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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/new-guinea/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>New Guinea environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/new-guinea/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Malaysian companies dominate PNG forest-clearance permits: report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/malaysian-companies-dominate-png-forest-clearance-permits-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/malaysian-companies-dominate-png-forest-clearance-permits-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2025 05:54:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/01/25103418/tree-kangaroo-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310979</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Birds, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Policy, Farming, Forests, FPIC, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Logging, Rainforests, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, which span 28.2 million hectares (69.6 million acres), are among the most biodiverse in the world, hosting an estimated 5-8% of all species. The country also has one of the world’s highest rates of communal land ownership, with around 97% of land legally recognized as being customary tenure. Despite the ecological [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, which span 28.2 million hectares (69.6 million acres), are among the most biodiverse in the world, hosting an estimated 5-8% of all species. The country also has one of the world’s highest rates of communal land ownership, with around 97% of land legally recognized as being customary tenure. Despite the ecological significance of the country’s forests, and the existence of laws to ensure customary landowners retain control of what happens on their traditional lands, Papua New Guinea also hosts a major timber trade — frequently topping global lists of tropical log exporters — with the profits concentrated in the hands of foreign corporations. A recent report from RimbaWatch, a Kuala Lumpur-based research and advocacy organization, examined in detail how land-conversion permits facilitate the clearance of PNG’s forests, and what role the companies linked to Malaysia play in the ongoing timber trade. The report focused on Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs), which are permits issued by the Papua New Guinea Forest Authority (PNGFA) that allow large-scale conversions — exceeding 50 hectares (123 acres) — of natural forests for agricultural or other land-use development projects. The stated purpose of these licenses is to create sustainable jobs and income for the country’s people via development projects, but critics say that, in practice, these licenses  have been used to facilitate large-scale logging. As of 2024, one-third of the timber exported from the country came from companies operating on an FCA permit. RimbaWatch found that 65 out of 67 active FCAs are&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/malaysian-companies-dominate-png-forest-clearance-permits-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310979</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In New Guinea, megadiverse lowland forests are most at risk of deforestation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-new-guinea-megadiverse-lowland-forests-are-most-at-risk-of-deforestation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-new-guinea-megadiverse-lowland-forests-are-most-at-risk-of-deforestation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 May 2025 08:43:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/21020452/Banner_IMG_9967-e1747793965688-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299383</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Carbon Emissions, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forest Carbon, Forests, Governance, Green, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Logging, Plantations, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The island of New Guinea is famed for its eye-popping diversity of plants, animals and human cultures. Estimated to host one-tenth of Earth’s species, it’s the world’s second-largest island and has the third-largest intact expanse of tropical forest in the world, after the Amazon and the Congo. It’s where birds-of-paradise perform their effervescent courtship displays, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The island of New Guinea is famed for its eye-popping diversity of plants, animals and human cultures. Estimated to host one-tenth of Earth’s species, it’s the world’s second-largest island and has the third-largest intact expanse of tropical forest in the world, after the Amazon and the Congo. It’s where birds-of-paradise perform their effervescent courtship displays, tree kangaroos shimmy up trees to dizzying heights, and the world’s largest butterfly flits between foliage in the forest canopy. This extraordinary biodiversity is partly the result of centuries of evolutionary isolation at the edge of the western Pacific, where the biota of Asia and Australasia meet. It also comes from powerful tectonic activity that shaped a rugged and mountainous landscape, making many areas difficult for humans to access and develop. Today, roughly 80% of New Guinea’s forest cover remains intact, sharply contrasting with nearby islands like Borneo, Java and Sumatra, which have seen extensive development and deforestation. However, experts are increasingly concerned that developers are shifting their focus to New Guinea, which is split roughly in half between Indonesia, which controls the island’s west, and Papua New Guinea, in the east. Major road schemes, industrial logging and agricultural conglomerates pushing biofuel agendas are carving into the island’s ancient landscapes, especially on the Indonesian side. A new study that models deforestation risk across the island predicts that its low-elevation forests are likely to be especially vulnerable. This is worrisome, the authors note, since these ecosystems are among the tallest, most biologically rich and carbon-dense ecosystems&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-new-guinea-megadiverse-lowland-forests-are-most-at-risk-of-deforestation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-new-guinea-megadiverse-lowland-forests-are-most-at-risk-of-deforestation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299383</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>PNG’s Torricelli Mountains teem with life — and the risk of extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/pngs-torricelli-mountains-teem-with-life-and-the-risk-of-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/pngs-torricelli-mountains-teem-with-life-and-the-risk-of-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Mar 2025 18:13:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/31073348/9043-A-grizzled-tree-kangaroo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296714</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, Oceania, Pacific Islands, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Infrastructure, Logging, Marsupials, Mongabay Data Studio, NGOs, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Roads, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Millions of years ago, as the Indo-Australian plate pushed into the Pacific plate, a volcanic arc of islands began to emerge near the modern-day island of New Guinea that would one day form the Torricelli Mountains. And in this ancient, slow-motion reordering of Earth’s crust, life inevitably layered on top of the substrata to form [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Millions of years ago, as the Indo-Australian plate pushed into the Pacific plate, a volcanic arc of islands began to emerge near the modern-day island of New Guinea that would one day form the Torricelli Mountains. And in this ancient, slow-motion reordering of Earth’s crust, life inevitably layered on top of the substrata to form one of the most species-rich spots on the planet. “You&#8217;ve got to remember that there was the Sepik River pumping vegetation from the mainland off into the ocean, some of which was clearly reaching this island arc system,” Australian zoologist Tim Flannery of the Australian Museum in Sydney told Mongabay. Along with that botanical foundation came a number of animals: amphibians, to be sure, which seem particularly adept at rafting on plant life from one piece of land to another, according to Flannery, along with a predecessor of the northern glider (Petaurus abidi), a marsupial species with bewitchingly bulbous eyes found only in the Torricellis. “We’re still working out exactly what species came across at that phase,” he said, but it’s clear “there was a rich source of colonists.” Later, the emergence of a mountain range connected this island arc to the Doberai Peninsula of western New Guinea, which is also known as the Bird’s Head, or Vogelkop in Dutch and Indonesian, for its namesake shape. As a result of this “amazing orogeny” in the early Pliocene Epoch and another linkage with New Guinea’s Central Highlands, a number of species that had previously been confined&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/pngs-torricelli-mountains-teem-with-life-and-the-risk-of-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296714</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationists welcome new PNG Protected Areas Act — but questions remain</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/conservationists-welcome-new-png-protected-areas-act-but-questions-remain/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/conservationists-welcome-new-png-protected-areas-act-but-questions-remain/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Apr 2024 16:08:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/12132242/Flame-Bowerbird-Sericulus-ardens-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280895</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Rights, Law, Logging, Plantations, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Regulations, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With more than 70% of the country blanketed by tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a megadiverse country home to more than 5% of the world’s biodiversity, including charismatic tree kangaroos, egg-laying echidnas and flightless cassowaries. However, since 1972, nearly a third of the country’s rainforest has been lost or degraded due to logging, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With more than 70% of the country blanketed by tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a megadiverse country home to more than 5% of the world’s biodiversity, including charismatic tree kangaroos, egg-laying echidnas and flightless cassowaries. However, since 1972, nearly a third of the country’s rainforest has been lost or degraded due to logging, road construction, agricultural expansion and mining. In a significant push to conservation, the country’s parliament passed the Protected Areas Act 2023 on Feb. 20. The new legislation aims to establish a national system of protected areas in the country and achieve the “30 by 30” goal of designating 30% of its land and sea as protected areas by 2030. Currently, less than 4% of land and 1% of sea in PNG are designated as protected areas. The Protected Areas Bill was based on the PNG National Policy on Protected Areas road map to protect the country&#8217;s biodiversity and cultural heritage. Now passed into an act, it provides mechanisms for the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA), a federal agency responsible for the sustainable management of natural and physical resources, to engage with communities and provincial and local governments to regulate and manage protected areas in the country. A tree Kangaroo, one of the many rare species living in PNG&#8217;s lowland forests. Pictured here at the Melbourne zoo. Image by Tom Jefferson/Greenpeace. “Previously, there was no guiding legislation to establish protected areas in the country,” says Phelameya Joku Haiveta, CEPA program officer, adding that past legislation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/conservationists-welcome-new-png-protected-areas-act-but-questions-remain/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/conservationists-welcome-new-png-protected-areas-act-but-questions-remain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-280895</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/unseen-and-unregulated-ghost-roads-carve-up-asia-pacific-tropical-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/unseen-and-unregulated-ghost-roads-carve-up-asia-pacific-tropical-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Apr 2024 08:34:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Carolyncowan]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/11082041/Banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280850</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Crime, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat Degradation, Illegal Logging, Infrastructure, Logging, Mining, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Roads, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four decades leading up to 2050 — enough to wrap around the equator more than 600 times. But much of this construction is happening under the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four decades leading up to 2050 — enough to wrap around the equator more than 600 times. But much of this construction is happening under the radar. Networks of unmapped, unregulated and often illegal roads are insidiously spreading into fragile ecosystems. If left unchecked, they threaten to wreak a devastating toll on tropical forests, according to new research.   