topic: Saving Rainforests

topic: Saving Rainforests

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Scientists use mining data to build malaria alert system in the Amazon
- Researchers have found a direct link between illegal mining, miners’ routes, and malaria cases in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in Brazil.
- Now, they’re working on an alert system that will rely on mining data to warn local health agents about the risk of a malaria outbreak.
- The number of malaria cases dropped sharply after authorities expelled illegal miners from the Yanomami land, but Indigenous people worry the potential return of a right-wing government after October’s election could revive the humanitarian crisis.

Can REDD+ deliver for Philippines’ Iraya Mangyan?
- The Mindoro Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Programme combines Indigenous forest patrols, ancestral-domain support, carbon monitoring and livelihood projects to protect more than 40,000 hectares (nearly 99,000 acres) of Iraya Mangyan forest.
- Indigenous patrollers and local officials say the program has already strengthened monitoring and helped reduce timber poaching and small-scale mining, while surveys have documented hundreds of plant and animal species across the project area.
- Community nurseries and paid conservation roles are creating early livelihood opportunities, but many benefits remain limited and uneven while the project awaits verification, a finalized benefit-sharing agreement and carbon revenue expected no earlier than around 2029.
- Whether the program can deliver lasting benefits will depend on finalizing a transparent revenue-sharing agreement, sustaining patrols and livelihoods during the long wait for carbon income, and ensuring the Iraya retain a meaningful role in decisions over their forests.

New ‘conservation deed’ aims to protect tree kangaroos, forests, people in Papua New Guinea
- On June 30, 266 clan leaders across 41 villages in Papua New Guinea’s Torricelli Mountains signed a legally binding “conservation deed” that protects rainforest and its inhabitants and is the result of decades of work by the Tenkile Conservation Alliance.
- The deed shields the range’s exceptional biodiversity, including the critically endangered tenkile and weimang tree kangaroos, after a long-stalled effort to secure formal government protected-area status has left communities exposed to logging pressure.
- Conservation deeds have held up in court, with a 2025 National Court ruling citing one to restrict logging on clan lands in East New Britain.
- Built over two years through a free, prior and informed consent process, the Torricelli deed bans commercial logging and mining, as well as the hunting of threatened species, renews every five years and gives the alliance a model it now plans to extend to nearby areas under similar threat.

Amazon deforestation falls to 10-year low in first half of 2026
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest level in the past 10 years, according to satellite data published by Brazil’s National Space Agency (INPE). Between January and June 2025, a total of 2,090 square kilometers (807 square miles) of deforestation was recorded in the Brazilian Amazon. In the same months of 2026, […]
A fraction of promised climate money reaches Amazon communities: Interview with Latimpacto’s leaders
- Despite major funding pledges for the Amazon, much of the promised capital never reaches Indigenous peoples and local communities, often because funding structures are poorly aligned with on-the-ground realities.
- Latimpacto, a Colombia-based philanthropic network, is working to close this gap through initiatives that train funders, support locally led innovation and integrate Indigenous knowledge into conservation and development projects.
- Mongabay spoke with Latimpacto’s leaders, Carolina Suárez Visbal and Juan David Ferreira, who say the organization is also advocating for stronger domestic philanthropy across Latin America, arguing that better tax incentives, trust-based grantmaking, and patient, flexible capital are needed to complement international funding.
- Suárez Visbal and Ferreira say they see greater collaboration between Latin America and Southeast Asia as a key opportunity, calling for shared funding mechanisms and knowledge exchange to strengthen conservation of tropical forests and broader socioecological resilience.

South America’s farms depend, in part, on a healthy Amazon
- The Amazon is not only a carbon store; it is also a major source of atmospheric moisture that helps sustain rainfall across much of South America.
- A new Nature study finds that deforestation lowers the warming threshold at which large parts of the Amazon could lose stability.
- Recent droughts, El Niño conditions, and fire risk show why degraded forests are less able to withstand climate stress and recover afterward.
- Protecting intact forests, restoring degraded areas, and reducing fire are increasingly important for climate resilience, biodiversity, and South America’s food system.

Legal protections for Brazil’s isolated Indigenous peoples: Interview with prosecutor Daniel Luís Dalberto
- Across Brazil, orders known as land-use restrictions serve as temporary protective measures for the territories of recently contacted Indigenous peoples and those living in voluntary isolation.
- But while the measures are meant to allow time for the formal demarcation process to be carried out, they’ve now become an end to themselves, renewed repeatedly and failing to prevent the invasion and exploitation of these lands, says Brazilian federal public prosecutor Daniel Luís Dalberto.
- Dalberto told Mongabay in an interview that the measure is meant to be precautionary and accompanied by other protective measures by government agencies, such as monitoring work and operations to combat crime.
- He also raised concerns about the frequency with which issues affecting Indigenous territories are being raised to the country’s highest court, rather than being resolved at local courts and tribunals, which closes off an important front in the fight for fundamental rights.

The Amazon’s path from crisis to durability
- Amazon biodiversity protection depends on more than keeping forests standing; a forest can remain on the map while losing ecological function, governance protections, enforcement capacity, or public support.
- Six connected gaps shape Amazon conservation: finance and forest economy, governance, enforcement, forest function, Indigenous rights, and narrative.
- Progress is possible. Brazil has reduced deforestation before, satellite alerts can strengthen enforcement, Indigenous land rights can protect forests, and better finance and monitoring can make protection more durable.
- The central challenge is making the systems around the forest pull in the same direction: finance that favors protection, governance that reduces impunity, enforcement with consequences, rights that hold on the ground, monitoring that reveals what tree cover hides, and stories that show where action is possible.

Brazil has protected much of the Amazon. It now has to pay for it.
- Brazil has built one of the world’s most important protected-area systems, but a new study finds that most federal protected areas remain underfunded, with the largest shortfalls in the Amazon.
- The funding gap reflects more than the size of Brazil’s conservation estate: remote Amazon reserves are costly to manage, politically less visible, and often receive far less support than protected areas near cities and institutions.
- Underfunding has practical consequences, limiting staff, patrols, fire response, monitoring, community engagement, and the ability of protected areas to prevent deforestation and other threats.
- Tourism, ARPA, the Amazon Fund, and rising federal environmental budgets can help, but Brazil needs stable, transparent, long-term financing that matches the recurring cost of turning legal protection into management.

10 forces that could reshape the future of the world’s forests
- A new horizon scan identifies ten emerging forces—spanning politics, finance and technology—that are likely to shape forests over the next decade, increasing uncertainty for ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
- Traditional funding for conservation is weakening as public aid declines, while new mechanisms—from carbon markets to direct financing for Indigenous and local communities—are expanding unevenly.
- Advances in remote sensing, AI and connectivity are improving monitoring and accountability, but are also enabling illegal activities and accelerating pressures in some regions.
- Growing demand for critical minerals, shifting trade rules and tighter political control over civil society are reshaping forest governance, fragmenting authority and redistributing risks and benefits.

As EU-Mercosur agreement goes into effect, environmentalists raise red flags
- The EU-Mercosur trade agreement, between the European Union and many Latin American nations, is potentially worth trillions of dollars in transcontinental commerce, and it is about to be implemented on a provisional basis starting in May, 2026.
- But experts and environmental organizations are concerned about the risks that may arise across Latin America as the accord goes into effect.
- Indigenous organizations warn about the lack of consultation with potentially affected native peoples, and studies point to problems associated with increases in deforestation, mining, and the use of agrochemicals and pesticides.
- On the other hand, experts argue that some provisions, such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), could help reduce environmental damage in Latin America under existing trade dynamics.

Peru-Brazil Bioceanic Railway brings too much risk to the Amazon, experts warn
- Discussions around the construction of a railway line linking the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in South America have raised concerns about the potential social and environmental impacts.
- Experts warn about the consequences within and around the proposed routes of the Bioceanic Railway between Peru and Brazil, potentially harming Indigenous communities as well as the native Amazonian ecosystem.
- While authorities told Mongabay that there’s no “definitive route” to date, all the potential routes would cross through environmentally sensitive areas of the Peruvian regions of Ucayali and Madre de Dios.
- Critics also warn that opening new routes inside the Amazon could boost criminal activity, paving the way for illegal mining and drug trafficking.

Restoration of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest may hinge on market for native plants
- Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is one of the richest biomes on the planet, hosting around 5% of Earth’s vertebrate species, but deforestation has decimated the region, with less than a quarter of original forests still standing.
- Reforestation efforts provide varying environmental, economic and societal values, also known as bioeconomics.
- New research weighs the economic potential of native plants to bolster the bioeconomics of reforestation projects, supporting conservation efforts and supporting small landowners and Indigenous communities.

Climate or biodiversity? Global study maps out forestation’s dilemma
- A new study maps areas designated for potential carbon dioxide removal projects, such as planting forests or bioenergy crops, that might conflict with biodiversity hotspots.
- Such climate strategies could harm species if they change existing ecosystems or use too much land.
- The study points to the importance of more careful site selection for these projects.
- The authors of the study also note the importance of reducing humanity’s CO2 emissions, rather than relying solely on removing CO2 from the atmosphere later on.

A journey from student to Amazon “Junglekeeper”: Interview with Paul Rosolie
- Conservationist Paul Rosolie published a new book describing his journey from student to Amazon “Junglekeeper.”
- In a wide-ranging interview, Rosolie talks about uncontacted tribes, drug traffickers and the distance he still needs to go to achieve his goal of protecting the Las Piedras River.
- Rosolie also discusses the personal challenges and sacrifices of devoting his life to this slice of the Peruvian Amazon.

Brazil gov’t builds map to help exporters comply with EU anti-deforestation rule
- Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, created a new technology to generate deforestation data in polygons of a half-hectare threshold for the first time, following the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR.
- When it comes into effect at the end of 2026 (delayed for the second year in a row), the EUDR will require suppliers to provide geolocalized data and other documentation to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from areas illegally deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
- December is the start of the Amazon rainy season, which poses challenges to track deforestation due to the high incidence of clouds; to tackle this, INPE created the Brazil Data Cube, which captures all remote sensing images of a period and radar to get cloud-free images for that month.
- The map was built per request of the agriculture ministry, which made it available for rural producers in late December 2025 through a platform aimed at integrating information from public and private databases to generate compliance reports to be used by exporters.

Massive Amazon conservation program pledges to put communities first
- The Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) is a massive conservation program that has helped reduce deforestation across 120 conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon and avoided 104 million metric tons of CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2020.
- A new phase of the program, called ARPA Comunidades, will now focus on supporting the communities who live in and protect the forest, by helping them increase their revenue through the bioeconomy or sale of sustainable forest products.
- Backed by a $120 million donor fund, ARPA Comunidades aims to increase protections across 60 sustainable-use reserves in the Brazilian Amazon spanning an area nearly the size of the U.K., directly impacting 130,000 people and helping raise 100,000 out of poverty.

Poaching down but threats remain for forest elephants, recent population assessment finds
- The first authoritative population assessment for African forest elephants estimates there are more than 145,000 individuals.
- Researchers say new survey techniques relying on sampling DNA from elephant dung provide the most accurate estimate of a species that’s difficult to count in its rainforest habitat.
- Central Africa remains the species’ stronghold, home to nearly 96% of forest elephants, with densely forested Gabon hosting 95,000 individuals.
- Conservationists say the findings can help inform the design of targeted conservation actions and national plans for forest elephants.

The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2025, with attention to how policy, markets, and climate stress increasingly interact rather than operate in isolation.
- Across major forest regions, deforestation slowed in some places but degradation, fire, conflict, and legacy damage continued to erode forest health, often in ways that standard metrics fail to capture.
- Global responses remained uneven: conservation finance shifted toward fiscal and market-based tools, climate diplomacy deferred hard decisions, and enforcement outcomes depended heavily on institutional capacity and credibility rather than formal commitments alone.
- Taken together, the year showed that forest outcomes now hinge less on single interventions than on whether governments and institutions can sustain continuity—of funding, governance, science, and oversight—under mounting environmental and political strain.

Indigenous Dayak resist new southern Borneo national park amid global protection deficit
- Indigenous peoples and student protesters staged several demonstrations in Indonesian Borneo in August in a bid to pressure local authorities to cancel plans for a 119,779-hectare (295,980-acre) national park in the Meratus mountain range.
- Meratus Mountains National Park would be the first national park in South Kalimantan province, and the 58th in Indonesia.
- The draft plans will absorb almost two dozen villages impacting several thousand families, many of whom fear displacement given the lack of formal state recognition of Indigenous communities.
- Local civil society organizations say the public protests reflect a lack of consultation with affected communities, a pattern established by many governments as countries rush to protect 30% of the world’s land and marine areas by 2030.

Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)
- Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute and of the Green Bridge Facility, argues that keeping global warming below 1.5 °C requires action on three simultaneous fronts: phasing out fossil fuels, ending deforestation, and scaling up natural carbon capture in forests and oceans.
- She contends that energy decarbonization alone is insufficient; protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves is essential for both emissions reduction and resilience, and must be backed by transparent finance and accountability.
- With COP30 approaching in Belém, her piece calls for an integrated, finance-backed plan that ties together clean-energy expansion, a time-bound zero-deforestation roadmap, and rigorous safeguards for community-led nature-based solutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Tanzanian conservationists mourn death of plant expert Aloyce Mwakisoma
- Aloyce Mwakisoma, a renowned plant expert from Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains, was struck and killed by a bus on Oct. 6 near the village of Sanje.
- Mwakisoma, who was born and raised in the Udzungwas, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants and animals found in his home in the Eastern Arc.
- His colleagues recognized him as one of the many local experts whose indigenous knowledge powerfully informs the description and protection of the continent’s biodiversity.

MPs across Latin America unite to stop fossil fuels in the Amazon
- On Oct. 7, a network of more than 900 lawmakers presented the results of a parliamentary investigation into the phaseout of fossil fuels in the Amazon at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasília.
- The report by Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future links fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon to deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation, pollution from spills and toxic waste, community displacement, health problems and violence from armed groups.
- MPs from five Amazonian countries — Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia — have presented law proposals in their national parliaments to halt the expansion of fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon region of their countries. But the level of ambition varies across nations, with countries still relying heavily on extractive industries.

Setting the record straight on Jurisdictional REDD+: The case of Brazil
- Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+) has been a climate finance mechanism under the UN for nearly two decades. In Brazil, JREDD+ is a public policy approach developed by Brazilian federal and state governments to promote large-scale forest conservation and climate mitigation.
- Emission reductions are measured at the jurisdictional level—not tied to individual properties or collective territories—and generate carbon credits based on verified drops in deforestation and degradation.
- Participation is voluntary and protected by safeguards and law, ensuring communities, farmers, and local actors can opt in or out while retaining land and resource rights. JREDD+ enables access to climate finance from private and public sources, with benefits distributed to rural sectors and credits issued only after independent verification.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

As forest elephants plummet, ebony trees decline in Central Africa’s rainforests
- In the past three decades, poaching has decimated Africa’s now-critically endangered forest elephants, and as a result, their vital role as seed dispersers of many forest plants has been disrupted.
- A new study from Cameroon provides the first direct evidence that without forest elephants, there are fewer ebony saplings; on average, as few as 68%, in Central African rainforests.
- Researchers found that seeds pooped out in elephant dung have a better chance of surviving and sprouting as they are protected from hungry rodents and other herbivores that chew and destroy the seeds.
- The findings show that losing key ecosystem engineers and seed dispersers has far-reaching ecological and economic impacts, potentially altering entire ecosystems.

Brazil’s Forestry Code seeks to strengthen forest conservation, but controversies remain
- Suffering repeated changes, Brazil’s Forest Code regulates protected areas and forest management on private property, as well as commercialization of forest products.
- If a landholder exceeds the legally permitted area eligible for conversion, they are legally required to restore the forest to meet the Code’s requirements.
- In 2012, the Forest Code was modified to lessen restoration requirements under certain circumstances and freed landholders of liability for any fines or damages linked to forest clearing prior to 2008.

Cross-border operation cracks down on environmental crimes in the Amazon
- Between June 23 and July 6, 2025, police forces from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru joined forces in a cross-border law enforcement initiative targeting environmental crimes like illegal mining, wildlife trafficking and illegal logging.
- Coordinated by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Interior, Operation Green Shield led to more than 90 arrests and the seizure of assets worth more than $64 million. Authorities also rescued more than 2,100 live animals and recovered 6,350 dead specimens.
- Reactions among local communities were mixed. While some locals were involved in illicit activities, others condemned the environmental destruction and feared reprisals from armed criminal groups operating in their territories.
- Although the operation disrupted environmental crimes, experts warn the offenses may shift to other areas. They stress the urgent need for sustainable development alternatives to address the root causes driving illegal activities in the Amazon.

Indonesian farmers plant hope for isolated Javan gibbons
In Indonesia’s Central Java province, two groups of Javan gibbons have become isolated in two small forest patches. To help the gibbons make their way to larger forest areas, a local NGO, SwaraOwa, is working with farmers in the region to restore and build “corridors” that would connect the fragmented forest blocks, Mongabay reported in […]
Where there’s political will, there’s a way to stop tropical deforestation, study finds
- A study focused on why deforestation rates have slowed in Indonesia and the Brazilian Amazon revealed that political will was a critical factor, often as a result of pressure from civil society and diplomacy to conserve forests.
- The authors surveyed the expert opinions of researchers, policymakers and advocates working on forest conservation in Brazil or Indonesia.
- In Brazil, experts said government action — like satellite monitoring and recognizing Indigenous lands — was key to stopping deforestation.
- Indonesia’s forest conservation success comes not just from political will, but also from corporate efforts and pressure from civil society groups.

