Conservation news

South America’s farms depend, in part, on a healthy Amazon

Rhett Ayers Butler — 22 Jun 2026 08:30:41 +0000

The Amazon is often described in terms of how much carbon it stores. It also moves vast amounts of water. Its trees draw moisture from the soil and return it to the air through transpiration. Some rain caught by the canopy also evaporates back into the atmosphere. That moisture falls again, some of it inside the basin and some of it far downwind. For much of South America, the forest helps sustain rainfall, farming, hydropower, and urban water supplies. A recent paper in Nature, by Nico Wunderling and colleagues, gives this hydrological role greater weight in the climate case for the Amazon. The authors used a dynamical systems model and atmospheric moisture tracking to estimate how deforestation and warming interact across the basin. Without deforestation, their model finds a critical global warming threshold of about 3.7 to 4.0 degrees Celsius, beyond which up to a third of the Amazon forest risks losing stability. When deforestation is included, the risk becomes much larger at a lower level of warming. Under deforestation of 22% to 28% of the biome and warming of 1.5 to 1.9 degrees Celsius, the model finds a near system-wide transition affecting 62% to 77% of the forest. Rain over the Amazon. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler Those numbers should be treated carefully. The Amazon is not a single ecological unit. Western forests, southern forests, flooded forests, upland forests, secondary forests, and fire-damaged edges differ in species composition, rainfall, soils, and drought tolerance. A model cannot capture every…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain

Rhett Ayers Butler — 19 Feb 2026 00:40:28 +0000

Rainfall is often treated as a gift of geography — a function of latitude, oceans, and atmospheric circulation. A growing body of research suggests that in the tropics, it is also a product of ecosystems. Forests do not merely receive rain. They help generate it, regulate its distribution, and sustain the conditions that allow it to persist. “Quantifying tropical forest rainfall generation”, a review paper recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, attempts to measure a process long recognized but rarely expressed in concrete terms: how much rain forests themselves produce. By combining satellite observations with climate models, the authors estimate that each square meter of tropical forest generates roughly 240 liters of rainfall per year across the broader landscape, rising to about 300 liters in the Amazon Basin. Rather than treating forests as passive recipients of climate, the study depicts them as active participants in shaping it. The mechanism begins with evapotranspiration. Trees draw water from soils and release it into the atmosphere through their leaves. This vapor contributes to cloud formation and precipitation downwind. While the physics is familiar, the novelty lies in quantifying the effect at scale. On average, each percentage point of tropical forest loss reduces regional rainfall by about 2.4 millimeters annually, with larger effects in the Amazon. Satellite observations suggest even stronger impacts than most models, implying that current projections may underestimate the hydrological consequences of deforestation. Sunrise over the Pinipini river in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Forests export…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Beyond deforestation: redesigning how we protect and value tropical forests (analysis)

Rhett Ayers Butler — 03 Nov 2025 15:57:11 +0000

Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, it seemed worth looking today’s trajectories a little further forward and imagine where they might lead. Part 1 looked at possible fates of tropical forests. The first act of the forest crisis was destruction. The second, if there is to be one, must be design—deliberate, structural, and sustained. The world already knows what is burning; what it hasn’t decided is whether it truly wants to stop it. Last year’s fires tore through more than three million hectares of tropical primary forest, most of it in South America. Drought and El Niño played their part, but so did the same chronic weaknesses: fragmented governance, cheap credit for land clearance, and a market that rewards destruction faster than it rewards restraint. The causes are structural, which means the solutions will have to be as well. Power to those who already protect More than a third of the world’s intact forests lie on Indigenous and community lands. Where rights are recognized, deforestation typically drops. The logic is simple. People with secure tenure have reason to manage land for the long term. Yet only a fraction of community lands in the tropics have legal title. Recognition processes crawl through bureaucracy, while investors and speculators tend to advance quickly. A first-order intervention, therefore, is legal rather than technical: accelerating the transfer of rights. That means repairing broken land registries: mapping who actually owns what and granting legal title to the communities already…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Indigenous rubber bounces back for Amazon conservation and higher income

Sarah Brown — 08 Jul 2025 14:15:57 +0000

In the Igarapé Lourdes Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, community members gather to listen to José Palahv Gavião. An Indigenous teacher and cooperative leader, he speaks about the past and the future of Amazonian rubber. Rubber extracted from forest trees was a major Brazilian commodity in the 1800s and early 1900s. But for the Indigenous Gavião people of this part of Rondônia state, it also meant exploitation and suffering. Today, however, the community has reclaimed it as an opportunity for income and forest protection, especially for Indigenous youths. According to José, many young people seek better economic opportunities outside the community. But he says it’s important to balance these ambitions with efforts to protect the forest that sustains them. “In every meeting I go to, I always highlight this point: If we don’t give value to the rainforest’s products, it won’t take long before it’s gone,” José tells Mongabay. “It helps reverse that mindset. Because when a seed collector earns income from that tree, they won’t want to cut it down.” The Gavião of Rondônia worked under exploitative conditions imposed by rubber extractors following their first contact with outsiders. Due to land conflicts and the advance of external development projects, they eventually abandoned rubber tapping in the late 1980s. By then, rubber was being harvested at industrial scales from vast plantations of rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis), obviating the need to venture into the forest to collect it. The process of tapping rubber in the wild starts with making incisions…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Scientists are tracking global wildlife’s contributions to humanity

