WORLD RAINFOREST

By Rhett A. Butler  Last updated Aug 14, 2020

The Tropical Rainforest - information on tropical forests, deforestation, and biodiversity

 

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The Latest News on Rainforests

UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo (Mar 18 2024)
- The government of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo will continue to move forward with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations.
- In a letter, the U.N. calls in question the transparency of the agreement and the state’s approach to the human rights law principle of free, prior and informed consent.
- The agreement was signed by state officials and a representative of a Singaporean company in 2021. Shortly after news of the deal became public, some Indigenous groups in the state said they hadn’t been consulted or informed about the deal covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests.
- The U.N. letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development.

Chocó land deal shows flaws in Ecuador’s forestry incentive program (Mar 18 2024)
- A conflict over thousands of hectares of the Andean Chocó bioregion of northwestern Ecuador — now enmeshed in a decade-long legal battle — shows that the country’s Socio Bosque program is susceptible to potential corruption and political dealmaking, activists in the area claim.
- Over 9,000 hectares (22,239 acres) were stolen from local communities through an illegal land sale that was then used to benefit from the Socio Bosque program, critics say.
- Complaints filed to the Ministry of Environment have led to multiple inspections of the land, and the person who collected Socio Bosque payments was ordered to return $152,364.

Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout (Mar 18 2024)
- The Moa Indigenous community live in a remote region of Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, on the fringe of a national park established in the 1990s.
- The society’s customary rules and norms mandate matrilineal aspects, including that women in the community have responsibility for a type of subsistence farming known as pampa.
- Forestry economics professor Syukur Umar says a crucial boundary change made by the government has led to sudden shifts in the community’s forestry.

Fires surge in the Amazon, but deforestation continues to fall (Mar 17 2024)
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued on a downward trajectory despite a sharp increase in fires associated with the severe drought in the region.
- According to data published by Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) earlier this month, forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon amounted to 5,010 square kilometers over the past twelve months, the lowest level recorded since May 2019.
- Despite the declining rate of forest loss, fires in the Amazon are on the rise, driven by the severe drought gripping the region.
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen precipitously since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva replaced Jair Bolsonaro as president last year.

Palm oil deforestation persists in Indonesia’s Leuser amid new mills, plantations (Mar 14 2024)
- Deforestation for palm oil persists in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, including inside a national park that’s supposed to be off-limits to plantation activity, a new investigation has found.
- The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) characterizes the current deforestation trend as a “death by a thousand cuts,” with a large number of small operators hacking away at the ecosystem, in contrast to past deforestation carried out by a small number of large concession holders.
- RAN’s investigation also identified two new palm oil processing mills near the deforesting concessions, indicating that the presence of the mills, which need a constant supply of palm fruit, may be a driver of the ongoing deforestation.
- There’s a high risk that mills in the area may ultimately be supplying deforestation-linked palm oil to major global consumer products companies, including those with stated no-deforestation policies.

Reforestation and restoration: Two ways to make the Pan Amazon greener (Mar 14 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Efforts to save agroforestry zones require long-term patience and heavy investment, but ensure that plantations sequester up to 20% of the carbon stored in a natural forest, and even more carbon can be retained through natural habitat restoration.
- Killeen explains that tropical areas need to retain around 70% of their canopy cover to maintain the atmospheric recycling that sustains historical rainfall levels. In the southern Amazon, this would need to be applied to 15 million hectares with an investment of between $20 and $100 billion.
- For the author, these issues are all the more urgent as the threat of climate change is accelerating the Pan-Amazonian region to an irreversible tipping point. Are carbon markets providing incentives that ‘reward’ conservation in the Pan-Amazonian region?

Reconciling conservation agriculture and agroforestry for sustainability (Mar 13 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- In this section, Killeen focuses on land management that seeks to reconcile the technologies of modern agriculture with the worn-out practices of organic farming.
- It also analyzes the case of livestock farmers, who are not as likely to change their land management practices, as they have an underutilized surplus that has suffered from mismanagement.
- For Killeen, smallholder farmers should be more willing to diversify such production systems and adopt practices that increase resilience. Because mitigating risk is essential to their livelihoods: without crops comes bankruptcy and hunger. This is the case in countries such as Ecuador and Peru, where smallholder farmers occupy more than 90% of previously deforested areas.

