<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" >

	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?s=&#038;type=post&#038;location=netherlands" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/netherlands/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:54:36 +0000</lastBuildDate>
		<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4</generator>

<image>
	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Netherlands environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/netherlands/</link>
	<width>32</width>
	<height>32</height>
</image> 
				<item>
					<title>Santa Marta report by 57 nations defines rapid fossil fuel transition path</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/santa-marta-report-by-57-nations-defines-rapid-fossil-fuel-transition-path/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/santa-marta-report-by-57-nations-defines-rapid-fossil-fuel-transition-path/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jul 2026 16:17:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Julian Reingold]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/02091344/banner-Image-Report-presentation-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322332</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Global, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Alternative Energy, Climate, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Environmental Policy, Fossil Fuels, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, and Impact Of Climate Change]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[London Climate Action Week (LCAW) kicked off in June amid an unprecedented European heat wave and with a special statement by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warning, “We have just lived through the eleven hottest years ever recorded … with higher temperatures to come. London isn’t just calling — it’s cooking,” he said. &#8220;We cannot [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[London Climate Action Week (LCAW) kicked off in June amid an unprecedented European heat wave and with a special statement by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warning, “We have just lived through the eleven hottest years ever recorded … with higher temperatures to come. London isn’t just calling — it’s cooking,” he said. &#8220;We cannot double down on a system based on fossil fuels that is driving both the climate crisis and the energy crisis … These twin crises have once again exposed the limits of an outdated model of development,” the U.N. chief said. “This is our moment of choice. Our moment of truth. Our moment of opportunity. Let&#8217;s seize it.&#8221; Just such an opportunity came later at LCAW with the launch of the outcome report derived from the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which was held in April in Santa Marta, Colombia. That landmark summit was co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands and convened 57 countries, a “Coalition of the Willing” accounting for roughly 30% of global energy demand and about 20% of global energy supply — a group committed to a rapid fossil fuel phaseout. The meeting was called to serve as a viable complement to the formal U.N. climate consensus negotiating process, which has been blocked from climate action for decades by large petrostates and lobbied against by the fossil fuel industry. The new report released June 23 presents a summary of Coalition of the Willing stakeholder-led dialogues and includes strategies for a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/santa-marta-report-by-57-nations-defines-rapid-fossil-fuel-transition-path/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/santa-marta-report-by-57-nations-defines-rapid-fossil-fuel-transition-path/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322332</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Forest advocates accuse EU energy firm of Dutch biomass certification fraud</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Mar 2026 16:21:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/25141443/wood-pellets-burning-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315699</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, European Union, Global, Malaysia, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Controversial, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Industry, Politics, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For years, a battle has raged between EU nations that claim their forest biomass certification policies safeguard against deforestation, promote sustainability and enable carbon-emissions reductions, even as forest advocates have argued that those policies fail to combat climate change, are badly flawed or outright fraudulent. EU policymakers remain entrenched today, defending their certification schemes as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For years, a battle has raged between EU nations that claim their forest biomass certification policies safeguard against deforestation, promote sustainability and enable carbon-emissions reductions, even as forest advocates have argued that those policies fail to combat climate change, are badly flawed or outright fraudulent. EU policymakers remain entrenched today, defending their certification schemes as a means of complying with laws to stop burning coal and for achieving national net-zero goals, despite evidence that burning wood pellets to make energy is dirtier than coal. But now forest advocates are turning up the pressure in the Netherlands in an unprecedented way. In a possible first-of-its-kind action, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is considering a criminal investigation against RWE, one of the Netherlands’ largest energy providers. RWE faces allegations made by two forest advocacy groups that the company, which has collected billions of euros in Dutch biomass subsidies, misrepresented itself by claiming that hundreds of thousands of tons of wood pellets imported from Malaysia came entirely from sawmill waste. The two advocacy groups, Comite Schone Lucht and Biofuelwatch, say their research establishes that those pellets come mostly from whole trees, contributing to Malaysian deforestation. The Public Prosecution Service, the sole authority responsible for investigating and prosecuting Dutch criminal offenses, is expected to decide how to proceed by the end of March. Research shows that “biomass burning power plants emit 150% the CO2 of coal, and 300-400% the CO2 of natural gas, per unit energy produced.” Image by GIZ Bush Control and Biomass&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315699</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Netherlands’ largest forest biomass plant canceled, forest advocates elated</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/netherlands-largest-forest-biomass-plant-canceled-forest-advocates-elated/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/netherlands-largest-forest-biomass-plant-canceled-forest-advocates-elated/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Mar 2025 15:31:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/27072832/1-Fenna-Swart-en-Maarten-Visschers-outside-Vattenfall-hq-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296576</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Industry, Logging, Politics, and Renewable Energy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dutch forest campaigners are claiming a significant victory over one of the Netherlands’ top energy providers, Vattenfall, after the company decided in late February to cancel plans to build the nation’s largest wood pellet burning plant for energy. “This is enormous,” said Fenna Swart, leader of the Clean Air Committee, a Dutch forest advocacy group [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dutch forest campaigners are claiming a significant victory over one of the Netherlands’ top energy providers, Vattenfall, after the company decided in late February to cancel plans to build the nation’s largest wood pellet burning plant for energy. “This is enormous,” said Fenna Swart, leader of the Clean Air Committee, a Dutch forest advocacy group that has aggressively opposed Vattenfall’s plans since 2019 in the court of law and public opinion. “This is a great victory for our forests and biodiversity. After six years, [we] have succeeded in stopping this mega biomass power plant by the multinational Vattenfall.” The Sweden-based company, the Netherlands’ third-largest energy producer, first sought a permit in 2018 to build the 120-megawatt power plant using only forest biomass to generate energy. The facility, to be built just outside Amsterdam, would have powered up to 24,000 homes in exchange for 395 million euros ($424.8 million) in subsidies pledged by the Dutch government. Research has consistently shown that the burning of wood pellets produces more carbon emissions per unit of energy than coal, despite claims by the industry that forest biomass is a renewable, carbon-neutral energy source because trees can be regrown. Swart said her group will lobby Dutch legislators to apply the subsidies earmarked for Vattenfall for forest conservation. However, the conservative national leadership in Amsterdam appears intent on promoting policies that continue to support forest biomass burning as a means of phasing out its remaining coal-fired plants. According to Biomass Magazine, an industry trade publication, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/netherlands-largest-forest-biomass-plant-canceled-forest-advocates-elated/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/netherlands-largest-forest-biomass-plant-canceled-forest-advocates-elated/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296576</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Lawsuit is latest push to curb bottom trawling in protected European waters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/lawsuit-is-latest-push-to-curb-bottom-trawling-in-protected-european-waters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/lawsuit-is-latest-push-to-curb-bottom-trawling-in-protected-european-waters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Feb 2025 13:12:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/12144949/3-A-bottom-trawler-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=294277</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, France, Mediterranean Sea, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Fish, Fisheries, Global Environmental Crisis, Illegal Fishing, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Mongabay Data Studio, Oceans, Saltwater Fish, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Bottom trawling, a fishing technique in which vessels drag weighted nets along the seafloor, has long been condemned by conservationists for disrupting seabed habitat and capturing species indiscriminately. Yet it remains common in marine protected areas around Europe, including in some sections of Dogger Bank, a massive sandbank that experts consider the ecological heart of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Bottom trawling, a fishing technique in which vessels drag weighted nets along the seafloor, has long been condemned by conservationists for disrupting seabed habitat and capturing species indiscriminately. Yet it remains common in marine protected areas around Europe, including in some sections of Dogger Bank, a massive sandbank that experts consider the ecological heart of the North Sea. On Dec. 23, four NGOs sued the Netherlands government in a bid to stop the country’s bottom-trawling vessels from operating in the Dutch section of Dogger Bank. “The Dutch government needs to stop allowing trawling inside protected areas because it is like allowing bulldozers in a protected forest,” Emilie Reuchlin, director of Netherlands-based Doggerland, one of the NGOs that filed the suit, told Mongabay in an email. “Our lawsuit will hopefully lead to a total ban for the most destructive fishing practice — that is, trawling — [in] the protected Dogger Bank.” The action in Dutch court follows four other lawsuits filed in Western Europe last year that seek to stop bottom trawling in marine protected areas (MPAs), as well as a complaint in Sweden with the same aim. This pressure on European nations to strengthen protections in their MPAs comes as they, like all the world’s nations, prepare to scale up MPA coverage to 30% by 2030 as part of the “30&#215;30” pledge under a 2022 international agreement. The lawsuits are part of an advocacy push to make sure MPA designations are meaningful, rather than an exercise in creating or maintaining&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/lawsuit-is-latest-push-to-curb-bottom-trawling-in-protected-european-waters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/lawsuit-is-latest-push-to-curb-bottom-trawling-in-protected-european-waters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-294277</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>We need a better understanding of how crops fare under solar panels, study shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/we-need-a-better-understanding-of-how-crops-fare-under-solar-panels-study-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/we-need-a-better-understanding-of-how-crops-fare-under-solar-panels-study-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Jan 2024 17:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/23130021/solar-panels-farming-india-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277910</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, Global, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroforestry, Alternative Energy, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Crops, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Environment, Farming, Food, Politics, Renewable Energy, Research, Solar Power, Solutions, Subsistence Agriculture, Sustainable Development, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The dream of agrivoltaics is to generate your electricity and eat your edamame too. But a recent study in Agroforestry Systems shows that agrivoltaics — growing food beneath solar panels — is not so simple. Research published in September finds that overall crop yields decrease when paired with solar panels and offers a way to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The dream of agrivoltaics is to generate your electricity and eat your edamame too. But a recent study in Agroforestry Systems shows that agrivoltaics — growing food beneath solar panels — is not so simple. Research published in September finds that overall crop yields decrease when paired with solar panels and offers a way to standardize agrivoltaic regulations so we don’t give too much valuable agricultural land over to power generation. “Electricians want more panels, farmers want less,” study author Christian Dupraz, senior scientist in agroforestry and agrivoltaism at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), writes in an email to Mongabay. “[The analysis] reveals that maintaining a ‘normal’ agricultural yield under PV [photovoltaic] panels is not possible, even with low GCRs [ground coverage ratios].” However, planting crops under partial shade isn’t a new idea — and can work under some conditions. Traditionally, agricultural and agroforestry systems used multilayered plantings by, for example, cultivating shade-tolerant crops such as coffee under bananas. Now, with growing demand for clean energy but a paucity of empty land, researchers are exploring how to grow crops under raised solar panels (photovoltaics) instead of trees. The idea is that the solar panels are arranged so crops still get enough light and may also benefit from protection from extreme weather such as heavy rain, frost or heat. To accomplish this, the solar panels can be arranged above or between crop rows, or in moveable systems that allow more sunlight through at certain times of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/we-need-a-better-understanding-of-how-crops-fare-under-solar-panels-study-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/we-need-a-better-understanding-of-how-crops-fare-under-solar-panels-study-shows/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277910</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ecologists help migratory birds adapt to climate change</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/ecologists-help-migratory-birds-adapt-to-climate-change/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/ecologists-help-migratory-birds-adapt-to-climate-change/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Nov 2023 09:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gillian Dohrn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/25014232/flycatcher-snuggle-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=275894</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, Netherlands, and Sweden]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A team of scientists drives across northern Europe under the cloak of darkness in a white van full of carefully caged songbirds. They’re on their way from the Netherlands to Sweden, where winter weather will linger for two weeks longer. The birds in the van are European pied flycatchers who arrived in the Netherlands earlier [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A team of scientists drives across northern Europe under the cloak of darkness in a white van full of carefully caged songbirds. They’re on their way from the Netherlands to Sweden, where winter weather will linger for two weeks longer. The birds in the van are European pied flycatchers who arrived in the Netherlands earlier that same day from sub-Saharan Africa, where they spent the winter. For centuries, they’ve flown back just in time to catch newly hatched caterpillars that their young depend on for food. But because climate change has forced spring to arrive earlier, flycatchers now frequently arrive after the caterpillars have matured into insects, which their chicks cannot eat. Like many migratory bird species in Europe and the UK, pied flycatcher populations are declining due to climate related food shortages. Nest boxes provide breeding grounds for pied flycatchers in the Swedish forest. Photo credit: Koosje Lamers Conservation ecologist Koosje Lamers of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands came up with a simple solution: move the birds north. Late April is already green in the Netherlands, but in Sweden the trees don’t get their leaves until mid-May. In an experiment she calls the “crown jewel” of her Ph.D., Lamers and her colleagues drove flycatchers 570 kilometers (350 miles) north from Drenthe, Netherlands, to southern Sweden every spring for three years. The immigrant females had nearly twice as many chicks as native Swedish flycatchers, and their chicks returned to nest in Sweden the following year. Their findings, published&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/ecologists-help-migratory-birds-adapt-to-climate-change/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/ecologists-help-migratory-birds-adapt-to-climate-change/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-275894</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Dutch farmers&#8217; protests of 2022: A Mongabay Series</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/the-dutch-nitrogen-crisis-a-mongabay-series/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/the-dutch-nitrogen-crisis-a-mongabay-series/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Sep 2023 09:29:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Nandithachandraprakash]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/09/07133652/farmers-protest-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=273337</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Circular economy and Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[European Union and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Business, Cattle, Environment, Farming, Green, Industrial Agriculture, Livestock, Nitrogen Cycle, Nutrient Pollution, Planetary Boundaries, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2019 and 2022, Europe was captivated by images of farmers in the Netherlands protesting in the streets, blocking traffic with their tractors and angrily warning of impending food shortages. At its core, the conflict between farmers and the Dutch government is over the ecological impact of modern food production systems. Manure from livestock produces [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2019 and 2022, Europe was captivated by images of farmers in the Netherlands protesting in the streets, blocking traffic with their tractors and angrily warning of impending food shortages. At its core, the conflict between farmers and the Dutch government is over the ecological impact of modern food production systems. Manure from livestock produces nitrogen emissions, which most scientists say are destroying fragile ecosystems across the country. To rein them in, the government proposed a solution that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable: a sharp reduction in the number of cows, pigs, and chickens on farms in the Netherlands. For years now, the Dutch have been struggling to find a balance between the needs of nature and those of farmers in the Netherlands. It’s a challenge that lies firmly at the ecological crossroads much of humanity has brought itself to: can industries that employ so many people – and which generate huge profits for a narrow few – be changed without creating a gridlock-inducing political backlash, or worse? In early May, Mongabay visited the Netherlands to talk to scientists, researchers, and farmers about what the Dutch have come to call the “nitrogen crisis,” and what it has to say about the future of the global environmental movement. Below you’ll find our short documentary and a three-part feature series on Dutch livestock farming, the costs borne by nature for the cheap food in our supermarkets, and the impending conflict between Europe’s “green deal” aspirations and its powerful&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/the-dutch-nitrogen-crisis-a-mongabay-series/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/the-dutch-nitrogen-crisis-a-mongabay-series/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-273337</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds old pear trees make for surprisingly rich reef habitats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/study-finds-old-pear-trees-make-for-surprisingly-rich-reef-habitats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/study-finds-old-pear-trees-make-for-surprisingly-rich-reef-habitats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Sep 2023 10:55:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/09/08142651/starfish-on-tree-trunk-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=273086</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Conservation, Ocean Warming, Oceans, Research, Restoration, Saltwater Fish, Solutions, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Bouma had been searching for a material with which to create artificial reefs in the Wadden Sea, a system of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Bouma had been searching for a material with which to create artificial reefs in the Wadden Sea, a system of intertidal sand and mud flats that’s been heavily modified by humans over thousands of years. He realized that pear trees could be used for this very purpose. “They have these nice branching structures and complexity, and they’re biodegradable,” Bouma told Mongabay. Moreover, Bouma knew that fruit trees in orchards had a limited life span. Once pear trees reach 25 to 35 years of age, they no longer produce enough fruit to be profitable, so farmers cull them, turning them into firewood or wood pellets or simply sending the trees to landfills. But maybe, Bouma thought, they could be repurposed to create reefs. Bouma shared his idea with colleagues, including Jon Dickson, a researcher at NIOZ whose current work focuses on artificial reefs and marine environmental restoration. Dickson believed the idea had merit, since pear trees have the structural complexity needed for an artificial reef and because planting “tree reefs” would mimic a natural process. “If we look at history … wood came down rivers all the time and got spit out at sea,” Dickson said. “Lots of it washed up, but lots of it sank, too. We have fossil records dating back to the Jurassic&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/study-finds-old-pear-trees-make-for-surprisingly-rich-reef-habitats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/study-finds-old-pear-trees-make-for-surprisingly-rich-reef-habitats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-273086</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In the clash over Dutch farming, Europe’s future