John Cannon — 23 Jan 2025 20:28:47 +0000

In October 2020, the hoofbeats of American bison thumped across the prairie of the Rosebud Reservation for the first time in more than a century. Years in the works, the release of 100 bison (Bison bison) in the U.S. state of South Dakota resulted from a collaboration between the Sicangu Lakota Oyate Nation, WWF and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The goal was to bring a critical species back to the North American Great Plains, from which they’d nearly been exterminated in the 1800s. In doing so, the hope was to reinvigorate the relationships between North America’s largest land animal, the landscape and its people. For the Indigenous Sicangu Lakota Oyate, the release marked a resurgent spiritual connection, one based on an ancient kinship they share with the bison. The return is expected to reap more quantifiable rewards, too. Thanks to their habits and bulk, bison shape the environment in unique and profound ways. Their hooves aerate the soil, stimulating the growth of grasses, which pull carbon from the atmosphere. Their restless feeding habits and predilection for wallowing leave behind pockets of habitat favored by a variety of birds. And their dung and urine leave behind nutrients and seeds. The Rosebud Reservation bison offer just one example of how bringing back wildlife to a landscape enhances the value of what scientists call nature’s contributions to people (NCPs), according to Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, WWF’s global biodiversity lead scientist. “Without some rewilding — without, in this case, bringing back this keystone species…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Strengthening crops with insect exoskeletons? Study says yes, by way of the soil

Juliette Portala — 12 Jun 2023 15:07:14 +0000

The latest recipe is here: you’ll need a cup of minerals, two tablespoons of air and water, a few billion microorganisms, a teaspoon of organic matter and … a pinch of old bug skin. No need to bake, your soil is ready to be sown. A study published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment last year found that adding insect exuviae — the remains of exoskeletons that arthropods cast off after molting — to soils positively impacts plant reproduction. The researchers found that after treatments of black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) exuviae to soils, plants grew hardier and more resilient. Each black soldier fly larva can consume up to 200 milligrams of food waste per day. Image by James Tiono via Unsplash. The black soldier fly strikes again I decompose your trash, feed your animals, and gives your plants a boost. Who am I? The black soldier fly, or the BSF. With rising concerns over sustainability, insects have gained momentum in the agricultural sector because of their capacity to reduce organic waste and convert it into a high-quality source of protein for livestock. Currently, BSFs are the most widely used insects produced for animal feed, namely for fish, poultry and pigs. But what if BSF could also improve plant health? With this in mind, Katherine Barragán-Fonseca, a researcher with Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands and lead author of the 2022 paper, investigated the benefits of the sleek-looking fly beyond its current uses: her team mixed powdered BSF exuviae…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘It sustains us all’: IPBES report calls for accounting of nature’s diverse values

John Cannon — 04 Aug 2022 07:24:51 +0000

A focus on valuing nature through the lens of the market has contributed to the global biodiversity crisis, according to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES produced an in-depth assessment in 2019, concluding that 1 million species of plants and animals could go extinct as part of the worldwide decline in species. Building on that assessment, the authors of this new report note that the push for economic growth, at times leading to the unchecked consumption of resources and destruction of habitat, has helped to drive this slide. “Biodiversity is being lost and nature’s contributions to people are being degraded faster now [than] at any other point in human history,” Ana María Hernández Salgar, the IPBES chair, said in a statement. “This is largely because our current approach to political and economic decisions does not sufficiently account for the diversity of nature’s values.” Aerial view of Favela da Rocinha, Brazil. “Biodiversity is being lost and nature’s contributions to people are being degraded faster now [than] at any other point in human history,” Ana María Hernández Salgar, the IPBES chair, said in a statement. Image by Donatas Dabravolskas/Shutterstock.com. The new report, released July 11, focuses on the ways in which human societies value nature. “Market-based” values, such as the use of land for industrial-scale agriculture or the clearance of forest for timber that can be sold, have been dominant. But, the report says, shifting how humans look at the worth of natural…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Funding for women-led conservation remains tiny, but that’s changing fast

Dimitri Selibas — 20 Apr 2022 16:50:55 +0000

Women-led philanthropy garnered renewed attention after MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced in March that she had given away $3.9 billion in grants to 465 organizations since June last year — around 60% of them led by women. Women-led NGOs are rare in many sectors, including climate change. Currently, 80% of climate philanthropy goes to NGOs led by men, according to a report by the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity. And 90% of philanthropic funding for climate change goes to organizations led by white people. Erica Flock, communications and advocacy director at U.S.-based Rachel’s Network, says both women and the environment make up a very small portion of philanthropy dollars. “The work we are doing now is funding those people who … might be ignored because they are not led by a white guy necessarily,” Flock says. “Often these smaller groups do have track records of success and helping their communities, but they are often doing it without a lot of support.” Rachel’s Network, named after the late pioneering conservationist Rachel Carson, was founded to break down structural barriers faced by women environmentalists. Every year, the network’s catalyst award program provides women environmental leaders of color with a $10,000 prize, networking opportunities, and public recognition of their work. “The people on the ground know what they’re doing, they are closest to the work and we need to make it easier for them to get funding,” Flock says, adding that trust-based philanthropy has become an increasingly important…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘Nature has priority’: Rewilding map showcases nature-led restoration

