rainforests news from mongabay.com

High gold prices, army collaboration, play role in mining invasion in southern Venezuela

2009-11-25T02:46:00Z

Illegal gold mining involving wildcat miners, the Venezuelan army, and indigenous groups is threatening one of the country's most biodiverse river basins, according to local sources.

REDD may not be enough to save Sumatra's endangered lowland rainforests

2009-11-24T03:54:00Z

A prominent REDD project in Aceh Indonesia probably won't be enough to save Northern Sumatra's endangered lowland rainforests from logging and conversion to oil plantations and agriculture, report researchers writing in Environmental Research Letters. The study highlights the contradiction between the Ulu Masen conservation project; which involves Flora and Fauna International, Bank of America, and Australia-based Carbon Conservation, a carbon trading company and the continuing road expansion, and establishment of oil palm plantations in the region.

Photo of new chameleon species discovered in Tanzania

2009-11-23T20:43:00Z

Researchers have discovered a new species of chameleon in southern Tanzania.

Google – the new eye in the sky for protecting forests?

2009-11-22T04:20:00Z

Google looks set to play a part in a called-for "new environmental world order" by satellite-monitoring the rates of deforestation of tropical rainforests and pinpointing illegal logging and land misuse, Google’s Northern and Central Europe head Philipp Schindler has revealed. Schindler made the announcement in London on November 19 at a meeting at St James's Palace hosted by the Prince's Rainforests Project about a new climate change reduction mechanism, REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). An inter-governmental report produced this month by an Informal Working Group (IWG) for Interim Funding of REDD has outlined an initiative to save the CO2 equivalent of the annual emissions of the US over five years by rewarding developing countries for reducing deforestation, with payments on a performance basis.

U.S. pledges $275M to rainforest conservation

2009-11-20T15:36:00Z

The U.S. pledged $275 million to efforts to reduce deforestation in developing countries, reports Reuters.

Deforestation emissions should be shared between producer and consumer, argues study

2009-11-19T23:49:00Z

Under the Kyoto Protocol the nation that produces carbon emission takes responsibility for them, but what about when the country is producing carbon-intensive goods for consumer demand beyond its borders? For example while China is now the world's highest carbon emitter, 50 percent of its growth over the last year was due to producing goods for wealthy countries like the EU and the United States which have, in a sense, outsourced their manufacturing emissions to China. A new study in Environmental Research Letters presents a possible model for making certain that both producer and consumer share responsibility for emissions in an area so far neglected by studies of this kind: deforestation and land-use change.

Oil palm workers still below poverty line, despite Minister's statements

2009-11-19T23:13:00Z

On October 19th, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok told parliament that oil palm harvesters and rubber tappers are living above Malaysia's national poverty line, according to a story in the Malaysian Insider. But now representatives of the workers are saying Dompok lied.

REDD may increase the cost of conservation of non-forest ecosystems

2009-11-19T16:35:00Z

Policy-makers designing a climate change mitigation mechanism that will reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) aren't doing enough to ensure that the scheme protects biodiversity outside carbon-dense ecosystems, argues an editorial published in Current Biology by a group of scientists.

Indonesian government suspends license of logging company in controversial forest area

2009-11-19T14:45:00Z

The Indonesian government today temporarily suspended the license of Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL) for developing an area of forest and peatland in Sumatra pending a review of the company's permits, reports Greenpeace.

Gibson Guitar under federal investigation for alleged use of illegal rainforest timber from Madagascar

2009-11-19T02:03:00Z

Federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided Gibson Guitar's factory Tuesday afternoon, due to concerns that the company had been using illegally harvested wood from Madagascar, reports the Nashville Post.

Ecological benefits of REDD boosted by inclusion of private landowners, potentially harmed by plantations

2009-11-17T05:06:00Z

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation [REDD] programs that include landowners will conserve more habitat and ensure greater ecosystem services function than programs that focus solely on protected areas, report researchers from the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG).

