Forests “essential” for the future, UN agriculture chief spells out in new report

6 July 2018 (UN News) – Time is running out for the world’s forests, warns a new report by the United Nations agriculture agency, urging governments to foster an all-inclusive approach to benefit both trees and those who rely on them.Halting deforestation, managing forests sustainably, restoring degraded forests and adding to worldwide tree cover all […]

Pope warns climate change turning Earth into desert, garbage

By Nicole Winfield 6 July 2018 VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of “rubble, deserts, and refuse.” Francis made the appeal at […]

2017 was the second-worst year on record for global deforestation – “We are trying to put out a house fire with a teaspoon”

By Damian Carrington, Niko Kommenda, Pablo Gutiérrez, and Cath Levett 27 June 2018 (The Guardian) – The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year.The scale of […]

Indonesia to investigate death of journalist being held for defaming palm oil company

By Hans Nicholas Jong 21 June 2018 JAKARTA (Mongabay) – Indonesia’s national commission on human rights has vowed to investigate the death of a journalist who was being held on charges of defaming a palm oil company owned by a powerful tycoon.From November 2017 to March of this year, Muhammad Yusuf wrote at least 23 […]

As Colombia expands its palm oil sector, scientists worry about wildlife

By Taran Volckhausen 21 June 2018 (Mongabay) – The large-scale expansion of oil palm has been a major driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss in many areas of the tropics. In Malaysia and Indonesia, where 85 percent of the world’s oil palm is cultivated, rampant industry growth over the past several decades has replaced rainforest […]

Indonesia indigenous rights activist: “North Sumatran land mafia offered me $21m to win election — and then hand over control of government”

21 June 2018 (Mongabay) – In July last year, Abdon Nababan, one of Indonesia’s most prominent activists, announced his intention to run for governor in his home province of North Sumatra. During his decade-long tenure as head of AMAN, the country’s main advocacy group for indigenous rights, Abdon led the organization to a series of […]

Deforestation in Brazil’s Jamanxim National Forest in April and May was more than double the area razed in all of 2017

By Fabiano Maisonnave 20 June 2018(Folha de S. Paulo) – The Jamanxim National Forest (Flona) recorded in two months more than double the amount of deforested area in the last year.Located in the southwest of Pará, Flona lost 57 km2  of vegetation cover between April and May, according to the calculation of the NGO Imazon […]

Amazon deforestation in Brazil up 84 percent in April 2018

By Stefania Costa 24 May 2018(Imazon) – In April 2018, SAD detected 217 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon forest. In this bulletin, the fraction of deforestation between 1 and 10 hectares was 18% of the total detected (39 square kilometers). Considering only the alerts from 10 hectares, there was an increase of 84% […]

Video: Orangutan tries to fight off digger destroying its forest home

By Oliver Wheaton 7 June 2018 (The Independent) – An orangutan has been filmed seemingly defending its home from being demolished by loggers. The animal was seen fruitlessly lashing out against a digger in the Sungai Putri forest in Borneo, Indonesia as loggers bulldozed through. The video, which was reportedly filmed in 2013 but only […]

Government raid fails to stop illegal gold mining, death threats on Amazon’s Tropas River

By Rosamaria Loures, Sue Branford, and Maurício Torres 31 May 2018 (Mongabay) – “The gold mining in our territory is bringing a lot of illness, a lot of malaria. It’s bringing alcohol into our communities. It’s bringing drugs into our territory,” said Maria Leusa, a Munduruku female warrior and a leading member of the Ipereg […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial