose that new targets and PA establishment include quality measures. The current targets have created “a policy incentive to value total PA area above PA effectiveness,” the paper says.
Palm oil firm Digoel Agri said to clear Papuan forest without Indigenous consent
- A palm oil conglomerate has begun clearing the ancestral forests of Indigenous tribes in Indonesia’s Papua region without the locals’ consent, a watchdog group says.
- Subsidiaries of the Digoel Agri group have cleared 64 hectares (158 acres) of forest in the first two months of 2021, according to satellite imagery analyzed by Pusaka, an Indonesian nonprofit.
- Digoel Agri had cleared 164 hectares (405) acres in 2019, before suspending operations for all of last year amid a labor dispute.
- Pusaka alleges that Digoel Agri has failed to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of local Indigenous tribes to operate in the area, which forms part of the Tanah Merah project, slated to become the world’s biggest oil palm plantation.
Myanmar’s troubled forestry sector seeks global endorsement after coup
- Two days after the military coup in Myanmar on Feb. 1, the nationally privatized Myanmar Forest Products and Timber Merchants Association (MFPTMA) released a statement claiming its timber trade is fully in compliance with legal and official deforestation guidelines intended govern international exports.
- The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has publicly countered the letter, saying that Myanmar’s timber trade is highly corrupt and does not comply with international policies such as the EU’s Timber Regulation.
- Expert critics say the letter was motivated by money, and that any subsequent timber trade would directly benefit the ongoing military coup, which has been promised to last for at least a year.
- The EIA has called for placing economic sanctions on Myanmar, particularly in regard to the timber trade, until power is handed back to the democratically elected government.
Brazil guts agencies, ‘sabotaging environmental protection’ in Amazon: Report
- A new report documents draconian budget cuts to Brazilian environmental monitoring and firefighting of 9.8% in 2020, and 27.4% in 2021 — reductions, analysts say that were inflicted by the Bolsonaro administration in “a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies.”
- Brazil’s environmental agencies under Bolsonaro have also been subjected to nearly 600 administrative and rules changes, invoked by presidential executive order and resulting in massive environmental deregulation.
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared, with an increase of 34% in the last two years, even as capacity to punish environmental criminals fell sharply due to funding shortages. Fines imposed for illegal deforestation, instead of rising during this Amazon environmental crime wave, fell by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
- Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of environmental agencies and protections, two Indigenous leaders — Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuktire, and Paiter Surui Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.”
Papua tribe moves to block clearing of its ancestral forest for palm oil
- Members of the Auyu tribe of Papua, Indonesia, are demanding a halt to the operations of palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari (IAL), which appears to be gearing up to clear their ancestral forests.
- They say that the company failed to obtain the community’s consent for the project, and that it’s not clear whether it even has the requisite permits to begin operations.
- IAL’s concession is part of the Tanah Merah megaproject that is already dogged by allegations that key operating permits have been falsified.
- The Papua region is home to the world’s third-largest contiguous swath of tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo Basin, but large areas may be cleared for plantations.
A good year for the Philippine eagle in 2020, but not for its supporters
- The country’s pandemic lockdown, among the longest and strictest in the world, curtailed field expeditions in the southern Mindanao region, impacting the conservation of the critically endangered Philippine eagles (Phitecopaga jefferyi).
- Despite the limitations, Philippine eagle conservationists and their partner agencies rescued seven eagles and sighted two new eagle families.
- Conservationists note that more eagles have been seen in the wild in Mindanao, among the last remaining bastions of the species, which means that conservation drives to educate communities are working.
- While 2020 was a productive year for eagle conservation, the pandemic crippled the steady stream of revenue coming from tourists visiting the Philippine Eagle Center in Davao City.
‘We are part of the solution and the problem’: Q&A with author Torkjell Leira
- In his new book, A Luta pela Floresta (The Fight for the Forest), social geographer Torkjell Leira takes stock of Norway’s 40 years of relationship with the Brazilian Amazon.
- It’s a paradoxical relationship, he says, one that has seen the Nordic country invest nearly a billion dollars in environmental conservation in the South American country — and about five times that much in environmentally destructive businesses.
- Leira also rebuffs the accusation that criticism of the Bolsonaro government’s environmental policies is driven by neocolonialism, saying this accusation only seems to be leveled at foreign environmental groups and not foreign investors in destructive industries.
Restaura Cerrado: Saving Brazil’s savanna by reseeding and restoring it
- The Cerrado is Brazil’s second largest biome, and the most biodiverse tropical savanna in the world. It is of vital importance for Brazil’s watersheds, for global biodiversity, and is an important but undervalued carbon stock.
- But in recent decades, half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been destroyed to make way for cattle, soy, and other agricultural commodities. In the southern Cerrado, scientists are now shifting their focus to restoring the native vegetation
- However, scientific knowledge on savanna restoration is scarce. So one collaborative network, Restaura Cerrado, is bringing together scientists, seed collectors, and the public to advance practical knowledge about restoration. The group’s goal is to achieve the means for ongoing effective Cerrado restoration.
- Restaura Cerrado is a collaboration between ICMBio, the University of Brasília, the Cerrado Seeds Network, and Embrapa (the Brazilian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Research Enterprise); together they hope to use restoration to bring sustainable development to the savanna region.
Sri Lanka activists decry downgrade of non-protected ‘other’ forests by government
- The Sri Lankan government earlier this year transferred the administration of non-protected forests, known as “other state forests” (OSF), to regional authorities, with a view to releasing them for agriculture and development.
- The move is part of government efforts to boost domestic food production, but has been blasted by environmental activists who say many of these forests are rich in biodiversity and serve important ecosystem functions.
- Many of the highland OSF serve as the watershed for rivers, while lowland OSF harbor newly described species found nowhere else on Earth.
- Seventy percent of Sri Lanka’s elephants live outside protected areas, which means that allowing OSF to be cleared for agriculture would exacerbate what’s already one of the world’s worst problems of human-elephant conflict.
Trans-Purus: Brazil’s last intact Amazon forest at immediate risk (commentary)
- Brazil’s remaining Amazon forest is roughly divided in half by the Purus River, just west of the notorious BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway. To the west of the river lies the vast “Trans-Purus” region — intact rainforest stretching to the Peruvian border. To the east, the forest is already heavily deforested, degraded and fragmented.
- Multiple threats are now closing in on the Trans-Purus region, and expected to increase greatly with the impending “reconstruction” of the BR-319. Planned roads linked to the BR-319 would open the Trans-Purus region to land grabbers (grileiros), organized landless farmers (sem-terras) and other actors from Brazil’s “arc of deforestation.”
- A massive planned gas and oil project would also likely lead to new road connections to the other planned highways in the Trans-Purus area, opening even more of the region to invasion. Asian oil palm and logging companies are among those with a historical interest in the area.
- This last large block of intact Brazilian Amazon forest is essential for ecosystem services — maintaining biodiversity, carbon stocks, and the forest water cycling functions essential for rainfall in other parts of Brazil and neighboring countries. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Multiplying Amazon river ports open new Brazil-to-China commodities routes
- Nearly 100 major industrial river ports have been built on the Brazilian Amazon’s major rivers over the past two decades. Many of the projects have been internationally financed and built by commodities companies with little government oversight.
- These ports have transformed the region, opening it to agribusiness and the export of commodities, especially soy, to China and the rest of the world. However, this boom in port infrastructure often came at the expense of the environment and traditional riverine communities.
- Today, more than 40 additional major river ports are planned in the Amazon biome on the Tapajós, Tocantins, Madeira and other rivers, projects again being pursued largely without taking cumulative socioenvironmental impacts into account.
- “What resources do these soy men bring to our city?” asked Manoel Munduruku, an Indigenous leader. “They only bring destruction.”
Brazilian and international banks financing global deforestation: Reports
- According to a new report, some of the world’s biggest Brazilian and international banks invested US$153.2 billion in commodities companies whose activities risked harm to forests in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and Central and West Africa since 2016 when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.
- These investments were made primarily in forest-risk commodities companies that include beef, soy, pulp and paper, palm oil, rubber and timber producers. The big banks are failing to scrutinize and refuse loans to firms profiting from illegal deforestation, said several reports.
