topic: Livestock

topic: Livestock

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Invaders storm Indigenous Amazon land, threatening isolated people
- About 200 people have invaded the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Land in Brazil’s Pará state since August 13, breaking through Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Agency (Funai) gates, removing signs and establishing camps.
- The invasion followed the creation of the Bacajaí Environmental Protection Area that completely overlaps with the federally protected Indigenous Land — creating legal confusion which authorities say has been exploited by individuals who wish to occupy the area.
- Federal authorities have warned of an imminent risk of confrontation and potentially genocide against Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation and have called for the urgent deployment of the National Force and Federal Police.
- On August 26, a federal court ordered the Union and Funai to send teams from the Public Security Force within 48 hours to contain the invasion but the deadline has passed and the teams have not yet arrived.

This rare wild cow is making a comeback
Thailand’s banteng (Bos javanicus) population has declined dramatically across much of its range. But inside Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, this rare wild cattle species is making a comeback. Anti-poaching efforts and community-led ecotourism have allowed banteng to return to the forests, benefiting both wildlife and local livelihoods.
Pastoralists in a Changing World
Pastoralism is one of humanity’s oldest ways of life. Moving livestock across vast landscapes in rhythm with seasonal change and environmental conditions, pastoralist cultures rely on freedom of movement and shared arrangements over how to graze rangelands. Today, pastoralists are navigating profound environmental changes to the lands that have sustained their communities for generations. This […]
At global desertification conference, pastoralists call for greater recognition
- Hundreds of pastoralists are in Mongolia for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD, from Aug. 17 to 28, 2026.
- They want stronger protections for Indigenous pastoral traditions, greater access to funding and resources to address climate change, and official recognition of Indigenous knowledge of how to adapt to a hotter, drier world.
- The pace of arable land degradation is 30 to 35 times the historic average, threatening even the most resilient communities, according to the U.N.
- Pastoralist delegates say that though their traditions offer biodiversity benefits, traditional knowledge is not always enough as climate change and land degradation accelerate.

How Mennonites in Belize built a land-buying machine taking over forests
Over the past two decades, Belize lost around 20% of its forest cover — more than 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres). Much of it is the result of agricultural expansion by Mennonites, the conservative Christian denomination that arrived in the country more than six decades ago. To understand the corporate machinery that’s allowed the Mennonites to […]
Land records reveal how Mennonites are reshaping Belize’s forests
- Mennonites have become some of the most prolific land buyers in Belize, acquiring large properties and making bids faster than competitors. But who owns what land isn’t always clear.
- To better understand the land management process, a Mongabay investigation gained access to records in deforested and degraded areas in and around Mennonite communities throughout Belize.
- The documents show that the communities use trusts and churches to acquire and collectively manage land, allowing them to transfer property internally and tap collective resources to purchase more.
- At the same time, Belizeans living in and around Mennonite communities often occupy much smaller plots of land, surviving off subsistence crops or working at Mennonite-owned businesses.

Before giant meat producer JBS expands to Nigeria, people deserve answers (commentary)
- The world’s largest meat company is pursuing a $2.5 billion investment that could reshape Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
- Critics are calling for greater transparency about this plan and point to JBS’ legacy in the Amazon of deforestation, land grabbing, forced labor, invasions of Indigenous territories, intimidation and violence against small-scale farmers, among other concerns.
- “The central issue is not whether Nigeria should welcome investment, but whether a project of this scale will be subjected to the level of transparency, scrutiny, and due diligence needed to ensure that its benefits do not come with avoidable environmental and human rights costs,” argues an expert with Climate Rights International.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘The shape of the land will change:’ South African villages resist heavy sands mine
- Communities in South Africa’s Eastern Cape are opposing a proposed heavy mineral sands mine that a South African company wants permission to operate day and night for 30 years on their communal land.
- They say the land targeted for mining is far from unused, supporting more than a 1,000 cattle, traditional medicine gathering, tourism and facilitates access to the coast and fishing.
- The villagers say that if the mine goes ahead, it will damage livelihoods, ancestral graves, biodiversity and water resources.
- The planned mine could also impact their long-running campaign to acquire commercial seaweed harvesting permits and an existing small-scale sand mining business run by a village committee.

Meat giant JBS silently ditches bolder environmental targets in latest review
The world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS, has scrapped two of its key environmental goals in its latest annual sustainability report. JBS’s “Net Zero by 2040,” which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout its supply chain, and zero deforestation targets were substantially rolled back compared to previous years, according to its 2025 Sustainability report, published July […]
European Commission excludes leather from landmark deforestation law
The European Union has dropped leather from its final list of products targeted under the bloc’s landmark antideforestation law. Experts say the July 13 decision is the result of industry lobbying rather than a true reflection of leather’s deforestation footprint. The EU deforestation regulation, or EUDR, mandates that companies selling commodities such as cattle, soy, […]
UK deforestation rules take step forward after a long delay
The U.K government has announced that it will advance long-delayed regulations on commodities linked to deforestation. On June 23, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued a press release promising to “take forward new rules” that will force companies in Great Britain to carry out due diligence on the products they sell. […]
How snow leopards, wolves and leopards share the same Himalayan valley, study
- Three apex predators (snow leopards, common leopards, and Himalayan wolves) coexist in a remote valley in Nepal’s central Himalayas by relying on different food sources.
- Researchers analyzed six years of camera-trap footage and fecal DNA from the Lapchi Valley to discover that snow leopards eat mainly wild ungulates, leopards feed on livestock and animals near human settlements, and wolves eat a mix of both.
- All three predators are mostly nocturnal and use overlapping terrain, but their specialized diets prevent direct conflict among these similarly sized apex predators.
- Protecting abundant wild prey is the most effective way to keep all three predators away from livestock and reduce retaliatory killings that threaten their survival.

How leopards and wolves share the same Himalayan valley: Study
Three of Asia’s most formidable predators share territory in a remote Nepal valley by eating different prey, according to a new study. Researchers found that diet, not time or space, is what keeps snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) from coming into direct conflict. The study, published […]
Brazil curbs Amazon deforestation in Piripkura, but ranchers’ cattle linger
- A crackdown by the Brazilian government on land-grabbers who establish cattle ranches and other agricultural activities in the Piripkura Indigenous Territory, home to the last two known isolated Piripkura people, have seen some success with tree cover loss in 2025 down.
- While there was very little deforestation from 2024-2025, authorities told Mongabay that 1,000 cattle left by the invaders still remain in the territory, and they have still not received authorization from the federal government to remove them.
- The presence of cattle encourages ranchers to enter the land to care for them, said sources, though some remain there legitimately.
- Authorities have implemented a succession of land use restriction orders since 2008 to prevent the entry of land grabbers, though a recent court decision has provisionally allowed some ranchers to remain in the Indigenous land until the conclusion of the demarcation process.

Colombia passes landmark cattle traceability law to combat illegal deforestation
Colombia passed a landmark law June 4 aimed at improving traceability of its cattle supply chain to ensure beef isn’t sourced from deforested land. The law hopes to enhance existing traceability systems and make it easier to identify when cattle have grazed in protected areas and forests that were illegally cleared for pasture. “This is […]
European Commission linked leather to deforestation, then ignored it
- According to the European Commission’s own research, leather could account for up to 17% of the deforestation footprint tied to European Union Deforestation Regulation-covered imports. This is roughly 390 square kilometers (149 square miles) of forest lost a year, an area twice the size of the Italian city of Pisa.
- Despite the evidence, Brussels moved earlier this month to drop bovine hides from the scope of the EUDR. The commission says it considered “qualitative considerations” in its decision.
- The move comes after intense lobbying by the leather industry. The main groups representing the sector held at least 22 meetings with European lawmakers since 2021, according to lobbying records, with more than a third occurring in the past year as the regulation neared implementation.
- Environmental campaigners argue that removing leather would create a loophole: beef remains covered, but leather — a high-value product in the same supply chain — could still enter EU markets without the same traceability obligations.

Nearly all climate claims by meat and dairy firms amount to greenwashing: Study
Meat and dairy production are significant drivers of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. Many companies claim to be tackling this, but nearly all these claims, 98%, could be considered greenwashing, a recent study found. Researchers logged more than 1,200 environmental commitments made by 33 of the sector’s largest companies between 2021 and 2024. They found […]
Despite restrictions, forest loss continued on Ituna land, home to isolated people
- The Ituna/Itatá Indigenous land in Brazil lost 2,211 hectares of tree cover from 2022-25, despite being protected by a temporary land use restriction order to protect people living in voluntary isolation, according to data from Global Forest Watch.
- The land has been under a series of land use restriction orders since 2011.
- Authorities told Mongabay that the illegal deforestation is caused by land-grabbers who clear the forest without permits to establish cattle ranches and other agricultural activities, later exploiting loopholes to legitimize land appropriation.
- In 2023, Brazil’s federal government carried out an operation to remove invaders. Though satellite data show forest loss continues, it significantly reduced in 2025.

EU moves to drop leather from deforestation law after industry lobbying
- The European Union is on the cusp of removing leather from the scope of its landmark antideforestation law, following months of intense lobbying by the industry.
- Leather industry groups led by COTANCE and UNIC have held at least 22 meetings with lawmakers since 2021, with more than a third occurring in the past year as the regulation neared implementation. The EU Deforestation Regulation was explicitly discussed in 11 of those meetings.
- The tannery industry argues that leather should be exempt from complying with the regulations, contending that hides are simply waste in beef production.
- Environmental campaigners have called this stance “shameful,” pointing out bovine hides often share the same origins as problematic beef supply chains.

Brazil prosecutors launch suit against meatpacking giant JBS over beef tied to slavery-like labor
SAO PAULO (AP) — Labor prosecutors in Brazil filed a lawsuit Wednesday against meatpacking giant JBS, accusing the company of buying cattle from farms where workers were held in slavery-like conditions. The civil action suit before a labor court in the northern Brazilian state of Para seeks nearly 119 million reais (about $24 million) in compensation, an […]
Conservationist wins top award to protect lions and people in Zimbabwe
- A Zimbabwean conservationist working to reduce conflict between lions and livestock farmers is a winner of one of this year’s Whitley Awards, better known as the “Green Oscars.”
- The prize money will fund the expansion of the work led by Moreangels Mbizah and her NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, in a region that is a hotspot for human-carnivore conflict.
- Community guardians employed by WCA warn farmers when lions enter their farming areas; promote the use of secure animal enclosures for cattle, goats and sheep, and oversee the installation of solar-powered flashing lights to deter nocturnal raids by lions.
- These interventions have reduced conflict by up to 98% in at least two rural wards, but habitat loss through the expansion of farms into wildlife migration corridors worries Mbizah and her team.

EUDR is starting to steer company actions, despite slow progress: Report
- Although more progress is needed, a growing number of companies are adopting and implementing deforestation commitments ahead of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) taking effect in December, according to a new report analyzing public data on 500 companies exposed to deforestation in their supply chains.
- Global Canopy’s newest Forest 500 Report found that 14% of companies mentioned the EUDR in deforestation commitments and more than 25% reported new implementation actions in 2025. The number of companies with traceability mechanisms also increased.
- The report also found that 24 companies have never published deforestation commitments and that 14 backtracked on previous commitments in 2025.
- The legal uncertainty surrounding the EUDR and its implementation disincentivizes companies from adopting systems for due diligence on deforestation, experts say.

How wild cattle recovery is transforming local livelihoods near key Thai reserve
- Banteng, a species of wild cattle, have suffered an 80% population decline across their range in recent decades. But in Thailand, populations are rebounding strongly in well-protected areas.
- Decades of strict habitat protection and ranger patrols have reduced poaching and recovered numbers to such an extent that several herds have spread outside of protected sites into surrounding buffer areas, where enforcement of wildlife laws is limited.
- In an effort to protect the growing herds, villagers living in the buffer area of Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, who once experienced conflict with the banteng, have set up a community-led ecotourism initiative based on banteng-watching.
- The wildlife tours are creating powerful cultural, social and financial deterrents to poaching, and the banteng are proving to be a key species around which to rally local support for conservation.

‘Sharing is off the table’ as drought reshapes the culture of Ethiopia’s pastoralists
- Pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali region say that worsening drought is eroding traditional systems of sharing that once helped communities survive.
- A recent study finds rainfall patterns have grown increasingly unpredictable, making it harder for pastoralists to plan and sustain their herds.
- Indigenous systems such as Gergar — a form of social insurance — and communal grazing are weakening as households struggle to sustain their own herds.
- As climate pressures grow, pastoralists are turning to alternative livelihoods, while assistance struggles to keep up with the scale of the problem.

Climate change tests Nepal’s wild and domesticated yaks
- Traditional herders in Nepal’s alpine rangelands face climate change, rising costs, labor shortages, disease and limited markets for yak products.
- Warming temperatures are altering water cycles, vegetation and soil carbon, while drying wetlands and glacier changes increase fire risk and reduce grazing areas for both domestic and wild yaks.
- Wild yaks face threats from habitat shrinkage, crossbreeding with domestic yaks, overharvesting of food sources like yartsa gunbu and declining rangeland quality, which could undermine their genetic purity and survival.

In Brazil, regenerative farming advances, but deforestation still pressures ecosystems
- Agribusiness accounts for roughly a fifth of Brazil’s economy and about 40% of exports. While it is a major economic engine, it is also responsible for over 90% of deforestation and about a quarter of national emissions, with cattle ranching and soy production the main drivers of deforestation.
- Agricultural innovation transformed states like Mato Grosso from non-arable land into global farming hubs. Now, agribusinesses and researchers in Brazil are exploring whether similar innovation can boost regenerative farming to restore degraded pasturelands and reduce further deforestation caused by agriculture.
- REVERTE, one of Brazil’s largest agricultural regeneration projects, led by Swiss pesticide producer Syngenta, aims to restore 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of degraded pastureland by 2030. Over the next decade, Brazil aims to restore 40 million hectares (100 million acres) of degraded land.
- Restoring degraded pasturelands will not be enough to halt deforestation for agriculture in the Cerrado and Amazon, experts warn. They say that without robust land-use governance, enforcement of forest protections and binding private-sector commitments, productivity gains risk fueling further expansion rather than reducing pressure on Brazil’s ecosystems.

Study finds livestock pushing lions away from shared rangeland in Kenya
- A new study in Kenya’s Mara conservancies finds lions increasingly avoiding areas used by Maasai livestock, even after the animals have moved on.
- Researchers suggest lions are responding not just to immediate encounters with herders but to past grazing pressure and perceived long-term risk.
- The findings raise questions about how livestock grazing may reshape predator behavior and wildlife use of shared landscapes.
- Experts say any grazing limits must balance conservation goals with Maasai livelihoods that depend heavily on livestock.

Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains & farmer incomes (analysis)
- Since the 1970s, Brazil has cleared a large amount of Amazon Rainforest, and the consequences extend beyond biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and social disruption, because the forest generates its own weather.
- Continued deforestation could push the system past a tipping point where the Amazon can no longer sustain its rainfall regime, threatening the continent’s productive capacity and the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.
- The economic opportunity that can change this is agroforestry systems that reforest areas to produce global commodities that can also comply with Brazil’s Forest Code, which requires private properties in the Amazonian region to maintain native vegetation on 80% of their landholdings.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

In Brazil, a free platform uses government data to track EUDR compliance
- Developed by researchers at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Selo Verde platform provides a free, public tool to check a Brazilian producer’s compliance with environmental laws, including the upcoming EU deforestation regulation.
- The tool crosses data from state and federal governments on land use, deforestation, cattle transport and legal infractions, to monitor environmental compliance on rural properties.
- Selo Verde is run by state governments: First launched in the state of Pará in 2021, it has since been adopted in Minas Gerais, Acre and Espírito Santo, with other states interested in developing their own Selo Verde, and other countries encouraged to emulate their own.
- The adoption of the platform by businesses remains a challenge, however, with experts saying there’s no incentive to do so amid ongoing delays to the EUDR.

Botswana shows how smarter cattle herding can save lions, reopen ancient wildlife pathways
- Restoring traditional herding practices in northern Botswana has led to a huge decrease in cattle predation and retaliatory lion poisonings in the Okavango Delta region.
- More lion cubs are now surviving, with the lion population in northern Botswana up 50% over the past four years.
- Experts say bringing back traditional herding practices is the key to restoring migration routes for wildebeest, zebra and many other species.
- If herding expands, government officials may consider removing some veterinary cordon fences that have blocked wildlife corridors for decades.

Australia’s land-use squeeze
- Australia’s recent land use change has steadily reduced and degraded native vegetation, shrinking the amount of intact habitat available to wildlife and weakening ecosystem resilience.
- Clearing has been concentrated in productive regions, especially along the eastern seaboard and parts of the north, where agriculture, development, and resource extraction continue to reshape landscapes.
- The biodiversity impacts are not only about area lost: fragmentation breaks habitats into smaller, drier, more isolated patches, making populations more vulnerable to fire, heat, invasive species, and local collapse.
- Conservation tools like protected areas and restoration help, but they struggle to keep pace when habitat loss continues through thousands of incremental decisions across overlapping state and federal systems.

Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?
- Silvopastoral systems, which combine trees and pasture, are still not widely used across Latin America, mainly because of prohibitive costs and lack of technical knowledge, experts say.
- In the Peruvian Amazon, ranchers are being trained to practice rotational grazing, setting up silvopasture pilots, in particular over degraded areas. Research has shown that when done correctly, silvopasture can provide extensive carbon sequestration and forage for cattle; however, the system is not fit for all ecosystems.
- Ranchers need extensive financial support with silvopasture; experts say that payments for ecosystem services or tax breaks could prevent people from switching back to more lucrative monocultures that harm the environment.
- Some experts are worried that promoting more efficient animal husbandry could further promote carbon-intensive meat consumption and overshadow efforts to promote plant-based diets.