John Cannon — 11 Apr 2022 11:10:48 +0000

In the past decade, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made a comeback in Central and Eastern Europe. Hunters had killed the last known bison in the region nearly a century ago. But thanks to reintroduction programs in Belarus, Poland, Russia and Romania, nearly four times as many bison are alive today as there were in 2003. The increase, to some 7,000 animals, was enough to prompt the IUCN to downgrade the European bison’s conservation status from vulnerable to near threatened in 2020. The largest of Romania’s free-roaming herds lives in the Țarcu Mountains, a low-slung range in the Southern Carpathians heavy with old-growth forest. The reintroduction of the bison, including the recent addition of two males and six females in 2020, is a collaboration of WWF Romania and the Netherlands-based nonprofit Rewilding Europe. It’s also one of dozens of rewilding projects featured on a new map from the Global Rewilding Alliance that was officially launched April 11. “I wasn’t aware that you have [wild bison] going through Romania,” said Alexander Watson, CEO of OpenForests, the social enterprise company based in Germany hosting the rewilding project map. European bison in Monts d’Azur Biological Reserve, France. In the past decade, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made a comeback in Central and Eastern Europe. Image by Valène Aure via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Watson said the details of these types of projects are now available to the public and to other organizations through the map, providing not only ideas but proof of what’s possible…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘No planet B’: Groups call for $60bn increase in annual biodiversity funding

John Cannon — 13 Mar 2022 02:30:37 +0000

International conservation groups are calling on countries in the Global North to provide billions more dollars every year to protect the world’s biodiversity. “The future of humanity is literally at stake. People are destroying and consuming nature at devastating rates,” Patricia Zurita, the CEO of BirdLife International, said at a virtual press conference on March 1. “Wealthy countries must support and agree to a target of providing at least 60 billion US dollars annually for international finance for biodiversity to developing countries.” The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity began negotiations on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework on March 13 in Geneva, Switzerland, and will continue through March 29. Later this year, more than 190 countries are expected to sign onto the framework, which is a strategy to protect species through 2030, at the convention’s biannual meeting to be held in Kunming, China. Currently, the dates are set for April 25 through May 8. Hyenas on the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania. Image by John C. Cannon/Mongabay. The groups calling for the boost in funding say the stakes are high: Research suggests that we are in the midst of a sixth global extinction, and a key report released in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that around 1 million species of plants and animals could disappear, potentially within several decades. A 2012 study in the journal Nature found that 30% of threats to species worldwide comes from international trade, overwhelmingly to the benefit…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Malaysian officials dampen prospects for giant, secret carbon deal in Sabah

John Cannon — 10 Feb 2022 20:33:18 +0000

An agreement for the rights to the natural capital covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) in Malaysian Borneo for the next 100 years “in its present form is legally impotent,” according to Nor Asiah Mohd Yusof, the attorney general for the state of Sabah. Nor Asiah’s assertions are the strongest signal yet that the sweeping pact involving a Singaporean shell company lacks the support of key leaders in the state. “The State Government will not permit any land to be leased, transferred or otherwise ‘handed over’ as part of any carbon trading or carbon monetisation program,” she said in a Feb. 9 statement. “This includes the proposed NCA.” The NCA, short for nature conservation agreement, was signed between leaders of the state of Sabah and representatives of Singapore-based Hoch Standard Ptd. Ltd. on Oct. 28, 2021. Though the specifics of the NCA remain vague, it enlists Hoch Standard to help the state sell credits for carbon sequestration, water provisioning and other natural capital stemming from the protection of Sabah’s forests from logging and other potentially destructive uses. In return for its services, Hoch Standard will get 30% of the revenue, according to the deal’s terms. A community in western Sabah. Image by John C. Cannon/Mongabay. Mongabay reported on Nov. 9 that the deal had been struck in secret. One person who said he was involved in the negotiations — Peter Burgess, the Australian CEO of Malaysia-based Global Nature Capital Sdn. Bhd. and Tierra Australia Pty. Ltd. — told Mongabay…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal

John Cannon — 17 Dec 2021 10:06:53 +0000

Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah’s attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Adrian Lasimbang, an Indigenous leader in Malaysian Borneo, is suing the state of Sabah, contesting a recently signed agreement selling the rights to carbon and other natural capital from 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest to a foreign company for the next 100 years. The deal allows Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean holding company, to sell credits for carbon and other natural capital, such as the provision of clean water, on the global market. It also calls for the protection and restoration of forests that would make these credits possible. And it stipulates that Sabah’s 70% share of the revenues, which according to the agreement’s backers, would go to funding employment, education and health care set forth by guidelines such as the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. The remaining 30% of revenues would go to Hoch Standard. Tawai Forest Reserve in Sabah, seen from the air. Image © LEAP. Civil society and Indigenous communities have criticized the agreement, which was signed by representatives of the state government and a Singapore-based company on Oct. 28. They say it bypassed substantive input and consent from the people living in and around Sabah’s forests. And, until recently, the framers of the agreement have shared scant information about the company (or companies) involved in the agreement and who they are led by. Lasimbang, who is a technical adviser…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Inland mangroves reveal a tumultuous climatic past — and hint at our future

