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Fishing cats in India struggle to survive outside protected areas
The wetlands of West Bengal in eastern India are one of the country’s best habitats for the fishing cat, a species vulnerable to extinction. But a significant population of these fish-eating, mid-sized wildcats lives outside protected areas, putting them at high risk of road accidents and retaliatory killing, reports contributor Nabarun Guha for Mongabay India. […]
PNG’s Torricelli Mountains teem with life — and the risk of extinction
- The Torricelli Mountain range in northern Papua New Guinea holds a staggering amount of biodiversity in a tiny area.
- A recent analysis suggests that the threat of extinction to species living in the Torricellis if the land were cleared of its forests would be among the highest on Earth.
- A community conservation group called the Tenkile Conservation Alliance has worked to end the hunting of critically endangered tree kangaroos in the Torricellis and has proposed a 1,250-square-kilometer (483-square-mile) protected area to further protect the mountains’ forests and species.
- But the government of Papua New Guinea has stopped short of officially recognizing the conservation area as the threat from industrial logging companies in the region remains.
Brazil plans new Amazon routes linking the Pacific & China’s New Silk Road
- New roads and riverways integrating the Brazilian Amazon and ports on the Pacific coast of South America are expected to be announced in 2025, reducing shipment costs to supply China.
- Brazil’s plans to build ports and roads to help move grains, beef and iron ore from the rainforest echo a development vision that dates back to the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s.
- Environmentalists warn the new routes boost deforestation and encourage land-grabbers and ranchers to keep exploring the Amazon as a commodity hub.
Secondary roads cause more deforestation than primary roads in tropical forests
The first roads that cut through rainforests are well-known conduits for deforestation. However, new research finds that secondary roads, those that branch off the primary road, cause far more forest loss than the original roads themselves. The conservation impacts of secondary roads have not been well understood. So, researchers used satellite images and newly available […]
Pressure bears down around uncontacted tribes at the edge of Brazil’s arc of deforestation
- A family of three isolated Indigenous people got separated from their group and ended up contacting non-Indigenous society in one of the best-preserved areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
- For more than a month, agents with Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, have been camping near the family, helping them hunt and fish.
- The group lives on the edge of the so-called arc of deforestation, in a mosaic of conservation areas and Indigenous territories that form a green barrier to oncoming pressure from land grabbers and cattle ranchers who want the land to increase their wealth.
- Besides the impact on isolated Indigenous communities, the destruction of this part of the Amazon would affect Brazil’s rain cycle and potentially unleash new viruses and bacteria, researchers warn.
With biological and cultural diversity at literal crossroads in the tropics, a new approach is needed (commentary)
- Both biological and linguistic diversity are greatest in tropical regions, and both are endangered by unprecedented rates of road expansion.
- Will current paradigms for language and species protection help to protect this wealth of diversity into the next century, a new op-ed asks.
- While a “no roads” approach is unlikely to work in areas of overlapping cultural and biological richness, a framework of “people with nature” that acknowledges issues of justice and social equity, recognizes that local people have a right to environmental self-determination, understands that people and other-than-human species are intrinsically intertwined, and that solutions must be inclusive, could work, this commentary argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
More Indigenous peoples request consultation as controversial road paves through Peru’s Amazon
- An ongoing federal highway construction project in Peru threatens Maijuna, Kichwa, Bora and Huitoto peoples’ lands and two protected areas, according to Indigenous residents, local organizations and legal experts.
- Many fear the highway will bring invasions, social conflicts, increased crime and environmental damage to the Peruvian Amazon.
- Not all communities oppose the project, but they agree that the government must carry out prior consultation processes that it has failed to do in all but one community so far.
- Legal experts have also called into question the government’s decision to divide the project into four parts, which they say is a mechanism used to obscure impacts and fast-track approvals.
As elephant conflict shifts, Nepal’s border village offers clues for coexistence
- Human-elephant conflicts were once concentrated in the border village of Bahundangi in eastern Nepal, but the problem has since spread to other villages further west as a result of rapid urbanization, deforestation and infrastructure expansion that have forced elephants into human settlements.
- Several villagers have been killed in elephant attacks in these villages in Koshi province, leaving local families living in constant fear as they struggle to protect their homes, crops and lives from wild elephants.
- Local authorities have attempted solutions like digging trenches, installing sirens and conducting awareness campaigns, but many measures have proved ineffective or created new problems; limited funding and lack of long-term planning hinder sustainable solutions.
- Conservationists say the template from Bahundangi, the border village that learnt to live with the elephants, could help new conflict areas avoid losses much more swiftly and without wasting resources.
Agriculture, illegal ranching and roads threaten the jaguar in Mesoamerica
- Jaguar habitats in the Mesoamerica region, spanning Mexico and Central America, are under severe threat from deforestation, illegal ranching, monoculture plantations, forest fires, and hunting, which disrupt connectivity between populations.
- Conservation efforts have focused on maintaining wildlife corridors, particularly in Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, to preserve genetic diversity and prevent population fragmentation.
- Local and international initiatives, such as the Jaguar Corridor Initiative and Jaguar 2030 plan, aim to protect Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs) and promote sustainable land-use alternatives to deforestation.
- Collaboration between governments, NGOs and Indigenous communities is crucial to securing jaguar populations, as well as the broader ecosystems they help regulate, experts say.
Nigeria’s new coastal highway runs over communities & biodiversity hotspots
- Fifty years after it was first proposed, construction of a $12 billion highway from Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos east across the Niger Delta to the city of Calabar has begun.
- Nigeria’s government says the project will improve transport links and stimulate economic development across a densely populated region.
- The highway passes through or near several biodiversity hotspots, including two that are known to be home to endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and critically endangered Niger Delta red colobus.
- Worrying questions have been raised over environmental and social impact assessments for the highway as well as compensation for people who will lose land and property.
Vested interests and social tribes in the Pan Amazon
- Local and regional actors, particularly commercial and landowner elites in mid-sized cities, play an important role in the expansion and improvement of road networks. In Brazil, lobbying by private interests played a big role in the development of Rodovia Transamazônica and BR-319.
- In Brazil, agribusinesses exert political power via the Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária (FPA), often referred to as the Bancada Ruralista, a multi-party congressional voting bloc.
- One of the most significant accomplishment of the ruralistas was their 2012 campaign to modify Brazil’s the Forest Code. Changes included amnesty for property owners who had illegally deforested land before 2008 and adjusted requirements to reforest portions of landholdings that had exceeded legal deforestation limits.
Nepal PM sums up 2024 shift away from conservation: ‘Fewer tigers, less forest’
- Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli recently made remarks downplaying the significance of conservation efforts, suggesting reduced targets for tiger populations and forest cover, contradicting international commitments and national priorities.
- The comments come on the heels of the government introducing measures allowing large-scale infrastructure, including hydropower projects and hotels, in previously protected areas, raising concerns among conservationists, lawyers and Indigenous communities.
- The Supreme Court is reviewing a petition against these proposed changes, with a final ruling pending due to delays in court proceedings.
Still no sweet spot in 2024 for Nepal in balancing conservation & development
- Nepal faces ongoing challenges in balancing the development of infrastructure such as roads, railways and hydropower dams, with the need to conserve its rich biodiversity, forests and rivers.
- Infrastructure projects continue to raise ecological concerns, including habitat fragmentation, pollution, and risks to wildlife.
- Plans like the rerouting of the East-West Railway and buffer zones around rivers in Kathmandu have sparked protests due to fears of displacement, loss of property and economic hardships.
- These conflicts underline the challenges of aligning development with community and environmental needs.
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.
Brazil plans new reserves to curb deforestation near contested Amazon roads
- Unallocated public areas account for 28% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, and the destruction of these lands keeps rising even as rates plummet across other parts of the rainforest.
- To tackle the problem, Brazil’s federal government plans to convert lands around controversial Amazonian highways into protected areas.
- One of the priority areas is along the BR-319 highway, where experts warn deforestation may increase fourfold under another government plan to pave the highway.
- Despite the advances in comparison with former President Jair Bolsonaro, Indigenous and land reform movements are unhappy with the pace of land designation under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Logging persists in Cameroon’s wildlife-rich Ebo Forest despite warnings
- Satellite data and imagery show that logging has continued in Cameroon’s species-rich Ebo Forest since 2022, despite repeated warnings from conservationists and local communities.
- The logging operations are being carried out by two companies, SCIEB and the little-known Sextransbois.
- Conservation experts warn of the potential for conflicts between loggers and local communities because of disrupted access.
- The Cameroonian government says it has an “ecological conscience” and is keen on the preservation of the country’s wildlife resources.
Satellite data detect appearance of new roads in primary forests in Borneo
Recent satellite data and imagery have detected the construction of what appear to be new roads cutting across primary forest in the Barito River watershed and near a protected area in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. Areas in the Barito watershed, which covers numerous districts in Central and South Kalimantan provinces, […]
Brazil’s race to approve the end of the Amazon: The BR-319 highway needs a new environmental impact assessment (commentary)
- Brazil’s race to approve “reconstruction” of Highway BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) is gaining ever more momentum, with President Lula declaring his support for the project on the 10th September, a moment that could not be more ironic amid the country’s dramatic fire crisis, argues researcher Philip M. Fearnside in this commentary.
- The impact of BR-319 extends far beyond the roadside strip to which the EIA and licensing discussion is limited. Planned side roads such as AM-366 would open the vast rainforest area west of the highway to the entry of deforesters, loggers and others. The rainforest in this area is also at risk of collapse from climate change, and this risk would be further increased by the deforestation and forest degradation provoked by the planned roads linked to BR-319. Loss of this forest would be catastrophic both for global climate and for water supply to other parts of Brazil, including São Paulo.
- The area at risk is both the most critical and the easiest to avoid deforesting. All that needs to be done is to not build the highways that would provide access, while in other parts of Amazonia stopping deforestation requires changing the behavior of hundreds of thousands of individual actors. A new EIA is needed that includes all areas receiving impacts from BR-319 in the northern and western parts of Brazilian Amazonia. The EIA cannot be a mere bureaucratic step after which the project is automatically approved – the rational decision is to reject the project, writes Fearnside.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.
Brazil’s BR-319 highway disaster: Yet another maneuver (commentary)
- Brazil’s “reconstruction” project for the BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway and associated side roads would open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters and loggers, writes Philip M. Fearnside in this commentary.
- A “preliminary license” for the project that was granted in 2022 by the anti-environmental Bolsonaro presidential administration was suspended in July 2024 by judicial order but is being appealed by the highway department.
- The highway department has submitted to the courts a consultant report it contracted claiming that the highway project is “environmentally viable” and the department’s press release claiming this as “proof” of viability is being touted by pro-BR-319 media and politicians. The highway project continues as a major threat to the Amazon forest, and pressure is mounting to force its approval, writes Fearnside.
- This text is a commentary and does not necessarily represent the views of Mongabay.
Budget constraints limit wildlife protection in major Nepali road project
- Nepal is expanding a 115-kilometer (71-mile) section of its East-West Highway from two to four lanes, aiming to improve travel times and connectivity.
- The expanded highway passes through 11 forest patches near Chitwan National Park, raising concerns about wildlife safety and mobility.
- Budget constraints prevented the construction of wildlife overpasses and limited modifications to 12 key structures for animal crossings.
- Conservationists worry that without proper safeguards, the expanded highway could lead to increased wildlife-vehicle collisions and habitat fragmentation, potentially undermining conservation efforts in the region.
A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Illegal mining continues in the headwaters of the Tuichi River in northwestern Bolivia, with miners encroaching into the strictly protected areas of the Madidi National Park.
- As part of a project backed by La Paz’s government, a road is being built through the middle of the protected area,.
- Madidi’s park rangers are living under constant strain. They are threatened and attacked by miners, and are unable to enter some parts of the protected area to carry out their duties.
Nepal’s railway rerouting plan to avoid Chitwan park sparks fiery backlash
- On July 14, residents of Bharatpur on the fringes of Chitwan National Park burned a vehicle of a survey team, mistaking them for officials planning a controversial railway project reroute.
- The government’s decision to reroute the railway through Bharatpur to avoid Chitwan National Park has sparked local protests due to fears of displacement and inadequate compensation.
- Bharatpur’s rapid development and population growth have heightened tensions, with residents demanding the railway be rerouted farther north to avoid their homes. But doing so may not be technically and financially possible.
Nepal’s youngest national park looks to elevated lanes to prevent roadkill
- The Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya section of Nepal’s East-West Highway, a major trade route to India, cuts through Parsa National Park, leading to frequent wildlife roadkill incidents, including of endangered species such as tigers.
- Plans are underway to expand the highway to four lanes, which could exacerbate the issue; to address this, officials are considering building elevated sections to allow safe wildlife crossings.
- The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation has proposed two elevated roads around Parsa National Park, and negotiations are ongoing with the Asian Development Bank for funding.
- Nepal introduced guidelines on wildlife-friendly infrastructure in 2022, which mandate safeguard measures for development projects; the proposed elevated roads in Parsa and Chitwan could set a precedent for future conservation efforts.
Cambodian hydropower dam may be linked to illegal logging
The Cardamom Mountains in southwest Cambodia are one of the largest rainforest ecosystems in Southeast Asia. But the construction of a new hydropower project is threatening the integrity of these forests, a Mongabay investigation has found. In April 2024, Mongabay journalists Gerald Flynn and Vutha Srey traveled to the construction site of the recently approved […]
Panama’s ‘Caribbean Corridor’ highway threatens three protected areas, critics say
- Several legal challenges have temporarily stalled construction on a new, controversial highway project in north-central Panama, which allegedly bypassed environmental regulations and could damage several protected areas along the Caribbean coast.
- The highway, known as the “Caribbean Corridor,” is supposed to travel 28.4 kilometers (17.6 miles) from the towns of Quebrada Ancha to María Chiquita, with the goal of increasing tourism and local commerce on the coast of Colón province.
- The $91-million project could endanger Portobelo National Park, Chagres National Park, Sierra Llorona Private Reserve and the Panama Canal watershed that includes Gatun Lake and the Panama Canal.
Brazil’s BR-319 Highway: The latest maneuver to obtain approval for an environmental disaster (commentary)
- Plans for “reconstructing” Brazil’s formerly abandoned BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway would facilitate access to vast areas of Amazon forest from the AMACRO deforestation hotspot in southern Amazonia, argues Philip M. Fearnside.
- The researcher says Brazil’s federal environmental agency is under intense pressure to grant a license to allow the reconstruction to begin. This pressure has reached a new high due to a report just released by a Ministry of Transportation working group claiming the highway project is “environmentally viable.”
- The report ignores almost all of the project’s impacts and presents essentially no evidence that the highway would be “environmentally viable.” Extensive evidence to the contrary is ignored. The report’s deficiencies in no way diminish its effectiveness as a lever to force approval of this disastrous project.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Mongabay investigation is turned into art for World Press Freedom Day event
- Mongabay’s award-winning investigation that revealed water contamination from palm oil plantations in Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon inspired an art installation at UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day Conference in Santiago; the artwork was also exhibited at Chile’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
- A group of 12 theater design students and three professors from the University of Chile worked together with Mongabay reporter Karla Mendes to create the concept of an art exhibition to highlight the hidden environmental damages of “sustainable” palm oil found in many common items bought at grocery stores without our being aware of the impacts.
- Published in 2021, the Mongabay investigation revealed water contamination from pesticides used on oil palm crops and clearing of native forests for crops impacting the Tembé people in northern Pará state; in late 2022, the investigation was used as key evidence by federal prosecutors to obtain a court decision to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations in Pará.
- The palm oil art installation and other successful projects in which journalists and artists collaborated were also highlighted at a panel focused on how to promote more inclusive journalism narratives to convey environmental and climate change issues.
Guyana road projects spark concerns for future development on wetlands
- A series of ongoing road projects traveling over 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital of Georgetown to the city of Lethem, in the south, are supposed to improve access to more rural parts of Guyana while facilitating international trade, most notably with Brazil.
- But the project also crosses sensitive wetlands and Indigenous communities, raising concerns about how the government will manage future development there.
- Some of the roads cross through the Rupununi wetlands and Iwokrama Rainforest, where a unique watershed connects the Amazon River and Essequibo River basins.
In a Himalayan Eden, a road project promises opportunity, but also loss
- In Nepal’s sacred Tsum Valley, Buddhist community members are conflicted about the ongoing construction of a road that will pass through the region.
- The Tsum Valley is one of the few, if not last, remaining beyul, or sacred valleys, governed by customary and Buddhist laws, where humans and wildlife have lived together in harmony for more than a millennium.
- The valley has maintained its religious and cultural traditions that have conserved biodiversity and its cultural uniqueness due to its remote location.
- The road is part of a government project that aims to connect every town across the country, bringing economic development and government services closer to remote mountainous communities.
Borneo and Sumatra megaprojects are carving up clouded leopard forests
- Massive infrastructure projects currently underway on the Southeast Asian islands of Borneo and Sumatra are set to severely erode forest connectivity across key habitats of the Sunda clouded leopard.
- Two major highway networks and the relocation of Indonesia’s capital city to Borneo will further fragment the domain of the arboreal predator that has already experienced steep population declines in recent decades due to the expansion of oil palm and poaching.
- Experts say the findings will help to target conservation actions, but they add that road design standards and development planning processes remain woefully inadequate in the region.
- The authors call for improved development strategies that seriously consider sustainability and include data-based environmental assessments and mitigation measures, such as wildlife crossings and avoidance of sensitive ecosystems.
Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests
- A new study indicates that significant networks of informal, unmapped and unregulated roads sprawl into forest-rich regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
- Slipping beneath the purview of environmental governance, construction of these “ghost roads” typically precede sharp spikes in deforestation and represent blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, the study says.
- The authors underscore that the relentless proliferation of ghost roads ranks among the gravest of threats facing the world’s remaining tropical forests.
- The findings bolster a growing momentum toward the development of AI-based road-mapping systems to help conservation biologists and resource managers better keep track of informal and illegal road networks and curb associated deforestation rates.