Deforestation climbs in Central America’s largest biosphere reserve
- Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve has lost more than a third of its primary forest cover since the turn of the century.
- 2024 marked the biggest year of deforestation, with 10% of Bosawás cleared in just one year.
- Cattle ranching is among the top causes of forest loss, with outsiders encroaching into Bosawás to clear forest for pasture.
- Indigenous advocates and residents say the loss of forest is threatening their way of life, and that they have faced violence due to encroachment.

Satellite data show forest loss persists in Brazilian Amazon’s most deforested reserve
- Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area was established to protect a swath of the Amazon Rainforest from the cattle industry.
- However, satellite data show the reserve has lost around 50% of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006.
- The data show forest loss peaked in 2024, and continued into 2025.
- Research indicates rates of deforestation are higher in Triunfo do Xingu than in the unprotected areas around it.

Project sees long-term success restoring forests in the high Andes: Study
- The Polylepis forests of Peru are some of the highest high-altitude forests in the world, playing an essential role in the water cycle.
- Over the past few decades, various restoration projects have worked to restore Polylepis forests across their former range.
- In 2022, researchers revisited a restoration project in Aquia, Peru, to understand what factors contributed to its success. The study concludes that stakeholder participation and formal conservation agreements helped the project succeed.
- Over the past four years, initiatives by ECOAN and Accion Andina have built on previous success.

Researchers find concerning gaps in global maps used for EUDR compliance
- Most companies importing certain products into the EU must comply with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products (EUDR), which will go into application on Dec. 30, 2026.
- Satellite and other remote-sensing maps can guide both companies trying to comply with the regulation and government agencies verifying levels of deforestation risk attached to imports.
- But a recent review paper suggests that most of the available maps struggle to meet all of the requirements of the EUDR and could over- or underestimate the risk of deforestation for certain products.
- A key issue is the maps’ ability to differentiate forest from systems that look similar, such as agroforestry, commonly practiced by smallholder farmers producing cocoa, coffee and rubber.

In Brazil, a new label gives more visibility to deforestation-free beef
- A new certification for deforestation-free beef in Brazil, the first of its kind, aims to bring more transparency to existing protocols for monitoring deforestation in meat supply chains.
- The Beef-on-Track (BoT) label has four tiers of certification to guarantee that certified beef meets certain socioenvironmental requirements.
- The label was created to meet demands from China, but it could also help with EUDR compliance, as its highest tier meets EUDR requirements for a deforestation-free supply chain.
- Brazil’s meat industry has not yet embraced the BoT certification, but companies are expected to get on board, as demand for BoT-certified beef grows among exporters, retailers and other actors.

International Jaguar Day: A year of wins for the big cat
Every Nov. 29 is International Jaguar Day, created to raise awareness about threats the jaguar (Panthera onca) faces, including habitat loss and poaching. While the Amazon and Brazil’s Pantanal biomes are strongholds for the jaguar, hosting a high density of the animals, the species has lost most of its historic range, a reality that conservationists […]
In Kenya, Maasai private landowners come together to protect wildlife corridors
- The Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya is entirely owned and managed by Maasai people and covers 2,400 hectares of land to protect biodiversity and secure land rights.
- Maasai herders lease their private lands to the conservancy, and in return, they cannot sell the land to anyone other than another member of the conservancy for conservation purposes, nor can they put up fences.
- The conservancy’s land strategy arose after outsiders purchased land in the county, fencing it off and blocking open grazing areas for wildlife and livestock to roam.
- Conservationists say the conservancy’s model has seen success but caution that it will continue working if Maasai landowners feel like they will continue receiving benefits from the land strategy and are included in decision-making.

Central America’s forests are crucial for migrating birds: Study
As winter closes in across much of North America, migratory birds are heading south to warmer climes and more abundant food. But until recently, scientists didn’t have a good understanding of exactly where they went. Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology U.S. analyzed observations from eBird, a global […]
Chronic diseases prevalent across animals, but understudied: Study
From obesity in cats and dogs and osteoarthritis in pigs, to cancer in whales and high blood glucose in racoons, chronic diseases are increasingly becoming a concern across the animal world, a recent study finds. Most of these ailments can be traced back to human-driven changes, the author says. Antonia Mataragka, the study’s author from […]
Reimagining meat: The Good Food Institute’s bid to redesign the global food system
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. After decades spent protecting forests, fighting for human rights and shaping climate policy, Nigel Sizer has turned his attention to what’s on our plates. As the new CEO of the Good Food Institute (GFI), he argues that how […]
Deforestation and disease spread as Nicaragua ignores illegal cattle ranching
- Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry.
- The practice has led to a spike in cases of New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax), a parasitic fly that feeds on warm-blooded animals
- A new investigation by conservation group Re:wild found that years of industry reforms still haven’t prevented cattle ranchers from deforesting protected areas and Indigenous territories.

As wolves roam California, livestock losses remain low, yet ranchers’ fears grow
- In California, as wolf numbers grow — a remarkable return after a century — livestock producers are increasingly worried as these predators occasionally take down cattle.
- Gray wolves are an endangered species, protected under both federal and state laws, complicating the balance between conservation and economic losses, though livestock kills remain low.
- California introduced a compensation program that pays ranchers for direct and indirect losses from wolves as a way to mitigate conflicts, but ranchers say this program isn’t scalable with expanding wolf numbers. The livestock industry also receives substantial taxpayer-funded subsidies.
- Wolves were extirpated from California a century ago, so ranchers haven’t lived alongside them for generations and are pushing to remove all protections for the species. Conservationists argue coexistence is the only way forward.

Biodiversity loss due to land use change could be highly underestimated: Study
- New research carried out in Colombia by the University of Cambridge suggests that local surveys assessing the effect of land clearances on biodiversity may be underestimating the impact by as much as 60%.
- To fully understand the effects of clearing forests for pastureland, much surveys of a much larger scale are required to reflect the different levels of biodiversity in regions and habitats and their resilience to change.
- More accurate species surveys, the authors say, could also support future programs such as biodiversity offsetting schemes as well as influencing farming policies.

Protein for a crowded planet: An interview with the Good Food Institute’s Nigel Sizer
- Nigel Sizer has become the CEO of the Good Food Institute, bringing decades of experience in forest conservation, human rights, climate initiatives, and pandemic preparedness to a role focused on transforming global protein production.
- He told Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in September 2025 that alternative proteins can relieve pressure on forests, protect wildlife, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to health and climate shocks.
- Sizer’s early priorities include learning GFI’s global operations, meeting teams across regions, and advocating for increased public investment in plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-enabled proteins to accelerate research, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
- He emphasized building coalitions with farmers, regulators, and stakeholders worldwide and called for development banks and climate-finance agencies to support alternative protein projects, arguing this would unlock new markets, jobs, and environmental benefits.

Northern Cameroon’s lions are reproducing, but concerns remain
- GPS tracking of 10 collared lions in Bouba Ndjida National Park has confirmed multiple lionesses with cubs, indicating successful reproduction of Cameroon’s highly threatened northern lion subspecies.
- Conservationists warn many cubs may not reach adulthood because dispersing young lions are exposed to snares, retaliatory killings, and other human pressures along the park’s edges.
- With only about 60-80 lions in Bouba Ndjida and fewer than 1,000 northern lions left in Central Africa, the park is seen as crucial to the subspecies’ survival and recovery.
- Uncontrolled livestock grazing, poaching, insecurity, and weak connectivity with neighboring parks hamper conservation; experts call for larger safe areas, community involvement, and coordinated management to ensure long-term survival.

To track a unicorn: Laos team goes all out to find the last saolas
- An intensive search is underway in Laos to find perhaps the most threatened large mammal on the planet: the saola ox.
- Sniffer dogs, local and international wildlife tracking experts, and a state-of-the-art DNA kit have all been deployed to try to home in on any unknown individuals of the species so elusive conservationists once dubbed it the “Asian unicorn.”
- Last documented in 2013, when a camera trap photographed an adult in central Vietnam, previous attempts to study the saola have been stymied by a lack of sightings.
- Conservationists are aware of the ever-ticking clock, however, and warn that extinction is “inevitable” without a dedicated and intensive push to study remaining individuals and safely bring them into captivity to start a conservation breeding program to revive the species.

Permaculture promises peace, food, increased equality in Kenyan county
- In Kenya’s semiarid Baringo county, Indigenous pastoralists like Salina Chepsat are moving from herding to diversified organic crop farming.
- They benefit from training by the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative in permaculture and seed saving, but male control of land still restrains how much they can do.
- Boreholes and a shared irrigation scheme enable year-round crops and foster cooperation among different ethnic communities with a history of hostilities.
- Experts call for co-designed strategies combining water access, land restoration and inclusive decision-making to secure food and peace.

The EU proposes delaying anti-deforestation law, again
The European Commission has proposed pushing back the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) for another year, to December 2026, citing concerns that its IT system is not yet ready to handle the demands that the regulation would place on it. In a letter to the European Parliament, Jessika Roswall, the European commissioner for environment, water […]
Marfrig’s bonds funded beef from illegally deforested areas in Brazil
- An investigation has found that half of the $2 billion Marfrig raised went to buying cattle raised on deforested land and fattened in feedlots linked to its board chair.
- Marfrig’s claims to track nearly 90% of its indirect suppliers in the Amazon contain blind spots, enabling ranchers from illegally deforested areas to rig the supply chain through paperwork.
- With new regulations like the EU Deforestation Regulation demanding full traceability, the Brazilian cattle industry faces increasing pressure to identify herds and meet stricter environmental requirements for global markets.

Conservationists split over greener ranching versus ditching beef
Beef production is a major driver of climate change. It fuels deforestation in crucial biomes, a significant source of carbon emissions, and cows themselves produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Regenerative ranching practices aim to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of rearing cattle, but some conservation groups say a pivot away from beef is […]
More than half the world’s forests fragmented in 20 years — but protection works: Study
- Large intact forests and connected landscapes support biodiversity and ecosystem processes.
- Globally, more than half of the world’s forests became more fragmented between 2000 and 2020, according to a new Science study, with the highest rates in the tropics.
- The study used new measures of fragmentation that more closely align with ecological functions and is higher than previous estimates of fragmentation rates.
- The study also finds that in the tropical forests, protected areas experienced much lower rates of fragmentation than similar unprotected forests.

Guatemala closes oil field, increases security in Maya Biosphere Reserve
- Guatemala is converting the Xan oil field inside Laguna del Tigre National Park into a base for military and law enforcement operations, with special focus on protecting the rainforest from illegal activity.
- The oil field, operated by Anglo-French firm Perenco since 2001, produced between 5,000 and 7,000 barrels of crude oil a day, accounting for around 90% of national output.
- The government did not renew the concession, which ended in August, but Perenco will continue to operate a pipeline until 2044.
- Officials said they want to devote more funding and personnel to the Maya Biosphere Reserve, of which Laguna del Tigre is a part, and which loses thousands of hectares of rainforest every year to cattle ranching, agriculture and logging.

Restoring the Páramo: How Ecuador healed its degraded high-Andean ecosystem
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Ecuador’s Antisana páramo, southeast of Quito, offers a striking example of ecological restoration, turning back the clock on centuries of degradation caused by livestock grazing, reports contributor Ana Cristina Alvarado for Mongabay. Once dominated by sprawling cattle ranches, […]
Brazil’s Atlantic Forest still losing ‘large amounts’ of mature forest, despite legal protection
- Despite a federal protection law, Brazil’s Atlantic Forest lost a Washington, D.C.-sized area of mature forest every year between 2010 and 2020, with most of the deforestation occurring illegally on private lands for agriculture.
- The Atlantic Forest is a critical biodiversity hotspot that supports 70% of Brazil’s GDP while serving nearly three-quarters of the country’s population.
- Major agribusiness companies, including COFCO, Bunge and Cargill, have been identified as exposed to deforestation in their soybean supply chains, with agriculture and livestock farming driving most forest loss.
- Conservation success stories like the black lion tamarin’s recovery from near-extinction demonstrate that restoration is possible, with one project planting millions of seedlings and generating significant local employment.

Rewilding project aims to restore resilience to fire-prone Spain via wildlife
- A project in Spain is bringing Przewalski’s horse to a sparsely populated region to help stem out-of-control fires and boost the local economy.
- Rewilding Spain is attempting to rebuild ecological roles in the region to boost biodiversity and mitigate fire outbreaks.
- The project is helping the local economy by employing locals and working with tourist operators.

Will we still eat beef in 50 years?
- Beef production contributes to numerous global crises, from climate change to habitat destruction to biodiversity loss.
- Big conservation NGOs have worked fervently to combat these crises, and many also have programs to encourage more sustainable ranching practices.
- Proponents of “regenerative ranching” and similar approaches that involve rotational grazing and other strategies say these practices have benefits for preserving grassland habitats, encouraging the diversity of birds, wildlife and grasses that live on these ranches and sequestering carbon in their soils.
- But many conservationists also contend that the world must reduce the number of cattle on the planet and find other sources of protein.

Learning to live with lions: Interview with Claw Conservancy’s Andrew Stein
- An automated, real-time alert system is helping local communities in Botswana protect their cattle from approaching lions.
- A team at the nonprofit Claws Conservancy is also working with communities to name individual lions in order to help them build a connection with the animals.
- The initiative was launched to mitigate human-lion conflict, which often led to loss of livestock and the retaliatory poisoning of the lions.
- The lack of vehicles and torches, however, continue to be hurdles when it comes to effectively responding to alerts, which tend to come at night, when the lions are most active.

Restoration brings back fresh water, wildlife to degraded páramos in Ecuador
- Ecuador’s Antisana páramo, southeast of Quito, was degraded for centuries by cattle ranches.
- In 2010, the Quito Water Conservation Fund and the Quito’s water utility secured funding to buy one of the most heavily impacted properties.
- The Quito Water Conservation Fund, funded by contributions from drinking water users, is a sustainable initiative that protects vital water sources.
- Once non-native livestock were removed and restoration began, native vegetation, wetlands and species like deer, rabbits and foxes returned.

‘Insignificant risk’ EUDR proposal threatens fight against deforestation, critics say
- Some European Union officials want to simplify a section of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the bloc’s landmark law that seeks to eliminate commodities associated with deforestation.
- A European Parliament proposal wants to reconsider a benchmarking system that categorizes trading partners into high, standard and low deforestation risk.
- Supporters of the proposal say EUDR rules are still too complicated for producers, while environmental groups say the world’s forests can’t afford further delays.

Mongabay journalist Karla Mendes wins 2025 Oakes Award for environmental journalism
Mongabay reporter Karla Mendes has won the 2025 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, announced on July 23. Her investigation in the Brazilian Amazon uncovered a direct connection between the expansion of the cattle industry in Maranhão state and an increase in violent crime against the inhabitants of the state’s Arariboia Indigenous Territory. […]
Pasture and agricultural expansion in Gran Chaco drive biodiversity loss: Study
A recent study has identified how cattle pasture and agricultural expansion, driven by global demand for beef and soy, is causing biodiversity loss in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina and Paraguay. The Gran Chaco, the second-largest forested region in South America, after the Amazon, is spread across Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Over the […]
Mennonite farming in Belize threatens essential biological corridor, critics say
- Mennonites in Belize own thousands of hectares of rainforest that make up part of a “biological corridor” for wildlife moving between numerous protected areas.
- The Mennonites started clearing the forest in 2022 without carrying out an environmental impact assessment, which destroyed wildlife habitats and polluted the local watershed, critics say.
- An environmental impact assessment is being carried out retroactively, but conservationists are worried it isn’t detailed enough and will still lead to the destruction of the corridor.

Brazil’s Arariboia set to be the first Indigenous land with legal cattle
- Spurred by a yearlong investigation by Mongabay, a federal crackdown has removed up to 2,000 illegal cattle from Brazil’s Arariboia Indigenous Territory, but faced unexpected protests from some Indigenous residents claiming ownership.
- The pushback has prompted the government to consider regulating Indigenous-owned cattle, raising fears of setting a precedent and inviting the disguised return of illegal herds.
- Indigenous rights advocates warn that legalizing cattle ranching inside the territory could blur the line between subsistence use and commercial exploitation by outside ranchers.
- Despite ongoing surveillance, signs of illegal cattle and deforestation have reappeared, with critics saying the authorities’ response remains too slow to stop renewed invasions.

Meat giant profits from carbon market without halting deforestation
- Through its 2021-founded subsidiary MyCarbon, Brazil’s meat processing giant Minerva Foods is emitting and selling carbon credits to big oil companies that are in a rush to move away from a polluting stigma.
- Some credit-obtaining projects, however, face criticism over a lack of transparency and procedural perils. The controversies include unfulfilled promises to restore degraded ecosystems, such as the biodiverse Cerrado pasturelands, and halt deforestation within Amazon areas.
- The case raises concerns that the carbon market may be rubber-stamping the maintenance of industrial activities with high ecological impact, without truthfully contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmentally damaging practices.