Indigenous rubber bounces back for Amazon conservation and higher income
- Rubber tapping in the forest was once the main Amazonian economic activity, and now an Indigenous group is bringing it back.
- Partnering with Brazilian organizations, Indigenous Gavião communities find they can simultaneously protect the forest and its cultural heritage while boosting their own livelihoods through the wild rubber trade.
- The initiative is part of a broader Indigenous-led bioeconomy movement in the Amazon that attracts younger generations by combining traditional practices with technical training and earning opportunities.
- Despite promising results, challenges such as drought and limited private sector engagement highlight the need for increased investment to scale up forest-based alternatives.

Methods to recognize the Amazon’s isolated peoples: Interview with Antenor Vaz
- Mongabay interviewed Antenor Vaz, an international expert on recognition methodologies and protection policies for Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact (PIACI), about the importance of confirming and recognizing the existence of isolated peoples.
- Vaz is a regional adviser for GTI-PIACI, an international working group committed to the protection, defense and promotion of the rights of PIACI, which recently launched a report to help governments, Indigenous organizations and NGOs prove the existence of Indigenous peoples living in isolation.
- In this interview, Vaz highlights strategies states can use to confirm and recognize the existence of isolated peoples while maintaining the no-contact principle.

New report reinforces critical role of Amazonian protected areas in climate fight
- A new report has found that protected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon store more aboveground carbon than the rest of the rainforest.
- Protected areas and Indigenous territories were also found to serve as significant carbon sinks between 2013 and 2022, absorbing 257 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
- Protected areas in Colombia, Brazil, Suriname and French Guiana were found to be significant carbon sinks.
- The report underscores the need to protect these areas that aren’t currently threatened by deforestation as they play a critical role in offsetting emissions from other parts of the forest.

Gold rush moves closer to Amazon’s second-tallest tree
Illegal gold miners are now operating very close to the second-tallest tree in the Amazon Rainforest, Mongabay’s Fernanda Wenzel reported in April. Six giant trees, including a red angelim (Dinizia excelsa) that stands 85 meters (279 feet) tall, are found inside the Iratapuru River Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil’s Amapá state. Despite the area’s protected status, […]
Elusive wildlife shows up for photographer’s camera traps in Congo
- Photographer Will Burrard-Lucas deployed high-definition cameras at four sites in the Republic of Congo’s Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park throughout 2023.
- The cameras captured a selection of beautiful photographs of seldom-seen wildlife.
- Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park is home to significant populations of endangered mammals, including gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants.

Indigenous Dayak community makes strides on Borneo toward forest autonomy
- In Mekar Raya, a semi-remote pocket of Ketapang district near the west coast of Indonesian Borneo, the local Dayak Simpan Indigenous society are navigating the complex bureaucracy of the state in a bid to gain semi-autonomous control of their customary forest.
- Under the national “social forestry” program, Indonesia’s central government has released more than 8 million hectares (20 million acres) from the national forest estate to management by local and Indigenous communities.
- The Dayak Simpan in Mekar Raya have previously resisted attempts by the palm oil industry to survey local land. Local sources say devolved management of the forest to the community will all but eliminate the risk of this land-use change.
- Several areas of the forestry are held sacred by the Dayak Simpan, with customary rules prohibiting the felling of trees or disturbance of water courses.

‘We’re getting back on track’: Interview with IBAMA head Rodrigo Agostinho
- Rodrigo Agostinho, head of IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, for two years now, spoke with Mongabay about the progress of his agency and the challenges it faces in protecting the country’s biomes after four years of regression under former president Jair Bolsonaro.
- Agostinho revealed plans to strengthen the agency and try to reach the 2030 zero-deforestation goal before the deadline, with investments in cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence: “IBAMA went four years without using satellite images for embargoes. We’ve taken that up again with full force”.
- Agostinho also detailed IBAMA’s restructuring plans, with the opening of offices in the Amazon and support from financial authorities to cut off funding for embargoed areas: “We embargo them due to deforestation, and then that person can’t get agricultural financing anymore.”

Krahô women lead Indigenous guard to protect territory in Brazil
- Indigenous women from Krahô communities in Brazil’s Tocantins state have formed a surveillance group to protect their ancestral territory from invaders.
- The thirteen Krahô Warriors received training in surveillance and carry out operations for 15 days each month.
- They plan and implement territorial protection actions based on Krahô traditions and ways of life.
- The Kraolândia Indigenous Land (TI) is under pressure from loggers, hunters, charcoal factories, and agribusinesses that surround the territory.

Indigenous communities come together to protect the Colombian Amazon
- Indigenous communities are increasingly recognized as the most effective guardians of the Amazon Rainforest, thanks to their deep-rooted beliefs that nature possesses its own life and rights, and also to their focus on long-term sustainability rather than short-term profits.
- In the Colombian Amazon’s Putumayo department, Indigenous women have come together to plant trees, collect waste, monitor water quality, launch educational campaigns, and denounce extractive activities that threaten the rainforest.
- One of the key challenges lies in blending traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern scientific approaches.
- Despite growing interest in Indigenous knowledge and preservation efforts, Indigenous communities remain underrepresented in political decision-making and the funding of conservation projects, and are also left exposed to attacks for their role as environmental defenders.

The year in tropical rainforests: 2024
- The year 2024 saw significant developments in tropical rainforest conservation, deforestation, and degradation. While progress in some regions provided glimmers of hope, systemic challenges and emerging threats highlighted the fragility of these ecosystems.
- Although a complete comparison of tropical forest loss in 2024 with previous years is not yet available, there are currently no indications that this year’s loss will be markedly higher. A sharp decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon—partially offset by widespread forest fires—suggests the overall rate of loss may be lower.
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2024.

‘Time is water’: A cross-border Indigenous alliance works to save the Amazon
- A transboundary Indigenous peoples’ alliance has been working in Ecuador and Peru to protect the Amazon Basin in the face of climate change impacts.
- Indigenous people, who have sacred connections with the Amazon River, are suffering the consequences of wildfires, extreme heat and drought, which have deeply affected water levels across the basin.
- The Sacred Headwaters Alliance is focusing on climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as on teaching younger generations to resist against the destruction of the Amazon.

What’s the TFFF? A forest finance tool ‘like no other’ shows potential
In 2023, at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the Brazilian government proposed a new funding mechanism to help tropical nations keep their forests standing. They called it the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), and its incentive is relatively simple: using satellite monitoring in participating nations to determine which ones have preserved their forests, and […]
‘Trump is a disease’, says Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa
- In addition to being a shaman, Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and a political leader active in denouncing the gold miners who illegally invaded the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The Yanomami, who inhabit Brazil’s largest Indigenous Land, still face a humanitarian and health crisis, worsened by the invasion of 70,000 illegal miners. Increased under the Jair Bolsonaro government, the invasion brought diseases and contaminated rivers with mercury.
- In this interview, Kopenawa criticizes the environmental and social impacts of administrations led by politicians such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

Canopy bridges serve a lifeline for Sumatra’s tree-dwelling primates
- An NGO is working with local authorities in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province to build canopy bridges for primates to safely cross roads that fragment their forest habitats.
- Pakpak Bharat district has seen rapid growth of new roads to improve communities’ access to schools and hospitals, with the trade-off being that many of these roads disrupt wildlife connectivity.
- The bridges, designed to meet the needs of different species, have been used by various wildlife, though not yet the critically endangered orangutans that the designers had in mind, and are monitored regularly through camera traps and maintenance checks.
- Conservationists highlight the bridges’ role in preventing inbreeding among isolated populations and sustaining the ecosystem’s biodiversity, with hopes to expand the initiative across Sumatra.

Congo looks to monetize its high-integrity forests
- The Republic of Congo’s Ministry of Forest Economy, in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, has launched an investment plan for high-integrity forests in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park.
- The HIFOR initiative aims to fill the funding gap for well-preserved forests that aren’t eligible for carbon offsetting schemes.
- Nouabalé-Ndoki in the north of the Republic of Congo is recognized for its ecological integrity.
- By integrating sustainable economic practices, the project promises to strengthen conservation efforts while supporting local communities.

Raw materials become high-value bioeconomy goods at an Amazon science park
- Ahead of hosting 2025’s COP30 climate summit, Belém is betting on the development of products such as honey-based spirits, digital glasses from local wood and jambu-infused medicine at a local tech park.
- The Guamá Science and Technology Park (PCT), operating since 2010 and the first of its kind in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, uses technology to transform forest-based resources into high-value products.
- It’s a step toward building a sustainable and thriving billion-dollar bioeconomy that provides local populations with alternatives to deforestation and increases the appeal of sustainably harvesting the region’s resources.
- Future plans include expanding the park for further innovation and to build more science and technology parks in the Amazon as well as fostering networks with other Pan Amazonian countries with similar hubs such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Time for a copal comeback? The natural resin could boost Amazon’s economy
- Copal resin, also known as rosin or jutaicica, historically was a relevant source of income for river and traditional communities in the surroundings of Santarém, in the Brazilian Pará state.
- In the 1980s, however, its use as a varnish was substituted by a petroleum-based solution.
- Researchers say the natural resin could be part of the communities’ sustainable economy again, especially by adding value to Amazon timber products.

‘Extinct’ trees found in Tanzania spark hope for ecosystem recovery
- Conservationists in eastern Tanzania have found two specimens of a rare tree feared to be extinct.
- Millettia sacleuxii was only known from six specimens in forest reserves that have almost disappeared.
- Thousands of seeds have been collected and seedlings raised, and these are due to be planted out as part of a reforestation project in the Nguru Mountains.
- The two surviving Millettia “mother trees” were found near an area that conservationists hope to soon turn into a wildlife corridor.

New study reaffirms Indigenous lands key to mitigating climate change in Brazil
- A recent study adds to growing literature showing that Indigenous lands and conservation units are much more effective at regulating climate than multiuse areas.
- The authors found that Indigenous lands and conservation units contribute more to climate regulation than multiple-use areas, underscoring the crucial role that protected areas play in regional water supply services and mitigating ongoing climate change.
- However, persistent degradation pressures from forest fires, deforestation and global climate change are increasingly challenging the capacity of protected areas to regulate climate.

Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest continues to plummet despite a rise in fires
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to its lowest level since March 2018, according to new data from the Brazilian government.
- Deforestation for the year to date is down 40% compared to 2023, with expectations for a significant annual decline when the “deforestation year” concludes on July 31.
- Despite declining deforestation in the Amazon, the region is experiencing a rise in forest fires due to a severe drought.
- Deforestation is rising in the cerrado, an adjacent ecosystem.

Indigenous people and NGO grow a wildlife corridor in the world’s oldest rainforest
- Environmental charity Climate Force is collaborating with the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people and rangers to create a wildlife corridor that runs between two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Australia: the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.
- Wildlife habitats in this region have become fragmented due to industrial agriculture, and a forested corridor is expected to help protect biodiversity by allowing animals to forage for food and connect different populations for mating and migration.
- The project aims to plant 360,000 trees over an area of 213 hectares (526 acres); so far, it has planted 25,000 trees of 180 species on the land and in the nursery, which can also feed a range of native wildlife.
- The project is ambitious and organizers say they’re hopeful about it, but challenges remain, including soil regeneration and ensuring the planted trees aren’t killed off by feral pigs or flooding.

Governments are ramping up actions to fight environmental crime across the Amazon, but is it working? (commentary)
- In 2023, Amazon deforestation rates declined after years of record-breaking losses, thanks to efforts led by Brazil and Colombia. However, these gains are fragile, and anti-deforestation efforts show signs of weakening, with persistent risks of a tipping point, argues Robert Muggah, Co-Founder of the Igarapé Institute.
- Government measures focus on forest conservation, green development, and strengthening the rule of law but face challenges due to underfunding and limited municipal support. Public security forces are overwhelmed by environmental crimes like illegal mining and wildlife trafficking, exacerbating forest and biodiversity loss.
- Environmental crime is gaining more attention from decision-makers, law enforcement, and civil society, leading to increased media coverage and public commitments. Despite this, interventions remain fragmented, with inconsistent political backing and funding, writes Muggah.
- “Ultimately, Brazil and other countries in the Amazon Basin cannot reverse environmental crime through police and prosecutions alone,” he writes. “A comprehensive strategy that combines law enforcement with nature-based development opportunities is critical.” This post is a commentary, so the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Interview with the award-winning directors of ‘We Are Guardians’
In this episode of Mongabay Sessions, join Romi Castagnino, Mongabay’s Associate Video Producer, as she delves into an insightful interview with the directors of the acclaimed documentary We Are Guardians. Featuring Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, and Rob Grobman, this film is a powerful exploration of the Amazon’s ongoing battle for survival. We Are Guardians weaves […]
Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
- The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.

New technologies to map environmental crime in the Amazon Basin (commentary)
- Environmental crimes like land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and poaching hinder climate action, deter investment in sustainable practices, and threaten biodiversity across major biomes worldwide.
- Despite challenges such as vast territories difficult to police and weak rule of law, new technologies like geospatial and predictive analytics are being leveraged to enhance the detection and disruption of these activities.
- Innovative approaches, including public-private partnerships and AI tools, show promise in improving real-time monitoring and enforcement, although they require increased investment and training to be truly effective, argue Robert Muggah and Peter Smith of Instituto Igarapé, a “think and do tank” in Brazil.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

To reverse deforestation and protect biodiversity, build a bioeconomy in the Amazon (commentary)
- Slowing and reversing deforestation and land degradation in the Amazon requires not only conservation efforts but also increasing the economic value of standing primary forests through a bioeconomy approach, argues Robert Muggah, co-founder of Instituto Igarapé.
- A bioeconomy involves regenerative agriculture, sustainable energy, and other activities that leverage the forest’s natural assets while ensuring economic benefits for local communities. However, the expansion of the bioeconomy faces challenges, including resistance from extractive sectors, investment risks, and the need for infrastructure, research, and support for local enterprises.
- Despite these hurdles, advancing the bioeconomy is essential for sustainable development and decarbonization in the Amazon and crucial for the world, says Muggah.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Tech to recover rainforest: Interview with Osa Conservation’s Carolina Pinto & Paulina Rodriguez
- Osa Conservation is a nonprofit organization working to monitor and protect biodiversity in the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
- The peninsula is home to plants and animals seen nowhere else on the planet, and is estimated to harbor 2.5% of the global terrestrial biodiversity.
- The organization uses a wide array of tech tools — from camera traps to acoustic recorders and GPS tags — to study, monitor and protect animals such as sea turtles, jaguars and spider monkeys.
- However, the harsh terrain, weak internet connectivity and the remote nature of the ecosystem are proving to be hurdles to quicker and more efficient deployment of tech tools.

Mongabay’s top 10 podcast episodes of 2023
- It was a packed year on Mongabay’s podcast calendar, with a new season of “Mongabay Explores” taking a deep dive into the Congo Basin.
- At the same time, the Mongabay Newscast continued publishing conversations with leading researchers, authors and activists, and it introduced a new co-host, Rachel Donald.
- Our top 10 list includes examinations of the Congo Basin’s cobalt mining industry, a conversation with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a botanist discussing the worrying decline of botany education, and a National Geographic photographer’s project highlighting the key role of traditional ecological knowledge for Indigenous communities and conservation.

Indonesia remembers Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, rare policymaker who stood for nature
- Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a respected Indonesian policymaker and environmentalist, passed away earlier this month, leaving behind a legacy of dedicated and direct leadership.
- Kuntoro’s lifelong dedication to environmental causes, including his support for Indigenous rights, was rooted in his early years as a nature lover.
- His former colleagues and collaborators recall Kuntoro’s integrity and commitment to balancing developmental and environmental interests.
- His ability to find common ground among diverse stakeholders, address challenges with innovative solutions, and emphasize the well-being of Indigenous communities showcased a practical leadership style with a lasting impact.

Detailed NASA analysis finds Earth and Amazon in deep climate trouble
- A NASA study analyzed the future action of six climate variables in all the world’s regions — air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, short- and long wave solar radiation and wind speed — if Earth’s average temperature reaches 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, which could occur by 2040 if emissions keep rising at current rates.
- The authors used advanced statistical techniques to downscale climate models at a resolution eight times greater than most previous models. This allows for identification of climate variations on a daily basis across the world, something essential since climate impacts unfold gradually, rather than as upheavals.
- The study found that the Amazon will be the area with the greatest reduction in relative humidity. An analysis by the Brazilian space agency INPE showed that some parts of this rainforest biome have already reached maximum temperatures of more than 3°C (5.4°F) over 1960 levels.
- Regardless of warnings from science and Indigenous peoples of the existential threat posed by climate change, the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, largely with government consent, plan to further expand fossil fuel exploration, says a U.N. report. That’s despite a COP28 climate summit deal “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

Science panel presents COP28 with blueprint for saving the Amazon
- Five policy briefs launched at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai highlight the critical challenges facing the Amazon Basin, as well as the immediate actions and solutions needed to ensure a sustainable future for the region’s ecosystems and the 47 million people living there.
- The reports, published by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), a high-level science body, cover cross-cutting topics, from root causes of deforestation and rethinking Amazon infrastructure to restoration and finance solutions.
- Stressing the urgency of preventing the rainforest from crossing a tipping point into a dry scrubland, the panel calls for leveraging nature-based solutions and Indigenous knowledge to consolidate new social bioeconomies that can “leave forests standing and rivers flowing.”
- Based on a previous SPA brief, Brazil launched Arcs of Reforestation, a $205 million program to restore 6 million hectares (15 million acres) of deforested and degraded forest land in some of most affected parts of the Brazilian Amazon.