The new study, published April 10 in Nature, documents 1.37 million km (851,000 mi) of roads sprawling across the islands of New Guinea, Borneo and Sumatra, three hotspots of biodiversity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific that contain the largest combined expanse of tropical rainforest in the world outside the Amazon and the Congo Basin. This total length of roads is between three and 6.6 times more than recorded in officially recognized databases. The researchers say the discrepancy indicates the presence of a glut of what they term “ghost roads”: informally or illicitly constructed roads carved by loggers, miners, land grabbers or speculators. Typically falling outside of the purview of environmental governance, ghost roads create blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, ultimately posing one of the gravest conservation threats facing the world’s forests. “Roads are often a death-knell for ecosystems, especially ghost roads, which are often illegal and unregulated,” William Laurance, study co-author and a distinguished research professor at James Cook University&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/unseen-and-unregulated-ghost-roads-carve-up-asia-pacific-tropical-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-280850</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In PNG, researchers record 9 new species of predatory hermaphroditic land snails</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jan 2024 20:14:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/24195145/230821-0108-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277979</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Environment, Invertebrates, Molluscs, Rainforests, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, where arboreal tree kangaroos, vibrant birds-of-paradise and ornate birdwings hog the limelight with their charismatic presence, teeny-tiny, leaf litter-eating land snails don’t always stand a chance to vie for scientific attention. Although land snail shells hold an essential place in PNG’s culture — as jewelry and adornments in ceremonial [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, where arboreal tree kangaroos, vibrant birds-of-paradise and ornate birdwings hog the limelight with their charismatic presence, teeny-tiny, leaf litter-eating land snails don’t always stand a chance to vie for scientific attention. Although land snail shells hold an essential place in PNG’s culture — as jewelry and adornments in ceremonial clothing — scientific understanding of these mollusks is, at best, patchy. Worldwide, more 30,000 land snail species are known to science. While species in North America and Europe are relatively well-studied, those in forested tropical regions, such as the Amazon and Congo basins and islands like New Guinea, have been barely sampled. “Any land snails from Papua New Guinea, or for that matter most species of plants and animals, whatever we know is based on colonial times to a large extent,” said malacologist Frank Köhler at the Australian Museum, who studies land snails in Australia and the Pacific Islands. The lack of current scientific knowledge on Papua New Guinea’s land snails inspired malacologist John Slapcinsky at the Florida Museum of Natural History in the U.S. to begin an eight-years-long survey in the country — the first such endeavour after six decades and, in Slapcinsky’s words, one of the most intensive surveys in the country’s history. In a new study published in the journal Archiv für Molluskenkunde, Slapcinsky and his colleagues report the discovery of nine new species of land snails from the country. One of the nine newly identified snail species, Torresiropa paterivolans, Rossel Island,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277979</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/logging-road-construction-continue-to-fuel-forest-loss-in-papua-new-guinea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/logging-road-construction-continue-to-fuel-forest-loss-in-papua-new-guinea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Nov 2023 23:15:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/30224031/Victoria_Crowned_Pigeon_Jurong-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276161</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, Oceania, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Birds, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Habitat Loss, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Logging, Mammals, Marsupials, Mongabay Data Studio, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Roads, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Plonked between the formidable Owen Stanley mountains to its west and the Solomon Sea to the east lies Oro, a remote province in Papua New Guinea east of the capital Port Moresby. Lush, green tropical rainforests, with their famed canopies, blanket the land while rivers and streams glitter in hues of turquoise and emerald—a landscape [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Plonked between the formidable Owen Stanley mountains to its west and the Solomon Sea to the east lies Oro, a remote province in Papua New Guinea east of the capital Port Moresby. Lush, green tropical rainforests, with their famed canopies, blanket the land while rivers and streams glitter in hues of turquoise and emerald—a landscape found across much of Papua New Guinea (PNG), where 71.8% of land still harbored primary forest in 2022, according to data from monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. In these forests and the montane highlands thrive nearly seven per cent of the world’s biodiversity—30% of which is found nowhere else on the planet. “There&#8217;s many [more] species packed into the rainforest there than you&#8217;ll find in most places of the world,” says terrestrial ecologist William Laurance from James Cook University in Australia, who has studied the ecology of these forests for over 35 years. For 80 million years, the New Guinea rainforest—the third largest on the planet—has remained isolated from the rest of the world and has evolved unique animals, including most tree kangaroo species (genus Dendrolagus), egg-laying mammals called long-beaked echidnas (genus Zaglossus), a poisonous bird called the hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous), and two of the three living species of cassowary (genus Casuarius). The island of New Guinea—which consists of PNG and Indonesian Western New Guinea, contains the highest number of recorded species of plants of any island and an unparalleled level of amphibian diversity. The eastern long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bartoni) is a mammal &#8211;&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/logging-road-construction-continue-to-fuel-forest-loss-in-papua-new-guinea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/logging-road-construction-continue-to-fuel-forest-loss-in-papua-new-guinea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-276161</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Collaboration key to rediscovery of egg-laying mammal in Papua’s Cyclops Mountains</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/attenborough-echidna-cyclops-mountains-papua-indonesia-collaboration-indigenous-species-rediscovery/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/attenborough-echidna-cyclops-mountains-papua-indonesia-collaboration-indigenous-species-rediscovery/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Nov 2023 14:43:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/28101943/RCNX0054M1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=275957</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Pacific Ocean, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Rainforests, Rediscovered Species, Science, Species, Species Discovery, Tropical Conservation Science, Tropical Deforestation, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Researchers have credited a strong spirit of collaboration for the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and multiple unidentified species. The highlight of the recently published findings was camera-trap images of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), which, like the distantly related but [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Researchers have credited a strong spirit of collaboration for the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and multiple unidentified species. The highlight of the recently published findings was camera-trap images of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), which, like the distantly related but better-known platypus, is one of just a handful of egg-laying mammals in existence. The species hadn’t been sighted by scientists since an initial specimen collected in 1961, and for decades was thought to have gone extinct. Much of the success of the four-week-long Expedition Cyclops has been attributed to the collaboration between international and local researchers, conservation authorities, NGOs, and the Indigenous groups who have persistently protected the region’s biodiversity against external threats. “We built a strong relationship with the community of Yongsu Sapari, who own part of the northern Cyclops, over three years,” James Kempton, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford who first proposed the expedition in 2019, told Mongabay in an email. “I think the trust between the expedition team and the community was important in the success of the expedition, and a lack of trust may have contributed to former searches being less successful,” he said. The Cyclops Mountains in Indonesia’s Papua region towering over the beach by Yongsu Spari, shrouded in morning mist. Image courtesy of Expedition Cyclops. From left, expedition leader James Kempton with Cenderawasih University student Gison Morib and Sili Yalak from the Indonesian NGO Yayasan Pelayanan&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/attenborough-echidna-cyclops-mountains-papua-indonesia-collaboration-indigenous-species-rediscovery/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/attenborough-echidna-cyclops-mountains-papua-indonesia-collaboration-indigenous-species-rediscovery/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-275957</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Report: Forest-razing biomass plant in Indonesia got millions in green funds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/report-forest-razing-biomass-plant-in-indonesia-got-millions-in-green-funds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/report-forest-razing-biomass-plant-in-indonesia-got-millions-in-green-funds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jun 2023 01:14:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/31105411/37396395870_104e03f6d8_k-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=269239</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian coal, Indonesian Forests, and Jokowi Commitments]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bioenergy, Clean Energy, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Energy, Environment, Finance, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Green, Indigenous Peoples, Logging, Plantations, Politics, Primary Forests, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Forest Management, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A renewable energy project that received millions of dollars in climate financing from the Indonesian government is bulldozing rainforest in the nation’s Papua province, according to a new article by a London-based journalism nonprofit. Indonesia’s Medco Group, which owns the project — a biomass power plant and wood plantation — has said it will clear [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A renewable energy project that received millions of dollars in climate financing from the Indonesian government is bulldozing rainforest in the nation’s Papua province, according to a new article by a London-based journalism nonprofit. Indonesia’s Medco Group, which owns the project — a biomass power plant and wood plantation — has said it will clear 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) of land to meet the demands of the plant, billed as a way to help the country kick its fossil fuel habit. But the area to be cleared is highly likely to be carbon-storing forest, according to the report, published this week by The Gecko Project. Satellite imagery indicates Medco, whose core business is oil and gas, has already razed 187 hectares (462 acres) of natural forest since an infusion of state funding apparently enabled it to resume operations after years of inactivity. “The Indonesian government’s backing for the project reflects a yawning inconsistency in its plans to tackle climate change,” The Gecko Project wrote in the article. Really renewable? Indonesia’s rapid deforestation in recent decades has made the nation of 270 million people a leading contributor to global warming. In 2007, the Southeast Asian nation produced more greenhouse gas emissions than any country but the U.S. and China, with most of it coming from deforestation and changes in land use as commercial plantations spread across the archipelago. Two years later, Indonesia pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26-41% over projected business-as-usual levels by 2020, with the higher end of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/report-forest-razing-biomass-plant-in-indonesia-got-millions-in-green-funds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/report-forest-razing-biomass-plant-in-indonesia-got-millions-in-green-funds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-269239</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Gold miner faces global protests as it rekindles a mine with a violent legacy</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/gold-miner-faces-global-protests-as-it-rekindles-a-mine-with-a-violent-legacy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/gold-miner-faces-global-protests-as-it-rekindles-a-mine-with-a-violent-legacy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2023 20:01:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ian Morse]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/01193613/porgera-mine-clement-piment-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=268123</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Land rights and extractives]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Environment, Gold Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mining, and Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Activists from Papua New Guinea, where a controversial gold mine is inching toward reopening, have joined a campaign of global protests ahead of the annual general meeting of Canada-based Barrick Gold. Barrick, the world&#8217;s second-largest gold mining company, plans to hold its annual general meeting on May 2, reporting “mutual prosperity” through partnerships with countries [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Activists from Papua New Guinea, where a controversial gold mine is inching toward reopening, have joined a campaign of global protests ahead of the annual general meeting of Canada-based Barrick Gold. Barrick, the world&#8217;s second-largest gold mining company, plans to hold its annual general meeting on May 2, reporting “mutual prosperity” through partnerships with countries and communities where it works. People living near several of the company’s mines, however, took to the streets to protest what they describe as persistent environmental destruction and violence against locals. Stanley Peter, an environmental scientist who has volunteered with human rights NGO Akali Tange Association, joined the protest in Papua New Guinea to demand a dialogue with Barrick. In March, Barrick announced it would reopen the Porgera copper and gold mine. The mine had been closed since 2020, when PNG&#8217;s government refused to renew its license, citing &#8220;environmental damages claims and resettlement issues.&#8221; Peter said Barrick has ignored demands that it take responsibility for violence and ongoing land and water contamination that has displaced people and contributed to ongoing and targeted attacks, home burnings, and even deaths. “We are concerned that we will be overlooked, that they will not look at the issues that we are raising, and they will go ahead and get mining started, and we will be left as we are,” Peter said. Barrick said it’s restarting the mine with a new vision: joint ownership with the government that will help ensure that the mine, expected to reopen this year, will&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/gold-miner-faces-global-protests-as-it-rekindles-a-mine-with-a-violent-legacy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/gold-miner-faces-global-protests-as-it-rekindles-a-mine-with-a-violent-legacy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-268123</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Logging threats loom over tree kangaroo refuge in Papua New Guinea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/logging-threats-loom-over-tree-kangaroo-refuge-in-papua-new-guinea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/logging-threats-loom-over-tree-kangaroo-refuge-in-papua-new-guinea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jan 2023 16:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/01/25095628/tree-kangaroo-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264946</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, Oceania, Pacific Islands, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Infrastructure, Logging, Marsupials, Mongabay Data Studio, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Roads, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The tree kangaroos inhabiting a forested mountain range in Papua New Guinea have made an unlikely comeback in the past 40 years, but old dangers now jeopardize that rebound. Three species of the Dendrolagus genus — arboreal marsupials about twice the size of a house cat — haunt the leafy tropical canopy of the Torricelli Mountains, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The tree kangaroos inhabiting a forested mountain range in Papua New Guinea have made an unlikely comeback in the past 40 years, but old dangers now jeopardize that rebound. Three species of the Dendrolagus genus — arboreal marsupials about twice the size of a house cat — haunt the leafy tropical canopy of the Torricelli Mountains, which top out at 1,650 meters (5,410 feet). Two of them remain critically endangered, according to the IUCN, but populations of all three species have leapt and their known ranges expanded. Over the past two decades, investments in conservation and the development of human communities appear to have held off the twin threats of logging and hunting that had pushed the Torricellis&#8217; tree kangaroos to the edge of extinction. In spite of this success, threats to the forests vital to tree kangaroos and a host of other species have resurfaced. Satellite imagery reveals a spike in forest loss and roadbuilding over the past year in and around the core areas of forests that communities have been working to conserve since the early 2000s. In addition, in October 2022, logging companies reportedly began sending representatives to at least three villages to seek consent to harvest the area’s valuable timber in exchange for money and beer. Fidelis Nick, a project officer with an NGO called the Tenkile Conservation Alliance and a resident of the Torricelli village of Muku, said these companies likely have the backing of the federal government, which has the power to issue permits. “That’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/logging-threats-loom-over-tree-kangaroo-refuge-in-papua-new-guinea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/logging-threats-loom-over-tree-kangaroo-refuge-in-papua-new-guinea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264946</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Palm oil firm hit by mass permit revocation still clearing forest in Indonesia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/palm-oil-firm-hit-by-mass-permit-revocation-still-clearing-forest-in-indonesia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/palm-oil-firm-hit-by-mass-permit-revocation-still-clearing-forest-in-indonesia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Feb 2022 09:35:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Asrida ElisabethPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/02/22020952/7640091254_27f51a6b02_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=252912</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests, Indonesian Palm Oil, and Jokowi Commitments]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Anonymous Companies, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Land Conflict, Law, Law Enforcement, Palm Oil, Plantations, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, Transparency, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAYAPURA, Indonesia, and NEW YORK — A palm oil firm that was among more than 100 companies targeted in a mass cancellation of permits for plantations by Indonesia’s environment ministry on Jan. 6 has bulldozed more than 50 hectares (125 acres) of rainforest since that date. The finding underscores the limits of the policy and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAYAPURA, Indonesia, and NEW YORK — A palm oil firm that was among more than 100 companies targeted in a mass cancellation of permits for plantations by Indonesia’s environment ministry on Jan. 6 has bulldozed more than 50 hectares (125 acres) of rainforest since that date. The finding underscores the limits of the policy and raises questions about how far President Joko Widodo’s administration is willing to go to rein in the nation’s chaotic land-use practices. After lying moribund for more than two years, the company, PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), sprang into action in the weeks after the revocations were announced, carving a road and several plantation blocks out of its land concession in Jayapura, a district in Papua province. During a visit to the site in January, Mongabay observed cars, heavy equipment and workers pacing around the newly created road. The company camp, abandoned for the past two years, looked lively again. A truck loaded with drums apparently filled with fuel was parked on site. The clearance remains ongoing, satellite imagery shows, according to Albert ten Kate, a researcher at Amsterdam-based sustainability consultancy Aidenvironment. “It is not just a road anymore,” ten Kate wrote in an email. “A lot of plantation blocks are carved out, over an area of a few hundred hectares and there also has been some clear-cutting.” A road made by a palm oil company by clearing the forest in Jayapura Regency, Papua. Image by Asrida Elisabeth/ Mongabay Indonesia. A satellite image of the clearing&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/palm-oil-firm-hit-by-mass-permit-revocation-still-clearing-forest-in-indonesia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/palm-oil-firm-hit-by-mass-permit-revocation-still-clearing-forest-in-indonesia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-252912</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia’s three most consequential forestry stories of 2021</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/indonesias-three-most-consequential-forestry-stories-of-2021/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/indonesias-three-most-consequential-forestry-stories-of-2021/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Dec 2021 13:55:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/24134802/greenpeace-palm-oil.