In Nepal, environmental advocates fend off ‘anti-development’ smear
- Nepal’s political focus on large-scale infrastructure development has long raised environmental concerns, with projects like dams and highways lacking adequate safeguards.
- Despite international commitments and constitutional rights to a healthy environment, Nepal’s government faces challenges in implementing effective environmental policies.
- Conservationists advocating for nature and sustainable development say protecting ecosystems is important for both the planet and its people.
- They also rebuff accusations from politicians that they’re “anti-development,” saying supporting nature doesn’t mean being opposed to development.
Road paving in a Peruvian bird paradise threatens wildlife and ecotourism
- In the Manu Biosphere Reserve of Southeastern Peru, one of the world’s most biodiverse protected areas, a winding dirt road has historically been the only route from the Andes into the Amazon. Now that road has been paved from top to bottom.
- The resulting increase in vehicle speed is causing concerns among conservationists about road-killed wildlife and damage to eco-tourism, while raising the specter of expanding extractive industries in the region.
- However, poor construction may have ensured that any impacts are short-lived; the thin asphalt is expected to erode quickly and may leave the road worse than it was before.
- Critics say such shoddy construction is a consequence of endemic corruption in the Peruvian road-building sector, which fuels an unsustainable development model that fails to meet local people’s needs.
To detect illegal roads in remote areas, AI comes into play
- Scientists have deployed an artificial intelligence model to identify and detect roads in rural and remote areas.
- The model was trained to analyze satellite images and pick out the roads within them; according to a recent study, it managed to do this accurately eight times out of 10.
- Road construction has increased drastically in recent decades, with 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads expected to be built by 2050.
- Illegal roads, which fall outside the purview of environmental governance, often cut through dense forests and cause harm to the biodiversity living in fragile ecosystems.
Brazil’s BR-319 highway: The danger reaches a critical moment (commentary)
- A project to rebuild Brazil’s notorious BR-319 highway is quickly moving closer to becoming a fait accompli. Together with planned side roads, BR-319 would open vast areas of Amazon rainforest to the entry of deforesters. A working group convened by the Ministry of Transportation will soon release a report intended to justify approval of the project’s environmental license. Congressional approval of legislation to force granting the license is also looming.
- Despite a constant political discourse claiming that governance will contain deforestation and tourists will admire the forest from their cars as they drive on a “park road,” the reality on an Amazon frontier is very different. Most of what happens once access is provided by road is outside of the government’s control.
- The consequences of unleashing deforestation in the last great block of Amazon forest would be catastrophic for Brazil, threatening the water carried to São Paulo by the winds known as “flying rivers” and pushing global warming past a tipping point.
- An earlier version of this text was published in Portuguese by Amazônia Real. It is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.
Risky development in Uttarakhand: Interview with environmentalist Ravi Chopra
- Ravi Chopra, an esteemed environmentalist based in Uttarakhand, is renowned for his dedicated efforts to preserve natural resources within the Himalayan region.
- In 2019, the Supreme Court appointed Chopra as chair of a committee to review the controversial Char Dham highway construction project; he later resigned after construction proceeded despite the committtee’s findings that the project could pose significant risks to the ecologically fragile region.
- The Char Dham project drew international attention in November 2023, when a segment of a tunnel collapsed, trapping dozens of workers for 17 days.
- In a recent interview with Mongabay, Chopra discussed the environmental risks and hazards of development in Uttarakhand.
Why the Amazon’s small streams have a major impact on its grand rivers
- An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
- Researchers from several universities will assess the conservation status of 100 streams spread between the municipalities of Santarém and Paragominas, at the confluence of the Tapajós and the Amazon, which were first analyzed in 2010.
- The impact of dirt roads and their network of river crossings, which causes sediment load, siltation, erosion and changes in water quality, was one of the factors that caught researchers’ attention in the initial time-series study.
- Experts say that local development models should ideally start from water to land, rather than the other way around, given the importance of water for the rainforest, its biodiversity, and the inhabitants who depend on both.
For Nepal, 2023 changed course of tiger conservation efforts
- In 2023, Nepali conservation officials and stakeholders shifted their focus from shoring up numbers to human-tiger coexistence and development of corridors to enhance movement of the animal between different habitats.
- Although the problem of poaching has largely been addressed, negative human-tiger interactions and development of infrastructure pose significant challenges in achieving the goals.
- Also in 2023, the country’s environment minister proposed allowing sport hunting to control the tiger population, but that didn’t go down well with the conservationists.
Race to destroy the Amazon forest: Brazil’s National Congress set to force construction of Highway BR-319 (commentary)
- Highway BR-319 and planned connecting roads would bring deforesters to much of what remains of Brazil’s Amazon forest. BR-319 would connect the notorious “arc of deforestation” in southern Amazonia to Manaus, in central Amazonia.
- From Manaus, existing roads would provide access to northern Amazonia, while roads planned to branch off BR-319 would open the western half of Brazil’s State of Amazonas to deforestation. BR-319 is now on a fast track for approval by Brazil’s ruralist-controlled National Congress.
- The proposed law interferes with decisions to be made by Brazil’s licensing system and by the Amazon Fund. While these are not in purview of the National Congress, such things can happen in practice in Brazil.
- An earlier version of this text was published in Portuguese by Amazônia Real. This is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.
Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
- Papua New Guinea boasts the third largest rainforest in the world and houses about 7% of the planet’s biodiversity, including threatened species found nowhere else in the world.
- In recent years, fraudulent practices in the logging and agriculture industry have resulted in massive forest loss across the country while road network expansion plans threaten to further fragment forests and open them up for resource exploitation.
- Satellite data and imagery show logging activity on the rise in PNG, particularly in the province of Oro.
- Conservationists and officials say forest laws must be tightened in PNG and local communities included in decision-making to reduce forest loss, while incentivizing communities to conserve the remaining forests.
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.
Texas ocelot breeding and reintroduction may offer new route to recovery
- A public-private partnership aims to establish a new ocelot population in Texas to ensure survival and recovery of the species in the U.S. Current ocelot populations at the East Foundation’s El Sauz Ranch and Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge are small, isolated and inbred. The nearest Mexican ocelots are 100 miles to the south.
- The new Texas population can offer insurance against accidental extirpation due to a hurricane or disease and give access to now inaccessible habitat and dispersal corridors. Captive-bred ocelots, with a mix of genes from Texas and elsewhere, will be released on East Foundation’s San Antonio Viejo Ranch, west of the current range.
- The effort represents the world’s second-ever attempt to release small wildcats via a captive breeding program. Without a suitable federal or state wildlife refuge for release, the Texas program will rely on a Safe Harbor Agreement to ensure buy-in from nearby landowners. Ranches in the region have a deep culture of wildlife management.
- Distance, development and the border wall all make connectivity between U.S. and Mexican ocelots difficult — especially in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The new release site represents the best possibility for connectivity, but continued border wall development could threaten movement of ocelots and other recolonizing species.
‘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.
Sustainable infrastructure in the Pan Amazon: In search of an oxymoron
- 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.
Defending a forest for tree kangaroos and people: Q&A with Fidelis Nick
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA) has worked for more than two decades now with communities in the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea to benefit the three species of tree kangaroo that reside in the region.
- Several dozen communities signed on to a moratorium on hunting tree kangaroos, and today, species numbers are substantially higher than they were before the TCA’s work began.
- The communities have also benefited from the TCA’s economic development projects, which have included rabbit rearing, rainwater catchment systems, and solar-powered lighting installations.
- The TCA has also been working toward official government recognition of the proposed Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area. However, progress toward gazetting the protected area appears to have stalled, and mostly foreign logging companies continue to operate in the area, putting pressure on the forests of the Torricellis.
Investing in the Pan Amazon: How China’s investment operates
- 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.
Infrastructure in the Pan Amazon: Public-private partnerships
- 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.
Infrastructure in the Pan Amazon: Railroad development
- 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.
Infrastructure in the Pan Amazon: Waterway options
- 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.
Can ‘road ecology’ save millions of animals?
- About a million animals are killed on roads every day in the U.S., and globally that number is much higher.
- One of the most ubiquitous features of human societies, roads are only projected to increase, with 25 million more miles predicted to be built by 2050.
- Author Ben Goldfarb’s latest book, “Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet,” details the problem of roads and he joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss the havoc they have wreaked upon the natural world and the wildlife-friendly solutions that are now emerging.
- “If we want to show empathy and compassion and love to other beings, well, one way to do that is to design roads that don’t kill them,” he says on this episode.
Road upgrade through remote Tanzanian park threatens wildlife (commentary)
- After a pause of more than 10 years, road upgrading through Katavi National Park has restarted.
- Critics worry about the possible effects on long term conservation of protected wildlife populations in the park, the loss of thousands of trees, and a decline in tourist revenue.
- “Once the road is paved, it will never be unpaved. Instead, a compromise solution lies in sensitive thinking of where the large mammals collect,” a wildlife biologist argues in this commentary.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Can upcoming referendum in Ecuador stop oil drilling in Yasuní National Park?
- On Aug. 20, Ecuadorians will vote in a binding referendum on whether they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.
- Environmentalists have been fighting for this referendum for nearly 10 years; meanwhile, drilling in ITT began in 2016, and today 225 wells produce 54,800 barrels of oil per day.
- But the decision won’t be easy for Ecuadorians, as oil has been a major driver of economic growth for the country since the 1970s. Exports today account for more than 10% of the country’s GDP.
- In August, Ecuadorians will also vote on whether or not to allow mining to continue in the Andean Choco forest. This is not the first time a referendum has been used in an attempt to control large-scale extractive projects in the country, and it likely won’t be the last.
Oil palm and balsa plantations trigger deforestation in Ecuadorian Amazon
- Roads constructed for the oil industry have facilitated timber extraction in the Amazon for decades. Recent deforestation alerts show that this problem is ongoing.
- In Via Auca, one of the most deforested areas of Ecuador’s Amazon, farmers are turning to planting oil palm under the contract farming model.
- On the Via a Loreto, Indigenous Kichwa people are focusing on cultivating balsa trees used for a material that has been in high demand in the wind energy industry for the last five years.
Infrastructure in the Pan Amazon: The Guiana Shield and the Coastal Plain
- 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.
Infrastructure in the Andean Amazon: The Carretera Marginal de la Selva
- 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.
Nepal’s BP Highway threatens endemic, critically endangered lizard
- The dark sitana, a lizard endemic to a town in Nepal, is critically endangered by the loss and degradation of its habitat due to the BP Highway and unplanned urban development.
- Researchers are studying the ecology and threats of the dark sitana and conducting conservation outreach to raise awareness and support for its protection among local communities and stakeholders.
- The dark sitana is understudied and neglected by the government and needs more research and conservation efforts to prevent its extinction, researchers say.
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
The Andean republics of the Pan Amazon
- 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.
Roads are primary vectors of deforestation in the Pan Amazon
- 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.
Infrastructure defines the future: Chapter 2 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”
- 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.
Why did the orangutan cross the toll road to Indonesia’s new capital city?
- The sighting of a Bornean orangutan crossing the sight of an under-construction toll road to Indonesia’s new capital city has renewed questions about the government’s claims about how “green” the $32 billion project really is.
- It’s not the first wildlife sighting in the construction area; there have already been five instances of clouded leopards seen in the area.
- Activists say these sightings indicate that the development of the new capital and its supporting infrastructure is being carried out without proper planning and thus will threaten the region’s ecosystem and wildlife.
- The toll road project has cleared hundreds of hectares of forests that serve as a buffer zone to a protected forest area that’s a habitat for threatened species such as orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins.
A mega-highway threatens South America’s vulnerable Gran Chaco
- Dubbed the new Panama Canal, the 2,290-kilometer (1,423-mile) Bioceanic Corridor will connect Chile to Brazil via Argentina and Paraguay and aim to reduce freight transport costs.
- The highway crosses the Gran Chaco, one of the world’s most threatened biomes, which has already lost a fifth of its forest since 1985 due to agricultural expansion.
- Conservationists warn that the highway will lead to a surge in deforestation and an increase in the number of vehicle collisions, putting both people and wildlife at risk.
- Mitigating the environmental and social risks associated with the highway requires stronger political will and more robust implementation of protective regulations, experts say.
Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
- Old-growth forest in Central Cardamom Mountains National Park is being cleared to make way for the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, but the environmental impacts remain opaque.
- NGOs and the Ministry of Environment provide minimal oversight to prevent illegal loggers from exploiting the project site, and former loggers detailed how bribes facilitate the illicit timber trade.
- Prison officials maintained that the timber is used in a skills development program, but former inmates alleged that officials have been exploiting prison labor to craft luxury furniture.
As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
- India’s Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot, is home to many endemic and endangered species of amphibians, some of which are new to science and others suspected of lying in wait of discovery.
- Deforestation due to infrastructure and plantation expansion in the southern Western Ghats threaten the region’s amphibian species, many of which have highly restricted habitats.
- Adding to their woes is an increased risk of landslides in parts of Kerala due to erratic, heavy monsoon rains and erosion due to loss of forest.
- To save them, experts are calling for a systematic taxonomic survey of amphibians in the region and for legal protection of endangered species.
Professional services abound for Amazon land grabbers seeking legitimacy
- How does public land in the Brazilian Amazon, including chunks of protected areas and Indigenous territories, end up under private ownership?
- This investigation unveils the network of realtors and engineers who take advantage of Brazil’s disjointed land registration system to launder stolen land.
- Experts say the CAR land registry in particular, which was meant to prevent environmental crimes, has instead made land grabbing easier than ever.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
World’s newest great ape faces habitat loss, multiple threats: Will it survive?
- Scientists designated the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) as a new species in 2017, and it was immediately noted as being the rarest and most threatened great ape with fewer than 800 individuals in western Indonesia.
- The IUCN estimated the apes’ population fell by 83% in recent decades, and the species continues to face grave threats due to habitat loss, a gold mine, a hydroelectric plant and the expansion of croplands.
- While some conservation efforts offer hope, researchers say a coordinated plan is needed to ensure the species survives.
Roads, human activity take a toll on red pandas: Q&A with researcher Damber Bista
- Damber Bista is a Nepali conservation scientist studying the country’s population of red pandas, an endangered species.
- He says there needs to be much more work done to protect the species, given that 70% of their habitat falls outside of protected areas.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Bista talks about the added stress that habitat fragmentation is putting on juvenile red pandas, the need for landscape-level conservation measures, and the importance of long-term studies.
In South Texas, watch out for ocelots crossing roads (commentary)
- A recent sighting of an ocelot mother and kitten crossing a South Texas road was both heartwarming and worrying, since they’re rare and need more ways to cross roadways safely.
- Most documented ocelot deaths have occurred on Texas roadways — between 2015-2016, eight were killed by vehicles in under a year — with only 60 to 80 ocelots left in the state, such losses are unsustainable.
- Texas has constructed 27 wildlife crossings, many in ocelot-occupied areas, but more are needed, and drivers in those places should also slow down, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Struggles loom as Bolivia prepares new plan to clean up its mercury problem
- Bolivia’s failure to combat illegal gold mining led to international outcry last year, as deforestation and mercury pollution continued to run rampant.
- Earlier this month, the government announced two plans to formalize small-scale and illegal gold mining operations and introduce technology that could help replace mercury.
- However, some critics say the government has a bad track record for implementing sweeping industry regulations, which might look good on paper but fall flat in practice.
- Major road investments in mining areas could also increase illegal activity at the same time the government is implementing regulations, as it will be easier for heavy machinery to access rural areas.
Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- A Mongabay investigation indicates that a three-star military general who also serves as a top interior ministry official appears to be the notorious illegal logger known as Oknha Chey.
- Family and business ties link Meuk Saphannareth to logging operations in northern Cambodia that satellite imagery shows are clearing forest well outside their concession boundaries.
- Officials at the provincial level could not give a clear answer as to why the concession had seemingly been awarded to Oknha Chey, while the interior ministry ignored Mongabay’s questions about the allegations against Saphannareth.
- Some names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.
China-funded bridge threatens Paradise Reef in southern Philippines
- Samal Island, a popular tourist destination near Davao City in the southern Philippines, is fringed by a 300-meter (980-foot) coral system known as Paradise Reef, which hosts more than 100 coral species.
- A plan to build a bridge linking Davao to Samal threatens to destroy the reef, scientists and conservationists warn.
- Campaigners in the area are calling on the Philippine government to reroute the bridge to minimize damage to the ecosystem.
For tigers in Nepal, highways are a giant roadblock best avoided
- A new study indicates that the presence of roads, and vehicle traffic, in tiger habitats could take a toll on the big cats’ behavior and long-term fitness and survival.
- A tiger fitted with a GPS collar in Nepal’s Parsa National Park was found to avoid crossing roads by day, but to cross more often during the country’s 2021 COVID-19 lockdown.
- This suggests the animals can adapt quickly when traffic volume eases, pointing to measures that can be taken to mitigate road impacts not just on tigers, but on wildlife in general.
- Researchers say the findings should give planners in Nepal something to consider as they look to double the number of lanes on the East-West Highway that runs through both Parsa and Bardiya national parks.
The $20m flip: The story of the largest land grab in the Brazilian Amazon
- This is the story of how three individual landowners engineered the single-largest instance of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The clearing of 6,469 hectares (or 15,985 acres) of forest in the southern part of Pará state could earn them nearly $20 million in profit at current land prices.
- The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms, or plant grass and sell it for cattle ranching.
- This article was originally published in Portuguese by The Intercept Brasil and is part of the Ladrões de Floresta (Forest Thieves) project, which investigates the appropriation of public land inside the Amazon and is funded by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.
Illegal road found in Yanomami land accelerates destruction
- In December, Greenpeace and the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA) discovered a 150-kilometer- (93-mile-) long illegal road, as well as four hydraulic excavators in the Yanomami Territory, in Brazil’s northern Amazon region.
- While small-scale illegal miners have been active in the area for the past 50 years, the road and the use of heavy machinery could make mining activities 10-15 times more destructive.