- Banco do Brasil offered the most credit (US$30 billion since 2016), for forest-risk commodity operations. BNDES, Brazil’s development bank, provided US$3.8 billion to forest-risk companies. More than half of that amount went to the beef sector, followed closely by the pulp and paper industry.
- “Financial institutions are uniquely positioned to promote actions in the public and private sector and they have an obligation with their shareholders to mitigate their growing credit risks due to the degradation of natural capital and their association with industries that intensively produce carbon,” said one report.
BR-319: The beginning of the end for Brazil’s Amazon forest (commentary)
- Brazil’s planned reconstruction of the BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) Highway paralleling the Purus and Madeira rivers would give deforesters access to about half of what remains of the country’s Amazon forest, and so is perhaps the most consequential conservation issue for Brazil today.
- The highway route is essentially a lawless area today, and the lack of governance is a critical issue in the battle over licensing the highway reconstruction project.
- The BR-319 upgrade would link the current “arc of deforestation” to central Amazonia, allowing movement of deforestation actors to all forest locations with road links to Manaus, while a planned BR-319 connecting road would open the vast forest area between the BR-319 and the Peruvian border.
- The BR-319 Environmental Impact Assessment has many flaws, including ignoring impacts beyond those adjacent to the highway. The EIA also contains passages admitting to some disastrous project impacts. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Paper giant APRIL linked to Borneo forest clearing despite zero-deforestation vow
- One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper producers, APRIL, is alleged to have violated its own zero-deforestation commitment by sourcing wood from a company clearing rainforest in Indonesian Borneo, a new report says.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.
On a Philippine mountain, researchers describe a ‘fire flower’ orchid species
- A new wild orchid species, Dendrochilum ignisiflorum, has been described in the Philippine province of Benguet in the northern Cordilleras mountain range.
- This fiery orange orchid belongs to a genus found in high-elevation forests in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines, Borneo and Sumatra.
- The scientists who described it say the species is threatened by climate change, which could make its niche range uninhabitable.
- The mountain where it’s found is also an increasingly popular tourist spot, while the forests in the area around it are being cleared for agriculture.
Alcoa vs. the Amazon: How the ribeirinhos won their collective land rights
- In 2009, communities of ribeirinhos (traditional riverine settlers) launched a major land rights protest in the Amazon against Alcoa, the transnational mining company. Their action led to an agreement that proved decisive not only for the ribeirinhos, but for collective land rights activists across Brazil.
- Alcoa came to Juruti, Pará state, Brazil in 2000 with big plans to mine for bauxite. At first, the 44 communities on the south bank of the Amazon River, made up of Indigenous and traditional peoples, supported the plan, hoping it would bring jobs and prosperity.
- But land rights organizers argued the mine would be a disaster for the environment, traditional livelihoods and culture. Attempts to block the mine failed. But efforts to get collective land rights recognized, along with financial compensation, were successful.
- The government granted full collective land rights, and Alcoa agreed to pay rent for occupying community land, compensate for losses and damages, and give locals an annual share in mine profits. Land rights activists have pursued similar goals — with varying success — in the Amazon ever since.
Study finds a Mexico-sized swath of intact land lost to human pressure
- A new study has found that human activities contributed to the loss of 1.9 million square kilometers (734,000 square miles) of intact land between 2000 and 2013, and that more than half of the world is under moderate or intense pressure from humanity.
- The most substantial losses occurred in tropical and subtropical grassland, savanna, and shrublands, while the most intact regions were tundras, boreal and taiga forests, deserts and xeric shrublands.
- The team is currently working on an update to produce near real-time results of land degradation for the past seven years.
- These findings can help inform policies and aid conservation monitoring efforts, according to the researchers.
In bid to protect a Philippine pangolin stronghold, little talk of enforcement
- Provincial and municipal authorities on the Philippine island of Palawan are drawing up management plans aimed at boosting protection for the Victoria-Anepahan Mountain Range, a key habitat of the Philippine pangolin.
- The 165,000-hectare (408,000-acre) is not a formally protected area, and suffers from deforestation driven by illegal logging, as well as massive poaching and illegal trade of its wildlife, including pangolins.
- The critically endangered Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis), found only in Palawan, is one of the most trafficked animals on Earth, with its population declining by up to 95% between 1980 and 2018.
- Critics of the management plan say it will be a bureaucratic waste of resources without efforts to step up enforcement measures to curb the illegal trade of pangolins and other wildlife in the mountain range.
Experts question integrity of Indonesia’s claim of avoided deforestation
- The $103.8 million is payment for 20.3 million tons of avoided emissions from 2014-2016, but observers, including on the GCF board, have questioned the way the Indonesian government arrived at that figure.
- Among the contentious points: a reference level that may be inflated, possible double counting, and persistent state neglect of Indigenous rights.
- The government says the process was transparent, and may be eligible for even more funding once it starts accounting for peatland fires in its baseline calculations.
Friday night follies: Brazil cuts deforestation funding, then restores it
- More than 500 major fires were reported in the Amazon as of last week, most of them illegal. Which is why it seemed a strange moment for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro administration to announce it was defunding all deforestation and firefighting efforts by government agencies in the Amazon forest and Pantanal wetlands biomes.
- The cuts, totaling R $60 million (US $11.1 million), would have come from the budgets of IBAMA, the nation’s environmental agency, and ICMBio, its national parks agency. Within hours of the funding reduction announcement, the government reversed itself and restored the money taken away.
- Since then experts have argued theories as to the reason for the government’s erratic actions. Some say it is a means of making a show of the anti-environmental policy the administration would truly like to put forward, but cannot for fear of international censure. Others see it as political maneuvering with the Bolsonaro administration.
- Analysts point out that the budget cuts made no fiscal sense, since IBAMA’s most expensive contracts for helicopter and vehicle rentals to curb deforestation and do firefighting are paid up through April 2021 by the Amazon Fund, money mostly provided by Norway and Germany, with more than R $60 million available.
Key Amazon grain route blocked by Indigenous protest over funding, Grainrail
- The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti Indigenous people have been blockading the BR-163 highway since 17 August. The BR-163 is a primary route for soy and corn being moved from Brazil’s Amazon interior toward the Atlantic coast for export to China and the European Union.
- The closure is in protest of potentially lost federal funding that the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti use in part to self-protect the Baú and Mekrãgnoti Indigenous Territories from invasion by land grabbers and illegal loggers. The reserve covers 11.3 million hectares (43,630 square miles) in Pará state.
- A second source of conflict: GrainRail, a proposed 934 kilometer (580 mile) railroad, which would run parallel to the BR-163. The railway’s development has been approved by the Brazilian government without an internationally required Indigenous consultation, according to the Kayapó Mekrãgnoti people.
- A federal judge has ordered police to remove the blockade, but a meeting is scheduled for today and expected to run late into the evening to seek a negotiated settlement. The Kayapó Mekrãgnoti are also demanding COVID-19 assistance. So far, 403 Indigenous people from the reserves have been infected and four have died, all elders.
Harvard’s half-billion land stake in Brazil marred by conflict and abuse
- Harvard University has plowed $450 million of its $40 billion endowment in Brazil, most of it to buying up at least 405,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land in the Cerrado.
- This is a region where major landowners have racked up human rights violations against smallholder farmers and crimes against the environment.
- Most investments in land in this region are purely speculative; while the land goes unused, locals are deprived of their water sources, farmland and other resources.
- Harvard would not comment on its Brazilian investments specifically, but said it is trying to divest from unsustainable ventures. But even as it has trouble finding buyers for the farms, it continues to profit from the appreciating value of the land.
Indigenous best Amazon stewards, but only when property rights assured: Study
- New research provides statistical evidence confirming the claim by Indigenous peoples that that they are the more effective Amazon forest guardians in Brazil — but only if and when full property rights over their territories are recognized, and fully protected, by civil authorities in a process called homologation.
- Researchers looked at 245 Indigenous territories, homologated between 1982 and 2016. They concluded that Indigenous people were only able to curb deforestation effectively within their ancestral territories after homologation had been completed, endowing full property rights.
- However, since the study was completed, the Temer and Bolsonaro governments have backpedaled on Indigenous land rights, failing to protect homologated reserves. Also, the homologation process has come to a standstill, failing its legal responsibility to recognize collective ownership pledged by Brazil’s Constitution.
