1 February 2013 (mongabay.com) – The rate of tree mortality in the Amazon rainforest due to storm damage and drought is 9-17 percent higher than conventionally believed, reports a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Comparing Landsat satellite images with on-the-ground observations, researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, […]
By Fred Pals30 January 2013 (Bloomberg) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s biggest oil company, isn’t liable in four out of five claims bought by Nigerian farmers for pollution, a Dutch court ruled. The company’s local venture must pay compensation in one case. “Shell Nigeria has been sentenced to pay damages in one of […]
29 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – NASA satellites picked up signals of extensive potential deforestation in Sumatra, Borneo, Central Africa, the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, the Chocó in Colombia and Ecuador, and the Chaco region of Paraguay between October 1 and December 31, 2012, according to the latest update on Mongabay.com’s Global Forest Disturbance Alert System […]
Contact: Alan Buis, Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov, 818-354-0474 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California17 January 2013 PASADENA, California (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study. These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts […]
By Michael Bachelard, Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media15 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Some of the richest and most biodiverse forests in Indonesia will soon be opened up for commercial exploitation under a plan drafted by the new government of Aceh. The chairman of the Aceh parliament’s spatial planning committee, Mr Anwar (who goes […]
China is now the biggest importer, exporter, and consumer of illegal timber in the world. Its footprint impacts vital forest ecosystems ranging from neighbouring countries such as Myanmar to remote areas of Africa. With domestic forests incapable of meeting surging demand, China has a gaping and growing timber deficit that can only be filled by […]
BEIJING, 29 November 2012 (EIA) – China, emergent superpower and the world’s second biggest economy, is effectively standing on the sidelines as its exponential growth devastates forests in a trade worth billions of dollars a year. In the new report Appetite for Destruction: China’s Trade in Illegal Timber, launched today in Beijing, the London-based Environmental […]
By Jeremy Hance29 November 2012 (mongabay.com) – Runaway economic growth comes with costs: in the case of China’s economic engine, one of them has been the world’s forests. According to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), China has become the number one importer of illegal wood products from around the world. Illegal […]
By Jeremy Hance26 November 2012 (mongabay.com) – Newly released photos by Greenpeace show the dramatic destruction of tropical forest in Cameroon for an oil palm plantation operated by SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC), a subsidiary of the U.S. company Herakles Farm. The agriculture company is planning to convert 73,000 hectares to palm oil plantations on […]
By SIMON ROMERO24 November 2012 PARAUAPEBAS, Brazil (The New York Times) — The Amazon has been viewed for ages as a vast quilt of rain forest interspersed by remote river outposts. But the surging population growth of cities in the jungle is turning that rural vision on its head and alarming scientists, as an array […]