-bannerjpg-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=251127</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests and Jokowi Commitments]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Indonesia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Palm Oil, Plantations, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Home to more rainforest than any country but Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia is one of the world&#8217;s most significant nations from an environmental and biodiversity perspective. Here are three of the key forestry stories and trends from Indonesia this year, ranging from a national deforestation slowdown and the end of a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Home to more rainforest than any country but Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia is one of the world&#8217;s most significant nations from an environmental and biodiversity perspective. Here are three of the key forestry stories and trends from Indonesia this year, ranging from a national deforestation slowdown and the end of a freeze on new permits for oil palm plantations to the persistence of conflict over land across the archipelagic country. Deforestation dropped nationally in 2020, but threats remain Deforestation has long been a massive problem in Indonesia. Since 2001, Southeast Asia’s largest economy has lost nearly 30 million hectares (74 million acres) of tree cover — an area the size of Italy and second only to Brazil’s forest loss. Indonesia’s annual deforestation rate rose steadily throughout the 2000s, peaking in 2016 before dropping significantly in 2017-2019, a few years after Joko Widodo became president. Remarkably, 2020 saw another sharp drop in Indonesia’s deforestation rate. Deforestation fell 75% from 2019, according to government data. There is some dispute as to why this occurred. Widodo&#8217;s administration has been quick to take credit for the deforestation slowdown, attributing it to sound government policies. These include a permanent ban on the issuance of permits to clear old-growth forests, a temporary freeze on the issuance of permits for new oil palm plantations, a “social forestry” program meant to empower local communities, a law enforcement campaign aimed at companies and farmers accused of causing forest fires, and a peatland rehabilitation program meant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/indonesias-three-most-consequential-forestry-stories-of-2021/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/indonesias-three-most-consequential-forestry-stories-of-2021/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-251127</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Governor rails against ‘bioterrorists,’ ‘carbon cowboys’ destroying PNG’s forests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/governor-rails-against-bioterrorists-carbon-cowboys-destroying-pngs-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/governor-rails-against-bioterrorists-carbon-cowboys-destroying-pngs-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Dec 2021 14:26:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rachel Donald]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/07140458/Gary-Juffa-logs-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=250321</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Illegal Logging, Logging, Politics, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Papua New Guinea’s forests are under attack, and the international community must join forces to fight the illegal loggers destroying one of the world’s largest rainforests. This was the message from Papua New Guinean politician Gary Juffa at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “The world must win the fight against these bioterrorists. We [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Papua New Guinea’s forests are under attack, and the international community must join forces to fight the illegal loggers destroying one of the world’s largest rainforests. This was the message from Papua New Guinean politician Gary Juffa at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “The world must win the fight against these bioterrorists. We must pursue with armies those who threaten the very existence of our world,” Juffa, the governor of Oro province, said at the conference last month. “If we continue to allow timber cartels to control nations, how effective will the climate agreements made at COP26 be?” These “timber cartels” began targeting PNG’s forests in the 1980s, promising development to the materially poor local landowners in exchange for access to their forests, kicking out legitimate timber companies in the process. Land rights were signed away and the local people watched their forests disappear while the promised roads, churches and wealth failed to materialize. “They don&#8217;t pay their taxes, so they&#8217;ve got a lot of money available to bribe and corrupt,” Juffa told Mongabay. He said he learned about the extent of the corruption while working in PNG&#8217;s customs service, where he rose through the ranks to become commissioner before resigning in 2011. He won a seat in parliament as Oro province&#8217;s governor in 2012, calling to &#8220;take back PNG,&#8221; and was reelected in 2017. Gary Juffa (center), governor of Papua New Guinea&#8217;s Oro province, has emerged as one of the country&#8217;s most outspoken opponents of illegal loggers.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/governor-rails-against-bioterrorists-carbon-cowboys-destroying-pngs-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/governor-rails-against-bioterrorists-carbon-cowboys-destroying-pngs-forests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-250321</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation threatens tree kangaroo habitat in Papua New Guinea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/deforestation-threatens-tree-kangaroo-habitat-in-papua-new-guinea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/deforestation-threatens-tree-kangaroo-habitat-in-papua-new-guinea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Oct 2021 11:18:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/14110058/14-Torricelli-Mountains-768x450.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248200</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers and Global Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, Oceania, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Animals, Biodiversity, Bushmeat, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Culture, Deforestation, Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Green, Hunting, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Logging, Mammals, Marsupials, NGOs, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Roads, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, Traditional People, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of their lives in the canopy and depend on the forest for survival. For more than a decade, conservationists and scientists have been working to protect [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of their lives in the canopy and depend on the forest for survival. For more than a decade, conservationists and scientists have been working to protect a 1,850-square-kilometer (714-square-mile) area of broadleaf tropical forest in and around the Torricelli Mountains where these animals thrive. But the recent construction of what appears to be a logging road has proponents of the proposed Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area worried. And now, satellite imagery has shown a surge in recent tree cover loss since Aug. 1. “Yes, the logging continues — they are relentless,” Jim Thomas, CEO of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA), said of the recent deforestation along what would be the northern border of the conservation area in an email. The TCA takes its name from one of the tree kangaroo species that haunts the region. Also known as the Scott’s tree kangaroo, the tenkile (Dendrolagus scottae) is critically endangered, as is the weimang, or golden-mantled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus), which also lives in the Torricellis. Satellite imagery from the University of Maryland reveals new tree cover loss around a logging road in the Torricelli Mountain Range. Image by Morgan Erickson-Davis. The satellite data come from the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab at the University of Maryland. After months of sporadic activity in this part of PNG’s Sandaun province, the characteristic&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/deforestation-threatens-tree-kangaroo-habitat-in-papua-new-guinea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/deforestation-threatens-tree-kangaroo-habitat-in-papua-new-guinea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248200</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Hidden camera footage exposes bribery for palm oil in Papua New Guinea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/hidden-camera-footage-exposes-bribery-for-palm-oil-in-papua-new-guinea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/hidden-camera-footage-exposes-bribery-for-palm-oil-in-papua-new-guinea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Oct 2021 20:05:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/05/16121244/GP02KIT-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248020</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Malaysia, New Britain, New Guinea, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Corruption, Crime, Deforestation, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Green, Logging, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A palm oil executive was secretly filmed describing the payment of bribes to public officials in exchange for logging permits and access to land in Papua New Guinea, in a new undercover investigation by Global Witness. Investigators from the London-based watchdog group posed as Western businessmen over dinner with executives from East New Britain Resources [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A palm oil executive was secretly filmed describing the payment of bribes to public officials in exchange for logging permits and access to land in Papua New Guinea, in a new undercover investigation by Global Witness. Investigators from the London-based watchdog group posed as Western businessmen over dinner with executives from East New Britain Resources Group (ENB), one of the biggest logging and palm oil firms operating in Papua New Guinea (PNG). As a hidden camera recorded his every word, the company’s public relations manager said bribes to a government minister typically ran from from 50,000 to 100,000 Papua New Guinean kina ($14,000-28,000). Global Witness also filmed ENB’s CEO describing a tax evasion scheme, and the director of another palm oil firm, Tobar Investment, talking about paying a special police unit to beat up villagers opposed to their plantations. “We went after them in the night, got them, belted them up, and locked them up at the station,” the Tobar director, Edward Lamur, says in the footage. Those caught on camera generally denied doing anything illegal when formally contacted by Global Witness after the fact. ENB’s palm oil has been used by some of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, including Cargill, Colgate-Palmolive, Kellogg&#8217;s, Danone, Nestlé, Reckitt and Hershey, all of which cut ties with ENB after Global Witness intervened, according to a Channel 4 report on the Global Witness investigation. Home to the world’s third-largest stretch of rainforest, Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/hidden-camera-footage-exposes-bribery-for-palm-oil-in-papua-new-guinea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/hidden-camera-footage-exposes-bribery-for-palm-oil-in-papua-new-guinea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248020</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Zealand