Norway pension fund breaks with U.K. conglomerate Jardines over endangered orangutan habitat (Mar 12 2024)
- Norway’s state pension fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has cut ties with Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the conglomerate’s gold mining activities in Indonesia could damage the only known habitat of the world’s most threatened great ape, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis).
- The fund joins 29 financiers that have excluded Jardines and/or its subsidiaries from financing due to climate and environmental concerns, according to data from the Financial Exclusions Tracker.
- The Tapanuli orangutan was only first described in 2017, and its estimated population numbers fewer than 800 that survive in a tiny tract of forest; 95% of the ape’s historical habitat has been lost to hunting, conflict killing and agriculture.
- The Martabe mining concession in northern Sumatra lies in the portion of the orangutan’s habitat, the Batang Toru forest, with the largest orangutan population, where the probability of the species’ long-term survival is highest; the fund worried that further expansion of the mine would increase threats to the ape.

Indonesian gold mine expanding in ‘wrong direction’ into orangutan habitat (Mar 11 2024)
- A gold mine in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan is expanding, prompting alarm from activists and conservationists.
- The Martabe mine on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, run by a company associated with the U.K.’s Jardine Matheson Holdings, already cleared 100 hectares (about 250 acres) of forest from 2016 to 2020, and looks set to clear another 100 hectares.
- Advocacy group Mighty Earth says the expansion will impact an area recently established to help protect the orangutan and other threatened species.
- Jardines says an independent forestry and sustainability assessment concluded that the long-term impact of the planned exploration and development work was minimal.

Sumatra firefighters on alert as burning heralds start of Riau dry season (Mar 6 2024)
- On the northeast coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, the first of two annual dry seasons led to a spike in wildfires in some peatland areas in February.
- In the week ending March 2, Indonesian peatland NGO Pantau Gambut said 34 hotspots, possibly fires, were identified by satellite on peatlands in Riau province.
- Emergency services in the province have been concentrated to the east of the port city of Dumai, where a fire started in the concession of a palm oil company, according to local authorities.

Ten years since anti-deforestation pledge, corporate world still not doing enough (Mar 6 2024)
- Global Canopy released its Forest 500 list of the 350 companies and 150 financial institutions connected to deforestation-linked commodities, including beef, leather, soy, palm oil, timber, pulp and paper.
- This is the organization’s 10th report, showing that numerous companies haven’t done enough to remove deforestation from their supply chains over the last decade.
- The report found 30% of companies still haven’t developed a single deforestation policy for their supply chains, while others have developed policies but failed to implement them in a meaningful way.
- The few companies with strong, long-term goals aren’t always doing enough to meet them, according to the report.

Land irrigation as an obstacle to agricultural intensification in Mato Grosso (Mar 6 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- In this section, Killeen looks at industrialized crops in Brazil, specifically in Mato Grosso, where irrigation is expected to be heavily impacted by decreasing rainfall as a result of climate change and deforestation.
- The outlook over the next few years is grim. While current extraction levels are within parameters, the effective expansion rate of 10% per year will eventually outstrip surface water supplies, increasing demand for groundwater.
- According to studies conducted in Mato Grosso, the combined surface and groundwater resources could support 3.9 million hectares of agriculture.

What is most convenient in land distribution? (Mar 5 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Predictions indicate that an ecological tipping point will be crossed when 25% of the Amazon’s forests will have been converted to agriculture, just a few percentage points from the current 18%. How can deforestation be halted?
- There are two approaches taken by specialists and academics: the savings approach, which involves using technology to intensify production on the land; and the sharing approach, which seeks to diversify production systems.
- For Killeen, both approaches could be applicable but their social, economic and environmental impacts will vary dramatically depending on where they are applied and on what scale.