Coastal habitats may sequester 50 times more carbon than tropical forests by area

2009-11-16T23:54:00Z

Highly endangered coastal habitats are incredibly effective in sequestering carbon and locking it away in soil, according to a new paper in a report by the IUCN. The paper attests that coastal habitats—such as mangroves, sea grasses, and salt marhses—sequester as much as 50 times the amount of carbon in their soil per hectare as tropical forest. "The key difference between these coastal habitats and forests is that mangroves, seagrasses and the plants in salt marshes are extremely efficient at burying carbon in the sediment below them where it can stay for centuries or even millennia."

Brazil pledges to restrain emissions growth

2009-11-15T21:34:00Z

In a move that some observers say could provide a path forward on a future climate agreement that includes emissions cuts in developing countries, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his country will aim to reduce emissions 14 to 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Finnish paper company to sever ties with logging firm linked to rainforest destruction in Indonesia

2009-11-13T19:26:00Z

Finnish paper company UPM-Kymmene will stop buying paper pulp from Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL) due to concerns over the company's poor environmental record, reports Greenpeace. UPM-Kymmene contact's represents 4 percent of APRIL's total pulp production, worth over US$55 million annually, according to the environmental group.

Countries that invest in conservation will see higher financial returns, argues report

2009-11-13T17:07:00Z

A new report issued by the The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative makes a strong case for valuing the planet's ecosystem services. The report calls for investments in "ecological infrastructure" to protect wildlands and the services they provide; market-based valuation of ecosystem services; reductions in environmentally harmful subsidies; recognition of the link between environmental degradation and poverty; and a strong climate deal that includes forest carbon.

"Responsible" palm oil producers pledge not to develop endangered Sumatra rainforest

2009-11-13T16:31:00Z

Members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative developing criteria to improve the environmental performance of palm oil, agreed to declare the Bukit Tigapuluh Ecosystem in Sumatra a 'high conservation value area'. The decision, voted on by RSPO General Assembly members at the group's annual meeting earlier this month in Kuala Lumpur, effectively bans oil palm development of the endangered forest ecosystem by RSPO members.

Brazil releases official Amazon deforestation figures for 2009

2009-11-13T15:39:00Z

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell nearly 46 percent to the lowest annual loss on record in 2009, reported the Brazilian government Thursday.

New report: boreal forests contain more carbon than tropical forest per hectare

2009-11-12T05:00:00Z

A new report states that boreal forests store nearly twice as much carbon as tropical forests per hectare: a fact which researchers say should make the conservation of boreal forests as important as tropical in climate change negotiations. The report from the Canadian Boreal Initiative and the Boreal Songbird Initiative, entitled "The Carbon the World Forgot", estimates that the boreal forest—which survives in massive swathes across Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia—stores 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface. According to the study the boreal contains 703 gigatons of carbon, while the world's tropical forests contain 375 gigatons.

Will Brazil's blackout drive a new push for more rainforest dams?

2009-11-12T02:20:00Z

The power outage that affected nearly a third of Brazil's population Tuesday could be used by development interests to justify a renewed push for hydroelectric dams in the Amazon rainforest.

Declaration calls for more wilderness protected areas to combat global warming

2009-11-11T19:44:00Z

Meeting this week in Merida, Mexico, the 9th World Wilderness Congress (WILD9) has released a declaration that calls for increasing wilderness protections in an effort to mitigate climate change. The declaration, which is signed by a number of influential organizations, argues that wilderness areas—both terrestrial and marine—act as carbon sinks, while preserving biodiversity and vital ecosystem services.

Palm oil developers push into Indonesia's last frontier: Papua

2009-11-10T16:40:00Z

Oil palm developers in the Indonesian half of New Guinea are signing questionable deals that exploit local communities and put important forest ecosystems at risk, alleges a new report from Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak.

40% of lowland forests in Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo cleared in 15 years

2009-11-10T00:31:00Z

Forty percent of lowland forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) were cleared from 1990 to 2005, reports a new high resolution assessment of land cover change in Indonesia.

Norway to give Guyana up to $250M for rainforest conservation

2009-11-09T23:03:00Z

Norway will provide up to $250 million to Guyana as part of the South American country's effort to avoid emissions from deforestation.