arrives</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-clash-over-dutch-farming-europes-future-arrives/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-clash-over-dutch-farming-europes-future-arrives/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Sep 2023 20:28:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/09/07134900/cow-netherlands-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=273094</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[The Dutch Nitrogen Crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Conservation, Ecosystems, Emission Reduction, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Food Industry, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Industry, Livestock, Nitrogen Cycle, Politics, Pollution, and Protests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is the third story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: The Dutch, and European, green agenda crashes into the continent’s food systems. Read Part One and Part Two. LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands — To a din of mooing and the occasional sound of urine hitting the floor, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is the third story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: The Dutch, and European, green agenda crashes into the continent’s food systems. Read Part One and Part Two. LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands — To a din of mooing and the occasional sound of urine hitting the floor, Kees de Koning strolled past a row of pens holding a dozen or so cows, their heads poking through the slats as they chewed on the feed piled below. Until its manufacturer took it back a few weeks earlier, this is where the “cow toilet” was. “It’s a bit like a feed dispenser, on the back there’s a unit that closes down,” he explained in the matter-of-fact tone of a polished guide. “And that unit has a pissoir — how do you call it? A urinal. It closes from behind, and we start tickling the hind of the cow, just below the vulva. It’s more or less a hormonal process, and the cow starts peeing.” With an encyclopedic knowledge of dairy farming in the Netherlands, de Koning is the managing director at Wageningen University &amp; Research’s Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden. Here, in a sprawling complex of industrial barns housing around 500 cows, the future of Dutch dairy farming is being honed. The Dairy Campus is an academic research facility, but it’s also an important locus for the dairy industry. De Koning and his team design their experiments with the input of farmers’ organizations and share&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-clash-over-dutch-farming-europes-future-arrives/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-clash-over-dutch-farming-europes-future-arrives/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-273094</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In the Netherlands, pitchforks fly for an empire of cows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-netherlands-pitchforks-fly-for-an-empire-of-cows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-netherlands-pitchforks-fly-for-an-empire-of-cows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Sep 2023 16:50:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/09/07161649/shutterstock_1533485483-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=273022</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Covering the Commons, Planetary Boundaries, and The Dutch Nitrogen Crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Conservation, Ecosystems, Emission Reduction, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Food, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Livestock, Nitrogen Cycle, Politics, Pollution, and Protests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is the second story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How EU conservation rules shook up Dutch politics. Read Part One and Part Three. LUNTEREN, Netherlands — Jan Dirk’s dairy farm in Lunteren, about a 30-minute drive from De Hoge Veluwe National Park, has the look [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is the second story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How EU conservation rules shook up Dutch politics. Read Part One and Part Three. LUNTEREN, Netherlands — Jan Dirk’s dairy farm in Lunteren, about a 30-minute drive from De Hoge Veluwe National Park, has the look of a Dutch postcard. Next to a rustic brick building with a thatched roof, brown-and-white dairy cows graze on a field pockmarked with wildflowers. Dirk squats on the grass, rubbing dirt between his fingers and talking about the mycorrhizae fungi in it that keeps his soil healthy. Behind him, his dog faces off playfully with one of the cows, which reciprocates in turn. Farming is in Dirk’s bones. He’s the 13th generation of his family to work this land. When he took over the farm, it was an example of all the post-war trends in Dutch farming: intensive production, genetically modified herds, heavy use of imported feed. “I was really the biggest in cows,” he said, comparing himself to his neighbors at the time. “And I used a lot of artificial nitrogen, so I got high yields from the field. I was the first one with an irrigation system, and I’d dehorn my cows for housing in cubicles. We invested a lot, but after some years, I thought, ‘This is not really what I want.’” Jan Dirk&#8217;s Remeker dairy farm in Lunteren, Netherlands has been in his family for sixteen generations. Image by Ashoka Mukpo&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-netherlands-pitchforks-fly-for-an-empire-of-cows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/in-the-netherlands-pitchforks-fly-for-an-empire-of-cows/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-273022</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How manure blew up the Netherlands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/how-manure-blew-up-the-netherlands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/how-manure-blew-up-the-netherlands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Sep 2023 18:32:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[agroecology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/09/06173335/Nitrogen-16-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=272953</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[The Dutch Nitrogen Crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Conservation, Ecosystems, Emission Reduction, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Livestock, Nitrogen Cycle, Politics, Pollution, and Protests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is the first story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How the Dutch food revolution became an ecological time bomb. Read Part Two and Part Three. OTTERLO, Netherlands — On a bright afternoon in May, Annemieke Visser-Winterink trudged through the Dutch underbrush, dead leaves crackling under [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is the first story in a three-part Mongabay miniseries on the Dutch nitrogen crisis and farmer protests of 2022: How the Dutch food revolution became an ecological time bomb. Read Part Two and Part Three. OTTERLO, Netherlands — On a bright afternoon in May, Annemieke Visser-Winterink trudged through the Dutch underbrush, dead leaves crackling under her boots as she approached a nearby tree and touched it softly. “They’re all sick,” she said, sunbeams falling from the forest canopy onto her ranger uniform. “There’s not one that I would say, you know, that’s a very fit or a very healthy tree.” The oaks surrounding her stretched upwards, their branches winding into the crisp spring air. The trees are a crowd-pleaser at De Hoge Veluwe National Park, a sprawling, 55-square-kilometer (21-square-mile) refuge of wildflower-laden meadows, barren sand dunes, and romantic forest groves. De Hoge Veluwe is the biggest national park in the Netherlands. A stone’s throw from the city of Arnhem, it draws tourists from across the country, who come to catch sight of its 172 species of birds or, if they have a permit, to hunt red deer and boar. The oaks are one of the park’s stars. Some, like these, are relatively young. Others are hundreds of years old, the Veluwe’s stout royalty, under whose branches generations of Dutch wanderers and nature lovers have taken respite. And now, they’re dying. Annemieke Visser-Winterink walks through a grove of oak trees in the De Hoge Veluwe National Park in the Netherlands. Image&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/how-manure-blew-up-the-netherlands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/how-manure-blew-up-the-netherlands/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-272953</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bringing the ocean’s vast ‘awesomeness’ to light: Q&#038;A with Farah Obaidullah</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/bringing-the-oceans-vast-awesomeness-to-light-qa-with-farah-obaidullah/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/bringing-the-oceans-vast-awesomeness-to-light-qa-with-farah-obaidullah/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Apr 2023 18:20:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Nandithachandraprakash]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/19135632/Farah-Obaidullah-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=267604</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, Global, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Books, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Gender, Global Environmental Crisis, Impact Of Climate Change, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Marine, Marine Conservation, Ocean Warming, Oceans, Overfishing, Saltwater Fish, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Farah Obaidullah’s life has pivoted around the ocean. Growing up in Gabon and the Netherlands, she spent as much time as possible in or near the water, snorkeling, rescuing marine animals and picking up beach litter. As an adult, she spent a decade as an ocean campaigner for Greenpeace and later became an independent ocean [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Farah Obaidullah’s life has pivoted around the ocean. Growing up in Gabon and the Netherlands, she spent as much time as possible in or near the water, snorkeling, rescuing marine animals and picking up beach litter. As an adult, she spent a decade as an ocean campaigner for Greenpeace and later became an independent ocean advocate and founder of the NGO Women4Oceans. Not everyone has been as immersed in the ocean as Obaidullah has. In fact, Obaidullah says one of the most common questions she’s encountered over her life has been this simple inquiry: how can I learn more about the ocean? But Obaidullah says she “struggled to find a single comprehensive resource” that people can use to learn more about the sea and our relationship with it. “There are plenty of websites, there are plenty of NGOs and scientific papers, but no one resource where you can learn everything there is to learn, and where you don&#8217;t have to be a scientist to understand it,” Obaidullah tells Mongabay. So Obaidullah decided to put together a resource herself. She gathered a team of experts from her Facebook group, Women4Oceans, which she started in 2016 before founding an NGO of the same name. She initially envisioned a series of essays on different aspects of the ocean, but quickly realized she was creating a book. Farah Obaidullah is an independent ocean advocate and founder of the NGO Women4Oceans. Image by Alex Hofford/Greenpeace. The resulting book, The Ocean and Us, published this year&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/bringing-the-oceans-vast-awesomeness-to-light-qa-with-farah-obaidullah/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/bringing-the-oceans-vast-awesomeness-to-light-qa-with-farah-obaidullah/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-267604</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/sea-level-rise-looms-even-for-the-best-prepared-country-on-earth/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/sea-level-rise-looms-even-for-the-best-prepared-country-on-earth/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Mar 2023 19:58:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/03/20162152/dutch-windmills-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266610</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Covering Climate Now]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Science, Development, Environment, Extreme