forest
Inga tree points to way out of slash-and-burn for Central American farmers
Like many rural families in Central America, Martín García and his sons devoted part of every growing season to slashing and burning a new strip of their land, knowing that it was the only way to make it fertile enough to yield food for everyone. They couldn’t grow on the land they had used in […]
Indigenous Papuans won their forest back from a palm oil firm, but still lack land title
SORONG, West Papua — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s West Papua province are fighting for the rights to their ancestral forests, now that the local government has rescinded licenses for oil palm concessions on their lands. For years, the residents of Segun village in West Papua’s Sorong district feared that their forests would be razed to […]
Deforestation from cattle ranching also hurts rivers in Nicaragua, study says
Cattle ranching has been destroying the Rama-Kriol territory in southeast Nicaragua for decades. And while many researchers have called attention to the devastating forest loss taking place there, few have focused on another, often-overlooked victim: the rivers. A recent study published in the journal Hydrobiologia shows that deforestation from cattle ranching is taking its toll […]
Half-Earth, conservation, and hope: An interview with E.O. Wilson, Paula Ehrlich and Sir Tim Smit
“To summarize my view of where we are at the present time in the conservation movement…we are winning battles in a losing war,” famed biologist, naturalist, and writer Edward O. Wilson said in a phone interview with Mongabay. E.O. Wilson is recognized as one of the leading scientists in the world for his theories of […]
Guatemala tightens cattle ranching rules, but can they stop deforestation?
Guatemala is getting ready to implement new regulatory programs for the cattle industry in hopes of slowing the rate of deforestation in some of the country’s most at-risk tropical forests. The government has invested in quarantine pens for cattle raised in Petén, a department that has struggled to prevent cattle ranching from encroaching on the […]
Indonesia’s biodiesel program fuels deforestation threat, report warns
JAKARTA — A new report has added to growing concerns that Indonesia’s ambitious program to increase its use of palm oil-based biodiesel will drive greater deforestation across the country. The report, by London-based nonprofit CDP, an international platform for the disclosure of environmental risks, warns of conflicting policies and lack of transparency around biofuel regulations […]
The Brazilian Amazon is burning, again
In recent weeks, nine major fires have ignited in the Brazilian Amazon, heralding the start of another fire season which, after a particularly dry year, experts say could be a bad one. “The rainy season is already finished and it was a bad [dry] rainy season,” Marcelo Seluchi, a meteorologist in Brazil’s national space research […]
West Papua revokes quarter of a million hectares of land from palm oil
JAKARTA — Palm oil licenses covering concessions twice the size of Los Angeles have been rescinded by the local government in Indonesia’s West Papua province due to violations by the license holders. The move follows on from a recent license review, carried out by the West Papua government working with the national anti-corruption agency, the […]