- Currently, about 20,000 illegal miners operate across the Yanomami Territory, causing violence, health issues and child malnutrition for the region’s 27,000 Yanomami inhabitants.
- Newly elected President Lula has issued several decrees to protect Indigenous lands and the environment, most recently declaring a state of emergency in the Yanomami Territory.
Logging threats loom over tree kangaroo refuge in Papua New Guinea
- Logging is threatening the Torricelli Mountains, a biodiversity-rich forested range in Papua New Guinea known for its tree kangaroos and other threatened species of birds and mammals.
- Community conservation efforts have helped to increase the numbers of tree kangaroos, once nearly pushed to extinction by hunting and logging, in conjunction with development projects for the people of the Torricellis.
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance, a Papua New Guinean NGO, has led an effort to protect the area, but the government has yet to officially designate what would be the Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area.
- Satellite imagery shows the loss of forest and an increase in roadbuilding over the past two years. And residents of the Torricellis say that representatives of logging companies have been trying to secure permission to log the region’s forests.
El Salvador poised for big year of roadbuilding, despite environmental concerns
- El Salvador has prioritized refurbishing and expanding its road system, in many cases destroying habitats for vulnerable species.
- 2023 looks to be yet another ambitious year for roadbuilding, with the government announcing several “large-scale” infrastructure projects throughout the country.
- One of the biggest projects, the Los Chorros Highway, requires removing thousands of trees in an area frequented by migratory birds and several endangered species. It would also relocate nearly 199 families.
For Nepal, 2022 was a roaring Year of the Tiger
- Nepal was home to 121 tigers in 2010, the same year that it and 12 other tiger range countries agreed to double the big cat’s global population by 2022.
- Since then, Nepal has nearly tripled that figure, and is now home to 355 tigers,
As the number of tigers has increased, cases of attacks on humans and livestock have also gone up, raising concerns over the price that local communities are paying for tiger conservation success.
- Overemphasis on tigers may also be leading to neglect of other important species that are just as threatened, experts warn.
Despite the success, threats remain: government plans to build roads and railways through important habitats could severely affect tiger populations, a study has found.
Wildlife at risk in Bangladesh as roads run rampant through protected forests
- Mongabay has identified 1,618 kilometers (1,005 miles) of roads in 38 restricted forests in Bangladesh using remote sensing data, with many of these routes passing through important national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
- Unlike in neighboring India, where the formal guidelines ensure the environment ministry has a say in infrastructure projects running through forested areas, Bangladesh lacks such provisions, allowing for the proliferation of roads, railways and power lines.
- In addition to killing animals, this linear infrastructure also encouraged illegal logging, mining, hunting and poaching, the introduction of exotic species, pollution, and illegal settlements.
- Experts say it should be “common sense” to account for the needs of wildlife when planning infrastructure, and recent projects are starting to incorporate canopy bridges and over- and underpasses to accommodate animal movement.
Bill threatens more oil extraction, roads in Guatemala’s protected forests
- A bill in Guatemala’s congress would renew a contract for the current oil and gas pipeline in Laguna del Tigre National Park and make it easier to contract future drilling.
- The region’s largest oil reserves pass from southern Mexico through the Petén department and into Belize, making Laguna del Tigre National Park an ideal focus of development, some environmentalists warn.
- Additional development could lead to the creation of roads, making it easier for illegal loggers, drug traffickers and land grabbers to move into the park, as happened when the original oil field was created in the 1980s.
Indigenous community in Peru losing forests to timber, drug, land trafficking
- The Indigenous community of Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu, located in northern Peru, has been facing illegal timber, drug and land trafficking for the past several years.
- Satellite data and imagery suggest deforestation associated with these incursions has increased in 2022.
- The community lacks a communal land title to their territorial forests; experts say this is opening the door to setters who are using threats to bar regional authorities from intervening.
- Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu is one of a number of Indigenous communities in the region contending with deforestation from outsiders.
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.
As Brazil starts repaving an Amazon highway, land grabbers get to work
- Paving work has begun on a stretch of highway running through one of the remotest and best-preserved parts of the Brazilian Amazon — even as questions about the project’s permits abound.
- BR-319 was built in the 1970s to connect the Amazonian cities of Manaus and Porto Velho, but a 405-kilometer (250-mile) “Middle Stretch” fell into disrepair, making the road virtually impassable and killing the flow of traffic.
- Conservation experts have long warned against repaving the Middle Stretch, warning that improved access to this carbon-rich region will lead to a surge in deforestation, burning and land grabbing.
- With the repaving underway, this is already happening, raising concerns about unchecked forest loss that would have massive ramifications for the global climate.
Mongabay probe key as Brazil court rules on palm oil pesticide contamination
- Prosecutors in Brazil say the findings from a Mongabay investigation were key to obtaining a court decision this week to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations on Indigenous communities and the environment in northern Pará state.
- On Oct. 4, the Federal Circuit Court for the First Region in Brasília approved a forensic investigation into pesticide contamination and the socioenvironmental and health impacts in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory and the production zone of the country’s largest palm oil operation in the Tomé-Açú region.
- The green light to carry out the expert report was finally issued eight years after the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) filed a lawsuit to hold palm oil company Biopalma — acquired by Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) in late 2020 — accountable for environmental impacts.
- A 2017 University of Brasília study, contained in the Mongabay investigation, found traces of three pesticides (two of them typically listed among those used in oil palm cultivation) in the major streams and wells used by the Tembé people in Turé-Mariquita.
Road network spreads ‘arteries of destruction’ across 41% of Brazilian Amazon
- A groundbreaking study using satellite data and an artificial intelligence algorithm shows how the spread of unofficial roads throughout the Amazon is driving widespread deforestation.
- One such road is on the verge of cutting across the Xingu Socioenvironmental Corridor, posing a serious risk of helping push the Amazon beyond a crucial tipping point.
- Unprotected public lands account for 25% of the total illegal road network, with experts saying the creation of more protected areas could stem the spread and slow both deforestation and land grabs.
- Officially sanctioned roads, such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, also need better planning to minimize their impact and prevent the growth of illegal offshoots, experts say.
Nearness to roads and palm oil mills a key factor in peatland clearing by smallholders
- A new study in Indonesia’s palm oil capital of Riau has found that proximity to roads and processing mills are key factors determining whether small farmers expand their cultivation into peat swamp forests.
- This is because of the need to transport freshly harvested palm fruit to mills quickly: without the transport infrastructure that large plantations enjoy, easy access to roads and mills is paramount for smallholders.
- The study also identified zoning and geographic factors as other important drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion into peatland, along with the presence of large concessions.
- The study’s authors say the findings can help inform policies targeting areas of peatland for protection, and on helping small farmers improve their income without clearing more land to plant oil palms.
Private road sparks fears for Cameroon’s Ebo Forest
- Bulldozers have opened around 40 kilometers (25 miles) of dirt road into the heart of the biodiverse Ebo Forest in southwestern Cameroon, raising fears this will accelerate illegal logging and poaching.
- A group of local politicians and businessmen is backing the road, which is being built without consultation with communities around the forest, an environmental impact assessment, or planning permission.
- Cameroonian and foreign conservation groups have written an open letter to the EU, the U.S. and other donors asking them to intervene.
- Cameroon’s minister for forests and wildlife has reacted by ordering the ministry’s regional representative to carry out an immediate investigation — though senior government officials in the area attended a launch ceremony for the project in May.
As roads and railways threaten primates, Brazil is a global hotspot
- A study mapping out the regions of the world where primates face the greatest risk from infrastructure such as roads, railways, power lines and pipelines has identified Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia and China atop the list.
- Of the 512 known primate species, 92, or 18%, are directly affected by roads and railways; threats come from vehicle impacts as well as the “barrier effect” that the infrastructure poses, limiting the mobility of tree-dwelling animals.
- Some 25 million kilometers (15 million miles) of roads and railways are expected to be built by 2050, of which 90% will be in less-industrialized countries, including tropical regions that are home to rich primate diversity.
- Nearly 200 million hectares (almost 500 million acres) of tropical forest have been lost over the past 20 years in regions where primates live, with Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and the Amazon considered high-priority areas for mitigation and preservation measures.
End old-growth logging in carbon-rich ‘crown jewel’ of U.S. forests: Study
- A recent study of the Tongass National Forest, the largest in the United States, found that it contains 20% of the carbon held in the entire national forest system.
- In addition to keeping the equivalent of about a year and a half of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere, the forest is also home to an array of wildlife, including bald eagles, brown bears and six species of salmon and trout.
- Scientists and conservationists argue that the forest’s old-growth trees that are hundreds of years old should be protected from logging.
- They are also hoping that efforts by the administration of President Joe Biden are successful in banning the construction of new roads in the Tongass.
Canada mining push puts major carbon sink and Indigenous lands in the crosshairs
- A massive mining project called the Ring of Fire is being proposed in Canada’s Hudson Bay lowlands, a region that houses one of the biggest peatland complexes in the world and is home to several Indigenous communities.
- According to the federal and provincial governments, this region hosts one of the “most promising mineral development opportunities,” which is expected to generate jobs and revenues in the remote region.
- Environmentalists say the proposed development threatens to degrade peatlands, which act as a massive carbon store, and could lead to an increase in emissions; First Nations communities have also voiced concerns about mining impacts on traditional lands and livelihoods.
- Many of the affected First Nations have issued moratoriums against the project or have taken the provincial government to court, citing treaty violations and lack of consultations by the governments prior to greenlighting the project and issuing mining claims.
Nepal’s key habitat could lose 39% of its tigers in 20 years, study says
- Nearly two-fifths of adult tigers in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park could be killed over the next 20 years as a result of vehicle strikes on the roads near the park, a new study says.
- The projection is based on tiger movement data going back to the 1970s, and shows that the addition of a proposed railway line would result in an additional 30 tiger deaths.
- Chitwan is home to 133 tigers, and the large number of projected losses would be devastating to the population, which is already increasingly cut off from its range in neighboring India as a result of human-made obstacles, including roads.
- The study authors say this worst-case scenario should be a wake-up call to authorities to plan infrastructure projects with wildlife mobility as a key concern.
‘Wildlife-friendly’ infrastructure rules in Nepal and India ignore the birds
- Nepal’s newly introduced guidelines for infrastructure projects are aimed at making them less disruptive to wildlife, but conservationists say they fail to consider birds.
- So-called linear infrastructure — things like roads, railways and power lines — fragment dense forests that are home to birds, severely impacting them.
- A recent study shows a higher diversity of bird species in a contiguous forest compared to a nearby isolated one that’s hemmed in by infrastructure projects.
- Conservationists say it’s important to keep contiguous forests intact, design mitigation measures for wildlife, and keep monitoring the impact of projects on wildlife.
As tiger numbers in Nepal and India grow, their freedom to roam shrinks
- Nepal is one of the few countries on track to double its tiger population this year from a 2010 baseline.
- But a growing sense of “animal nationalism” threatens to mar this success, with local media playing up the tigers’ travels across the border into India.
- The big cats, which don’t recognize political boundaries, have always roamed a wide range in this region, yet even this behavior is under threat as key corridors are restricted or cut off entirely by infrastructure projects by both countries.
- Conservationists have called for keeping nationalism out of planning and implementation of conservation efforts, for the sake of this iconic species.
Putin’s financial interest in Brazil’s Amazon highways (commentary)
- Rosneft, a giant Russian government oil and gas company, has bought drilling rights to 16 blocks in the vast area of intact rainforest in the western part of Brazil’s Amazon region. A planned highway would give access directly to three of these blocks, and branch roads would be likely to be built to the other Rosneft blocks, opening the area to invasion by landgrabbers, squatters, loggers and others.
- Vladimir Putin appointed as Rosneft’s CEO a close friend who is considered to be the most powerful person in Russia after Putin himself. Putin views Rosneft as his personal property according to the exiled oligarch who had formerly been “Putin’s banker.”
- Building the BR-319 and AM-366 highways would financially benefit Putin’s associates (and either directly or indirectly Putin himself). Rosneft is capable of influencing Brazilian authorities to prioritize these highways. It is unknown what was discussed about “energy” when Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro met with Putin in Moscow for three hours just before the invasion of Ukraine.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul mobilizes to reduce wildlife massacre on its roads
- More than 12,000 wild animals were killed on the roads in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state between 2017 and 2020, including threatened species such as tapirs and giant anteaters.
- The real death toll is likely much higher, conservation groups say, as that number is based only on the carcasses found on the road; in many cases, the animals survive the initial collision but die elsewhere, or else the carcass is dragged away by scavengers.
- The deadliest stretches are on three roads: BR-262, BR-267 and MS-040, the main links between Mato Grosso do Sul’s capital, Campo Grande, and the state of São Paulo.
- In Bonito, a popular ecotourism destination in the state, NGOs are working with the government on measures such as speed bumps and suspended crossings that they hope can be replicated throughout Mato Grosso do Sul.
The world’s dams: Doing major harm but a manageable problem?
- Dam construction is one of the oldest, most preferred tools to manage freshwater for various uses. The practice reached a peak internationally in the 1960s and ’70s, but in recent years dam construction has faced increasing global criticism as the hefty environmental price paid for their benefits piles up.
- The flows of most major waterways have been impacted by dams globally. Only 37% of rivers longer than 1,000 km (620 mi) remain free-flowing, and just 23% flow uninterrupted to the sea. Natural flows will be altered for 93% of river volume worldwide by 2030, if all planned and ongoing hydropower construction goes ahead.
- This global fragmentation of rivers has led to severe impacts. Dams have contributed to an 84% average decline in freshwater wildlife population sizes since 1970. More than a quarter of Earth’s land-to-ocean sediment flux is trapped behind dams. Dams also impact Earth’s climate in complex ways via modification of the carbon cycle.
- But dams are needed for energy, agriculture and drinking water, and are an inevitable part of our future. Lessons on how to balance their benefits against the environmental harm they do are already available to us: removing some existing dams, for example, and not building others.
Road projects threaten integrity of Uganda’s mountain gorilla stronghold
- Ugandan authorities are considering two road projects through Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, home to half of the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas.
- The proposed new road will impact connectivity between Bwindi and Sarambwe Nature Reserve in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, says the International Gorilla Conservation Programme.
- Most conservationists don’t dispute the need for improved road infrastructure for nearby communities, but say they’re concerned the government is overlooking less harmful alternatives.
‘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.”
2021 Amazon deforestation map shows devastating impact of ranching, agriculture
- Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) found that around 1.9 million hectares (4.8 million acres) of the Amazon were lost last year, mostly in Brazil and Bolivia.
- The mapping data shine a light on the different causes of deforestation in each country, including agriculture, cattle ranching and road construction.
- The data also provide some positive takeaways, such as Peru’s successful crackdown on illegal mining, and a contiguous core section of Amazonian forest still acting as a carbon sink.
Road project threatens to derail Nepal’s conservation gains, study says
- A new study rates the risk that existing and planned roads pose to tigers, wolves and other apex predators around the world.
- In the case of Nepal, the study also identifies sloth bears, wild dogs and clouded leopards as among the animals most at risk.
- The new Postal Highway being built in the nation’s south could impact eight major protected areas in Nepal and five transboundary protected areas in India.
- The threats posed by roads to wildlife include vehicle collisions, habitat fragmentation, and increased poaching pressure.
The Trans-Papua Highway could lose billions and deforest millions of hectares
- Set to run some 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) and being built over the course of decades, the Trans-Papua Highway cuts across the entire length of Indonesian New Guinea’s two provinces.
- While nearly complete, it has not yet fully interlinked major cities, and has raised concerns among experts that it could open up the world’s third-largest swath of tropical rainforest to further deforestation. Tanah Papua has already lost 750,000 hectares of forest cover (1.85 million acres) over the past 20 years.
- A study published last September warns that if the Trans-Papua Highway spurs a similar spate of development on Papua as the Trans-Kalimantan Highway did on Borneo, the region could lose up to an additional 4.5 million hectares (11.12 million acres) of forest cover by 2036.
- For this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast, we interview David Gaveau, who founded The TreeMap (a forest loss monitoring platform), and distinguished professor at James Cook University, Bill Laurance to discuss the impacts the Trans-Papua Highway could have for Indonesian New Guinea.
China’s building spree in Nepal casts shadow over Himalayan ecosystem
- China’s role in Nepal has intensified in the period since the 2015 earthquake, mostly in the form of investments in rebuilding projects. In 2019 alone, China initiated a series of projects, including factories and hydropower plants, worth $2.4 billion in Nepal.
- Many of the infrastructure projects run through sensitive environments, including national parks, and the construction of hydropower plants has been criticized by environmental organizations and local communities for destroying river ecosystems.
- For example, work on the Rasuwagadhi hydroelectric project, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, resumed in 2016, despite protests from locals who blamed the dam for mass fish deaths.
Illegal roads pierce Indigenous reserve, national parks in Colombian Amazon
- A series of roads in the Colombian Amazon are cutting through national parks and an Indigenous reserve, satellite imagery shows.
- Residents of the reserve and environmental experts say the authorities have done little to stop the expansion of the road network, which has been accompanied by extensive deforestation.
- Experts and anonymous sources say well-funded operators are behind this pattern of deforestation and the land grabbing that follows.
- Residents of the Yaguará II Indigenous Reserve, already facing violence from ex-guerrillas who once controlled this region, say they’re worried about the roads bringing in more settlers occupying their territory.
How wildlife crossings in Canada are inspiring safer roads for global species
- The stretch of Trans-Canada highway that runs through Banff National Park was once incredibly dangerous for animals and motorists alike, but today the park has more wildlife crossing structures than anywhere else in the world and the data to support their effectiveness.
- The crossing structures at Banff inspired a project on I-90 in the U.S. state of Washington with its own location-specific twists.
- Tribal efforts also led to a Banff-informed development project on US-93 in the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana that respects local people and wildlife.
- Lessons from Banff are informing projects beyond North America: In Costa Rica, emerging crossing structure projects protect jaguars and canopy-dwelling creatures.