Hunting across Southeast Asia weakens forests' survival, An interview with Richard Corlett

2009-11-08T19:00:00Z

A large flying fox eats a fruit ingesting its seeds. Flying over the tropical forests it eventually deposits the seeds at the base of another tree far from the first. One of these seeds takes root, sprouts, and in thirty years time a new tree waits for another flying fox to spread its speed. In the Southeast Asian tropics an astounding 80 percent of seeds are spread not by wind, but by animals: birds, bats, rodents, even elephants. But in a region where animals of all shapes and sizes are being wiped out by uncontrolled hunting and poaching—what will the forests of the future look like? This is the question that has long occupied Richard Corlett, professor of biological science at the National University of Singapore.

Important safeguards to protect rainforests lacking in REDD negotiating text

2009-11-06T14:29:00Z

Important safeguards to protect natural forests are still lacking in negotiating text on REDD, a proposed mechanism for mitigating climate change by paying developing countries to keep trees standing, reports an alliance of activist groups.

World's first video of the elusive and endangered bay cat

2009-11-05T21:53:00Z

Rare, elusive, and endangered by habitat loss, the bay cat is one of the world's least studied wild cats. Several specimens of the cat were collected in the 19th and 20th Century, but a living cat wasn't even photographed until 1998. Now, researchers in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, have managed to capture the first film of the bay cat (Catopuma badia). Lasting seven seconds, the video shows the distinctly reddish-brown cat in its habitat.

Photos: Palm oil threatens Borneo's rarest cats

2009-11-04T17:40:00Z

Oil palm expansion is threatening Borneo's rarest wild cats, reports a new study based on three years of fieldwork and more than 17,000 camera trap nights. Studying cats in five locations—each with different environments—in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, researchers found that four of five cat species are threatened by habitat loss due to palm oil plantations. "No other place has a higher percentage of threatened wild cats!" Jim Sanderson, an expert on the world's small cats, told Mongabay.com. Pointing out that 80 percent of Borneo's cats face extinction, Sanderson said that "not one of these wild cats poses a direct threat to humans."

Conservation and Carbon in Borneo’s Heart and Ours

2009-11-04T16:18:00Z

My friend Rezal Kusumaatmadja contacted me in July to ask if I could join him and some of his associates for a couple of days in the village Mendawai, located along the Katingan River in south central Kalimantan. The purpose of the gathering was to bring everyone in the group up to date on progress and challenges related to the Katingan Peat Conservation Project, as well as to give the group an opportunity to meet one another. The Katingan Project aims to create a forest-based carbon containment facility defined and guided by REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Destruction in the developing world) principles and methodology. Currently, nearly 25% of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are caused by felling, burning and converting the world’s remaining primary forests. While areas surrounding the Katingan peat forest vividly express this statistic, Katingan is part of a growing strategy to reverse the trend. The Katingan project endeavors to transform conservation into a product that might offer strong competition against illegal logging and expansion of industrial agricultural plantations - whose practices cause enormous emissions of greenhouse gasses, as well as destroying biodiversity, depleting and polluting watersheds and corroding native cultures.

Non-Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers pledge not to develop peatlands for plantations

2009-11-04T12:20:00Z

Palm oil producers outside of Malaysia and Indonesia pledged to stop developing new plantations on peatlands, circumventing an impasse that developed between palm oil producers and environmental groups meeting this week at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Kuala Lumpur. The factions deadlocked over plans to account for emissions from plantation development, delaying the criteria for a year.

Emissions from deforestation overestimated; 12% rather than 17%

2009-11-04T02:20:00Z

Greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation are lower than previously believed, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. The findings mean that developing countries may see less money under Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, a proposed climate change mitigation mechanism.

Impasse over palm oil emissions at RSPO meeting

2009-11-04T00:58:00Z

Environmentalists and palm oil producers meeting at the annual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) were locked in an impasse over how to account for emissions from converting forests and peatlands to oil palm plantations, report conference attendees.