Weather, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Governance, Infrastructure, Ocean Warming, Oceans, Politics, Research, and Sea Levels]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and drizzle, the shoreline feels calm. Gray waves roll into the sand like long, deep breaths. Machines have raked the beach into a well-manicured carpet of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and drizzle, the shoreline feels calm. Gray waves roll into the sand like long, deep breaths. Machines have raked the beach into a well-manicured carpet of grains and shell fragments. But about a year ago, in February 2022, Scheveningen looked very different as Storm Eunice battered the coastline with high-speed winds and fierce waves. “The sea was amazing — just how wild it gets and how ferocious,” says Obaidullah, who strides quickly over the beach, an old Greenpeace beanie pulled over her bobbed curls. “You don&#8217;t really want to be out near the sea at that time. But I walked outside in the aftermath of Eunice, and the sand had literally taken over the boulevard and the beach bars.” Storm Eunice ravaged the Netherlands with winds of up to 128 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour) and sea levels reaching 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) above their normal height. It damaged buildings, toppled trees and killed three people. But while the sand blew across the coast, the tide and storm surge never reached the town of Scheveningen’s infrastructure, thanks to interventions made a couple of decades ago in anticipation of sea level rise and extreme weather events like this. (Left) Preparation for Storm Eunice at Scheveningen. (Right) Aftermath of Eunice at Scheveningen. Photos by Farah Obaidullah. In 2003, experts identified the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/sea-level-rise-looms-even-for-the-best-prepared-country-on-earth/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/sea-level-rise-looms-even-for-the-best-prepared-country-on-earth/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266610</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>For Dutch farming crisis, agroforestry offers solutions: Q&#038;A with Lennart Fuchs &#038; Marc Buiter</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/for-dutch-farming-crisis-agroforestry-offers-solutions-qa-with-lennart-fuchs-mark-buiter/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/for-dutch-farming-crisis-agroforestry-offers-solutions-qa-with-lennart-fuchs-mark-buiter/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Mar 2023 18:37:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Peter Speetjens]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/03/21172402/tractor-g5c2af3dda_1920-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266679</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Commodities]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Beef, Biodiversity, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Community Development, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Controversial, Crops, Environmental Law, Farming, Fertilizers, Food, Food Industry, food security, Industrial Agriculture, Law, Law Enforcement, Meat, Mitigation, Mongabay Data Studio, Nature-based climate solutions, Nitrogen Cycle, Nitrous Oxide, Politics, Pollution, Protests, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Last year, farmer protests erupted throughout the Netherlands, riding a wave of rural anger at government plans to drastically halve nitrogen emissions by downsizing and closing farms. This quickly swept the newly founded agrarian party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging, or BBB), to victory in last week’s provincial elections, making it the country’s biggest political party. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Last year, farmer protests erupted throughout the Netherlands, riding a wave of rural anger at government plans to drastically halve nitrogen emissions by downsizing and closing farms. This quickly swept the newly founded agrarian party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging, or BBB), to victory in last week’s provincial elections, making it the country’s biggest political party. In the face of the farmer and nitrogen crisis, Dutch agriculture and environmental experts are calling for a change to the food system in a way that both reduces nitrogen emissions while addressing the financial and livelihood concerns of farmers, many of whom are in debt. “As they say in Dutch, ‘You can’t be green if you are in the red,’” says Lennart Fuchs, an agriculture researcher at Wageningen University &amp; Research in the Netherlands. Among the solutions the experts propose are agroforestry systems that harmoniously integrate reduced livestock with profitable trees and crops such as hazelnut, walnut, cider apple and timber trees, Fuchs tells Mongabay in an interview. Also known as silvopasture, this is a climate change solution that reduces emissions and can bring large returns on investments by producing multiple streams of income. A computer-generated image of what a future farm could look like in the Netherlands if it used an agroforestry system. Image by Lennart Fuchs. The Netherlands has long been a global agricultural powerhouse, and farms there have often been managed by the same families for generations. Home to some 17.5 million people, the country is Europe’s largest meat exporter and the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/for-dutch-farming-crisis-agroforestry-offers-solutions-qa-with-lennart-fuchs-mark-buiter/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/for-dutch-farming-crisis-agroforestry-offers-solutions-qa-with-lennart-fuchs-mark-buiter/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266679</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Netherlands to stop paying subsidies to &#8216;untruthful&#8217; biomass firms</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/the-netherlands-decides-to-stop-paying-subsidies-to-untruthful-biomass-firms/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/the-netherlands-decides-to-stop-paying-subsidies-to-untruthful-biomass-firms/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Dec 2022 17:52:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/12/23182000/10-Drone-shot-Enviva-Ahoskie-2a-768x479.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264081</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Covering the Commons and Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia, Netherlands, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Bioenergy, Business, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Conservation, Controversial, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Emission Reduction, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forest Carbon, Forest Loss, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Globalization, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Impact Of Climate Change, Industry, Law, Logging, Mitigation, Nature-based climate solutions, Politics, Pollution, Renewable Energy, Solutions, Timber, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Prompted by exclusive reporting from Mongabay, the House of Representatives in The Netherlands’s Parliament has approved a motion that compels its government to stop paying subsidies to wood-pellet manufacturers found to be untruthful in their wood-harvesting practices. On December 14, the Dutch House, by a 150-114 vote, approved a motion introduced by Rep. Lammert van Raan of Amsterdam, a member of the progressive Party for the Animals. In his motion, van Raan noted that up to €9.5 billion ($10 billion) have been reserved by the government through 2032 to subsidize the purchase of domestic and foreign-produced wood pellets for energy and heat generation. “The risk of fraud with sustainability certification of biomass is significant,” van Raan wrote. Then, in reference to a Mongabay story published December 5, he added: “A whistleblower who worked at Enviva, the biggest maker of wood pellets, has reported that all of Enviva’s green claims are incorrect [and] according to an important recent scientific study… Enviva contributes to deforestation in the southeastern U.S.” Van Raan concluded his motion by writing that the House “calls on the government to ensure that all subsidies do not end up at parties that cheat with sustainability certification.” The approved motion requires the Dutch government to seek a higher level of proof under the third-party Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) certification process. Enviva already participates in the SBP, but critics note that the certification process is inherently weak and unreliable, especially regarding the climate and biodiversity impacts of tree harvesting. Van Raan&#8217;s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/the-netherlands-decides-to-stop-paying-subsidies-to-untruthful-biomass-firms/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/the-netherlands-decides-to-stop-paying-subsidies-to-untruthful-biomass-firms/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264081</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Meet the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/meet-the-2022-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/meet-the-2022-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 May 2022 07:31:36 +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/20/2022/05/25034802/Screen-Shot-2022-05-24-at-8.46.18-PM-768x445.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=256308</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Australia, Ecuador, European Union, Global, Netherlands, Nigeria, South America, Thailand, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Hydroelectric Power, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Politics, Protected Areas, Rivers, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of the six continental regions. The prize was founded in 1989 by U.S. philanthropists Rhoda and Richard Goldman. This year’s winners include a duo of Indigenous [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of the six continental regions. The prize was founded in 1989 by U.S. philanthropists Rhoda and Richard Goldman. This year’s winners include a duo of Indigenous forest defenders who protected their ancestral territory from mining; a lawyer who held a multinational oil company responsible for damages to communities; an organizer whose campaign effectively stopped coal financing in Australia; a woman who sued the Netherlands over climate change and won; a youth activist who led a movement that shut an oil drilling site; and a beloved teacher who halted catastrophic blasting to widen the Mekong River. “While the many challenges before us can feel daunting, and at times make us lose faith, these seven leaders give us a reason for hope and remind us what can be accomplished in the face of adversity,” said Jennifer Goldman Wallis, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation. “They have not been silenced — despite great risks and personal hardship,” said Susie Gelman, also a vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, “and we must also not be silent, either. It takes all of us.” The winners will be honored in a virtual ceremony that will be streamed live on YouTube and Facebook on May 25 at 5:00 pm PDT, featuring Jane Fonda as host, musical guests Angelique Kidjo and the Detroit Youth Choir, narration by Sigourney Weaver, and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/meet-the-2022-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/meet-the-2022-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-256308</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sloth, giant armadillo, and fishing cat conservationists win Future for Nature Award 2022</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/sloth-giant-armadillo-and-fishing-cat-conservationists-win-future-for-nature-award-2022/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/sloth-giant-armadillo-and-fishing-cat-conservationists-win-future-for-nature-award-2022/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Mar 2022 00:43:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/04/04211749/sloth-banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=253890</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Costa Rica, Global, India, Latin America, Netherlands, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Cats, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Sloths, Small