Amazon deforestation declines but fossil fuels remain contentious, COP28 shows
- COP28 celebrates the strong downward trend in deforestation in the Amazon over the last year, but also reveals a conflict between Amazonian nations over fossil fuels.
- Colombia has stopped all new oil exploration contracts in a bid to eliminate dependency on the fossil fuel economy. On the other hand, Brazil announced plans that could make it the world’s fourth-largest oil producer by the end of this decade.
- Indigenous groups who live and depend on the Amazon Rainforest lament that they haven’t been heard or involved in important decision-making during COP28 that would ultimately impact them.
- Experts say that international finance is “fundamental” for climate action, and while this theme has been on the table at COP28, there has been no tangible action that would meet the scale required to preserve the Amazon Rainforest.

Safety of Peru’s land defenders in question after killing of Indigenous leader in the Amazon
- Quinto Inuma was killed on November 29 while traveling to the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community in Peru’s Amazon following a meeting of environmental defenders.
- For years, the Indigenous Kichwa leader had been receiving threats for his work trying to stop invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging in his community, forcing him to rely on protection measures from the Ministry of Justice.
- After Inuma’s death, a group of 128 Indigenous communities released a statement appealing for justice and holding the Peruvian state reponsible for its inaction and ineffectivtieness in protecting the lives of human rights defenders in Indigenous territories. Several other Indigenous leaders who receive threats have requested protection measures from the state but have not gotten a response.
- According to an official in the Ministry of Justice, providing the Kichwa leader with protection measures was very complex because he lived in a high-risk area. The only thing that could be done, they said, is to provide permanent police protection, which wasn’t possible for the local police.

Least-studied areas of Brazilian Amazon at high risk from climate change
- In the Brazilian Amazon, between 15 and 18% of the areas most overlooked by research are at high risk of severe climate and land-use changes by 2050, according to a new study.
- Analyzing data from more than 7,500 locations surveyed between 2010-2020, the study looked at the role of logistics and human presence in determining which areas of the Brazilian Amazon get studied, and at the challenges to expanding research to more remote areas.
- The study suggests that creating new research centers in less-studied areas and working with Indigenous communities would help boost research efforts in underrepresented sites.

How creative & emotive communication conserved 55,000 acres of Peru’s Amazon
- Protecting the Peruvian Amazon is dangerous work, but conservationist Paul Rosolie and his nonprofit Junglekeepers team have attracted millions of dollars in funding to protect 55,000 acres of rainforest in the country’s Madre de Dios region.
- Rosolie first received international recognition via his 2014 memoir, “Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey in the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon.”
- Today, he runs both a nonprofit and an ecotourism service that employs and is co-led by local and Indigenous people.
- In this podcast episode, Rosolie reflects on his decade-plus journey to today and shares his recipe for conservation success.

What Brazil should have said at COP28 but didn’t (commentary)
- Brazil’s President Lula made important contributions to COP28 in demanding that the 1.5°C temperature increase limit be respected, in recognizing the risk of Amazon forest collapse, and in promising to end Brazil’s Amazon deforestation by 2030.
- Lula failed to explain how zero deforestation would be achieved, implicitly relying only on the Ministry of Environment’s command and control operations against illegal clearing. The causes of deforestation must be addressed, many of which are being strengthened by the rest of Lula’s presidential administration.
- These include legalization of illegal land claims in government land and highway projects such as BR-319 and associated side roads that would open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters. Brazil’s plans for opening new oil and gas extraction areas and expanding existing ones contradict the discourse on limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Brazil proposes $250 billion “Tropical Forests Forever” fund for rainforests
- Brazil has proposed a new $250 billion mechanism for conserving the world’s tropical rainforests.
- The “Tropical Forests Forever” fund, sourced from governments and the private sector, would disburse money to tropical countries that achieve set thresholds for limiting deforestation.
- The proposal, conceptually similar to past initiatives, emerges amid a growing interest in nature-based solutions for addressing climate change and other environmental challenges.
- It comes as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is repositioning the country as a leader in efforts to address climate change.

Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- Restoring degraded forests to boost biodiversity, store carbon and reconnect fragmented habitats is a burgeoning area of tropical forest conservation.
- But uncertainty remains around the long-term impacts of various restoration approaches on forest biodiversity and functioning, with experts suggesting, for instance, that overly focusing on biomass accumulation for climate mitigation can come at the expense of species diversity.
- A new study in Malaysian Borneo has found that actively restoring logged forest plots with a diversity of native timber species, coupled with management of competitive vegetation, actually boosted adult tree diversity after nearly two decades compared to plots left to regenerate naturally.
- While the results add to a growing body of evidence that active restoration can lead to biodiversity gains, the authors caution that restoration approaches must be conducted in ecologically sensitive ways to avoid unintended outcomes.

Carbon credit certifier Verra updates accounting method amid growing criticism
- The world’s largest carbon credit certifier, Verra, has overhauled its methods for calculating the climate impacts of REDD projects that aim to reduce deforestation.
- REDD stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
- The emissions reductions from these projects can be sold on the voluntary carbon market to individuals and companies, which proponents say provides a vital stream of funding for forest conservation.
- The update changes the process for calculating deforestation baselines, which help determine how effective a project has been at reducing forest loss and keeping the carbon those trees contain out of the atmosphere.

Mongabay CEO discusses slowdown in Amazon loss and other positive news
- It’s been an eventful couple of months for the Amazon Rainforest and for the Mongabay newsroom.
- Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recently shared data showing a 22% decline in deforestation for the year ending July 31, 2023.
- In other exciting news, Mongabay was awarded the prestigious 2023 Biophilia Award for Environmental Communication recently. Past winners have included Pulitzer-winning journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and The Guardian.
- Mongabay has also just launched an entirely new bilingual bureau in Africa. Here to discuss all these developments on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is CEO and editor-in-chief Rhett Butler.

Jurisdictional REDD+ ready to fund forest-positive, socially-inclusive development in the Amazon and beyond (commentary)
- Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD) is designed to fund regional transitions to forest-positive, socially-inclusive rural development. It is fundamentally different than private forest carbon projects, which have come under scrutiny for overstating their climate benefits.
- JREDD rewards forest carbon emissions reductions already achieved across entire jurisdictions–states and nations–and provides a platform for the full participation of Indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers; it features a leadership role for governments that are becoming more transparent and inclusive in the process.
- The steep decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon means that several states are poised to issue a large volume of high-integrity, verified JREDD credits from 2024 onward. If the demand for these credits is sufficient, sales revenues could help states tame extensive forest frontiers with transparency and accountability, inspiring other regions to do the same.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Wildfire poses significant health risks to Indonesians, particularly children under 5, who especially suffered the effects of the 2019 haze.
- Farmers have long used fire in cultivation, and the risks to health and environment have grown significantly as deforestation and drainage have made peatlands particularly susceptible to fire.
- In 2022, women from the Indonesian part of Borneo formed “the Power of Mama,” a unit to fight hazardous wildfires and their causes.

Forest conservation ‘off-track’ to halt deforestation by 2030: New report
- The world lost 6.6 million hectares (16.3 million acres) of forest, an area larger than Sri Lanka, and deforestation rates increased by 4% in 2022, according to a report published Oct. 24 that tracks commitments to forest conservation.
- The Forest Declaration Assessment is an annual evaluation of deforestation rates against a 2018-2020 deforestation and forest degradation baseline compiled by civil society and research organizations.
- Much of the forest loss occurred in the tropics, and nearly two-thirds of it was in relatively undisturbed primary forests, while forest degradation, more than deforestation, remains a serious problem in temperate and boreal forests.
- Despite being far off the pace to achieve an end to deforestation by 2030, a goal that 145 countries pledged to pursue in 2021, more than 50 countries have cut their deforestation rates and are on track to end deforestation within their borders by the end of the century.

Restoring degraded forests may be key for climate, study says
- Scientists have found that focusing on restoring degraded forests, which cover more than 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) globally, can enhance forest carbon stocks more efficiently than replanting in deforested areas, with natural regrowth being a cost-effective method.
- In Central America’s “Five Great Forests,” there’s a goal to restore 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) by 2030. The study identified 9.8 million hectares (24.2 billion acres) as top restoration priorities, with 91% being degraded forests.
- Restoring just 5% of these priority zones was calculated to potentially sequester 113 million tons of CO2, equivalent to taking more than 20 million cars off the road for a year.
- The research emphasizes the importance of involving local communities in restoration planning and suggests that current forest management practices, like those in the timber industry, need to adapt for more sustainable outcomes.

Cacao and cupuaçu emerge as Amazon’s bioeconomy showcases
- A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
- Selling high-end chocolate made from both of these closely related pods increases the value of the products and also allows local communities to earn higher incomes, thereby giving them an incentive not to deforest.
- Portable biofactories are also set to teach traditional communities how to make bean-to-bar premium chocolate products, helping to increase the value of the raw cacao by up to 2,000%.
- These projects are part of an emerging bioeconomy in the Amazonian region, which experts say will keep the rainforest standing while also lifting the region’s population out of poverty.

Forest restoration can fare better with human helping hand, study shows
- A two-decade-old experiment in the tropical rainforest of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, is beginning to reveal that human-assisted restoration of logged forests can increase the speed of an ecosystem’s recovery.
- The researchers also found that planting a diverse suite of seedlings, instead of only one species, led in just one decade to greater biomass and forest complexity.
- The study provides more weight to the argument that greater forest species diversity in general — and specifically for restorations — delivers more ecosystem services, possibly including carbon sequestration.
- However, there is the possibility that the particular life cycle of the type of trees used in this study — hardwood tropical species from the Dipterocarpaceae family, chiefly found in Southeast Asia — could have especially enhanced diversity in this case.

New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Mobi, a new online interactive map, draws information from public databases, government statistics and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats that uncontacted Indigenous peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The exact location of uncontacted communities is deliberately displaced on the map to avoid any subsequent attacks against them from those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The tool can help Indigenous agencies deploy more effective protective actions to fend off threats such as diseases and environmental destruction, which can wipe out vulnerable populations.
- Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that ranks uncontacted populations according to the severity of threats against them, which can promote stronger public policies.

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

‘We don’t have much time’: Q&A with climate scientist Pierre Friedlingstein
- “It’s not going in the right direction yet,” Pierre Friedlingstein tells Mongabay of the effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals; a member of the IPCC and a climate professor, he says he’s mildly optimistic about the trend in global emissions.
- Friedlingstein says he’s hoping deforestation will go down in the coming years in Brazil, but he’s not sure that Indonesia, another major global carbon sink, is ready to go in the right direction at the moment.
- He says the COVID-19 pandemic showed that climate is still “not on the top of the list” of government priorities, given that all nations sought to boost economic growth after lockdowns, despite the carbon emissions they incurred.

Peru signs $20-million debt-for-nature swap with focus on Amazon rainforest
- Peru struck a $20 million debt-for-nature swap agreement with the U.S. that transfers debt payments to conservation initiatives like improving protected areas and natural resource management.
- The deal also included four NGOs: Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund. The groups donated a combined $3 million in addition to the $15 million contributed by the U.S.
- This is the third debt-for-nature swap deal struck with Peru. The U.S. has now made 13 debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps in Latin America and 22 worldwide.

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

Protecting the Amazon requires fresh thinking, veteran ecologist argues
- An ecologist and conservation biologist with 30 years of experience living in the Amazon region, Tim Killeen wants conservationists to think outside the box when it comes to incentivizing Amazon protection.
- He likens changing the deforestation pathway of the Pan Amazon to “turning an ocean liner” in that “pressure must be applied to the rudder of state” over a long period of time to drive change.
- That change, he says, must come from taking into consideration a variety of economic factors and pressures that each state in the Amazon faces, to provide viable ideas and solutions that incentivize forest protection.
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Killeen shares some key points from the second edition of his book, A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness; what inspired him to work in conservation; his advice for up-and-coming conservationists; and what gives him hope.

Amazon deforestation continues to fall under Lula
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon plunged sharply in July, continuing a downward trend since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office at the beginning of the year.
- The analysis of satellite data from Brazil’s national space research institute showed that 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of tropical rainforest were cleared in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon during the month of July. This represents a 66% decline relative to July a year ago when Jair Bolsonaro was president.
- The news comes just days before leaders from eight Amazonian nations will meet in Belém to discuss ways to protect and sustainably manage Earth’s largest rainforest.
- The decline in Brazil’s rate of deforestation marks a sharp reversal relative to the trend under the Bolsonaro Administration, during which forest destruction surged.

On Indonesia’s Seram Island, a massive oil find lies beneath sacred land
- In the east of Indonesia’s Seram Island, an Australian energy firm announced in July encouraging results from a survey of hydrocarbon deposits, describing the find as holding “world-class potential.”
- Members of Seram’s Bati indigenous community told Mongabay the drilling had disturbed sites they have considered sacred for generations.
- A representative of PT Balam Energy said the company had held talks with customary representatives.

Why should funding Amazon forest sustainability be the world’s top priority? (commentary)
- In this opinion piece, Jonah Wittkamper, Mariana Senna, and Ricardo Politi argue that donors should urgently scale up support for the development of an Amazon bioeconomy based around protecting the world’s largest rainforest.
- Without such intervention, there is a risk of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem collapsing, a development that would destabilize regional rainfall, unleash massive carbon emissions, and drive large-scale species extinction.
- “Jumpstarting the region’s bioeconomy could create a permanent solution by shifting local financial incentives away from deforestation,” they write. “Philanthropy for Amazon bioeconomy development could only be necessary for several years. Catalytic funding could enable the economies of forest protection and regeneration to outcompete the economies of deforestation,” the op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

From cardamom to carbon: Bold new Tanzanian project is regrowing a rainforest
- Farmers in eastern Tanzania are regrowing rainforest trees on part of their land.
- The farmers receive payments from the sale of carbon credits to supplement their incomes and to compensate them for loss of land and cash crops.
- So far, close to 270,000 trees have been planted on 200 hectares (494 acres) of farms located on the flanks of the Nguru Mountains.
- Nguru’s forests, home to a wealth of unique animal and plant species, are under increasing pressure from farmers who fell trees to grow crops, including valuable cardamom spice.

Timber harvests to meet global wood demand will bring soaring emissions: Study
- At a time when the world desperately needs to reduce its carbon emissions, global timber harvests to meet soaring demand for wood products — including paper and biomass for energy — could produce more than 10% of total global carbon emissions over coming decades, a new groundbreaking study finds.
- Global wood consumption could grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, creating a demand for timber that would result in a “clear-cut equivalent” in area roughly the size of the continental U.S., adding 3.5 to 4.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually for years to come.
- The study scientists warn that flawed national climate policies and faulty carbon accounting are failing to accurately forecast these potential carbon emissions resulting from the cutting of natural forests.
- The researchers point out that less natural forests need to be cut to meet the rising global demand for wood products. That demand could partially be met by increasing wood production in already existing plantation forests.

Big potential and immense challenges for great ape conservation in the Congo Basin, experts say
- Great apes are on track to lose 94% of their range to climate change by 2050 if humans do nothing to address the problem, according to research.
- In the great apes stronghold of the Congo Basin, national interests in natural resource exploitation, a lack of security in areas like the Albertine Rift, hunting, and the illegal wildlife trade all greatly impact populations of bonobos and mountain gorillas.
- In this episode of Mongabay Explores, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Kirsty Graham, Terese Hart, and Sally Coxe speak with Mongabay about the threats to bonobos and mountain gorillas, the lessons learned from decades of conservation efforts, the importance of great apes for the protection of Congo Basin rainforest, and ways forward for conservation as well as livelihoods for Indigenous and local communities.

Rare Amazon dark soils could help forest restoration, study shows
- A recent study shows that Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), through their high nutrient and microbiological contents, could help to restore deforested areas in the Amazon region.
- Furthermore, these unique soils, enriched with beneficial microorganisms like bacteria and archaea, can boost the fertility of typically nutrient-depleted soils in the Amazon region.
- Building on these findings, researchers plan to further analyze the composition and microorganisms of ADEs, aiming to help restore and conserve the Amazon Rainforest.

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

Latin America had the most attacks on environmental defenders in 2022, says report
- Almost half of the 401 murders of human rights defenders recorded in 2022 were against people involved in the defense of land and environment, according to the most recent report by the organization Front Line Defenders.
- Latin America is the region with the highest number of cases of recorded violence against defenders.
- The countries with the most cases are Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Honduras.
- The violence against rights defenders has not only included murders, but also stigmatization, prosecution and constant threats to individuals and their families, said the report.

World’s ‘largest’ tropical reforestation project slowed by Covid, Bolsonaro, fires
- In 2017, Conservation International launched what was dubbed the “largest tropical forest restoration in the world” and slated for the Brazilian Amazon. Despite a goal of completing the project by the end of this year, CI is less than 20% of the way there.
- According to project managers, the initiative has been slowed by two main factors: the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2019-2022 presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
- But fire, once a rarity in the Amazon, has also played a role, destroying 2,700 hectares (nearly 6,700 acres) of restoration areas in 2021 alone.
- Still, the initiative is moving ahead across the “arc of deforestation,” with organizers hoping to prove it’s possible to restore the rapidly receding southern edge of the Brazilian Amazon before a large part of the rainforest biome hits a tipping point and changes over to savanna — releasing huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere.

Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin: The ‘heart of the world’ is at a turning point
- Mongabay Explores is a podcast series exploring the world’s unique places, species and the people working to save them.
- This first episode in our fourth season explores the Congo Basin, its vast biodiversity, environmental challenges and conservation solutions.
- Home to the world’s second-largest rainforest, it also contains unique flora and fauna found nowhere else and some of the world’s most carbon-rich peatlands.
- Featured on this episode are Conserv Congo founder Adams Cassinga and Joe Eisen, executive director of Rainforest Foundation UK, who discuss the roadblocks to protecting peatlands and rainforests from resource extraction, the challenges with foreign aid and the difficult situation locals face in a nation wracked by conflict and insufficient critical infrastructure.