Meatpacking giant JBS debuts on NYSE six months after $5m Trump donation
JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on June 13, just six months after its U.S. subsidiary, Pilgrim’s Pride, made a $5 million donation to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the single largest contribution to the event. The Brazil-founded company has sought a U.S. listing for more than a […]
Panama boosts protections in the Darién Gap, but deforestation threats still loom
- Panama is pouring new resources into protecting Darién, a remote province where the rugged, nearly impenetrable jungle provides cover for migrants, drug traffickers, illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers.
- Dozens of park guards have been hired and trained with new technology, and officials are working on implementing stricter regulations for logging and agribusiness.
- New roads and bridges will bring investment, access to education and health care to hard-to-reach communities, but they could also attract an influx of people ready to cut down the forest.
- As more people arrive to the region, the agricultural frontier pushes closer to the limits of the park, raising concerns among rangers about how they will defend it in years to come.

Protecting the Darién Gap: Interview with Panama national parks director Luis Carles Rudy
- Mongabay spoke with Panama’s national director of protected areas, Luis Carles Rudy, about the ongoing environmental challenges in Darién National Park.
- The park covers around 575,000 hectares (1.42 million acres) of rainforest at the southern border, but has been a popular spot for criminal groups for the last several decades, and more recently illegal mining operations and migrants coming from South America.
- Carles Rudy told Mongabay about new rangers and technology that will help protect the park, but said there still aren’t efficient solutions to encroaching agribusiness and migrant waste.

On World Rainforest Day, stories of Amazon danger and resistance
Rainforests are among the most critical ecosystems on Earth. Home to roughly half of all terrestrial species, they provide oxygen and habitat, and help regulate regional rain and weather patterns. In honor of World Rainforest Day on June 22, we look at two recent Mongabay investigations that shed light on the challenges and triumphs in […]
How Costa Rica’s ranchers contribute to jaguar and puma conservation
Ranches in Costa Rica occasionally overlap with jaguar and puma hunting areas, creating conflict that can sometimes be unavoidable. But with the help of conservationists, ranchers are now able to prevent both cattle and predator deaths, Mongabay contributor Darío Chinchilla reported for Mongabay Latam. In communities like Lomas Azules, when a jaguar (Panthera onca) or […]
Report links meat giant JBS to massive destruction of jaguar habitat
- Agricultural expansion in Brazil’s Pará and Mato Grosso states has destroyed 27 million hectares (67 million acres) of jaguar habitat — an area the size of the U.K. — with 5 million hectares (12 million acres) cleared between 2014 and 2023, most of it illegally.
- A report by Global Witness links some of this deforestation to indirect suppliers of JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, which has failed to fully uphold its pledge to eliminate illegal deforestation from its supply chain by 2025.
- The report highlights weak enforcement of environmental laws and recent attempts by local governments to reverse antideforestation policies, as agribusiness continues to wield major political and economic power.
- With Brazil hosting the COP30 climate summit later this year, campaigners are urging governments and corporations to fulfill deforestation pledges, improve supply chain traceability, and address agriculture’s growing role in greenhouse gas emissions.

New forest loss data beef up Amazon deforestation case against Casino Group
- A new report by Brazilian nonprofit Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) states that Casino Group’s beef supply chain could be linked to up to 526,459 hectares (about 1.3 million acres) of deforestation in Brazil between 2018 and 2023.
- The data are being used in a $64.1 million lawsuit filed in 2021 by environmental and Indigenous groups that accuse the French retailer of contributing to illegal deforestation.
- Among the plaintiffs are Indigenous communities from the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory in the Brazilian Amazon that have faced decades of land invasions by illegal cattle ranchers.

Kenyan soil carbon project suspended for a second time
The carbon credit certifier Verra has placed the Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project under review for a second time, it confirmed to Mongabay in an emailed statement. Until the review is completed, the project will not be permitted to sell any credits it generates through its model of managing livestock grazing routes. The decision is […]
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 […]
‘We can’t talk solutions without understanding complexities: Kari Guajajara on Brazil’s Amazon
- Mongabay interviewed Kari Guajajara, a lawyer and the first Indigenous person to obtain a law degree in Brazil’s state of Maranhão, to hear her take on some of the latest and biggest events affecting Indigenous communities and forests Brazilian Amazon.
- These events include a government operation to evict illegal miners from a Munduruku territory, threats to the lives of Indigenous land defenders, the influence of the agribusiness lobby, and President Lula’s drop in popularity.
- Kari Guajajara and other Indigenous delegates came to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City to spotlight issues they face in their country.
- Kari Guajajara is a lawyer at Amazonia Alerta and a legal advisor for COIAB, a Brazilian Amazon Indigenous network.

Global prize longlists Mongabay feature on Maxakali reforestation in Brazil
A Mongabay feature on Indigenous-led reforestation efforts in southeastern Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has been longlisted for the environmental reporting category of the 2025 One World Media Awards, a leading journalism prize. Mongabay senior editor Xavier Bartaburu reported the story from Maxakali Indigenous land in Minas Gerais state, where the Maxakali, who also refer to themselves […]
Corporate giants fall short on forest protection commitments, report
- The “Forest 500 Report 2025” by Global Canopy reveals that only 3% of major companies with influence over forest-risk commodities are taking adequate action on deforestation, with beef identified as the biggest driver
- The assessment identified 24 “persistent laggards” that have never made any deforestation commitments despite a decade of evaluation, while some companies like meatpacking giant JBS are backtracking on previous pledges.
- Only 9% of companies promise zero tolerance for violence against forest defenders, despite more than 2,000 people being killed while protecting land or environment since 2012, highlighting the gap between environmental and human rights commitments.
- The European Union Deforestation Regulation taking effect at the end of 2025 will require companies to prove their products aren’t linked to deforestation before selling in EU markets, potentially driving meaningful corporate action ahead of the COP30 climate conference in Brazil in November.

Armed groups, cattle ranchers drove 35% rise in Colombia’s deforestation in 2024
- Colombia lost 1,070 km² (413 mi²) of forest in 2024, according to data from the country’s environment ministry, representing a 35% increase from 2023.
- Illegal agriculture is thought to be the main driver behind this increase, with cattle ranching spreading inside national parks.
- The environment ministry notes that despite the increase in deforestation last year, the 2024 figure is still one of the lowest in the past 23 years.
- However, experts fear that the increase will continue in 2025 and that armed groups will continue to strengthen their hold over the Colombian Amazon, hindering the progress of conservation strategies with communities.

Jaguar tourism in Brazil’s Pantanal needs new rules to avoid collapse: Study
Jaguar tourism in Porto Jofre, a remote outpost in the Pantanal wetlands of western Brazil, has become so successful that researchers now say it needs new rules to survive. Brazil’s Pantanal is home to the second-largest population of jaguars (Panthera onca) in the world (after the Brazilian Amazon). An estimated 4,000-6,000 of the big cats […]
How cultural and religious beliefs combine for snow leopard conservation (commentary)
- “Deep-rooted cultural beliefs and legal protections continue to play a crucial role in safeguarding snow leopards, supported by awareness campaigns that reinforce traditional practices and conservation,” a new commentary explains.
- In many areas across their range where livestock are killed by the rare predators, farmers’ religious customs often dictate that they must not harmed in retaliation.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Chain-link fencing protects livestock from big cat attacks in Tanzania: Study
- Livestock farmers in the environs of Ruaha National Park in Tanzania have to remain vigilant at night to protect their animals from lion and leopard attacks in an area hosting 10% of the world’s wild lions.
- But a study reveals that fortified enclosures in neighborhoods can protect livestock from carnivore attacks, benefiting both the owners and their neighbors.
- Researchers discovered that predators avoid neighborhoods when pastoralists construct corrals using chain-link fencing, a more effective method than traditional African boma fences made of thorny bushes.
- Carnivores in neighborhoods with multiple enclosures face “more work,” making it difficult to pull animals out. The fences reduce availability and attractiveness, leading carnivores to avoid neighborhoods with high-density fortifications, according to Jonathan Salerno, the study’s lead author.

Drowned lands and poisoned waters threaten Peru’s campesinos and their livestock
- Peru’s Lake Chinchaycocha, also known as Lake Junín, and its endemic species are under threat in part due to environmental problems caused by mining activities, hydroelectric power operations, the discharge of urban wastewater and the overexploitation of resources.
- Campesino communities nearby have lived for decades with this contamination, which they blame for killing so much livestock that one community had to open a cemetery specifically for animals.
- For several months a year, due to the flooding by the nearby dam, homes and pastures are inundated with contaminated water, forcing residents to migrate to higher ground.
- Studies have confirmed the presence of heavy metals in the water exceeding environmental quality standards, but there haven’t been any studies yet linking this to human and livestock health impacts in the region.

Uncontacted Ayoreo could face health risks as Gran Chaco shrinks, experts warn
- The International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI-PIACI) visited northern Paraguay to better understand the threats against the Indigenous Ayoreo communities living in isolation.
- The Ayoreo live semi-nomadically between the Paraguayan and Bolivian Gran Chaco, where they’re threatened by deforestation from the expanding agricultural frontier.
- GTI-PIACI called on the Paraguayan government and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to develop more thorough measures to protect the groups and stop deforestation.

In the drylands of northern Kenya, a ‘summer school’ for young researchers
- In northern Kenya’s Isiolo county, young researchers who study pastoralism gathered for a week of training and lectures.
- Most of the researchers were from East Africa; many were themselves raised in pastoralist communities.
- Isiolo county, a semiarid rangeland where most people make their living herding livestock, has been hit hard by drought in recent years.
- The researchers said they wanted to change the “old narrative” about pastoralist communities and their relationship to the environment.

Pastoralists know every landscape has a history: Interview with Gufu Oba
- Pastoralism, the practice of moving livestock like cattle across landscapes to forage, provides a livelihood for between 200 million and 300 million people globally.
- In East Africa, pastoralists are being pressured by climate disruptions, infrastructure projects, land-use changes, and in some cases wildlife conservation projects.
- Gufu Oba, professor emeritus from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, tells Mongabay that pastoralists are an integral part of the world’s rangelands, and their knowledge is crucial to protecting those landscapes.

Colombia’s cattle traceability bill awaits approval as deforestation spikes
- Lawmakers in Colombia are considering a bill that would create an improved traceability system for monitoring the movement of cattle, with the goal of controlling illegal deforestation connected to grazeland.
- This would be the fourth attempt at passing such a law, after previous efforts in 2021, 2022 and 2023 came up short.
- There are an estimated 30 million head of cattle in the country, requiring significant amounts of pasture, one of the main factors in the rise in deforestation last year.
- If passed, the law would integrate multiple monitoring systems to improve communication between officials and their ability to identify where cattle are being raised, and would establish “high-surveillance zones” in deforested areas, requiring ranchers to share cattle registration information and install identification devices like ear tags.

Deforestation boom in Gran Chaco raises alarm over Argentina’s forest law
- The Gran Chaco was hit by a rise in deforestation in 2024, damaging the dry forest ecosystem that spans an area more than one and a half times the size of California across Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil.
- In 2024, Argentina lost 149,649 hectares (369,791 acres) of its approximately 52.6 million hectares (130 million acres) of Gran Chaco forest — most of it from agriculture and fires, according to a Greenpeace report.
- The problem may stem from a flawed categorization system in which provincial governments are supposed to rate the rigor of forest protections in different areas.
- Critics of the system say it’s out of date and easily manipulated to allow development in forested areas that should otherwise be protected or exploited sustainably.

A cattle ranch is the unlikely scene for saving a fox found only in Brazil
- The hoary fox is the only canine endemic to both the Cerrado biome and Brazil; it’s now trying to survive among cattle pastures and soy plantations.
- Other threats resulting from human contact include road accidents, conflicts with domestic dogs, and various diseases.
- Seeking to protect the species, the Raposinha do Pontal Project combines research, conservation and community engagement on a cattle farm in Goiás state, southern Brazil.

Brazilian soy farms and cattle pastures close in on a land where the grass is golden
- Deforestation, wildfires, illegal land use and climate changes are sources of concern for the traditional Afro-Brazilian quilombola communities in Brazil’s Jalapão region.
- Communities here rely on the sustainable harvest of the region’s native “golden grass” to craft traditional items that provide their main source of income.
- Jalapão is home to the largest mosaic of protected areas in the Cerrado, the savanna biome where the most the deforestation in Brazil occurs today: 5 million hectares (12.4 million acres) of native vegetation have been lost over the last six years.
- Jalapão’s golden grass has earned a Geographical Indication seal, giving the communities bragging rights and exclusivity for the product; but local craftspeople say there’s less of the grass to be found in the humid areas where it grows.

Kenyan court orders two community wildlife conservancies shut down
A Kenyan court dealt a blow to the conservation group Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) when a three-judge panel ruled that two of its community conservancy affiliates were set up illegally. The decision, issued by the Environment and Land Court of Isiolo county in northern Kenya, ordered the conservancies to shut down their operations effective immediately. […]
Probe details the playbook of one of Amazon’s top land grabbers
- Professional land grabbers operating in the Brazilian Amazon have sophisticated strategies to steal and deforest public lands and get away with it.
- According to the Federal Police, Bruno Heller is one of Amazon’s largest deforesters and relied on legal and technical advice, including a fake contract, bribing police officers, and near-real-time monitoring of deforestation work through satellite imagery, investigators said.
- Low penalties and hurdles faced by federal bodies in seizing back stolen lands from criminals have spurred the land-grabbing industry in Brazil.

The paradox of balancing conservation efforts for Himalayan wolves and snow leopards (commentary)
- Although snow leopards cause greater livestock losses than Himalayan wolves, human communities generally show greater tolerance and acceptance toward snow leopards.
- This ‘predator paradox,’ where the more damaging predator is more tolerated, leads to less conservation support for wolves and more for snow leopards.
- “Both snow leopards and wolves are crucial to the Himalayan ecosystem, but conservation has overwhelmingly favored snow leopards. This disparity in attention and resources amplifies the challenges faced by wolves, highlighting the need for a balanced approach to conserve both species effectively,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

We must prioritize rangeland conservation for planetary health and biodiversity (commentary)
- Rangelands, despite their size and significance, have been historically under-appreciated in global conservation and climate discussions, a new op-ed argues.
- They cover more than 79 million square kilometers of grasslands, savannas, deserts, shrublands, and tundra globally. But they are more than just expansive open landscapes – rangelands are central to global economies, ecosystems, and cultures.
- Ahead of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026, governments and conservationists have an opportunity to lay groundwork to ensure their health for wildlife habitat and their use by pastoralists is sustainable.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Grassroots efforts sprout up to protect Central America’s Trifinio watershed
- A major watershed in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has been so polluted, industrialized and interfered with that 20% of it could dry up in the next few decades, according to a U.N. report.
- The Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve, which covers the triborder region of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, suffers from a free-for-all of deforestation, chemical runoff and mining that threatens the existence of the watershed.
- If it dries up, millions of people could be left without water for drinking, bathing and farming.
- While conservation groups continue to lobby for funding, residents frustrated with government inaction have started to organize themselves to fight everything from mining and runoff to illegal building development.

EU votes to weaken protection for European wolves
Wolves across Europe are set to lose their “strictly protected” status. The move is seen as a win for farmers concerned about loss of livestock, but conservationists warn that removing protections will jeopardize stable wolf populations. At a recent meeting of the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, EU countries […]
Land use change impacting seven planetary boundaries, solutions urgent, say scientists
- A new scientific report lays bare the stark impacts of land-system change and land degradation on planetary health, while also offering solutions to these problems. The report was published on the eve of the 16th session of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, running Dec. 2-13 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
- Seven of nine planetary boundaries are now adversely impacted by unsustainable land use and other land practices, the report finds. Six of those boundaries are already transgressed, having moved beyond their safe operating space for humanity and into the high-risk zone.
- Scientists warn that the seriously degraded land use boundary, interacting with the other transgressed planetary boundaries, could result in a domino-effect that may rapidly push Earth systems past dangerous and irreversible tipping points, threatening life as we know it.
- Unsustainable agricultural practices are a leading driver of land use degradation globally, responsible for vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of deforestation and freshwater use. Urgent measures are needed to restore ecosystems, shift to sustainable agriculture, and prevent further degradation.

Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
- Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory in Brazil cover an area larger than Belgium.
- The Indigenous territories are still largely covered in primary forest, and a haven for wildlife in a region considered an agricultural powerhouse.
- Satellite data show Xingu Indigenous Park lost 15% of its primary forest cover, and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory lost 8.3% of its forest cover, between 2002 and 2023.
- Indigenous groups fear proposed transportation projects will bring a fresh wave of deforestation and open up their territories to invaders.

In Bolivia’s flooded savannas, ranching aims to boost grasslands conservation
- In the northeastern department of Beni, non-governmental efforts to develop sustainable practices among cattle ranching communities have increased.
- The local ecosystem, a mix of floodable savanna, gallery forests and wetlands, provides a haven for the critically endangered blue-throated macaw, which depends on a local palm for nesting and food.
- But the palm species has been at risk from cattle that exhaust nutrients and degrade local soils, undermining tree development.
- In the last few years, Asociación Civil Armonia has been working with ranchers to implement rotational grazing, fencing and use different cattle breeds to improve sustainability.

In Colombia, a simple fencing fix offers a win-win for wildlife and ranchers
- The lowland or South American tapir (Tapirus terrestris), a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List, has lost an estimated 50% of its habitat to deforestation caused largely by cattle ranching.
- Cattle ranching is a leading cause of deforestation in Colombia’s Orinoquía and Amazonian regions.
- A recent study shows that a simple fencing technique to contain cattle while allowing for smaller mammals to pass through protects ranchers’ livestock while improving forest habitat.
- The study is a promising start for coexistence research, experts say, as other tapir populations across Latin America face similar interactions with humans as their habitat becomes increasingly fragmented.

Reserve in Brazilian Amazon struggles as ‘aggressive’ deforestation spreads
- Triunfo Do Xingu Environmental Protected Area was created to protect rich Amazonian forest and shield adjacent reserves.
- But deforestation has been rampant within the reserve and is spreading to nearby areas
- From 2006 to 2023, the reserve lost 41% of its primary forest cover.
- Preliminary satellite data for 2024 from show deforestation picking up even further, and spreading into nearby areas including Terra do Meio Ecological Station and Serra do Pardo National Park

Brazil beef industry still struggling with deforestation from indirect suppliers, survey finds
- Surveys of Brazil’s beef industry found there is still a serious lack of transparency throughout the supply chain, including from slaughterhouses and retailers. If better regulations aren’t implemented, they could be exposed to 109 million hectares (270 million acres) of deforestation by 2025.
- The survey was conducted by Radar Verde, a cattle monitoring initiative made up of several climate groups. It reviewed the regulations and exposure to deforestation of dozens of companies in Brazil.
- Indirect suppliers of beef are the most difficult to track, the survey found, with none of the 132 companies or 67 retailers competently able to demonstrate whether cattle had been raised on illegally deforested land.
- Struggles to monitor indirect suppliers could pose a challenge for companies trying to meet the EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR), which will require suppliers to prove beef and other commodities exported to the EU aren’t sourced to illegally deforested land.

Organizations tackle droughts, floods in Brazil by planting forests
- Many areas of Brazil have been hit with severe droughts and floods in recent years; scientists say climate change is increasing the incidence of extreme weather events.
- Forests protect against erosion and pollution and help store water in soil and aquifers, buoying water security.
- Organizations across the country are leading efforts to reforest cleared areas — particularly along rivers and other water sources —to mitigate the damaging effects of droughts, floods and other effects of climate change, as well as safeguard and improve habitat for wildlife.
- Experts and stakeholders say broader support is needed at the federal level, while a representative of Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change says the government is rolling out conservation plans of its own.

Controversial study finds cattle and wildlife can co-exist in Kenya’s Maasai Mara
A new study conducted in Kenya is challenging the conventional wisdom that cattle are inherently bad for wildlife, reports Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo. In contrast to previous research, the recent study found that a limited number of cattle — grazing illegally in one portion of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) — had a negligible effect […]
A deadly fly is spreading through Central America. Experts blame illegal cattle ranching
- An outbreak of screwworm — a fly that infects the open wounds of warm-blooded animals — is the direct result of cattle smuggling through protected areas across Central America, conservation groups said.
- The fly appeared in Panama last year and quickly traveled north to Guatemala. Now, officials are concerned it will spread uncontrollably into Mexico and the US.
- Eradicating the fly could cost millions of dollars and prove disastrous for agribusiness and countries that rely on beef exports.
- Conservation groups are arguing for border shutdowns and increased regulation of the cattle industry, especially around protected areas where smuggling routes have cleared forests.

Can cattle and wildlife co-exist in the Maasai Mara? A controversial study says yes
- Conventional conservation wisdom has held that cattle herds managed by Indigenous Maasai in East Africa compete with wildlife for grazing land and degrade protected areas like Kenya’s Maasai Mara and Tanzania’s Ngorongoro.
- But a new research study shows that, in a small study patch of the Maasai Mara, cattle herds didn’t cause a decline in forage quantity or quality, nor did wildlife steer away from areas where cattle had grazed.
- The finding has drawn criticism from other researchers, who question its methodology and say the overwhelming evidence points to the need for restrictions on cattle grazing inside these protected areas.
- The study authors say they hope their findings spark new thinking about how pastoralists like the Maasai can be seen as potential conservation partners rather than excluded as they’ve been for decades.

Conservationists mobilize to save Sierra Leone national park and its chimpanzees
- Sierra Leone’s Loma Mountains National Park (LMNP) encompasses the highest mountain peak in West Africa, along with valuable habitat for many threatened animals — including critically endangered western chimpanzees.
- However, satellite data show the park lost 6% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2023.
- Clearing in the park is being driven by farmers and ranchers who say there is not enough agricultural land in their communities and no other livelihood options; illegal marijuana cultivation is also an issue in the park.
- Conservationists, park officials, international agencies and local residents are working together to protect the park through efforts such as planting trees, training rangers, implementing educational programs in schools and promoting alternative livelihoods for surrounding communities.

Search for new territory led Nepal’s ‘low-altitude’ snow leopard to get lost
- In January 2024, a snow leopard was found far from its usual high-elevation habitat, roaming in Nepal’s eastern plains — a region that’s the turf of the tiger.
- Researchers now conclude that the snow leopard, around 1.5 to 2 years old, likely lost its way during dispersal, a natural process in which young animals leave their birth area to establish their own territory.
- An analysis of the animal’s scat revealed the snow leopard had fed on blue sheep shortly before it was found, suggesting it had come from a higher altitude and ruling out the possibility that it had escaped from captivity.

Drought & climate change force Ethiopia pastoralists to go job hunting
- A severe drought, worsened by climate change, is driving pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali region to abandon traditional herding lifestyles in favor of urban labor, leading to significant shifts in their livelihoods.
- Many pastoralists are forced to seek alternative livelihoods in farming, construction and trade, which require new skills and adaptation to urban life.
- Former pastoralists express emotional ties to their traditional way of life and struggle with the demands of new jobs, reflecting the broader impacts of climate change on their identities and futures.
- A land and agriculture expert says nature-based solutions provide an opportunity to help pastoralists adapt to droughts, while government programs are focused on technical support and helping pastoralists achieve alternative livelihoods.

Collagen and meat giants fuel deforestation and rights violations in Paraguay: Report
- A report by Global Witness reveals that major South American meat companies, Minerva Foods and Frigorífico Concepción, are linked to the deforestation of over 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco between 2021 and 2023.
- This deforestation puts Indigenous territories at risk, they say. About 18,000 hectares (44,000 acres) of deforestation – an area larger than Paris – occurred on the lands of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode, a partially uncontacted Indigenous group, threatening their cultural survival.
- Global collagen manufacturer Rousselot has sourced over 3,000 tonnes of cattle hides from farms linked to deforestation. International retailers such as Amazon and Costco sell products containing Rousselot’s collagen.
- Environmentalists say a proposed delay to the EU’s landmark anti-deforestation regulation could prolong environmental damage in regions like the Gran Chaco.

Nepal’s snow leopard conservation shifts focus from research to conflict mitigation
- Nepal’s new snow leopard conservation plan for 2024-2030 marks a shift in focus from research and monitoring to community engagement and conflict resolution.
- The plan has a significantly increased budget of $14.24 million and allocates 26% to combat illegal wildlife trade by improving intelligence, law enforcement, and international collaboration.
- The plan acknowledges the impact of livestock depredation by snow leopards on local communities, which can lead to retaliatory killings and exacerbate human-wildlife conflict.
- Nepal still doesn’t have a scientific count of the number of snow leopards in the country.

Investors urge banks to cut commodity-driven deforestation
Investment managers with a combined $8 trillion in assets under management are urging the banks in their portfolios to eliminate deforestation from their lending and investment practices. The new guidelines call for banks to assess their ties to deforestation, set policies to reduce harm, and track their progress. The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change […]
In the Brazilian Amazon, seedlings offer hope for drying rivers
- In Brazil’s Maranhão state, the advance of monoculture and decades of forest destruction have driven a shift in precipitation patterns, diminishing rains and drying out springs that feed important rivers.
- This represents a major threat for the Guajajara Indigenous people, for whom these springs hold spiritual significance and guarantee the health of the rivers they depend on for fishing, bathing, drinking and cultural rituals.
- In an effort to restore drying springs, Indigenous people in the Rio Pindaré reserve are mapping headwaters and planting species native to the Amazon rainforest – like buriti, pupunha and açaí palms – along their margins.
- Scientists say this type of reforestation could help restore balance to water cycles in the region, mitigating the broader impacts of drought and climate change.

Nepal’s buffalo-kills-tiger story reveals deeper pains in compensation system
- A tethered buffalo killed a Bengal tiger on the fringes of Chitwan National Park in Nepal.
- The incident highlights lapses in the compensation system, particularly the lack of provisions for providing assistance to owners of domestic animals that are injured but do not die immediately from predator attacks.
- The buffalo owner says he bought the animal on loan and its milk was a vital source of income for the family.

In Brazil’s Amazon, land invasions — and fires — threaten a protected reserve
- In Brazil’s state of Maranhão, one of the last slices of remaining rainforest is under threat from invasions and fires, which has complicated efforts to protect this area of rich biodiversity from the advance of agriculture and cattle ranching.
- Over the last 12 months, satellites detected 122,083 high-confidence deforestation alerts within the Gurupi Biological Reserve, home to species such as the Kaapori capuchin (Cebus kaapori), one of the world’s most critically endangered primates.
- Authorities have struggled to gain control over the region, which has been marked by a complex history of illegal logging and land settlement. More than 6,000 people still live within the conservation area.
- As deforestation advances, the climate is changing and leaving this region of the Amazon Rainforest drier and more prone to wildfires, which pose a risk to neighboring Indigenous territories like the Carú reserve.

New datasets identify which crops deforest the Amazon, and where
- Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM), the Atlas of Pastures and Amazon Mining Watch have released or updated satellite data and visualization tools this year that show what crops are grown in the Amazon, where cattle ranching overlaps with other kinds of land use and how much of the rainforest is being cleared for mining.
- Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Amazon Project (MAAP) compiled the data into one report this month, creating an “overall estimate” of land use across the nine Amazon countries.
- Some of the crops are well-known drivers of deforestation, such as soy, but lesser-discussed crops are also present in the region, such as rice and sorghum.

A Guatemalan reserve turns from civil war refuge to deforestation hotspot
- Illegal deforestation in Guatemala’s Sierra del Lacandón National Park is accelerating, driven by cattle ranching and drug-trafficking activities.
- The park is a critical biological corridor, home to numerous threatened species, and connects protected areas in Guatemala and Mexico.
- Indigenous communities, many of which settled in the area during the civil war, are now involved in deforestation activities under pressure from powerful political and economic figures, threatening the region’s ecological integrity.

Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests
- Camera-trapping data revealed in a new study show a steady recovery of tigers in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex over the past two decades.
- The tiger recovery has been mirrored by a simultaneous increase in the numbers of the tigers’ prey animals, such as sambar deer and types of wild cattle.
- The authors attribute the recovery of the tigers and their prey to long-term efforts to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to restore key habitats and water sources.
- Experts say the lessons learnt can be applied to support tiger recovery in other parts of Thailand and underscore the importance of the core WEFCOM population as a vital source of tigers repopulating adjacent landscapes.

To protect the planet’s rangelands, give pastoralists a boost, UN report says
- In May, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) released its “Global Land Outlook,” report which focused on the role that pastoralism can play in conserving rangelands.
- Rangelands, which include deserts, grasslands and savannas, cover 54% of the planet’s terrestrial surface.
- Pastoralist communities have often been framed as a threat to wildlife and conservation; in East Africa, many still face harsh grazing restrictions or eviction from their traditional landscapes.
- But the UNCCD report said that sustainable grazing practices can boost both carbon storage and soil fertility, and that pastoralism is vital to protecting the world’s rangelands.

The harsh, dangerous gig of seizing thousands of illegal cattle in the Amazon
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration has removed thousands of cattle from illegal areas in the Amazon, but the task is far from the end; only in Pará state, more than 217,000 animals have been illegally moved from protected areas in the past four years.
- Raids to remove these cattle herds are logistically challenging, involving long distances, many personnel, life threats and even traps left in the middle of dirt roads.
- Tracking illegal cattle is only possible through the GTA, a document issued by state agencies and overseen by the federal government, but even environmental agencies have trouble accessing this information.

Brazilian Amazon ‘cattle laundering’ taints JBS & Frigol supply chains: Report
- A new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) shows how cattle raised illegally in the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in Brazil were laundered into the supply chains of two of the world’s biggest beef companies, JBS and Frigol.
- In most cases, the illegal cattle were able to enter these supply chains because they were not transferred directly to JBS and Frigol, but to legal farms first, which allowed ranchers to falsely declare the origin of cattle raised in Apyterewa.
- Between 2020 and early 2023, Pará’s phytosanitary agency (Adepará) issued transportation permits for almost 12,000 cattle to be transferred from 58 illegal farms in Apyterewa to farms outside the territory.
- The report’s authors call for mandatory systems to track individual cattle from birth to slaughter to prevent illegal cattle from entering supply chains.

Fear and hardship for the last community inside Chitwan, Nepal’s tiger central
- Residents of Nepal’s Madi Valley have for the last half century lived almost entirely surrounded by Chitwan National Park, famous for its tigers, leopards and rhinos.
- While the wildlife are a major tourist draw for the park, for the community they’re a constant source of fear, with attacks on people, livestock and crops far higher here than elsewhere in Nepal.
- The fate of the community epitomizes the tricky balance Nepal has tried to strike between conservation efforts and community welfare, complicated by cultural and political factors and the broader history of relocation in the Chitwan region.
- Though many residents have moved away from Madi, the poorest have been left behind, with no choice but to eke out a precarious existence as intruders on their own land.

Collective effort monitors Amazon wildlife in heavily logged Brazil state
- Indigenous communities, the government and civil society organizations are working to identify the status and whereabouts of animals in one of the most deforested states of the Brazilian Amazon.
- Devastated by the expansion of cattle ranching and soy farming, Rondônia has seen changes in the composition of its fauna due to alterations in the landscape.
- The initiatives for surveying and monitoring Rondônia’s fauna are being carried out in conservation units, Indigenous territories and restored forest areas on private lands; the goal is to guide conservation policies.

Indonesian palm oil, Brazilian beef top contributors to U.S. deforestation exposure
- A new report reveals that the United States imported palm oil, cattle products, soybeans, cocoa, rubber, coffee and corn linked to an area of tropical deforestation the size of Los Angeles between October 2021 and November 2023.
- Palm oil from Indonesia was the largest contributor to deforestation, followed by Brazil due to cattle grazing.
- The report by Trase, commissioned by Global Witness, found that the U.S. continues to import deforestation-linked commodities while awaiting the passage of the FOREST Act, which aims to prohibit imports of products linked to illegal deforestation.
- Experts emphasize the need for action from companies, governments, financial institutions and citizens to stop commodity-driven forest loss, urging support for smallholders, increased transparency in supply chains, and the passage of the FOREST Act in the U.S.

How environmental crimes are covered up in the Amazon?
A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon. This strategy, described as commonplace in the Amazon, has long been a stumbling block for investigators. By hiding behind fronts […]
A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the deforestation is.
- Experts say it’s best to go after environmental offenders where it hurts the most, by seizing their assets, rather than to chase down their true identity.
- This investigation is part of a partnership between Mongabay and Repórter Brasil.

Brazil’s cattle industry could suffer major losses without climate policies, report says
- Domestic beef production in Brazil could drop by 25% by 2050 as governments and the private sector look to step up climate change and forest conservation strategies, according to a new report from Orbitas, an initiative from Climate Advisers.
- Deforestation from cattle ranching could lead to hotter, drier conditions that worsen cattle health. It could also reduce soil productivity needed for growing animal feed, the report said.
- The industry has to invest in new technological and management techniques in order to prevent major losses.

Brazil’s Cerrado is main beneficiary of 2021 pledge to end deforestation
- The Financial Innovation for Amazonia, the Cerrado and Chaco, or IFACC, has allocated $234.5 million for projects aimed at expanding agriculture to already deforested land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands.
- First announced at the COP26 climate summit in 2021, the initiative aims to place small farms on the sustainability agenda by showing that it’s possible to increase profit without clearing native vegetation.
- Funded projects include soybean farming on degraded pastureland and financial incentives for farmers who maintain more preserved native vegetation on their land than the minimum required by law.

Conservation comeback in Central African Republic’s Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park (commentary)
- Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park is the largest park in the Central African savannas, covering 17,400 square kilometers, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 due to its Outstanding Universal Value.
- However, the combined effects of poaching, livestock intrusions, artisanal mining, and other threats saw it added to the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1997.
- Recent cooperative efforts between the Central African Republic, NGOs and UNESCO to enact a new management plan have greatly improved the situation, and were recognized by the International Coordinating Council of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme last year.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Ten years since anti-deforestation pledge, corporate world still not doing enough
- Global Canopy released its Forest 500 list of the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions connected to deforestation-linked commodities, including beef, leather, soy, palm oil, timber, pulp and paper.
- This is the organization’s 10th report, showing that numerous companies haven’t done enough to remove deforestation from their supply chains over the last decade.
- The report found 30% of companies still haven’t developed a single deforestation policy for their supply chains, while others have developed policies but failed to implement them in a meaningful way.
- The few companies with strong, long-term goals aren’t always doing enough to meet them, according to the report.

Major meatpacker JBS misled the public about sustainability efforts, NY lawsuit claims
- New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS USA Food Company and JBS USA Food Company Holdings for misrepresenting plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
- The lawsuit cites numerous instances in which the company’s claims to the public didn’t align with what was happening behind closed doors. Its website and advertisements have boasted claims about reaching net-zero carbon emissions while company executives were making plans to grow.
- The New York attorney general said JBS Group’s greenhouse gas emissions calculations don’t include deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, making its environmental goals “not feasible given the current scope of [its] business operations.”