- In another study, researchers suggest that a key to saving the Amazon involves reframing our view of it, giving up the old view of it as an untrammeled Eden assaulted by modern exploitation, and instead seeing it as a forest long influenced by humanity; now we need only restore balance to achieve sustainability.
Favoring ayahuasca over hospitals, Indigenous Kokama see COVID-19 deaths drop in the Amazon
- The Kokama were the first Indigenous group in Brazil to be infected with COVID-19, and to date there have been more than a thousand confirmed cases and 60 deaths within the community.
- Wary of Western medicine and of the prejudice and neglect they say they suffer at hospitals, the community decided to turn to traditional healing practices, administered by shamans. Their weapon in the fight against the coronavirus is the ayahuasca ritual, considered by the Kokama their most powerful cure.
- In the past six weeks, the community has recorded just four deaths from COVID-19, compared to 56 during the previous two months, when they were still seeking hospital treatment.
- The reduction in the death rate is the result they say they expected when they shunned regional hospitals, many of which have struggled to treat patients in the midst of the pandemic and where indigenous peoples have fared particularly poorly, in favor of their traditional medicines combined with hygiene practices and social distancing.
Cameroon halts logging plans in Ebo Forest, home to tool-using chimps
- The Cameroon government announced that a logging concession for Ebo Forest, which was approved three weeks ago, has been cancelled.
- Ebo Forest is a large, intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon that is a refuge for a number of endangered and critically endangered species, including a population of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees with a unique repertoire of tool use.
- While conservationists are optimistic about this news, they are also concerned that the future of the forest still remains uncertain.
As Amazon tree loss worsens, political pressure grows, and Brazil hedges: Critics
- Government data released last Friday shows that from August 1, 2019 to July 31, 2020 forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon totaled 9,205 square kilometers (3.554 square miles), an increase of 34.5% over the previous comparative period (2018/2019), when 6,844 square kilometers (2,642 square miles) were deforested.
- 1,654 square kilometers were cleared in July, 2020, a decline as compared to the 2,255 square kilometers cleared in July 2019. Brazil’s Vice President jumped on this one-month period to declare erroneously that deforestation rates are falling, and he credited this overall decline to the Army deployed to the Amazon in May.
- Meanwhile, pressure grows on the Bolsonaro government to turn away from policies that analysts say are rapidly accelerating deforestation. More than 60 organizations sent a letter to the administration, foreign investors, and Brazilian and European parliamentarians, detailing proposals to contain the deforestation crisis.
- In other news, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles met with illegal miners in the Amazon, and in response the Defense Ministry appeared to cave to their demands to stop patrolling in their area of operation. But in a reversal, the Army, after halting its patrols in the region, has reinstated them.
Brazil dismantles environmental laws via huge surge in executive acts: Study
- Between March and May 2020, the government of Jair Bolsonaro published 195 infralegal acts — ordinances, normative instructions, decrees and other measures — which critics say are an indirect means of dismantling Brazil’s environmental laws and bypassing Congress. During the same period in 2019, just 16 such acts were published.
- In April, 2020 Environment Minister Ricardo Salles suggested that the administration “run the cattle” which experts say, within the context Salles used the phrase, is a euphemism for utilizing the COVID-19 crisis as a means of distracting Brazilians from the administration’s active undermining of the environmental rule of law.
- A partial study of the 195 acts has found that they, among other things, allow rural landowners who illegally deforested and occupied conserved areas in the Atlantic Forest up to July 2008 to receive full amnesty for their crimes. Another change pays indemnities to those who expropriated properties within federal conservation units.
- Shifts in administration management responsibilities have also resulted in what experts say is a weakening of regulations granting and managing national forests, and the relaxation of supervision over fisheries that could allow increased illegal trafficking in tropical fish. A study of the repercussions of all 195 acts is continuing.
Amazon gold mining wipes out rainforest regeneration for years: Study
- New research looking at Amazon artisanal gold mining in Guyana has found that the destroyed Amazon forest at mining sites shows no sign of recovery three to four years after a mine pit and tailings pond are abandoned, likely largely due to soil nutrient depletion.
- In addition, mercury contamination at the sites drops after a mine is abandoned; mercury is used to process gold. Mercury being a chemical element, it does not break down but can bioaccumulate, so its onsite disappearance means the toxin is possibly leaching into local waters, entering fish, and poisoning riverine people who eat them.
- The solution would be the proper restoration of mine sites, especially the proper filling in of mine holes and tailing ponds imitating replacement by natural topsoil. Better regulations, much bigger fines and other penalties, along with enforcement of mining laws would also help seriously curb the problem, say researchers.
- But so long as the price of gold continues topping $1,700 an ounce (as it did during the 2008 U.S. housing crisis), or $2,000 an ounce (its current price during the still escalating COVID-19 pandemic), it seems likely that there is little that can curb the enthusiasm of poor and wealthy prospectors alike for digging up the Amazon.
For tool-wielding chimps of Ebo Forest, logging plan is a ‘death sentence’
- Ebo Forest is the largest intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon, spanning more than 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres), and providing refuge to a multitude of rare species, including Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, drills, and a tiny and enigmatic population of western gorillas.
- The Cameroon government recently approved a logging concession for Ebo Forest, which would allow trees in 68,385 hectares (169,000 acres) of the region to be harvested, despite opposition from conservationists and local communities.
- Ebo Forest was previously slated to be transformed into a national park, an effort spearheaded by WWF, but plans were dashed in 2013, reportedly because of lack of funding.
- Conservationists worry that logging, and any concomitant activities, such as illegal forest destruction and poaching, will place considerable pressure on endangered and critically endangered species, and that the biodiversity of the forest would be compromised.
Goldminers overrun Amazon indigenous lands as COVID-19 surges
- Reports filed by NGOs including the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) and Greenpeace Brazil say that a major invasion of indigenous reserves and conservation units is underway, prompted by miners well backed with expensive equipment supplied by wealthy elites.
- Miners are emboldened, say the NGOs, by the inflammatory anti-indigenous and anti-environmental rhetoric of the Jair Bolsonaro administration which has sent a clear signal so far, that it has no major plans of stopping the invasions or penalizing the perpetrators.
- Through June of this year, deforestation by mining within conserved areas represented 67.9% of total tree loss in Legal Amazonia. From January to June, illegal mining destroyed 2,230 hectares (5,510 acres) of forest inside conservation units (UCs) and 1,016 hectares (2,510 acres) inside indigenous territories (TIs).
- The miners’ onslaught also poses a serious COVID-19 threat. The virus has so far infected at least 14,647 indigenous people and caused 269 deaths on indigenous lands. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is pressing for passage of legislation authorizing mining on indigenous lands; presently the bill is stalled in the house of deputies.
Scientists launch ambitious conservation project to save the Amazon
- The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), an ambitious cooperative project to bring together the existing scientific research on the Amazon biome, has been launched with the support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
- Modeled on the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the first Amazon report is planned for release in April 2021; that report will include an extensive section on Amazon conservation solutions and policy suggestions backed up by research findings.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon consists of 150 experts — including climate, ecological, and social scientists; economists; indigenous leaders and political strategists — primarily from the Amazon countries
- According to Carlos Nobre, one of the leading scientists on the project, the SPA’s reports will aim not only to curb deforestation, but to propose an ongoing economically feasible program to conserve the forest while advancing human development goals for the region, working in tandem with, and in support of, ecological systems.
Niobium mining in Brazilian Amazon would cause significant forest loss: Study
- A recent study found that large-scale niobium mining proposals, if carried out in the remote northwest portion of the Brazilian Amazon, would likely cause significant forest loss and threaten biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.
- The study comes as President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for an expansion of industrial mining on indigenous lands and his administration turns a blind eye to expanding illegal mining that is threatening indigenous communities in the northern Amazon.
- There are two known niobium deposits in the region, at Seis Lagos and at Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, located in the Rio Negro River basin. The Brazilian portion of the Rio Negro River basin is home to 23 Indigenous groups, including the Yanomami people, and holds vast tracts of undisturbed rainforest, rich in biodiversity.
- The recent niobium study offers an example of how science can be proactive in analyzing the environmental impact of infrastructure development well before it happens, potentially helping guide policy decisions to prevent deforestation, pollution, the spread of disease and other problems.