Forests & finance: Protection and restoration in Cameroon and Senegal, fire threat in Angola
- A new project aims to reform Cameroon’s domestic timber market and reduce unregulated felling of trees.
- Scientists fear pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angola’s Namba Mountains will be lost if uncontrolled fires continue.
- A Senegalese association is protecting and restoring southern Senegal’s tree cover by establishing community forests.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

Orangutan death in Sumatra points to human-wildlife conflict, illegal trade
- The case of an orangutan that died shortly after its capture by farmers in northern Sumatra has highlighted the persistent problem of human-wildlife conflict and possibly even the illegal wildlife trade in Indonesia.
- The coffee farmers who caught the adult male orangutan on Jan. 20 denied ever hitting it, but a post-mortem showed a backbone fracture, internal bleeding, and other indications of blunt force trauma.
- Watchdogs say it’s possible illegal wildlife traders may have tried to take the orangutan from the farmers, with such traders known to frequent farms during harvest season in search of the apes that are drawn there for food.
- Conservationists say the case is a setback in their efforts to raise awareness about the need to protect critically endangered orangutans.

Brazilian Indigenous anthropologists turn the tables from ‘objects of study’ to active voices
- Three Indigenous women leaders who are also artists and anthropologists are reshaping the relationship between the peoples anthropologists study and those who do the studying.
- A meeting with the leader of the Scottish Green Party provided an opportunity to understand the connections between Scotland’s highland clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries and the land struggles faced by Brazil’s Indigenous peoples today.
- Bamff Wildland, a Scottish rewilding project, shows that as Brazil continues to be deforested, attempts are underway across the UK and Europe to reforest, increasing biodiversity and the land’s ability to capture carbon.
- These women leaders assert that Indigenous voices need to be heard and Indigenous relationships with nonhumans need to be understood and respected, if humanity is to turn the tide on climate change and biodiversity loss.

Lula wants to mirror Amazon’s lessons in all biomes, but challenges await
- A new decree intends to protect all of Brazil’s biomes and promote sustainable development in arguably one of the country’s most ambitious environmental policies to date.
- The mandate establishes action plans for the Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado savanna, Atlantic Forest, semi-arid Caatinga, Pampas grasslands and Pantanal wetlands, based on past strategies in the Amazon that have already proven successful against deforestation.
- Environmentalists have welcomed the decree amid the country’s surging deforestation levels and rising greenhouse emissions during the past four years under Jair Bolsonaro’s rule.
- The decree’s implementation won’t be easy, experts warn, and its success depends on coordinated action across all levels of the government, increased personnel in struggling environmental enforcement agencies and highly tailored plans for each biome.

Mapping of no-drill areas in Ecuador’s Amazon can be scaled for entire rainforest: Study
- A recent study proposes a new methodology to map parts of the Ecuadoran Amazon where fossil fuel reserves must be kept untapped to meet global climate goals, and says it can be replicated and scaled for the entire Amazon Rainforest.
- This includes reviving the Yasuní-ITT Initiative proposed in 2003, and later abandoned by the Ecuadoran government, to stop oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park.
- Since the initiative was shelved, oil exploration has resumed inside the park, advancing toward areas where isolated Indigenous people live and driving swaths of deforestation in the dense forest.
- Campaigners have successfully pushed for the revival of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative to be put to a referendum this month.

Amazonian countries must act together to reverse rainforest loss, experts say
- A group of researchers from the Science Panel for the Amazon, an initiative dedicated to the region, says reversing the destruction of the rainforest needs to be done through large-scale restoration.
- They prescribe tailored action that unlocks different benefits in areas with high deforestation rates and forest degradation, and those experiencing climate change impacts.
- So-called arcs of reforestation would need to be created across Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Brazil, while conservation work would seek to stop further deforestation.
- According to the experts, with the exception of Brazil, Amazonian countries lack forest data for effectively running restoration actions.

From Japan to Brazil: Reforesting the Amazon with the Miyawaki method
- Reforestation using the Miyawaki method seeks to restore nature to its original state with results that can be seen in around six years.
- Miyawaki works around three concepts: trees should be native, several species should be randomly planted, and the materials for the seedlings and the soil should be organic.
- The method is suitable for urban areas, which gives it a significant capacity to connect human beings with nature, with benefits for the health and well-being of the population.
- Different from other reforestation methods that may seek a financial return, like agroforestry, the motivation of the Miyawaki method is purely ecological.

Dammed, now mined: Indigenous Brazilians fight for the Xingu River’s future
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun wants to build a huge gold mine in the Big Bend of the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, but faces opposition from Indigenous communities.
- In addition to the environmental impacts, experts warn of the risk of the proposed tailings dam rupturing, which could flood the area with 9 million cubic meters (2.4 billion gallons) of toxic waste.
- The same region is already suffering the impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, which diverts up to 85% of the flow of the Xingu River, leading to a mass decline in fish that traditional riverside dwellers and Indigenous people rely on.
- The Belo Sun project was legally challenged last year, prompting supporters to harass and intimidate those who oppose the mine’s construction; tensions in the region remain high.

Weakening of agrarian reform program increases violence against settlers in Brazilian Amazon
- Residents of a landless workers’ settlement in Anapu, Pará state, in Brazil’s Amazon region, accuse the federal government of favoring large landowners, land-grabbers and corporations at the expense of poor and landless peasants.
- This year, the settlers have already suffered three attacks by landowners, with houses set on fire and a school destroyed.
- In 2021, Incra, the Brazilian federal agency responsible for addressing the country’s deep inequalities in rural land use and ownership, made an agreement with the mining company Belo Sun, which ceded 2,400 hectares (5,930 acres) of an area reserved for agrarian reform for gold exploration in exchange for equipment and a percentage of mining profits.
- In protest, landless peasants occupied one of the areas included in the agreement; since then, they have been threatened and intimidated by Belo Sun supporters and armed security guards hired by the mining company.

From deforestation to restoration: Policy plots path to Amazon recovery
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new president, took office and promised to halt deforestation and to restore degraded land but plans to regenerate deforested areas remain unclear.
- The Science Panel for the Amazon at the COP27 climate summit provided the scientific basis to guide debates and decisions around the large-scale recovery of deforested and degraded areas.
- The most significant opportunity for large-scale and low-cost restoration is concentrated in public forests, protected areas and Indigenous lands that have suffered recent degradation.
- For areas with high levels of degradation, especially on private lands, productive restoration models capable of providing sustainable economic development are the main bet.

Dollars and chainsaws: Can timber production help fund global reforestation?
- As global reforestation commitments grow, how will companies, governments and communities pay to restore forest ecosystems and help sequester carbon over the long-term?
- One option: Grow and sell timber on the same plots of land where reforestation work is underway, as exemplified by pioneering restoration projects in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, where a single harvest of fast-growing eucalyptus grows up amid restored native trees. Eucalyptus sales then help pay for long-term restoration.
- Another approach is to concurrently grow tree plantations and forest restorations on separate, often adjacent, plots of land, with a large portion of the profits from timber harvests going to support the long-term management of the reforestation projects.
- But some scientists and forest advocates worry that projects or businesses that become overreliant on timber revenues to finance restoration could undermine an initiative’s environmental benefits, and lock in unintended harvesting within native ecosystems. Experts ask: Can we truly pay for new trees by cutting others down?

What happened in the world’s rainforests in 2022?
- There were some hopeful developments for tropical rainforest conservation in 2022.
- But the outlook for tropical forests nonetheless remains tenuous.
- The following is a look at some of the major tropical rainforest storylines and developments in 2022.

How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon
- As Brazil prepares to turn the page on the Bolsonaro government, finding sustainable and economically viable alternatives for the Amazon region remains challenging.
- Advocates tout agroforestry as a sustainable farming alternative to soy monocultures and cattle ranching. It can restore degraded pastures and provide a stable income for small farmers.
- One such project is RECA, a sustainable farming cooperative and an agroforestry pioneer in Brazil’s Amazon, with more than 30 years of experience.
- Yet expertise, financing, scale, science and technology are significant challenges.

Indonesia’s orangutans declining amid ‘lax’ and ‘laissez-faire’ law enforcement
- The widespread failure by Indonesian law enforcers to crack down on crimes against orangutans is what’s allowing them to be killed at persistently high rates, a new study suggests.
- It characterizes as “remarkably lax” and “laissez-faire” the law enforcement approach when applied to crimes against orangutans as compared to the country’s other iconic wildlife species, such as tigers.
- Killing was the most prevalent crime against orangutans, the study found when analyzing 2,229 reports from 2007-2019, followed by capture, possession or sale of infants, harm or capture of wild adult orangutans due to conflicts, and attempted poaching not resulting in death.
- The study authors call for stronger deterrence and law enforcement rather than relying heavily on rescue, release and translocation strategies that don’t solve the core crisis of net loss of wild orangutans.

COP27: ‘Brazil is back’ to fight deforestation, Lula says, but hurdles await
- At COP27 this week Brazil president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged “zero deforestation and degradation of biomes,” a goal to be achieved by 2030.
- Lula also plans to establish a Ministry of Indigenous People, and to end “all the exploration of Indigenous lands by miners, and… to prohibit timber cutters.” Activists said Lula has sent a “strong message” at the COP27 summit, a meeting which has so far seen little climate progress.
- The president-elect has also met with Norway and Germany about restarting the Amazon Fund, which helped finance efforts to keep the rainforest intact until it was frozen in 2019 due to the anti-environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Lula will likely have to pursue stricter forest enforcement through executive action, as he faces a congress with many members hostile to his Amazon protection promises.

Forests & Finance: Certification for deforesters, and repression for an evicted community
- A rule change by the Forest Stewardship Council means companies like Hevéa Sudcam, which cleared nearly 60,000 hectares (148,000 acres) of forest in Cameroon since 2011, are now eligible for the world’s leading sustainability certification.
- Two years after announcing an imminent ban on exports of raw timber, governments in the Congo Basin have again delayed its implementation, this time indefinitely, citing the need for more time to prepare for it.
- The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has called on Uganda to end its repression of the Indigenous Benet people, who are fighting for recognition and access to ancestral lands they were evicted from in 1993 for the establishment of a national park.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

Brazil’s new environmental future under Lula: Q&A with Marina Silva
- Considered for Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, environmentalist Marina Silva says in an interview with Mongabay that the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva means a new cycle of prosperity for the country, “when it will be possible to make the transition to a new development model that is capable of fighting inequality with democracy and sustainability.”
- “Part of the agribusiness sector is realizing that this practice by Bolsonaro is bad for business,” the congresswoman-elect said about the possibility of reconciling the environmental agenda and the demands of agribusiness.
- Silva stressed that the current challenges are much greater than those faced when she was a member of Lula’s first administration in 2003: “We are not going to become sustainable in the blink of an eye. It’s a transition.”

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

Forests & Finance: From logging in Cameroon to cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire
- Conservationists have flagged logging activity by a company in Cameroon that’s clearing forest near a national park in apparent breach of its permits.
- A campaign since 2017 to convince farmers in Côte d’Ivoire not to clear forests for new cocoa plantations is bearing fruit, with deforestation in the country falling by 47% in 2021.
- In Malawi, a replanting effort aims to revive populations of the endemic and threatened Mulanje cyad, an ancient tree species that grows on the mountain of the same name.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

To save threatened Amazon primates in Brazil, turn them into the main attraction
- Primates along the southern portion of Brazil’s Amazon frontier, a region known as the Arc of Deforestation, are being pushed to the brink of extinction as vast swaths of their habitats are cleared.
- A recent assessment places the Vieira’s titi monkey, whose conservation status was previously unknown, now as critically endangered; researchers say other primates face a similarly perilous situation.
- Conservationists say investing in primate-based ecotourism, based on the established model of the bird-watching industry and making use of the existing agroindustry infrastructure, could provide an effective conservation solution.
- Some point to the city of Sinop, in the state of Mato Grosso, as a potential “hotspot” for primate-watching ecotourism.

Forests & Finance: A road project, food baskets, and unique wildlife
- An environmental impact study warns that a planned highway between the Senegal cities of Dakar and Saint Louis would lead to nearly 400,000 trees being cut down in two forest reserves along the route.
- In Zambia, a study shows that households are heavily reliant on forest foods, which leaves them vulnerable to food insecurity as forest loss increases in the country.
- Researchers hoping to create a new protected area for southwest Ethiopia’s Gura Ferda forest, have highlighted a rich and unique biodiversity following an expedition to the area.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

Ethiopia’s honey forest: People and wildlife living in sweet harmony
- Earlier this year, the Gura Ferda forest in southwest Ethiopia was surveyed to assess its conservation potential.
- By some estimates, wet forests contain up to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity and Gura Ferda hosts numerous endemic plant and animal species.
- Despite its unique characteristics, biodiversity and importance for local wildlife, the forest is not formally protected.
- Ecologist and expedition leader Julian Bayliss says making the forest a community conservation area would allow local communities to continue to play a leading role in protecting the forest.

Successes and struggles: Brazil’s 20-year Amazon reforestation carbon sink project
- The Peugeot-ONF Forest Carbon Sink project, implemented more than 20 years ago in northwestern Mato Grosso state, within the “arc of deforestation” of the Brazilian Amazon, has achieved significant ecological restoration and carbon sequestration results.
- Reforesting 2,000 hectares of degraded cattle pasture on the São Nicolau Farm in Cotriguaçu municipality, the project has been Verra certified for reducing carbon emissions, with 394,400 metric tons of CO2 sequestered to date, equal to 85,000 cars taken off the road for a year. This CO2 reduction is being traded as carbon credits on Pachama, an online marketplace.
- Today, São Nicolau Farm is a living laboratory documenting the dynamics of forest restoration and carbon capture in the Amazon. The farm also offers ecotourism, training and educational opportunities.
- But Brazil’s volatile sociopolitical context is posing major risks to the project. Threats include a rising wave of forest crime, along with weakened environmental regulations, and controversial development proposals for the rainforest biome.

How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- Scientists warn that the Amazon is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would begin to transition from a lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna. This point may be reached when 25% of the forest is lost.
- In a newly released report, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) estimates that 13.2% of the original Amazon forest biome has been lost due to deforestation and other causes.
- However, when the map is divided into thirds, it shows that 31% of the eastern Amazon has been lost. Moisture cycles through the forest from east to west, creating up to half of all rainfall across the Amazon. The 31% figure is critical, the report says, “because the tipping point will likely be triggered in the east.”
- Experts say the upcoming elections in Brazil could have dramatic consequences for the Amazon, and to avert the tipping point we must lower emissions, undertake ambitious reforestation projects, and build an economy based on the standing forest. Granting and honoring Indigenous land tenure and protected areas are also key strategies.

After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Redansyah first began working in conservation around Indonesia’’s Tanjung Puting National Park in the 1980s alongside renowned conservationist Biruté Galdikas.
- In a 20-year career, he has planted tens of thousands of seedlings in a once-pristine landscape beset by logging and fires since the 1990s.
- The 68-year-old has no plans to retire: “I just want to work on the job of introducing trees to this community.”

Brazil faces two contrasting legacies for the Amazon in October’s elections
- Polls indicate that Brazil’s presidential election in October will go to a runoff between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a duel likely to decide the fate of the Amazon Rainforest.
- While Bolsonaro doubles down his climate change denialism and anti-Indigenous agenda, Lula vows to tackle deforestation and eject criminals from the Amazon.
- Under Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Amazon has lost an area of forest larger than Belgium and recorded its highest deforestation rate in the last 15 years.
- Lula’s policies helped reduce annual deforestation by 82%, to the lowest rate recorded since satellite monitoring began.

‘Brazilians aren’t familiar with the Amazon’: Q&A with Ângela Mendes
- Environmental activist Ângela Mendes coordinates the Chico Mendes Committee as part of her efforts to keep alive the memory and legacy of her father, a leader of the rubber tapper community and environmental resistance.
- In an interview with Mongabay Brasil, Ângela Mendes talks about the role of social networks as a fundamental instrument for resistance in the 21st century.
- She also reflects on the culture of impunity that allowed the masterminds of her father’s murder to evade justice, and which she says persists in Brazil today.
- But she also holds out hope for change, noting that Brazilians are largely concerned about the environment, but that they need to channel this concern into concrete actions, including in the national elections coming up in October.

Crimes against the Amazon reverberate across Brazil, analysis shows
- Crimes associated with illegal logging, mining and other illicit activities in the Brazilian Amazon are being felt in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states, a new report shows.
- Records of more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 show that crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and wildlife trafficking are reverberating far beyond the rainforest.
- Deforestation is at the center of the criminal economy in the Amazon, driving four main illegal activities: logging, mining, occupation of public lands, and environmental violations associated with agriculture.
- Nearly half of the police operations investigated crimes that occurred in protected areas in the Amazon, including 37 Indigenous territories.

Sumatran conservationist Rahmad Saleh Simbolon dies at 47
- The head of the conservation agency in Jambi province, Indonesia, died of a heart attack on Aug. 9.
- After working in protected forest areas in South and North Sumatra provinces, Rahmad oversaw several accomplishments in a province home to numerous threatened species.
- Jambi lost more than a third of its old-growth forest between 2002 and 2021.

Fighting extractive industries in Ecuador: Q&A with Indigenous rights activist María Espinosa
- Human rights defender Lina María Espinosa has been an outspoken critic of Ecuador’s push for increased mining and oil development. But her work has also made her a target of death threats.
- This year, national protests by Indigenous communities pushed the government to revoke a decree that would have expanded oil investment. It also announced major reforms to the country’s mining plan.
- But Espinosa and members of CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) say the government needs to do more. This month, they’ll sit down with government officials to negotiate future policies.

