forest – Desdemona Despair

Moths attracted to a light trap in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica in May 1984, May 2007, and May 2019. Photo: Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs

April 28, 2024

They turned cattle ranches into tropical forest — then climate change hit

By Justine Calma 27 April 2024 (The Verge) – Ecologist Daniel Janzen wades into the field, clutching a walking stick in one hand and a fist full of towering green blades of grass in the other to steady himself. Winnie Hallwachs, also an ecologist and Janzen’s wife, watches him closely, carrying a hat that she […]

An Ogiek home in Kenya’s Mau Forest that has been set on fire to illegally evict hunter-gatherers from their ancestral lands to profit from carbon offsetting schemes. Photo: OPDP / BBC

December 3, 2023

Kenya’s Ogiek people being evicted for carbon credits – “The Ogiek are on the front line of a false climate solution that is used to justify ongoing evictions and emissions”

By Claire Marshall 9 November 2023 (BBC News) – Kenya’s government is illegally evicting hunter-gatherers from their ancestral lands to profit from carbon offsetting schemes, human rights lawyers say. Hundreds of members of the Ogiek community are being evicted from the Mau Forest, say their representatives. Ogiek leader Daniel Kobei said armed forest rangers were […]

Smoke rises from the Crater Creek (K52125) wildfire near Keremeos, British Columbia, Canada, 15 August 2023. BC Wildfire Service / REUTERS

September 11, 2023

Carbon credit market confidence ebbs as big names retreat – Voluntary carbon markets shrink in 2023 for the first time in at least seven years

By Susanna Twidale and Sarah Mcfarlane 1 September 2023 LONDON (Reuters) – Voluntary carbon markets have shrunk for the first time in at least seven years, as companies including food giant Nestlé and fashion house Gucci reduced buying and studies found several forest protection projects did not deliver promised emissions savings. Preserving forests is crucial […]

The Butachimie chemical plant sits in Chalempe, eastern France, Tuesday, 8 November 2022. Photo: Jean-Francois Badias / AP Photo

May 30, 2023

Cracks emerging in Europe’s united front to battle climate change – “You can’t say I support the Green Deal, but not the ambition to restore nature. It’s not ‘à la carte menu.’”

By Samuel Petrequin 27 May 2023 BRUSSELS (AP News) – The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy. With the next European […]

Estimated conifer vegetation climate mismatch (VCM) in the Sierra Nevada (2015-2020). (a) The conifer HSM projected to contemporary climate and overlayed on the modern conifer distribution (EVeg) reveals that up to 19.5% of modern conifer forest is in VCM, primarily along the low-elevation western slope of the Sierras. The total area of conifers shown is 40,495 km2, of which ∼32,500 km2 are in equilibrium with the modern climate. (b) Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter and Mean Annual Precipitation were the most important predictors in the HSM (meanMTWQ = 0.518, SEMTWQ = 0.209 and meanMAP = 0.418, SEMAP = 0.139). Standard error bars are included in the barplot. (c) Boxplots show the difference between modern (2015–2020) and historical (1915–1955) climate within the conifer VCM regions. Change in climate is calculated as the number of standard deviations the modern climate differs from the historical period. Though the differences were statistically significant for each climate variable (p < 8.45 × 10−12, independent t-test), Precipitation of Driest Month showed the greatest decrease (mean = −2.41, SD = 2.84) and MTWQ the greatest increase (mean = 1.59, SD = 0.329) between the historical and modern climate. Mean Annual Precipitation changed the least within the VCM area (mean = 0.165, SD = 0.395). Boxplots include the median line, a box denoting the interquartile range, and whiskers showing values ±1.5 × the interquartile range. Graphic: Hill, et al., 2023 / PNAS Nexus

May 29, 2023

Researchers are discovering “zombie forests” in new places across the western U.S. – “Our maps force some critical – and difficult – conversations about how to manage impending ecological transitions”

By Brendan O’Leary 13 May 2023 (The Cool Down) – It’s no secret that our warming atmosphere has resulted in extreme weather all over the world, but there’s also a less noticeable consequence at work as well. Rising ambient temperatures mean that thousands of coniferous forests in California will be unable to replenish their numbers once they die. What […]

The location of climate tipping elements in the cryosphere (blue), biosphere (green) and ocean/atmosphere (orange), and global warming levels their tipping points will likely be triggered at 1.5°C. Researchers see signs of destabilisation already in parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, in permafrost regions, the Amazon rainforest, and potentially the Atlantic overturning circulation as well. Graphic: Earth Commission / Globaïa

September 25, 2022

World at risk of passing multiple climate tipping points above 1.5°C global warming

8 September 2022 (Stockholm Resilience Centre) – Multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a major new analysis published in the journal Science. Even at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of passing five dangerous climate tipping points, and risks […]

The conservation status of the world’s 58,497 tree species in 2022. Graphic: BGCI

September 17, 2022

At least one-third of Earth’s trees face extinction – Scientists issue “warning to humanity” that tree species extinction could bring economic as well as ecosystem crisis

LONDON, 1 September 2022 (BGCI) – Today a new paper by leading scientists and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) reveals the severe impact that tree species extinction will have on other species, ecosystems and livelihoods. This comes exactly one year on from the landmark State of the World’s Trees report, which examined global tree species and found that a […]

Aerial view of an area in the Amazon deforested for the expansion of livestock, in Lábrea, Amazonas state. The Amazon is still covered in smoke and torn by criminal and unrestrained destruction, according to overflights produced by the Amazon in Flames Alliance, organized by Amazon Watch, Greenpeace Brazil and the Brazilian Climate Observatory. The expedition took place between September 13th and 17th 2021, in the cities of Porto Velho (Rondônia state) and Lábrea (southern Amazonas state). Photo: Victor Moriyama / Amazônia em Chamas / Greenpeace

March 15, 2022

Brazil detects record Amazon deforestation in January and February 2022 – Forest destruction rate in 2021 was highest in ten years

By David Biller 11 March 2022 RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Detected deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a record high for the month of February following a similar record the prior month. Satellite alerts of deforestation in February corresponded to 199 square kilometers (77 square miles), the highest indicator for that month in seven […]

Aerial view of a sinkhole caused by rapid permafrost thawing. Abrupt thawing is “fast and dramatic” and it “affects landscapes in unprecedented ways” says Dr. Merritt Turetsky. Photo: Dr. Merritt Turetsky

February 5, 2020

“Fast and dramatic” permafrost thaw will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions – “Forests can become lakes in the course of a month”

By Natacha Larnaud 4 February 2020 (CBS News) – Rapidly thawing permafrost in the Arctic has scientists worried. According to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice that holds the soil together is melting, causing hillsides to collapse and massive sinkholes to open up as a result. And that dramatic disruption to […]

Evacuees from the Camp Fire have congregated in tents and in their vehicles as they seek shelter in a Walmart parking lot in Chico, California, on 13 November 2018. Photo: Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times / TNS

November 26, 2019

Research shows where former Paradise residents went after town was incinerated in the Camp Fire – “People who didn’t have the wherewithal and couldn’t figure out what to do just ended up without anything,”

By Michael Finch II 20 November 2019 (The Sacramento Bee) – Like many, David Stromeyer and his wife made a terrifying escape from Paradise as the Camp Fire threatened their home a year ago. Fortunate than most, the Stromeyers found a rental within a week, joining the thousands of people who temporarily moved to the […]