Major meatpackers are unlawfully deforesting Brazil’s Cerrado, report says
- In the state of Mato Grosso, some of the country’s largest meatpackers are clearing parts of the Cerrado at an even faster rate than the Amazon Rainforest, a new report from U.K.-based NGO Global Witness says.
- Meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva have cut down nearly five times more of the state’s Cerrado than they have its Amazon. One in three cows that the companies purchased from the Cerrado had grazed on illegally deforested land.
- A major EU law regulating deforestation in supply chains is scheduled for review this year, and the Global Witness report said its language should be expanded to include “other wooded land” that would protect the Cerrado.

Bees bring honey and hope to a forest reserve in Nigeria
- Nigeria’s Ngel Nyaki Forest Reserve boasts more plant species than any other montane forest in Nigeria.
- The reserve is also home to a small population of endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- However, human pressures have resulted in deforestation of portions of Ngel Nyaki.
- An initiative hopes to safeguard and rehabilitate Ngel Nyaki’s habitat by training community members in beekeeping.

In Brazil’s soy belt, community seed banks offer hope for the Amazon
- In Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso, monoculture has replaced large swathes of the Amazon rainforest and ushered in changes in climate patterns, including severe droughts and scarce rains, according to climate experts.
- Traditional and Indigenous peoples are looking to counter the impacts of large-scale soy plantations in the region by setting up community seed banks and reforesting degraded lands with species native to the Amazon.
- Experts say seed initiatives could play a key role in restoration efforts as Brazil scrambles to rehabilitate 60,000 square kilometers (23,160 square miles) of deforested land by 2030 and agribusiness faces global demands to reverse the damage it has inflicted on the Amazon.
- Seed banks could also help restore the biodiversity being lost in the Amazon, preserve species central to Indigenous cultures, and mitigate climate change, locally and globally.

Cornell receives $35m gift for research at nexus of wildlife and health
- Our newfound global awareness that human health, animal health and the health of the planet are inextricably linked has underscored the importance of research at the interface of wildlife and health.
- Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine has announced a donation of $35 million to support its work in this burgeoning field of research.
- The Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health aims to use the funds to further its research on how disease interactions affect wildlife, domestic animal and human health, and translate its findings into policy and action to protect wildlife and wild places.

Pakistan bucks global trend with 30-year mangrove expansion
- Around the world, mangrove forests have undergone a decades-long decline that is just now slowing to a halt.
- In Pakistan, by contrast, mangroves expanded nearly threefold between 1986 and 2020, according to a 2022 analysis of satellite data.
- Experts attribute this success to massive mangrove planting and conservation, as well as concerted community engagement.
- Many in Pakistan are looking to mangroves to bolster precious fish stocks and defend against the mounting effects of climate change — even as threats to mangroves, such as wood harvesting and camel grazing, continue with no end in sight.

Suriname preparing to clear Amazon for agriculture, documents suggest
- The government of Suriname is weighing a series of land deals that would allow the Ministry of Agriculture and a group of private entities to carry out agriculture, livestock and aquaculture activities on hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, most of it Amazon Rainforest.
- The Amazon covers 93% of Suriname’s total land area, making agricultural development an especially sensitive issue in the country.
- Five private entities are involved in the deals, with an interest in commodities like soy and cashews.

Brazil cattle traceability program to limit deforestation in Pará state
- A new traceability program will keep tabs on the millions of cattle present throughout the state of Pará, in northern Brazil, where the Amazon Rainforest has been hit especially hard by deforestation from cattle ranching.
- The tagging program aims to monitor all transported cattle transported through the state by December 2025 and the permanent herd of approximately 24 million cattle by December 2026.
- The program was created last week through a decree signed by Pará governor Helder Barbalho following the introduction of the Leaders Declaration on Food Systems, Agriculture and Climate Action at COP28, the annual UN climate conference.

Kenyan pastoralists fight for a future adapted to climate change (commentary)
- Pastoralism provides much of the milk and protein consumed in Kenya, but it faces a perilous future especially from climate change but also a lack of infrastructure and land rights.
- Recent droughts have exacerbated the challenges, leading to conflict between pastoralist communities struggling to find enough forage and water for livestock.
- Fresh ideas and new programs are arising to help ease the situation in areas of northern Kenya, from where this dispatch originates.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

In Brazil’s Amazon, a clandestine road threatens a pristine reserve
- Terra do Meio Ecological Station, a pristine reserve under federal protection, has suffered invasions amid efforts to open up an illegal road cutting through the rainforest.
- Much of the deforestation is spilling over from APA Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become one of the most deforested corners of the Amazon in recent years.
- Federal and state authorities have cracked down on environmental crime in the region, but experts say this has not been enough to halt the advance of the road or stop outsiders from turning forest into pasture.
- Environmentalists worry that, if invaders succeed in fully opening up the road, it would splinter an important ecological corridor meant to protect the region’s rich biodiversity and its Indigenous residents.

French banks accused of money laundering linked to Amazon deforestation
- A coalition of NGOs has filed a criminal complaint against several French banks for allegedly financing meat companies driving deforestation in Brazil.
- Between 2013 and 2021, the four French banks involved invested a total of nearly $70 million in bonds issued by leading meat companies in Brazil generating about $11.7 million in profits.
- This is the first time that French banks have received a criminal complaint for money laundering, receiving stolen goods related to funding deforestation and profiteering from it.
- An analysis of JBS and Marfrig slaughterhouses in Pará and Mato Grosso found that more than 50% and 40% of suppliers, respectively, showed evidence of irregularities, including deforestation and intrusion into Indigenous lands and protected forests.

‘We just want to be left in peace’: In Brazil’s Amazon, soy ambitions loom over Indigenous land
- Deforestation is surging around Indigenous reserves in Brazil’s agricultural heartland, threatening one of the last stretches of preserved rainforest in the region.
- The destruction is trickling into protected areas too, including Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory, home to Brazil’s most famous Indigenous leader.
- Indigenous advocates blame land speculation on the back of plans to pave a stretch of the MT-322 highway, which runs across the Capoto/Jarina and Xingu Indigenous Park.
- Indigenous people worry the road will ease access into their territories, opening them up to land-grabbers, wildcat miners and organized crime groups.

A mobile solution for Kenyan pastoralists’ livestock is a plus for wildlife, too
- The use of mobile bomas, or corrals, to keep livestock safe from predators has shown a wide range of benefits for both pastoral communities and wildlife in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
- The bomas reduce the risk of disease and predation among livestock, while allowing for the regeneration of degraded grazing land, which in turn draws in more wild herbivores to the area.
- The increased wildlife presence has led to a rise in wildlife tourism, valued at $7.5 million annually in the 2,400-hectare (6,000-acre) Enonkishu Conservancy.
- Observers warn of potential downsides, however, including food insecurity as community members abandon farming in favor of more lucrative tourism work, and a rise in human-wildlife conflict as the area’s wildlife population grows.

Agriculture in the Pan Amazon: Industrial infrastructure for grains and cereals
- Mongabay has begun publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Author Timothy J. Killeen is an academic and expert who, since the 1980s, has studied the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia, where he lived for more than 35 years.
- Chronicling the efforts of nine Amazonian countries to curb deforestation, this edition provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the region’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models that are vying for space within the regional economy.
- Click the “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” link atop this page to see chapters 1-13 as they are published during 2023.

‘Predator-proof’ husbandry could help curb human-leopard conflict in Nepal: Study
- A study conducted in Nepal suggests that adopting predator-proofing practices for livestock can potentially reduce human-leopard conflicts and benefit both humans and leopards.
- The study identified three main drivers of leopard attacks on humans: livestock and human densities, as well as rugged terrain, and suggested measures to address these factors at the municipal level.
- Predator-proofing husbandry practices, regular monitoring of hotspot areas for leopard presence and raising awareness about potential leopard attacks were proposed as potential solutions to mitigate human-leopard conflict.

Mongabay’s What-to-Watch list for October 2023
- In September, Mongabay released videos about the Dutch dairy farmers’ protests and related politics, typhoon-battered villages in the Philippines, and farmers growing rice for wild elephants in India.
- Watch why an Indigenous community in Brazil is pushing ahead with sustainable solutions despite resistance and threat, how bats roosting in south India’s temples are in trouble, and what an Indigenous kingdom in Panama is doing to secure its right to the forest.
- In India, pharmaceutical drugs are adding to water pollution even as a village waits decades for its clean source of water polluted by big industries.
- Get a peek into the various segments of the environment across the globe. Add these videos to your watchlist for the month and watch them for free on YouTube.

EU bill and new green policies spur progress on Brazil’s cattle tracking
- Brazilian banks have created new rules for releasing credit to meatpackers and slaughterhouses in Amazonian states in which their clients must implement traceability and monitoring systems by 2025 to show that their cattle didn’t come from illegal deforestation.
- Even the powerful Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) recognizes the cattle tracking demand and proposes a traceability model to the federal government.
- A new study shows that existing cattle companies’ zero-deforestation commitments have reduced Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 15% and that the devastation could be halved by scaling up the implementation of supply chain policies.
- The ideal animal tracking model is individual, but experts defend a middle-of-the-road solution to reduce illegal deforestation based on cross-referencing from inter-ranch cattle transport data and the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR).

Meatpacking giant and Amazon deforester JBS bid for NYSE listing challenged
- Environmental groups have filed complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Brazilian meat-processing company JBS’s bid to list on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the year.
- JBS, the number one beef producer in Brazil, and among the top three meat processors in the United States, has been implicated in multiple land-clearing investigations in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes. Brazil’s forests are vital to the storage of carbon and to preventing catastrophic climate change.
- The latest audit by Brazilian authorities in the Amazonian state of Pará found that JBS had the lowest environmental compliance rate among large meatpackers there, with one out of six cows coming from dubious or illegal sources.
- JBS’s total deforestation footprint may be as high as 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) in its direct and indirect supply chains, a 2020 study found. Environmentalists say a surge in new JBS investments via the NYSE could convert far more Brazilian rainforest to ranches, leading to climate disaster.

The Dutch farmers’ protests of 2022: A Mongabay Series
- In this three-part series, Mongabay breaks down the Dutch “nitrogen crisis” and the great farmers’ protests of 2022.

Revealed: Why the UN is not climate neutral
- The UN has long championed the need for urgent climate solutions. It has claimed to be at least 95% “climate neutral” every year since 2018, largely through the use of carbon credits.
- The New Humanitarian teamed up with Mongabay to investigate the UN’s claims of climate neutrality. In an investigation that took a year and spanned multiple countries, reporters obtained details about carbon credits purchased by 33 UN entities, representing more than 75% of its reported offset portfolio since 2012.
- More than a dozen of the projects that issued the UN’s carbon credits were linked to reports of environmental damage, displacement, or health concerns. Others were deemed worthless by a number of leading climate experts.

The Netherlands weighs up its future amid farmer protests and dying ecosystems
LUNTEREN, Netherlands — With the highest livestock density in Europe, the Netherlands faces a serious environmental dilemma. Nitrogen emissions from livestock manure are damaging ecosystems, prompting urgent calls for reform. However, the proposed solutions have deeply divided the country, raising critical questions about the future of sustainable agriculture, food production, and environmental conservation. In this video, […]
In the clash over Dutch farming, Europe’s future arrives
- Despite months of protests by farmers and an electoral rebuke, the Dutch government has pressed ahead with an attempt to make its farming system more ecologically sustainable.
- But there are deep divisions in the Netherlands over how extensive any reforms should be, and clashes over the role that new technologies should play in them.
- This summer, talks over a potential consensus position between the Dutch government and the national farmers’ union collapsed in failure.
- The clash between the continent’s green movement and its agricultural industry is building steam, with the EU’s flagship conservation law barely squeaking through parliament in June.

In the Netherlands, pitchforks fly for an empire of cows
- In response to a court ruling, the Dutch government announced in 2022 that it would aim to halve emissions of nitrogen from livestock like cows, pigs, and chickens.
- The announcement enraged farmers in the country and sparked a massive protest movement that upended Dutch politics.
- For years, farmers in the Netherlands were encouraged to produce more milk, eggs, and cheese to meet Dutch export targets.
- The sudden u-turn and subsequent backlash gave rise to a new political party in the Netherlands, the Farmers-Citizens Movement, which swept provincial elections in March.

How manure blew up the Netherlands
- The Netherlands is one of the smallest countries in Europe, but also one of its biggest food producers and exporters, thanks to a wildly successful intensive agriculture sector.
- With the highest density of livestock in Europe, the Netherlands has been in the throes of a years-long crisis over nitrogen emissions from manure, which ecologists say are destroying the country’s ecosystems.
- When the Dutch government announced plans to buy out farms close to nature reserves and cut the country’s livestock herd by as much as one-third, farmers revolted, staging massive demonstrations and destabilizing politics in the Netherlands.
- The “nitrogen crisis” has become a flash point in Dutch society, raising difficult questions over how to reform unsustainable food systems and offering a preview of what’s to come for other countries as well.

Nests of hope: Nepal’s vulture colonies hold on amid new threats
- A new study finds that two colonies of critically endangered white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) in Nepal have maintained stable numbers for more than a decade, despite the diclofenac poisoning crisis and other threats.
- The study coincides with the launch of Nepal’s new Vulture Conservation Action Plan (2023-2027), which aims to restore and protect the country’s nine vulture species, eight of which are threatened or near-threatened.
- The action plan identifies nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), electrocution, poisoning, habitat degradation and disturbances as the main challenges for vulture conservation in Nepal, and it proposes various measures to address them.
- The study also raises questions about why the vulture population has not increased and suggests that more research is needed to understand the factors limiting their growth.

How the Amazon’s ‘greatest devastator’ sold cattle to a Carrefour supplier
- Arrested by Brazilian Federal Police, cattle rancher Bruno Heller and relatives have already received over $5 million in environmental fines. He is also suspected of land grabbing.
- Heller transported cattle from a family farm fined for environmental violations to two other properties free from environmental implications — this maneuver is an indication of the so-called “cattle laundering.”
- A Frialto Group meatpacking plant confirmed that it slaughtered 249 animals for the Heller family. The facility supplies Carrefour, but the French retail company states that the meat from animals raised by Heller did not reach its supermarkets.

What drives and halts tropical deforestation? Analyzing 24 years of data
- Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 320 studies covering a period of 24 years, to identify the key drivers of tropical deforestation.
- Deforestation is driven largely by agriculture and cattle ranching, building roads, expanding cities into forests, and population growth.
- Factors halting deforestation include steeper, less accessible terrain, stronger protections for parks and reserves, Indigenous land management, commodity certification programs, and payments for ecosystem services.
- Researchers say they hope the study can be “a resource to guide policies and management toward actions that help reverse deforestation.”

In Brazil’s Amazon, a ‘new agricultural frontier’ threatens protected lands
- Deforestation in the southern region of Amazonas state, long one of the best-preserved slices of the Brazilian Amazon, is spreading rapidly as illegal gold miners, farmers, ranchers and land grabbers advance in the region.
- The four municipalities leading destruction in this region – Apuí, Novo Aripuanã, Manicoré and Humaitá – together accounted for nearly 60% of deforestation alerts detected in Amazonas in the first six months of the year.
- Environmental advocates and Indigenous leaders say the destruction is threatening the way of life of communities that depend on the forest for survival and splintering an important ecological mosaic brimming with plant and animal species

Even community stewardship can’t save rangeland beset by legacy of misrule
- Land degradation, changing vegetation patterns, and depleting soil quality threaten rangeland across Africa, including Namibia.
- The Community-Based Rangeland and Livestock Management (CBRLM) program, funded by the U.S. and implemented by a German consultancy, supported herders in northern Namibia to manage communal rangeland.
- However, the intervention didn’t improve livestock health or herders’ incomes, while rangeland quality actually worsened.
- While community management failed to deliver the desired results, evaluators say program design flaws were also to blame, in particular issues of land tenure and barriers to creating a livestock market.

Virtual fences can benefit both ranchers and wildlife
- Virtual fencing manages livestock using GPS-linked collars to train animals to stay within a set boundary, similar to an invisible dog fence.
- Coupled with the removal of existing barbed-wire fencing, it could open up whole landscapes for wildlife by removing injurious barriers for migratory herds, reducing mortality from fence strikes for numerous bird species, and protecting sensitive habitats from trampling by cattle.
- Virtual fences are easily moved with a tap on an app, and can be used to improve pasture management through rotational grazing, reduce wildfire risk, and other benefits.
- These systems are cheaper than building and maintaining physical fences, and are already in use in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Norway.

Despite lawsuit, Casino Group still sells beef from Amazonian Indigenous territory
- A new investigation shows that farms located in the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon supplied two JBS meatpacking plants that sell beef to brands of the French supermarket giant.
- In most cases, animals were not transferred directly from ranches in the Indigenous land to JBS, but went through different farms before arriving at slaughterhouses, when it was no longer possible to differentiate between cattle from the Indigenous land and others.
- This maneuver is known as ‘cattle laundering’ and aims to hide any potentially illegal origin of the animals.
- Casino said its suppliers are required to detail the supply route and that it directly rechecks all farms, but it’s up to meatpackers to monitor indirect suppliers; meanwhile, the meatpacker says it has no control over indirect suppliers.