Cats, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature (FFN) Award, given annually to accomplished conservationists 35 years of age or younger. According to a statement from FFN, each of these winners chosen from a pool of 250+ candidates [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature (FFN) Award, given annually to accomplished conservationists 35 years of age or younger. According to a statement from FFN, each of these winners chosen from a pool of 250+ candidates will receive a 50,000 euro cash prize to aid their work with wildlife: Tiasa Adhya is an Indian conservationist working to safeguard the fishing cat and its wetland habitat. She brings people together in a strong network to help secure the future of the animals and humans dependent on this ecosystem. Gabriel Massocato is a Brazilian biologist who has dedicated himself to protecting a species that was quietly slipping toward extinction: the giant armadillo. He is also training others to help conserve these ecosystem engineers. Rebecca Cliffe is a British conservationist working to protect sloths and their tropical forest habitat in Costa Rica. She moved across the world to work with local communities to understand more about these elusive and charismatic creatures. “When I grew up in the north of England, I had no idea what a sloth was. So this is sort of overwhelming,” Cliffe said of the award in an interview with Mongabay. “She masters all facets of the project, from ecological research on population genetics to exploiting social media for outreach and fundraising,” the director of FFN, Dr. Rascha Nuijten, told Mongabay of Cliffe by email. “By making the Sloth Conservation Foundation such a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/sloth-giant-armadillo-and-fishing-cat-conservationists-win-future-for-nature-award-2022/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/sloth-giant-armadillo-and-fishing-cat-conservationists-win-future-for-nature-award-2022/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-253890</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>COP26: Are climate declarations and emission reduction pledges legally binding?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/cop26-are-climate-declarations-and-emission-reduction-pledges-legally-binding/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/cop26-are-climate-declarations-and-emission-reduction-pledges-legally-binding/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2021 18:37:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/11/11181533/BANNER-IMAGE-7-LE-768x445.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=249381</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Biodiversity, Carbon Emissions, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Controversial, Deforestation, Emission Reduction, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forests, Fossil Fuels, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Impact Of Climate Change, Law, Mitigation, Politics, Pollution, and Protests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Some 1,800 lawsuits attempting to hold nations and corporations responsible for their climate change pledges — assumed to be non-legally binding — are wending their way through the legal system.… And some are being won.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[GLASGOW, Scotland — Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the 26th United Nations climate summit here, one thing is certain: It will end with pledges from scores of countries for enhanced carbon and methane emissions targets, deforestation reductions, and promises of billions in financing to aid vulnerable nations and Indigenous peoples suffering the fallout from climate change. But those pledges — gathered under the broad umbrella of the 2015 Paris Agreement — are voluntary and legally nonbinding. Or are they? According to a pair of U.S. public-interest attorneys who have been active, visible and vocal during COP26, those national pledges are not as unenforceable as is often assumed. In what is becoming a new frontier in climate action — akin to the successful movement to get investors, universities and pension funds to divest their fossil fuel holdings — special legal action, taken in local jurisdictions under local law, could end up putting real teeth into the presumably toothless Paris Agreement, along with the upcoming Glasgow accords and declarations to protect forests and reduce methane. “A pledge is one thing. Actual enforceable law is another. Getting the law enforced is yet another,” said attorney John Fitzgerald, a veteran of U.N. climate meetings dating back to 1992 and now general counsel to Methane Action, a U.S.-based environmental NGO. “This is a moment when it can be done. There are a variety of legal tools that can be used to see that pledges become more binding than simply promises made.” John Fitzgerald coordinates&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/cop26-are-climate-declarations-and-emission-reduction-pledges-legally-binding/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/cop26-are-climate-declarations-and-emission-reduction-pledges-legally-binding/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-249381</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dutch to limit forest biomass subsidies, possibly signaling EU sea change</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/dutch-to-limit-forest-biomass-subsidies-possibly-signaling-eu-sea-change/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/dutch-to-limit-forest-biomass-subsidies-possibly-signaling-eu-sea-change/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Mar 2021 16:55:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/03/09163756/BANNER-IMAGE-3-768x454.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=240368</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[European Union, Global, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Bioenergy, carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Coal, Conservation, Controversial, Emission Reduction, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forest Carbon, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Globalization, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Impact Of Climate Change, Law, Mitigation, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Politics, Pollution, Research, and Temperate Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Netherlands has voted to stop issuing new subsidies for the burning of forests to generate heat. Though a small win for critics who say biomass is not carbon neutral, the vote could influence a June EU biomass review.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In a speedbump for the accelerating biomass industry in the European Union, the Dutch Parliament on February 25 voted to stop issuing new subsidies for 50 planned forest biomass-for-heat plants, a rare industry setback cheered by the country’s biomass opponents and shrugged off by the industry itself. The vote came with a caveat: current annual subsidies of €578.5 million ($698 million) will remain in place for existing Dutch biomass plants — some 200 of which produce heat, while four power plants are co-fired with coal and biomass. The plants primarily burn wood pellets imported from the Southeast United States and Eastern Europe. Dutch policy could change further, biomass critics say. The general election for the Dutch House of Representatives is set for March 17 and public opposition to subsidizing burning wood pellets to make energy stands at 98%, according to a 2020 Dutch survey by De Telegraaf, the country’s largest newspaper. A clearcut documented in the US Southeast in the spring of 2019 when investigators tracked logging trucks from a mature hardwood forest en-route to a North Carolina wood pellet manufacturing facility. Credit: Dogwood Alliance. Maarten Visschers and Fenna Swart lead two separate conservation groups. They and others have aggressively lobbied Dutch elected officials for years to reduce the country’s dependence on woody biomass — which accounts for 61% of renewable* energy generated for the country’s 17.3 million people. They told Mongabay that the February 25 vote marked “a huge victory.” “The vote came just before our national elections,” said&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/dutch-to-limit-forest-biomass-subsidies-possibly-signaling-eu-sea-change/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/dutch-to-limit-forest-biomass-subsidies-possibly-signaling-eu-sea-change/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-240368</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Are forests the new coal? Global alarm sounds as biomass burning surges</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/are-forests-the-new-coal-global-alarm-sounds-as-biomass-burning-surges/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/are-forests-the-new-coal-global-alarm-sounds-as-biomass-burning-surges/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Aug 2020 11:57:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/27123837/BANNER-IMAGE-Enviva_SampsonCountyFacility-Dogwood-Alliance-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234302</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada, Eastern Europe, European Union, Global, Indonesia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Bioenergy, carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Science, Conservation, Controversial, Emission Reduction, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forest Carbon, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Globalization, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Impact Of Climate Change, Law, Mitigation, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Politics, Pollution, Rainforests, Research, Temperate Forests, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The forest biomass industry is booming, with forests in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Eastern Europe cut to provide wood pellets for burning at former coal power plants in the UK, EU and Asia.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The forest biomass industry is sprawling and spreading globally — rapidly growing in size, scale, revenue, and political influence — even as forest ecologists and climatologists warn that the industry is putting the planet’s temperate and tropical forests at risk, and aggressively lobbying governments against using wood pellets as a “renewable energy” alternative to burning coal. (Click here for an interactive map of the hundreds of major bioenergy burning power plants now operating worldwide.) “We have repeatedly pointed out that… the large-scale substitution of coal by forest biomass [to produce electricity] will accelerate climate warming, and will increase the risks of overshooting Paris [Climate Agreement] targets,” Michael Norton, environmental director of the Science Advisory Council of the European Academies, said in a December 2019 statement issued to European Union countries. “The reason is simple: when the forest is harvested and used for bioenergy, all the carbon in the biomass enters the atmosphere very quickly, but it will not be reabsorbed by new trees for decades. This is not compatible with the need to tackle the climate crisis urgently,” said Norton. As the forest biomass industry expands rapidly in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Eastern Europe, so too does the threat to untold acres of natural forests and their biodiverse ecosystems needed for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation in those same nations and regions, even as global warming is poised to set punishing new records in 2020. “Our two biggest global environmental challenges — climate change and biodiversity loss&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/are-forests-the-new-coal-global-alarm-sounds-as-biomass-burning-surges/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/are-forests-the-new-coal-global-alarm-sounds-as-biomass-burning-surges/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234302</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Tainted timber’ from Myanmar widely used in yachts seized in the Netherlands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/tainted-timber-from-myanmar-widely-used-in-yachts-seized-in-the-netherlands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/tainted-timber-from-myanmar-widely-used-in-yachts-seized-in-the-netherlands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Dec 2019 08:28:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/12/23024019/hout-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=225677</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Mekong Forest Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, Myanmar, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forests, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, Law Enforcement, Supply Chain, Timber Laws, timber trade, and Tropical hardwoods]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dutch authorities carried out raids in six locations in the Netherlands seizing teak, widely used in luxury yachts, this month. The wood, originating from Myanmar, arrived in the Czech Republic from where it was funneled to the Netherlands.  