developer denies key role in giant palm oil project in Indonesia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-zealand-developer-denies-key-role-in-giant-palm-oil-project-in-indonesia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-zealand-developer-denies-key-role-in-giant-palm-oil-project-in-indonesia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Sep 2021 18:32:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bonnie SumnerMelanie Reid]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/06/25073949/A14I0621-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=247509</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Business, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-colored shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation. This innocuous picture illustrates the beginning of what is earmarked to become the world’s largest palm oil plantation, replacing one of the last remaining rainforests [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-colored shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation. This innocuous picture illustrates the beginning of what is earmarked to become the world’s largest palm oil plantation, replacing one of the last remaining rainforests on earth. Two years ago, the Tanah Merah megaproject began clearing just 230 hectares in Papua, the Indonesian controlled half of New Guinea (the other half of the island is Papua New Guinea). That relatively small land area was just a warning of what is predicted to come: 270,000 hectares have been allocated to the project, an area ten times the size of Auckland’s Waitakere Ranges. After halting work due to alleged non-payment of staff salaries, in March this year the bulldozers arrived again and forest clearing resumed. This can be seen using near-real time satellite imagery on Nusantara-Atlas.org, the newly felled sections of rainforest are in pink. Screenshot of interactive deforestation graphic located here. The project is divided into seven concessions – parcels of land – of around 40,000 hectares each in Boven Digoel, a district in Papua’s southeast. Documents obtained by Newsroom show three of those seven concessions are controlled by a company called Digoel Agri Group, whose majority shareholder is listed as a New Zealander. (Read the full response from Digoel Agri Group here.) Environmental experts say the Tanah Merah project is a sign of things to come and if this entire forest is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-zealand-developer-denies-key-role-in-giant-palm-oil-project-in-indonesia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/new-zealand-developer-denies-key-role-in-giant-palm-oil-project-in-indonesia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-247509</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Extinction of Indigenous languages leads to loss of exclusive knowledge about medicinal plants</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/extinction-of-indigenous-languages-leads-to-loss-of-exclusive-knowledge-about-medicinal-plants/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/extinction-of-indigenous-languages-leads-to-loss-of-exclusive-knowledge-about-medicinal-plants/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Sep 2021 16:25:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sibélia Zanon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/20162313/5391247104_27177bfe7b_c-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=247338</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Botany, Culture, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Language, Medicinal Plants, Rainforests, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Medicine, Traditional People, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“Every time a language disappears, a speaking voice also disappears, a way to make sense of reality disappears, a way to interact with nature disappears, a way to describe and name animals and plants disappears,” says Jordi Bascompte, researcher in the Department of Evolutional Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich. The project Ethnologue concluded that 42% of the world’s more than 7,000 existing languages are endangered. Of the 1,000 Indigenous languages spoken in Brazil prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, only about 160 are still alive, according to language research non-profit SIL International. In a recent study, Bascompte and biodiversity specialist Rodrigo Cámara-Leret warn that the extinction of Indigenous languages equates to a loss of traditional knowledge about medicinal plants, which could reduce chances for the discovery of future medicines. Many of today’s mass-market medications are derived from medicinal plants. They range from acetylsalicylic acid—commonly known as aspirin, whose active ingredient is extracted from white willow (Salix alba L.)—to morphine, which is extracted from poppies (Papaver somniferum). As Indigenous groups traditionally rely on the spoken word for intergenerational knowledge transfer, the disappearance of these languages will take with it a universe of information. Ritual of the Yawalapiti people, whose language is the original of the Upper Xingu, currently spoken by only three people. Jean Marconi/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Double the challenge The study’s scientists analyzed 3,597 vegetal species with 12,495 medicinal uses and linked this data with 236 Indigenous languages from three biologically and culturally diverse regions—the northwestern Amazon,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/extinction-of-indigenous-languages-leads-to-loss-of-exclusive-knowledge-about-medicinal-plants/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/extinction-of-indigenous-languages-leads-to-loss-of-exclusive-knowledge-about-medicinal-plants/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-247338</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/plantations-and-roads-strip-away-papuas-forests-theyre-just-getting-started/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/plantations-and-roads-strip-away-papuas-forests-theyre-just-getting-started/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Aug 2021 13:41:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/08/16133316/41790502781_f12f955608_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=245945</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Palm Oil and Southeast Asian infrastructure]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Loss, Forests, Infrastructure, Logging, Palm Oil, Plantations, Pulp And Paper, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, Roads, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — An area of rainforest nearly five times the size of London has been destroyed in the past two decades in Indonesian New Guinea, home to Asia Pacific’s largest area of intact old-growth forest, a new study shows. More swaths of primary rainforest are expected to be cleared, as they stand in areas that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — An area of rainforest nearly five times the size of London has been destroyed in the past two decades in Indonesian New Guinea, home to Asia Pacific’s largest area of intact old-growth forest, a new study shows. More swaths of primary rainforest are expected to be cleared, as they stand in areas that have been allocated for oil palm and pulpwood concessions plantations and for the new roads to serve them. The deforestation threatens many of the unique species in the region and will release huge volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, experts warn. The Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea, also known as the Papua region, lost 748,640 hectares (1.85 million acres), or about 2% of its old-growth forest, between 2001 and 2019, according to the study published in the journal Biological Conservation. This was largely due to the growth of plantations, primarily oil palms, and the government’s push for infrastructure development in the region, the study found. Oil palm and pulpwood plantations accounted for 208,223 hectares (514,500 acres) of the deforestation there during that period, or 28% of total deforestation. Prior to 2000, the region was relatively untouched compared to western Indonesia, where forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo had been largely cleared to make way for plantations and mines. At the end of 2000, there were only 50,842 hectares (125,600 acres) of industrial plantations, all oil palms, in Papua. But as land become increasingly scarce elsewhere in Indonesia, plantation companies&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/plantations-and-roads-strip-away-papuas-forests-theyre-just-getting-started/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/plantations-and-roads-strip-away-papuas-forests-theyre-just-getting-started/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-245945</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Road construction imperils tree kangaroo recovery in PNG</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/road-construction-imperils-tree-kangaroo-recovery-in-png/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/road-construction-imperils-tree-kangaroo-recovery-in-png/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jul 2021 10:36:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/07/19094120/tenkile-tree-kangaroo-mark-hanlen-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=244951</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea, Oceania, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Development, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Logging, Mammals, NGOs, Over-hunting, Parks, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Sustainability, Timber, Traditional People, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a single outing. About twice the size of the average house cat, these arboreal marsupials (Dendrolagus spp.) are related to the better-known bounders of Australia and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a single outing. About twice the size of the average house cat, these arboreal marsupials (Dendrolagus spp.) are related to the better-known bounders of Australia and Tasmania. Tree kangaroos have also long been a staple in the diet of forest-dwelling communities across Papua New Guinea. Conversations with village elders in the Torricellis suggest that a single hectare in the mountains may have housed 10 or more animals, or about four per acre — a striking density for what’s thought to be a pretty solitary animal. But by the mid-1980s, hunters say their quarry had grown so scarce that dedicated hunting trips weren’t worth the trouble. Today, however, there are signs that their slide toward extinction may have changed course, thanks in large part to the efforts of 50 villages in the Torricelli Mountains that work with an NGO called Tenkile Conservation Alliance (TCA). The communities have stopped hunting tree kangaroos, and they came together in 2010 to request the creation of a wide-ranging conservation area to preserve tree kangaroo habitat in the still largely intact forests of the Torricelli Mountain Range. Since then, tree kangaroo numbers have climbed, and the animals are turning up in parts of the mountains where they haven’t been seen for decades. The tenkile (Dendrolagus scottae), also known as Scott&#8217;s tree kangaroo, is a critically endangered animal&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/road-construction-imperils-tree-kangaroo-recovery-in-png/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/road-construction-imperils-tree-kangaroo-recovery-in-png/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-244951</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Local leaders in Indonesia make forest and peatland protection pledge</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/local-leaders-in-indonesia-make-forest-and-peatland-protection-pledge/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/local-leaders-in-indonesia-make-forest-and-peatland-protection-pledge/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2021 14:20:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Taufik