Oil highway bears down on uncontacted Indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Yasuní
- The construction of a controversial oil road in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park has expanded rapidly during the pandemic, and has now reached the buffer area of a core zone that’s home to uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
- The groups are the last two Indigenous nations living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador, and the oil project puts them in imminent danger, activists warn.
- They’re concerned about state-owned PetroEcuador’s plans to continue building the road and other oil platforms within the buffer zone, something that was made legal under a 2019 executive order.
- Conservationists say this order violates the rights of the two nations in voluntary isolation, and the Constitutional Court is now reviewing a challenge filed against it.
Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Construction on Bali’s second major toll road, stretching from the island’s western tip to its urban center in the south, is set to begin this year.
- Environmental advocates say the project will obstruct water flows to dozens of irrigation sites across the island’s west.
- Some worry the project could impede conservation efforts in West Bali National Park.
Carnivores avoid rush hour by taking to roads at night
- Large carnivores avoid people by steering clear of roads during the day, but they often travel by road at night.
- Avoiding humans is a higher priority than avoiding other carnivore species.
- Humans may also be altering predator-prey relationships by making large carnivores more nocturnal.
UNESCO reiterates road project’s dangers to Papua park as Indonesia doubles down
- UNESCO has renewed its call for Indonesia to close the Trans-Papua road that runs through a national park in the easternmost region of Papua, citing environmental concerns.
- The call comes after the environment minister said UNESCO’s request is not realistic and thus the road can’t be closed since it connects multiple districts in the region.
- The government also says the road construction doesn’t violate any law, but UNESCO says the concern is on the environmental impact of the road, not on whether the project is legal or not.
- Activists in the region say the road is also meant to serve extractive industries in the park, including logging and mining.
Infrastructure projects in Congo Basin need greater oversight, report says
- A new report by Rainforest Foundation UK says that new transport and energy infrastructure projects in the Congo Basin do not adequately account for their full environmental and social impact and may lead to irreversible degradation of this vital forest region.
- RFUK is calling for regional governments and international lenders to take a more robust and transparent approach to managing the environmental impacts of infrastructure projects to ensure that needed development takes place in a sustainable way.
- The report says infrastructure projects often conflict with the goals of REDD+ projects, and their negative impacts are not properly accounted for.
- Denis Sonwa from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), who is unaffiliated with the RFUK report, says the REDD+ schemes add weight and legitimacy to the forest sector in negotiations over infrastructure projects.
BR-319 highway hearings: An attack on Brazil’s interests and Amazonia’s future (commentary)
- Brazil’s proposed reconstruction of the BR-319, a highway connecting Manaus (in central Amazonia) with the “arc of deforestation” in southern Amazonia, would bring deforesters to vast areas of what remains of the Amazon forest.
- The forest areas in western Amazonia that would be opened by planned roads connecting to the BR-319 are vital to maintaining rainfall that supplies water to São Paulo and other major urban and agricultural areas outside the Amazon region.
- Holding public hearings allows a “box to be checked” in the licensing process — a key step in obtaining official approval for the highway project. The hearing was held despite impacted Indigenous peoples not having been consulted, among other irregularities.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Recent satellite data has shown a marked increase in the loss of tree cover in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province.
- Many of the alerts were near new or existing logging roads, indicating that the forest loss may be due to timber harvesting.
- Oil palm production is also growing, altering the face of a province that had more than 98% of its primary forest remaining less than a decade ago.
- The surge in land use changes has affected not only the environment in East New Britain, but also the lives of the members of the communities who depend on it.
Green groups call for scrapping of $300m loan offer for Borneo road project
- The Asian Development Bank is considering a $300 million loan proposal from the Indonesian government to fund a road project in Borneo.
- The 280-kilometer (170-mile) project across North and East Kalimantan provinces are designed to boost economic growth and further the integration of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industries.
- Environmental groups around the world have urged the ADB to impose stricter environmental and social requirements for the project to reduce its expected impacts on the environment and the Indigenous communities living in the region.
- Indigenous peoples like the Dayak rely on the forests staying intact, as do critically endangered species such as Bornean orangutans.
Tanzanian gold miners ten times more likely to die from road injuries, study finds
- Miners were 10 times more likely to die of traffic-related injuries than people who did not work in mining, a study that looked at Tanzania’s two biggest gold mines found.
- Africa has a third of the global stock of metals and minerals and hosts around 700 active large-scale mining sites, with more in the pipeline as the world’s appetite for these resources grows.
- Of the 186 people of working age who died in five wards around the two mines in a year, about half were miners, reflecting the higher risks miners faced, especially men.
- The study authors say that interventions should be designed to prevent road injuries in the wider community, not just at the mine sites, and the definition of safety in mining areas needs to be broader.
Deforestation threatens tree kangaroo habitat in Papua New Guinea
- A proposed conservation area in northwestern Papua New Guinea has experienced a substantial surge in deforestation-related alerts, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland.
- The still-unofficial Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area is home to critically endangered tree kangaroo species, along with a host of other biodiversity.
- In May 2021, communities voiced concern about road construction that was approaching the boundaries of the proposed conservation area and that the intended target may have been high-value timber species found within the region’s forests.
- Investment in local communities and the protection of the forests that these communities provide have led to an apparent rise in tree kangaroo populations, but logging and other potentially destructive land uses such as conversion to large-scale agriculture remain threats in the Torricellis and throughout Papua New Guinea.
Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.
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.
When North America locked down, birds filled the gap left by people
- Of the 82 bird species considered in an analysis, the distribution of 66 changed during pandemic-related shutdowns, and most of them grew in abundance in and around human settlements.
- The researchers gathered more than 4 million records from eBird, a community science program that relies on contributions from volunteers, both amateur and specialist birders.
- The study in Science Advances captured how sensitive birds are to human activities and highlighted how small adjustments could make areas used by humans welcoming to other species.
Build around the forest, not through it, study says of Sumatra trucking road
- Researchers have identified alternative routes for a planned mining road that will cut through the Harapan forest, the largest surviving tract of lowland tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- The alternative routes will avoid thousands of hectares of forest loss as they skirt the main forest block while traversing nearby lands that are largely deforested.
- They are also potentially cheaper than the routes planned by coal miner PT Marga Bara Jaya (MBJ) because they utilize existing road networks and improve them.
- Local environmental activists have identified similar alternative routes, but the fact that the company is proposing a more destructive path points to a lack of will to minimize deforestation, poor planning, or a deliberate attempt to cut through the middle of the forest, researchers say.
New transport infrastructure is opening the Amazon to global commerce
- Tim Killeen provides an update on the state of the Amazon in his new book “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness – Success and Failure in the Fight to save an Ecosystem of Critical Importance to the Planet.”
- The book provides an overview of the topics most relevant to the conservation of the Amazon’s biodiversity, ecosystem services and Indigenous cultures, as well as a description of the conventional and sustainable development models vying for space within the regional economy.
- Mongabay will publish excerpts from the Killeen’s book, which will be released by The White Horse Press in serial format over the course of the next year. In this second installment, we provide a section from Chapter Two: “Global Competition Drives Bulk Transport Systems”.
- This post is an except from a book. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
As illegal logging route in Peru nears Brazil, Indigenous groups warn of calamity
- Loggers are illegally reopening an abandoned road in Peru’s Ucayali region, threatening the dozens of Indigenous territories along the country’s border with Brazil, activists say.
- The UC-105 road reportedly cut through the Sawawo Indigenous Reserve in Peru last month, stopping just 11 kilometers (less than 7 miles) from the Brazilian border.
- The project is not authorized by Peru’s government but has forged ahead anyway, with no environmental impact studies or consultation with communities, Indigenous leaders say.
- Critics of the road say it will bring a surge in deforestation, drug trafficking and river degradation for the region’s Indigenous communities, who have been fighting off the loggers for decades and are now demanding authorities act to stop the advance of the road.
Jaguar stronghold in Brazil’s Iguaçu Park threatened by road reopening plan
- A bill introduced in Brazil’s Congress calls for reopening a closed road that cuts through Iguaçu National Park.
- The proposal poses a serious threat to jaguars, whose numbers have been growing steadily there; the area is home to one-third of the big cat’s remaining population in the Atlantic Forest.
- Reopening the road, closed since 2001, will not only increase the animals’ risk of being hit by vehicles but also make it easier for poachers to hunt them — the main threat to jaguars.
- It can also cause impacts such as noise and air pollution, soil degradation, and changes in local microclimate, experts warn.
New study offers latest proof that Brazilian Amazon is now a net CO2 source
- The Brazilian Amazon has been transformed from a carbon dioxide sink to a source for new emissions over the past two decades, a new study shows.
- While the Amazon as a whole, which straddles nine countries, has absorbed about 1.7 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent more than it has emitted in the past 20 years, the Brazilian portion alone has emitted a net 3.6 billion metric tons during that period.
- This study by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) is unique because it was able to go deeper in analyzing changes in forest emissions from different parts of the rainforest compared to previous research, says author Matt Finer.
- Satellite monitoring data show that formally protected areas and lands controlled by Indigenous peoples hold the best hope for preserving the Amazon and its function as a bulwark against climate change.
Highway cutting through Heart of Borneo poised to be ‘very, very bad’
- With Indonesia planning to shift its capital from Jakarta to the Bornean province of East Kalimantan, infrastructure development pressures on the island have intensified.
- Neighboring Malaysia is adding new stretches to the Pan Borneo Highway to capitalize on spillover economic benefits; within Indonesia, East Kalimantan’s developmental gains are also expected to trickle to other provinces through the transboundary highway.
- While the new roads could spur economic development in remote villages, they also carve into protected areas in the Heart of Borneo, opening them up for resource extraction.
- In particular, the roads could fast-track development of a new “oil palm belt,” with disastrous consequences for the wildlife and Indigenous peoples of Borneo, and for global climate, experts say.
Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
- Indonesia’s Papua region, comprising the western half of the island of New Guinea, lost an area of rainforest five times the size of London since 2001, according to a new study.
- Deforestation in Papua has ramped up in the past two decades as companies clear forests to make way for large-scale plantations and the government embarks on a massive push for infrastructure development.
- More forests are set to disappear in the future as the government has allocated millions of hectares of land to be developed into industrial plantations and the development of new roads, exacerbating the risk of deforestation, the study warns.
- The study authors call for giving Indigenous Papuans greater autonomy to manage their forests, given that some communities have been able to maintain their forests in near-pristine condition even though government oversight has largely been absent.
UNESCO calls for closure of road running through World Heritage park in Papua
- UNESCO has called for the closure of a long stretch of road that runs through Lorentz National Park, a World Heritage Site, in Indonesia’s Papua region.
- Experts have identified an increase in deforestation and logging activities inside the park since the road was completed.
- The government says efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts of the road began in 2017 but ended prematurely a year later due to security reasons, which UNESCO calls “deeply concerning.”
Indonesia’s Gorontalo road runs into forest, swerves environmental checks
- Designated a national strategic project, the Gorontalo Outer Ring Road will connect the main air and seaports in Sulawesi Island’s Gorontalo province.
- Divided into three segments, the 45-kilometer (28-mile) road cuts through steep karst features, agricultural fields, informal settlements, and areas of protected forest.
- The project has already been plagued by graft linked to land acquisition, and construction remains unfinished.
- Now officials say that the project has not complied with legally mandated environmental checks.
Illegal deforestation intensifies along Brazilian highway as agribusiness hopes swell
- Highway BR-319 runs some 885 km (550 mi) from Rondonia’s capital of Porto Velho to Manaus, the Amazon’s largest city.
- Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to pave the portion of BR-319 that runs through the southern part of the state of Amazonas to ease the transportation of timber — and, eventually, soy — out of the remote, densely forested region.
- Environmentalists and researchers say this has encouraged outsiders to illegally invade and deforest large areas of intact forest.
- Satellite data and imagery shows deforestation has increased along the southern portion of the road in 2021, including in and near protected areas.
Planned Brazil-Peru highway threatens one of Earth’s most biodiverse places
- Serra do Divisor National Park on Brazil’s border with Peru is home to numerous endemic animals and more than a thousand plant species, but faces a double threat from a planned highway and a bid to downgrade its protected status.
- The downgrade from national park to “environmental protection area” would paradoxically open up this Andean-Amazon transition region to deforestation, cattle ranching, and mining — activities that are currently prohibited in the park.
- The highway project, meant to give Acre another land route to the Pacific via Peru, has been embraced by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, which has already taken the first steps toward its construction.
- Indigenous and river community leaders say they have not been consulted about the highway, as required by law, and have not been told about the proposed downgrade of the park, both of which they warn will have negative socioenvironmental impacts.
A road project in Indonesia’s Gorontalo carves a path of graft and grief
- More than 1,000 families were entitled to payments for land needed to construct the Gorontalo Outer Ring Road, a national priority infrastructure project on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island.
- The road will connect Djalaluddin Airport in the capital of Gorontalo province with the province’s main ferry port.
- Spending on the project reached almost 1 trillion rupiah ($69 million) between 2014 and 2017.
- A senior provincial official and two surveyors have been jailed in connections with corruption in the land acquisition process, while another top official is also standing trial.
Deforestation soars 40% in Xingu River Basin in Brazilian Amazon
- An area of forest twice the size of New York City was cleared in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin between March and April this year, a rate of deforestation 40% higher than in the same period last year, a new report shows.
- The highest rates of forest loss were recorded along the path of the BR-163 “soy highway,” a major trucking route that cuts through one of the most ecologically important parts of the Amazon Rainforest.
- Deforestation was recorded in protected areas, including conservation units and Indigenous reserves, which points to a failure by the government to fight environmental crimes, according to an author of the report.
- The main driver of deforestation in Indigenous reserves is illegal mining, which activists say has been encouraged by the rhetoric and legislative initiatives of President Jair Bolsonaro.
NGOs call for alternative routes for Bornean road to avoid wildlife habitat
- Coalition Humans Habitats Highways has urged authorities in the Malaysian state of Sabah to adopt alternative routes to a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway.
- That particular stretch cuts through a protected forest reserve and overlaps extensively with heavily used elephant migration paths.
- Experts say constructing the highway as currently planned would increase wildlife-vehicle collisions, including deadly accidents involving elephants, as well as human-elephant conflict.
- It would also derail progress made by local community efforts encouraging humans and elephants to coexist in harmony.
Drugs, fire, settlers poised to wipe out one of Paraguay’s most biodiverse forests
- San Rafael National Park/Proposed National Reserve encompasses one of the most unique, biodiverse and threatened forests in Paraguay.
- Fires in late 2020 burned an estimated 45% of the reserve, and biologists say it may take decades for the area to recover.
- Meanwhile, drug traffickers are expanding illegal marijuana plantations within San Rafael and on May 21, more than a hundred outsiders reportedly crossed into the reserve where they are clearing trees and establishing settlements.
- Despite its international categorization as a national park, a 2002 recategorization error left San Rafael unrecognized as a protected area in Paraguay, making the area ineligible for proper protection.
Settlers invading, deforesting Colombian national parks ‘at an unstoppable speed’
- Colombia’s Tinigua National Natural Park is experiencing one of the highest levels of deforestation of any such protected area in the country, and has lost more than a quarter of its primary forest since 2002.
- Sources say this deforestation is happening due to settlers who are illegally invading and establishing roads, settlements and farms in protected forest – and clearing it in the process.
- Other national parks and Indigenous territories in the Colombian Amazon are also experiencing incursions.
- Sources say they are happening at such a scale that the government has been unable to effectively stop it.
After gold miners shoot Yanomani people, Brazil cuts environmental regulation further
- With 300 votes in favor and 122 against, Brazil’s Lower House passed the draft of a bill on May 12 that withdraws environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, ranging from construction of roads to agriculture.
- The measure, which was submitted to the Senate for its appraisal, is backed by President Jair Bolsonaro and the powerful conservative agribusiness lobby — the ‘ruralistas’ — who champion it as a way of slashing red tape on environmental licensing, to facilitate “self-licensing” infrastructure projects.
- Congressmen, experts and activists opposed to it are convinced the new legal framework will inevitably fast-track approval of high-risk projects, leading to deforestation and the escalation of violence against traditional communities.
- As the Lower House moved to approve it, Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state. “They [illegal miners] are not shooting to try and scare us. They want us dead,” a Yanomami leader told Mongabay.
In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs
- Multiple sources, backed by satellite data, say an illegal road is being cut through the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Sources say the road will facilitate land invasions into the biosphere and is likely to be used as a drug-trafficking route.
- The road has created divisions between Indigenous groups, with the Bakinasta Miskito denouncing its presence and demanding the government step in to halt it.
- Despite knowing about the road for more than a year, the Honduran government has not taken definitive action to enforce the law.
Behind the scenes video unveils water contamination by ‘sustainable’ Amazon palm oil
- Brazil's official policy states that Amazon palm oil is green, but is that true? An 18-month investigation showed the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, and it revealed what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
- The Mongabay investigation will be used by federal prosecutors as evidence to hold a palm oil company accountable for water contamination in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve.
- Federal prosecutors have pursued Brazil’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years, alleging the companies are contaminating water supplies, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples, charges the companies deny.
- In this behind-the-scenes video, Mongabay's Contributing Editor in Brazil, Karla Mendes, takes us on her reporting journey as her team tracks how the palm oil industry is changing this Amazonian landscape.
Relocating mangroves for Indonesian highway ‘not that easy,’ expert warns
- Indonesia is building a toll road and levee along the north coast of Java Island in an effort to reduce congestion and prevent tidal flooding.
- But the project will cut through swaths of mangrove forest, some of which will be relocated, according to officials.
- An environmental expert has warned against the mangrove relocation plan, noting that poor procedures will likely lead to failed growth of trees at the new sites.
Déjà vu as palm oil industry brings deforestation, pollution to Amazon
- Palm oil, a crop synonymous with deforestation and community conflicts in Southeast Asia, is making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon, where the same issues are playing out.
- Indigenous and traditional communities say the plantations in their midst are polluting their water, poisoning their soil, and driving away fish and game.