Expand conserved areas to boost global economy ravaged by COVID-19: Report
- Protecting 30% of the world’s lands and oceans would cost $140 billion annually, with the target reachable by 2030, according to a report by an international team of scientists and economists released this month.
- Dramatically increasing protected areas would provide a buffer between human and wildlife communities, helping prevent pandemics such as COVID-19, while also greatly boosting economic growth and sustainability.
- The benefits of implementing the 30% conservation goal outweigh the costs by a five-to-one ratio, according to this first economic analysis of the U.N. protected areas target.
- Some countries have already met this goal, including Bolivia, Germany, Namibia, Poland, Tanzania, Venezuela and Zambia, but Brazil, home to the world’s largest remaining rainforest, is slipping on its previous conservation commitments.
Forest restoration, not just halting deforestation, vital to Amazon
- The Brazilian state of Maranhão has lost more than three-quarters of its original forest cover and the remaining old-growth forest is severely threatened, with the “Amazon forest [in the state’s west] on the edge of collapse,” say researchers. This threat heightens the importance of conserving secondary forest in the state.
- But new zoning of Legal Amazonia in Maranhão’s west passed in May will reduce the amount of standing forest farmers must preserve, which could lead to largescale legal deforestation of secondary forests and reward previous illegal deforestation.
- The State Forest Policy currently being debated for passage by the Maranhão parliament could implement safeguards to protect secondary forests (though likely won’t). Without those safeguards, warn researchers, these forests that provide important ecological services and economic benefits could further disappear.
- Scientists say that agroforestry and forest restoration should be prioritized by the Brazilian national and state governments in order to generate sustainable livelihoods and protect secondary forests, aiding in climate change mitigation, water and soil conservation, and providing sustainable livelihoods.
Photos: In southern Papua, navigating an alien world built on palm oil
- In June 2019, photographer Albertus Vembrianto spent three weeks on assignment in the southern lowlands of Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost province, for Mongabay and The Gecko Project. He traveled through the villages of Indigenous Papuans whose land had been taken over by palm oil conglomerates.
- A decade ago, the Indonesian government promoted investment by plantation firms in this region with a vision of turning it into a major agribusiness hub. Today, Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, but many Papuans have lost their land and are struggling to acclimatize to a very new world, with their traditional food sources dwindling.
- Albertus’s photos were featured in an investigation into the operations of one of the these companies, the Korindo Group, recently published by The Gecko Project and Mongabay in collaboration with the Korean Center for Investigative Journalism-Newstapa and 101 East, Al Jazeera’s Asia-Pacific current affairs program.
- In this photo essay, Albertus, who is Indonesian, writes about his experience reporting in Papua.
Scientists measure Amazon drought and deforestation feedback loop: Study
- Researchers have warned about the Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point for years, but a clearer picture of how this may happen is emerging with new research.
- A recent study covering the years 2003-2014 in the Amazon basin found that the deforestation-drought feedback loop accounts for 4% of the region’s drought, and 0.13% of deforestation per millimeter of rainfall lost (for example, a rainfall decrease of 200 millimeters would then trigger an additional 26% increase in deforestation).
- Experts not connected with the study say that the actual percentages could be higher, because Brazilian politics have shifted since 2003-14, leading to major deforestation, while climate change impacts have intensified. The authors agree their results may be underestimated, but say the figures are useful in setting a baseline for climate models.
- Deforestation and drying in the Amazon could cause the rainforest to spiral into becoming a degraded, dry savanna if nothing is done to deactivate the feedback loop. However, it is difficult to say how soon that tipping point will be reached.
World’s biggest meatpacker JBS bought illegally grazed Amazon cattle: Report
- Brazil’s meatpackers have long been accused of “laundering cattle,” a process in which young calves are fattened on newly and illegally deforested lands within indigenous reserves and on other conserved tracts, then transferred to “legal ranches” where no deforestation has occurred, before being sold to meat processors who turn a blind eye.
- The Brazilian government has abetted this illicit accounting sleight of hand by not requiring tagging and tracking cattle from birth, and allowing incomplete accounting records. So laundered beef is sold to China, the European Union and other nations, as well as to Brazilian consumers, all unaware of the Amazon deforestation connection.
- Now Amnesty International has documented cases in which they allege that JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, bought cattle illegally reared on the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau indigenous reserve and the Rio Jacy-Paraná and Rio Ouro Preto extractive reserves in Rondônia state, epicenter of 2019’s Amazon fires and of Brazilian deforestation.
- JBS has denied the charges, but has often had such allegations made against it in the past.
Only a few ‘rotten apples’ causing most illegal Brazil deforestation: Study
- It is well known that agribusiness — especially cattle and soy production — is the major driver of illegal deforestation in Brazil, which has seen soaring rates of forest destruction since the election of Jair Bolsonaro. Many of those agricultural commodities end up being exported to the European Union.
- But little has been done to curb the problem, partly due to lack of government will, and partly due to the fact that the precise amount of illegal deforestation linked to exported meat and soy has never been identified, while ranches and plantations and their owners mostly responsible are difficult to pinpoint.
- Now a new potentially game changing study finds that while around 20% of all agricultural exports from Brazil to the EU appear to come from illegally deforested areas in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna, only about 2% of producers are responsible for the majority of that illegal deforestation.
- The study methods have the potential to advance supply chain traceability, showing that it is now possible to trace agricultural products from illegal deforested areas all the way to foreign consumers, making it far easier for nations and companies to curb deforestation — if they have the will.
Brazil’s past finance ministers defend environment against Bolsonaro
- In a surprise move, 17 former Brazilian Finance ministers and Central Bank presidents came out strongly this week against the environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government.
- The letter signed by the 17 economic authorities presents four proposals for a green economy for the post-pandemic era: public and private investments in a low carbon economy; zero deforestation in the Amazon and the Cerrado; an increase in climate resilience; and a boost in new technology research and development.
- The letter comes as pressure mounts on Bolsonaro to scrap his plan for Amazon economic development, which would allow mining and agribusiness on indigenous and conserved lands leading to massive deforestation. EU nations, international investors and companies have all condemned Bolsonaro’s environment record in recent days.
Corn growers in Brazil’s Cerrado reap a hostile climate of their own making
- Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
- That’s the finding of a new study that shows the loss of native vegetation has led to more warm nights and changes in rainfall patterns, affecting corn crops that require moderate temperatures and reliable rainfall.
- The study’s authors say everyone loses from this scenario, and call for keeping the native vegetation in place as much as possible.
- International pressure and a serious commitment from agribusiness, which is largely resistant to efforts to preserve the Cerrado, might be the way to stop deforestation, they suggest.
Pandemic or not, the mission to save the rare Philippine eagle grinds on
- A critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) was rescued in the Zamboanga Peninsula in the southern Philippines during the height of the country’s COVID-19 lockdown, when all land, sea and air travel were barred.
- Despite the mobility limitations, various groups were able to exchange information and provide the much-needed proper first aid and rehabilitation for the rescued eagle, which was released back into the wild on May 20.
- There are currently seven known and identified Philippine eagles in the Zamboanga Peninsula, where there are ample protection mechanisms to support breeding eagle pairs.
- Deforestation, hunting and poaching are still the biggest threats to Philippine eagles, but recent collective efforts by various stakeholders have helped strengthen their conservation, experts say.
That coconut oil you love? Species have gone extinct over it, study says
- A new study found that coconut oil production, by some measures, is more destructive than palm oil production, with coconuts affecting 20 threatened species per million liters of oil produced, and palm oil only affecting 3.8 species per million liters.
- Globally, coconut farms occupy 12.3 million hectares (30.4 million acres) of land, about two-thirds the area of oil palm plantations, with most farms located in Indonesia and the Philippines.
- Instead of positioning coconut oil as a product that should be avoided, the study aims to demonstrate that most consumable oils, such as olive, soy and rapeseed oil, have a negative impact on the environment, although these impacts are not all well known or publicized.
- Since this story was published, a substantive rebuttal to the findings on coconut oil was published by Mongabay, see below for a link to that.