Wijaya]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/04/18154103/kalbar_drone_191024_21_header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=244854</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Aceh, Asia, Borneo, Central Sulawesi, Gorontalo, Indonesia, New Guinea, South Sumatra, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, West Kalimantan, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Green, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Nine districts in Indonesia have pledged to protect 50% of forests, peatlands and other “important ecosystems” in their jurisdictions by 2030, local leaders announced last week. Spread across three islands and six provinces, the districts of Siak, Musi Banyuasin, Sintang, Sigi, Gorontalo, Bone Bolango, Aceh Tamiang, Sanggau and Kapuas Hulu are members [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Nine districts in Indonesia have pledged to protect 50% of forests, peatlands and other “important ecosystems” in their jurisdictions by 2030, local leaders announced last week. Spread across three islands and six provinces, the districts of Siak, Musi Banyuasin, Sintang, Sigi, Gorontalo, Bone Bolango, Aceh Tamiang, Sanggau and Kapuas Hulu are members of the Sustainable Districts Association, formed in 2017. The pledge encompasses a total of 5.8 million hectares (14.3 million acres) of forest and 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) of peat — a total area the size of South Carolina. &#8220;We district leaders in Indonesia affirm our commitment to implementing sustainable development at the district level, in order to support the national priority agenda of the Republic of Indonesia toward sustainable development,&#8221; Dodi Reza Alex Noerdin, the elected leader of Musi Banyuasin and outgoing general chair of the Sustainable Districts Association, said at a July 7 meeting, which was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs and various development and civil society organizations and private companies. After the 1998 fall of the dictator Suharto, broad powers over land-use planning and licensing were devolved from Jakarta to the nation’s districts, giving them considerable sway over the fate of the nation’s rainforests and peatlands, among the most extensive in the world. In recent years, however, some of those powers have been transferred back to the provincial and central government levels. Last week’s declaration, called the “Declaration of a Vision for Sustainable Districts 2030,” follows&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/local-leaders-in-indonesia-make-forest-and-peatland-protection-pledge/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/local-leaders-in-indonesia-make-forest-and-peatland-protection-pledge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-244854</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Helping Papuans protect Indonesia’s last frontier: Q&#038;A with Bustar Maitar</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/helping-papuans-protect-indonesias-last-frontier-qa-with-bustar-maitar/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/helping-papuans-protect-indonesias-last-frontier-qa-with-bustar-maitar/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Apr 2021 21:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/04/05204609/eliza_kewang-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=241321</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Fisheries and Nature conservation Influencers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, COVID-19, Deforestation, Ecotourism, Environment, Forest Products, Forests, Green, Indigenous Peoples, Infrastructure, Interviews with conservation players, Land Rights, Oceans, Pandemics, Rainforests, and Sustainable Development]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand for the rainforests that once blanketed Indonesia. The diversity of New Guinea’s forests are mirrored in its seas: the ecosystems around West Papua and the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand for the rainforests that once blanketed Indonesia. The diversity of New Guinea’s forests are mirrored in its seas: the ecosystems around West Papua and the Maluku Islands are arguably the richest in the world. The region is also the most ethnically diverse part of Indonesia, and a place where local people depend on nature’s bounty to a greater extent than in many other parts of the archipelago. Accordingly, the push to colonize, mine and industrialize the forests and seas of eastern Indonesia is seen as a great threat to the region’s ecology, ecosystem services, and cultural and biological wealth. Actors from local communities to activists to scientists have raised alarms over the large-scale plantations and logging operations that have been expanding across Papua and West Papua, the two administrative provinces that make up the Indonesian part of New Guinea, in recent years. Wajag Island in West Papua. Image credit: Microsoft Zoom Earth In the mid-2000s, the “Paradise Forests” campaign by Greenpeace helped catalyze global popular awareness of the situation in the region. The leader of that campaign was Bustar Maitar, who was born and raised in Papua. Within four years of joining Greenpeace in Indonesia, Bustar rose to a leadership role at Greenpeace International, where he became a key architect for the organization’s highly impactful campaigns of the late 2000s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/helping-papuans-protect-indonesias-last-frontier-qa-with-bustar-maitar/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/helping-papuans-protect-indonesias-last-frontier-qa-with-bustar-maitar/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-241321</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Global forest loss increased in 2020</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/global-forest-loss-increases-in-2020-but-pandemics-impact-unclear/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/global-forest-loss-increases-in-2020-but-pandemics-impact-unclear/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Mar 2021 04:01:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/03/30204426/kalbar_drone_190441_1210-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=241098</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Forests and Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Asia, Borneo, Canada, Congo Basin, Global, Indonesia, Latin America, Malaysia, New Guinea, Russia, South America, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forestry, Forests, Green, Impact Of Climate Change, Land Use Change, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Primary Forests, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Redd, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought surging asset prices, government stimulus programs, diminished environmental law enforcement, and a sudden reversal of rural-to-urban migration would drive forest clearance higher. Data released today [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought surging asset prices, government stimulus programs, diminished environmental law enforcement, and a sudden reversal of rural-to-urban migration would drive forest clearance higher. Data released today by the University of Maryland provides the first comprehensive quantitative view of what happened in the world’s forests in 2020. The numbers indicate that forest loss remained persistently high in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, but “does not show obvious, systemic shifts in forest loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to World Resource Institute (WRI), which has published the data on its Global Forest Watch platform. The policy response to the pandemic, however, is likely to have a larger impact on the fate of forests, says WRI’s Frances Seymour. “The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives and livelihoods around the world, and the global economy contracted by around 3.5% in 2020. Yet despite the economic downturn, the loss of primary tropical forests ticked up by 12% compared to 2019, continuing an upward trend,” wrote Seymour in a commentary responding to the data. “The more significant impacts of the pandemic on forests are likely yet to come.” “Unless they see alternatives, governments grappling with constrained fiscal resources and high levels of debt will be tempted to cut the budgets of environmental agencies and license new investment projects that could show up in forest loss&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/global-forest-loss-increases-in-2020-but-pandemics-impact-unclear/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/global-forest-loss-increases-in-2020-but-pandemics-impact-unclear/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-241098</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Palm oil firm Digoel Agri said to clear Papuan forest without Indigenous consent</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/palm-oil-firm-digoel-agri-said-to-clear-papuan-forest-without-indigenous-consent/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/palm-oil-firm-digoel-agri-said-to-clear-papuan-forest-without-indigenous-consent/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Mar 2021 14:27:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/06/25073949/A14I0621-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=240913</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests and Indonesian Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, data, Deforestation, Deforestation Alert System, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forestry, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Monitoring, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Social Conflict, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — After halting forest-clearing operations in 2020, the Digoel Agri conglomerate has apparently restarted its activities in Indonesia’s Papua province, raising alarms among local Indigenous communities who say they never agreed to its presence on their ancestral lands. Satellite imagery from the first two months of 2021 shows 64 hectares (158 acres) of deforestation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — After halting forest-clearing operations in 2020, the Digoel Agri conglomerate has apparently restarted its activities in Indonesia’s Papua province, raising alarms among local Indigenous communities who say they never agreed to its presence on their ancestral lands. Satellite imagery from the first two months of 2021 shows 64 hectares (158 acres) of deforestation in two Digoel Agri concessions, those held by its subsidiaries PT Boven Digoel Budidaya Sentosa and PT Perkebunan Boven Digoel Sejahtera, according to forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas. Pusaka, an Indonesian nonprofit that analyzed the satellite imagery, says it has heard from local villagers that the conglomerate’s land-clearing contractor started bringing heavy equipment into the area in November 2020. In 2019, Digoel Agri cleared 164 hectares (405 acres) of forest, before pausing operations in October that year, when it reportedly stopped paying staff salaries. The concessions form part of the Tanah Merah project, a vast area on the island of New Guinea earmarked to become the world’s largest oil palm plantation. The project lies in the heart of the world’s third-largest rainforest, after the Amazon and Congo. Development on the project has only just begun, but if it is carried through to completion, it will result in the clearance of 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of rainforest, releasing a huge amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The project has been mired in controversy, such as allegations of falsified permits, conflicts with Indigenous peoples, and the use of shell companies in offshore secrecy jurisdictions to conceal&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/palm-oil-firm-digoel-agri-said-to-clear-papuan-forest-without-indigenous-consent/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/palm-oil-firm-digoel-agri-said-to-clear-papuan-forest-without-indigenous-consent/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-240913</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Current protected areas not enough to save parrots from extinction: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/current-protected-areas-not-enough-to-save-parrots-from-extinction-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/current-protected-areas-not-enough-to-save-parrots-from-extinction-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2021 15:51:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/08/24014930/Blue-and-yellow-macaw-Ara-ararauna-Colombia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=239045</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia, Global, Indonesia, New Guinea, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forest Destruction, Forests, Green, Logging, Pet Trade, Rainforests, Research, Timber, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Parrots, with their bright colors, charisma and intelligence, are an iconic bird group. They are also at risk, globally. Nearly one-third of parrot species are threatened with extinction. In a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists from Australian National University and the National University of Córdoba in Argentina analyzed parrots’ global [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Parrots, with their bright colors, charisma and intelligence, are an iconic bird group. They are also at risk, globally. Nearly one-third of parrot species are threatened with extinction. In a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists from Australian National University and the National University of Córdoba in Argentina analyzed parrots’ global conservation status, examined the effectiveness of existing protected areas to safeguard parrot biodiversity, and identified parrot conservation hotspots. The largest flying parrots in the world, the hyacinth macaws (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) of South America are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.  