John Cannon — 14 Oct 2021 10:48:19 +0000

Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University of Tabasco. The red mangrove tree (Rhizophora mangle) does inhabit freshwater environs — Cuba’s Bay of Pigs and the Florida Everglades are two notable examples. But mangroves sitting at least 170 kilometers (106 miles) inland? That seemed unlikely. “You probably got your botanical identification wrong because it doesn’t seem plausible that mangroves are growing in a river with freshwater at such a distance from the coast,” Ezcurra, a professor of ecology at the University of California, Riverside, told Burelo-Ramos. But a confident Burelo-Ramos pushed back, respectfully telling Ezcurra, “I’m a good taxonomist. I know my plants, and this is red mangrove.” A tall red mangrove provides habitat to various epiphytic cacti and orchid species, creating an ecosystem unique in the world. Image by Octavio Aburto. “That sort of stirred my curiosity,” Ezcurra told Mongabay. Sure enough, on a trip to visit the San Pedro Mártir with his daughters, he found red mangrove, which, unlike other mangrove species that grow in the Gulf of Mexico, can take up residence in habitats free of salt, at least the sodium chloride variety pervasive in the world’s oceans. The trees exist atop calcium-rich limestone known as karst, which previous research has shown supports salt-loving mangrove trees. Red mangrove wasn’t the only shoreline-dwelling species he found in the middle of the state of Tabasco at…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Building back Miami’s Biscayne Bay: Do natural solutions hold hope?

Marlowe Starling — 14 Jul 2021 13:12:06 +0000

MIAMI — Along the Miami shoreline, luxury high-rises and condominiums run parallel to Biscayne Bay, one of South Florida’s most biodiverse ecosystems, characterized by its once abundant coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves. But increasing population pressure, pollution, and the effects of climate change have left the bay in shambles. Reefs are dying, seagrass beds have disappeared, and algal blooms have depleted the bay’s marine life as a result of nutrient pollution and hotter temperatures, leaving organisms starved for oxygen. Amid the pandemic, though, a tragic “aha! moment” brought a renewed commitment to the bay. A massive fish kill in August 2020 prompted communities across Miami to amp up their efforts to restore balance to the bay. The work of scientists, activists and city officials in particular has turned toward effectively undoing more than a century of damage to an ecosystem now in haphazard flux. One of the questions that remains at the fore of the conversation over Biscayne Bay is: Can nature-based solutions bring it back to life? Two octopi found dead from the August 2020 fish kill. Image courtesy of Miami Waterkeeper. An ominous warning sign In August 2020, Miami Beach residents complained of a rotten stench that wafted across the summer air. Fish, rays, eels, lobsters, shrimp, crabs, octopus, and all kinds of other marine life bobbed lifeless on the surface waters of Biscayne Bay. Scientists familiar with past die-offs sprang into action — this wasn’t Biscayne Bay’s first fish kill — concluding that it was the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A startup deploys black soldier flies in the Philippines’ war on waste

Bong S. Sarmiento — 25 Jun 2021 08:04:07 +0000

MINDANAO, Philippines — Maggots are considered gross since they thrive best in stinky, decaying organic matter such as animal waste and plants. The mere sight of them in a household often prompts a frantic search for a can of insecticide. But in Davao City, the hometown of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, the black soldier fly or BSF (Hermetia illucens), an insect that many confuse with a wasp, is making a buzz as an innovative solution to address the problem of kitchen waste — benefiting both the environment and agriculture. Located 960 kilometers (600 miles) south of the capital Manila, Davao is the largest city in the Philippines in terms of land area, and has grown as the major metropolis in the southern Mindanao region with its catchy “Life Is Here” slogan. Its population has grown from 1.1 million people in 2000 to an estimated 1.8 million in 2020. More people means more garbage. Data from the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) show that Davao has generated at least 600 tons of garbage daily since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year, with about half considered biodegradable that could have been composted at home to make fertilizer. Eighty percent of the trash is from households, while the rest comes from commercial establishments. Data show that Davao has generated at least 600 tons of garbage daily since the COVID-19 pandemic started last year, with about half considered biodegradable that could have been composted at home to make fertilizer. Image courtesy of FiveDOL.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Humanity’s dysfunctional relationship with Earth can still be fixed, report says

Mongabay.com — 22 Apr 2021 19:10:44 +0000

The Earth is a huge floating mass of rock, liquid and gas, weighing a staggering 5.9 sextillion tons. But there’s only one part that supports life: the biosphere, a thin ribbon that wraps around the planet’s surface, stretching about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from top to bottom. Modern humans have lived in the biosphere for about 250,000 years, but as populations have expanded and spread globally, our relationship with the biosphere has become troubled. Humans have drastically altered the land and oceans, and contributed to a reduction in populations of other species. In fact, the current weight of the human population is about 10 times the weight of all wild mammals. Large-scale burning of coal, oil and gas has contributed to a dramatic rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. This, in turn, has led to 1.2° Celsius (2.2° Fahrenheit) of warming compared to pre-industrial levels, threatening our ability to thrive in the only place we can call home. In a new paper in Ambio, published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in the leadup to the upcoming “Our Planet, Our Future” Nobel Prize Summit, a team of international scientists provides an overview of humanity’s volatile relationship with the planet, but also discusses ways in which global sustainability can still be achieved. One of the key points in the report is that humans need to think of ourselves as embedded in the biosphere, rather than being separate from it, and that any societal changes need to bear this…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘Opening the lid’ on toilet innovation: Q&A with author Chelsea Wald