- Scientists have found high levels of agrochemical residues in these communities — though still within Brazil’s legal limits — while prosecutors are pursuing legal cases against the companies for allegedly violating Indigenous and traditional communities’ rights and damaging the environment.
- Studies based on satellite imagery also disprove the companies’ claims that they only plant on already deforested land.
Papua deforestation highlights eastward shift of Indonesia forest clearing
- Deforestation is increasing in forest-rich regions in Indonesia, even as the government claims the national average has gone down, a new report shows.
- The NGOs behind the report attribute the decline in the national deforestation rate to the fact that there’s virtually no forest left to clear in parts of Sumatra and Borneo.
- Instead, deforestation has moved east, largely to the Papua region, home to nearly two-fifths of Indonesia’s remaining rainforest — an area the size of Florida — where companies are clearing land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations and mines.
- Another key driver of the deforestation in Papua is infrastructure development, which the government claims is meant to connect remote villages and communities, but which really serve mines, plantations and logging concessions, the report shows.
Brazil’s BR-319: Politicians capitalize on the Manaus oxygen crisis to promote a disastrous highway (Commentary)
- Brazil’s proposed reconstruction of the formerly abandoned BR-319 highway is notorious for its potential impact on Amazonian deforestation and indigenous peoples.
- The highway would connect Manaus, in the center of the Amazon, to the “arc of deforestation” in the southern part of the region, opening vast areas of forest to invasion.
- The current oxygen crisis in Manaus has been a windfall for politicians promoting the highway project, using the false argument that BR-319 is needed to supply oxygen to the city.
- This text is translated and expanded from the first author’s column on the Amazônia Real website. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Planned coal-trucking road threatens a forest haven for Sumatran frogs
- The Harapan forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra is teeming with frog species, one of which was just described last year.
- These amphibians are threatened by a coal-trucking road that the government has approved to be built right through the forest.
- Environmental activists have pushed back against the project, calling on the government to either suspend the project or approve alternative routes that would bypass the forest altogether or cut through a less pristine portion of it.
- The local government has promised to study the project’s impact, but activists point out the final decision lies with the central government, which gave the approval and has still not addressed their concerns.
Deforestation spurred by road project creeps closer to Sumatra wildlife haven
- A road in Sumatra that cuts through the only habitat on Earth that houses rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans has recently been upgraded, stoking fears of greater human incursion into the rainforest.
- Already the upgrades have seen a proliferation of human settlements along a section of the road in a forest adjacent to Gunung Leuser National Park, resulting in the loss of 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of forest.
- Environmentalists say it’s only a matter of time before the encroachment spreads into the national park, triggering fears that it will fragment the habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutans.
- The road upgrade was carried out despite calls against it from UNESCO, which lists the national park as part of a World Heritage Site and has identified infrastructure projects as a threat to the ecosystem.
How the pandemic impacted rainforests in 2020: a year in review
- 2020 was supposed to be a make-or-break year for tropical forests. It was the year when global leaders were scheduled to come together to assess the past decade’s progress and set the climate and biodiversity agendas for the next decade. These included emissions reductions targets, government procurement policies and corporate zero-deforestation commitments, and goals to set aside protected areas and restore degraded lands.
- COVID-19 upended everything: Nowhere — not even tropical rainforests — escaped the effects of the global pandemic. Conservation was particularly hard in tropical countries.
- 2019’s worst trends for forests mostly continued through the pandemic including widespread forest fires, rising commodity prices, increasing repression and violence against environmental defenders, and new laws and policies in Brazil and Indonesia that undermine forest conservation.
- We don’t yet have numbers on the degree to which the pandemic affected deforestation, because it generally takes several months to process that data. That being said, there are reasons to suspect that 2020’s forest loss will again be substantial.
Brazilian woman threatened by Amazon loggers wins global human rights award
- Rural community leader Osvalinda Alves Pereira is the first Brazilian to receive the Edelstam Prize, a Swedish award given to human rights defenders. She was honored this November for her brave stand against illegal loggers and for her defense of the Amazon agrarian reform community of Areia in Pará state.
- Illegal loggers there have repeatedly threatened Osvalinda and her husband with violence, forcing them out of their community and into urban safe houses. Now the couple has returned to their rural home; threats to Osvalinda and her community have resumed since she received the Edelstam Prize.
- Illegal deforestation, especially the illegal export of rare and valuable Amazon woods, has been strongly aided by the deregulatory policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, according to critics, who also say that the president’s incendiary rhetoric is emboldening illegal loggers and others to violence.
- Still threatened by logging militias in Amazonia, Osvalinda received the award just a week after President Bolsonaro in a speech tried to shift responsibility for the policing of Amazon illegal deforestation away from Brazil and onto its foreign trading partners who are importing timber from the South American nation.
Tiger on the highway
- The wildlife rich island of Sumatra is experiencing a road building boom, causing some of its iconic creatures to be seen by construction workers: a photo of a Sumatran tiger crossing a highway work-site went viral this summer, for example.
- Less than 400 of these critically endangered animals exist, and they need space despite their diminutive stature: up to 250 square kilometers for each one's territory.
- To discuss the conservation impact of - and alternatives to - such infrastructure projects, Mongabay's podcast interviewed Hariyo “Beebach” Wibisono, a research fellow at the San Diego Zoo Global & director of SINTAS Indonesia, plus Bill Laurance, a distinguished professor at James Cook University.
- This podcast is the latest in the Mongabay Explores series, taking a deep dive into the fascinating wildlife and complicated conservation issues of this giant Indonesian island.
A forest in Sumatra disappears for farms and roads. So do its elephants
- The 15,300-hectare (37,900-acre) Balai Raja Wildlife Reserve in Sumatra’s Riau province was established in 1986 and designated an elephant reserve in 1992.
- By 2010, less than 200 hectares of intact forest remained in the reserve. The elephant herd, which as of 2014 numbered 25, had no more than seven survivors as of late 2019.
- Much of the forest was lost to oil palm plantations and smallholder agriculture, but official government buildings have also been built within the reserve.
- Now, the remaining elephant habitat is threatened by a road construction project that is also mired in corruption.
Planned road to bisect pristine, biodiverse Brazilian Amazon national park
- The BR-364 highway stretches for 4,325 kilometers across Brazil, ending in Acre state. Now authorities, backed by Acre’s state government and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, want to extend it with a 152-kilometer branch road through Serra do Divisor National Park, near demarcated Indigenous reserves, and to the Peru border.
- Meanwhile, the Brazilian Congress is moving a bill forward to fast track the branch road’s approval by degrading the conservation status of the national park and reclassifying it as an APA, an Área de Proteção Ambiental, which would allow timber harvesting, ranching, agriculture and mining.
- Environmentalists and Indigenous communities warn that the planned road and the reduction in protections for Serra do Divisor National Park would open up the conservation unit and a pristine portion of the Brazilian Amazon, providing access to loggers, cattle ranchers and landgrabbers.
- Though the road is still not approved, local sources say as much as 30 kilometers of forest along the route have already been cleared to the park’s border. “With each day, each year that passes, the deforestation advances further. The destruction of humans is relentless… And for us, it’s really difficult to witness,” said one Indigenous leader.
Trans-Purus: Brazil’s last intact Amazon forest at immediate risk (commentary)
- Brazil’s remaining Amazon forest is roughly divided in half by the Purus River, just west of the notorious BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway. To the west of the river lies the vast “Trans-Purus” region — intact rainforest stretching to the Peruvian border. To the east, the forest is already heavily deforested, degraded and fragmented.
- Multiple threats are now closing in on the Trans-Purus region, and expected to increase greatly with the impending “reconstruction” of the BR-319. Planned roads linked to the BR-319 would open the Trans-Purus region to land grabbers (grileiros), organized landless farmers (sem-terras) and other actors from Brazil’s “arc of deforestation.”
- A massive planned gas and oil project would also likely lead to new road connections to the other planned highways in the Trans-Purus area, opening even more of the region to invasion. Asian oil palm and logging companies are among those with a historical interest in the area.
- This last large block of intact Brazilian Amazon forest is essential for ecosystem services — maintaining biodiversity, carbon stocks, and the forest water cycling functions essential for rainfall in other parts of Brazil and neighboring countries. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Activists in Malaysia call on road planners to learn the lessons of history
- To its proponents, the 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) Pan Borneo Highway holds the promise of economic development for the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
- But activists in Sabah say that poor planning and an emphasis on extracting resources mean that the highway could harm communities and ecosystems in Sabah’s forests and along its coastlines.
- A new film captures the perspectives of people living closest to the highway’s proposed path and reveals the struggles that some have faced as the road closed in on their homes.
- Meanwhile, an environmental historian argues that Pan Borneo Highway planners are repeating the same mistakes British colonists made in focusing on extraction, rather than trying to find ways to benefit Sabah’s communities.
Road-paving project threatens a wildlife-rich reserve in Indonesia’s Papua
- The Indonesian government plans to pave a stretch of highway running through an ecologically important wildlife reserve in the country’s Papua region.
- Experts warn the paving will encourage greater encroachment into Mamberamo Foja Wildlife Reserve, which is home to at least 332 bird species and 80 mammal species.
- Another section of the Trans-Papua Highway was constructed through Lorentz National Park earlier, and studies show it’s already having an impact in terms of increased deforestation.
BR-319: The beginning of the end for Brazil’s Amazon forest (commentary)
- Brazil’s planned reconstruction of the BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) Highway paralleling the Purus and Madeira rivers would give deforesters access to about half of what remains of the country’s Amazon forest, and so is perhaps the most consequential conservation issue for Brazil today.
- The highway route is essentially a lawless area today, and the lack of governance is a critical issue in the battle over licensing the highway reconstruction project.
- The BR-319 upgrade would link the current “arc of deforestation” to central Amazonia, allowing movement of deforestation actors to all forest locations with road links to Manaus, while a planned BR-319 connecting road would open the vast forest area between the BR-319 and the Peruvian border.
- The BR-319 Environmental Impact Assessment has many flaws, including ignoring impacts beyond those adjacent to the highway. The EIA also contains passages admitting to some disastrous project impacts. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Long entrenched Brazilian military mindset is key to Amazon policy: Expert
- According to academic Joao Roberto Martins Filho, an expert on the Brazilian armed forces, the military traditionally sees itself as the “protectors of the Amazon.” For his research, Martins Filho talked to soldiers, officers, and even generals, whose views were very consistent.
- President Bolsonaro has included 6,000 former and current military personnel in his administration, including the VP, who heads the new Amazon Council. Bolsonaro needs military support to shield him from international criticism and to secure reelection, says the expert.
- A chief Brazilian military view, according to Martins Filho, judges Indigenous people as obstacles to progress and “savages” in need of civilizing. Amazon foreign intervention is also feared, explaining a national security-driven desire to extend a highway to Brazil’s northern border.
- Interestingly, in a previously secret 1986 document, Brazil’s military warned about the grave consequences of Amazon deforestation, stating that massive tree loss would lead to a reduction in rainfall, changing river flows, soil erosion, siltation of rivers and bringing climate change.
Planned road projects threaten Sumatran rhino habitat, experts say
- Authorities in the Indonesian province of Aceh are planning 12 road-building projects through 2022, some of which will cut through the habitat of critically endangered Sumatran rhinos.
- The species is already under threat from forest fragmentation, which has isolated rhino subpopulations and led to the biggest threat to the animal: the inability to find other rhinos to mate with.
- Conservationists have called for full protection of the Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh to safeguard the rhinos’ habitat from the road projects.
- But even in a protected part of the ecosystem, Gunung Leuser National Park, deforestation is already taking place on the fringes.
Deforestation threatens to wipe out a primate melting pot in Indonesia
- Unique primate habitats on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are under threat from rising deforestation, according to a new study.
- The island’s isolation has allowed macaques and tarsiers there to evolve in unique ways, leading to an “explosion” of biodiversity found nowhere else across Southeast Asia.
- But logging, expansion of farmland, and infrastructure projects are driving a growing rate of forest loss, including in the “hybridization zones” that are a key factor in the island’s rich variety of primate life.
- While protected areas exist on Sulawesi, they’re concentrated located at higher elevations, while most of the primates occur in lowland forests that can be more easily cleared and farmed.
Sumatran bridge project in elephant habitat may exacerbate degradation
- Officials in Sumatra have agreed to build a bridge linking the main island to the archipelago of Bangka-Belitung, part of wider efforts to boost economic development in the region.
- The starting point for the planned bridge will be the Air Sugihan ecosystem, which is home to at least 148 wild and critically endangered Sumatran elephants.
- Conservationists say there needs to be a science-based approach to infrastructure development in the region to minimize threats to the elephant population.
- The Air Sugihan ecosystem was as recently as the 1970s home to another iconic species, the Sumatran tiger, before a government-sponsored migration program led to a boom in the human population and the clearing of large swaths of land for agriculture.
When roads cross wilderness areas, plant pathogens can hitch a ride
- Statistical analysis of the spread of a fungal plant pathogen across a Finnish island demonstrates that roads serve as corridors for the transmission of disease in wild plants.
- According to the researchers, their data indicate that vehicles traveling along roads are directly involved in spreading diseases, not just that roadsides make good habitats for pathogens.
- The research is based on a detailed data set maintained in southern Finland’s Åland Islands, but experts say the findings could apply to other similar pathogens.
Paper giant APP’s Sumatran road project cuts through elephant habitat
- A subsidiary of paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper Sinar Mas plans to upgrade a road that cuts through peat and mangrove forests that constitute a wild elephant habitat in Indonesia’s southern Sumatra.
- The project aims to improve connectivity between the company’s pulp mill and port, as part of efforts to turn it into the largest pulp and paper producer in Asia.
- The company has promised that the project will not require the further clearing of peat or mangrove forests and will have minimal impact on the elephant population of about 150.
- Conservationists say they’re worried the project could usher in further development of infrastructure and settlements, which could eventually wipe out the wild elephant population in this region.
Why the health of the Amazon River matters to us all: An interview with Michael Goulding
- Like the rainforest which takes its name, the Amazon is the largest and most biodiverse river on the planet. The river and its tributaries are a critical thoroughfare for an area the size of the continental United States and function as a key source of food and livelihoods for millions of people. Yet despite its vastness and importance, the mighty Amazon is looking increasingly vulnerable due to human activities.
- Few people understand more about the Amazon’s ecology and the wider role it plays across the South American continent than Michael Goulding, an aquatic ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who has worked in the region since the 1970s studying issues ranging from the impact of hydroelectric dams to the epic migration of goliath catfishes. Goulding has written and co-authored some of the most definitive books and papers on the river, its resident species, and its ecological function.
- In recognition of his lifetime of advancing conservation efforts in the Amazon, the Field Museum today honored Goulding with the Parker/Gentry Award. The Award — named after ornithologist Theodore A. Parker III and botanist Alwyn Gentry who were killed in a plane crash during an aerial survey of an Ecuadorian cloud forest in 1993 — is given each year to “an outstanding individual, team or organization in the field of conservation biology whose efforts have had a significant impact on preserving the world’s natural heritage and whose actions and approach can serve as a model to others.”
- In a September 2020 interview ahead of the prize ceremony, Goulding spoke with Mongabay about his research and the current state of the Amazon.
Infrastructure plans imperil Latin America’s forests: Analysis
- A recent analysis in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by social scientists, along with representatives of NGOs and funding organizations, warns of the danger to forests, communities and biodiversity as a result of planned infrastructure.
- The team writes that the planning process needs to be focused on projects that bring the most benefits to people and the environment.
- The authors advocate an approach that includes input from often-marginalized groups like Indigenous communities and looks to science to inform planning for large-scale projects.
Study revealing New Guinea’s plant life ‘first step’ toward protection
- A recent study in the journal Nature found that New Guinea has more plant species than any other island on Earth.
- The island has more than 13,000 species of plants, more than two-thirds of which live only in New Guinea.
- The island’s forests are relatively intact, and researchers say the list of species is a step toward protecting them from the looming threats of large-scale agriculture, logging and road building.
Indonesian case highlights potential for long-term harms of corruption
- Anti-graft investigators have arrested a district chief and four other officials in Indonesian Borneo for allegedly taking $560,000 in bribes to award contracts for public works projects.
- An independent watchdog says the case is emblematic of how corruption in infrastructure and public procurement contracts ultimately harms the local community and environment.
- A hallmark of such projects is the low quality of work, which can have long-term impacts on communities and the areas they live in.
- The watchdog has recorded a more than 50% increase in the number of cases of corruption in infrastructure and procurement projects in Indonesia between 2015 and 2018.
Indonesia approves coal road project through forest that hosts tigers, elephants
- The Indonesian government has granted permission to a coal company to build a road that would cut through the highly biodiverse Harapan forest in Sumatra.
- The road is for transporting coal from the company’s mine to power plants in South Sumatra province.
- Experts have called on the company to have the road skirt the forest and use an existing road network, but the company has not issued any revision of its design.
- Conservationists and indigenous communities have warned that the road could devastate the ecosystem, create more habitat fragmentation and facilitate further encroachment for logging, hunting and agriculture.
Turtles and tortoises in trouble: More than half of all species face extinction
- More than half of the world’s turtle and tortoise species are now threatened with extinction, according to a new study published by a group of 51 global turtle and tortoise experts.
- Loss of habitat is the biggest threat to turtles and tortoises globally. Other threats include the pet trade, overconsumption for food and medicine, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.
- Preventing turtle extinctions this century requires protecting their remaining habitat, the authors write, particularly limited nesting habitats.
- Individuals also have a role to play in safeguarding turtle and tortoise survival worldwide by being aware of the risks involved in the pet, food and medicine trades, keeping dogs under control in important turtle habitats, and keeping off-road vehicles away from sensitive beaches and desert areas where turtles roam and nest.
Experts see environmental, social fallout in Indonesia’s infrastructure push
- The Indonesian government has announced a list of 89 priority projects, tagged at $100 billion, to jump-start the economy out of the current COVID-19-induced slump.
