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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/slash-and-burn/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>News on Slash-and-burn</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/slash-and-burn/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Satellite data show forest loss persists in Brazilian Amazon’s most deforested reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Dec 2025 21:51:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/30212511/AP20236730024384-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312370</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Old Growth Forests, Pasture, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab and visualized on monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. The data show 2024 had the highest rate of forest loss, rocketing 400% over 2023. Preliminary data show forest loss continued in 2025, concentrated in the northern portion of the 1.7-million-hectare (4.2-million-acre) reserve, where most of the largest tracts of forest remain. Satellite data from the University of Maryland show primary forest loss jumped 400% between 2023 and 2024. Image by Mongabay. Google Timelapse shows forest loss advancing rapidly through Triunfo do Xingu. This has given Triunfo do Xingu the dubious distinction of being the protected area with the highest rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The main cause? Cattle. Triunfo do Xingu lies in the heart of Brazil’s cattle country, where cows outnumber people 38 to one. To feed this legion of cattle, ranchers carve pasture from forest, often using slash-and-burn techniques to clear areas and renew degraded soil. During a visit in 2023, Mongabay reporters observed the charred remains of sawed-down trees, and were told by local small-scale famers and officials that fires set by ranchers can spread out of control, consuming crops, homes and forest alike. “They set&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312370</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Top-down projects, exotic trees, weak tenure: Congo Basin restoration misses the mark</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/top-down-projects-exotic-trees-weak-tenure-congo-basin-restoration-misses-the-mark/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/top-down-projects-exotic-trees-weak-tenure-congo-basin-restoration-misses-the-mark/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Dec 2025 16:49:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Amindeh Blaise Atabong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/11145146/a.-Banner-Loxodonta_cyclotis_3970045-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311149</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cameroon, Central Africa, Central African Republic, Congo Basin, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Gabon, Republic of Congo, and Rwanda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agroforestry, Biodiversity, carbon, Climate, Conservation, Forest Carbon, forest degradation, Forests, Logging, Reforestation, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Congo Basin, the world’s largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon, is under mounting pressure. The Congo’s vast green canopy, stretching across six countries and storing more carbon than the Amazon, is vanishing at an alarming rate — losing an average of 1.79 million hectares (4.42 million acres) per year between 2015 and 2019. The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Congo Basin, the world’s largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon, is under mounting pressure. The Congo’s vast green canopy, stretching across six countries and storing more carbon than the Amazon, is vanishing at an alarming rate — losing an average of 1.79 million hectares (4.42 million acres) per year between 2015 and 2019. The key drivers are well known: small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture, logging for fuelwood, and weak land governance. In response, some governments, international donors and NGOs have turned to reforestation projects as a cornerstone of the region’s climate and biodiversity strategies. But despite a panoply of projects — from tree-planting drives to agroforestry schemes — newly published research suggests that much of what’s happening in the name of “forest restoration” may not be restoring forests at all — but largely focused on nonnative, commodity species. The study analyzed 64 publications covering 26 initiatives in five countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameroon, Gabon, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic. The findings paint a complex picture of progress over the last two decades — one where the rhetoric of “restoration” often outpaces the reality on the ground. On paper, Central African governments have made major commitments to the Congo Basin. Under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Bonn Challenge, governments pledged to restore 25% of degraded land by this year. International donors, including the European Union, World Bank, as well as the French, German, Danish and U.K. development agencies, have poured millions of dollars into&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/top-down-projects-exotic-trees-weak-tenure-congo-basin-restoration-misses-the-mark/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/top-down-projects-exotic-trees-weak-tenure-congo-basin-restoration-misses-the-mark/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311149</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>DRC hit by record deforestation in 2024, satellite data show</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/drc-hit-by-record-deforestation-in-2024-satellite-data-show/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/drc-hit-by-record-deforestation-in-2024-satellite-data-show/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Nov 2025 17:19:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/26160309/chimpu-baby-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310220</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conflict, data, Deforestation, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Human Rights, Illegal Logging, Logging, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Resource Conflict, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Africa’s great Congo Basin rainforest, often called the Earth’s second lung, covers an area about the size of India. Millions of people depend directly on the forest for food, energy and income. It is home to our closest relatives and some of the planet’s most threatened wildlife — gorillas (Gorilla sp.), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Africa’s great Congo Basin rainforest, often called the Earth’s second lung, covers an area about the size of India. Millions of people depend directly on the forest for food, energy and income. It is home to our closest relatives and some of the planet’s most threatened wildlife — gorillas (Gorilla sp.), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), okapi (Okapia johnstoni), forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and more. The humid forest with towering trees and extensive peatlands also helps regulate our global climate, taking in greenhouse gases emitted far beyond the forest’s borders. Sixty percent of the Congo Basin rainforest lies within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and around 70% of the DRC was covered