John Cannon — 06 Apr 2021 16:20:45 +0000

Toilets: They’re not any easy subject to discuss. Even though eliminating waste from our bodies is an essential function we all must do, talking about how we deal with that waste as a society, along with the intertwined issues of public health and environmental impacts, doesn’t make for easy conversation. Undaunted, science writer Chelsea Wald takes the subject head-on in her new book, Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet, published by Simon & Schuster. In nearly a decade reporting on human sanitation, Wald has developed the sort of comfort level with talking toilets that allows a nuanced probe into the past, present and future of an everyday subject that has nearly immeasurable implications for ecosystems, the climate, sources of water, and our own health. Perhaps most compelling in the text are Wald’s trips to the field to understand what the challenge of sanitation means to huge proportions of the world’s people. At its root, access to safe, reliable toilets — in all their myriad varieties — boils down to a human rights issue. Diarrheal diseases due to poorly managed waste kill 432,000 people a year. Globally, around 2 billion people don’t have access to a “minimally adequate toilet,” Wald writes. And we can’t stop producing waste. “It’s the only resource that increases with population,” she said a source once told her. “We can’t stop pooping.” “Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet” was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6, 2021. Image…This article was originally published on Mongabay

An economic case for competing in the XPRIZE Rainforest contest (commentary)

Jonah Wittkamper — 01 Mar 2021 09:35:21 +0000

In 2019, XPRIZE Rainforest opened its doors and challenged the world to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies by offering a $10 million prize for the best one. The consequent mobilization will extend over 5 years, will inspire the creation of various new biodiversity tech companies, and can help us discover many new ways to ensure that the Amazon rainforest is worth more alive and standing than cut and burned. What is the economic value of the rainforest? What pre-existing markets can new biodiversity tech tap into for growth beyond the prize? What is the economic argument for XPRIZE Rainforest participation and entrepreneurship? Rainforest in Southern China. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler While rainforests provide $4 trillion/year in value through ecosystem services to the global economy, over $941 billion of annual corporate revenue is at risk due to dependency on commodities linked to deforestation. Correspondingly, a 2019 paper made the financial argument for conserving 30% of terrestrial nature by demonstrating how the economic benefits outweigh the costs by a factor of 5 to 1. And, finally, a 1996 paper outlines a protocol for calculating the commercial value of biodiversity on a given plot of land. If, despite these numbers, governments have failed to halt deforestation to date, can we persuade the private sector to do so based on opportunities for future profits? Based on the numbers, we should be able to. According to data from the 1990s, 25% of pharmaceutical drugs at the time were derived from tropical forests. Of the estimated 80,000 plant species in the Amazon, only 5% have been tested for their…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘Everything on this planet is connected’: Q&A with WWF’s Marco Lambertini

Rhett Ayers Butler — 22 Feb 2021 09:24:12 +0000

As the world works to emerge from the devastation and hardship brought by the pandemic, there has been much talk about the recovery being an opportunity to drive transformative change toward a more sustainable, equitable society that recognizes that human well-being is underpinned by a healthy planet. Much of the focus on this concept has been on cutting carbon emissions from transportation and energy production. There’s been less emphasis on protecting and restoring nature. But there’s a growing movement to push governments, corporations and other entities to frame goals around the idea of becoming “Nature Positive,” which goes well beyond achieving carbon neutrality. Nature Positive aims to protect and restore critical habitats, stave off species extinction, and maintain healthy and productive ecosystems. The Nature Positive movement counts several of the world’s most prominent environmental NGOs among its charter supporters, including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), or the World Wildlife Fund as it is known in Canada and the United States. That WWF is playing a central role in promoting Nature Positive shouldn’t be surprising given its stated mission to protect the natural environment and shift humanity toward a more sustainable future, as well as its considerable clout: With an operational presence in nearly 100 countries via program offices and affiliates, 5 million supporters and 30 million social media followers, and an $800 million annual operating budget globally, WWF is a behemoth when it comes to influencing environmental policy at a variety of levels, from national governments to corporate…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Lasers reveal steep decline in ecosystem function of degraded Amazon forests

Tess Joosse — 16 Dec 2020 11:18:13 +0000

Every year, growing swaths of the Amazon rainforest are degraded by logging, fragmentation, and human-sparked fires. New research using airplane-based laser scanning of trees shows that degraded forests are hotter, drier, and more flammable than nearby “healthy” intact forests. But in periods of drought, intact forests also run out of water and start behaving like degraded ones, researchers reported recently in JGR Biogeosciences. Tropical forests benefit the planet by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and generating water vapor to help spur cloud formation. This cycling of water from the Amazon rainforest back into the sky is sometimes called a “flying river,” as the water vapor travels to other parts of South America and eventually falls as rain. Researchers studied the shapes of different forest canopies to investigate how these functions shift in degraded areas. They used lidar, an airborne laser scanning system, to measure the structures of intact and degraded forests in the northern and central Brazilian regions of Belterra, Paragominas, Feliz Natal, and Tanguro, as well as in Paracou, French Guiana. Location of the five study regions within the Amazon biome, as well as land-type classification as of 2013. Study regions are donated with white diamonds. “SLB” denotes additional sites belonging to the Sustainable Landscapes Brazil land management program, which were also used to create the study’s computer model. Courtesy of Longo et al. (2020). To scan trees with lidar, researchers beam millions of light pulses from an airplane-based device into the forest. They measure the time it…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘Nature is next’: Q&A with Finance for Biodiversity’s Simon Zadek