Image by Bernard Dupont via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Researchers used range maps, IUCN status, population trends, habitat needs and a measure of forest dependency for all known parrot species to detect four parrot conservation hotspots: the northeastern Andes, southeastern Australia, the eastern Amazon Basin, and the island of New Guinea. The northeastern Andes and southeastern Australia are highlighted as the two most important hotspots for parrot conservation. “The current situation of these areas is not reassuring,” the paper says. “They had high deforestation rates during the last decades and have a worrying future under problematic conservation policies.” The scientists also used global maps of timber extraction to predict where parrots are at high risk from habitat loss. The northwestern Amazon and western New Guinea, they predict, will “suffer very high rates of timber extraction by 2050.” The swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) from Australia has been uplisted from endangered to critically endangered on the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/current-protected-areas-not-enough-to-save-parrots-from-extinction-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/current-protected-areas-not-enough-to-save-parrots-from-extinction-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-239045</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>California-sized area of forest lost in just 14 years</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/california-sized-area-of-forest-lost-in-just-14-years/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/california-sized-area-of-forest-lost-in-just-14-years/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jan 2021 00:14:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/06/24173839/brazil_0322_SHARP_TW-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238629</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Borneo, Latin America, New Guinea, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Green, Rainforests, and Satellite Imagery]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[An area of forest roughly the size of California was cleared across the tropics and subtropics between 2004 and 2017 largely for commercial agriculture, finds a new assessment published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The report, titled Deforestation Fronts: Drivers and Responses in a Changing World, looks at the state of forests and causes [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An area of forest roughly the size of California was cleared across the tropics and subtropics between 2004 and 2017 largely for commercial agriculture, finds a new assessment published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Deforestation for palm oil production in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. The report, titled Deforestation Fronts: Drivers and Responses in a Changing World, looks at the state of forests and causes of deforestation in 24 &#8220;active deforestation fronts&#8221; (MAP), which account for over half of all tropical and subtropical deforestation that occurred over the 14-year period. WWF identified these deforestation fronts based on the likelihood that these areas would experience high rates of forest loss between 2010 and 2030. These include nine forest areas in Latin America, eight in Africa, and seven in Asia and Oceania. Using five satellite-based datasets, the report finds 43 million hectares (166,000 square miles) of deforestation during the period. Nearly two-thirds of that loss — 26.9 million hectares — occurred in Latin America, of which the majority was concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon (15.5 million ha). The Borneo deforestation front ranked second in terms of the extent of forest loss at 5.8 million ha, followed by the Gran Chaco (5.2 million ha), the Brazilian Cerrado (3 million ha), Sumatra (2.5 million ha), the Bolivian lowlands (1.5 million ha), the island of New Guinea (1.3 million ha), and then Myanmar (1 million ha). The report estimated that a sixth of the total forest area in 2000 was burned at&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/california-sized-area-of-forest-lost-in-just-14-years/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/california-sized-area-of-forest-lost-in-just-14-years/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238629</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rainforests: 11 things to watch in 2021</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/rainforests-11-things-to-watch-in-2021/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/rainforests-11-things-to-watch-in-2021/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jan 2021 12:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/01/01000534/suriname_rainforest_1024a_1280-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238424</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Congo Basin, Europe, European Union, Indonesia, Latin America, New Guinea, South America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Carbon Credits, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, International Trade, Law Enforcement, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Redd, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay&#8217;s year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what&#8217;s in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch. Post COVID recovery The pandemic itself presented incredible challenges for conservation, including crushing ecotourism-based livelihood models, creating hardships for local communities and researchers, pushing NGOs [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay&#8217;s year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what&#8217;s in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch. Post COVID recovery The pandemic itself presented incredible challenges for conservation, including crushing ecotourism-based livelihood models, creating hardships for local communities and researchers, pushing NGOs to pull out of field projects, spurring a rise in the price of many tropical commodities that drive deforestation, and redirecting funding and attention from environmental law enforcement. But measures to jumpstart the economic recovery made the situation worse in some places. Peru provided stimulus money to companies involved with illegal logging, Indonesia passed a sweeping deregulation law and other programs that could unleash large-sale deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines, and countries from Brazil to Cambodia turned a blind eye to illegal forest clearing and encroachment. As part of their stimulus programs, several tropical countries are pushing potentially destructive large-scale infrastructure projects while relaxing environmental oversight at the same time. A bend in the Javari river in the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler But conservationists argue it doesn&#8217;t have to be this way. A number of reports published in 2020 have called the post-COVID recovery a unique opportunity to shift away from environmentally destructive business-as-usual practices, including transitioning away from fossil fuels, investing in conservation and protected areas, and working toward a more equitable and just society for people and the planet. As we head into 2021, expect to see&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/rainforests-11-things-to-watch-in-2021/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/rainforests-11-things-to-watch-in-2021/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238424</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How the pandemic impacted rainforests in 2020: a year in review</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/how-the-pandemic-impacted-rainforests-in-2020/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/how-the-pandemic-impacted-rainforests-in-2020/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Dec 2020 19:25:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/23121804/amazon_201167_header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238236</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Borneo, Brazil, Colombia, Congo Basin, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Global, Indonesia, Latin America, Myanmar, New Guinea, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Certification, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Coronavirus, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, COVID-19, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Economics, Ecotourism, Energy, Environment, Fires, forest degradation, Forests, Gold Mining, Green, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Logging, Mining, Palm Oil, Pandemics, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Plantations, Politics, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Redd, Remote Sensing, Roads, Threats To Rainforests, Traditional People, Tropical Forests, Wildtech, Year-end review, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Previous rainforest year-in-reviews:The 2010s | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2009 Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. 2020 was supposed to be a make-or-break year for tropical forests. It was the year when global leaders were scheduled to come together to assess the past decade&#8217;s progress and set the climate and biodiversity agendas for the next decade. These included emissions reductions targets, government procurement policies and corporate zero-deforestation commitments, and goals to set aside protected areas and restore degraded lands. These meetings were to be set against a backdrop of a &#8220;lost decade&#8221; for tropical forests, where progress on arresting deforestation fell short of ambitions, violence against environmental defenders surged, the effects of deforestation and climate change on forests became more apparent, and outright hostility toward tropical forest conservation grew in some of the world&#8217;s largest countries. Yet there were reasons for cautious optimism for tropical forest conservation coming out of the 2010s. The impacts of climate change were becoming so apparent that they were finally starting to provoke a response from the public and private sector; recognition of the role Indigenous peoples play in stewarding forests was rising; technological advances were improving forest monitoring to the extent that ignorance was no longer an excuse for inaction; and interest in forest restoration was reaching new heights. Sunrise over the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler COVID-19 upended everything: Nowhere escaped&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/how-the-pandemic-impacted-rainforests-in-2020/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238236</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study revealing New Guinea&#8217;s plant life ‘first step’ toward protection</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/study-revealing-new-guineas-plant-life-first-step-toward-protection/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/study-revealing-new-guineas-plant-life-first-step-toward-protection/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Aug 2020 12:55:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/25122214/Tree-fern-savanna-in-the-Cromwell-Mountains-of-Papua-New-Guinea.