The European Union tightly controls imports of Myanmar teak because of concerns about illegal extraction and overexploitation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dutch authorities carried out raids in six locations in the Netherlands seizing teak, widely used in luxury yachts, this month. The wood, originating from Myanmar, arrived in the Czech Republic from where it was funneled to the Netherlands.  The European Union tightly controls imports of Myanmar teak because of concerns about illegal extraction and overexploitation of natural forests. The seizure was carried out by the Dutch police, working with the Netherlands food and consumer product safety authority as part of a broader investigation into the illegal trade, which persists despite strict EU rules implemented in 2013 to excise illicit timber from EU markets.  &#8220;We suspect the companies involved that they deliberately circumvent the rules to still trade this wood within the Netherlands,&#8221; Arno Paas, a detective with the Dutch police said in a statement. In the past five years, several European companies have been taken to court for importing Myanmar teak without doing due diligence. No companies have been named yet in connection with the raids.  “As long as the investigation is ongoing, no charges have been filed,” Valentine Hoen, a spokeswoman for the Dutch prosecutor’s office responsible for the investigation, told Mongabay. Hoen declined to share details about the investigation including which companies or individuals could be charged. Teak (Tectona grandis) is a tropical tree species native to South and Southeast Asia. Its wood is used to make high-end furniture and is favored for making boat decks because it is highly durable.  India, Indonesia, and Myanmar are the biggest&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/tainted-timber-from-myanmar-widely-used-in-yachts-seized-in-the-netherlands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/tainted-timber-from-myanmar-widely-used-in-yachts-seized-in-the-netherlands/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-225677</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Seeking justice against palm oil firms, victims call out banks behind them</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/palm-oil-banks-dutch-indonesia-liberia-astra-agro-gvl/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/palm-oil-banks-dutch-indonesia-liberia-astra-agro-gvl/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Oct 2019 12:55:29 +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/20/2019/10/10105832/20191007_152701_HDR-e1570719699282-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=223287</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Europe, European Union, Indonesia, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conflict, Environment, Finance, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Palm Oil, Plantations, Resource Conflict, and Social Conflict]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[G-1801-55636, 2018-67916]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[AMSTERDAM — Hemsi has been in jail three times since 2006 and filed pleas with 13 government institutions in Indonesia during that period — all in an effort to fight off the oil palm company he alleges is stealing his land. A farmer from Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, Hemsi has also traveled to the capital, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[AMSTERDAM — Hemsi has been in jail three times since 2006 and filed pleas with 13 government institutions in Indonesia during that period — all in an effort to fight off the oil palm company he alleges is stealing his land. A farmer from Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi province, Hemsi has also traveled to the capital, Jakarta, three times to call on the government to protect him and his family. Each time, his pleas have gone unanswered. His last arrest was in December, a day after his wife gave birth to their third child, when he was detained for allegedly stealing palm fruit from his own land — land that PT Mamuang, a subsidiary of plantation giant PT Astra Agro Lestari (AALI), claims as its own. “I’m terribly disappointed with the government because I’ve reported my case with complete evidence and yet they’ve ignored my case and I got sent to jail again,” Hemsi told Mongabay. “I’m frustrated but I’ll keep fighting for my rights because it’s my only hope to provide a livelihood for my family.” Hemsi’s remarks came during a trip to the Netherlands in early October, facilitated by the Dutch environmental NGO Milieudefensie, the Dutch chapter of Friends of the Earth. He reckons that since he can’t get justice back home, he’ll hit the company where it hurts: its funding. In AALI’s case, these would be the Dutch banks ABN AMRO and Rabobank, both of which have financial ties to the Indonesian company. ABN AMRO was the underwriter&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/palm-oil-banks-dutch-indonesia-liberia-astra-agro-gvl/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/palm-oil-banks-dutch-indonesia-liberia-astra-agro-gvl/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-223287</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How to save insects and ourselves</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/the-great-insect-dying-how-to-save-insects-and-ourselves/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/the-great-insect-dying-how-to-save-insects-and-ourselves/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jun 2019 09:50:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/06/06175222/1280px-Compound_eye_of_a_Bumblebee-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=219219</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[The Great Insect Crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Asia, Borneo, Central America, Costa Rica, European Union, Germany, Global, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Latin America, Netherlands, North America, Oceania, Puerto Rico, South Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Animals, Beetles, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Butterflies, Cattle, Climate Change, Conservation, Controversial, Deforestation, Ecology, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Extreme Weather, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Green, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Herbicides, Industrial Agriculture, Insects, Land Use Change, Logging, Mass Extinction, Moths, Natural Capital, Pesticides, Pollinators, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Ranching, Research, Spiders, Temperate Forests, Tropical Deforestation, Weather, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In recent months a debate over whether a global insect apocalypse is underway has raged in the mainstream media and among researchers. To assess the range of scientific opinion, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists working on six continents, in more than a dozen countries, to better determine what we know, what we don’t, and most importantly — what we should do about it. This is part 4 of a four part exclusive series written by Mongabay senior contributor Jeremy Hance. Click on the following links to read part 1, part 2, and part 3. They formed the unlikeliest of survey teams: in 2017, University of Reno entomologist Lee Dyer, graduate student Danielle Salcido, and executives from some of the world’s biggest banks spent a week roughing it at a gathering facilitated by the Earthwatch Institute. The team chatted, laughed, hiked and scrounged the coniferous forests of Arizona’s Chiricahua National Forest hunting for bugs. At night, the researchers gave presentations about the impacts of global warming on insect populations. On the last day, a researcher offered a talk on the value of native plantings around homes — a message that really connected. “They loved that talk; discussion ensued, and they left with excitement to plant native trees in their yards,” says Salcido. But she worries whether this small-scale solution undercut a week’s worth of messaging to get these powerful people to comprehend the links between a rapidly warming world, plummeting insect populations, and the impacts both may have on ecosystems and civilization.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/the-great-insect-dying-how-to-save-insects-and-ourselves/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/the-great-insect-dying-how-to-save-insects-and-ourselves/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-219219</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dutch banks’ customers ‘unknowingly’ profit from palm oil companies</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/12/dutch-banks-customers-unknowingly-profit-from-palm-oil-companies/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/12/dutch-banks-customers-unknowingly-profit-from-palm-oil-companies/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2018 00:32:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Thessa Lageman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/06/12110528/4-sabah_0801-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=213588</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Europe, Global, Indonesia, Netherlands, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Banking, Environment, Palm Oil, and Plantations]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[2017-65500]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dutch banks ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank are failing to inform their customers that investment funds they offer include shares in palm oil companies damaging the environment in Indonesia, according to a new report by Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands). Some of these funds have been labeled as “sustainable,” despite having shares in companies [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dutch banks ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank are failing to inform their customers that investment funds they offer include shares in palm oil companies damaging the environment in Indonesia, according to a new report by Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands). Some of these funds have been labeled as “sustainable,” despite having shares in companies with a track record of misconduct, according to the report, titled “Investment Funds: The untold story about the link between Dutch banks and industrial palm oil companies.” The report examines the links between the three Dutch banks and a selection of mostly Indonesian palm oil companies and conglomerates. “Although not all of the 81 selected palm oil companies have similar social and environmentally abusive practices,” the researchers write, “the industrial palm oil industry as a whole remains rife with controversy and human rights violations in the production chain.” These problems, such as deforestation, environmental degradation, pollution and the exploitation of workers, were described in another report published recently by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, titled “Draw The Line: A black book about the shady investments of Dutch Banks into palm oil.” Palm oil can be found in an endless array of supermarket products, including shampoo, soap, peanut butter, chocolate spread, milk powder, pizza and chips. Pungkat in Sumatra is an example of a village that suffers from the effects of the palm oil industry, activists say. “Before, the villagers could drink water and eat fish from the river,” says Devi Indriani, an advocacy and