Rhett Ayers Butler — 27 Nov 2020 09:57:00 +0000

2020 was supposed to be the year that governments, business leaders and civil society came together to report back on the past decade’s worth of progress on addressing the biodiversity crisis. But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and most of the big meetings scheduled for 2020 were scaled down or postponed until 2021. But that doesn’t mean 2020 hasn’t been an eventful year for biodiversity conservation efforts. Perhaps most significantly, COVID has prompted a reevaluation of our relationship with the world around us, including how we interact with other species and their habitats. According to Simon Zadek, chair of the Finance for Biodiversity Initiative, the pandemic may ultimately come to be seen as a tipping point in long-running efforts to persuade the financial sector to factor nature and biodiversity into decision-making. In recent years, incorporating carbon emissions into financial decisions had become mainstream among corporations, governments and development finance institutions (DFIs), but biodiversity remained a remote, esoteric consideration. But COVID-19 changed that. Zadek recalls a meeting he had in January 2020 with a group of financial institutions to discuss integrating nature-based metrics and data into frameworks and standards. Their response, according to Zadek, was they had already expended all their political capital persuading decision-makers on the need to account for carbon. They could not “now tell them that they need to look at nature too.” Ten months later that same group was “about to produce a major piece of work on how to advance the data and metrics in measuring nature-related…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Investing in Amazon Rainforest Conservation: A Foreigner’s Perspective (commentary)

Jonah Wittkamper — 21 Apr 2020 08:08:20 +0000

Last December, I flew to Brazil to learn everything I could about Amazon conservation. As a global citizen, I wanted to understand more about deforestation and how I can help. I stayed for two months and met with government officials, NGOs, private sector entrepreneurs, philanthropists and other important stakeholders. I was given some privileged access and came home with hope and a vision for how the international community can help develop a sustainable Amazon rainforest in ways that were never possible before. I wrote this report to help guide investors and philanthropists on their learning journeys and have included many links to help readers do further research and background reading. Mist rising from the Amazon rainforest at dawn. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay. Global Context Many scientists assert that the Amazon rainforest is the center of the global water cycle, helping to propagate rainfall and other climate patterns globally. In recent years, studies have shown that excessive Amazon deforestation disrupts rain patterns in the US and elsewhere. In 2019, for the first time in history there were unprecedented droughts and wildfires in the Arctic and Australia as well as South America and elsewhere. The Amazon may be at a tipping point, the global water cycle may be at risk, and the global community is taking notice. According to Script Finance, while rainforests give $4 trillion in value of ecosystem services to the global economy, over $941 billion of annual turnover is at risk due to dependency on commodities…This article was originally published on Mongabay

‘Unless impunity is fought, we will not get anywhere’: Q&A with community forestry expert Lucía Madrid

Thelma Gómez Durán — 28 Feb 2020 06:15:30 +0000

Lucía Madrid spent her childhood in a land of trees and a time of flux. It was the 1980s in Mexico’s Sierra Norte de Oaxaca region, and communities were organizing to stop the government from giving away their land to logging companies. These efforts were successful, and Madrid witnessed the birth of what is now known as community forest management. Madrid left Oaxaca, but the kernel of community organization stayed with her. She studied political science at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico City, then completed a master’s degree in environmental policy at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. For the past 15 years, she has worked with communities to strengthen their natural resource management programs both as a consultant and through NGOs such as the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Silviculture (CCMSS). Through her work and travels, Madrid says she has learned the importance of effective community organization, especially when developing sustainability projects that allow people to both make a living from their forests as well as conserve them. Mongabay spoke to Lucía Madrid about her thoughts on enabling proper forest management, boosting rural development and combatting deforestation. Lucía Madrid works to promote integrated land management in communities in the municipality of Amanalco, Mexico. Image courtesy of CCMSS. Mongabay: How did you, as a political scientist, decide to focus on community forest management? Lucía Madrid: Having grown up in the countryside and been familiar with the community work carried out in Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, it was…This article was originally published on Mongabay

2019: The year rainforests burned

Rhett Ayers Butler — 27 Dec 2019 13:04:39 +0000

2019 closed out a “lost decade” for the world’s tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments, and fires burning through rainforests on four continents. The following covers some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year. The list isn’t exhaustive, so if there are important things missing, feel free to add them via the comment function at the bottom. 10 years of annual reviews: 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2009 Drained, cleared, and burned peat forest in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Global forests A team led by Matt Hansen of the University of Maryland updated their annual tree cover loss dataset and added a new dataset on primary forest loss, a breakthrough development for monitoring global forests. According to the data, the tropics lost around 12 million hectares (around 46,300 square miles) of tree cover last year, of which 3.64 million hectares was primary forest, the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest. 2018’s tree cover loss was down nearly 30 percent from its 2016 high, but 2019 may well break that record given the extent of forest fires across the Amazon, Indonesia, and Africa this year. global tropical_forest_loss_2010s_2000s All data Hansen et al 2019 same data used on Global Forest Watch Ecosystem services from forests Several studies highlighted the potential of forests to help in the battle against climate change. Research…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The unrecognized cost of Indonesia’s fires (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler — 07 Oct 2019 07:09:43 +0000