How we calculated Korindo’s revenues from clearing Papuan rainforest
- A panel convened by the Forest Stewardship Council calculated that Korindo had deprived indigenous communities in Indonesia’s Papua province of $300 million by underpaying for the timber harvested from their lands in the decade from 2007.
- Korindo dismissed the figure as “pure fantasy” on the grounds that the panel had based its calculations on global market prices, when Korindo actually sold the timber locally. Korindo claimed it had made a loss on the logging operations as it cleared land for plantations.
- Based on our own calculation, we estimate that since the turn of the century, Korindo exported products worth $320 million using timber harvested as it cleared the rainforest for plantations in Papua.
The Consultant: Why did a palm oil conglomerate pay $22m to an unnamed ‘expert’ in Papua?
- In a year-long investigation with The Gecko Project, the Korean Center for Investigative Journalism-Newstapa and Al Jazeera, Mongabay traced a $22 million “consultancy” payment connected to a major land deal in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- It took us from South Korea and Singapore to the heart of the largest rainforest left in Asia, to find out how the payment helped make the Korindo Group one of the largest oil palm producers in the region.
- Photography by Albertus Vembrianto.
Illegal farms on indigenous lands get whitewashed under Bolsonaro administration
- An exclusive study shows that 114 properties have been certified inside indigenous territories awaiting demarcation in the Brazilian Amazon, spurred in large part by a recent statute that leaves these reserves unprotected from such illegal land grabs.
- The certified lands span more than 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres) inside indigenous territories, some of them authorized before FUNAI, the agency for indigenous affairs, issued the statute allowing registry on unratified lands.
- Landowners have already registered claims for more than 2,000 private properties in indigenous areas inside the Amazon, including areas that are home to isolated peoples.
- Indigenous groups, civil society organizations, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and state prosecutors have denounced the statute and are challenging it in various courts.
China and EU appetite for soy drives Brazilian deforestation, climate change: Study
- A recent study highlights how demand for Brazilian soy by Europe and China is stoking deforestation, thereby increasing carbon emissions, especially in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna biome, followed by the Amazon rainforest.
- The extent to which Brazilian soy production and trade contribute to climate change depends largely on the location where soybeans are grown. Soy exported from some municipalities in Brazil’s Cerrado, for example, contributes 200 times more total greenhouse gas emissions than soy coming from other parts of the country.
- China was the world’s largest importer of Brazilian soy from 2010 to 2015 and responsible for 51% of associated carbon dioxide emissions, with the European Union responsible for about 30%. However, EU soy imports (sourced from the northern Cerrado) were linked to more recent deforestation than China’s imports.
- The study is the first to offer an estimate of carbon emissions across Brazil’s entire soy sector. The data obtained by analyzing 90,000 supply chain streams could help policymakers curb emissions by designing low-carbon supply chains, with more effective forest conservation, and making improvements in transport infrastructure.
Palm oil from Indonesian grower that burned forest is still being sold
- An investigation by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows that palm oil from PT Kallista Alam, a company in Sumatra, entered the global supply chain and may have ended up in products made by Nestlé and Mars.
- The company was largely blackballed by buyers with sustainability commitments after a 2012 fire on its concession razed 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of pristine lowland rainforest that’s home to critically endangered Sumatran orangutans.
- An “oversight” in the second half of 2019 led to its crude palm oil being bought by a refinery run by the Permata Hijau Group, a top Indonesian palm oil processor that supplies commodities giant Cargill.
- Cargill, in turn, sells palm oil to multinational brands including Nestlé and Mars; RAN has called on the latter two companies to explicitly issue a no-buy order to their suppliers for Kallista Alam’s palm oil.
Amazon poor go hungry as Brazil slashes social safety net, cuts forests: Study
- Living along the rivers of the Amazon rainforest, many imagine, would make for a sustainable diet packed full of freshwater fish. But a recent study finds this is not the case. A combination of interacting factors is now causing many poor families in riverine communities to go hungry.
- Researchers found that Amazon fish catch rates are naturally 73% lower in the highwater season. In the past, this lull was supplemented by hunting. But Brazilian deforestation, increased under former Pres. Michel Temer and now under Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, has replaced biodiverse forests with soy and other kinds of plantations.
- Add to this Bolsonaro’s and Temer’s rapid deconstruction of internationally-lauded social welfare programs, implemented by Presidents Lula and Rousseff and their Workers’ Party, which fed many riverine families when fish catches dropped.
- Figure in climate change too: its deep droughts harm forest and river diversity, while extreme floods keep stream levels high and fish catches low, and for longer. Now, COVID-19 has come to the Amazon, with food shopping trips made from rural riverine settlements to cities now requiring a serious element of risk.
Māori push for pandemic stimulus spend to save ancestral forest
- The Raukūmara Forest on New Zealand’s East Cape has been hammered by introduced pests in the past half-century, and experts predict ecological collapse within a decade without an immense scale-up of pest control efforts.
- On April 1 this year, the New Zealand government announced a fund for “shovel-ready” projects to provide much-needed jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Two Māori tribal groups with ancestral claims to the Raukūmaras are campaigning for $21 million from the fund to carry out intensive pest control in the forest over the next five years.
Brazilian government taken to court for assault on environment, climate
- The Bolsonaro government has waged an aggressive campaign to negate Brazil’s environmental laws and de-tooth its environmental protection agencies — even as deforestation rates have reached a ten year high and violence by land grabbers and illegal loggers against indigenous and traditional peoples has grown rapidly.
- In an attempt to stall the systematic deregulation, defunding and firings, socio-environmental NGOs, public prosecutors and opposition political parties have launched three lawsuits, targeting actions taken by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles and Eduardo Bim, president of IBAMA, the country’s environmental agency.
- The first suit aims to annul a recent measure signed by Bim, enabling illegally harvested Brazilian timber to be exported more easily to the U.S., EU and elsewhere. Evidence allegedly demonstrates a cozy and corrupt relationship between Bim and the forestry industry.
- The second and third suits address Amazon deforestation (demanding reactivation of the administration of the R$1.5 billion Amazon Fund) and climate change (requiring the reinstatement of administration of the R$8.5 million Climate Fund). Both these effective programs have been derailed by the Bolsonaro government.
A bid to legitimize invasions of Brazil’s indigenous lands faces a court challenge
- In April, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency FUNAI authorized the registration and sale of land on unratified or unregistered indigenous territories, potentially affecting 237 reserves in 24 states.
- Regulation No. 9, as it’s known, affects at least 9.8 million hectares (24 million acres), rendering an area the size of Iceland open to real estate transactions.
- Amazonas is the state with the most threatened reserves — a total of 30 in the sights of land grabbers, landed estate owners, and oil and gas companies — followed by Mato Grosso do Sul, where indigenous communities already live in dire conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and violence.
- FUNAI’s regulation has already withstood a court challenge on a technicality, but now faces a new bid for annulment by the state attorney general of Mato Grosso, who calls it a dereliction of FUNAI’s own mission.
Amazon deforestation gig economy booms despite COVID-19 (Photo Essay)
- Illegal deforestation has become an omnipresent part of economic activity in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay went to Rondônia state to meet some of the loggers who benefit from the dodgy market, then traces the path of logs going to “informal” sawmills, moved by river to ports, maybe to become decking in the U.S. or EU.
- Some experts hoped that COVID-19 would slow Amazon deforestation, but early indications are that the reverse is happening. From January to April 2020, the rate of Amazon deforestation alerts rose sharply by 55%. Deforestation is linked closely with fires, so a challenging fire season is expected this year.
- In this exclusive two part story and photo essay, we first follow the activities of Amazon loggers seeking highly-valued woods, and then trace the actions of miners scratching out a meager living seeking gold in the rivers of Rondônia state.
Offensive against the Amazon: An incontrollable pandemic (commentary)
- The acceleration of Amazonian deforestation and environmental degradation — powered by the Bolsonaro government’s successive blows to environmental protection policies — is directly related to the precarious state of public healthcare in the region, amplifying the lethality of diseases like Covid-19.
- This commentary is being published at a time when Brazil is suffering from the worst deforestation in a decade, and is second only to the United States in the number of Covid-19 cases (515,000 in Brazil today) and fourth in the world regarding the number of Coronavirus deaths (topping 29,000).