In Congo, a carbon sink like no other risks being carved up for oil
- New research has revealed that the peatlands of the Congo Basin are 15% larger than originally thought.
- This area of swampy forest holds an estimated 29 billion metric tons of carbon, which is the amount emitted globally through the burning of fossil fuels in three years.
- Beginning July 28, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two-thirds of these peatlands lie, will auction off the rights to explore for oil in 27 blocks across the country.
- Scientists and conservationists have criticized the move, which the government says is necessary to fund its operations. Opponents say the blocks overlap with parts of the peatlands, mature rainforest, protected areas, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

As the Amazon burns, only the weather can ward off a catastrophe, experts say
- The Brazilian Amazon saw the highest number of fires for the month of June in 15 years, with 2,562 major fires detected, an increase of 11.14% over 2021.
- The first half of the year had 7,533 major fires, the most since 2019, according to data from the national space research institute.
- On June 23, the Brazilian government issued a decree banning the use of fires to manage forests throughout the country for the next 120 days.
- Experts say they’re skeptical about this ban, noting that similar measures failed to stop the burning in previous years, and say the weather is the only thing that can help curb the increase in fires as the dry season unfolds.

A conservation failure in Sumatra serves a cautionary tale for PES schemes
- A World Bank-funded conservation project in Indonesia led to higher rates of deforestation after the project ended, a new study shows, serving as a cautionary tale about the risks of failing to sustain such initiatives over a long enough time period.
- The payment for ecosystem services project was supposed to reward villages for halting deforestation and taking up sustainable livelihoods from 1996-2001.
- In the years after the project ended, however, participating villages that had received the payments lost up to 26% more forest cover from 2000-2016 than non-participating villages, the study shows.

The war on journalists and environmental defenders in the Amazon continues (commentary)
- Journalists in Brazil and around the world are devastated about the tragic end of a 10-day search for British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazil-Peru border in northern Amazonas state. Bodies believed to be theirs were found on June 15 after a huge outcry against the federal government’s inaction following their disappearance. Indigenous patrols bravely conducted their own search while the government did little.
- The murders of Dom and Bruno are emblematic of the plight of journalists across Latin America as violence against both journalists and activists in the region escalates. It also raises an alarm for the need to protect reporters as we report on environmental crime from Nature’s frontline.
- But these crimes will not stop us: Exposing wrongdoing across Brazil’s critical biomes — from the Mata Atlantica to the Cerrado to the Amazon — is more necessary than ever now. At the same time, demanding justice for the murder of Bruno and Dom became a fight for all of us.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

For Ecuador’s A’i Cofán leaders, Goldman Prize validates Indigenous struggle
- Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, young leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe in Ecaudor, led a movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining.
- In recognition of their struggle, they were awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize, widely known as the “Green Nobel.”
- The A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe forced the Ecuadoran state to revoke 52 gold mining concessions that threatened their territory and were awarded without the prior consultation stipulated in the country’s Constitution.

For companies shopping for quality carbon credits, a new guide offers help
- The newly published Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide aims to help companies looking to make smarter purchases of tropical forest credits, one strategy for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
- Tropical forests carbon credits allow companies to offset their carbon emissions by paying for the conservation of forests.
- The guide says companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests.
- It also urges them to be transparent about carbon credit purchases and establish a good-faith relationship with local and Indigenous communities.

To conserve the vibrant diversity of Central Africa’s forests, include Indigenous people (commentary)
- Aspects of traditional BaAka culture and knowledge are intimately tied to their dependence on and respect for the forest. This relationship with the forest has allowed the BaAka to thrive in the Congo Basin for millennia.
- Colonialism and the creation of protected areas in Central Africa have led to the forced removal of BaAka Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in the region, in addition to reported human right abuses.
- To address these injustices effectively and equitably, conservation practitioners working in Central Africa should adopt a human rights-based conservation approach which acknowledges and supports the critical ways in which the BaAka lead local conservation efforts and incorporates their forest tenure rights as a measure of overall conservation success.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay or any institutions the author is affiliated with.

A new index measures the human impacts on Amazon waters
- Based on the best scientific data available, the unprecedented Amazon Water Impact Index draws together monitoring and research data to identify the most vulnerable areas of the Brazilian Amazon.
- According to the index, 20% of the 11,216 Brazilian Amazon micro basins have an impact considered high, very high or extreme; half of these watersheds are affected by hydroelectric plants.
- The same index points out that 323 of the 385 Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon face a medium to low impact, which demonstrates the fundamental role of these areas in protecting the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon.
- The Amazon River Basin covers 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles) and contains 20% of all freshwater on the Earth’s surface; still, little is known about the impacts of increased human activity on aquatic ecosystems.

2021 tropical forest loss figures put zero-deforestation goal by 2030 out of reach
- The world lost a Cuba-sized area of tropical forest in 2021, putting it far off track from meeting the no-deforestation goal by 2030 that governments and companies committed to at last year’s COP26 climate summit.
- Deforestation rates remained persistently high in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s two biggest expanses of tropical forest, negating the decline in deforestation seen in places like Indonesia and Gabon.
- The diverging trends in the different countries show that “it’s the domestic politics of forests that often really make a key difference,” says leading forest governance expert Frances Seymour.
- The boreal forests of Eurasia and North America also experienced a spike in deforestation last year, driven mainly by massive fires in Russia, which could set off a feedback loop of more heating and more burning.

Plan to carve up Indonesian Papua rings alarm over fate of people and forests
- Activists have warned of a potential surge in deforestation under a plan to remap Indonesia’s Papua region from two provinces into five.
- Past cases of new provinces or districts being created or spun off from existing administrative regions have typically been accompanied by an increase in the issuance of licenses for extractive industries such as mining and palm oil.
- Critics of the plan have also rejected the government’s rationale that it will lead to better development outcomes for Papuans, noting that the past creation of new districts in the region has enriched local elites over the people.
- The plan has been met with widespread protests among Papuans, at least two of whom were reportedly killed by police during demonstrations.

‘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.”

Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.

For fire-ravaged northern Thailand, there’s now an app to battle the blaze
- Thai researchers incorporating remote-sensing technology into smartphone applications are helping to reduce the severity of forest fires in the country’s northern Chiang Rai province.
- In the past, only local officials had access to hotspot data from satellites; now, whenever a new hotspot is identified, firefighters and nearby communities alike receive notifications on their mobile apps.
- The app has enabled villagers, firefighters, NGOs and scientists to “join forces” in fighting forest fires, and encouraged communities to police and reduce unregulated burning of agricultural land.
- The researchers are currently working on a second app that aims to help local communities transition toward more sustainable ways of clearing and fertilizing their land than burning.

John Deere and Brazilian bank team up to equip farmers deforesting the Amazon
- Farmers whose properties have been embargoed by environmental authorities in Brazil for deforestation have still been able to access government-subsidized loans to buy John Deere tractors, an investigation has found.
- The five farmers identified in the investigation received a combined 28.6 million reais ($5.4 million) in loans under a program administered by the state-owned Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and underwritten by John Deere Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. farm equipment manufacturer.
- Under Central Bank rules, farms that have been embargoed for deforestation are barred from accessing credit, but a loophole allows the farm owners to apply on the basis of a different property; in some cases, lender oversight was so lax that the farmers didn’t need to resort to this subterfuge.
- In addition to being embargoed, some of the farmers also had outstanding fines for environmental violations; one of them still owed 18 million reais ($3.4 million), yet went on to receive 11 million reais ($2.1 million) in loans.

Malaysia’s white-handed gibbons may be two subspecies, not one, study shows
- Scientists sequencing the genes of white-handed gibbons of the Malaysian subspecies (Hylobates lar lar) have discovered unusual mutations that hint at the existence of a separately evolving population in the peninsula.
- This particular population is so genetically different, it could potentially qualify as a new and distinct subspecies, the researchers said.
- For scientists looking to translocate and reintroduce captive gibbons into the forest, knowing the finer details like which subspecies and population a particular animal originated from can help reduce interbreeding and ensure the gibbons stay healthy in the long run.
- For researchers looking to differentiate between gibbons of the same subspecies, focusing on a particular segment of mitochondrial DNA can be a powerful method for pinpointing the population an animal originated from.

Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.

The 411 on forests and reforestation for 2022
- On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at the major forest and conservation trends coming out of 2021 and take a look ahead to 2022.
- We speak with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler, who discusses the year in rainforests that was 2021, the storylines to watch in 2022, and Mongabay's expanding coverage of environmental science news around the world.
- We also speak with Swati Hingorani, a senior program officer at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Global Coordinator for the Bonn Challenge Secretariat. Hingorani tells us about the Bonn Challenge’s newly revamped and relaunched Restoration Barometer and how it tracks ecosystem restoration progress being made by countries around the world.

Young environmentalists ‘plant the future’ in Colombia’s Amazon
- Young people like Felipe “Pipe” Henao in Guaviare, Colombia, are using tree planting and social media to raise awareness and spread the message of protecting and valuing the environment.
- Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) recorded a nationwide deforestation rate of 171,685 hectares (424,242 acres) in 2020, with Guaviare department in the Amazon being one of the worst hit.
- Despite the damage being done, civil society efforts are already showing gains with efforts like Henao’s.
- His organization alone has connected with more than 150 companies and organizations in and around the town of Calamar and more than 1,800 families, and mobilized more than 1,000 young people to volunteer to clean rivers, protect wetlands and plant more than 60,000 trees.

Despite sanctions, U.S. companies still importing Myanmar teak, report says
- U.S. timber companies undercut sanctions to import nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, according to a new report.
- Advocacy group Justice for Myanmar said in its report that firms have been buying timber from private companies acting as brokers in Myanmar, instead of directly from the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions.
- With MTE under military control, Myanmar’s timber auctions have become more opaque, making it difficult to take action against companies circumventing sanctions.

E.O. Wilson’s last dream
- On December 26, 2021, biologist and author Edward O. Wilson died in Burlington, Massachusetts at the age of 92.
- Routinely compared to Darwin E.O. Wilson is renowned for his work on evolution, biogeography, sociobiology and myrmecology—the study of ants.
- Wilson devoted the last few years of this life to the concept of “Half-Earth”, which he saw as a way to stave off mass extinction, ecological collapse, and create a panacea for climate change.
- In this piece, author Jeremy Hance recounts a 2017 conversation with Wilson and what could be his greatest legacy: the idea of protecting half the planet in a natural or regenerating state for the benefit of people and nature.

How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.

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

Australia’s rainforest species gain ground through landscape linkages
- Corridors of planted rainforest trees — landscape linkages — are a straightforward, but costly, on-ground action that can repair past damage and bolster ecosystem resilience in Australia’s Wet Tropics region.
- In the Atherton Tablelands wildlife corridors, now in their third decade, the diversity of naturally regenerating plant species has increased, with trees, vines, rattans, shrubs, palms, ferns and orchids colonizing the planted sites.
- The corridors are providing connectivity and additional habitat for a range of rainforest wildlife, including some threatened by climate change.
- To thoroughly measure the biodiversity outcomes of the linkages, monitoring would need to be more regular, and target a broader range of taxa.

How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.

Congo Peatlands
In 2017 a team of Congolese and British scientists discover that a sprawling wetland known as the Cuvette Centrale spanning the border between the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) actually contains a massive amount of peat. Their research revealed that these peatlands are the largest and most intact across the world’s […]
The past, present and future of the Congo peatlands: 10 takeaways from our series
This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay published a four-part series on the peatlands of the Congo Basin. Only in 2017 did a team of Congolese and British scientists discover that a […]
Carbon and communities: The future of the Congo Basin peatlands
- Scientific mapping in 2017 revealed that the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale in the Congo Basin are the largest and most intact in the world’s tropics.
- That initial work, first published in the journal Nature, was just the first step, scientists say, as work continues to understand how the peatlands formed, what threats they face from the climate and industrial uses like agriculture and logging, and how the communities of the region appear to be coexisting sustainably.
- Researchers say investing in studying and protecting the peatlands will benefit the global community as well as people living in the region because the Cuvette Centrale holds a vast repository of carbon.
- Congolese researchers and leaders say they are eager to safeguard the peatlands for the benefit of everyone, but they also say they need support from abroad to do so.

Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.

Mongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
- A Peruvian cacao company that sued a Mongabay Latam writer for reporting on its deforestation in the Amazon has also targeted others in what lawyers said appears to be a pattern of intimidation.
- Tamshi, formerly Cacao del Perú Norte SAC, had its lawsuit against Mongabay Latam’s Yvette Sierra Praeli thrown out by a court in November.
- A separate lawsuit against four environment ministry officials, including the one who led the prosecution of the company, has also been dropped, although it may still be appealed.
- In a third lawsuit, environmental activist Lucila Pautrat, who documented farmers’ allegations against Tamshi, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fine, but is appealing the decision.

Holding agriculture and logging at bay in the Congo peatlands
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin are perhaps the most intact in the tropics, but threats from logging, agriculture and extractive industries could cause their rapid degradation, scientists say.
- In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that it was planning to end a moratorium on the issuance of logging concessions that had been in place for nearly two decades.
- The move raised concerns among conservation groups, who say the moratorium should remain in place to protect the DRC’s portion of the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Today, timber concession boundaries overlap with the peatlands, and though some companies say they won’t cut trees growing on peat, environmental advocates say that any further issuance of logging concessions in the DRC would be irresponsible.

Layers of carbon: The Congo Basin peatlands and oil
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin may be sitting on top of a pool of oil, though exploration has yet to confirm just how big it may be.
- Conservationists and scientists argue that the carbon contained in this England-size area of peat, the largest in the tropics, makes keeping them intact more valuable, not to mention the habitat and resources they provide for the region’s wildlife and people.
- Researchers calculate that the peatlands contain 30 billion metric tons of carbon, or about the amount humans produce in three years.
- As the governments of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo work to develop their economies, they, along with many policymakers worldwide, argue that the global community has a responsibility to help fund the protection of the peatlands to keep that climate-warming carbon locked away.

Indigenous groups unveil plan to protect 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador
- A new plan called the Amazon Sacred Headwaters initiative proposes the protection of 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador by 2025, consisting of 35 million hectares (86 million acres) of rainforest.
- The Amazonian Indigenous organizations leading the plan aim to center Indigenous-led forest management and land tenure to protect endemic species and prevent approximately 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
- The proposal has received positive responses from Ecuadoran and Peruvian government officials, but faces a stumbling block in the fact that both countries rely heavily on extractive industries operating within the Amazon to help pay off foreign debt.

$1.5 billion Congo Basin pledge a good start but not enough, experts say
- At last month’s COP26 climate summit, a group of 12 international donors pledged at least $1.5 billion over the next four years to support protection and sustainable management of the Congo Basin forests.
- The pledge is part of a broader $12 billion commitment to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation worldwide by 2030.
- The 200 million hectares (500 million acres) of forests in the Congo Basin may be the last significant land-based tropical carbon sink in the world, making the forests vitally important in the global fight against climate change.
- So far, detail of the pledge remain limited, and reaction from regional experts has been mixed; but all agree that $1.5 billion is far from enough to resolve the region’s issues.

The ‘idea’: Uncovering the peatlands of the Congo Basin
- In 2017, a team of scientists from the U.K. and the Republic of Congo announced the discovery of a massive peatland the size of England in the Congo Basin.
- Sometimes called the Cuvette Centrale, this peatland covers 145,529 square kilometers (56,189 square miles) in the northern Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and holds about 20 times as much carbon as the U.S. releases from burning fossil fuels in a year.
- Today, the Congo Basin peatlands are relatively intact while supporting nearby human communities and a variety of wildlife species, but threats in the form of agriculture, oil and gas exploration and logging loom on the horizon.
- That has led scientists, conservationists and governments to look for ways to protect and better understand the peatlands for the benefit of the people and animals they support and the future of the global climate.

Questions over who gets the billions pledged to Indigenous causes at COP26
- Private, public and philanthropic donors pledged billions of dollars to strengthen Indigenous land tenure and forest management at COP26, notably donating $1.7 billion as part of efforts to reverse forest loss.
- Some Indigenous leaders are skeptical about how this will play out given that most previous financial support was not addressed to Indigenous organizations and communities, but to intermediate NGOs, government agencies and regional banks.
- Indigenous organizations say increasing direct funding to Indigenous-led initiatives and transparency in the flow of funds can increase effectiveness of the pledges and build trust.
- Funding for forest monitoring technology is increasingly having a role in how some Indigenous communities safeguard biodiversity and map out their territories.

Report: Orangutans and their habitat in Indonesia need full protection now
- A new report underscores the urgency of protecting Indonesia’s orangutans and conserving their remaining habitat, warning that Asia’s only great ape is in crisis.
- The report from the Environmental Investigation Agency says the Indonesian government has systematically failed to protect orangutan habitat, enforce existing wildlife laws, or reverse the decline of the three orangutan species.
- “For decades, Indonesia has prioritized industry and profit over environmental health and biodiversity protection, and orangutans have paid the price,” said EIA policy analyst Taylor Tench.
- The report calls for protecting all orangutan habitat (much of which occurs in oil palm and logging concessions), halting a dam project in the only habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, and recognizing Indigenous claims to forests adjacent to orangutan habitat.

Top Brazil gold exporter leaves a trail of criminal probes and illegal mines
- Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
- Most of the illegal mines are concentrated in Indigenous territories, where they deforest the land, pollute the rivers, and inflict violence on Indigenous communities.
- The company saw strong growth in recent years, with revenues of $256 million in 2019, more than double what it made in 2018.
- Illegal mining generates $600,000 to $800,000 a year in Brazil, according to Ministry of Mines and Energy estimates.