Indonesians uprooted by mining industry call for a fairer future amid presidential vote (Mar 4 2024)
- Ahead of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, people from across the country affected by extractive industries gathered at the site of a notorious mudflow disaster in East Java province.
- The Lapindo mudflow continues to impact thousands of residents with diverse social repercussions, including displacement, environmental pollution, and obstructed access to education and health care.
- The gathering attracted participants from various regions across Indonesia to raise awareness of the impact of mining and extractive industries on affected communities.

Major meatpacker JBS misled the public about sustainability efforts, NY lawsuit claims (Mar 1 2024)
- New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS USA Food Company and JBS USA Food Company Holdings for misrepresenting plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
- The lawsuit cites numerous instances in which the company’s claims to the public didn’t align with what was happening behind closed doors. Its website and advertisements have boasted claims about reaching net-zero carbon emissions while company executives were making plans to grow.
- The New York attorney general said JBS Group’s greenhouse gas emissions calculations don’t include deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, making its environmental goals “not feasible given the current scope of [its] business operations.”

In the Amazon, what happens to undesignated public lands? (Feb 29 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Indigenous communities compete with other stakeholders with economic, demographic and political power. Among them, the livestock, agricultural and logging sectors stand out. This competition for land includes the interests of mining companies and the oil and gas industry.
- Broadly speaking, there are still important areas of public lands waiting to be assigned as protected areas, Indigenous reserves or open to some type of sustainable development.
- Therefore, it is important to understand that insecure and uncertain land is directly related to the deforestation crisis. Hoarders and settlers appropriate public lands due to the incomplete nature of land records.

Major meatpackers are unlawfully deforesting Brazil’s Cerrado, report says (Feb 29 2024)
- In the state of Mato Grosso, some of the country’s largest meatpackers are clearing parts of the Cerrado at an even faster rate than the Amazon Rainforest, a new report from U.K.-based NGO Global Witness says.
- Meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva have cut down nearly five times more of the state’s Cerrado than they have its Amazon. One in three cows that the companies purchased from the Cerrado had grazed on illegally deforested land.
- A major EU law regulating deforestation in supply chains is scheduled for review this year, and the Global Witness report said its language should be expanded to include “other wooded land” that would protect the Cerrado.

Ecuador, Colombia and the Guiana Shield join the planning of sustainable land use (Feb 28 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- This section shows how land use planning in Ecuador loses value if it is not accompanied by programs that motivate landowners to reform their business models and reward forest communities.
- Likewise, in countries like Colombia the challenge is not access to information or technical capacity, but rather the weak presence of the State in various areas of the country that live without law. Finally, although Suriname, Guyana and Venezuela were late in planning the development of their forested areas, the deforestation factors linked to agriculture and infrastructure are quite low.
- Despite this, the threats facing these countries include new offshore oil and gas reserves, as well as small and medium-scale gold mining.

New giant anaconda species found on Waorani Indigenous land in Ecuador (Feb 28 2024)
- A new species of giant anaconda has been found in the Bameno region of Baihuaeri Waorani Territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
- The largest snake the team found in Waorani territory was a female anaconda that measured 6.3 meters (20.7 feet) long from head to tail, but there are Indigenous reports of larger individuals.
- As apex predators, anacondas play a vital ecological role in regulating prey populations like fish, rodents, deer and caimans.
- Anacondas face a number of threats across their range, including habitat loss from deforestation, hunting by humans and pollution from oil spills.

Rewilding Ireland: ‘Undoing the damage’ from a history of deforestation (Feb 27 2024)
- Eoghan Daltun has spent the past 14 years successfully rewilding 29 hectares (73 acres) of farmland on the Beara Peninsula in southwestern Ireland.
- Ireland is one of the most ecologically denuded countries in the world, only possessing about 11% forest cover but on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, co-host Rachel Donald speaks with Daltun about how he came to accomplish his rewilding feat simply by letting nature take its course and erecting a good fence, which has rapidly led to the regeneration of native forest, wildflowers and fauna.
- They also discuss the historical drivers of ecological devastation that have led to the classic, tree-less Irish landscape, from ancient times to imperial colonization and the advent of modern farming, and what the potential of rewilding is to change that and boost biodiversity.