in natural forest as of 2020, according to data visualized on the Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform. From 2002 to 2024, the DRC lost 7.1% of its forest cover, according to GFW satellite data, and experienced the third-largest absolute amount of primary forest loss globally, behind Brazil and Indonesia. (This estimate may be conservative and the actual amount even higher, according to GFW, as previous methods it had used to measure tree cover loss between 2001 and 2015 likely led to underestimations.) Annual primary forest loss in the DRC grew steadily over the past five years and spiked to a record high of 590,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) in 2024, according to GFW data. That’s up from 530,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) of primary forest loss in 2023 and 510,000 hectares in 2022. The data show&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/drc-hit-by-record-deforestation-in-2024-satellite-data-show/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/drc-hit-by-record-deforestation-in-2024-satellite-data-show/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310220</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>More than half the world’s forests fragmented in 20 years — but protection works: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Sep 2025 18:19:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/11182803/AP18330696503362-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305801</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forest Fragmentation, Forest Loss, Forests, Fragmentation, Green, Habitat Loss, Logging, Mining, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” says Thomas Crowther, ecology professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Fragmentation, the process by which large areas of intact forest become broken up into smaller pieces, is increasing in most of the world’s forests, according to a new Science study authored by Crowther and other researchers at institutions in Switzerland, Australia, China, the U.S. and the UK.   The study finds that more than 50% of the world’s forests became more fragmented between 2000 and 2020. Tropical forests fared the worst, with the findings indicating that up to 80% were fragmented over 20 years. This has profound implications for global biodiversity and ecosystem health, Crowther says. “[T]he scary thing is, even if we kept the same amount of forest area on the planet, if we&#8217;re turning those big intact ones into all the tiny fragments, we&#8217;re losing a lot of the ecological functionality.” Fragmentation can happen in different ways and for different reasons. Shifting cultivation can pockmark intact forests with clearings. New roads into previously intact areas can bring miners or loggers, creating a dendritic pattern of forest loss. Development can eat away at a forest’s perimeter. Stands of trees&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305801</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A Nigerian reserve, once a stronghold for chimps, is steadily losing its forest to farming</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/a-nigerian-reserve-once-a-stronghold-for-chimps-is-steadily-losing-its-forest-to-farming/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/a-nigerian-reserve-once-a-stronghold-for-chimps-is-steadily-losing-its-forest-to-farming/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Nov 2024 23:55:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/11/21232817/Rotscheitelmangabe_Cercocebus_torquatus_Tierpark_Hellabrunn-6-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=290459</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Nigeria, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Apes, Cacao, Endangered Species, Environment, Farming, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Industrial Agriculture, Monkeys, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Oluwa Forest Reserve, located in southwestern Nigeria, contains some of the last large swaths of old growth — also called “primary” — forest in the region. These forests are home to a rich diversity of wildlife, including endangered species and subspecies such as red-capped mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus), Nigerian white-throated guenons (Cercopithecus erythrogaster pococki), white-bellied pangolins [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Oluwa Forest Reserve, located in southwestern Nigeria, contains some of the last large swaths of old growth — also called “primary” — forest in the region. These forests are home to a rich diversity of wildlife, including endangered species and subspecies such as red-capped mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus), Nigerian white-throated guenons (Cercopithecus erythrogaster pococki), white-bellied pangolins (Phataginus tricuspis), and Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ellioti). But Oluwa and its wildlife are under increasing threat from both smallholder farmers and large-scale plantations. The reserve, established in 1918, has been severely impacted by land encroachment, with thousands of farmers converting forested areas into farms. This has led to significant deforestation, with satellite data from online monitoring platform Global Forest Watch (GFW) showing the reserve lost 18% of its primary forest between 2002 and 2023. Only about half of Oluwa Forest Reserve was covered in primary forest as of 2001. Eighteen percent of that which remained was cleared between 2002 and 2023, with large areas of further loss in 2024. Preliminary data from GFW, as well as satellite imagery, show ongoing clearing of the reserve’s remaining primary forest. Satellite data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) indicate the reserve has experienced an “unusually high” number of fires in 2024 — the highest since measurement began in 2012. Oluwa is situated in the humid tropics, where nearly all fires are caused by human disturbance such as slash-and-burn agriculture — also known as “shifting cultivation” — and for industrial plantation expansion. Research shows that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/a-nigerian-reserve-once-a-stronghold-for-chimps-is-steadily-losing-its-forest-to-farming/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/a-nigerian-reserve-once-a-stronghold-for-chimps-is-steadily-losing-its-forest-to-farming/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-290459</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Traditional small farmers burned by Indonesia&#8217;s war on wildfires</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-small-farmers-burned-by-indonesias-war-on-wildfires/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-small-farmers-burned-by-indonesias-war-on-wildfires/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Dec 2023 00:00:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aseanty PahleviHans Nicholas JongM Rahim ArzaPhilip JacobsonYusie Marie]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/12151433/editt-1-of-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276590</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests, Indonesian Palm Oil, Investigation, and Jokowi Commitments]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, North Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Climate Change, Crime, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Fires, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Green, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Law, Law