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Green alert: How indigenous people are experiencing climate change in the Amazon
- Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Brazilian Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
- Indigenous people believe that climate change has even affected their physical health: previously controlled diseases like measles and yellow fever, they say, have inexplicably reappeared in the rainforest, and even indigenous women’s menstrual cycles are beginning at an earlier age.
- Indigenous people have found many ways to take action and lessen the harm. These approaches include selecting and growing seeds that are more resistant to drought and heat, investing in frontline firefighters and even a smartphone app that offers information about climatic variations.
Brazil minister advises using COVID-19 to distract from Amazon deregulation
- In a Brazilian cabinet meeting Environment Minister Ricardo Salles was caught on video declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed more than 23,000 of his fellow citizens offers a distraction during which the government can “run the cattle herd” through the Amazon, “changing all the rules and simplifying standards.”
- The Brazilian and international response was critical and swift, with one European Union parliamentarian recommending that the largest trade treaty every negotiated, between the South American nations of Mercusor and the EU, not be signed as punishment for Brazil’s radical anti-environmental policies.
- Salles statements were “the inconceivably blatant confirmation that the Bolsonaro government is dismantling, step-by-step, the protection regulations of the Amazon, while the world fights the Coronavirus,” the member of the EU Parliament said.
- The government’s environmental deregulation policies are yielding results. Today the MapBiomas Alert project released its first Annual Deforestation Report on all Brazilian biomes. It found that 99% of all deforestation in Brazil in 2019 was illegal — a total of 12,187 square kilometers (4,705 square miles) of native vegetation lost.
Brazil’s ‘land-grabbers law’ threatens Amazonia (commentary)
- “Land grabbers” are large operators who illegally claim government land in Amazonia and usually later subdivide it for sale to ranchers. This is an important factor in Brazil’s rapid deforestation.
- Illegal invasion of government land by both small and large actors has been stimulated by two previous “land-grabbers’ laws.” Now a vote is imminent on a proposed third law that goes further, granting titles on the strength of mere “self-declarations.”
- The coronavirus pandemic is being used as cover to allow measures such as this to be put into effect without question. This is a strategy for gutting environmental controls that Bolsonaro’s environment minister put forth explicitly in a ministerial meeting, a recording of which was released by court order on 22 May.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
As their land claim stalls, Brazil’s Munduruku face pressure from soybean farms
- Indigenous Munduruku communities in Brazil’s Pará state have seen their crops die as agribusiness expands in the area, with soybean farmers spraying pesticides less than 10 meters (33 feet) from villages.
- The streams used by the Munduruku have also been damaged, if not dried up, and even the artesian wells the communities are digging to survive appear to be contaminated.
- Aside from pesticides, soybean farming has also brought fraudulent requests for land appropriation and violence against indigenous people.
- The Munduruku have for the past 12 years tried to get their land demarcated as an indigenous reserve, but the process has stalled under the Bolsonaro administration.
Indigenous COVID-19 cases top 500, danger mapped in Brazil agricultural hub
- 537 COVID-19 cases and 102 deaths are being reported by 38 indigenous groups in Brazil. Most of the cases are in the remote Brazilian Amazon, where communities are located far from medical assistance. Experts, citing the vulnerability of indigenous peoples to outside disease, worry the pandemic could result in a many more deaths.
- In response to the pandemic, indigenous groups in Mato Grosso state have partnered with an NGO to produce a daily updated map monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks in urban areas near indigenous villages. The website is meant to keep indigenous people informed, and put pressure on national and international groups to respond.
- Amid the pandemic, indigenous land rights in Mato Grosso are increasingly threatened by federal and state government policy shifts that critics say would encourage and legitimize land grabbing, illegal logging and mining inside indigenous territories.
- Particularly impacted by the policy changes, should they go into effect, are isolated indigenous groups, including the Kawahiva and Piripkura peoples who roam as yet federally unrecognized indigenous reserves near the city of Colniza, Mato Grosso.
As habitat degradation threatens Amazon species, one region offers hope
- Two recent studies looked into the impact of human disturbance on ecological diversity in Amazonia habitats. Another study in the Rupununi region of Guyana found how important maintaining connectivity is to maintaining ecosystem health.
- The first study investigated how forest fragmentation impacts mixed-species flocks of birds. The research found evidence that forest habitat fragmentation in the Amazon has caused mixed-species bird flocks to severely diminish and even disappear.
- A second study evaluated the impact of logging and fire on seed dispersal in tropical forest plots in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The research team found that Amazon forests which have been heavily logged and burned are populated primarily by tree species with smaller seeds, and smaller fruits.
- The remote Rupununi region provides water connectivity between the ancient Guyana Shield and the Amazon basin. A recent study there identified more than 450 fish species within the Rupununi region. The research illustrated the value of conserving connectivity between diverse habitats.
Amazon road projects could lead to Belize-size loss of forest, study shows
- Scientists studying the impact of 75 road projects in five countries in the Amazon Basin have found that they could lead to 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of deforestation.
- Seventeen percent of these projects were found to violate environmental legislation and the rights of indigenous peoples.
- The total cost for the projects, which stretch a combined 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) is $27 billion, yet half of them will be financially unfeasible.
- The study’s authors cite a lack of reliable technical feasibility studies, solid data and pressure from financiers to minimalize socioenvironmental impacts.
Australia’s logging ‘madness’ fuels more fires, hastens ecosystem collapse
- In the aftermath of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires, logging has recommenced in the Australian state of Victoria, despite intense criticism from scientists and conservationists.
- The Victorian government announced that logging in native forests will be discontinued by 2030, but conservationists say that 10 more years of logging could lead to ecosystem collapse.
- Scientists argue that logging makes a forest more vulnerable to catching fire, and they’ve drawn a direct correlation between the logging industry and the last bushfire season.
- Plantation logging offers a possible solution to native forest logging, and loggers can also be retrained to be full-time firefighters, experts say.
What can we expect from tropical fire season 2020?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at what’s driving the intense fire seasons we’ve seen around the world in recent years, what we can expect from the 2020 fire season in tropical forest regions like the Amazon and Indonesia, and some solutions to the problem.
- Australia’s fire season may have just ended, but most of the world’s tropical forest regions will soon be entering their own. We welcome three guests to the podcast today to examine the trends shaping tropical fire seasons around the world: Rhett Butler, Dan Nepstad, and Aida Greenbury.
- Wildfires have made international headlines a lot in the past few years, most recently due to Australia’s devastating bushfires, but the Amazon, Indonesia, and Congo Basin also had severe fire seasons in 2019.
- Our guests discuss the drivers and also some solutions, like investing in Brazilian farmers to incentivize fire prevention, and the High Carbon Stock Approach to stemming forest loss.
Bolsonaro revives a plan to carve a road through one of Brazil’s last untouched areas
- President Jair Bolsonaro has revived a plan, conceived in the 1970s, to extend the BR-163 highway, the main soy corridor in Brazil, north to the border with Suriname.
- The road would cross 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) over a vast forest area called Calha Norte.
- The Trombetas State Forest, one of the four conservation units the road would cut through, stores 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide — more than Brazil’s entire emissions in 2018.
- The area is also rich in biodiversity: 40% of its species are found nowhere else on Earth.
Brazil opens 38,000 square miles of indigenous lands to outsiders
- FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous agency, has reversed a long-standing policy with a new instruction paving the way for the legitimization of outsider land claims made within indigenous territories which are still in the process of gaining official recognition.
- Brazil’s 1988 Constitution guarantees indigenous land rights on ancestral lands, but the government has delayed the process for decades. The new policy opens 237 as yet unrecognized indigenous areas, covering 37,830 square miles, an area the size of the U.S. state of Indiana — much of it still covered in rainforest.
- Critics of the Jair Bolsonaro government say that the new instruction will create legal cover for landgrabbers, ranchers, soy growers, loggers, and other outsiders to invade indigenous ancestral lands, claim permanent title to the property and exploit land vital to indigenous survival.
- The policy, say analysts, seems destined to result in close contact and clashes between outsiders and indigenous people, and is especially a threat to isolated indigenous groups, many who currently live within un-demarcated ancestral lands. There is also a high risk of indigenous infection with COVID-19.
World lost forest ‘the size of Libya’ since 1990, FAO says
- The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization has released key findings ahead of its next Global Forest Resources Assessment (GFRA), which is due next month.