Three decades ago, scientists surveying the forests of Malaysian Borneo discovered a plant extract that killed HIV in a test tube. When they returned to the field site to collect more samples, they were surprised to find the peat forest had been cleared. Subsequent surveys in the region proved fruitless, but the researchers caught a lucky break when they found a specimen in Singapore’s Botanic Garden. Eventually scientists derived a drug from the tree that strongly inhibited HIV during clinical trials. The drug, Calanolide A, could become a novel addition to AIDS treatment regimes. The near-miss with Calanolide A provides one vivid illustration of what is at risk of being lost as Indonesia’s forests are cleared and burned. Fire burning through peat forest and an oil palm plantation in Sumatra in 2015. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. This year’s fires are the worst since 2015. Already more than 328,000 hectares — an area four-and-a-half times the size of Singapore — has been incinerated, generating some 360 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in a just a month and a half alone, from Aug 1 to Sept 18, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. It will be a least another month before rains return to the region to douse the fires and clear the air of toxic smoke. The current bout of fires adds to the overall worsening plight of forests across Indonesia — especially in Sumatra and Borneo. Over a quarter of the natural forests there…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Saving the forests of the Congo Basin: Q&A with author Meindert Brouwer

Mongabay.com — 23 Jan 2019 02:34:06 +0000

It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest rainforest straddles six countries in Central Africa. Many are crippled by corruption, civil conflict, and seemingly solution-less problems at the intersection of poverty and environmental stewardship. The loss of the Congo Basin’s forests has lurched along more slowly than in the Amazon rainforest or the jungles of Southeast Asia, but many experts worry that that trend won’t hold. The region’s growing population and the need for economic development have already led to the rising destruction of unique ecosystems to make way for farms, mines and timber plantations. Nki Falls, Nki National Park, Cameroon. Image © Jaap van der Waarde/WWF. Perhaps such a book could introduce the world to this little-known part of Africa, highlighting why it needs protection and what’s working there to improve the lives of its inhabitants, thought Meindert Brouwer. The independent communications consultant with a quarter century of experience in conservation, much of it in Central Africa, knew it would be a challenge from the start. The paradox was that because the Congo Basin is less familiar to many people than the Amazon, it would be harder to rally the support necessary to launch the project. Indeed, Brouwer said, finding an initial funder took time. But since then, the book’s momentum has led the project in new directions. Brouwer quickly saw that the value of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Mammal diversity may increase carbon storage in rainforests

Jennifer Leman — 05 Dec 2017 14:50:39 +0000

Amazonian rainforests bustle with activity: Monkeys snag fruit from branches in the canopy; peccaries root around in the topsoil for grubs, worms and plants; a jaguar feasts on the carcass of freshly hunted tapir. These animals have something new in common, a study now suggests: they form an important link in their ecosystem’s carbon cycle. Hungry mammals leave carbon-rich carcasses, food scraps and feces on the forest floor. These byproducts, along with plant material, contain nutrients that soak into the soil. Microbes that thrive in this nutrient-rich soil collect and store carbon instead of releasing it to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Two squirrel monkeys meander across the Amazonian forest floor, looking for insects to eat. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The study’s authors propose that the diversity of mammals in tropical rainforest ecosystems contributes to an unexpectedly large amount of carbon storage in soils. Previously, researchers had largely only documented how the number of mammals in a forest affects the carbon cycle. Ecologist and team leader José Fragoso, formerly of Stanford University and now with the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, recalled the moment he and his colleagues knew the project was important: “We realized, ‘Wow, this is really going to change things, and it has added something new to our understanding of ecosystems.’” The study was published recently in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The analysis relied on 340 indigenous research technicians from the Makushi, Wapishana and Waiwai nations, who roamed the rainforests of Brazil…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Guiana Shield, the ‘greenhouse of the world’

Akola Thompson — 19 Oct 2016 18:45:51 +0000

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Along the northern coast of South America the small nation of Guyana sits nestled roughly south of Venezuela and north of Brazil. Referred to as the “Lost Land of the Jaguar” in a 2008 BBC TV documentary, Guyana is one of six countries that comprise the much-revered Guiana Shield. The Shield is an eco-region that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) describes as being of “regional and global significance,”and is home to a variety of ecosystems and “keystone species of biodiversity.” Covering 270 million hectares, the Shield encompasses Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela and small parts of Colombia and northern Brazil. The more than two billion year-old geological formation represents 18 percent of the world’s tropical forest carbon and 20 percent of the world’s fresh water allowing it to capture large quantities of carbon dioxide. Guyana’s president, David Granger, has described the Guiana Shield as not only essential to enriching and replenishing the world’s biodiversity but as consequently essential to the planet’s survival. With an economy heavily dependent upon extractive industries and recently discovered oil reserves however, the Shield may be at risk due to the inability of environmental agencies to effectively monitor operations within its area. Map of the Guiana Shield. Wikimedia Commons Mongabay