-Photo-RBG-Kew.-3-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234199</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Southeast Asian infrastructure]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Deforestation, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Policy, Forest Fragmentation, Forestry, Forests, Fragmentation, Governance, Illegal Logging, Infrastructure, Invasive Species, Logging, Mining, Palm Oil, Plants, Rainforests, Research, Roads, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Species, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, Traditional People, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea&#8217;s diversity of life, cultures and landscapes has long inspired prominent scientists, from Alfred Russel Wallace to Jared Diamond. Sitting just below the equator at the nexus of Asia and Australia-anchored Oceania, the island&#8217;s expansive coastline rings a rugged interior that stretches to 4,000-meter-high (13,000-foot) mountains and active volcanoes. The people who live on [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea&#8217;s diversity of life, cultures and landscapes has long inspired prominent scientists, from Alfred Russel Wallace to Jared Diamond. Sitting just below the equator at the nexus of Asia and Australia-anchored Oceania, the island&#8217;s expansive coastline rings a rugged interior that stretches to 4,000-meter-high (13,000-foot) mountains and active volcanoes. The people who live on the island speak more than a thousand languages. And there are 843 species of birds alone that call the island home, according to Avibase, the global bird database. So it was little surprise to many researchers when a study cataloging New Guinea&#8217;s plant species came out Aug. 5 in the journal Nature, confirming that it&#8217;s the most botanically diverse island on Earth. &#8220;You go above it in a helicopter, and there&#8217;s just a huge gorge, then a massive, vertical mountain and then another huge gorge and then another mountain,&#8221; Mason Campbell, a botanist and adjunct research fellow at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, said in an interview. The habitats are &#8220;ideal for speciation,&#8221; added Campbell, who wasn&#8217;t involved in the research. &#8220;They get isolated quite easily from one another and start diverging.&#8221; A joint expedition of the Papua New Guinea Forest Research Institute and Kew Gardens, supported by the residents of Indagen Village. Image courtesy of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The authors came up with a list of 13,634 plant species on the island — nearly 2,000 more than Madagascar, the island with the planet&#8217;s second-most diverse vegetation. But along with that floristic splendor,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/study-revealing-new-guineas-plant-life-first-step-toward-protection/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234199</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Why I stand for my tribe&#8217;s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/i-am-fighting-for-my-tribes-forest-it-gives-us-food-culture-and-life-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/i-am-fighting-for-my-tribes-forest-it-gives-us-food-culture-and-life-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Aug 2020 16:21:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Arkilaus Kladit]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/08153136/Papua_GP0STRNMG-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=233602</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia's Forest Guardians]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Environmental Heroes, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Rainforests, Solutions, Traditional People, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[My name is Arkilaus Kladit. I’m from the Knasaimos-Tehit tribe in South Sorong Regency, West Papua Province, Indonesia. For decades my tribe has been fighting to protect our forests from outsiders who want to log it or clear it for palm oil. For my people, the forest is our mother and our best friend. Everything [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Google Earth image showing the Knasaimos landscape in South Sorong, West Papua. Kali Biru in Teminabuan, South Sorong, West Papua. Credit line: © Jurnasyanto Sukarno / Greenpeace My name is Arkilaus Kladit. I’m from the Knasaimos-Tehit tribe in South Sorong Regency, West Papua Province, Indonesia. For decades my tribe has been fighting to protect our forests from outsiders who want to log it or clear it for palm oil. For my people, the forest is our mother and our best friend. Everything we need to survive comes from the forest: food, medicines, building materials, and there are many sacred sites in the forest. We have been taught for generations about how to maintain a good relationship with the forest. If it is cut down, it will be the same as cutting down our lives. This has been critical for us during this Covid pandemic because, with the shortage of rice, we have been relying on our traditional staple food, sago, that comes from the forest. And we have gone further by harvesting it to provide food for the surrounding area. Map of the Knasaimos traditional lands. Click image for a full-size view. The first threat to our forest was in 1988-89 when I was young. The government wanted to make a transmigration scheme settlement in our area but our elders rejected it because we were worried a lot of new people would harm the forest. Then in the early 2000s companies came wanting to log the valuable trees in our&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/i-am-fighting-for-my-tribes-forest-it-gives-us-food-culture-and-life-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-233602</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Guinea has the most plant species of any island</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/new-guinea-has-the-most-plant-species-of-any-island/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/new-guinea-has-the-most-plant-species-of-any-island/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Aug 2020 11:02:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/04232134/This-local-guide-located-a-spectacular-Rhododendron-in-bloom-in-the-Cromwell-Mountains-of-Papua-New-Guinea.-Credit-RBG-Kew.-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=233397</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Environment, Forests, Green, Plants, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New Guinea is the planet&#8217;s most floristically diverse island, reports a comprehensive assessment of vascular plant species published in the journal Nature. To hear this article read aloud, click here: The species list, which was compiled by 99 botanists from 56 institutions across 19 countries, verified the identity of over 23,000 plant names from over [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NASA Landsat image of the island of New Guinea. The western half of the island in controlled by Indonesia, while the eastern half is the independent country of Papua New Guinea. New Guinea is the planet&#8217;s most floristically diverse island, reports a comprehensive assessment of vascular plant species published in the journal Nature. To hear this article read aloud, click here: The species list, which was compiled by 99 botanists from 56 institutions across 19 countries, verified the identity of over 23,000 plant names from over 704,000 specimens collected from New Guinea since the 1750s. The research concludes New Guinea has 13,634 species of plants from 1742 genera and 264 families. That gives New Guinea, the world&#8217;s second largest island, the highest plant diversity of any island on Earth, surpassing Madagascar (11,832 species), Borneo (11,165 species), and Sumatra (8,391 species). New Guinea&#8217;s diversity of plants is greater than that of the entire archipelago of the Philippines (9,432 species). Just five families account for more than a third of plant species on the island. Orchids, with 2,856 species or 21% of the island&#8217;s species, are the most diverse. There are 3,962 species of trees in New Guinea or about four times the number found across all of North America. Fraction of species that are trees (pink), herbs (dark blue), epiphytes (orange), shrubs (green), climbers (light blue), non-climbing palms (yellow) and tree ferns (mid blue). Courtesy of NATURE. New Guinea&#8217;s flora is also highly unique. The study finds that more than two-thirds&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/new-guinea-has-the-most-plant-species-of-any-island/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-233397</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: In southern Papua, navigating an alien world built on palm oil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-in-southern-papua-navigating-an-alien-world-built-on-palm-oil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-in-southern-papua-navigating-an-alien-world-built-on-palm-oil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jul 2020 01:03:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Albertus Vembrianto]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/07/21080612/11-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=232710</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests and Indonesian Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forestry, Forests, Green, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Logging, Palm Oil, Plantations, Primary Forests, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Traditional People, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Paskalina called to me by waving her hand and asked me to come to her house in a whisper. It was my third day staying at the family bivouac of an Auyu tribal chief in Boven Digoel, a heavily forested district in southern Papua. Indigenous Papuans like [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Paskalina called to me by waving her hand and asked me to come to her house in a whisper. It was my third day staying at the family bivouac of an Auyu tribal chief in Boven Digoel, a heavily forested district in southern Papua. Indigenous Papuans like Paskalina usually stay in these temporary shelters when hunting in the forest and harvesting sago, their staple starch that grows wild in groves. In the past four years, however, the area around this bivouac had been converted into an oil palm plantation. Paskalina, who was 38, didn’t want her story to offend the chief of the clan, one of the traditional elders, who had decided to sell the forest to a palm oil company. But for the past year, after the forest was cleared, she had often felt dizzy and taken vitamins. “The doctor said I am stressed,” she told me. “I have to take medicine.” Paskalina never knew when, exactly, the forest had been sold. Women are not involved in such decisions. She only knows when it was demolished and replaced with a sea of oil palms. To make a living, Paskalina sells products that she grows in her garden. To get to the market, she has to take the dirt road through an oil palm plantation, the hot sun blazing now the forest is gone. Sometimes her child takes her by motorcycle, but more often she walks. The trip takes her two hours&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-in-southern-papua-navigating-an-alien-world-built-on-palm-oil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-232710</doi>				</item>
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