What countries are leaders in reducing deforestation? Which are not?
- On Tuesday, 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, pledging to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation” by 2030. The declaration was endorsed outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process and is therefore legally non-binding.
- The 127 signatories account for about 90% of global tree cover and 85% of the world’s primary tropical forests. The Glasgow Declaration thus represents a much larger constituency than the 39 countries which signed the New York Declaration on Forests in 2014. That latter effort failed badly in its ambition to halve deforestation by 2020 — forest loss rose substantially in signatories’ territories.
- Given the extent to which the New York Declaration missed its near-term numeric target on a national level basis, it’s worth breaking down the aggregate data to look at countries on an individual basis to see where forest loss declined and increased.
- Indonesia experienced the biggest decline in primary tropical forest loss, while Brazil saw its primary forest loss more than double from 4.65 million ha to 9.4 million ha. Canada experienced the biggest decline in the extent of tree cover loss, while Brazil also led the world in terms of increase in tree cover loss.

Indonesia’s flip-flop on zero-deforestation pledge portends greater forest loss
- Indonesia says it never actually agreed to end deforestation by 2030 when signing up to a global pledge to halt and reverse forest loss at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.
- The country’s forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, says the pledge is unfair if it means that the country has to stop clearing its forests, since it still has to develop its economy to improve the welfare of its people.
- She says the government must not stop developing “in the name of carbon emissions, or in the name of deforestation.”
- Environmentalists say this indicates Indonesia has no intention of respecting the pledge; and in light of recent weakening of environmental safeguards, the country might see deforestation continue well into the future.

Do forest declarations work? How do the Glasgow and New York declarations compare?
- On November 2, 2021 at COP26 in Scotland, 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, which aims to end net forest loss by 2030. Those signatories account for about 90% of global tree cover and about 85% of the world’s primary tropical forests.
- The declaration came seven years after the New York Declaration on Forests, under which 39 countries pledged to halve natural forest loss by 2020 and end it by 2030. Those countries accounted for about 39% of both global tree cover and primary tropical forests.
- While the New York Declaration on Forests catalyzed global awareness for the importance of forests and the need to address deforestation, it missed the mark by a wide margin in terms of achieving its 2020 goal to reduce natural forest loss by 50%.
- The biggest new signatories are Russia (ranked #1 globally in terms of tree cover), Brazil (#2, thanks to the Amazon rainforest), and China (#6) which together account for 1.4 billion hectares of tree cover. Among tropical nations, after Brazil, the biggest new additions are Papua New Guinea (32 million hectares of primary tropical forest), Gabon (23 million hectares), and the Republic of the Congo (21 million hectares).

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.

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.

To predict forest loss in protected areas, look at nearby unprotected forest
- To predict deforestation risk in a protected area, look at the condition of its surrounding forests, according to a new study.
- The study, which analyzed satellite images of protected forests worldwide, found nearby forest loss to be a consistent early warning signal of future deforestation in protected areas.
- Researchers said national park agencies can use their proposed model to predict how vulnerable protected areas in their countries are to deforestation, and prioritize conservation efforts accordingly.
- But even as these agencies work to protect forests, they should take into account the needs of local communities living in the area, the researchers said.

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.

Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.

For companies eyeing net-zero carbon emissions, ‘no clue how to get there’
- Voluntary carbon markets have become the go-to for companies trying to achieve net-zero carbon, but curbing emissions is still most important, executives said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Voluntary carbon markets can drive huge amounts of finance into developing countries for conservation, serve as a price indicator for carbon, and help companies offset emissions, but must play a secondary role to decarbonization, they said.
- The business leaders added that companies recognize the need to curb emissions, but are struggling with choosing and implementing effective decarbonization solutions.
- The root of the problem is a lack of robust carbon measurement technology and methods, they said.

Jane Goodall launches effort in support of planting 1 trillion trees by 2030
- Primatologist and conservation icon Jane Goodall has formally joined a global effort to counter climate change and the extinction crisis by planting a trillion trees over the next decade.
- On Tuesday, Goodall announced Trees for Jane, an initiative that will raise money for carefully-vetted reforestation and forest conservation projects around the world.
- Trees for Jane is partnering with the Trillion Tree Campaign, an initiative led by the German NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, and 1t.org, a World Economic Forum project, to reach the trillion trees goal by 2030.
- If these combined efforts realize this aim, it would increase Earth’s tree cover by about one-third relative to today. Currently we’re losing about 15 billion trees a year, mostly due to deforestation.

When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.

Fires in the Amazon have already impacted 90% of plant and animal species
- New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades.
- Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
- Primates were the most affected, as they depend on trees for movement, food and shelter. Rare and endemic species with restricted habitats suffered the strongest impacts.
- The study assessed two decades of fires between 2001 and 2019 and confirmed the impact of environmental policies on deforestation cycles in the Amazon; law enforcement was concluded to have direct impact on the extent and volume of fires.

Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
- As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue in Myanmar, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat.
- On Sept. 6, environmental and democracy activist Kyaw Minn Htut became one of the latest political prisoners; authorities had detained his wife and 2-year-old son a day earlier.
- He had openly challenged the military and reported on illegal environmental activities, making him a “well-known and well-hated” target, fellow activists said.
- Some 20 environmental organizations across the world have signed a statement calling for Kyaw Minn Htut’s release.

‘Join us for the Amazon,’ Indigenous leaders tell IUCN in push for protection
- At the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, Indigenous leaders and conservationists called for support of their effort to protect 80% of the Amazon Basin by 2025.
- Scientists say the Amazon region has already lost 17% of its forest cover and that an additional 17% has been degraded by forest loss, fragmentation, wildfires and drought, and that these pressures are pushing the rainforest toward a critical tipping point.
- While the recognition of Indigenous land rights would be a critical first step, experts say that Indigenous communities need support in enforcing their land rights and their efforts to defend the Amazon.
- A motion that would support area-based conservation targets with the view to protecting at least 80% of the Amazon by 2025 was eventually approved by the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

Borneo’s bearded pigs and traditional hunters adapted to oil palms. Then came swine fever
- Oil palm expansion and urbanization have altered the traditional hunting of bearded pigs by the Indigenous Kadazandusun-Murut (KDM) community in Sabah, Malaysia, a new study has found.
- Researchers interviewed 38 hunters on changes in pig behavior and hunting practices before the African swine fever (ASF) epidemic hit Sabah in 2021.
- They found that even though pig hunting patterns have changed dramatically, the activity remains a cornerstone of KDM communal culture for food, sport, gift-giving, festivals and celebrations.
- As ASF devastates wild pig populations, the researchers’ findings highlight a need for long-term hunting management that conserves both the bearded pig and Indigenous cultural traditions.

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.

Climate change threatens traditional extractive communities in the Amazon
- Traditional peoples in the Amazon are already experiencing the scientific community’s warnings that rising temperatures will impact those who depend on the forest for their livelihood.
- Brazil nuts, açaí berries, andiroba oil, copaíba oil, rubber, cacao and cupuaçu fruits are some of the products at risk of disappearance or reduced production in the next 30 years.
- In addition to climate change’s environmental impact on these resources, the social impact will likely bring worsening poverty and an exodus of traditional peoples to urban areas.

Grain production depends on ending deforestation, studies show
- Recent scientific studies confirm what Brazilian farmers already feel in practice: the uncontrolled production of agricultural commodities is destroying the productivity and profits of agribusiness itself, a cycle researchers are calling “agro-suicide.”
- Regions such as the southern Amazon and Matopiba (the borderland between the Brazilian states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) in the Cerrado savanna are the most affected by lack of rain, prolonged rains and waves of extreme heat.
- Resulting financial losses are expected to reach at least $4.5 billion annually by 2050, according to a conservative estimate; if deforestation continues unchecked, damage could reach $9 billion per year.
- Though grim, the scenario can still be reversed; one recommendation from the study is to adopt a moratorium on soy in the Cerrado, inspired by the Amazon Soy Moratorium.

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.

Shoe-leather science helps quadruple protected area in Peruvian Amazon
- Rapid biological and social inventories produced by a team from Chicago’s Field Museum were the basis for new areas dedicated to conservation in Peru, a new study shows.
- In the Amazonian department of Loreto, territory covered under some category of conservation went from 2 million hectares to 8.5 million hectares (4.9 million acres to 21 million acres).
- The study found that advances in protecting Loreto allowed not only the region, but also Peru as a whole, to meet the Aichi Goal of getting 17% of the country’s territory under some category of protection.

Ending Amazon deforestation a top priority on Colombian minister’s D.C. visit
- In an interview with Mongabay, Colombian environment minister Carlos Eduardo Correa provided insights about his recent visit to Washington, D.C., where he held meetings with U.S. government officials and conservation organizations.
- On his first international trip amid the pandemic, the minister reiterated his commitment to protect forests in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world.
- Colombia’s climate goals include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% and achieving zero deforestation by 2030, and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

New index measuring rainforest vulnerability to sound alarm on tipping points
- The new Tropical Forest Vulnerability Index (TFVI) will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests.
- Backed by the National Geographic Society and Swiss watchmaker Rolex, TFVI aims to identify forests most at risk, to be prioritized for conservation efforts.
- Researchers combined 40 years of satellite measurements and forest observations covering tropical forests worldwide to come up with the standardized monitoring system.
- In recent years, multiple stressors have pushed forests to a tipping point, causing them to gradually lose their ecological functions, including their capacity to store carbon and recycle water, the study says.

There’s still room to save Asia’s hoolock gibbons, study says, but only just
- Hoolock gibbon habitat has declined in the past few decades, but enough suitable patches exist today to guarantee the long-term survival of the genus if properly conserved.
- Particular populations are at greater risk of local extinction and should be translocated, including scattered western hoolock populations in Bangladesh.
- Researchers have also identified strongholds where a relatively high number of hoolock gibbons have been estimated, and which are currently highly threatened, to be prioritized for conservation.
- Hoolock gibbons are particularly vulnerable to forest fragmentation and degradation due to certain behavioral traits, which makes protecting large patches of habitat much more effective than conserving many small and fragmented areas.

Protected areas keep adjacent lands safe, but face losing their own protection
- Safeguarding nature in one area can displace harmful activities, such as illegal logging or mining, into another, a phenomenon known as leakage or spillover; but how big is the problem?
- The first systematic review of studies examining the effects of protected areas around the globe on their surrounding areas found that less than 12% showed evidence of leakage or spillover, while the majority (54%) reduced deforestation in surrounding areas.
- Another study found that protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon overwhelmingly blocked deforestation in the surrounding forest, again suggesting that protected areas inhibit deforestation both within and outside of their boundaries.
- Experts say environmental and regulatory rollbacks that loosen restrictions on land use, shrink boundaries, or altogether eliminate protections pose a much greater threat to the Amazon than leakage, and efforts should focus on keeping protected areas permanent and improving management and enforcement of regulations.

Gabon becomes first African country to get paid for protecting its forests
- Gabon recently received the first $17 million of a pledged $150 million from Norway for results-based emission reduction payments as part of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI).
- Gabon has 88% forest cover and has limited annual deforestation to less than 0.1% over the last 30 years, in large part possible due to oil revenues supporting the economy.
- With oil reserves running low, Gabon is looking to diversify and develop its economy without sacrificing its forests by building a sustainable forest economy supported by schemes such as CAFI.

Brazil government faces heat over plan that could underreport forest fires
- The Brazilian government faces a new controversy over how it monitors, and ultimately responds to, forest fires, after rolling out a new centralized information system.
- The National Meteorology System (SNM) will collate date from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE), the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET) and the Managing and Operational Center of the System to Protect the Amazon (Censipam).
- But the government has sent out mixed messages about how the system will work, raising concerns among scientists and environmentalists that the comprehensive and reliable data sets from INPE will be quashed in favor of underreported deforestation and fire information from INMET.
- The government has sought to allay those fears, saying INPE’s data stream will be maintained, but critics say this isn’t the first time the Bolsonaro administration has tried to undermine INPE for exposing the rising trend in deforestation and fires under the administration.

Road construction imperils tree kangaroo recovery in PNG
- The Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a wide variety of wildlife, including three species of tree kangaroos.
- Recently, construction of a road that could potentially be used by loggers has pushed closer to the border of a proposed conservation area that, if gazetted, would be the country’s second-largest.
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance, a Papua New Guinean NGO, has worked with communities for around two decades in the Torricellis with the goal of improving the lives of humans and wildlife living in the mountains.
- Now, the group’s leaders fear that the road could jeopardize a tenuous recovery by several of the area’s threatened tree kangaroo species.

Bank risk policies failing to protect Amazon from oil-related threats: Report
- A new report by Amazon Watch and Stand.Earth finds that most banks have failed to implement policies that would prevent the worst impacts of the oil industry in the Amazon.
- Of 14 banks assigned a score in the report, 11 were listed as being at “high” or “very high” risk of contributing to deforestation, corruption, pollution, and the violation of Indigenous rights.
- The report’s authors say a blanket exclusion for any oil-related activities in the Amazon is the only way to ensure its protection.

Global demand for manganese puts Kayapó Indigenous land under pressure
- InfoAmazonia’s Amazônia Minada project has found an unusual rise in demand to mine for manganese last year in Brazil, one of the world’s top producers of the metal.
- Previously, only 1% of mining bids on Indigenous lands were for manganese; in 2020, it was with 15% of all requests, second only to gold.
- Some of the richest manganese deposits in the world are in southeast Pará state, overlapping with the territories of the Kayapó Indigenous people, which have been targeted the most by mining applications in general.
- Demand from Asia, particularly China, has increased the price of manganese, driving illegal mining; 300,000 tons of the ore were seized last year in Brazil, including from a company bidding to mine on Indigenous land.

Armed with data and smartphones, Amazon communities boost fight against deforestation
- Equipping Indigenous communities in the Amazon with remote-monitoring technology can reduce illegal deforestation, a new study has found.
- Between 2018 and 2019, researchers implemented technology-based forest-monitoring programs in 36 communities within the Peruvian Amazon.
- Compared with other communities where the program wasn’t implemented, those under the program saw 52% and 21% less deforestation in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
- The gains were concentrated in communities at highest risk of deforestation due to threats like logging and illegal mining.

Soy and cattle team up to drive deforestation in South America: Study
- Between 2000 and 2019, the production of soybean in South America has doubled, covering an area larger than the state of California.
- Soybean farms are typically planted in old cattle pastures, and as soy encroaches, pasture is forced into new frontiers, driving deforestation and fires.
- Although soy was found to be largely an indirect driver of deforestation, policies addressing deforestation have to consider multiple commodities at once, such as the relationship between beef and soy.
- Increased commitments by companies to source from “zero-deforestation” supply chains are a promising strategy, but in order to work, the market needs to be more transparent.

The Brooklyn Bridge needs a makeover. Is rainforest lumber still in style?
- Last year, a proposal to replace the Brooklyn Bridge’s walkway with wooden planks sourced from a Guatemalan rainforest won a City Council-sponsored competition.
- The planks would come from Uaxactun, a community-managed forest concession in the remote northeastern jungles of Petén.
- Set up after Guatemala’s civil war, community concessions in Petén have achieved remarkably low rates of deforestation and have a high prevalence of wildlife.
- Some environmentalists in New York say the proposal is misguided, and that creating any demand for tropical hardwood is a mistake no matter where it’s sourced from.

‘I am Indigenous, not pardo’: Push for self-declaration in Brazil’s census
- Brazil’s 2010 census was the first to map out the presence of Indigenous people throughout the whole country, but still maintained the term pardo, for a mixed-race individual, that Indigenous activists say has long been used to render Indigenous identities “invisible.”
- The next census is due in 2022, and activists and leaders are mounting a campaign to get all Indigenous Brazilians to self-declare as Indigenous.
- Getting a more accurate picture of the number and distribution of Indigenous people, especially in urban areas, is key to informing public policies geared toward their specific needs, experts say.
- “Everything is Indigenous,” says Júlio César Pereira de Freitas Güató, one of the Indigenous leaders promoting the campaign. “All the rest is invasion.”

In Rio de Janeiro, Indigenous people fight to undo centuries of erasure
- Rio de Janeiro holds a special place in Brazil’s history, but many of its residents are unaware of the city’s Indigenous heritage — from the names of iconic places like Ipanema and Maracanã, to the Indigenous slave labor that built some of its most recognizable structures.
- Nearly 7,000 Indigenous people live in Rio, the fourth-biggest population among Brazilian cities; a unique interactive map by Mongabay shows how they’re spread across the city, as well as their living conditions and ethnic groups.
- Despite their presence, and Rio’s famed diversity and laidback culture, Indigenous people in the city continue to face prejudice and a “silencing” of their traditions and culture that they attribute to centuries of efforts to erase them and make them invisible.
- But Indigenous people are pushing back, agitating to get their rights on the political agenda, and working through academia to unearth the Indigenous history of the city that has long been hidden.

In Boa Vista, Indigenous Brazilians retake their identity through education
- The city of Boa Vista near Brazil’s borders with Venezuela and Guyana is home to Indigenous groups whose ancestral range don’t recognize national boundaries, and who still continue to flow into Brazil from crisis-stricken Venezuela.
- The colonization of Boa Vista by Europeans forced the Indigenous inhabitants off their lands on the banks of the Rio Branco, and resentments simmer today over the return of some of those lands to the original owners.
- The land conflicts also killed off the use of the many ethnic languages spoken in the region, but community-led movements are seeking to bring them back, including in learning materials published by the local university.
- Higher education is seen as a life-changing opportunity for Indigenous students, not just for their personal growth but also for the avenues it opens up to advocate for and empower the wider Indigenous community.

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.