- The data are self-reported by 263 countries and territories, as opposed to coming from satellite imaging.
- The GFRA shows 178 million hectares (439 million acres) of forest has been lost over 20-year period, an area the FAO equated to the size of Libya.
- Nearly 4 million hectares were lost across Africa since 2010. The FAO says that in spite of this, overall rates of deforestation have been falling.
Brazil sacks officials who curbed deforestation on Amazon indigenous lands
- The Brazilian government of President Jair Bolsonaro has fired two IBAMA, environmental agency coordinators with a history of significantly reducing deforestation in indigenous territories (TIs) in the Xingu River basin in southern Pará state.
- The Apyterewa, Trincheira Bacajá, Kayapó, and Ituna Itatá territories, where the two men were conducting operations this year, saw some of the highest levels of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019. By March 2020, the duo had reduced illegal tree loss in the Ituna Itatá reserve from 7,467 hectares in 2019, to zero.
- A protest letter from 16 IBAMA environmental inspectors characterized the firings as “retaliation” and hindering ongoing investigations. The dismissals came after a Brazilian TV report featured an IBAMA operation led by the two officials resulting in the shutting down of illegal mining and the seizure of a huge weapons cache.
- NGOs condemned the dismissals, saying they came at a time when indigenous groups need protection from intruders carrying the Covid-19 virus. Bolsonaro laid off top tier federal environmental and indigenous regulators in 2019. Now, say critics, he is sacking second and third tier officials in order to give land grabbers a free hand.
Soy made the Cerrado a breadbasket; climate change may end that
- The Brazilian Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna covering over 20% of the nation’s landmass. More than half the Cerrado’s native vegetation — much of it biodiverse dry forest — has been converted to agribusiness, turning it into a breadbasket for Brazil and a key source of soy for China, the EU and other international markets.
- Brazilian soy cultivation is set to expand by 12 million hectares between 2021 and 2050, with the vast majority of that expansion happening in the Cerrado and especially on its agricultural frontier — a four-state region known as Matopiba.
- However, the Matopiba region (consisting of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia states) is more vulnerable to climate change than other parts of Brazil. Researchers say global warming on the savanna is also worsened by the conversion of native vegetation to croplands and pastures.
- Extensive conversion of native vegetation (which holds moisture in roots deep underground) into a soy monocrop (which stores little water) is becoming a major problem, as little Cerrado soy is currently irrigated. Scientists argue that the conservation of native vegetation must be actively pursued to save the Cerrado agricultural frontier.
South Korea subsidizing biomass so heavily that wind and solar are being crowded out of the market
- The government of South Korea is subsidizing the development of biomass power so heavily that it’s hindering the adoption of renewable energy technologies like solar and wind, new research finds.
- According to a report issued by Seoul-based NGO Solutions For Our Climate (SFOC), forest biomass is considered a carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels under Korean law, and the country’s government has so aggressively supported the growth of biomass-fueled energy production that it has become one of the most subsidized renewable energy sources in South Korea.
- Soojin Kim, a senior researcher at SFOC and an author of the report, told Mongabay that biomass projects have been so overcompensated by the government that it is causing serious disruption and uncertainties in the Korean renewable energy market, including steep declines in the price of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). These uncertainties, in turn, are discouraging utilities from investing in renewables such as solar and wind, she said.
Murder, logging and land theft: inside a crime factory in the Amazon
- One of the Amazon’s most deforested regions, Lábrea is remote, poorly policed and suffering from a land tenure crisis. As a result, land grabbing, illegal logging and murder are routine.
- A criminal nexus of landholders laying claim to protected forests they intend to turn into cattle pasture competes over the former São Domingos rubber plantation, where reporters found settlers had left en masse following a spate of killings last year.
- Several of the high-profile landholders and local officials investigated and convicted by federal prosecutors since 2013 were found to have cloned or forged legal documents, and engaged in conspiracy, fraud, environmental crimes and invasion of public land.
In the Philippines’ Boracay, flying foxes are going, going, gone
- A recent survey counted just 30 resident bats on the Philippine resort island of Boracay, down from 15,000 in 1988.
- Boracay has been subject to a massive rehabilitation effort after pollution and runaway development prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to close the island to tourism for six months in 2018.
- The closure does not seem to have benefited the bats, including the endemic golden-crowned flying fox (Acerodon jubatus), one of the world’s largest fruit bat species, which is classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.
- Bat conservationists have persistently recommended declaring the island’s remaining forest cover as critical habitats for threatened bats, but formal recognition hangs in the balance as rehabilitation efforts end this May.
Rapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
- Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health.
- Scientists warn that the next emergent pandemic could originate in the Brazilian Amazon if Bolsonaro’s policies continue to drive Amazon deforestation rates ever higher. Researchers have long known that new diseases typically arise at the nexus between forest and agribusiness, mining, and other human development.
- One way deforestation leads to new disease emergence is through fire, like the Amazon blazes seen in 2019. In the aftermath of wildfires, altered habitat often offers less food, changing animal behavior, bringing foraging wildlife into contact with neighboring human communities, creating vectors for zoonotic bacteria, viruses and parasites.
- Now, Bolsonaro is pushing to open indigenous lands and conservation units to mining and agribusiness — policies which greatly benefit land grabbers. Escalating deforestation, worsened by climate change, growing drought and fire, heighten the risk of the emergence of new diseases, along with epidemics of existing ones, such as malaria.
Brazilian government office responds to Fearnside’s BR-319 oil & gas commentary
- On 9 March 2020, Mongabay published a commentary written by Philip M. Fearnside on the “Solimões Sedimentary Area”, an oil and gas project that would implant thousands of wells spread over the western portion of the Brazilian Amazon, to the west of Highway BR-319 – a forest area almost entirely intact due to lack of road access. According to the commentary, the project would bring many risks to the area: oil spills, impact on isolated indigenous tribes and deforestation due to the expansion of a road network.
- EPE, the Brazilian Energy Research Office, sent a response to Mongabay on 27 March 2020 (published below), claiming “conceptual mistakes.” It argues, among other objections, that the Solimões project’s main goal is to evaluate future scenarios for a potential oil and gas exploration system in the area, not a de facto implementation of this system. The office also mentions the participatory process in which the local communities were allegedly involved and, concerning the risk of deforestation, refutes it saying that this kind of operation is mainly done by air or navigable rivers.
- As a rebuttal to EPE’s response, also published here, Fearnside objects that the project is a “trial balloon” to see what criticisms will arise so that the authors of the impact assessment can be more prepared to ensure approval of the environmental licenses. Furthermore, Fearnside emphasizes that the opening of a new frontier can stimulate the government to build roads and attract other activities linked to deforestation, like logging, land grabbing and palm oil production.
The links between COVID-19, wildlife trade, and destruction of nature with John Vidal
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal about the coronavirus pandemics' links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature.
- As the current coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Vidal penned an article co-published by The Guardian and non-profit media outlet Ensia that looks at how scientists are beginning to understand the ways that environmental destruction makes zoonotic disease epidemics more likely.
- We speak with Vidal about what we know about the origins of COVID-19, what he's learned while reporting from disease outbreak epicenters in the past, how the destruction of nature creates the perfect conditions for diseases like COVID-19 to emerge, and what we can do to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks.
BR-319 illegal side road threatens Amazon protected area, indigenous land (commentary)
- Brazil faces a critical decision on licensing Highway BR-319, in the Purus / Madeira river basins of Amazonas state, which would “chop the Amazon rainforest in half.”
- The highway would bring deforesters to vast areas of intact Amazon rainforest. Protected areas along the route have been created to avert spread of deforestation.
- However, an illegal side road is already being built connecting with the BR-319, and accessing one of those protected areas, while also threatening indigenous and traditional riverine communities.
- The construction of this illegal road dramatizes the fiction that governance measures would control on-the-ground events if the completed highway is licensed. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
New player starts clearing rainforest in world’s biggest oil palm project
- A company owned by a politically connected Indonesian family and an investor from New Zealand has begun clearing rainforest within an area slated to become the world’s largest oil palm plantation.
- The project will push industrial agriculture deep into the primary rainforests of southern Papua, but has been plagued by allegations of illegality.