REDD in Colombia: using forests to finance conservation and communities in Colombia's Choco, a former war zone

2009-11-03T19:41:00Z

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), a climate change mechanism proposed by the U.N., has been widely lauded for its potential to simultaneously deliver a variety of benefits at multiple scales. But serious questions remain, especially in regard to local communities. Will they benefit from REDD? While much lip-service is paid to community involvement in REDD projects, many developers approach local communities as an afterthought. Priorities lie in measuring the carbon sequestered in a forest area, lining up financing, and making marketing arrangements, rather than working out what local people — the ones who are often cutting down trees — actually need in order to keep forests standing. This sets the stage for conflict, which reduces the likelihood that a project will successfully reduce deforestation for the 15-30 year life of a forest carbon project. Brodie Ferguson, a Stanford University-trained anthropologist whose work has focused on forced displacement of rural communities in conflict regions in Colombia, understands this well. Ferguson is working to establish a REDD project in an unlikely place: Colombia's Chocó, a region of diverse coastal ecosystems with some of the highest levels of endemism in the world that until just a few years ago was the domain of anti-government guerillas and right-wing death squads.

Gucci drops APP in pledge to save rainforests

2009-11-03T17:47:00Z

One of the world's largest and most prestigious fashion brands has stated it will stop sourcing paper from Indonesian forests and will drop Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) as a supplier, which has become notorious for tropical deforestation. The move comes after pressure from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) on the fashion industry to stop sourcing paper from threatened rainforests for their shopping bags.

Palm oil lobby group launches public relations push to counter environmental complaints

2009-11-02T23:15:00Z

A report released by World Growth International in late September claimed that environmentalists are waging a “morally indefensible” campaign against palm oil. The report accurately highlighted the high productivity of oil palm — the world's highest-yielding commercial oilseed — and noted that the crop has created jobs and driven rural development in Malaysia and Indonesia. Critically, World Growth also downplayed chief concerns about the rapid expansion of oil palm cultivation across southeast Asia, notably worries that palm oil production is contributing to deforestation, putting endangered wildlife like the orangutan at risk, and adversely affecting climate. To make its case, the report made some questionable claims, asserting that oil palm plantations sequester more carbon than natural forests and that deforestation is driven by poverty rather than industrial activities.

Without reinstatement of key provision, REDD could subsidize large-scale forest destruction

2009-11-02T14:16:00Z

The elimination of a key provision from the negotiating text for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD) mechanism could turn the proposed climate change mitigation scheme into a subsidy for large-scale conversion of natural forests to industrial plantations, warned environmentalists today at the resumption of U.N. climate change negotiations in Barcelona.

Google partners with Amazon tribe

2009-10-29T16:57:00Z

The story of an indigenous Amazon tribe that has embraced technology in its fight to protect its homeland and culture is now highlighted as a layer in Google Earth.

European companies not supporting 'greener' palm oil

2009-10-29T16:23:00Z

Most European consumers of palm oil are failing to buy eco-certified palm oil, undermining efforts to encourage producers to reduce their impact on the environment, reports WWF.

Carbon accounting must not neglect emissions from bioenergy production and use

2009-10-29T15:46:00Z

Carbon accounting used in the Kyoto Protocol and other climate legislation currently neglects CO2 emissions from the production of biofuels, a loophole that could drive large-scale destruction of tropical forests and exacerbate global warming, warned researchers writing last week in the journal Science.

Brazil to support REDD in Copenhagen

2009-10-28T21:34:00Z

Brazil will conditionally support a proposed climate change mitigation scheme that will compensate tropical countries for preserving their forests, reports Reuters.

Illegal logging trade from Myanmar to China slows, but doesn't stop

2009-10-28T21:07:00Z

The illegal wood trade from Myanmar to China has slowed, but it still threatens Myanmar's tropical forests and species, according to a new report by Global Witness. From 2005 and 2008 improved border controls into China led to a drop in imports of logs and sawn wood by 70 percent.

Crisis averted for now, Peruvian natives will meet with Hunt Oil

2009-10-28T00:21:00Z

Indigenous groups in a dispute with Hunt Oil, over the company performing seismic tests their land, have scheduled a meeting with the Texas based oil corporation, according to Reuters.