Youth, women, indigenous group pay the price of logging in Kenya

David Njagi — 16 Sep 2016 16:29:13 +0000

Even with two grades to go before completing high school, Vincent Kiptum has already figured out how to deal with a problem troubling his village in Kenya’s Rift Valley: truancy from school. Once he graduates, Kiptum would like to be the Olenguruone village champion tasked with ensuring that youth enlist in school and remain there until they have a certificate to show. But such a job will require a mix of strength and intellect if the 18 year old hopes to outwit the triple plagues suffered by the area’s marginalized communities: poverty, displacement, and exploitation by the logging industry. His target is Olenguruone’s seven to 15 year olds from about 500 households displaced from the nearby forest, like his was. Most of them are not in school, having gone to work in saw mills to help support their families, he said. “I feel bad when I see young boys being recruited into logging activities instead of being in school,” Kiptum told Mongabay. “Most of them usually work without pay because the timber merchants tell them they will give the wages to their parents.” The Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (OPDP), an NGO, says more than 2,000 households in the Rift Valley region alone could be affected. The Ogiek are an indigenous group whose members have only known the valley’s Mau forest, as well as Mount Elgon to the northwest, as their home, source of food through hunting and gathering, and spiritual enclave. But hundreds of Ogiek families have been evicted from…This article was originally published on Mongabay

10 conservation “fads”: how have they worked in Latin America?

Alan ForsbergAldo Orellana López — 17 Jun 2016 12:31:25 +0000

In May 2013, the journal Conservation Biology published an editorial describing 10 conservation methods that emerged since the late 1970’s as fads, “approaches that are embraced enthusiastically and then abandoned.” Despite the fact that conservationists are likely to consider the term “fad” as applying mainly “to gadgets, clothing, music, haircuts, and video games” and “tend to believe we are immune to such frippery,” the authors argue that the field of conservation is nevertheless subject to faddish cycles. Promising new ideas are often pushed hard, promoted widely, then rejected, and finally repackaged and marketed as something new, point out authors Kent H. Redford from the Maine-based firm Archipelago Consulting and Christine Padoch and Terry Sunderland from the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). “Fads seem never to die of their own weight but rather are replaced by or incorporated in a new approach,” they write. Even approaches that remain in widespread use and current favor, such as ecotourism, ecocertification, and the marketing of natural products from rainforests, have a place on their list. Latin America, broadly speaking, is not only a hotbed of biodiversity but also of conservation activity taking place in a wide variety of ecological, political, and cultural settings. So, how have Redford, Padoch, and Sunderland’s 10 fads played out in Latin America? Have they succeeded? Failed? Had unintended consequences? Passed out of fashion or gone retro? To find out, Mongabay consulted seven of the region’s conservation experts. Here’s their take on the list, which appears in no…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Some Indigenous groups wary of REDD+ following Paris Climate Agreement

Mitch Paquette — 12 Feb 2016 12:33:45 +0000

Indigenous leaders present research on land rights at a Green Zone press conference at Paris Climate Summit last December. Photo by Mitch Paquette On December 12, 2015 representatives from 196 nations approved the Paris Agreement to address the challenges of climate change. Proponents praised the agreement as a long-term pathway to curbing global warming and for the future of multilateral climate action. REDD+ is a prominent feature of that final agreement. The “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” program was originally proposed as part of the UN toolkit for reducing global warming in 2005. It is important because deforestation and forest degradation account for roughly 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The program puts a financial value on the carbon stored in forests. It provides a market mechanism for wealthy developed nations with high carbon emissions to offer an economic incentive to tropical forest nations in the developing world to keep trees standing — allowing those forests to act as carbon reservoirs to slow climate change. The UN currently supports 64 partner countries in building capacity to establish national REDD+ initiatives. REDD+ controversy among indigenous groups Despite early enthusiasm, support for REDD+ faltered somewhat in recent years as questions were raised over its long-term viability — particularly concerning ongoing financing during its initial implementation. Many supporters feared that REDD+ couldn’t continue if not part of the final COP21 climate agreement. The reaffirmation of the initiative in Paris came as a relief to the program’s biggest boosters, including the Coalition…This article was originally published on Mongabay

New study exposes true costs of converting mangroves in Southeast Asia

Mike Gaworecki — 21 Sep 2015 10:13:55 +0000

The world’s coastal mangroves are under pressure from increasing industrialization and growing populations, especially in Southeast Asia, where mangrove forests are still frequently converted into aquaculture developments. Wiping out a mangrove and converting it into an aquaculture operation is the most extreme management option available, of course. Some mangroves are protected, some are even open to ecotourism, and others are managed for timber production. Every mangrove provides different services, depending on how much it has been impacted by human activity and how well it has been managed or protected. Yet despite the diverse approaches employed today, there is a significant gap in our knowledge of mangrove ecosystem services under the various management regimes, according to the authors of a new report released by Wageningen University and Netherlands-based Wetlands International. The report examines different mangrove management systems in Indonesia, which has the largest and most biodiverse mangroves in the world. But the country has lost almost 40 percent of its mangroves, mainly as a result of aquaculture development, Femke Tonneijck of Wetlands International told Mongabay. “This has resulted in the loss of many ecosystem services,” she added. Most research on ecosystem services does not distinguish between different management regimes, Tonneijck said. “Instead, all kinds of mangroves are bundled together when assessing the services that they provide, whether they are purposefully managed for fish production (sometimes even entirely converted to aquaculture), for timber or not managed at all.” A mangrove forest in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Not all…This article was originally published on Mongabay