Climate emergency may channel millions in resources toward corn-based ethanol in the Amazon
- An agribusiness magnate from the U.S., who is already the biggest producer of corn-based ethanol in Brazil, plans to leverage “green” investments from governments and banks to meet negative carbon emissions using an unproven method.
- His company is trying to implement in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso a copy of his Midwest Carbon project, an initiative that plans to capture 12 million tons of carbon in ethanol plants and store them in North Dakota, below ground.
- Even though the company alleges that it is rigorously controlling the environmental practices of its corn suppliers in Brazil, an investigation found that the local executives are themselves connected to illegal deforestation in Mato Grosso.

The Amazon saw record deforestation last year. Here’s why.
- An estimated 1.98 million hectares (4.89 million acres) of forest were cleared in 2022, a 21% increase from 2021.
- It was the worst year for deforestation since 2004, according to Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Amazon Project (MAAP), which analyzed satellite readings from Global Forest Watch.
- The deforestation was caused by cattle ranching, agriculture, mining and road projects in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Rainforest cowboys: Rodeo culture sweeps the Amazon
- As a deforestation front sweeps across the Brazilian Amazon, a cultural phenomenon linked to cattle ranching is emerging in its wake: North American-style rodeos.
- More commonly seen in the rural interior of the state of São Paulo, such events are becoming increasingly commonplace in the southern part of the Amazonian state of Pará.
- The stars of these rodeos are the tropeiros, as the farmhands of the Amazonian cattle ranches are known locally, for whom the dream of becoming a rodeo champion contrasts with their generally low-paid, often informal day jobs.
- Cattle ranching in the Amazon is notoriously inefficient, since it’s driven more by speculative occupation of the land: cattle are raised in clearings in the middle of the rainforest, in the hope that one day the land will be connected to the road network.

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.

Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- Fires affected some 1.8 million hectares in Argentina in 2022.
- Many of the country’s 2022 fires occurred in the country’s northern Chaco region and were largely caused by industrial agriculture coupled with drought conditions, according to Indigenous residents and researchers.
- The arid Gran Chaco is the second-largest forest in South America after the Amazon, and extends across 110 million hectares and portions of four countries—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia
- Experts said deforestation of Argentina’s Chaco is affecting Indigenous communities’ access to resources.

Study shows 10 million acres of Colombian rainforest at risk without new policies
- Researchers from the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute Sinchi analyzed the potential future of the Colombian Amazon Rainforest up until 2040; the results, based on analyzing 18 years of data from forest monitoring, show three possible future scenarios depending on deforestation policies.
- With current trends, loss could amount to 2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of Amazon Rainforest. However, in the worst-case scenario — if extractivist policies are implemented — deforestation could reach 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres).
- On the other hand, if the cattle ranching industry is reduced and sustainable development achieved, at least 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of forest could be saved by 2040.

A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
- An online tool developed last year by the NGO Global Witness aims to monitor and expose deforestation linked to the indirect supply chain of Brazilian meat company JBS.
- Brazil Big Beef Watch, a Twitter bot, uses satellite data and cattle transit permit data to identify whether a ranch where deforestation was detected is part of JBS’s supply chain.
- Environmentalists have often criticized JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, for being opaque about its indirect supply chain and its inability to take action.
- The new tool, Global Witness says, aims to serve as a way to call on JBS to take action and for the company’s financers to stop backing it until JBS can prove that its supply chain is deforestation-free.

3 million hectares of Colombian Amazon deforested for illegal pasture: Study
- One of the main challenges that comes with analyzing satellite images is establishing whether a change in land use has taken place legally or illegally.
- A recent study, published in Nature magazine, used a new methodological approach that allowed the researchers to identify which areas had undergone illegal changes in land use between 1984 and 2019.
- Deforestation for the creation of pasture for illegal cattle ranching has seen an unprecedented, exponential increase since 2017.
- The researchers also said there is a good chance of restoring forest cover in areas that were once used for coca farming, meaning it would avoid the same fate as forested land that has been lost to illicit cattle ranching.

Lack of large prey may be feeding rise in Nepal’s human-tiger conflicts
- Nepal has been lauded for its success in nearly tripling its wild tiger population in the past 12 years, but a consequence of that has been an increase in human-tiger conflicts.
- One factor for this is the lack of large-sized prey for the big cats in Bardiya National Park, home to a third of Nepal’s 355 tigers.
- Tigers here frequently prey on livestock in nearby human settlements, unlike the tigers in Parsa National Park, where large prey abound.
- Conservationists have called for efforts to reintroduce or boost large prey populations in tiger habitats, including through translocation programs — although previous attempts at these haven’t proved successful.

Colombian farmers turn deforested land into sustainable Amazonian farms
- More than 450 families from seven towns in the south of Caquetá, Colombia, have transformed their farms into spaces for soil, forest and water conservation while pursuing agricultural production projects that give them food sovereignty.
- Most of the people living in the Amazonian foothills of Caquetá were displaced by the armed conflict and colonized the region through the extensive livestock projects promoted by the government.
- Amazonian Farms (Finca Amazónica) was created 17 years ago to provide sustainable production alternatives, and many of the program’s trainers are farmers from the region who understand the importance of living in harmony with the forest.

Guatemala national park nearing ‘collapse’ amid land grabbing, deforestation
- Guatemala’s Sierra del Lacandón National Park has lost thousands of hectares of forest over the last two years, raising concerns among government officials and conservationists that the area may soon be lost to illegal actors.
- Some communities that were already living in the area when the park was established have declined to cooperate with the government’s plans to work together on sustainability, education and public health projects.
- Instead, the communities have expanded their presence with roads, cattle ranching and airstrips for drug planes, all of which have exacerbated deforestation rates.

EU parliament passes historic law forcing companies to track deforestation
- A law passed by the European Parliament requires companies working in cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood to demonstrate their products aren’t sourced to deforested land or land with forest degradation, or else risk heavy fines.
- Companies will have to submit “due diligence” reports showing they took proper steps to verify the origins of their products while also complying with countries’ local regulations on human rights and impacts on Indigenous people.
- Critics say the legislation may still lack the teeth to prevent deforestation, especially if political pressure from traders forces EU countries to overlook their noncompliance with the new regulations.

‘They have conned us out of our lands’: Conflict brews in Peru as Mennonite settlers clear forest
- Mennonite groups began arriving in the Peruvian town of the district of Padre Márquez in Peru’s Loreto region in 2020.
- Settling near the town of Tiruntán, one Mennonite colony has cleared hundreds of hectares of old growth rainforest since 2021.
- Tiruntán community members claim they were given plots of public land by the town mayor, which were then sold to “the Mennonites, some Chinese business owners, and a logging company” in an effort to get around regulations that prohibit the clearing of forested land.
- Similar situations are playing out in other parts of Peru, as well as elsewhere in South America.

Drying wetlands and drought threaten water supplies in Kenya’s Kiambu County
- Prolonged drought in Kenya has caused a water crisis, threatening local livelihoods and biodiversity; one of the badly affected areas is Kiambu County, a region normally known for its high agricultural productivity.
- Human activities such as dumping, encroachment and overgrazing coupled with dire effects of climate change exacerbate the degradation of wetlands, worsening the water crisis.
- Scientists say that conservation efforts must center around local communities to ensure the restoration of natural resources and combat the impacts of climate change.

Expansion of Mennonite farmland in Bolivia encroaches on Indigenous land
- Mennonites first began settling in Bolivia in the 1950s, primarily in the department of Santa Cruz.
- Today, Bolivia’s Mennonite population numbers around 150,000, most of whom are involved in mechanized, industrial agriculture.
- As Mennonite colonies continue to expand, so too are their massive crop fields, which are putting pressure on Santa Cruz’s Indigenous Territories and other protected areas.

Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
- Satellite data and imagery show the expansion of large agricultural fields whittling away at already-fragmented tracts of primary forest in eastern Paraguay’s Pindo’I Indigenous Territory over the past several years.
- Deforestation in Indigenous territories is illegal in Paraguay.
- Indigenous residents and advocates told Mongabay that the clearing is being done by one of the region’s Mennonite colonies; a representative from the colony refuted these claims.
- Deforestation for large-scale agriculture is also expanding in western Paraguay, which sources attribute to other Mennonite colonies.

Carbon credits from award-winning Kenyan offset suspended by Verra
- The carbon offset certifier Verra told Mongabay it had initiated a “quality control review” of the Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project, which claims to store carbon by managing Indigenous livestock grazing routes.
- The project has been a darling of carbon market supporters, winning a series of awards at COP27 last year, where it was described as “exemplary” by Kenyan President William Ruto.
- A new report by the advocacy group Survival International said the offset was altering long-standing Indigenous herding practices and couldn’t accurately account for how much carbon it was removing from the atmosphere.
- Purchasers of carbon credits generated by the product include Netflix, Meta and NatWest.

As Himalayas thaw, snow leopards scramble for habitat: Q&A with Bikram Shrestha
- Snow leopards face a severe prospect of both a shrinking range and fragmented populations as climate change makes their Himalayan homeland less hospitable.
- Bikram Shrestha is a leading snow leopard researcher in Nepal, where he says it’s possible there may not be habitable space for the big cat as temperatures rise.
- He says a key action to conserving snow leopards is to ensure a plentiful supply of prey species, which means ensuring there’s enough suitable habitat for species like Himalayan tahrs and martens.
- Shrestha spoke with Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi about the need for more research into the world’s most elusive big cat, the prospect of conflict with humans, and why some locals want snow leopards killed.

Climate change lawsuits take aim at French bank BNP Paribas
- French bank BNP Paribas is being sued by a group of environmental and human rights advocacy groups that allege it provides financial services to oil and gas companies as well as meat producers that clear the Amazon to make space for cattle pastures.
- The basis of both lawsuits is a 2017 French law known as the “Duty of Vigilance Act,” which requires companies and financial institutions to develop reasonable due diligence measures that identify human rights and environmental violations.
- Even though the bank has committed to financing a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, the groups that filed the lawsuits said it still isn’t meeting the standards of the 2017 law.

In Brazil, criminals dismantle one of the best-preserved swaths of the Amazon
- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station spans 3.37 million hectares (8.33 million acres) in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Pará and is home to hundreds of wildlife species, including many threatened with extinction.
- Despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with data showing deforestation doubling in 2022, reaching 4,300 hectares (nearly 11,000 acres).
- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, miners and land speculators — and they fear a new road slicing through the reserve could usher in more destruction.
- Advocates are placing their hopes in Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has promised to crack down on invasions into protected reserves and rein in sky-high deforestation rates.

Companies, big banks are still lagging on deforestation regulations: report
- Global Canopy’s annual Forest 500 report reviews the top 350 most influential companies and 150 financial institutions exposed to deforestation risk in their supply chains and investments.
- While many entities have developed some policies on deforestation, they’re not keeping up with the best practices needed for improving forest-risk supply chains, the report said.
- However, a new deforestation supply chain law in the European Union could force many of the largest companies and financial institutions to implement stricter regulations moving forward.

Nepalis’ love of momos threatens endangered wild water buffaloes
- The most sought-after dumplings (momos) in Nepal are filled with buffalo meat, which commands a higher price if it comes from a crossbreed of wild and domestic buffalo.
- Crossbreeding dometic and endangered wild buffaloes is illegal and can threaten the wild population, but people do it because of the high demand for the meat as well as a belief that crossbred females produce more milk.
- Authorities in the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve are challenged with controlling the mixing of wild and domestic animals inside the reserve.

Indigenous communities threatened as deforestation rises in Nicaraguan reserves
- Nicaragua’s Bosawás and Indio Maíz biosphere reserves both experienced deforestation at the hands of illegal loggers, miners and cattle ranchers last year.
- Deforestation of the country’s largest primary forests has been a violent, ugly process for Indigenous communities, who were granted land titles and self-governance in the area in the 1980s but don’t have the resources to protect themselves.
- Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders believe the situation will only get worse moving into 2023, as gold mining accelerates and the government cracks down on opponents.

Ecotourism and education: Win-win solution for Pantanal jaguars and ranchers
- Conflicts between cattle ranchers and jaguars are among the biggest threats to the big cat population in the Brazilian Pantanal, experts warn.
- Studies reveal that nearly a third of jaguars’ diets are cattle, causing economic losses to ranchers and consequent retaliatory killings.
- Conservationists are using new solutions, such as ecotourism, tourism fees and education, to protect both jaguars and the livelihoods of cattle ranchers.
- Empirical evidence suggests that jaguar populations in the Pantanal are now recovering, thanks to shifting perceptions of the wetland’s famous big cat.

Deforestation ‘out of control’ in reserve in Brazil’s cattle capital
- Forest destruction has ravaged Triunfo do Xingu, a reserve earmarked for sustainable use that has nonetheless become one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- Fires burned swaths of the reserve in recent months and forest clearing has surged, with satellite images showing even the most remote remnants of old-growth rainforest were whittled away last year.
- Advocates say the forest is mainly giving way to cattle pasture, although illegal mining and land grabbing are gaining ground.
- The destruction, facilitated by lax environmental regulation, is placing pressure on nearby protected areas and undermining agroforestry efforts in Triunfo do Xingu, advocates say.

In Brazil’s Amazon, land grabbers scramble to claim disputed Indigenous reserve
- The Apyterewa Indigenous Territory has been under federal protection since 2007, but in recent years has become one of the most deforested reserves in Brazil, as loggers, ranchers and miners have invaded and razed swaths of forest.
- As President Jair Bolsonaro prepares to leave office, land grabbers are rushing to “deforest while there is still time,” advocates say, with forest clearing in Apyterewa on track to hit new highs this year.
- The surge in invasions has aggravated a decades-long tussle for land between Indigenous people and settlers, who first started trickling into Apyterewa in the 1980s and have since built villages, schools and churches within the reserve.
- The Parakanã people say the outsiders, new and old, are polluting their water sources, depleting forest resources, and threatening their traditional way of life.

To cut emissions from cattle ranching, beef up the soil, study says
- A pilot project funded by the World Bank in Colombia’s Vichada municipality found that land management techniques paired with the implementation of a tropical grass species increased carbon storage in the soil by more than 15%, while also avoiding the need for cyclical burning of the savanna.
- Improving the productivity of inefficient ranching practices can boost profits for ranchers while combating growing food insecurity in Colombia, say the authors of a recent study documenting the pilot project.
- The study comes amid relative silence at the COP27 climate summit about the role of livestock in climate change: A quarter of all global emissions come from the livestock industry, yet serious measures to reduce or improve these systems are not being discussed enough, experts say.
- Scientists not involved with the pilot project have welcomed the findings but note that biodiversity indicators also need to be measured to compare the improved pastures to natural savanna.

‘We go in and take Indigenous lands back from cattle ranchers’: Q&A with activist Pablo Sibar
- Costa Rican Indigenous leader Pablo Sibar Sibar talks to Mongabay about the Indigenous land recovery movement and the plethora of death threats he’s received for his work.
- As the country’s Indigenous Law states that non-Indigenous people are prohibited from owning land on Indigenous territories, Indigenous leaders have begun recovering lands themselves following state in-action. Today, nearly half of Indigenous land is in the hands of illegal landholders.
- Since 2019, two Indigenous leaders, Sergio Rojas Ortiz and Jehry River, have been killed in what Indigenous activists suspect were deliberate murders for their part in the land recovery movement.
- State prosecutors do not see a connection between the violence against Indigenous leaders and their land rights activism.

In Kenya, a Maasai community burned by ecotourism gives it another shot
- Shompole Lodge in southern Kenya opened at the start of the millennium as a radical model of what community-based ecotourism could be, promising jobs, livelihoods and full ownership for the area’s Maasai community.
- But the partnership between the private investor and the community soured over accusations that the former was depriving the latter of their rightful dividends, with the dispute eventually turning deadly after another investor got involved.
- Eight years later, learning from the lessons of that experience, the Shompole community has signed a 35-year lease with Great Plains Conservation to develop a safari camp in the conservation area where the famed Shompole Lodge once stood.

Growing soy on cattle pasture can eliminate Amazon deforestation in Brazil
- Expanding soy cultivation into underutilized cattle pastureland would help prevent massive deforestation and carbon emissions compared to the current practice of clearing new forest for farmland, a new study says.
- Experts say that Brazil, the world’s No. 1 soy producer and beef exporter, has enough pastureland lying unused that would allow soy production to increase by more than a third without any further deforestation.
- Researchers warn that if Brazil continues with its current method of soy cultivation, it would end up clearing 5.7 million hectares (14 million acres) of Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna into cropland over the next 15 years.
- Environmentalists have welcomed intensifying agriculture as a solution to deforestation, but have raised concerns about the potential for increased pesticide use, biodiversity loss, and the expansion of cattle ranching into forested areas.

Beef is still coming from protected areas in the Amazon, study shows
- According to a new study, 1.1 million cattle were bought directly from protected areas and another 2.2 million spent at least a portion of their lives grazing in protected areas and Indigenous territories.
- Researchers compiled public records on cattle transit, property boundaries and protected area boundaries between 2013 and 2018. The study period ended in 2018 because, “at the start of 2019, this critical information became less available,” the lead author said.
- Under Brazil’s current President Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected at the start of 2019, the country has seen policies weakening various environmental protections and monitoring agencies, and deforestation has reached its highest levels in 15 years.
- Around 70% of deforestation in the Amazon has been linked to cattle ranching. Meat producers have made commitments to stop sourcing from illegally deforested lands, but a lack of information about where cattle are grazing has allowed many companies to escape accountability.