We’re losing species faster than we can find them, study shows (Feb 27 2024)
- Researchers compiled a database showing the number of lost species is increasing faster than rediscovered species: since 1800, more than 800 amphibian, bird, mammal and reptile species have not seen by scientists in at least a decade.
- Reptiles as well as small, nocturnal or underground species tend to stay lost longer than larger, more widespread mammals and birds.
- Once found, many lost species remain threatened with extinction as their populations are often small and fragmented due to habitat loss.
- New technologies like camera traps and environmental DNA are aiding rediscovery efforts, but the involvement of local communities is also key to finding lost species.

‘Shocking’ mortality of infant macaques points to dangers of oil palm plantations (Feb 27 2024)
- As oil palm plantations encroach on rainforests, wild primates increasingly enter them to forage, where they face the threat of being eaten by feral dogs, killed for raiding crops, or caught by traffickers for the pet trade.
- A new study from Peninsular Malaysia finds that exposure to oil plantations also significantly increases the risk of death among infant southern pig-tailed macaques.
- In addition to known threats, researchers speculate common pesticides used in oil palm plantations might play a role in the increased death risks for infant macaques, but their study stops short of providing direct evidence implicating any specific toxic chemical in these deaths.
- Conservationists call for using environmentally safe and wildlife-friendly agricultural practices in oil plantations to minimize risks and establishing wildlife corridors and tree islands so that endangered primates, like southern pig-tailed macaques, can move freely without being exposed to threats.

Skywalker gibbons confirmed in Myanmar for the first time (Feb 26 2024)
- Skywalker hoolock gibbons have been confirmed for the first time in the forests of northeastern Myanmar, with researchers using acoustic monitoring and DNA analysis to identify 44 groups of the imperiled primates.
- The discovery officially extends the range of the endangered species, first described as recently as 2017, beyond the borders of China; the population found in Myanmar is the largest known population of the species on the planet.
- The researchers also conducted a threat analysis, identifying habitat loss from logging and mining and hunting for the illegal wildlife trade as major pressures.
- Given the prevailing political conflict and paucity of well-managed protected areas in Myanmar, local communities and experts recommend scaling up grassroots and Indigenous-led conservation efforts to protect the threatened primates and their forest home.

To reverse deforestation and protect biodiversity, build a bioeconomy in the Amazon (commentary) (Feb 23 2024)
- Slowing and reversing deforestation and land degradation in the Amazon requires not only conservation efforts but also increasing the economic value of standing primary forests through a bioeconomy approach, argues Robert Muggah, co-founder of Instituto Igarapé.
- A bioeconomy involves regenerative agriculture, sustainable energy, and other activities that leverage the forest’s natural assets while ensuring economic benefits for local communities. However, the expansion of the bioeconomy faces challenges, including resistance from extractive sectors, investment risks, and the need for infrastructure, research, and support for local enterprises.
- Despite these hurdles, advancing the bioeconomy is essential for sustainable development and decarbonization in the Amazon and crucial for the world, says Muggah.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Low implementation of land use maps in Andean countries affects conservation outcomes and agricultural productivity (Feb 22 2024)
- Mongabay is publishing a new edition of the book, “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon,” in short installments and in three languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.
- Land-zoning in Peru and Bolivia has had positive and adverse outcomes, with land speculation and focus on agriculture often precluding sustainable development and promoting deforestation.
- The 2013 Sembrando Bolivia programme, central to the government’s goal of expanding the agricultural footprint, sped up land tenure regularization on properties deforested between 1996 and 2013 and issued new forest-clearing permits for 154,000 hectares. Originally intended to foster forest conservation, the programme was used to promote deforestation in favor of agricultural production in the Bolivian Amazon.