Enforcement, Mongabay Data Studio, Palm Oil, Peatlands, Plantations, Politics, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Social Justice, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the now-62-year-old set a fire to clear this tiny plot outside his home of vegetation. He planned to fertilize the soil with ash and plant rice [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the now-62-year-old set a fire to clear this tiny plot outside his home of vegetation. He planned to fertilize the soil with ash and plant rice and chili. But Sarijan never saw his crops bear fruit — owing to his use of an agricultural method dating back thousands of years. Instead, he spent the next seven months behind bars, where he says he was assaulted by other inmates and extorted by prison officials. Today, the field sits unused. “There were beatings, and they extorted me for money,” Sarijan told Mongabay. “I got beaten so badly I was coughing up blood.” Sarijan is one of scores of Indonesians to be criminally prosecuted for burning land for agricultural purposes since President Joko Widodo vowed to prevent a repeat of the nation’s 2015 wildfire and air pollution crisis, Mongabay has found, based on an analysis of court records from Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. A large majority, like Sarijan, were small farmers cultivating 2 hectares (5 acres) or less. Few had legal representation, almost all were declared guilty, and dozens received prison sentences of at least three years. Sarijan cuts through the brush in the abandoned rice field. Image by Victor Fidelis Sentosa for Mongabay. The analysis shows regional law enforcers have turned to locking up slash-and-burn cultivators as a key tool for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/traditional-small-farmers-burned-by-indonesias-war-on-wildfires/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-276590</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/bolivian-national-park-hit-hard-by-forest-fires-in-2022-satellite-data-show/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/bolivian-national-park-hit-hard-by-forest-fires-in-2022-satellite-data-show/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Feb 2023 22:43:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265225</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Deforestation, Dry Forests, Endangered Species, Environment, Farming, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Mongabay Data Studio, National Parks, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On Aug. 28, 2022, NASA satellites picked up a small, isolated cluster of fire alerts in the southwestern corner of Bolivia’s Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. By Sept. 5, the blaze had ballooned northward, engulfing some 423 square kilometers (163 square miles) of the park’s land, according to the Chiquitano Dry Forest Observatory, an organization [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On Aug. 28, 2022, NASA satellites picked up a small, isolated cluster of fire alerts in the southwestern corner of Bolivia’s Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. By Sept. 5, the blaze had ballooned northward, engulfing some 423 square kilometers (163 square miles) of the park’s land, according to the Chiquitano Dry Forest Observatory, an organization that is part of the Foundation for the Conservation of the Chiquitano Forest. NASA satellite data, visualized on Global Forest Watch (GFW), show the fire continued to spread deeper into the park in September before finally going out on Sept. 28, exactly a month after satellites first detected it. But this was only a brief reprieve: in October and November, additional fires broke out and spread along Noel Kempff Mercado’s western border before being extinguished by the onset of the rainy season in late November. Satellite imagery from Planet Labs captured in December 2022 shows burn scars etched across vast swaths of Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. In all, fires burned across an area comprising some 3,000 km2 (nearly 1,200 mi2) of the national park — about 18% of its total area — between August and November, according to analysis via GFW. Most fire activity occurred on non-forested land, but GFW data show around 200 km2 (77 mi2) of the park’s forests were also damaged by the fires. When adding in other forest loss in 2022, the data suggest Noel Kempff Mercado lost a total of 250 km2 (97 mi2) of its tree cover last&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/bolivian-national-park-hit-hard-by-forest-fires-in-2022-satellite-data-show/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/bolivian-national-park-hit-hard-by-forest-fires-in-2022-satellite-data-show/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265225</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The great Koh Kong land rush: Areas stripped of protection by Cambodian gov&#8217;t being bought up</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/the-great-koh-kong-land-rush-areas-stripped-of-protection-by-cambodian-govt-being-bought-up/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/the-great-koh-kong-land-rush-areas-stripped-of-protection-by-cambodian-govt-being-bought-up/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Oct 2021 23:59:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/07221110/Andy-Ball_Mondabay_The-Great-KK-Land-Rush-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=247968</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Carving up the Cardamoms and Investigation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Business, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Habitat Loss, Illegal Logging, Land Grabbing, Land Speculation, Logging, Mongabay investigation, National Parks, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Timber, timber trade, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In July, conservationists in Cambodia sounded the alarm over a regulation that saw eight protected areas in Koh Kong province collectively lose territory twice the size of Phnom Penh, the country’s capital. Officials said the move, affecting nearly 127,000 hectares (314,000 acres) under Sub-decree No. 30, was meant to grant land [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In July, conservationists in Cambodia sounded the alarm over a regulation that saw eight protected areas in Koh Kong province collectively lose territory twice the size of Phnom Penh, the country’s capital. Officials said the move, affecting nearly 127,000 hectares (314,000 acres) under Sub-decree No. 30, was meant to grant land titles to communities living throughout the protected areas. But an investigation spanning six districts of Koh Kong supports conservationists’ concerns that the sub-decree would be abused by Cambodia’s wealthy elite. While the sub-decree was signed into law in March 2021 and made public in May this year, a Mongabay investigation has revealed that an opaque network of land brokers has been buying up land in former protected areas listed in Sub-decree No. 30 as early as January 2021, and appears to have been orchestrated in part by National Defense Minister Tea Banh and his brother, Tea Vinh, the head of the Royal Cambodian Navy. Communities across Koh Kong, along with civil society groups, have grown increasingly concerned that Cambodia’s latest land-titling expedition is being exploited by politically connected private interests. Sources say these interests are obfuscating land