campaign&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/12/dutch-banks-customers-unknowingly-profit-from-palm-oil-companies/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/12/dutch-banks-customers-unknowingly-profit-from-palm-oil-companies/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-213588</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As climate change takes its toll, world leaders call for adaptation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/as-climate-change-takes-its-toll-world-leaders-call-for-adaptation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/as-climate-change-takes-its-toll-world-leaders-call-for-adaptation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Oct 2018 07:41:35 +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/20/2018/02/22094317/Photo07_Adaptation-Bangladesh_KatiaNicolova-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=211152</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, climate finance, Climate Science, Environment, Extreme Weather, Food, Governance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Impact Of Climate Change, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Leaders from 17 countries, including China and India, have joined a new initiative aimed at helping vulnerable nations deal with the fallout from climate change. The Global Commission on Adaptation, launched at The Hague on Oct. 16, is led by Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary-general; Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates; and Kristalina [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Leaders from 17 countries, including China and India, have joined a new initiative aimed at helping vulnerable nations deal with the fallout from climate change. The Global Commission on Adaptation, launched at The Hague on Oct. 16, is led by Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary-general; Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates; and Kristalina Georgieva, chief executive of the World Bank. The commission is looking beyond measures to rein in global warming and grapple instead with the question of how to help countries adapt to the threats posed by a changing climate. The launch of the global commission comes on the heels of a landmark report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warns that humanity only has 12 years to keep the global temperature increase to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Failure to do so, the report predicts, will have catastrophic consequences: Up to 10 million more people would be exposed to permanent inundation, and several hundred million more to climate-related risks, rendering them susceptible to poverty. Malaria and dengue fever would be more widespread, and yields of crops like maize, rice and wheat would diminish, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. “It’s challenging but it’s feasible to stay below 1.5 [degrees Celsius],” Ban said on a press call. “There’s no question, reducing emission remains a priority and we must do all we can to prevent [global warming]. But even if emission reduction efforts succeed, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/as-climate-change-takes-its-toll-world-leaders-call-for-adaptation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/as-climate-change-takes-its-toll-world-leaders-call-for-adaptation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-211152</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Better than bottled: How a Dutch company uses bison to maintain pure drinking water</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/04/better-than-bottled-how-a-dutch-company-uses-bison-to-maintain-pure-drinking-water/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/04/better-than-bottled-how-a-dutch-company-uses-bison-to-maintain-pure-drinking-water/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Apr 2018 06:32:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Joshua Parfitt]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Maria Angeles Salazar]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/04/26060502/bisons-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=206165</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bison, Conservation, Drinking Water, Environment, Water, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A photographer and I have been walking for an hour through Zuid-Kennemerland National Park, which is sandwiched between the North Sea and the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. You’re either crazy or a cyclist to be out in the windswept coastal dunelands during the winter months. But we’re here for a different activity in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A photographer and I have been walking for an hour through Zuid-Kennemerland National Park, which is sandwiched between the North Sea and the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. You’re either crazy or a cyclist to be out in the windswept coastal dunelands during the winter months. But we’re here for a different activity in the most densely populated country in the European Union: bison watching. Most of the Bison Trail is spent sloshing through sand that lies just below the surface all along the heavily developed western part of the Netherlands, also known as the Randstad megalopolis. Yellow-painted poles demarcate this sanctioned trail, which travels up and over the shoulders of shifting dunes as they struggle to hang on to their toupees of marram grass in the frigid wind. Panting, bent double, I spot two official-looking chaps kitted out with waterproofs and binoculars the size of elephant tusks. “Have you seen the bison?” I venture. “They’re sheltering in the woods over there,” one of them replies through thick gray stubble, pointing over undulating dunes to the far side of the 330-hectare (740-acre) bison enclosure called the Kraansvlak. “But you’re missing out — look,” he continues, gesturing with his tusks toward a nearby stag that lifts up its trophy of antlers. It was lazily grazing just across the dune slack from us, almost annoyed we hadn’t noticed it. The thing that intrigues me, though, is not that my narrow-minded focus has blotted out a resplendent stag. No, it is that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/04/better-than-bottled-how-a-dutch-company-uses-bison-to-maintain-pure-drinking-water/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/04/better-than-bottled-how-a-dutch-company-uses-bison-to-maintain-pure-drinking-water/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-206165</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Major Dutch timber company found guilty of dealing in illegal teak</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/major-dutch-timber-company-found-guilty-of-dealing-in-illegal-teak/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/major-dutch-timber-company-found-guilty-of-dealing-in-illegal-teak/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Nov 2017 17:50:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/11/02174844/animals_01908-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=200787</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Europe, European Union, Myanmar, Netherlands, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Environment, Forest Loss, Forests, Habitat Loss, Illegal Logging, Rainforests, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[An investigation has revealed a major Dutch timber company placed illegally sourced teak from Myanmar on the European market, prompting the Dutch Food and Safety Authority to rule the company in breach of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). A second company, not yet named, was also found guilty of violating EUTR requirements. Under the EUTR, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An investigation has revealed a major Dutch timber company placed illegally sourced teak from Myanmar on the European market, prompting the Dutch Food and Safety Authority to rule the company in breach of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). A second company, not yet named, was also found guilty of violating EUTR requirements. Under the EUTR, companies must conduct due diligence to ensure they don’t allow illegally sourced timber into their supply chains and onto the market. The Dutch Food and Safety Authority found Boogaerdt Hout violated these due diligence requirements when bringing Burmese teak into the European market. The Dutch government has given Boogaerdt Houta two months in which to clear its supply chain of Burmese teak. If after that time the company has still not complied, it will be fined 20,000 euros ($23,000) per cubic meter of illegal timber. Teak (Tectona grandis) is native to South and Southeast Asia, and its wood is prized for use in high-end furniture and boats. While most teak on the market today comes from plantations, some is still illegally sourced from Myanmar. The extraction of this Burmese teak has been denounced by conservationists, who say its trade is helping fuel rampant illegal logging in the country. Myanmar&#8217;s forests are still home to around 80 Indochinese tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti), which are listed as Endangered by the IUCN. (Photo shown is of a Malaya tiger, which is similar in appearance to the Indochinese subspecies.) The investigation that provided evidence toward the ruling against Boogaerdt&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/major-dutch-timber-company-found-guilty-of-dealing-in-illegal-teak/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/major-dutch-timber-company-found-guilty-of-dealing-in-illegal-teak/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-200787</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Public hearing concludes Vietnam fails to crack down on wildlife trafficking</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/public-hearing-concludes-vietnam-fails-to-crack-down-on-wildlife-trafficking/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/public-hearing-concludes-vietnam-fails-to-crack-down-on-wildlife-trafficking/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Nov 2016 15:32:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Azarja Harmanny]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/11/16145126/desert-elephants-in-Namibia-by-Rhett-Butler-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=190947</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Europe, Netherlands, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Animals, Biodiversity, Crime, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Law Enforcement, Poaching, Rhinos, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Vietnam made headlines this week for burning tons of ivory and rhino horn in the run-up to a high-profile anti-trafficking conference in Hanoi. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, participants in a public hearing concluded that despite these dramatic public gestures, the country is falling short of its obligations to curb the wildlife [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Vietnam made headlines this week for burning tons of ivory and rhino horn in the run-up to a high-profile anti-trafficking conference in Hanoi. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, participants in a public hearing concluded that despite these dramatic public gestures, the country is falling short of its obligations to curb the wildlife trade. Following the hearing &#8212; held Nov. 14-15 at the Vredespaleis (Peace Palace) in The Hague, Netherlands &#8212; an independent panel of legal experts determined the government of Vietnam fails to comply with international conventions the country has signed by allowing illegal wildlife trafficking networks to operate with near impunity within its borders. The panel called on Vietnam to take stronger measures to enforce the relevant laws and dismantle wildlife trafficking networks operating in the country. It also recommended Vietnam create an interdisciplinary police task force to deal with root causes such as corruption and to bring perpetrators of wildlife trafficking to justice. 480 kilograms of ivory for sale in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of WJC. The hearing was organized by Netherlands-based NGO Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), which recently conducted an investigation into wildlife trafficking in the country. “Our hope by holding this hearing is that it will lead to the Vietnamese authorities arresting and sentencing the individuals identified in our investigation,” Olivia Swaak-Goldman, director of the WJC, told Mongabay. “The problem is not a lack of laws – these are already in place. What is lacking is the political will to deal with these crimes.”