The protected area that isn’t: Bolivia’s Ñembi Guasu beset by fires, farms, roads
- The Ñembi Guasu Area of Conservation and Ecological Importance is the second-largest protected area in southern Bolivia’s Gran Chaco ecoregion, and an important area for Indigenous communities.
- Despite gaining official recognition as a protected area in 2019, dozens of rural settlements have appeared in Ñembi Guasu over the past three years.
- Research indicates these settlements contributed to severe forest fires in 2019 and 2021; satellite data and imagery show roads and clearings proliferating within Ñembi Guasu over the past several years.
- Meanwhile, officials are planning for another road that would transect Ñembi Guasu aimed at connecting agricultural producers in Bolivia and Paraguay.

Zero-deforestation commitments ‘fundamentally limited’ in tackling deforestation, study argues
- Researchers found that while 90-99% of tropical deforestation in 2011-2015 was driven by agricultural industries, only 45-65% of the cleared land was actually used to grow crops or raise cattle.
- The rest of the cleared land was the result of activities such as speculative clearing and out-of-control agricultural fires, the study says.
- The researchers also concluded that because three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by domestic demand, corporate zero-deforestation pledges geared toward expert markets are limited in their ability to reduce this forest loss.

‘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.

In Brazil’s Pantanal, early flames signal a ‘new normal’
- Fresh fires are engulfing swaths of the Pantanal, including Pantanal do Rio Negro State Park, a protected reserve with a rich biodiversity of plant and animal species. The flames have affected at least 10,062 hectares of the 78,302-hectare park.
- These fires follow devastating blazes in 2020 and 2021, which consumed huge parts of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands which straddles the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.
- Fire brigades fear more fires may be in store for the Pantanal, as ranchers and farmers continue to use fire to clear agricultural plots of land, despite a ban prohibiting this practice during the region’s dry season.
- Environmentalists warn a changing climate is having a devastating impact on the Pantanal, fueling fires that are more frequent.

New Brazil bill puts cattle pasture over Pantanal wetland
- A bill loosening restrictions on cattle ranching in the Pantanal wetland has been approved by the Mato Grosso’s state legislature, prompting concerns it could lead to the loss of thousands of hectares of native vegetation.
- The Pantanal is a major transitional area between the country’s other major biomes — the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Forest, and the Cerrado grasslands — and its wet area has already shrunk 29% since the 1980s.
- Advocates say they hope the new bill will bring an additional 1 million head of cattle to the Pantanal and improve declining socioeconomic parameters, but critics have warned of long-term environmental impacts.
- Another bill, currently being heard in Congress, aims to cut the state of Mato Grosso out from the country’s legally defined Amazon region, further reducing the protection of the biomes within the state.

Net-zero commitments must include more anti-deforestation policies, UN tells private sector
- Many companies with net-zero commitments have made little, tangible progress against tropical deforestation, according to a recent report from a U.N. climate change task force.
- Approximately a third of carbon emissions released each year are absorbed by forests, making tackling deforestation a key part of the fight to keep global temperatures below 1.5°C (2.7°F).
- Many companies, even ones that have implemented other effective net-zero commitments, have fallen short on deforestation, meaning their carbon footprint may end up being larger than they hope.

Kenyan hunter-gatherers forced to farm now face increased evictions from their forest
- The Indigenous Sengwer people in Kenya’s Embobut Forest have gone through a drastic change in livelihood, from hunting-gathering to herding and commercial farming in the forest, leading to tensions with forestry officials.
- The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) says the practices are key drivers in the loss of 13,782 hectares (34,056 acres) of forest cover in the past 37 years, and has tightened its monitoring of the forest, leading to mass evictions and fines for those who choose to stay.
- The Embobut Forest is part of the Sengwer’s ancestral lands and was turned into a protected area in the 20th century, leading to a settlement ban; British colonial officials also forced hunting peoples to become farmers, giving the Sengwer little alternatives for land and livelihood, locals say.
- Other tribal groups and pastoralists are drawn to the forest by droughts elsewhere and commercial possibilities as the demand for meat grows.

Maasai protesters shot, beaten as Tanzania moves forward with wildlife game reserve
- Tanzanian police officers and authorities have shot and beaten about 31 Maasai villagers, including children, during early June protests over the demarcation of ancestral land for a trophy hunting and safari game reserve. One Maasai man and one police officer have been killed.
- At least 700 Maasai villagers from Tanzania’s Loliondo division of Ngorongoro have fled across the border to Kenya, seeking humanitarian and medical aid.
- According to government spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, authorities were sent to demarcate the land, not pursue evictions. The government will take legal action against people who interfere with the demarcation process or incite hostility between pastoralists and security forces, he says.
- Human rights groups say the Tanzanian government and authorities are violating a 2018 East African Court of Justice (EACJ) injunction on the land dispute by intimidating, harassing and attacking villagers.

For traditional peoples in Brazil’s Maranhão state, progress brings violence
- Brazil’s Maranhão state is home to Indigenous peoples and traditional Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos, who for generations have lived sustainably off the rich natural resources of the waterlogged Amazonian plains that make up this region.
- But tensions have escalated in recent years between these communities and outsiders, including agribusiness interests and infrastructure developers, who see opportunities for livestock ranching and power transmission lines on these vast plains.
- In 2017, in the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Akroá Gamella people, the conflict culminated in a violent attack blamed on agribusiness interests that left 22 community members injured, including two whose limbs were severed; today, the survivors live with serious psychological and physical scars.
- In the wetlands, the construction of electricity towers for transmission lines has been blamed for declining fish stocks, affecting the livelihoods of traditional fishing communities. The company responsible for the works rejects this allegation.

Foreign capital powers Brazil’s meatpackers and helps deforest the Amazon
- To conquer the world market, Brazil’s Big Three beef packers — JBS, Marfrig and Minerva — invited in foreign capital. Today, all three are transnationals, with the original Brazilian founders owning only minority shares in their own companies.
- Foreign investors, including asset management companies and pension funds, now own large stakes, which means that ordinary citizens in the United States and elsewhere are helping fund Amazon deforestation through their investments.
- The three Brazilian families behind the Big Three have remarkable rags-to-riches histories, though with the speed of their expansion and dominance greatly assisted by the Brazilian government, keen to produce “National Champions.”
- The companies expanded rapidly abroad, but their presence in the U.S. means they are now subject to greater scrutiny from authorities and NGOs. However, most small-scale investors, including working people, have no awareness they’re investing in the destruction of the Amazon, one of the world’s most crucial carbon sinks.

Conflict over resources in Kenya hits deadly highs with firearms in play
- Increased droughts, floods and invasive species are fueling violent conflicts between pastoralists over livestock in Kenya’s central Baringo county, the intensity of which is exacerbated by the proliferation of illegal firearms in the region.
- Firearms trafficked from civil conflicts in the Horn of Africa have made their way into the hands of pastoralists who now see it as the only way to defend themselves and their cattle during raids and conflicts over grazing land.
- In 2021, there were 16 deaths from 19 livestock raids; in the first four months of 2022, there have been 39 fatalities from 24 violent clashes, half of them due to livestock raids.
- Violent conflicts in Baringo are linked to insecurity in neighboring counties, and drought along with politics only heighten the precarious situation.

Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Satellites have detected forest clearing within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area (APA) this year, a legally protected area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
- Despite its status, 35% of the primary (or old-growth) forest within the APA was lost between 2006 and 2021, making it one of the most deforested slices of the Brazilian Amazon.
- The APA was created in 2006 to serve as a buffer for vulnerable surrounding areas, such as the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the massive Terra do Meio Ecological Station, but deforestation has spilled over into both.
- Deforestation in the region is largely driven by cattle ranching, but land grabbing and mining have also increased in recent years, with invaders emboldened by the rhetoric and policies of the current government.

Training on pasture recovery is a win-win for Brazil’s cattle ranchers and forests
- A recent study found that providing Brazilian cattle ranchers with customized training in sustainable pasture restoration could bring long-term economic and environmental benefits.
- Trained ranchers saw an increase in cattle productivity and revenue, and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over a period of two years.
- Researchers say that recovering degraded pastures could help stop deforestation for agriculture by allowing farmers to increase cattle numbers without needing more land.
- Despite government-led programs that promote sustainable agriculture, experts say pasture recovery is not yet being fully prioritized.

Indigenous group defends uncontacted relatives from cattle onslaught in the Gran Chaco
- The Gran Chaco, a dry forest that stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina, is one of the fastest-disappearing ecosystems on the planet, having lost 20% of forest cover between 2000 and 2019, according to a recent study.
- The Chaco is home to the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, one of the only known “uncontacted” Indigenous groups in South America outside of the Amazon; in early 2021, members of this group approached a camp of their contacted relatives to express their concerns about escalating forest destruction.
- The contacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode have been engaged in a legal battle for their traditional homelands for nearly 30 years, and although Paraguay designated this region as a protected area in 2001, several cattle-ranching companies have obtained land titles within the region, with deforestation continuing.
- Last month, the tribe made further appeals to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requesting the official title to their traditional lands.

New report pieces together toll of environmental damage in Venezuela in 2021
- A report from the Political Ecology Observatory of Venezuela (OEP) lays out the worst environmental conflicts that the South American country faced in 2021.
- Among them are oil spills, deforestation, mining, and a lack of clean water in areas with degraded watersheds.
- The report notes the continuing difficulty of tracking environmental parameters in Venezuela, due to the lack of transparency by government at all levels.
- Regardless, it notes that last year’s events contributed to numerous public health crises.

Forest loss shows stopgap decrees failing to protect Brazil’s isolated Indigenous
- Decrees issued by the Brazilian government to protect Indigenous territories from outside threats have failed to deter illegal deforestation and may even be encouraging invaders who are betting on them not being renewed, critics say.
- In the first two months of this year, 116 hectares (287 acres) were deforested for cattle pasture and mining in Indigenous lands supposedly protected by these decrees, according to Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples.
- Despite the figure representing an 83% reduction in deforestation from a year ago, Indigenous rights groups say deforestation continues to threaten isolated Indigenous peoples, especially in the absence of government action against the illegal occupation of their lands.
- Ancestral land rights are at the heart of protests currently underway in Brasília, where thousands of Indigenous people have converged for the country’s largest annual Indigenous demonstrations.

Sustainable fashion: Biomaterial revolution replacing fur and skins
- Innovators around the globe are achieving inspiring results using natural sources, traditional knowledge, and advanced biotechnology techniques to develop sustainable materials for the fashion industry, replacing fur, leather and skins, and slashing the impacts of one of the world’s most polluting industries.
- Although companies of this type still represent a tiny part of the global textile chain, such firms grew fivefold between 2017 and 2019. Executives of apparel companies recently surveyed say they “aspire to source at least half of their products with such materials by 2025.”
- This shift in production and corporate mentality is due to several factors, including pressure from animal rights activists and environmental organizations, along with consumer demand, comes as the climate and environmental crises deepen.
- “Sustainable materials are pivotal if we are to transform the fashion industry from one of the most polluting industries to one that is transformative, regenerative and more humane, caring both for the environment and the people it touches in its complex supply chain,” says fashion designer Carmen Hijosa.

‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- The Amazon Rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study.
- Researchers found that three-quarters of the Amazon has lost some resilience, or ability to regain biomass after disturbance. This loss of resilience is especially high in regions close to human activity and with less rainfall.
- As the forest is slashed, burned and degraded, it’s left with less vegetation, which means less evapotranspiration, leading to less rain. And less rain leads to further droughts, fires, tree death and forest degradation — a feedback loop of destruction and loss of resilience.
- The lead author describes the findings as “depressing” but also says that “having an early warning of this gives us a chance to do something about it … Rather than focusing on the trajectory the Amazon is on, we can instead try and change it.”

Brazil’s ecosystem of crime in the Amazon (commentary)
- Drawing on records between 2016 and 2021, the Igarapé Institute recently documented 369 federal police operations in the nine states of Brazil’s Legal Amazon, categorizing the type of illegal activities involved.
- The research found that illicit activities, from drug trafficking to illegal timber extraction, often occur in tandem: “Such complex interactions point to the transnational dimensions of organized crime, raising tricky questions about cross border cooperation, which is still a work in progress.”
- The Igarapé Institute’s Laura Waisbich, Melina Risso, and Ilona Szabo review the findings and what they mean for efforts to address deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

From teak farms to agroforestry: Panama tests reforestation strategies
- Panama is racing to restore 50,000 hectares (124,000 acres) of forest by 2025 to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets under the Paris climate agreement. The nation’s public and private sectors have embarked on various forest restoration and reforestation efforts to meet that goal.
- The government is currently financially incentivizing teak plantations, an industry that proponents say is a win-win for the economy and environment, but which critics say pushes out native tree species, reduces biodiversity, and can indirectly even contribute to further deforestation.
- A long-running research project overseen by the Smithsonian Institute is studying agroforestry and other innovative techniques to help determine which ones offer the best ecological, social and economic silviculture outcomes.
- Included in this groundbreaking work is research into restoring tropical forests on land degraded by cattle, efforts to improve forest hydrology, and silviculture techniques that could replace teak with other more eco-friendly high value trees.

To cooperatively stop deforestation for commodities, navigating ‘legal’ vs ‘zero’ is key (commentary)
- As a decade-long effort by the private sector to voluntarily eliminate deforestation from commodity supply chains stalls, the EU, UK, and US are all considering trade regulations.
- But policy makers and advocates have been debating the relative merits of trade barriers based on a “legality” or “zero-deforestation” standard: we believe this presents a false dichotomy. Both are necessary, from different stakeholders.
- Importing countries must support forest country governance and ownership of deforestation reduction goals, while the private sector must rapidly accelerate their implementation of zero-deforestation commitments. This “international partnership pathway” offers a more equitable and likely faster strategy, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

El Salvador declares rare ‘red alert’ amid surge in forest fires
- In the first two months of the year, there were more than 20 forest fires in protected areas and buffer zones across El Salvador, often in places that are not usually threatened.
- Drought attributed to climate change, as well as irresponsible agricultural practices like slash and burn, are worsening the rate of fires in the small Central American country.
- Conservationists have called on the government to improve its firefighting budget and dedicate more resources to educating farmers about fire risks.

Brazil’s agroforestry farmers report many benefits, but challenges remain
- Researchers asked agroforestry and conventional smallholder farmers in São Paulo state, Brazil for their views on the benefits of agroforestry — a farming technique that combines native vegetation with fruit trees, crops and sometimes livestock — and what they see as the barriers to switching.
- Consistent with benefits identified in past ecological studies, agroforestry farmers ranked bird abundance and soil moisture higher than conventional farmers and reported that trees on their farms cooled the air and reduced storm damage. These farmers were also more likely to be self-sufficient.
- Many smallholders who still rely on conventional crop and cattle monocultures say a lack of knowledge is holding them back from switching over to agroforestry, but technical support and environmental education could encourage them to adopt this restorative approach.
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s laser focus on offering support for large-scale commercial agribusiness has left smallholder farmers lacking in financial and technical assistance to make the switch to agroforestry. It also limits their access to markets for their diverse harvests.

Pay or punish? Study looks at how to engage with farmers deforesting the Cerrado
- Businesses and countries are renewing their commitments to reducing deforestation in supply chains, but disagreements still exist over what the most effective, efficient and equitable tools are to make that happen.
- In the Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savanna, soybean production is one of the key industries driving rampant deforestation and conversion of native vegetation.
- While some observers favor the “carrot” approach of paying farmers not to deforest, others advocate for a “stick” approach that would cut market access for farmers who deforest.
- A new study says that in the case of the Cerrado, just using a stand-alone policy that pays farmers not to deforest would be expensive, inefficient and inequitable, and that some measure of market exclusion is also needed.

‘Huge blow’ for tiger conservation as two of the big cats killed in Thailand
- Authorities in Thailand have arrested five suspects for killing two Indochinese tigers in a protected area in the country’s west; the suspects said the tigers had been killing and eating their cattle.
- Authorities seized the two tiger carcasses, which had been stripped of their skins and meat, raising suspicions among experts that financial motives, namely selling the tiger parts in the illegal market, may have driven the killing.
- Indochinese tigers have been declared extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in recent years, and while several breeding populations persist in Thailand’s protected area networks, they number no more than 200 individuals.
- The killing on Jan. 8 comes days before officials from Thailand and other tiger range countries are due to meet to discuss progress toward an ambitious goal set in 2010 to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.

Cattle boom in Brazil’s Acre spells doom for Amazon rainforest, activists warn
- Government data show the number of cattle in Acre, a state in the Brazilian Amazon, increased by 8.3% in 2020, putting the state’s herd size at more than 3.8 million, or four times its human population.
- The cattle industry is a key driver of Acre’s economy, and aligns with the state’s aims of promoting and expanding agricultural development within the region.
- However, activists say they’re concerned the increase will lead to further environmental damage in the state, which this year recorded its highest deforestation rate in 18 years.
- Experts say Acre’s cattle growth is currently not sustainable and will lead to further deforestation in the Amazon unless sustainable solutions are encouraged and implemented.

Getting African grasslands right, for people and wildlife alike: Q&A with Susanne Vetter
- Africa’s vast grasslands are well known for their iconic wildlife, but far less appreciated for the other ecosystem services they provide, including sequestering immense amounts of carbon and supporting millions of people practicing the ancient occupation of livestock herding.
- Susanne Vetter, a plant ecologist at Rhodes University in South Africa, studies the roles not only of plants but also of people in these landscapes.
- Through her work she has gained a rosier view of pastoralism, and its ability to coexist with wildlife, than many conservationists and policymakers hold.
- Mongabay recently interviewed Susanne Vetter via email about common misconceptions of African grasslands and the pastoralist communities who depend on them.

Mongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
- The world’s largest rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever.
- The rainforest as a whole remains a net carbon sink, thanks to conservation areas and Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates remained low.
- Indigenous communities continued to be hit by a barrage of outside pressure, from COVID-19 to illegal miners and land grabbers, while community members living in Brazil’s cities dealt with persistent prejudice.

‘Rampant forest destruction’ wracks reserve as cattle ranching advances in Brazilian Amazon
- The Terra do Meio Ecological Station comprises some 3.37 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará, and is home to hundreds of species – including some that are threatened with extinction.
- But despite its protected status, Terra do Meio has come under growing pressure, with satellite data showing deforestation doubling in 2021.
- Environmentalists say the destruction within Terra do Meio is being driven by illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land speculators spilling over from the neighboring Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu, a sustainable use reserve that has become the most deforested slice of the Brazilian Amazon in recent years.
- Pending legislation could make it even easier to legalize illegitimate land claims, providing hope to land speculators and cattle ranchers that they could soon receive land titles for land they have deforested and occupied illegally.

The year in rainforests 2021
- 2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss.
- Despite speculation in the early months of the pandemic that slowing economic activity might diminish forest clearing, loss of both primary forests and tree cover in the tropics accelerated between 2019 and 2020. We don’t yet know how much forest was cut down in 2021, but early indications like rising deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon suggest that forest loss will be on the high end of the range from the past decade.
- The following is a look at some of the major tropical rainforest storylines from 2021. It is not an exhaustive review.

Slashed forest protections ignites land grabbing frenzy in Brazilian Amazon
- Earlier this year, Rondônia’s legislative assembly voted to pass a law that reduced the extent of Guajará-Mirim State Park by roughly 50,000 hectares and reduced another nearby reserve to a sliver.
- The move effectively removed protections from nearly a quarter of the park, and critics say it “gave a free pass” to outsiders to move in, deforest and lay claim to land.
- Rondônia’s top court annulled the law in November, ruling the reduction of the park’s limits to be unconstitutional.
- But sources say the invasions into the park are continuing, and are inching closer to vulnerable Indigenous and traditional communities in neighboring reserves.

European supermarkets say Brazilian beef is off the menu
- A group of European supermarkets said they would stop carrying beef imported from Brazil after a new report by Mighty Earth and Repórter Brasil linked it to deforestation in the Amazon and other critical biospheres.
- Sainsbury’s in the U.K., Lidl in the Netherlands, and the Dutch retailer Alhold Delhaize were among the companies saying they would move away from stocking Brazilian beef or products manufactured by meatpacking giant JBS.
- Last year, deforestation in the Amazon spiked to its highest level since 2005, largely due to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Campaigners say the Bolsonaro administration’s refusal to crack down on environmental destruction is spurring a commercial backlash in Europe.

‘They will die’: Fears for the last Piripkura as Amazon invasion ramps up
- Overflight images show that outsiders have not just invaded the Piripkura Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, but are also expanding their illegal cattle ranches in what’s supposed to be the protected land of one of the world’s most vulnerable uncontacted Indigenous groups.
- Deforestation inside the territory surged nearly a hundredfold in the 12 months since August 2020, which Indigenous rights activists attribute to anticipation among would-be invaders that a restriction ordinance banning outsiders won’t be renewed as it has every two years since 2008.
- The invaders are closing in on the parts of the territory inhabited by Pakyî and Tamandua, the last two known Piripkura individuals living in the territory; there may be another 13 there who have chosen to remain uncontacted.
- The Piripkura suffered from at least two massacres since their first contact with outsiders in the 1980s, and now face the risk of extermination again, activists warn.

Potty-trained cows? Teaching cattle where to urinate could help reduce greenhouse gases
- Cows can learn to control where they urinate, scientists showed in a small study.
- Urine from cattle ultimately produces nitrous oxide, a harmful greenhouse gas.
- Scaling up this training method could reduce the environmental impacts of large farms.

Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.

EU proposes ambitious ban on products tied to legal and illegal deforestation
- Proposed legislation in the European Union would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to legal or illegal deforestation.
- The law would focus on the industries with some of the most egregious environmental track records, including soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as leather, chocolate and furniture.
- Conservation groups have expressed satisfaction with the first-of-its kind legislation but are concerned about the lack of protections for Indigenous peoples, as well as carbon-rich ecosystems like savannas, wetlands and peatlands.

Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- Microbial communities are important indicators of ecological degradation in the tropics, often reflecting levels of disturbance and contamination in rivers and streams.
- In an attempt to monitor the ecological condition of various streams in central Panama, researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) assessed the impact of various land usages, such as cattle pasture and secondary forest, on microbial diversity and community structure.
- In less than a decade, researchers say, reforested land allows bacterial communities to recover, highlighting the importance of reforestation for overall ecosystem recovery.

New study helps cattle ranchers monitor ecological impact on U.S. rangelands
- A new study lays out 20 indicators that could prove useful to U.S. cattle ranchers trying to better quantify the ecological impact of their operations on rangeland ecosystems.
- In recent years, ranchers have expressed confusion about the benefits of ecological regulatory programs, pointing to the need for a uniform methodology for understanding cattle ranching’s impact on the environment.
- Some of the indicators include soil stability, water quality, diversity of native plants and bird diversity, soil compaction, ground cover, plant productivity, rancher satisfaction with livelihood, capacity to experiment and community health, among others.
- While this study doesn’t instruct ranchers on how or why to apply these 20 indicators, they lay the groundwork for future studies that could instruct ranchers on how to best monitor their operations.

Forest declarations are nice, but profitability determines land use in the Amazon (Book excerpt)
- Nearly 130 nations last week agreed to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation” by 2030. Accompanying that declaration was a commitment to allocate $19.2 billion toward that goal. But how will these resources be deployed in the Amazon?
- Some of that money is expected to go toward reforming the production systems that drive deforestation. That money would likely matched by even larger amounts of private capital in search of so-called “green investments.” How that money is channeled and who benefits will determine whether Amazonian societies address the long-standing social inequality that is also a key driver of deforestation.
- In “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness”, Tim Killeen provides an overview of rural finance with a special focus on mechanisms designed to support smallholders. Killeen also takes a critical look at the emerging market for “green bonds”
- This post is an except from a book. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

FARC peace deal in Colombia sparked war on forests, report says
- The Colombian government’s 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was supposed to correct land ownership inequality and tackle deforestation goal.
- However, dissident guerrilla groups have filled the power gap left by the FARC, making it increasingly difficult to carry out some of the peace deal’s most basic initiatives.
- In a new report, international peacekeeping organization Crisis Group recommends that the Colombian government increase its efforts to dismantle non-state armed groups and find better ways to help internally displaced families.

Indigenous lands under siege as buffalo frenzy grips the Amazon
- Deforestation is rising in Autazes, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, according to satellite data and local sources.
- Indigenous leaders say the clearing is now encroaching on the 18 Indigenous reserves that lie scattered across Autazes, some of which are still awaiting full demarcation.
- Most of the razed lots are being turned into grazing pastures for herds of domestic water buffalos, which thrive in the floodplains that characterize the region.
- Indigenous community members say that in addition to clearing forest for pasture, buffalo farming is polluting their water sources and roaming buffalos are invading communities’ subsistence farms.

Report: Luxury carmakers still sourcing deforestation-linked leather from Paraguay
- The forests of the Gran Chaco in Paraguay, home of one of the world’s last uncontacted Indigenous nations, continue to be the target of illegal deforestation linked to luxury automakers such as BMW and Jaguar Land Rover.
- Two of three Paraguayan leather exporters shown to be buying hides from cattle grazed in illegally deforested parts of the Gran Chaco have increased their sales to Europe since the issue came to light in September 2020.
- Major European automakers are still unable to demonstrate how their supply chains are shielded from illegal deforestation in Paraguay.

In harm’s way: Our actions put people and wildlife at risk of disease
- While global attention is currently focused on COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases that jump from animals to humans, diseases that breach the species barrier also pass from people and domestic animals to wild species.
- Human alteration of the planet — the felling of forests, the legal and illegal wildlife trade, climate change, and other disruptions — is driving escalating unnatural interactions between species, allowing diseases to mutate and infect new hosts.
- Infectious disease poses a serious threat to tigers, chimpanzees, Ethiopian wolves, African wild dogs and a host of other threatened species. Viral diseases spread by humans, livestock and other domestic animals could serve as the knockout punch to endangered species already teetering on the edge of extinction.
- There’s growing support for a One Health strategy, which recognizes that human health, animal health and the health of the planet are inextricably linked — that protecting the planet is crucial to the health of all.

Guatemala tightens cattle ranching rules, but can they stop deforestation?
- Guatemala wants to continue to export cattle to Mexico but needs to regulate the industry to prevent the deforestation of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve and other protected forests.
- The government is constructing new cattle pen facilities on the border that could convince more ranchers to participate in a legal traceability system.
- However, even if the traceability system improves, deforestation caused by drug traffickers and other criminal actors will likely persist.

Inland mangroves reveal a tumultuous climatic past — and hint at our future
- A new study concludes that the presence of inland mangroves along a river in southern Mexico was the result of climate change-driven sea level rise during the Pleistocene Epoch, some 115,000 to 130,000 years ago.
- The researchers’ analysis of the genetic history of the mangrove trees suggests that they are closely related to trees found on the coastline, and sediments nearby are similar to those found in ocean environments.
- Publishing their work Oct. 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team notes that their research highlights the impacts of global climate change.

Environmental defenders in Nicaragua denounce government crackdown as elections loom
- Indigenous communities in northeastern Nicaragua continue to suffer from violent attacks by land invaders looking to exploit the area for cattle ranching and gold mining.
- Environmental defenders are increasingly struggling to denounce the violence as President Daniel Ortega targets government critics ahead of elections scheduled for November.
- Many advocates of the Mayangna and Miskito communities have received threats from the government or felt pressure to shut down their organizations.

FOREST Act bill would hold global suppliers accountable for illegal deforestation
- A new bill in the U.S. congress would create legislation to prohibit agricultural commodities like palm oil, cattle, soybeans, rubber, pulp and cocoa from import if they have contributed to illegal deforestation.
- It also creates financial penalties and “action plans” for countries struggling to improve regulation of problematic, deforestation-causing industries.
- Deforestation in tropical countries – much of it caused by commercial agriculture – produces approximately 4.8 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
- The legislation, if enacted, would require U.S. trade partner buy-in and cooperation to meet the new environmental standards.

Timmermans vs. Bolsonaro: Will the EU get deforestation off our dinner plates? (commentary)
- The European Commission is drafting a plan to address deforestation linked with commodity supply chains.
- But Nico Muzi, Europe Director of global environmental group Mighty Earth and member of the EU Commission Expert Group on protecting and restoring the world’s forests, argues the measure has a significant loophole for soy-based animal feed and leather from Brazil.
- “The leaked plan has several major loopholes that would substantially and unnecessarily weaken its impact even as deforestation in Brazil surges,” Muzi writes. “Even while the law would protect parts of the Amazon rainforest, it would still allow big agriculture companies like Cargill to continue to drive large-scale deforestation right next door in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna and Pantanal wetlands and export the products of that destruction to Europe.”
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Brazil leads Amazon in forest loss this year, Indigenous and protected areas hold out
- Satellite imagery brings us a first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots, areas where forest cover was lost in high densities across the Amazon, amounting to more than 860,000 hectares (2.1 million acres).
- The majority of deforestation (76%) occurred in Brazil and was clustered around roads, according to a recent report from Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP); many of the areas deforested this year in Brazil have also burned.
- In Colombia, deforestation hotspots this year were in and around numerous protected areas, including Tinigua and Chiribiquete national parks, as well as Indigenous reserves, particularly Yari-Yaguara II and Nukak Maku; in Peru, rice farming and a new Mennonite colony drove recent deforestation.
- Of primary forests loss across the western Amazon between 2017 and 2020, three-quarters were outside protected areas and Indigenous territories, highlighting the importance of these key land use designations for safeguarding the remaining Amazon rainforest.

New permits for Brazilian beef exports to US could increase deforestation risk: Report
- An Earthsight report raises alarms about new sanitary permits that allow more slaughterhouses in the Amazon to export beef to the United States.
- More slaughterhouses could lead to increased deforestation since most facilities struggle to keep track of whether their cattle are sourced from land that was cleared legally or illegally.
- A bill in the U.S. Congress could impose new environmental regulations on Brazilian slaughterhouses. Still it’s unclear how effective they will be given the difficulty of tracking illegal cattle ranching in the Amazon.

11 Mongabay investigations in two years. Here’s what we found
- Two years ago, Mongabay and its partners launched a project dedicated to revealing corruption and collusion at the core of many natural resource industries around the world via its investigative journalism program.
- The result was observable impacts in multiple sectors including government agencies, international financial institutions, local communities and civil society organizations.
- The project supported investigations focused on cattle, fisheries, minerals, palm oil, soybeans, sunflower oil, and timber.
- Some findings include exposing contradictory actions from sustainability statements of financial institutions, mining encroachment on Indigenous lands, suspicious payments made to unnamed consultants by palm oil conglomerates and broken promises of land rights acknowledgements.

Oil palms alone can be damaging; with other crops, the benefits abound
- Intercropping in oil palm plantations can reduce deforestation, increase biodiversity, and boost farmers’ income, all without hurting palm oil yields, new research suggests.
- The approach has been adopted by smallholders, but large companies are still reluctant to implement it.
- Integrating livestock like cattle with oil palm plantations also produces a number of benefits, such as reducing the need for fertilizers and herbicides.

Deforestation sweeps national park in Brazil as land speculators advance
- Between January and early September, 3,542 deforestation alerts have been confirmed in primary forest within Campos Amazônicos National Park, according to satellite data, representing a 37% jump over the average amount of forest loss for the previous five years.
- Much of the occupation of the Campos Amazônicos park is happening through illegitimate land claims, fueled by hopes that protections on the park may be loosened in the future, environmentalists say. Even though the park is under federal protection, this hasn’t stopped invaders from falsely registering slices of it as their property.
- Environmentalists warn the social and environmental impacts could be devastating. Campos Amazônicos wraps around the Tenharim do Igarapé Preto Indigenous Reserve, which was until recently under attack by illegal miners who descended on the territory in search of cassiterite; sources say the fresh incursions into Campos Amazônicos could put the area back at risk.
- The park also holds one of the most striking enclaves of cerrado in the Amazon rainforest, housing stretches of shrubs, grasslands and dry forest typical of the savanna biome. Campos Amazônicos is also part of the Southern Amazon Conservation Corridor that represents one of the best-preserved stretches of the rainforest.

Fomenting a “Perfect Storm” to push companies to change: Q&A with Glenn Hurowitz
- Over the past few years, Mighty Earth has emerged as one of the most influential advocacy groups when it comes pushing companies to clean up their supply chains. The group, has targeted companies that produce, trade, and source deforestation-risk commodities like beef, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and soy.
- Mighty Earth is led by Glenn Hurowitz, an activist who has spent the better part of the past 20 years advocating for forests and forest-dependent communities. In that capacity, Hurowitz has played a central role in pressing some of the world’s largest companies to adopt zero deforestation, peatlands, and exploitation (ZDPE) commitments.
- Mighty Earth’s strategy is built on what Hurowitz calls the “Perfect Storm” approach: “We work to bring pressure on a target from multiple different angles in a relatively compressed time period to the point that it becomes irresistible: their customers, financiers, media, grassroots, digital, direct engagement with the company,” he explained. “It’s an application of the basic principles of classical military strategy, combined with social change theory and a lot of hard-won experience to the field of environmental campaigning.
- Hurowitz spoke about how to drive change, the evolution of environmental activism, and a range of other topics during an August 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Though nefarious, Russian hack of JBS should prompt environmental debate over meat “oligopoly” (commentary)
- The recent cyberattack on Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS attracted a lot of attention, but Author Nikolas Kozloff said that most of analysis and discussion neglected to focus on broader issues associated with the industry.
- “Public discussion has missed the mark by focusing far too narrowly on mere supply chain issues: however nefarious, the JBS hack exposes wider concerns ranging from food justice to animal rights to public health to the environment and climate change,” Kozloff.
- “It is highly ironic, and that is putting it mildly, that it has taken Russian cyber-crime to highlight such systemic and underlying problems, yet perhaps such high-profile incidents might succeed in prompting long-overdue debate.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

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.

A world of hurt: 2021 climate disasters raise alarm over food security
- Human-driven climate change is fueling weather extremes — from record drought to massive floods — that are hammering key agricultural regions around the world.
- From the grain heartland of Argentina to the tomato belt of California to the pork hub of China, extreme weather events have driven down output and driven up global commodity prices.
- Shortages of water and food have, in turn, prompted political and social strife in 2021, including food protests in Iran and hunger in Madagascar, and threaten to bring escalating misery, civil unrest and war in coming years.
- Experts warn the problem will only intensify, even in regions currently unaffected by, or thriving from the high prices caused by scarcity. Global transformational change is urgently needed in agricultural production and consumption patterns, say experts.

Tesco’s meat problem (commentary)
- Campaigners argue new requirements from Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the U.K., on meat suppliers sourcing from South America are an improvement over the status quo but point to critical issues with the details of the plan.
- Meat has outsized environmental consequences. Raising meat produces more climate pollution, fouls more drinking water, and requires more land for livestock and feed globally than all other food crops combined.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

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