purchases through an extensive network of brokers and middlemen, essentially preventing communities from receiving the promised land titles. “That’s how they do it, they send some people out here, they count up how many families live here so they can calculate how much land they can take from us,” said Dara, who owns a guesthouse in Tatai Kraom,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/the-great-koh-kong-land-rush-areas-stripped-of-protection-by-cambodian-govt-being-bought-up/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/the-great-koh-kong-land-rush-areas-stripped-of-protection-by-cambodian-govt-being-bought-up/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-247968</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/fires-rage-in-bolivias-chiquitania-region/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/fires-rage-in-bolivias-chiquitania-region/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Aug 2021 00:22:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/08/27234800/incendio-tucabaca-2021-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=246479</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community-based Conservation, Deforestation, Dry Forests, Ecotourism, Environment, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Grasslands, Green, Habitat Loss, Industrial Agriculture, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Slash-and-burn, Tourism, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Two years ago, fire ravaged the Tucavaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve in the heart of Bolivia’s Chiquitania region, wiping out thousands of square kilometers of habitat. Now this threat has returned, with fires raging once again in the reserve and the surrounding area. Tucavaca Valley is located in the municipality of Roboré near Bolivia’s border [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Two years ago, fire ravaged the Tucavaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve in the heart of Bolivia’s Chiquitania region, wiping out thousands of square kilometers of habitat. Now this threat has returned, with fires raging once again in the reserve and the surrounding area. Tucavaca Valley is located in the municipality of Roboré near Bolivia’s border with Brazil. Designated in 2000 and covering some 262,300 hectares, Tucavaca Valley Municipal Reserve encompasses an important portion of the Chiquitano dry forest ecoregion, which houses the headwaters of rivers that feed the larger region – including Bolivia’s Pantanal wetland. Alarm was sounded on Aug. 1 when fires broke out along a highway just south of the reserve and, propelled by high winds, quickly grew out of control. Three days later, the fire entered the Tucavaca Valley reserve. Authorities from the municipality of Roboré, aided by those from regional and federal governments, sprang to action and were able to get that particular fire under control. But satellite data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NAS) show more fires have broken out and spread through Tucavaca Valley reserve and other protected areas in the region such as San Matiás Natural Area of Integrated Management (ANMI), gobbling up forest and other habitat as they grow. Data from NASA show fires burning in and around protected areas in Bolivia&#8217;s Chiquitania region in August. Satellite data from NASA show fires on agricultural land directly preceded a breakout event that has spread into Tucavaca Valley Municipal Reserve. Data&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/fires-rage-in-bolivias-chiquitania-region/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/fires-rage-in-bolivias-chiquitania-region/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-246479</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/carving-up-the-cardamoms-conservationists-fear-massive-land-grab-in-cambodia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/carving-up-the-cardamoms-conservationists-fear-massive-land-grab-in-cambodia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jul 2021 23:29:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Andy BallGerald FlynnPhoung Vantha]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/07/01225753/CloudedLeopard2-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=244424</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Carving up the Cardamoms]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Habitat Loss, Illegal Logging, Land Grabbing, Logging, Old Growth Forests, Plantations, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Species Discovery, Timber, timber trade, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new regulation signed into law in March this year but only unveiled publicly in May will see almost 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land in Cambodia made available for sale or rent, prompting fears among conservationists about a land grab for some of the country’s best-preserved ecosystems. On paper, Sub-decree No. 30 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new regulation signed into law in March this year but only unveiled publicly in May will see almost 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land in Cambodia made available for sale or rent, prompting fears among conservationists about a land grab for some of the country’s best-preserved ecosystems. On paper, Sub-decree No. 30 , signed March 2 by Prime Minister Hun Sen, transfers ownership of 126,928.39 hectares from the Ministry of Environment and the various conservation NGOs that assist in the management of the protected areas, to the Koh Kong provincial administration. Ostensibly, this transfer of land, measuring half the size of Luxembourg, is meant “for distribution to people, while retaining partial land as private property to be held by Koh Kong Provincial Administration.” It’s seen as a readjustment of the protected areas, the mapping of which saw thousands of Cambodians lose their homes as the government and conservation NGOs took control of land that had housed many communities for generations. As such, this latest sub-decree presents an opportunity for many communities living in cleared sections of the protected areas to acquire land titles — but it also presents an opportunity for tycoons with connections to the Koh Kong provincial land management committee, chaired by Governor Mithona Puthong of Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Puthong’s father, Yuth Puthong previously also served as governor of Koh Kong, while his grandfather, Say Puthong, was a senior politician who helped shape Hun Sen’s leadership in the 1980s. In short, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/carving-up-the-cardamoms-conservationists-fear-massive-land-grab-in-cambodia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/carving-up-the-cardamoms-conservationists-fear-massive-land-grab-in-cambodia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-244424</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Slash-and-burn farming eats away at a Madagascar haven for endangered lemurs, frogs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/slash-and-burn-farming-eats-away-at-a-madagascar-haven-for-endangered-lemurs-frogs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/slash-and-burn-farming-eats-away-at-a-madagascar-haven-for-endangered-lemurs-frogs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Mar 2021 00:43:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/03/09003511/Greater_bamboo_lemur_Prolemur_simus_male_2-feat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=240342</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar and Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Amphibians, Animals, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Fires, Forests, Frogs, Green, Habitat Loss, Herps, Illegal Mining, Lemurs, Mammals, Mining, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Reptiles, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation is so rampant throughout Madagascar, an island far larger than California, that it’s easy to forget the impact of tree clearance in any one specific area of the country — the lemurs that lose their habitats, the orchids that no longer bloom, the people whose land becomes barren. But recent activity in the Ankeniheny-Zahamena [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation is so rampant throughout Madagascar, an island far larger than California, that it’s easy to forget the impact of tree clearance in any one specific area of the country — the lemurs that lose their habitats, the orchids that no longer bloom, the people whose land becomes barren. But recent activity in the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor (CAZ), a large protected area in central eastern Madagascar, has raised concerns that one of the country’s most important tropical rainforests is being lost. Over the past five months, CAZ has seen a number of spikes in deforestation activity, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on Global Forest Watch. This isn’t a new problem — CAZ has faced high levels of tree clearance for several years — but preliminary data indicate that it’s getting worse. Local sources say the forests are being lost primarily to swidden agriculture (slash-and-burn), a practice that can increase during times of economic difficulty. With less income during the pandemic, local people have sought to increase their rice yields by using more forestland. The trend spells major trouble for the 15 lemur species that live in CAZ as well as endangered amphibians endemic to CAZ, such as the black-eared mantella frog (Mantella milotympanum), the Scaphiophryne boribory frog, and the Paroedura masobe gecko. The masobe gecko (Paroedura masobe) is endangered. Image by Jaine via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The black-eared mantella frog (Mantella milotympanum) is critically endangered. Its main threat is habitat loss. Image by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/slash-and-burn-farming-eats-away-at-a-madagascar-haven-for-endangered-lemurs-frogs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/slash-and-burn-farming-eats-away-at-a-madagascar-haven-for-endangered-lemurs-frogs/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-240342</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/a-madagascar-forest-long-protected-by-its-remoteness-is-now-threatened-by-it/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/a-madagascar-forest-long-protected-by-its-remoteness-is-now-threatened-by-it/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Dec 2020 20:55:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/21193459/Silky_Sifaka_mom_and_infant_close-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238148</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar and Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Deforestation, Drug Trade, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Lemurs, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent centuries and decades, but these have stood the test of time and remained relatively unscathed. They are difficult to access, and some have been officially [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent centuries and decades, but these have stood the test of time and remained relatively unscathed. They are difficult to access, and some have been officially protected since the 1920s. And yet their protected status is no longer enough: satellite data show they are now being cut down at an increasing rate. In May, Mongabay reported on the dire situation in Tsaratanana Reserve. Since then, deforestation has continued apace, both in Tsaratanana and a neighboring protected area called COMATSA. Levels of deforestation have spiked since September, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on Global Forest Watch. The dry months of September and October are normally peak season for slash-and-burn, and sources say the clearing is especially severe this year due to economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tsaratanana Reserve encompasses dense, unique rainforest. Image from the public domain. Experts say the forests are being burned and cleared primarily to make space for fields of marijuana, vanilla, and rice. The scale of the biodiversity loss is immeasurable, conservationists add. Many of the forest areas are so remote that their flora and fauna have not yet been surveyed. “[This] is a loss for everyone,” Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences who has worked in the region, told Mongabay after looking at satellite images that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/a-madagascar-forest-long-protected-by-its-remoteness-is-now-threatened-by-it/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/a-madagascar-forest-long-protected-by-its-remoteness-is-now-threatened-by-it/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238148</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Money to burn: Study finds fire-prevention incentives in Indonesia don’t work</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/conditional-cash-payment-fire-village-west-kalimantan-indonesia-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/conditional-cash-payment-fire-village-west-kalimantan-indonesia-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Dec 2020 04:14:59 +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/20/2019/04/15032737/Kebakaran-terjadi-di-belakang-rumah-penduduk-Jalan-Akit-Jaya-Desa-Kembung-Baru.-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=237461</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests and Indonesian Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Environment, Fires, Forest Destruction, Forests, Plantations, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Paying villages in Indonesia to ensure they don’t burn their land for farming appears to have little to no effect on reducing fires, researchers have found. The implication is that without an alternative land-clearing method that’s cheaper, the use of fires to clear land may continue to be widely practiced across Indonesia for [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Paying villages in Indonesia to ensure they don’t burn their land for farming appears to have little to no effect on reducing fires, researchers have found. The implication is that without an alternative land-clearing method that’s cheaper, the use of fires to clear land may continue to be widely practiced across Indonesia for the foreseeable future, destroying what’s left of the country’s forests. The large-scale randomized controlled trial was carried out in 75 fire-prone villages in the Bornean province of West Kalimantan in 2018. The team of researchers, from Stanford University, Australian National University and the Indonesian government’s National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), paid 10 million rupiah ($750 at the time of the trial) to each village up front to help with fire-prevention efforts. If the villages were able to last the fire season without any