- While the new investors represent a break from those allegations, the government’s failure to investigate them has ongoing consequences.
Extreme El Niño drought, fires contribute to Amazon insect collapse: Study
- A recent study found that dung beetle species experienced significant diversity and population declines in human-modified tropical Brazilian ecosystems in the aftermath of droughts and fires exacerbated after the 2015-2016 El Niño climate event.
- Forests that burned during the El Niño lost, on average, 64% of their dung beetle species while those affected only by drought showed an average decline of 20%. Dung beetles provide vital ecoservices, processing waste and dispersing seeds and soil nutrients.
- For roughly the past three years, entomologists have been sounding alarms over a possible global collapse of insect abundance. In the tropics, climate change, habitat destruction and pesticide use are having clear impacts on insect abundance and diversity. However, a lack of funds and institutional interest is holding back urgently needed research.
Tiger on the highway: Sighting in Sumatra causes a stir, but is no surprise
- A picture of a tiger near an under-construction highway in Sumatra’s Riau province has gone viral on the messaging application WhatsApp.
- The toll road is part of a longer highway project running the length of Sumatra that conservationists have warned to poses threat to the island’s dwindling forests and endangered wildlife species such as tigers.
- Wildlife experts are calling on authorities to improve protection for the endangered animals, particularly those that live near the highway project.
Brazil drastically reduces controls over suspicious Amazon timber exports
- Forest degradation nearly doubled in the Brazilian Amazon last year, rising from 4,946 square kilometers in 2018, to 9,167 square kilometers in 2019. Experts say this is likely due to soaring illegal timber harvesting and export under President Jair Bolsonaro.
- To facilitate illegal harvesting of rare and valuable timber, like that of the Ipê tree, whose wood can sell for up to $2,500 per cubic meter at Brazilian export terminals, Bolsonaro’s environment officials have reversed regulations that formerly outlawed suspicious timber shipments, making most such exports legal.
- Experts say that the relaxation of illegal export regulations not only protects the criminal syndicates cutting the trees in Amazonia, but also shields exporter Brazil, and importers in the EU, UK, US and elsewhere, preventing them from being accused of causing Amazon deforestation via their supply chains.
- Activists fear overturned timber export regulations will embolden illegal loggers, who will escalate invasions onto indigenous and traditional lands, as well as within conservation units. More than 300 people were assassinated over the past decade as the result of land and natural resource conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon.
Oil and gas project threatens Brazil’s last great block of Amazon forest (commentary)
- The eastern part of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is already heavily deforested and degraded, but the western portion of the region (covering roughly 740,000 square kilometers; 285,000 square miles) is almost entirely intact due to the lack of road access.
- The huge block of forest to the west of Highway BR-319 (a road stretching between Amazonas and Rondônia states) is essential to maintaining the region’s biodiversity, its indigenous peoples, its huge forest carbon stocks, and its role in water recycling that supplies rainfall to places like São Paulo.
- Planned roads branching off Highway BR-319 would open the northern part of this vast forest block to entry by deforesters. Now a new threat is rapidly advancing: the Solimões oil and gas project that would implant thousands of wells spread over the central and southern portions of this forest block. Although not part of the official development’s preliminary environmental impact statement, future roads linking the drilling areas to the BR-319 are likely to give deforesters access to the entire area.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
NGOs charge Brazil’s Bolsonaro with risk of indigenous ‘genocide’ at UN
- At a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 2 March indigenous people from Brazil along with NGOs told the international community that the policies of Jair Bolsonaro, in office since January 2019, are resulting in a dangerous escalation in invasions of indigenous reserves in the Amazon and across Brazil.
- They especially emphasized impacts on the Moxihatetea and other uncontacted and isolated groups whose territories are being rapidly deforested by illegal miners, loggers and other intruders of conserved indigenous lands — while the government stands by and simultaneously dismantles indigenous protections.
- Meanwhile, the Arns Commission, a human rights body, is sending a petition to the International Criminal Court demanding an investigation into Bolsonaro’s attacks on indigenous human rights. Deforestation in 115 of the worst-affected indigenous territories totaled 42,679 hectares from 2018 to 2019, an 80% increase over 2017-18.
- The Arns Commission, and a new report, assert that the Bolsonaro administration’s socio-environmental policies are putting indigenous peoples at risk of ethnocide (the destruction of an ethnic group’s culture), and putting isolated groups at risk of genocide.
Painting with fire: Cerrado land managers learn from traditional peoples
- Fire is a disturbance that has occurred naturally in Brazil’s tropical savanna — known as the Cerrado biome — for thousands of years. Indigenous and traditional people living in the Cerrado taught themselves to work successfully with fire, using it as an environment-enhancing land management tool.
- However, modern land managers, influenced by techniques practiced in European and U.S. forests, imposed a non-alteration “zero-fire” conservation policy for decades in the Cerrado.
- That practice allowed the steady buildup of combustible organic material, which frequently led to late dry season wildfires or even mega-fires, ecosystem harm, and conflicts with traditional peoples. But in fact, a new study shows prescribed burns in the Cerrado cause no net loss in species diversity, and even enhance some species.
- Starting in 2014, pilot projects launched by the government on conserved lands in the Cerrado have successfully utilized Integrated Fire Management (IFM), including prescribed burns — approaches learned in part from traditional communities. The result is a decrease in wildfire size, intensity and ecosystem damage.
Raze here, save there: Do biodiversity offsets work for people or ecosystems?
- The Bemangidy-Ivohibe biodiversity offset was created in southeastern Madagascar by QMM, a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto, to make up for the destruction of highly threatened littoral forests as a result of mining activity.
- While the rights of people directly displaced by development projects like mines are recognized to some degree, those of communities affected by biodiversity offsets, of which there are more than 13,000 worldwide, remain unclear.
- Critics say QMM fortified the forest and restricted villagers’ access to essential resources, pushing them toward starvation. The company says it has saved the forest from certain destruction at the hands of local people.
- The justification for offsets — biodiversity gains — are also hard to document, especially in the case of Bemangidy-Ivohibe which is a lowland humid forest, a different landscape from the littoral forest being razed by QMM.
On anniversary of nun’s murder Amazon land rights activists at high risk
- Fifteen years ago this month, land rights activist and Catholic nun Dorothy Stang, “Sister Dorothy,” was brutally assassinated in Anapu municipality, Pará state, Brazil. While her death caused a loud international public outcry, and resulted in Brazil cracking down on such violence, those corrections didn’t last.
- Less than 5% of the more than 550 killings that have occurred since Stang’s murder having gone to court, according to data collected by Brazil’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) and analyzed by Mongabay. In Pará, the state where Stang was murdered, just 6 of more than 190 land conflict murders have been judged in court.
- Experts say the majority of such killings are plotted by land grabbers and powerful land owners trying to intimidate peasant farmers seeking land reform, or trying to protect their small land holdings. Local corruption in government, law enforcement and in the courts leads to few prosecutions.
- Analysts fear President Jair Bolsonaro’s polices will worsen the problem. In December, he issued executive order MP 910, which critics say effectively legalizes land grabbing. The decree, supposedly benefiting smallholders, provides a pardon for past large-scale land grabbers and could embolden land grabbing in future.
Pope makes impassioned plea to save the Amazon — will the world listen?
- In a 94-page document entitled “Querida Amazonia” (Dear Amazon), Pope Francis has made an impassioned plea for world leaders, transnational companies, and people everywhere to step up and protect the Amazon rainforest along with the indigenous people who live there and are its best stewards.
- The Amazon is seeing rapid deforestation in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, while violence against indigenous people is rising. Scientists say climate change and deforestation are forcing a forest-to-savanna tipping point, which could lead to a massive tree die-off, the release of huge amounts of CO2, and global climate catastrophe.
- “We are water, air, earth and life of the environment created by God,” Pope Francis writes in Dear Amazon. “For this reason, we demand an end to the mistreatment and destruction of mother Earth. The land has blood, and it is bleeding; the multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth.”
- Faith leaders applauded the pope: “Care for creation and… social justice for indigenous peoples and forest communities are part of one moral fabric,” said Joe Corcoran of the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative. But most media ignored the pope’s message, focusing instead on his verdict disallowing Amazon priests from marrying.
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