Will Ecuador's plan to raise money for not drilling oil in the Amazon succeed?

2009-10-27T19:18:00Z

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park is full of wealth: it is one of the richest places on earth in terms of biodiversity; it is home to the indigenous Waorani people, as well as several uncontacted tribes; and the park's forest and soil provides a massive carbon sink. However, Yasuni National Park also sits on wealth of a different kind: one billion barrels of oil remain locked under the pristine rainforest.

New reserve created in Cambodia with REDD in mind

2009-10-26T16:47:00Z

Cambodia's Royal Government's Council of Ministers has declared the creation of the Seima Protection Forest, a 1,100 square miles (2,849 square kilometers) park home to tigers, elephants, and endangered primates. The park's creation was developed in part by the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) "Carbon for Conservation" program, which intends to protect high-biodiversity ecosystems while raising funds through carbon sequestration schemes such as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

Amazonian natives say they will defend tribal lands from Hunt Oil with "their lives"

2009-10-25T22:31:00Z

Indigenous natives in the Amazon are headed to the town of Salvacion in Peru with a plan to forcibly remove the Texas-based Hunt Oil company from their land as early as today. Peruvian police forces, numbering in the hundreds, are said to be waiting in the town. The crisis has risen over an area known as Lot 76, or the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. The 400,000 hectare reserve was created in 2002 to protect the flora and fauna of the area, as well as to safeguard watersheds of particular importance to indigenous groups in the region.

The faster, fiercer, and always surprising sloth, an interview with Bryson Voirin

2009-10-25T19:10:00Z

Sloths sleep all day; they are always slow; and they are gentle animals. These are just some of the popular misconceptions that sloth-scientist and expert tree-climber, Bryson Voirin, is overturning. After growing up among the wild creatures of Florida, spending his high school years in Germany, and earning a Bachelors degree in biology and environment at the New College of Florida, Voirin found his calling. At the New College of Florida, Voirin "met Meg Lowman, the famous canopy pioneer who invented many of the tree climbing techniques everyone uses today."

Logged forests support biodiversity after 15 years of rehabilitation, but not if turned into plantations

2009-10-21T21:46:00Z

With the world facing global warming and a biodiversity crisis, a new study shows that within 15 years logged forests—considered by many to be 'degraded'—can be managed in order to successfully fight both climate change and extinction.

Emotional call for palm oil industry to address environmental problems

2009-10-21T18:18:00Z

During what was at times an emotional speech, Sabah's Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Environment, Datuk Masidi Manjun, called on the palm oil industry to stop polluting rivers and work with NGOs to save orangutans and other wildlife. He delivered the speech on the first day of an Orangutan Conservation Colloquium held in early October in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.

Present day tropical plant families survived in warmer, wetter tropics 58 million years ago

2009-10-18T23:48:00Z

Fifty eight million years ago the tropical rainforests of South America shared many similarities with today's Neotropical forests, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Looking at over 2,000 fossils in Colombia from one of the world's largest open pit coal mines, scientists were able to recreate for the first time the structure of a long vanished rainforest. One inhabited by a titanic snake, giant turtles, and crocodile-like reptiles.

Forests versus oil palm plantations in Sumatra

2009-10-14T02:42:00Z

A chainsaw chugs into life and tears into the trunk of a tree as tall as a two-story house. Petrol and man work together as the chain sets its teeth into the wood and edges its way through. The tree creaks, leans, and falls with a great crash to a backdrop of whoops and cheers. The sight and sound of tree felling is common in Indonesia, the country with the highest rate of deforestation in the world. The destruction of forests in this archipelago, draped like an emerald necklace across the equator, can be measured in hectares per minute. Today, though, is a good day for the conservationists.

Curtailing tropical deforestation vital to U.S. interests

2009-10-08T15:10:00Z

Curtailing tropical deforestation is vital to U.S. national interests as a cost-effective means to slow climate change, argues a new report issued by the bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests. Deforestation accounts for roughly one-sixth of global carbon dioxide emissions, more than the entire transportation sector.