Exhibition showcases Claudia Andujar’s half-century fight for the Yanomami
- Swiss-born Claudia Andujar fled Europe as a child at the end of World War II, and spent much of her later life in Brazil, becoming a celebrated photographer.
- In her adopted homeland, she found a strong affinity with the Yanomami Indigenous people, for whom she was an advocate for the establishment of their own territory — something that came to pass in 1992 as Brazil prepared to host the Rio Earth Summit.
- Now aged 90, Andujar remains deeply concerned for the people with whom she says she “totally identified,” noting that the present threat of illegal mining in Indigenous territories is doing far more harm than the government-driven road projects of the 1970s.
- Andujar’s years of work and life with the Yanomami are now chronicled in a major photo exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre through Aug. 29.

Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- Three Indigenous leaders were reportedly seriously injured after Brazilian police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters in the capital, Brasília
- The incident comes as Indigenous groups from across Brazil gather in the capital to protest against violence and invasions that they face on their own lands; the Munduruku people had to have a police escort to travel to Brasília after being attacked by illegal miners in their reserve in Pará state.
- The Indigenous protesters are also in the capital to press Congress to halt deliberations of legislation that they call the “bill of death,” that would severely undermine Indigenous rights. On the day after the confrontation, it was approved by a congressional commission and will go to a vote in the lower house.
- Among other measures, the bill would make it harder to demarcate Indigenous reserves; override Indigenous territorial sovereignty for “public interest” projects; and dismantle the current policy of non-contact with isolated Indigenous people.

In Brazil’s most Indigenous city, prejudice and diversity go hand in hand
- São Gabriel da Cachoeira, in northern Amazonas state, is recognized as Brazil’s most Indigenous municipality: an estimated 90% of its population is Indigenous, accounting for both its urban and rural areas; the urban area alone is 58% self-declared Indigenous.
- Spread across an area the size of Cuba, São Gabriel da Cachoeira has a history marked by the arrival of Brazilian military forces in 1760 and subsequently Catholic and Protestant missionaries, organized Indigenous social movements, as well as national and international NGOs focused on defending the environment and the Indigenous peoples.
- According to the census, there are 32 indigenous ethnic groups in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, many of them unknown in the rest of the country, such as the Koripako, Baniwa, Baré, Wanano, Piratapuya, Tukano, and Dãw people.
- The municipality is the only one in the country with four official languages, in addition to Portuguese: Baniwa, Tukano, Nheengatu and Yanomami. But despite its cultural and ethnic diversity, there are frequent reports of discrimination against Indigenous people.

Farmers in the Amazon could earn 9 times more and prevent ecosystem collapse
- In this opinion piece, Jonah Wittkamper, Alexander Borges Rose, and Denis Minev argue that agroforestry in the Amazon “can replace cattle, generate new wealth, create jobs and develop new economic zones that insulate pristine forest from deforestation risk.”
- “The opportunity is huge and the needs are urgent,” they write. “If landowners switched from producing soy to a polyculture of fruit and horticultural products, their income would more than triple.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

$10 million XPRIZE Rainforest contest announces 33 qualifying teams
- Thirty-three teams spanning 16 countries from Brazil to India have qualified for the next stage of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, the organizers announced on World Rainforest Day.
- The $10 million contest, which launched in 2019 and concludes in 2024, aims to develop scalable and affordable technologies for rainforest preservation.
- Over the next three years, competing teams will leverage existing and emerging technologies including robotics, remote sensing, data analysis and artificial intelligence to develop new biodiversity survey tools and produce real-time insights on rainforest health and value.

With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fending off attacks and threats by settlers who reject their ancestral land rights over the territory.
- Settlers opposed to the recognition of the Tekohá Dje’y Indigenous Reserve yanked off a new identification plaque marking the reserve, threatened Indigenous leaders and tried to run residents over with a vehicle, the community alleges.
- The Indigenous group in Paraty, a municipality a four-hour drive from Rio’s capital, blames farmers and land grabbers for the attacks and for not recognizing their rights to the land; the community says authorities are not doing enough to protect them from attacks.
- The attacks come amid ongoing violence in the Yanomami and Munduruku reserves, where illegal miners have invaded Indigenous lands in search of gold. Indigenous groups are protesting in Brasília this week against a host of anti-Indigenous bills that could weaken land rights and legalize the mining.

Brazil’s environment minister faces second probe linked to illegal timber
- Brazil’s highest court has authorized an investigation into alleged obstruction of justice by Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who has admitted to siding with suspected illegal loggers targeted in a police operation.
- Following the country’s biggest ever bust of illegal timber in March, Salles traveled to the site in the Amazon and declared on social media accounts that he had personally checked the origin of a sample of the wood and found it was not of illegal origin, despite the police’s evidence to the contrary.
- The new investigation into Salles comes two weeks after the Federal Police began a probe into allegations that the minister was involved in exports of illegal timber to the U.S. and Europe.
- Salles’s term as environment minister has been marked by skyrocketing deforestation rates, a record-high number of rural land conflicts, the gutting of environmental regulators, and an increase in invasions and attacks on Indigenous lands.

US, UK join Norway and Germany in effort to protect Peru’s rainforests
- Britain and the United States have joined Norway and Germany in supporting efforts by the Peruvian government to reduce deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.
- The U.S. and U.K. have signed on to the existing reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) program established in 2014 by Norway and Germany with the government of Peru.
- Norway and Germany have agreed to extend their participation in the program through 2025, pledging 1.8 billion Norwegian Krone ($215 million) and 210 million euros ($255 million), respectively, based on Peru’s progress in curbing deforestation.
- Deforestation in Peru has been trending upward since the mid-2010s, according to data from the World Resource Institute’s Global Forest Watch. Primary forest loss reached 190,000 hectares in 2020, the highest level since at least 2002.

Science refutes United Cacao’s claim it didn’t deforest Peruvian Amazon
- Years of satellite imagery and analysis reveals that United Cacao, a company once publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, deforested nearly 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of primary forest in the Peruvian Amazon.
- The evidence refutes the company’s narrative that farmers had degraded the land before it arrived.
- The deforestation, as well as other legal violations, have led to sanctions against a successor to United Cacao’s Peruvian subsidiary, now called Tamshi SAC.
- But Tamshi is now claiming that Mongabay Latam improperly used the term “deforestation” and has sued for defamation.

Brazil court orders illegal miners booted from Yanomami Indigenous Reserve
- A court has ordered Brazilian authorities to remove all illegal gold miners from the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve in the Amazon, following five days of attacks and intimidation by the miners against an Indigenous village.
- The federal government has still not complied with the May 17 ruling. Army officials say they are planning operations in the region, but have not provided dates. The Federal Police say a team will arrive May 21 to collect data for investigation.
- The attacks that began May 10 saw the miners shoot at the village of Palimiú, throw tear gas canisters, and station several boats nearby in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
- The violent conflict between miners and Indigenous groups follows a surge of land invasions and illegal mining in Indigenous reserves and other conservation areas, dubbed “The Bolsonaro Effect” by Brazilian researchers after its chief enabler.

Norwegian poultry producer bars Brazilian soy due to deforestation risk
- Norwegian poultry producer Gårdsand has developed a new feed recipe that excludes Brazilian soy due to concerns about deforestation risk.
- According to Rainforest Foundation Norway, Gårdsand reformulated its poultry feed as a response to rising deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Gårdsand’s move follows a decision last year by Bremnes Seashore, a salmon producer, to exclude Brazilian soy from its fish feed, while the soy suppliers to the Norwegian aquaculture companies Caramuru, Imcopa and CJ Selecta have indicated they will do the same.
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been climbing steadily since the mid-2010s, with the sharpest acceleration occurring since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in January 2019.

‘Amazônia must live on’: Photographer Sebastião Salgado returns home with his new book
- Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.
- Salgado, one of the most respected documentary photographers in the world, returned to the region four decades after gaining fame shooting the Serra Pelada gold mine and its thousands of mud-covered diggers.
- The book is also a cry for preservation of what remains of the Amazon: “My wish … is that in 50 years’ time this book will not resemble a record of a lost world,” he says.

Brazil’s environment minister investigated for alleged illegal timber sales
- A week after Brazil’s Lower House of Congress approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has been named in a probe for alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber, following a Federal Supreme Court ruling on May 19.
- The ruling cites “extremely atypical financial transactions” totaling $2.7 million involving a law firm where Salles is one of the stakeholders.
- The federal police carried out raids in various ministry offices in the early hours of May 19, which led to the suspension of 10 high-ranking environmental officials, including Eduardo Bim, the head of the IBAMA, the country’s environmental agency.
- Salles denied any wrongdoing and called the operation “exaggerated” and “unnecessary” in a press conference on May 19.

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.

Karipuna people sue Brazil government for alleged complicity in land grabs
- Leaders of the Karipuna Indigenous group in Brazil are suing the government for what they say is complicity in the continued invasion and theft of their land.
- Findings by Greenpeace and the Catholic Church-affiliated Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) show 31 land claims overlapping onto the Karipuna Indigenous Reserve, while 7% of the area has already been deforested or destroyed.
- The Karipuna Indigenous, who rebuilt their population to around 60 in the last few decades from just eight members who survived mass deaths by disease that followed their forced contact with the outside world in the 1970s, are seeking damages of $8.2 million, the right to permanent protection, and the cancellation of all outsider land claims to their territory.
- Land grabbing has been fueled by the political rhetoric and action of President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, who are seeking to drastically reduce protected areas in the Amazon and weaken environmental protections, activists and experts say.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro vowed to work with Indigenous people. Now he’s investigating them
- At least two top Indigenous leaders in Brazil, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Suruí, were recently summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of slander against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
- Both probes were prompted by complaints filed by Funai, the federal agency for Indigenous affairs, just a week after Bolsonaro pledged at a global leaders’ climate summit to work together with Indigenous peoples to tackle deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The NGO Human Rights Watch said it’s “deeply concerned” about the government’s moves and called any retaliation against Indigenous peoples a “flagrant abuse of power,” while APIB, Brazil’s main Indigenous association, called the government’s approach a “clear attempt to curtail freedom of expression.”
- Under Bolsonaro, deforestation in Brazil has reached its highest level since 2008, invasions of indigenous territories increased 135% in 2019, and the persecution of government critics under a draconian national security law has skyrocketed.

Criticizing Brazil over Amazon conservation will likely backfire (commentary)
- Although Brazilians share a concern for the Amazon, and even hosted the groundbreaking Earth Summit in 1992, polls show less consensus on who is responsible for Amazon deforestation, who is best addressing this problem, or the role of foreign actors.
- When activists or leaders from abroad single out Brazil and its president as bad actors on the environment, they risk potential backlash from Brazilians who often view such attacks as a double standard.
- The heavy-handed tone that the Biden Administration has adopted may create unfortunate roadblocks to the progress which is possible, argue two authors from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute and the University of São Paulo.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Indigenous in São Paulo: Erased by a colonial education curriculum
- São Paulo, the biggest city in the western hemisphere, is home to two Indigenous reserves with vastly differing fates.
- The Jaraguá reserve is the smallest in Brazil, hemmed in by a controversial property development and highways that commemorate colonizers who enslaved and massacred the Indigenous population.
- On the much larger Tenondé Porã reserve, residents grow their own food and speak their own language.
- Despite these differences, Indigenous people in São Paulo, whether in the reserves or in the city, face the common problems of discrimination, an education system that refuses to acknowledge their presence, and the continued glorification of genocidal colonizers.

Governments, companies pledge $1 billion for tropical forests
- The U.S., U.K. and Norwegian governments, working with private companies, have launched a carbon credit program that they say will pay double the going rate over existing schemes.
- Others involved in the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) coalition include Amazon, pharmaceutical giants GSK and Bayer, and consumer goods multinationals Nestlé and Unilever.
- The scheme is built on the REDD+ program, which has allowed companies to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions generated in their operations by paying tropical forest countries to keep an equivalent volume of carbon locked up in their forests.
- Its proponents say it improves on REDD+ by working with larger units of land, thus addressing the issues of leakage (deforestation being displaced to a nearby forest patch), and other methods are meant to ensure additionality (avoiding credits being issued from forests that would have been conserved anyway).

As climate summit unfolds, no Biden-Bolsonaro Amazon deal forthcoming
- The United States and Brazil have been conducting closed door negotiations to broker an Amazon rainforest protection agreement — with the U.S. and other nations tentatively to provide significant funding, and Brazil possibly agreeing to pragmatic measures to end deforestation.
- However, as the global Climate Leaders Summit progressed today, it became apparent that those talks are likely stalemated, with no deal announced, nor likely anytime soon.
- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has made it clear that Amazon conservation is dependent on a big financial investment by the United States. However, Amazon deforestation continued soaring through March, even as critics offered substantial proof Brazil is insincere in its environmental commitments.
- For example, new federal rules make it nearly impossible to collect fines for environmental crimes. Also, Brazil has made suspect adjustments to its Paris Climate Agreement carbon reduction targets, allowing it to meet its goals on paper, even as it continues cutting down forests and releasing greenhouse gases.

New beef scorecard measures brands against their deforestation promises
- A new scorecard ranks major beef retailers such as Sainsbury’s, McDonald’s, Costco, and Carrefour against their own pledges to eliminate deforestation from their supply lines.
- These beef retailers, supermarkets and fast-food chains, are lagging behind industry commitments to be deforestation-free by 2020.
- Imports of beef from Brazil to the United States and Europe are on the rise, linking unwitting customers in developed nations to tropical rainforest destruction.
- Food companies have shown themselves to be sensitive to pressure, responding to shifts in consumer habits and demands.

‘We are made invisible’: Brazil’s Indigenous on prejudice in the city
- Contrary to popular belief, Brazil’s Indigenous people aren’t confined to the Amazon Rainforest, with more than a third of them, or about 315,000 individuals, living in urban areas.
- Over the past year, we dived into the census and related databases to produce unique maps and infographics showing not only how the Indigenous residents are distributed in six cities and in Brazil overall, but also showcasing their access to education, sewage and other amenities, and their ethnic diversity.
- Access to higher education is a milestone: the number of Indigenous people enrolled in universities jumped from 10,000 to about 81,000 between 2010 and 2019, giving them a higher college education rate than the general population.
- This data-driven reporting project received funding support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting’s data journalism and property rights grant.

Java’s mangroves pay a high price for stopping plastic flowing out to sea
- Mangroves are known to trap plastic waste and stop it entering the sea, but this defense comes at a high cost to mangrove forests themselves, a new study shows.
- Researchers working in Indonesia’s Central Java province found plastic carpeting half of the mangrove floor across their study area, covering roots and sediment layers and starving the trees of oxygen.
- The plastic accumulation could also harm mollusks, crabs and other soil-dwelling organisms forming the coastal food web’s foundations, which could trigger cascading impacts for larger animals.
- The study authors called for a reduction in plastic waste through education and policies such as bans on single-use plastic packaging.

Nearly half the Amazon’s intact forest on Indigenous-held lands: Report
- A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC) draws on more than 300 studies from the last two decades to demonstrate the protection that Indigenous societies provide for forests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- According to the team’s research, about 45% of the intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in Indigenous territories.
- The forests occupied by Indigenous communities in the region hold more carbon than all of the forests in either Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the next two biggest swaths of tropical forest after Brazil.
- The report’s authors say investing in securing land rights for Indigenous communities is a cheap and effective way to address climate change, while also helping these communities recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brazil’s isolated tribes in the crosshairs of miners targeting Indigenous lands
- The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.
- Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, Funai, holds 114 reports of isolated tribes, of which 43 are within Indigenous lands targeted by mining.
- In addition to the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria, mining activity poses health threats from the mercury used in gold extraction, which contaminates rivers and fish.
- Indigenous groups have filed a lawsuit with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court against the government, demanding protection for isolated Indigenous peoples.

Pig nest-building promotes tree diversity in tropical forest: Study
- New research from a tropical forest in Malaysia reveals that wild pigs, better known for their destructive tendencies on farms and in ecosystems, may actually help encourage tree diversity in forests.
- Expectant mother pigs will build nests amid clumps of saplings, which are usually from a set of tree species common to the forest.
- When the sow kills these saplings for the nest, she’s effectively providing a check on any one species becoming dominant in the forest.
- The research demonstrates the benefits that pigs can bring to forest health, but they also note that pig populations that grow too numerous could — and do, in places — keep the forest from regenerating.

Amazon’s Belo Monte dam cuts Xingu River flow 85%; a crime, Indigenous say
- In February, IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency permitted Belo Monte mega-dam operator Norte Energia to drastically reduce flows to the Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu River for at least a year. That decision reversed an earlier ruling to maintain much higher Xingu River flows and the fishery — as legally required.
- The flow reduction will leave 70% of usually-flooded forest dry this season, causing massive fish mortality and diminished reproduction, experts say. Community group Xingu Vivo Para Sempre denounced the decision as “a death sentence for the Xingu” and demanded IBAMA’s and Norte Energia’s presidents be “criminally prosecuted.”
- Norte Energia has funded projects to mitigate the reduced flow, collecting and dropping fruit into the river for fish to feed on, and releasing captive-bred fish. But scientists say these approaches are unscientific and will likely be ineffective, and can’t make up for the loss of the river’s seasonal flood pulse, upon which fish depend.
- Residents say the government has spread misinformation, telling Brazilian consumers that their electricity bills would go up if Belo Monte released more water to maintain the Xingu’s ecosystem — something Norte Energia is obligated to do. At present, water levels on the Volta Grande have not been restored.