fires in their areas, they would receive another 150 million rupiah ($10,800), equivalent to around 15% of the average village budget for the year. The project is among the first to test whether conditional cash payments to villages can be successful in curtailing land-clearing fires. To measure whether the financial incentives had real effect on any reduction of fires in the villages, the researchers monitored 200 other villages as a control group, in which they received no financial assistance. They then remotely monitored incidences of fire using satellite imagery. The results showed that 21 of the 75 incentivized villages, or 28%, managed to go fire-free for the entire&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/conditional-cash-payment-fire-village-west-kalimantan-indonesia-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/conditional-cash-payment-fire-village-west-kalimantan-indonesia-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-237461</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Bolivia, more than 25% of major fires this year burned in protected areas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/in-bolivia-more-than-25-of-major-fires-this-year-burned-in-protected-areas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/in-bolivia-more-than-25-of-major-fires-this-year-burned-in-protected-areas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Oct 2020 15:11:37 +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/20/2020/10/12135635/Bolivia_Beni-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235764</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon and Bolivia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forest Destruction, Forests, Governance, Green, Pasture, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[More than 120 major fires have been detected in Bolivia since August, more than a quarter of them in protected areas, including Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of this year’s major blazes, 54%, were detected in savannas in the department of Beni. More than 38% burned in forests, both [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[More than 120 major fires have been detected in Bolivia since August, more than a quarter of them in protected areas, including Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of this year’s major blazes, 54%, were detected in savannas in the department of Beni. More than 38% burned in forests, both in the Amazon rainforest and the dry forests of Chiquitano, according to the nonprofit Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP). Major fires in Protected Areas of Bolivia in 2020. Data: MAAP/ACEAA. Much like Brazil, most of the fires in Bolivia are escaped agricultural blazes. Farmers routinely use fire to create or to clear croplands and pastures. Lack of proper management and exacerbating conditions such as high temperatures and winds create the perfect recipe for fires to escape into neighboring lands and ecosystems. In Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, more than 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) have burned this year, a sliver of the 1.5-million-hectare (3.8-million-acre) park. The park, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its pristine forests, encompasses three biomes: Amazon rainforest, Chiquitano dry forest, and Cerrado savanna. Fires have been detected in the transition zone between the rainforest and savanna, moving mostly into the park’s drier savanna biome. “It is a sample of the great damage that fires can cause to vegetation and species in the area should it spread further,” Eduardo Forno, executive director of Conservation International, Bolivia, told Mongabay in an email. “Savannas recover relatively quickly in one to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/in-bolivia-more-than-25-of-major-fires-this-year-burned-in-protected-areas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/in-bolivia-more-than-25-of-major-fires-this-year-burned-in-protected-areas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235764</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil’s Pantanal, a desperate struggle to save a hyacinth macaw refuge from fire</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/in-brazils-pantanal-a-desperate-struggle-to-save-a-hyacinth-macaw-refuge-from-fire/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/in-brazils-pantanal-a-desperate-struggle-to-save-a-hyacinth-macaw-refuge-from-fire/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Sep 2020 12:08:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jennifer Ann Thomas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/09/17120149/WhatsApp-Image-2020-08-11-at-15.30.36-e1600358771595.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234937</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, Pantanal, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forests, Grasslands, Green, National Parks, Peatlands, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Satellite Imagery, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Firefighters are working around the clock to protect a forested ranch in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state that’s an important refuge of the threatened hyacinth macaw. The Pantanal wetlands in which the ranch is located are experiencing severe wildfires, sparked by human activity and exacerbated by drought and climate change.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the 1960s, Luiz de Figueiredo Barretto bought the São Francisco do Perigara farm, in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, to use as a cattle ranch. Since then, however, some 95% of the more than 24,300-hectare (60,000-acre) site has been conserved. When Barretto realized that a specific part of the property, the size of a city block, was a meeting place for hyacinth macaws (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), he closed off the area to protect the trees. Over the years, the small piece of forest has become unique in the world: a spot where dozens of hyacinth macaws gather to rest every afternoon. Ornithologist Pedro Scherer-Neto has been conducting population surveys of the hyacinth macaw here for 15 years now, during which time the average number of individual birds has gone from 234 to 708. Sightings peaked between 2013 and 2015, when more than 1,000 of the birds were observed in the same place. The hyacinth macaw, the largest member of the Psittacidae family of parrots, is considered vulnerable, a “threatened” category on the IUCN Red List, but in 2014 was omitted from Brazil’s national list of threatened species. With this year’s historic drought and dramatic increase in wildfires in the Pantanal wetlands, the São Francisco farm was also hit: more than half of the property was burned. Unlike in the Amazon, fires sparked by lightning are a natural occurrence in the Pantanal during the wet season. But in the dry months, which start in July, the fires are caused by human action:&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/in-brazils-pantanal-a-desperate-struggle-to-save-a-hyacinth-macaw-refuge-from-fire/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/in-brazils-pantanal-a-desperate-struggle-to-save-a-hyacinth-macaw-refuge-from-fire/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234937</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ex-Wall Street &#8216;quant&#8217; wields data to replant charred Madagascar rainforests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/ex-wall-street-quant-wields-data-to-replant-charred-madagascar-rainforests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/ex-wall-street-quant-wields-data-to-replant-charred-madagascar-rainforests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Aug 2020 11:49:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erica Tennenhouse]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/31214309/forest_06-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234383</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, data, Fires, Forests, Land Rights, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Reforestation, Slash-and-burn, Traditional People, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In his previous life, Matt Hill worked on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (a.k.a. a “quant”) for stock portfolios worth billions of dollars. Now, at the helm of a forest conservation nonprofit in Madagascar, he finds himself applying the same data-driven approach he used in his former career to restore the island’s imperiled forests. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In his previous life, Matt Hill worked on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (a.k.a. a “quant”) for stock portfolios worth billions of dollars. Now, at the helm of a forest conservation nonprofit in Madagascar, he finds himself applying the same data-driven approach he used in his former career to restore the island’s imperiled forests. Madagascar is on track to lose all of its rainforest within 60 years, according to a recent paper in the journal Nature Climate Change. That loss would be devastating from an ecological standpoint, as many of the plants and animals living in those forests are endemic to Madagascar. It would also threaten the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on the rainforest for their food, shelter, medicine, and fuelwood. These days, Hill lives on a 5-hectare (12-acre) farm on Madagascar’s east coast, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the city of Toamasina, with his wife, Catherine Sangotra Hill, who grew up there, and their 3-year-old daughter. His parents-in-law, who live in the same village, lead a traditional Malagasy lifestyle. They get nearly everything they need from the rainforest on the extended family’s communal land and surrounding fragments, from the palm leaves they stitched together to make their thatched roof, to the curative tea leaves Sangotra Hill’s mother gathers whenever a family member falls sick. But that’s becoming harder and harder. “It used to be she’d walk five minutes to find that plant. Now she’ll walk two hours,” Hill says. His mission is to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/ex-wall-street-quant-wields-data-to-replant-charred-madagascar-rainforests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/ex-wall-street-quant-wields-data-to-replant-charred-madagascar-rainforests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234383</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rangers protecting Philippine tamaraws go hungry as pandemic bites</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/rangers-protecting-philippine-tamaraws-go-hungry-as-pandemic-bites/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/rangers-protecting-philippine-tamaraws-go-hungry-as-pandemic-bites/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Aug 2020 07:30:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mavic Conde]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Leilani]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/20000818/TCP-Rangers-Gregg-Yan-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234037</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Finance, COVID-19, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Finance, Hunting, Pandemics, Protected Areas, Slash-and-burn, Subsidies, Trophy Hunting, Wildlife, Wildlife Rangers, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For the rangers protecting one of the most threatened species of cattle in the world, a day at the office can involve facing off against poachers or walking a tightrope between the military and armed rebels in a conflict zone. But with the onset of COVID-19, the guardians of the critically endangered tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis), [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For the rangers protecting one of the most threatened species of cattle in the world, a day at the office can involve facing off against poachers or walking a tightrope between the military and armed rebels in a conflict zone. But with the onset of COVID-19, the guardians of the critically endangered tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis), a species found only on the Philippine island of Mindoro, face a different kind of threat: hunger, as budget cuts caused by the pandemic bite into their already meager salaries. Mounts Iglit-Baco Natural Park (MIBNP) on Mindoro is the last stronghold of the tamaraw, a dwarf wild buffalo whose dwindling population stands at 480, based on a 2019 count. &#8220;They used to roam around in the lowlands, but the eventual growth of communities pushed the tamaraws into the mountains,” says Neil Anthony del Mundo, coordinator of the Tamaraw Conservation Program (TCP). “Now, tamaraw habitats are isolated into patches, with most of the present habitats under constant threats [from] encroachment, kaingin [slash-and-burn farming], deforestation, poaching, and hunting.&#8221; The elusive Philippine tamaraw can only be found in Mindoro Island, Philippines. Image by Gregg Yan The TCP was established in 1979 as a special project under the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to protect and conserve the remaining tamaraws that inhabit the park&#8217;s 2,500-hectare (6,180-acre) core protection zone. Twenty-four rangers regularly patrol the park 22 days out of the month. But during the Philippines’ pandemic lockdown period, which began in March, they logged even more&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/rangers-protecting-philippine-tamaraws-go-hungry-as-pandemic-bites/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/rangers-protecting-philippine-tamaraws-go-hungry-as-pandemic-bites/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234037</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazilian Amazon protected areas ‘in flames’ as land-grabbers invade</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazilian-amazon-protected-areas-in-flames-as-land-grabbers-invade/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazilian-amazon-protected-areas-in-flames-as-land-grabbers-invade/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Aug 2020 18:05:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Ionova]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/07173136/Chiropotes_albinasus-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=233558</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, COVID-19, Environment, Fires, Forests, Grasslands, Green, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Pandemics, Peatlands, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Satellite Imagery, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to the north, a patch of untouched jungle has been almost entirely cleared this year. In countless other parts of this vast protected region, the Amazon [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to the north, a patch of untouched jungle has been almost entirely cleared this year. In countless