By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com June 24, 2010 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has condemned Malaysia’s booming practice of converting tropical forests into rubberwood plantations, arguing that the conversion threatens Malaysia’s biodiversity, endangered species, and releases significant greenhouse gas emissions. According to the resolution, rubberwood plantations in Malaysia have expanded nearly 30-fold in […]
June 17, 2010 (AFP) — Logging of tropical forests can boost the incidence of malaria in the surrounding area by nearly 50 per cent, according to new research tracking deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon. The study examined 2006 data tracking malaria rates in 54 Brazilian health districts and high-definition satellite imagery showing the extent of logging […]
www.wildmadagascar.org June 21, 2010 New eyewitness reports indicate continued logging of Madagascar’s Masoala National Park for rosewood despite a government “moratorium” on logging and timber exports. A source near Marofinaritra, a town between Masoala and Antalaha, reports heavy night-time movement of trucks carrying illegally logged timber from the park. The wood is believed to be […]
SEAL, a French transport company, is scheduled to ship 79 containers of rosewood tomorrow from the port of Toamasina on its vessel Terra Bona, reports Midi Madagascar. The shipment comes less than three months after Madagascar’s ruling authority banned timber exports after international uproar over the organized logging of the country’s national parks in […]
By Stephen Messenger, Porto Alegre, Brazil on 05. 4.10 In what could easily be considered a worst-case scenario for the fate of the world’s largest rainforest, a study led by Brazil’s National Institute of Special Research found that the size of the Amazon could be reduced 50 percent by 2050, the ‘tipping point‘ for when […]
By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.comApril 28, 2010 Industrial soy expansion in the Brazilian Amazon has contributed to deforestation by pushing cattle ranchers further north into rainforest zones, reports a new study published the journal Environmental Research Letters. The authors — including Elizabeth Barona, Navin Ramankutty, Glenn Hyman and Oliver Coomes — analyzed annual census data […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comApril 26, 2010 Forests continue to decline worldwide, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Employing satellite imagery researchers found that over a million square kilometers of forest were lost around the world between 2000 and 2005. This represents a 3.1 percent loss of […]
Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Bill TrottCARACASSun Apr 25, 2010 3:18pm EDT CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered troops to crack down on wildcat miners who use mercury, chain-saws and high-pressure hoses to strip gold from beneath the South American nation’s jungles. Venezuela’s southern forests contain some of Latin […]
By Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey on 04.10.10 European consumers of Golden Plus and Lucky Boss brand copy paper got an unpleasant surprise this week when a federation of EU environmental groups announced that the products they thought were made from sustainable sources have in fact been having “devastating impacts on Sumatran rainforests, causing deforestation, […]
www.wildmadagascar.orgApril 04, 2010 Rainforest timber continues to be cut illegally from Madagascar’s national parks despite a recently announced moratorium on precious wood exports and logging, reports a source from the Indian Ocean island nation. On March 24, Madagascar’s transitional authority unveiled decree (no. 2010-141) prohibiting all exports of rosewood and precious timber for two […]