- To speed up the projects, the government has issued a new regulation on eminent domain that will make it easier to take over community lands, including those of indigenous groups, and degazette forests to allow them to be cleared, experts warn.
- The new regulation is the latest in a slate of deregulatory policies that conservationists, environmental activists and indigenous rights defenders say will harm the country’s biodiversity, its climate commitments, and its most vulnerable communities.
- Among the projects are nickel smelters that are applying to dump their toxic waste into the sea; a high-speed railway line that’s part of the China-backed Belt and Road Initiative; and a rice estate spanning 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) on carbon-dense peatlands.
‘I’ll never be ready for this port,’ locals say of Colombia’s proposed project
- Under the government of President Iván Duque, however, the port looks closer to becoming a reality, as developers say it’s necessary for the future of the country’s economy and development.
- Many locals, who include mostly Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations, tell Mongabay they are concerned the port will bring violence and poverty, much like the port city of Buenaventura, 200 kilometers (120 miles) south.
- Environmentalists say the port will destroy the communities’ local ecotourism economy, the unique breeding grounds for whales and sharks, and thousands of hectares of mangroves, as well as carve up the Chocó rainforest and displace several species of native wildlife and fauna.
Bornean farmers and fishers brace as a new port opens in their midst
- Suma Ruslian is one of many Indonesian farmers in western Borneo bracing for a major impact to his livelihood from a port project and special economic zone slated to open later this year.
- The port of Kijing is being touted by the government as the biggest in West Kalimantan province, with a strategic location between the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea, two of the world’s busiest waterways.
- Locals in the area who depend on farming and fishing say they worry about the impacts from increasing ship traffic and land-use change for industry.
- Suma and experts are calling on the government to provide long-term support for the farmers and fishermen in adapting to the changes.
Indonesian levee project serves industry over community, study says
- A new billion-dollar highway and levee project in Central Java has been touted as a solution to the tidal flooding that has submerged thousands of hectares of coastal land in the area.
- But a new study says the project threatens to exacerbate the problem, while communities in its path have been denied compensation by the government.
- The study says the project appears to be designed to cater to two industrial estates, and a third one being planned, to give them direct access to the main port in the province.
- Land subsidence is a major problem along the north coast of Java, due to a combination of overdevelopment, groundwater extraction, and rising sea levels.
Amazon road projects could lead to Belize-size loss of forest, study shows
- Scientists studying the impact of 75 road projects in five countries in the Amazon Basin have found that they could lead to 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of deforestation.
- Seventeen percent of these projects were found to violate environmental legislation and the rights of indigenous peoples.
- The total cost for the projects, which stretch a combined 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) is $27 billion, yet half of them will be financially unfeasible.
- The study’s authors cite a lack of reliable technical feasibility studies, solid data and pressure from financiers to minimalize socioenvironmental impacts.
Large indigenous territories are necessary for culture and biodiversity in Brazil, study says
- New research argues that large, legally protected territories are necessary for indigenous peoples to maintain their traditional livelihoods.
- The authors were surprised to find higher population densities inside versus outside of nearly half (295) of all indigenous territories.
- Indigenous lands provide global-scale environmental benefits. Nearly one-fifth of all Amazonian plants and animals live in these territories, and these areas retain 25.5% of all carbon stocks in Brazil.
- Altering the protected status of indigenous lands or opening them up to exploitative economic activities will affect ethnocultural integrity and compromise Brazil’s commitments to climate change and biodiversity protection.
Bolsonaro revives a plan to carve a road through one of Brazil’s last untouched areas
- President Jair Bolsonaro has revived a plan, conceived in the 1970s, to extend the BR-163 highway, the main soy corridor in Brazil, north to the border with Suriname.
- The road would cross 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) over a vast forest area called Calha Norte.
- The Trombetas State Forest, one of the four conservation units the road would cut through, stores 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide — more than Brazil’s entire emissions in 2018.
- The area is also rich in biodiversity: 40% of its species are found nowhere else on Earth.
Forest clearing proceeds for dam in Sumatra despite locals’ land claims
- Road construction for a state-backed dam project has cleared forest in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.
- The Indonesian government says the dam will benefit locals by providing water and electricity.
- But many communities are disputing the land acquisition process as they are trying to get a certificate of ownership from the government.
- A fisherman and a construction worker drowned last month after being swept into the dam by flash floods, and a second worker is missing and feared dead.
Brazilian government office responds to Fearnside’s BR-319 oil & gas commentary
- On 9 March 2020, Mongabay published a commentary written by Philip M. Fearnside on the “Solimões Sedimentary Area”, an oil and gas project that would implant thousands of wells spread over the western portion of the Brazilian Amazon, to the west of Highway BR-319 – a forest area almost entirely intact due to lack of road access. According to the commentary, the project would bring many risks to the area: oil spills, impact on isolated indigenous tribes and deforestation due to the expansion of a road network.
- EPE, the Brazilian Energy Research Office, sent a response to Mongabay on 27 March 2020 (published below), claiming “conceptual mistakes.” It argues, among other objections, that the Solimões project’s main goal is to evaluate future scenarios for a potential oil and gas exploration system in the area, not a de facto implementation of this system. The office also mentions the participatory process in which the local communities were allegedly involved and, concerning the risk of deforestation, refutes it saying that this kind of operation is mainly done by air or navigable rivers.
- As a rebuttal to EPE’s response, also published here, Fearnside objects that the project is a “trial balloon” to see what criticisms will arise so that the authors of the impact assessment can be more prepared to ensure approval of the environmental licenses. Furthermore, Fearnside emphasizes that the opening of a new frontier can stimulate the government to build roads and attract other activities linked to deforestation, like logging, land grabbing and palm oil production.
In Sumatra, an indigenous plea to stop a coal road carving up a forest
- Teguh Santika, an indigenous Batin Sembilan woman in Sumatra, has called on the Indonesian government to reject a proposal by a coal miner to build a road that cuts through the Harapan forest where her community lives.
- Miner PT Marga Bara Jaya has since 2017 sought approval to build the road from its mine to a power plant; local authorities support the plan, but it still needs the approval of the environment ministry.
- A third of the 88-kilometer (55-mile) road will slice through the Harapan forest, which is home to threatened species such as the Sumatran tiger.
- The Batin Sembilan have for years been part of an initiative to restore the forest, which was previously a logging concession, and crack down on encroachment by oil palm farmers, illegal loggers and poachers.
Indonesia road graft case lands Papua official, contractor in prison
- A court has sentenced the former head of the public works department in Indonesia’s Papua province to five and a half years in prison for corruption in a $5.3 million road project.
- The road between Kemiri and Depapre in Jayapura district has been damaged for years, with locals complaining that it’s dangerous to drive on.
- Mikael Kambuaya, the former provincial public works chief, was convicted of conspiring with contractor David Manibui to inflate the project cost by $2.5 million.
- David, whose company was awarded the contract despite not meeting the technical requirements, was also convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.
Road project in economically deprived Indonesian region threatens wildlife habitat
- A road project at the northwestern tip of Sumatra poses the threats of deforestation and habitat fragmentation for a lowland forest that is home to critically endangered tigers, elephants and orangutans.
- Officials say the project is necessary to boost connectivity and local livelihoods in this remote part of Indonesia’s Aceh province.
- But conservationists say they fear the project will carve up important wildlife habitat and lead to greater human encroachment into this wilderness area.
- They have called on the government to review the project in light of the potential for environmental damage.
BR-319 illegal side road threatens Amazon protected area, indigenous land (commentary)
- Brazil faces a critical decision on licensing Highway BR-319, in the Purus / Madeira river basins of Amazonas state, which would “chop the Amazon rainforest in half.”
- The highway would bring deforesters to vast areas of intact Amazon rainforest. Protected areas along the route have been created to avert spread of deforestation.
- However, an illegal side road is already being built connecting with the BR-319, and accessing one of those protected areas, while also threatening indigenous and traditional riverine communities.
- The construction of this illegal road dramatizes the fiction that governance measures would control on-the-ground events if the completed highway is licensed. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indonesian activists denounce a road being built illegally in leopard habitat
- Environmental activists and residents have demanded a road project in Indonesia’s West Java province be scrapped because it lacks the required permits and could exacerbate floods and landslides.
- The road will cut through a protected forest on Mount Cikuray, home to Javan leopards and other threatened wildlife.
- District authorities have admitted they began clearing forest for the project before obtaining the necessary permits from the central government.
- The national parliament and the environment ministry have also weighed in on the issue, with the latter saying it will investigate and may order the project stopped.
Tiger on the highway: Sighting in Sumatra causes a stir, but is no surprise
- A picture of a tiger near an under-construction highway in Sumatra’s Riau province has gone viral on the messaging application WhatsApp.
- The toll road is part of a longer highway project running the length of Sumatra that conservationists have warned to poses threat to the island’s dwindling forests and endangered wildlife species such as tigers.
- Wildlife experts are calling on authorities to improve protection for the endangered animals, particularly those that live near the highway project.
Oil and gas project threatens Brazil’s last great block of Amazon forest (commentary)
- The eastern part of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is already heavily deforested and degraded, but the western portion of the region (covering roughly 740,000 square kilometers; 285,000 square miles) is almost entirely intact due to the lack of road access.
- The huge block of forest to the west of Highway BR-319 (a road stretching between Amazonas and Rondônia states) is essential to maintaining the region’s biodiversity, its indigenous peoples, its huge forest carbon stocks, and its role in water recycling that supplies rainfall to places like São Paulo.
- Planned roads branching off Highway BR-319 would open the northern part of this vast forest block to entry by deforesters. Now a new threat is rapidly advancing: the Solimões oil and gas project that would implant thousands of wells spread over the central and southern portions of this forest block. Although not part of the official development’s preliminary environmental impact statement, future roads linking the drilling areas to the BR-319 are likely to give deforesters access to the entire area.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Two identical road trips, a year apart, highlight PNG’s infrastructure woes
- Papua New Guinea’s government plans to build more than 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) of road in the five-year period leading up to 2022.
- Two Mongabay reporters traveled one such road-in-progress, from Kundiawa to Gembogl in the country’s mountainous interior, a year apart.
- In this interview, reporters John Cannon and Camilo Mejia Giraldo discuss what had changed, and what hadn’t, after a year of progress on the construction project.
Xavante tribe digs in as Brazil reneges on vow not to build a road in their reserve
- For more than 50 years, the Xavante indigenous group has been fighting to regain sovereignty of the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Reserve in Mato Grosso state. The most recent obstacle is the federal government’s plan to pave BR-158, the interstate highway that cuts through the middle of the reserve.
- Marãiwatsédé is the most heavily deforested indigenous reserve in the Legal Amazon: around 75% of its native vegetation has already been cut down. The Xavante suspect that paving the dirt track is part of the federal government’s plan to authorize leasing part of the reserve to ranchers in the region.
- In 2009, the Xavante began a lengthy negotiation process with government agencies to define alternatives to the original roadway. It was decided that BR-158 would circumvent the reserve, running to the east of its borders. But the government of President Jair Bolsonaro does not support the change, resulting in a stalemate that has escalated tensions in the region.
Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
- The Amazon rainforest generates half its own rainfall, but deforestation threatens to disrupt this cycle, shifting large parts of this ancient forest to dry, savanna habitat. Passing such a “tipping point” would have disastrous knock-on effects for climate and weather patterns regionally and globally.
- A recent study modelling the impact of proposed roads, hydropower and mining developments in the Amazon basin suggests that 21-43 percent of the Amazon’s original extent will be lost by 2050, putting it close to, or beyond, the tipping point for a biome shift in large parts of the region.
- Although development is not currently proceeding at the rapid rate predicted under various ambitious government initiatives, experts say that, even with no new Amazon infrastructure, continued deforestation could drive the biome to the tipping point in the next 15–30 years.
- A quick transition to zero deforestation is the only way to avert catastrophic change to the Amazon, say experts. But conservationists fear the political will is lacking as the Bolsonaro administration continues to slash protections. Backing indigenous land stewards could offer a solution.
Illegal tin mining leaves trail of ruin in protected Brazilian rainforest
- Floresta Nacional de Altamira (Flona de Altamira) spans some 724,965 hectares in the state of Pará, and is home to a rich diversity of plants and animals, including several species threatened with extinction.
- Recently, an influx of illegal mining has led to rampant deforestation and the sullying of rivers. The miners are targeting the mineral cassiterite, the main ore of tin. Illegal ranching and road construction are also causing deforestation in Flona de Altamira.
- The government intervened earlier this year to put a stop to the mining, but satellite imagery shows deforestation around mining sites has picked back up since October.
- Conservationists and activists worry the rhetoric and policy changes of the Bolsonaro administration are encouraging the invasions of Flona de Altamira and other protected areas that provide important refuges for Brazil’s wildlife and indigenous communities.
Habitat loss drives deadly conflict in Indonesia’s tiger country
- In separate incidents in November and December, tigers killed five people in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province.
- The recent increase in human-tiger conflict has surprised many people in the area, who say they have long had a harmonious relationship with the animals.
- Conservationists say a key driver of human-tiger conflicts is habitat degradation due development projects like roads, housing, plantations and mining.
Sumatra’s dwindling forests face extra pressure from a major highway project
- A major highway project in Indonesia’s Sumatra island is poised to further fragment and degrade the remaining prime forests there, researchers say.
- Between 1990 and 2010, Sumatra lost 40 percent of its old-growth forest.
- The researchers also note the increase of land disputes arising from the project, given that much of land needed for the highway has yet to be acquired due to conflicts with local communities.
- The researchers have called on the government to issue more stringent regulations to protect the remnant forests, and to significantly reroute the roads to avoid the conservation areas.
As hurricane season ends, now is the time to take local action to rebuild and recover (commentary)
- As the 2019 hurricane season comes to an end, now is the time to consider action on the local scale, in spite of the helplessness we may feel in the face of global change.
- It’s no coincidence that the islands most devastated by Hurricanes Matthew and Dorian were Grand Bahama, Abaco, Andros, and New Providence. Recently published coastal risk maps show these are the islands most exposed to flooding and erosion — which is critical information for recovery and rebuilding efforts.
- In our built world, we often forget about the natural defenses that kept us safe before we started tearing them down. Mangrove forests, coral reefs, and seagrass beds naturally envelop islands, weakening waves and storm surges. Protections are needed for coastal habitats that are still intact, and restoration is needed for degraded shorelines. As developed countries like the United States have learned, it costs millions of dollars more to restore natural defenses than to conserve them wisely in the first place.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In Indonesia, a project meant to boost livelihoods has left locals behind
- In Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, work is underway to develop a special economic zone (SEZ) that will connect this remote region to the global economy.
- Plans for the SEZ include a highway linking the port of Bitung to the provincial capital, Manado; a seaport expansion to rival Jakarta’s; an industrial zone; and an airport.
- The development risks fragmenting the habitat of endangered and endemic species like the black macaque. Hundreds of families have also been relocated without compensation to make way for the project.
A Sumatran forest community braces for battle against a planned coal mine
- The Pangkalan Kapas forest on the eastern coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island is important both to local communities and to the endangered wildlife of a nearby nature reserve.
- But it faces what conservationists fear is an existential threat from a planned coal mine that has been granted a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) concession for open-pit mining there.
- The project has met with resistance from local communities and environmental activists, including an online petition calling for it to be scrapped.
- The company that holds the concession was also mired in a fraud and corruption case involving one of its owners — a common problem in Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt mining sector.
Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest
- Researchers logged the first evidence of elephant poaching in a remote, pristine section of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the northern Republic of Congo.
- The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, also revealed unique behavior changes between gorillas and chimpanzees as a result of selective logging.
- The research highlights the need to incorporate the results of biodiversity surveys into plotting out the locations of areas set aside for conservation.
Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway with Mongabay’s John Cannon
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Mongabay staff writer John Cannon, who traveled the length of the Pan Borneo Highway in July and wrote a series of reports for Mongabay detailing what he discovered on the journey.
- The Pan Borneo Highway is expected to make commerce and travel easier in a region that is notoriously difficult to navigate, and also to encourage tourists to see the states’ cultural treasures and rich wildlife. But from the outset, scientists and conservationists have warned that the highway is likely to harm that very same wildlife by dividing populations and degrading habitat.
- Cannon undertook his 3-week reporting trip down the Pan Borneo Highway in an attempt to understand both the positive and negative effects the road could have on local communities, wildlife, and ecosystems, and he’s here to tell us what he found.
Notes from the road: 5 revelations from traveling the Pan Borneo Highway
- Construction of the Pan Borneo Highway will add or expand more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of roadway in Malaysian Borneo.
- Mongabay staff writer John Cannon spent several weeks traveling the proposed route in July 2019 to understand the effects, both positive and negative, the road could have on communities, wildlife and ecosystems.
- The project is designed to energize the economies of the region, and though officials have responded to entreaties from NGOs to minimize the harmful impacts of the road, they remain singularly focused on the economic benefits that proponents say the highway will bring.
Pan Borneo Highway development endangers the Heart of Borneo
- The construction of the Pan Borneo Highway in the Malaysian state of Sabah could disrupt the connections between wildlife populations and appears to run counter to the state’s conservation commitments, according to a new study.
- Passages under the highway and the rehabilitation of key forest corridors could lessen the impacts of the road, but the authors of the study caution that these interventions are expensive and may not be effective.
- They argue that planners should consider canceling certain sections of the road with the greatest potential for damaging the surrounding forest.
Amazon deforestation and development heighten Amazon fire risk: study
- The current fires burning in the Brazilian Amazon are helping confirm the findings of a new study published this July which shows a major connection between land use and fire incidence — with deforestation and development contributing more to fire occurrence than climate change.
- New research shows that unrestrained deforestation, along with the construction of new highways, could expand wildfire risk in the Amazon by more than 70 percent by 2100, even inside protected areas and indigenous reserves that have relatively intact forests.
- Scientist suggest that efforts to improve sustainable land management and reduce future deforestation and development could offer the best defenses against the escalating threat wildfires pose due to the increased heat and drought brought by escalating climate change.
A tiger refuge in Sumatra gets a reprieve from road building
- Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (TRHS), which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger since 2011.
- UNESCO has noted particular concern about a spate of road projects planned for Kerinci Seblat and other protected areas within the TRHS.
- According to park officials, Indonesia’s forestry ministry has refused permits for all new roads within the park; the sole project to receive permission is the upgrade of an existing road.
- The park still faces immense pressure from encroachment for agriculture, logging, mining and poaching.
The end of the road: The future of the Pan Borneo Highway
- The construction of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of road for the Pan Borneo Highway across Malaysian Borneo holds the promise of spurring local economies for its proponents.
- But from the outset, conservationists and scientists voiced concerns that the road would displace people, harm sensitive environments, and threaten Borneo’s splendid diversity of wildlife.
- As construction moves forward, these groups are working with planners to find a way for the highway’s construction to avoid the worst environmental damage.
Brazilian response to Bolsonaro policies and Amazon fires grows
- As a result of international concern and media attention, along with pressure from within his own nation, Jair Bolsonaro decreed a 60-day ban on the setting of fires in the Brazilian Amazon on Wednesday, 28 August. The order came as experts warned that the worst fires this year may be yet to come.
- To avoid international attention, Brazil’s House of Deputies put on hold a plan to pass sweeping legislation that would abolish significant existing environmental protections for 1,514 quilombolas (communities of runaway slave descendants), 163 as yet un-demarcated indigenous territories, and 543 protected areas.
- Both the House and Senate proposed inquiries into the Amazon fires. Also, 400 IBAMA personnel signed an open letter demanding qualified professionals run the environmental agency, that past budget and staffing levels be restored, and that security squads again be deployed with IBAMA teams fighting deforestation.
- Even as South American nations organized a meeting to combat deforestation, Bolsonaro moved ahead with a plan to privatize deforestation satellite monitoring in Brazil. The new system, experts warn, could end real time monthly monitoring, needed to apprehend illegal deforesters.
A remote Indonesian district juggles road building with nature conservation
- The Indonesian government plans to build or upgrade thousands of kilometers of roads in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo Island.
- Proponents of the project say infrastructure upgrades are necessary to support a growing population, will boost economic growth, and will provide better access to services.
- But conservationists are concerned these roads will fragment and degrade some of the island’s last remaining intact ecosystems.
- This summer, Mongabay traveled the length of one such project in East Kalimantan province, into a remote region already undergoing changes as a result of current and planned road upgrades.
New road risks Pandora’s box of disruption in world’s most biodiverse national park (commentary)
- We are living in the most dramatic era of road and infrastructure expansion in human history. Thousands of projects are opening up many of Earth’s remaining wild areas and biodiversity hotspots to tsunamis of human pressures.
- About nine-tenths of all new infrastructure is currently being built in developing nations, which sustain most of the world’s tropical and subtropical forests—renowned for their environmental importance.
- William Laurance, a distinguished professor and authority on infrastructure developments, and Penny van Oosterzee, a tropical researcher, argue that planned or illegal road projects are imperiling Manu National Park, one of the world’s most critical protected areas and possibly the biologically richest ecosystem on Earth.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
The Pan Borneo Highway on a collision course with elephants
- Out of the controversy surrounding the Pan Borneo Highway and its potential impacts on the environment has arisen a movement to bring conservationists, scientists and planners together to develop a plan “to maximize benefits and reduce risks” to the environment from the road’s construction.
- The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo has called for the highway to avoid cutting through forests.
- But a planned stretch would slice through a protected forest reserve with a dense concentration of elephants.
- A coalition of scientific and civil society organizations has offered an alternative route that its members say would still provide the desired connection while lowering the risk of potentially deadly human-wildlife conflict.
The Pan Borneo Highway could divide threatened wildlife populations
- Crews are set to begin construction on a stretch of Malaysia’s Pan Borneo Highway in eastern Sabah state, involving the widening of the road from two lanes to four.
- The new divided highway will cross the Kinabatangan River and pass through a critical wildlife sanctuary that’s home to orangutans, elephants and proboscis monkeys, along with other wildlife species already hemmed in by the region’s oil palm plantations.
- Planners and politicians hope the road will stimulate local economies and bring in more tourists.
- Conservationists and scientists, however, are concerned that the highway could further section off animal populations and damage the current tourism infrastructure, unless certain mitigation measures are introduced.
Aimed at linking communities, Malaysian highway may damage forests
- Leaders hope that the construction of a road linking the Pan Borneo Highway between the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak will connect remote communities to markets and to each other.
- But conservationists warn that the highway will cut through some of the last remaining dense forest in Sarawak.
- In addition to the challenges of building in a rainy tropical environment, the mountainous terrain will make construction and maintenance difficult, skeptics of the road say.
The Pan Borneo Highway brings wildlife threats to nat’l park doorstep
- The southern terminus of the Pan Borneo Highway in Malaysia extends to the edge of Tanjung Datu National Park in Sarawak.
- The highway’s proponents say the road is already bringing more tourists who are eager to see the park’s wildlife to the adjacent communities, helping to boost the local economy.
- But one of the world’s rarest primates, the Bornean banded langur, resides in the park, raising concerns in the conservation community that increased access could bring poachers into the park.
Connecting an island: Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway
- The Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah are in the midst of building more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of the Pan Borneo Highway.
- The goal is to boost the states’ economies and connect them with the Indonesian provinces on the island of Borneo as part of the Trans Borneo Highway.
- Advocates of the highway, including many politicians, say the upgraded, widened and in some places entirely new stretches of highway will link markets and provide a jolt to the promising tourism sector in Malaysian Borneo.
- But skeptics, including scientists and conservationists, argue that parts of the highway cut through ecologically sensitive areas and that planning prior to construction didn’t adequately account for the damage that construction could cause.
New roads in Papua New Guinea may cause ‘quantum leap’ in forest loss
- Papua New Guinea intends to nearly double its existing network of roads between now and 2022.
- A new study raises concerns about the impacts of building these roads through tropical forest environments on local communities, sensitive habitats and vulnerable species.
- The authors of the paper, published July 24 in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest that the country would reap more benefits and avoid future debt by investing in existing roads, many of which are largely unusable because of flagging maintenance.
Indonesia, facing a waste crisis, plans to burn it for electricity
- The Indonesian government has targeted four cities in Java island to build incineration facilities this year to tackle the country’s plastic waste crisis.
- Environmentalists say burning waste to generate electricity is not a sustainable solution to the issue, and will only add more problems, including the emission of toxic gases.
- They instead suggest tackling the problem at the source, by reducing the amount of waste produced in the first place.
- Indonesia is the world’s second-biggest source of the plastic trash that ends up in the oceans, after China.
Corrupt police caught in bust of Peruvian Amazon drug gang
- Three policemen were arrested after a year-long investigation into narco-trafficking in Peru’s Manú Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and top global biodiversity hotspot.
- The operation in late June seized over $38,000, more than 290 kilograms (about 640 pounds) of cocaine, a small airplane, and two firearms. A total of 15 people have been arrested for their involvement.
- Within the Kosñipata district of Manú, production of coca increased from 338 hectares (835 acres) in 2010 to 1,322 hectares (3,267 acres) in 2014. Coca production throughout this Amazon region has increased by 52 percent.
Chimps in Sierra Leone adapt to human-impacted habitats, but threats remain
- Western chimpanzees are adapting to survive in severely degraded habitat, a new study says.
- However, the study also finds the abundance of western chimpanzees in Sierra Leone is impacted by even secondary roads.
- Ensuring the long-term survival of western chimps calls for changes in agriculture, roads and other development, researchers say.
In Nigeria, a highway threatens community and conservation interests
- Activists and affected communities in Nigeria’s Cross River state continue to protest plans to build a major highway cutting through farmland and forest that’s home to threatened species such as the Cross River gorilla.
- The federal government ordered a slew of measures to minimize the impact of the project, but two years later it remains unclear whether the developers have complied, even as they resume work.
- Environmentalists warn of a “Pandora’s box” of problems ushered in by the construction of the highway, including illegal deforestation, poaching, land grabs, micro-climate change, erosion, biodiversity loss and encroachment into protected areas.
- They’ve called on the state government to pursue alternatives to the new highway, including investing in upgrading existing road networks.
An Indonesian forest community grapples with the arrival of the outside world
- Siberut Island, part of the Mentawai archipelago in western Indonesia, is recognized as a U.N. Biosphere Reserve due to its outstanding cultural and ecological value.
- The traditions of the indigenous Mentawai people, including agroforestry and customary land tenure, have allowed the people of the island live off the forest without depleting it.
- Roughly half of the island is protected as a national park. The rest, however, has been parceled out for timber and biomass plantations, road building, and the development of a special economic zone including a yacht marina and luxury resort.
Colombia gasoline fueling cocaine production
- Despite efforts by the U.S. and Colombia to crack down on cocaine production, the land used to grow the crop in Colombia is at an all-time high.
- After cattle ranching and land grabbing, coca cultivation is one of the main drivers of deforestation in Colombia, especially in protected areas such as national parks.
- Although road development plans promised by a 2016 peace deal do not appear to be producing new transportation infrastructure in these remote regions, Global Forest Watch shows many of the country’s coca regions reported a large number of deforestation alerts within primary rainforest.
Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- 68 percent of the indigenous lands and protected natural areas in the nine nations encompassing the Amazon region are under pressure from roads, mining, dams, oil drilling, forest fires and deforestation, according to a new report by RAISG, the Amazonian Geo-referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network.
- Of the 6,345 indigenous territories located within the nine Amazonian countries surveyed, 2,042 (32 percent) are threatened or pressured by two types of infrastructure activities, while 2,584 (41 percent) are threatened or pressured by at least one. Only 8 percent of the total are not threatened or pressured at all.
- In the case of the 692 protected natural areas in the Amazon region, 193 (28 percent) suffer three kinds of threat or pressure, and 188 (27 percent) suffer threats or pressure from two activities.
- “These are alarming numbers: 43 percent of the protected natural areas and 19 percent of the indigenous lands are under three or more types of pressure or threat,” said Júlia Jacomini, a researcher with the ISA, Instituto Socioambiental, an NGO and RAISG partner.
Despite fiery campaign rhetoric, Chinese-backed projects in Malaysia steam ahead
- In 2018, Mahathir Mohamad unseated Najib Razak as prime minister in Malaysia’s elections, on a platform that relied heavily on anti-Chinese rhetoric.
- In his first months in office, Mahathir suspended or canceled a number of Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, including the 688-kilometer (428-mile) East Coast Rail Link, a planned railway line that raised serious concerns for environmentalists.
- In the year since, Mahathir has walked back his campaign rhetoric, and most major infrastructure projects are set to be relaunched, albeit at lower costs.
Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003
- Logging road networks have expanded widely in the Congo Basin since 2003, according to a new study.
- The authors calculated that the length of logging roads doubled within concessions and rose by 40 percent outside of concessions in that time period, growing by 87,000 kilometers (54,000 miles).
- Combined with rising deforestation in the region since 2000, the increase in roads is concerning because road building is often followed by a pulse of settlement leading to deforestation, hunting and mining in forest ecosystems.
Bumpy ride for conservation in PNG as lack of roads hinders activities
- Much of Papua New Guinea remains inaccessible by road and the existing roads are often in poor condition.
- While lack of road access has historically helped to keep ecosystems intact, it comes with both social and environmental downsides.
- Some communities are negotiating with resource extraction companies who promise to provide roads and other needed services. Lack of infrastructure also hampers efforts to monitor and protect the environment.
- Some NGOs, whose work suffers from difficult and expensive travel to project areas, call for carefully planned expansion of the road network.
Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
- In a commentary, two conservation scientists say that changes to the forests of Central and South America may mean that subsistence hunting there is no longer sustainable.
- Habitat loss and commercial hunting have put increasing pressure on species, leading to the loss of both biodiversity and a critical source of protein for these communities.
- The authors suggest that allowing the hunting of only certain species, strengthening parks and reserves, and helping communities find alternative livelihoods and sources of food could help address the problem, though they acknowledge the difficult nature of these solutions.
A forest beset by oil palms, logging, now contends with a coal-trucking road
- The Harapan forest in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, faces threats from illegal logging, encroachment by oil palm growers, poaching of its wildlife, and the loss of funding for conservation initiatives.
- An indigenous community, conservation managers and activists have highlighted another danger that risks fragmenting the biodiverse lowland rainforest: a coal-trucking road that would slice through the area.
- Local authorities reviewing the project proposal have called on the company behind it to consider a road that skirts the forest instead, but the company has not yet published a revised plan.
- The forest’s Batin Sembilan indigenous group says the creation of a road will increase access into the forest, exacerbating long-simmering tensions with migrant communities they accuse of trying to grab the land.
New report examines drivers of rising Amazon deforestation on country-by-country basis
- A new report examines the “unchecked development” in the Amazon that has driven deforestation rates to near-record levels throughout the world’s largest tropical forest.
- The main drivers of deforestation vary from country to country, according to the report, a collaborative effort by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Andes Amazon Fund.
- While the causes of Amazonian forest destruction vary, one thing that is common throughout the region is a lack of adequate resources for oversight and enforcement of environmental regulations. And “signs suggest this problem is only growing,” according to the report.
Former Brazilian enviro ministers blast Bolsonaro environmental assaults
- A new manifesto by eight of Brazil’s past environment ministers has accused the rightist Bolsonaro administration of “a series of unprecedented actions that are destroying the capacity of the environment ministry to formulate and carry out public policies.”
- The ministers warn that Bolsonaro’s draconian environmental policies, including the weakening of environmental licensing, plus sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties, could cause great economic harm to Brazil, possibly endangering trade agreements with the European Union.
- Brazil this month threatened to overhaul rules used to select deforestation projects for the Amazon Fund, a pool of money provided to Brazil annually, mostly by Norway and Germany. Both nations deny being consulted about the rule change that could end many NGOs receiving grants from the fund.
- Environment Minister Riccardo Salles also announced a reassessment of every one of Brazil’s 334 conservation units. Some parks may be closed, including the Tamoios Ecological Station, where Bolsonaro was fined for illegal fishing in 2012 and which he’d like to turn into the “Brazilian Cancun.”
In traffic-blighted Penang, transport upgrade plans raise hopes and fears
- The government of Penang, Malaysia, has big plans to upgrade the state’s transport system via a new network of highways, bridges, tunnels and rail lines.
- While many are hopeful the new roads will ease the island’s infamous traffic, conservationists are concerned that the plan will lock Penang into a car-oriented future.
- One highway project has already been hit by a deadly landslide, adding to residents’ concerns.
Western chimp numbers revised up to 53,000, but development threats loom
- A new survey of data from the IUCN’s Apes Database indicates that there are nearly 53,000 western chimpanzees in West Africa.
- The number is significantly higher than previous estimates, which placed the population closer to 35,000, but the subspecies remains categorized as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.
- The authors of the study say their findings can help governments in the region ensure that proposed infrastructure projects do as little harm to the remaining chimpanzee populations as possible.
Deforestation diminishes access to clean water, study finds
- A recent study compared deforestation data and information on household access to clean water in Malawi.
- The scientists found that the country lost 14 percent of its forest between 2000 and 2010, which had the same effect on access to safe drinking water as a 9 percent decrease in rainfall.
- With higher rainfall variability expected in today’s changing climate, the authors suggest that a larger area of forest in countries like Malawi could be a buffer against the impacts of climate change.
3 massacres in 12 days: Rural violence escalates in Brazilian Amazon
- The Amazon has seen 3 probable massacres in 12 days — likely a record for the region — as violence has exploded in areas of heavy deforestation where the building of large dams has brought a capital infusion, sent land prices soaring, and invited land speculation by land grabbers, loggers and ranchers.
- A Brazilian landless movement peasant leader and a leading dam activist are among those killed. The attacks have been concentrated in areas centered around the Belo Monte mega-dam; in the Madeira basin near the Jirau dam; and near the Tucuruí dam on the Tocantins River in Pará state.
- Investigations are ongoing, but early reports are that at least 9 people are dead, with some witnesses saying more have been killed, especially rural landless peasant workers. Before becoming president, Jair Bolsonaro expressed strong hostility against the landless peasant movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra, or MST).
- The Bolsonaro Administration has yet to condemn or comment significantly on the recent wave of killings. As of this article’s publication, the international community has taken little notice of the spike in violence.
Malaysian state chief: Highway construction must not destroy forest
- The chief minister of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, said that the Pan Borneo Highway project should expand existing roads where possible to minimize environmental impact.
- A coalition of local NGOs and scientific organizations applauded the announcement, saying that it could usher in a new era of collaboration between the government and civil society to look out for Sabah’s people and forests.
- These groups have raised concerns about the impacts on wildlife and communities of the proposed path of the highway, which will cover some 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles) in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.
New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction
- A new study maps out how disruptive human changes to the environment affect the individual ranges of more than 5,400 mammal, bird and amphibian species around the world.
- Almost a quarter of the species are threatened by human impacts in more than 90 percent of their range, and at least one human impact occurred in an average of 38 percent of the range of a given species.
- The study also identified “cool” spots, where concentrations of species aren’t negatively impacted by humans.
- The researchers say these “refugia” are good targets for conservation efforts.
Defending the Amazon’s uncontacted peoples: Q&A with Julio Cusurichi
- Julio Cusurichi, a Shipibo-Conibo leader, has been working to protect the peoples and forests of his native Madre de Dios region in southeastern Peru.
- Increasingly, illegal gold miners as well as illegal loggers and drug traffickers are proving to be an existential threat for the indigenous people of the region, which concentrates some of the Amazon’s greatest biodiversity.
- In recent years Cusurichi led a successful campaign to create a legally recognized indigenous territory and helped establish a network of indigenous forest monitors when the government abandoned the effort.
- Now, he is working to gain a greater role for indigenous peoples in governing their territories. “The goal is for indigenous people to be the protagonists,” he told Mongabay on a recent visit to Peru’s capital, Lima. “We have to administer the Amazon regions that are our ancestral territories and not just leave it to the government.”