The Possible Meat: A Brazilian farmer shows ranching can regenerate the Cerrado
- Matheus Sborgia, a Brazilian chef, decided to bet on regenerative agriculture after inheriting his grandfather’s cattle ranch in the heart of the Cerrado.
- Sborgia embraced the idea of holistic management and rotational grazing preached by Allan Savory, a Zimbabwean ecologist who became famous for his provocative idea that to save the planet from climate change, instead of reducing livestock farming, we would have to increase it.
- Instead of letting his 200 cows range freely, Sborgia lets them eat everything in a small plot of land before moving them on to another plot; by the time they cycle back the original plot has already regenerated.
- The Brazilian Cerrado is one of the country’s most overgrazed regions. It suffered one of its worst wildfire seasons ever during the past year, and while the ranches around Sborgia’s property were dry, his own land was green and full of life.

Forest patches amid agriculture are key to orangutan survival: Study
- A recent study highlights the importance of small fragments of forest amid landscapes dominated by agriculture for the survival of orangutans in Southeast Asia.
- The research, drawing on several decades of ground and aerial surveys in Borneo, found that orangutans are adapting to the presence of oil palm plantations — if they have access to nearby patches of forest.
- The authors say agricultural plantations could serve as corridors allowing for better connectivity and gene flow within the broader orangutan population.

U.N. report lays out blueprint to end ‘suicidal war on nature’
- According to a new report from the United Nations Environmental Programme, the world faces three environmental “emergencies”: climate change, biodiversity loss, and air and water pollution.
- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said we should view nature as “an ally,” not a foe, in the quest for sustainable human development.
- The report draws on assessments that quantify carbon emissions, species loss and pollutant flows to produce what the authors call concrete actions by governments, private companies and individuals that will help address these issues.

Big dream: NGO leads in creating 1,615-mile Amazon-Cerrado river greenbelt
- The Black Jaguar Foundation plans to reforest 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) along Brazil’s Araguaia and Tocantins rivers in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. The 2,600 kilometer (1,615 mile) long natural corridor will require the planting of around 1.7 billion trees. Tens-of-thousands have already been planted.
- This natural corridor will be established on private lands, and it will have dual ecological and economic goals, resulting in both land conservation and sustainable agroforestry production. It would cross six Brazilian states (Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Pará and Maranhão).
- BJF is well funded and well organized, so the greatest barriers to accomplishing the NGO’s goals are many initially resistant rural property owners who need to be sold on the economic benefits of the green corridor. 24,000 privately owned lots are included in the planned green corridor.
- “Brazil has a huge liability in degraded areas, and the BJF [green corridor] initiative is a huge outdoor laboratory for ecosystem restoration in the center of the country, in the agricultural frontier region,” said one researcher.

Indigenous community wins recognition of its land rights in Panama
- A ruling by Panama’s Supreme Court of Justice in November 2020 led to the official creation of a comarca, or protected Indigenous territory, for the Naso Tjër Di people in northern Panama.
- The 1,600-square-kilometer (620-square-mile) comarca is the result of a decades-long effort to secure the Naso’s land rights.
- Panama’s former president had vetoed legislation creating the comarca in 2018, which he said was unconstitutional because it overlapped with two established protected areas.
- Other Indigenous groups in Panama with longstanding comarcas still struggle to hold back outside incursions for projects such as dams and power transmission lines.

Seven financial firms key to rooting out deforestation, report finds
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index funds are some of the most popular investment tools available, popular among individual and institutional investors alike.
- Just a handful of asset management firms control between 60% and 70% of these funds, according to a recent report from the financial think tank Planet Tracker.
- Planet Tracker’s analysis found that $9.3 billion from ETFs is invested in a set of 26 companies engaged in the soybean trade and linked to deforestation.
- The report concludes that the financial firms in which ETFs and index funds are concentrated are critical in addressing financial support for deforestation.

Timber organization’s backing ‘one step’ toward ‘peace park’ in Borneo
- In December 2020, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) endorsed a proposal by the Forest Department Sarawak (FDS) for what’s come to be known as the Baram Peace Park, covering 2,835 square kilometers (1,095 square miles) on the island of Borneo.
- Proponents of the park say it will protect wildlife, forest-dependent livelihoods, and the last remaining primary forest in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
- But they also acknowledge that the ITTO’s announcement is only a step toward the park’s designation, and industrial logging continues to threaten the region’s forests.

Indigenous groups blast Amazon state’s plan to legalize wildcat mining
- Brazilian legislators in the Amazon state of Roraima have passed a bill legalizing garimpo wildcat mining on state lands without studies. Amendments would also legalize the use of toxic mercury in gold processing, and greatly expand the legal size of mining claims.
- Indigenous groups say the law was passed without adequate consultation, and will invite gold miner invasions of Indigenous reserves in the state, including that of the Yanomami, the largest reserve in Brazil. Since the election of President Jair Bolsonaro more than 20,000 illegal miners have been reported on Yanomami lands.
- Wildcat mining is already legal in some Brazilian Amazon states. Based on that experience, experts say that legalization in Roraima will enable fraud, with gold illegally mined in Indigenous reserves “laundered” to become “legal” gold, and illicit “conflict gold” trafficked from neighboring Venezuela laundered in Roraima.
- The Roraima garimpo mining bill now awaits the state governor’s signature.

In ‘dire’ plea, Brazil’s Amazonas state appeals for global COVID assistance
- In a letter describing pandemic conditions as “dire,” the government of Brazil’s Amazonas state is pleading for urgent medical assistance from the international community. The authenticated letter apparently bypassed the Bolsonaro administration which critics say has been ineffectual in dealing with COVID-19.
- Manaus, the Amazonas state capital, was overwhelmed by the coronavirus last April, but this second wave, according to state authorities is far worse, impacting not only the city, but increasingly, the state’s rainforest interior. The soaring number of cases and deaths statewide is yet to be fully tallied.
- According to authorities, medical facilities in Manaus and Amazonas are presently being utterly overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, with hospitals and clinics lacking beds, oxygen and other vital resources, resulting in deaths. The disease’s rapid spread may be the result of the P.I. viral lineage variant newly detected in Brazil.
- “The situation is dire, and our fear is that the same situation we are seeing in the capital Manaus will reach the inland of Amazonas, the traditional and indigenous populations that are in situation of greater vulnerability,” said the letter sent to international NGOs. The international response isn’t yet known.

Brazil’s collapsing health service, new COVID variant, raise Indigenous risk
- The city of Manaus made world headlines last April when a first wave of the coronavirus swept through the city. Now that city, and the entire state of Amazonas, is being swept by a second wave of the pandemic, which is shaping up to be far worse than the first.
- Indigenous people are especially vulnerable, with their mortality rate from COVID-19 at least 16% higher than the Brazilian average. Now, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, located 852 kilometers (529 miles) from Manaus, near the Colombia-Venezuela frontier, is being heavily impacted.
- São Gabriel has a large Indigenous population, and while it escaped the worst of the first wave of the pandemic, its meagre health system resources are now being overwhelmed. The state of Amazonas lacks sufficient hospital beds, its ICUs are overrun, and medical facilities lack sufficient oxygen.
- Of extreme concern is a new Brazilian coronavirus variant called P.1, which recently appeared in Amazonas state. While more research is needed, one possibility is that P.I. is bypassing the human immune response triggered by the initial coronavirus lineage that ravaged Manaus last year. This means people could be reinfected.

Weak policy oversight could be pushing Brazilian forests closer to a tipping point
- Between 2019 and 2020, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a 12-year high.
- Deforestation, coupled with climate change and fires, are pushing the Amazon ever closer to a rainforest-to-degraded savanna tipping point, say some scientists.
- On a broad spectrum, deforestation is putting Brazil’s energy production, food security, and economy as a whole at risk.
- Women and Indigenous people are essential actors in the discussion and implementation of sustainable development in Brazil, but remain underrepresented at policy- and decision-making levels.

Traditional and Indigenous peoples ‘denounce’ planned Amazon railway
- The Ferrovia Paraense (FEPASA) railway if fully completed would run 1,312 kilometers (815 miles) from Santana do Araguaia in southern Pará, along the state’s eastern border, to the port city of Barcarena on the Amazon River. It could carry 80 million tons of mining ores and agribusiness commodities annually.
- In 2019, Pará state signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Communication Construction Company for a R$7 billion (US$1.4 billion) investment to fund the building of 492 kilometers (305 miles) of the railway, from Marabá to Barcarena. Construction is currently expected to start in 2021.
- But that plan could be delayed by resistance from Indigenous and traditional communities who say they’ve yet to be consulted on the project, as required by international law. FEPASA and Ferrogrão (Grainrail) will integrate Pará into Brazil’s vast rail network, greatly aiding export of Amazon commodities to China.
- A letter from the Amazon communities to Pará’s government accused it and its allies of “forcing on us a development model that does not represent us, that is imposing railways,… expelling people from their lands, ending our food security, destroying our people, destroying our cultures,… and killing our forests.”

Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon rainforest: Study
- A new study sought to quantify the impact of the Amazon soy moratorium, signed in 2006 by companies accounting for around 90% of the soy sourced from the Brazilian Amazon.
- The companies agreed that they would not purchase soy grown on plots that were recently deforested.
- The research demonstrates that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2016 was 35% lower than it would have been without the moratorium, likely keeping 18,000 square kilometers (6,950 square miles) of the Amazon standing.
- Despite the success, observers question whether the ban on soy from deforested areas of the Amazon will prevent the loss of rainforest over the long term.

Ribeirinhos win right to waterside Amazon homeland lost to Belo Monte dam
- Some 40,000 people — mostly peasant farmers, fisherfolk, traditional families (living from the collection of forest products), Indigenous people, and ribeirinhos — were evicted to make way for the Belo Monte dam, constructed between June 2011 and November 2019.
- The ribeirinhos (traditional riverine people) were not politically well organized at the time, and along with many others, were forced out of their traditional riverside homes and livelihoods. Most moved into urban housing developments away from the Xingu River, where they were forced to pay rent and acclimate themselves to urban life.
- But over the years the ribeirinhos gained political savvy. Negotiating with Norte Energia, the consortium that built and runs Belo Monte, they gained the right to establish a collectively owned Ribeirinho Territory beside the Belo Monte reservoir.
- Under the agreement, 315 families are each to be provided with 14 hectares (34 acres) for individual use. Added to that are areas for collective use and a forest reserve — a combined total of 20,341 hectares (50,263 acres). However, with the deal now seemingly sealed, Norte Energia has backpedaled, wanting to propose a different agreement.

Historical analysis: The Amazon’s mineral wealth — curse or blessing?
- Mining of gold and other precious metals in the Amazon fueled the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, while bringing misery and death to unknown hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people and African slaves, forced to work the mines.
- Modern industrial mining came to the Brazilian Amazon in the late 1940s as transnational firms began digging up and processing manganese, iron, bauxite, zinc, and other ores. Like the earlier iterations of mining, transnational firms, investors, and nations profited hugely, while local people saw little benefit.
- Brazil offered massive subsidies and tax incentives to attract transnational mining companies, and built giant public works projects, including mega-dams, transmission lines, and roads to provide energy and other services to the mines. Though the government offered little to disrupted traditional communities.
- All this came with extraordinary socio-environmental costs, as Brazilian Amazon deforestation soared, land and waterways were polluted, and Indigenous and riverine peoples were deprived of their traditional ways of life and lands, and suffered major public health repercussions. This mining trend continues today.

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.

Belo Monte dam’s water demands imperil Amazon communities, environment
- Norte Energia, the builder and operator of the controversial Belo Monte mega-dam is pushing for implementation of a much disputed “consensus hydrogram” — a plan to annually manipulate water releases into the Xingu River’s Volta Grande (Big Bend), with estimated peak April releases ranging from a mere 4,000 – 8,000 m3/s.
- Noting that April average historical river flows in the Volta Grande before the dam was built were 19,985 m3/s, analysts say this dearth of water flow will prevent and imperil annual fish reproduction. One Volta Grande expert estimates that, using the so-called consensus hydrogram plan, at least 80% of Volta Grande fish will die.
- Documents from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, which first came to light publicly on December 3, acknowledge “grave and irreparable impacts” from the Belo Monte dam, and signal an urgent need to revise Norte Energia’s planned consensus hydrogram.
- Two recent studies say fish are decreasing dramatically in diets within Belo Monte’s influence area, causing food insecurity. Norte Energia claims fish quantities sold locally remain the same, but their data may mask significantly increased fishing effort, and the need to fish more widely, beyond previous fishing areas.

The Amazon’s Yanomami utterly abandoned by Brazilian authorities: Report
- A new report highlights the escalating existential crisis among the 30,000 Indigenous people living in the Yanomami Territory, covering 9,664,975 hectares (37,317 square miles) in northern Brazil. Data shows that the Yanomami reserve is in the top ten areas now most prone to illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The report accuses Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazilian government of abandoning the Yanomami to the invasion of their territory by tens-of-thousands of illegal miners. While the administration has launched sporadic operations to stop these incursions, the miners return as soon as police leave the reserve.
- Bolsonaro is also accused of having done little to combat COVID-19 or provide basic healthcare. As a result, pandemic case numbers have grown by 250% in the last three months, now possibly infecting 10,000 Yanomami and Ye’kwana, about a third of the reserve’s entire population, with deaths recorded among adults and children.
- “Children, young people and the generations to come deserve to live healthy lives in their forest home. Their futures should not be cut off by the actions of a genocidal administration,” says the report compiled by the Yanomami and Ye’kwana and a network of academics. Brazil’s Health Ministry denied the charge of negligence.

Multiplying Amazon river ports open new Brazil-to-China commodities routes
- Nearly 100 major industrial river ports have been built on the Brazilian Amazon’s major rivers over the past two decades. Many of the projects have been internationally financed and built by commodities companies with little government oversight.
- These ports have transformed the region, opening it to agribusiness and the export of commodities, especially soy, to China and the rest of the world. However, this boom in port infrastructure often came at the expense of the environment and traditional riverine communities.
- Today, more than 40 additional major river ports are planned in the Amazon biome on the Tapajós, Tocantins, Madeira and other rivers, projects again being pursued largely without taking cumulative socioenvironmental impacts into account.
- “What resources do these soy men bring to our city?” asked Manoel Munduruku, an Indigenous leader. “They only bring destruction.”

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.

Brazil sees record number of bids to mine illegally on Indigenous lands
- An exclusive investigation shows Brazil’s mining regulator continues to entertain requests to mine in Indigenous territories, which is prohibited under the country’s Constitution.
- There have been 145 such applications filed this year, the highest number in 24 years, spurred by President Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous rhetoric and a bill now before Congress that would permit mining on Indigenous lands.
- Prosecutors and judges say that by maintaining these unconstitutional mining applications on file and not immediately rejecting them, the mining regulator is granting them a semblance of legitimacy.
- Mining represents a real threat to the Brazilian Amazon, where the protected status of Indigenous territories is the main reason the forests they contain remain standing.

As energy needs drive demand for minerals, forests face greater threats
- Rising demand for energy, especially from renewable sources, looks set to increase pressure on the world’s forests, as many of minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage are mined in sensitive forest areas.
- A World Bank concept called “forest-smart mining” claims to mitigate the negative impacts of mining on forests, but given the complex nature of the extractive industries, its real-life applicability has come into question.
- While poor governance is often the biggest challenge to efficient forest management, experts emphasize that only a radical reflection of human energy consumption can bring real change.

Environmental democracy in Ecuador promotes anti-mining agenda
- A court ruling in Ecuador allowing a community referendum on proposed mining projects could embolden communities across the country mounting similar opposition to mines.
- The ruling in favor of Cuenca, the capital of Azuay province and the third-largest city in Ecuador, was prompted by concerns over two gold mines, although those operations will not be affected by the outcome of the referendum.
- City officials want to delay the referendum to February because of the cost, but activists are pushing to hold it as soon as possible, before more mining companies are granted operating licenses.
- Cuenca sits in the hydrologically sensitive páramo ecosystem of the Andean highlands, where the impacts of mining are little understood but likely to be significant, a 2016 report warns.

Peru prosecutors probe Amazon deforestation linked to Mennonite communities
- Satellite images show a sudden surge in deforestation in areas settled by Mennonite communities in Peru’s Ucayali and Loreto regions.
- Those cases are among the rare instances of large-scale forest loss that has occurred in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Prosecutors say the clearing was unpermitted and illegal, and have launched an investigation.
- A lawyer for the Mennonites says they have complied with an injunction against forest clearing since last December, and that any deforestation that occurred this year is the work of outsiders.

IPBES report details path to exit current ‘pandemic era’
- A new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) calls for a “transformative change” in addressing the causes of virus outbreaks to prevent future pandemics and their devastating consequences.
- Human-driven climate change, the wildlife trade, and conversion of natural ecosystems all increase the potential for the spillover of viruses that infect animals to people.
- The current COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cost the global economy trillions of dollars, yet preventive measures that include identification of the hundreds of thousands of unknown viruses that are thought to exist would cost only a fraction of that total.

New Latin American treaty could help protect women conservation leaders — and all environment defenders
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we once again highlight the work of women leaders in Amazon conservation, and look at an international agreement that could help protect environmental defenders in Latin America — one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental activist, especially as a woman.
- We speak with Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, or WECAN International, who tells us about some of the most inspiring women she’s worked with who are fighting to protect their communities and their forests in the Amazon, and discusses the groundbreaking Escazu Agreement, which would help protect defenders of the environment across Latin America.
- We also speak with Nicolas Bustamante Hernandez, a contributor to Mongabay who recently profiled an ornithologist and activist in Colombia named Yehimi Fajardo. Bustamente Hernandez tells us how, via the Alas Association she helped establish, Fajardo’s work has led hundreds of Indigenous children in Colombia’s Putumayo department to become avid birders, able to recognize the songs of birds in the region and to more fully appreciate the important role birds play in the local ecosystem.

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