&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/public-hearing-concludes-vietnam-fails-to-crack-down-on-wildlife-trafficking/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/public-hearing-concludes-vietnam-fails-to-crack-down-on-wildlife-trafficking/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-190947</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Progress being made in curbing illegal timber imports</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/progress-being-made-in-curbing-illegal-timber-imports/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/progress-being-made-in-curbing-illegal-timber-imports/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Nov 2014 20:16:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/11/progress-being-made-in-curbing-illegal-timber-imports/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Britain, China, Europe, France, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Certification, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forestry, Forests, Green, Illegal Logging, Lacey Act, Logging, and Timber]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by Chatham House. The analysis &#8212; which covers Britain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States &#8212; is based on point of origin data for [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by Chatham House. The analysis &#8212; which covers Britain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States &#8212; is based on point of origin data for timber imports. For example, countries and states with high risk of illegal logging and timber laundering would hurt an importer&#8217;s rating. Overall the collection of reports estimate that four percent of timber imports by volume are at &#8220;high risk of illegality&#8221;. It pegs the value of these timber and paper products at $7 billion. Of the five countries assessed, Japan has the highest proportion of high risk imports, chiefly because of large volumes of trade with China, Russia, and Malaysia &#8212; all of which have problems with illegally sourced wood. Chatham House attributes the decline in suspect timber imports to several factors, including recent legislation passed in the United States (the Lacey Act) and Europe (Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade or FLEGT). &#8220;Governments and the private sector in all five consumer countries have made concerted efforts to address the issue of illegal imports of wood-based products, including by passing legislation, implementing public procurement policies, signing up to certification schemes and working in partnership with producer countries. However, all have room for improvement,&#8221; said Alison Hoare, senior research fellow at Chatham House, in a statement. &#8220;France has been slow to adopt legislation setting out sanctions&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/progress-being-made-in-curbing-illegal-timber-imports/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/progress-being-made-in-curbing-illegal-timber-imports/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24413</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;Stop using the bloody things&#8217;: pesticides linked to bee collapse now blamed for bird declines</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/07/stop-using-the-bloody-things-pesticides-linked-to-bee-collapse-now-blamed-for-bird-declines/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/07/stop-using-the-bloody-things-pesticides-linked-to-bee-collapse-now-blamed-for-bird-declines/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2014 14:28:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/07/stop-using-the-bloody-things-pesticides-linked-to-bee-collapse-now-blamed-for-bird-declines/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Bees, Birds, Chemicals, Environment, Farming, Global Environmental Crisis, Green, Insects, Pesticides, Politics, Pollinators, Pollution, and Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In recent years the evidence has piled up that neonicotinoids&#8212;a hugely popular group of pesticide&#8212;may be at least partly responsible for ongoing bee and pollinator collapse. But new research in the journal Nature find that these pesticides could also be taking a heavy toll on other species, in this case common birds. Using longterm data [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In recent years the evidence has piled up that neonicotinoids&#8212;a hugely popular group of pesticide&#8212;may be at least partly responsible for ongoing bee and pollinator collapse. But new research in the journal Nature find that these pesticides could also be taking a heavy toll on other species, in this case common birds. Using longterm data of bird populations in the Netherlands, researchers found that where water samples showed high contamination levels of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, bird populations plunged. The scientists could find no other explanation&#8212;including habitat loss&#8212;for the decline in birds that are abundant elsewhere. According to lead author, Hans de Kroon from Radboud University, their research took an unusual approach on the impact of neonicotinoids. &#8220;All the other studies build up from toxicology studies. But we approached this completely from the other end. We started with the bird population data and tried to explain the declines,&#8221; de Kroom told the Guardian. &#8220;Our study really makes the evidence complete that something is going on here. We can&#8217;t go on like this any more. It has to stop.&#8221; In areas where the researchers found imidacloprid levels of 20 nanograms per a liter of water, bird populations were declining at 3.5 percent every year. And in some places imidacloprid levels were 50 times higher. The barn swallow was one of 15 birds studied by the scientists. Photo by: Malene Thyssen/Creative Commons 3.0. The researchers believe that at such levels the pesticides are wiping out many of the insects the birds depend&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/07/stop-using-the-bloody-things-pesticides-linked-to-bee-collapse-now-blamed-for-bird-declines/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/07/stop-using-the-bloody-things-pesticides-linked-to-bee-collapse-now-blamed-for-bird-declines/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24935</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Lab-grown meat: a taste of the future?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/lab-grown-meat-a-taste-of-the-future/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/lab-grown-meat-a-taste-of-the-future/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jun 2014 21:47:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/06/lab-grown-meat-a-taste-of-the-future/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Meat, Methane, Strange, and Technology]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Many problems surround growing animals for meat. Most of the deforestation of the Amazon is done to create pasture for cattle; the meat industry is also responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to five percent of the world’s total atmospheric carbon load and nearly 40 percent of its methane. Ethically, conventional meat is fraught [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Many problems surround growing animals for meat. Most of the deforestation of the Amazon is done to create pasture for cattle; the meat industry is also responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to five percent of the world’s total atmospheric carbon load and nearly 40 percent of its methane. Ethically, conventional meat is fraught with dispute, as animals must first be killed for their tissue. Numerous animal rights organizations also protest the conditions in which many animals are raised, such as factory farms in which thousands of animals spend their lives packed together. A new analysis published in Trends in Biotechnology describes one solution to the environmental and ethical problems of conventional meat production: growing meat without growing the animal. The authors write that cultured meat could someday replace conventional meat – if its price is brought down and its quality is improved. Also referred to as in vitro meat, test-tube meat, or “shmeat,” cultured meat is made using muscle stem cells collected from living animals. The cells are immersed in a nutrient bath, where they multiply and eventually form strips of tissue that can be processed into a product that has a consistency similar to canned meat or finely ground hamburger. A recipe for cultured meat. The left column shows the stepwise increase in cell-culture volume, starting with a vial from the working cell bank (note that a new working cell bank is made from a vial from the master cell bank). Exponentially growing cells from each step&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/lab-grown-meat-a-taste-of-the-future/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/lab-grown-meat-a-taste-of-the-future/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-25142</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>31 activists arrested attempting to stop Arctic oil from docking in Europe</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/31-activists-arrested-attempting-to-stop-arctic-oil-from-docking-in-europe/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/31-activists-arrested-attempting-to-stop-arctic-oil-from-docking-in-europe/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2014 19:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/05/31-activists-arrested-attempting-to-stop-arctic-oil-from-docking-in-europe/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Arctic, Arctic Ocean, Asia, Europe, Greenland, Netherlands, and Russia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Green, Nonviolence, and Oil]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dutch police arrested 31 Greenpeace activists today, who were attempting to block the Russian oil tanker, Mikhail Ulyanov, from delivering the first shipment of offshore Arctic oil to the European market. Greenpeace opposes drilling in the Arctic due to the difficulty of cleaning up any oil spill in remote, ice-filled waters, and the exacerbation of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dutch police arrested 31 Greenpeace activists today, who were attempting to block the Russian oil tanker, Mikhail Ulyanov, from delivering the first shipment of offshore Arctic oil to the European market. Greenpeace opposes drilling in the Arctic due to the difficulty of cleaning up any oil spill in remote, ice-filled waters, and the exacerbation of global climate change from exploiting new fossil fuel sources. Among those arrested was the captain of the Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, who last year spent months in a Russian prison along with 27 other activists and two journalists for protesting the country&#8217;s Arctic oil drilling scheme. Seven other activists from the so-called &#8220;Arctic 30&#8221; also took part in today&#8217;s action. At the Rotterdam Port, activists painted &#8220;No Arctic Oil&#8221; on the Russian oil tanker&#8217;s side, while others in inflatable boats blocked the tanker from initially offloading the oil. The oil comes from the Prirazlomanaya platform in the Pechora sea off the northern coast of Siberia. The platform is run by Russia&#8217;s state-owned company, Gazprom, and is the first in the world to drill into the Arctic sea bed for oil. Greenpeace blocking the Mikhail Ulyanov from docking. Photo by: Reuben Neugbauer. The captain piloting the Mikhail Ulyanov, Stanislav Chichin, told Associated Press that Greenpeace had put the ship&#8217;s safety in jeopardy. &#8220;Maneuvering in the confined waters of a port is no less dangerous than sailing in the Arctic, especially when another vessel is trying to interfere with a tanker transporting 67,000 tonnes of crude&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/31-activists-arrested-attempting-to-stop-arctic-oil-from-docking-in-europe/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/31-activists-arrested-attempting-to-stop-arctic-oil-from-docking-in-europe/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-25305</doi>				</item>
			</channel>
</rss>