European Parliament to vote on timber legality agreement with Vietnam
- The European Parliament begins debate March 11 on a resolution to consent to the recently signed Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Vietnam on the trade of timber and timber products from the Southeast Asian country.
- The VPA is the result of nearly eight years of negotiations aimed at stopping the flow of illegally harvested timber into the EU.
- Members of parliament are expected to vote in favor of the resolution on March 12, though officials in the EU and outside observers have voiced concerns about the legality of the wood imported into Vietnam from other countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Proximity to towns stretches giraffe home ranges
- A recent study found that female giraffes that live close to towns have larger home ranges than those living further afield.
- The study’s authors believe that large human settlements reduce giraffes’ access to food and water.
- The team cites the importance of understanding the size of the area that giraffe populations need to survive to address the precipitous decline in the animal’s numbers across Africa in the past 30 years.
In the Congo Basin, a road cuts through once-untouched ape wilderness
- The TRIDOM landscape, encompassing forests in Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, is home to more than 40,000 great apes as well as Central Africa’s largest elephant population.
- TRIDOM is in the path of a planned road link between Cameroon and Congo. Associated projects include a hydropower dam.
- While the project’s environmental impact assessment estimated only 750 hectares (1,850 acres) of woodland would be cleared for the road, on-the-ground observation of work in progress indicates the impact will be much greater.
- In addition to the direct impact of forest clearing, conservationists fear the road will increase habitat fragmentation, facilitate hunting and mining, and encourage human migration into the area — something that is already happening.
New study finds young forests have a huge climate impact
- A recent study finds young forests sequester more carbon per year than old-growth forests. In total, it estimates that intact, old-growth forests sequestered 950 million to 1.11 billion metric tons of carbon per year while younger forests – those that have been growing less than 140 years – stored between 1.17 and 1.66 billion metric tons per year.
- The study also estimates that the world’s regenerating forests stand to uptake a further 50 billion metric tons of carbon as they grow.
- These findings upend conventional wisdom that old-growth tropical rainforests are the planet’s biggest carbon sinks.
- The authors say their research could be used to improve forest management and help mitigate climate change.
In a predator-infested forest, survival for baby birds comes by the road
- Fledglings of a common bird, the white-rumped shama, in a tropical forest in Thailand were more likely to survive if they came from nests near a roadway than if they fledged deeper in the forest, researchers have found.
- The scientists believe that predators’ preference for the forest’s interior at this study site led to the difference in survival rates.
- Still, they caution that the apparent benefits of one road for a small subset of a single species don’t necessarily extend to the broader bird community, and say that planners should avoid building roads through areas of high conservation value.
- More research is necessary to determine if this effect is specific just to this study site.
Bolsonaro government takes aim at Vatican over Amazon meeting
- The Catholic Church has scheduled a Synod for October, a meeting at which bishops and priests (and one nun) from the nine Latin American Amazon countries will discuss environmental, indigenous and climate change issues.
- Members of the new rightist Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro are eyeing the event with suspicion, seeing it as an attack on national sovereignty by a progressive church.
- To show its opposition to the Amazon Synod, the Brazilian government plans to sponsor a rival symposium in Rome, just a month before the Pope’s meeting, to present examples of “Brazil’s concern and care for the Amazon.”
- At issue are two opposing viewpoints: the Catholic Church under Pope Francis sees itself and all nations as stewards of the Earth and of less privileged indigenous and traditional people. Bolsonaro, however, and many of his ruralist and evangelical allies see the Amazon as a resource to be used and developed freely by humans.
Nepal court blocks road construction in rhino stronghold of Chitwan Park
- Chitwan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to the second-largest population of greater one-horned rhinos, as well as Bengal tigers and hundreds of other species.
- Plans to construct road and rail links through the park alarmed conservationists and landed Nepal with a formal warning from UNESCO.
- On Feb. 13, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government not to build new roads inside Chitwan without approval from UNESCO, the park management and other stakeholders.
Invaded Uru-eu-wau-wau indigenous reserve awaits relief by Brazil’s new government
- On January 12, Brazil’s Uru-eu-wau-wau Indigenous Reserve in Rondônia state, which covers 1.8 million hectares (6,950 square miles) and includes significant intact rainforest, was invaded by 40 land grabbers, some of them armed, who began cutting down trees, cut 15.5 miles of trails, and started subdividing cleared land into lots.
- Detected, challenged and videotaped by indigenous men, the invaders said they came from “outside” and that 200 more invaders would be coming soon. Indigenous inhabitants made an immediate appeal to the new Bolsonaro administration for significant law enforcement assistance to repel the invaders.
- While federal police in high numbers have not been deployed as requested, the federal and state governments did send in a high level official delegation to investigate the situation including new FUNAI National Indian Foundation president General Franklimberg de Freitas.
- The government says the situation is being watched closely, but is under control for now, and that the administration will “stop illegality.” But indigenous leaders fear “the invaders believe they have support” from the Bolsonaro government. The incident is ongoing. There have been two arrests, but to date the invaders have not been completely expelled.
Amazon at risk: Brazil plans rapid road and rail infrastructure expansion
- New Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas is considered one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s most capable ministers. The former army engineer wants to streamline Brazil’s infrastructure agencies, root out corruption, and is seeking foreign investors, especially China, to finance a rush of new transportation construction.
- Conservationists and indigenous groups worry that Tarcísio Freitas’ plans to push forward with new roads and railways – including Ferrogrâo (Grainrail) and FIOL (the Railway for the Integration of the Center-West) – could open the Amazon and Cerrado biomes to land grabbers, illegal loggers, illicit ranchers and industrial agribusiness.
- While Tarcísio Freitas says that new Amazon transportation routes can help industrial agribusiness grow without causing new deforestation, in a Mongabay interview last year, he failed to address how all of this new infrastructure could be accomplished without also degrading Amazon forests or impacting indigenous communities.
What’s in a name? The role of defining ‘wilderness’ in conservation
- In a recent opinion piece published in the journal Nature, several ecologists question recent efforts to delineate areas of wilderness and intactness around the world to define conservation targets.
- They argue that it would be better to build broadly supported consensus that includes the perspectives of local and indigenous communities.
- But the leader of a team that recently mapped out the remaining wilderness on land and in the ocean said that identifying these areas and developing new targets that incorporate their conservation is critical because current international agreements do not prioritize their protection.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative could increase alien species invasion
- China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative could introduce alien invasive species into several countries, threatening their native biodiversity, warns a new study.
- Researchers looked at the risk of invasion of more than 800 alien invasive vertebrate species and found that there were 14 invasion hotspots — areas that have both high introduction risk with the movement of people and goods, and conditions that would allow the invasive species to thrive.
- These hotspots include areas in North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
- Other researchers say the study doesn’t include many other kinds of invaders, such as insects and pathogens, which can have major financial impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and livestock.
Bolsonaro government reveals plan to develop the ‘Unproductive Amazon’
- Bolsonaro administration Chief of Strategic Affairs Maynard Santa Rosa last week announced new Brazilian mega-infrastructure projects that include a dam on the Trombetas River, a bridge over the Amazon River, and an extension of the BR-163 highway from the Amazon River through 300 miles of rainforest to the Surinam border.
- Santa Rosa, a retired general, said that these Amazon biome infrastructure projects had as their purpose the integration of what he called an “unproductive, desertlike” region into “the national productive system.”
- The Trombetas region contains 4 indigenous reserves, 8 quilombo communities and 5 conservation units.
- In his radio announcement the official provided few details on the projects, saying nothing about costs, where the money to build would come from, what the socio-environmental impacts might be, or the timeline for the construction.
In PNG, a fallen bridge is testament to the chasm in rural development
- A year after the collapse of a bridge over the Banab River in northern Papua New Guinea, the crossing is finally on the verge of reopening.
- The bridge, a vital link between provincial capital Madang and agricultural areas to the north, has become a symbol of the central government’s neglect of rural areas.
- The state’s failure to provide infrastructure has led some communities to welcome extractive industries that promise to build roads, schools and hospitals.
In Borneo, dwindling forests face further fragmentation as roads spread
- A study by Indonesian and Australian researchers warns of a drastic reduction in forest habitat accessible to wildlife in Indonesian Borneo if a spate of road projects is completed as planned.
- Wildlife would be able to access just 55 percent of the remaining forests in the region under this scenario, from 89 percent today, the researchers write.
- The road-building spree is part of an economic development program that proponents say is desperately needed to improve livelihoods and welfare across Indonesian Borneo.
- While conservationists agree that infrastructure access is essential, they have called for greater oversight to mitigate or minimize impacts to forests and wildlife corridors.
New roads for PNG: Path to progress or to environmental devastation?
- The Papua New Guinea government plans to build more than 3,000 kilometers in new roads in the next five years, with a focus on connecting remote rural areas.
- New roads can help improve services in rural areas and enable farmers bring their crops to market. But some critics say the government’s road-building plans are more focused on allowing extractive industries into remote areas.
- Illegal logging is already a serious problem in PNG, and experts fear that poorly planned roads could increase deforestation in ecologically significant tracts of rainforest.
- China’s growing role in financing infrastructure projects in PNG has also raised concerns.
Amazon soy boom poses urgent existential threat to landless movement
- Brazil’s 1988 constitution and other laws established the right of landless peasants to claim unused and underutilized lands. Thousands, with the support of the landless movement, occupied tracts. At times, they even succeeded in getting authorities to set up agrarian reform settlements.
- Big landowners always opposed giving large tracts of land to the landless but, until roads began penetrating the Amazon making transport of commodities such as soy far cheaper, conflict over land was less intense.
- As new Amazon transportation projects are proposed – like the planned Ferrogrāo (Grainrail), or the BR-163 and BR-319 highway improvements – land thieves increasingly move in to steal the land, with hired thugs often threatening peasant communities, and murdering leaders.
- An example: a landless community leader named Carlos Antônio da Silva, known as Carlão, was assassinated by armed gunmen last April in Mato Grosso state. The rise of Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly threatened the landless movement with violence, has residents of Amazon agrarian reform settlements deeply worried.
Indonesia attack shines a light on controversial road project
- Construction on a section of Indonesia’s Trans-Papua highway was suspended after at least 17 people were killed; conflicting reports state the victims were either contract laborers or Indonesian soldiers.
- In a recent paper, researchers warned the highway threatens to increase social conflict in Indonesia’s restive Papua region, while also degrading New Guinea Island’s ecosystems and the health of its residents.
- The Indonesian government bills the project as a lifeline of economic development for an impoverished region, but many indigenous Papuans see the project as a means to facilitate troop movements and resource exploitation.
Purus-Madeira: Amazon parks and extraordinary biodiversity at risk now
- The Purus-Madeira interfluvial – an Amazon region running south to north from Rondônia state through Amazonas state – has been little studied by science. It is very high in biodiversity and has been fairly well preserved up until now, thanks mostly to low human occupation and difficulty of access.
- Studies indicate that more than 740 bird species occur regularly in the Madeira-Purus region representing more than 40 percent of all known Brazilian avifauna and approximately 60 percent of known Amazonian bird species. A new species, Campina’s Jay (Cyanocorax hafferi). with gaudy blue plumage, was recently recognized by science.
- Eleven protected areas, including a new national park, created in 2009 to ensure conservation of endemic species near the increasingly improved BR-319 highway, were meant to serve as a buffer against unrestrained development in the Purus-Madeira region.
- However, the Federal Attorneys Office accuses the Brazilian government of creating paper parks, without staffing or management plans. As a result, this diverse ecosystem is starting to see rapid negative change as plans to pave the BR-319 go forward, with the road offering access to illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and land grabbers invading protected areas.
‘Amazon Besieged’: Q&A with Mongabay contributor Sue Branford about new book
- From 2016 to 2017, Mongabay contributors Sue Branford and Maurício Torres traveled to the Tapajós River Basin, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, to report on the controversial plan to turn the region into a major commodities export corridor.
- Branford and Torres wrote a 15-part investigative series (published in partnership with The Intercept Brazil) based on what they’d found during their travels for Mongabay in the Tapajós Basin, one of the most biodiverse and culturally rich places on Earth. Now, the reporters have turned those pieces into a book, Amazon Besieged, which was published by Practical Action Publishing this month.
- Mongabay spoke with Sue Branford about what new perspectives she gained on the issues covered in the book while compiling her and Torres’ on-the-ground reporting for publication, what she hopes the average reader takes away from Amazon Besieged, and what she thinks the prospects are for the Amazon under the incoming Bolsonaro Administration.
Amazon indigenous groups and truckers ally to oppose Brazil’s Grainrail
- It is well documented that the construction of new transportation infrastructure in the Amazon leads to an invasion by illegal loggers, illicit ranchers, and other land grabbers. Which is why indigenous people are opposed to Grainrail, a new railroad that, if approved, will penetrate the Tapajós basin threatening 20 indigenous territories.
- The Baú Indigenous Territory has already been reduced in size by the government which gave into pressure from invading land grabbers. Now, the Kayapó people worry that the construction of Grainrail will bring an onslaught of new land invaders and further reductions of their territory.
- This concern is especially strong as Jair Bolsonaro comes to power. He has made it known that he is opposed to the concept of indigenous preserves, while also being on the side of Amazon development and in favor of the fast tracking of environmental licensing for infrastructure projects – which means Grainrail could go forward quickly.
- Indigneous groups have found an unusual ally against Grainrail: truckers who fear they will lose their livelihoods if the planned railroad goes forward. Indigenous groups and truckers are both known for their use of direct actions, such as roadblocks and strikes, to get their views heard – methods that could lead to conflict with Bolsonaro.
‘Punished’: Bolivian communities opposed to highway cry foul over neglect
- Indigenous leaders from 14 villages settled within the TIPNIS nature reserve say that government programs and public works have not reached their areas because they are opposed to a planned highway running through the park.
- The inhabitants of Trinidadcito complain that the health post is not used because there’s no resident doctor and that their school doesn’t have walls.
- In the community of Nueva Galilea, an indigenous leader says a public pool and a school that the government claims to have built are among the “phantom” public works projects that were paid for but never built.
New dam set to spoil Sumatran wonderland (commentary)
- Amid the tropical rainforest in the Hadabuan Hills Ecosystem, where Siamang and Agile gibbons cry out and where Rhinoceros hornbills and Black hornbills growl and cackle above the forest canopy, survey work by a Korean hydroelectric company has just wrapped up, and construction is slated to begin in 2020 on a dam called Siborpa Hydroelectric Power Plant.
- The Hadabuan Hills isn’t a national park or a wildlife sanctuary; about half of it is considered a hutan desa, or village forest. It is essentially a cluster of steep mountains that were too difficult to cultivate quickly and easily, and were thus spared wholesale conversion to oil palm plantations due to the challenging topography.
- So far we have confirmed the presence of tigers, clouded leopards, marbled cats, golden cats, Malayan tapirs, sun bears, leaf monkeys, the fast-disappearing Sumatran Laughingthrush, and a plethora of other wildlife. If this place isn’t a national treasure, we don’t know what is. To see it badly scarred by a hydroelectric dam of questionable use and value would be deeply disturbing.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Purus-Madeira: the Amazon arc of deforestation marches north
- For the past decade, the southern part of Amazonas state has seen some of the highest rates of deforestation increase in Brazil, threatening the unique moist forest ecosystem found on the divide between the Purus and Madeira river basins.
- The municipalities of Apuí and Lábrea, on the Transamazon highway (BR-230) lead this destructive trend. But now a variety of land users, including legal and illegal loggers, cattle ranchers, entrepreneurs and land grabbers are moving north along the currently unpaved BR-319 highway, causing major deforestation.
- Environmentalists warn that this new wave of Amazon destruction will continue sweeping northward, and intensify, if the Brazilian government continues investing in the BR-319, improving the 890-kilometer (550 mile) road linking the city of Porto Velho in Rondônia state with Manaus in Amazonas state and with the rest of Brazil.
- The new Bolsonaro government is expected to prioritize infrastructure investments in the region, likely weakening regulations governing environmental impact assessments. That could mean the fast tracking of full paving for the BR-319 soon. Among listed Bolsonaro goals is the opening of the Amazon to “new partnerships.”
Bolsonaro pledges government shakeup, deregulation, Amazon development
- Events are unfolding rapidly in Brazil, as president elect Jair Bolsonaro selects members of his administration and continues to propose what many analysts see as sweeping and draconian changes to the Brazilian government and environmental regulations.
- Bolsonaro, while stepping back from plans for a merger of the Environment Ministry with the Agriculture Ministry, still plans major government reorganization. Paulo Guedes, his chief economic advisor, for example, could lead a super ministry merging duties of the Finance, Planning, Industry and Foreign Trade ministries.
- During the presidential campaign, Amazon deforestation rates rose by nearly 50 percent, possibly as Bolsonaro supporters and land grabbers anticipate government retreat from environmental protections. Analysts worry Bolsonaro will criminalize social movements and end the demarcation of indigenous reserves assured by the 1988 Constitution.
- Bolsonaro also chose Tereza Cristina as Agriculture Minister. She is known for her intense support of pesticide deregulation, and for backing a bill to fast track socio-environmental licensing of large infrastructure projects such as dams, railways, roads, industrial waterways, and mines – a position Bolsonaro also supports.
Roads divide opinions along with forests, study finds
- A team of researchers found that support for new road construction was split among indigenous communities living in Malaysia.
- In general, people living in communities near an existing highway were more likely to support roads than those living in villages farther away from the highway.
- The authors write that the findings lend support to the need for comprehensive social impact assessments before and during the construction of new roads.
Call to protect dwindling wilderness ‘before it disappears forever’
- Just 23 percent of wilderness on land and 13 percent of wilderness at sea remains, according to new maps of global human impacts.
- Five countries — Russia, Canada, Australia, the United States and Brazil — contain 70 percent of the remaining wilderness.
- The authors of the suite of studies argue that wilderness protection should move to the forefront of the conservation agenda.
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