other parts of this vast protected region, the Amazon is being cut down and burned at a dizzying speed. The Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu spans some ​​1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) across the municipalities of São Félix do Xingu and Altamira, long strongholds of Brazilian cattle ranching. It encompasses thousands of hectares of dense jungle and boasts a rich diversity of plant and animal species. It is also home to Indigenous groups and traditional peoples, who rely on the forest to survive. The Xingu region is home to a wide variety of animals, such as bare-tailed woolly opossums (Caluromys philander). Image by Moisés Silva Lima via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 2.0) Under federal protection since 2006, the territory is supposed to be used only for sustainable development, with landowners required to keep some 80% of the forest intact. When it was created more than a decade ago, Triunfo do Xingu was intended as a buffer that would protect vulnerable areas beyond its boundaries, like the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory and the Terra do Meio Ecological Station. The ecologically-rich Xingu Basin – within which it is nestled – is made up of some 28 conservation areas and 18 Indigenous territories.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazilian-amazon-protected-areas-in-flames-as-land-grabbers-invade/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/brazilian-amazon-protected-areas-in-flames-as-land-grabbers-invade/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-233558</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fires in the Pantanal: ‘We are facing a scenario now that is catastrophic’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/fires-in-the-pantanal-we-are-facing-a-scenario-now-that-is-catastrophic/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/fires-in-the-pantanal-we-are-facing-a-scenario-now-that-is-catastrophic/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2020 18:50:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Ionova]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/06180936/Onc%CC%A7a_do_Pantanal-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=233495</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, Pantanal, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forests, Grasslands, Green, National Parks, Peatlands, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Satellite Imagery, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A canopy of thick smoke blanketed a vast patch of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, stretching as far as the eye could see. Underneath, flames were engulfing the yellowed grasslands of the Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, parched by weeks of drought. Fed by gusty winds, the fire had already been burning for days and showed no signs [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A canopy of thick smoke blanketed a vast patch of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, stretching as far as the eye could see. Underneath, flames were engulfing the yellowed grasslands of the Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, parched by weeks of drought. Fed by gusty winds, the fire had already been burning for days and showed no signs of slowing. The blaze, filmed by firefighters flying overhead on July 23, was still raging as recently as last week, according to two enforcement sources. So far, it has consumed some 40,000 hectares. In the seven days between July 27 and August 3, satellites from the U.S. space agency NASA recorded more than 20,000 fire alerts in the Brazilian Pantanal. With little access into the area, state and federal forces have struggled to stop the advance of the flames. The fire departments of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul estimate that, together with hundreds of other fires, some 1.2 million hectares of land across the Pantanal has been lost. Satellite data show several areas of fire activity in June, July and into August. As of at least July 30, fires were burning just a few kilometers away from Pantanal Matogrossense National Park. Source: NASA FIRMS. “VIIRS Active Fires.” Accessed through Global Forest Watch on 06/05/2020. “In recent days, we have noticed a really strong intensification of the fires,” said Júlio César Sampaio, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Pantanal Program, in an interview in late July. “But the truth is that the fires&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/fires-in-the-pantanal-we-are-facing-a-scenario-now-that-is-catastrophic/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-233495</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>COVID-19 and rainforest fires set up potential public health crisis</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/covid-19-and-rainforest-fires-set-up-potential-public-health-crisis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/covid-19-and-rainforest-fires-set-up-potential-public-health-crisis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jun 2020 13:53:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/06/18133514/riau_1272-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=231575</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Indonesia, Latin America, South America, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Conservation, COVID-19, Culture, data, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forestry, Forests, Health, Human Rights, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Logging, Planetary Health, Public Health, Rainforests, Ranching, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Saving Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Solutions, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, Traditional People, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The COVID-19 pandemic and the arrival of fire season in two of the world’s major rainforests are on a collision course, scientists and public health researchers say, and the results could amount to a public health disaster. Experts argue for the need to stem the deforestation that nearly always precedes fires in wet tropical forests, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The COVID-19 pandemic and the arrival of fire season in two of the world’s major rainforests are on a collision course, scientists and public health researchers say, and the results could amount to a public health disaster. Experts argue for the need to stem the deforestation that nearly always precedes fires in wet tropical forests, in addition to containing the spread of the virus circulating around the globe, because the pollution thrown into the atmosphere by the fires could multiply the effects of the pandemic, especially for indigenous populations. Tropical rainforests aren’t fire-adapted landscapes like parts of Australia or the western United States, Ane Auxiliadora Costa Alencar, director of science at the Brazilian research NGO IPAM, told reporters in a call June 17. “Fire just does not occur naturally in those biomes,” said Ruth DeFries, a professor of ecology and sustainable development at Columbia University who was also on the call. “It’s too wet.” Forest fires in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon. Image © Victor Moriyama/Greenpeace. But every year, fire seasons predictably follow deforestation in the Amazon and Southeast Asia as farmers and ranchers clear the land of recently cut debris. Pique over the burning of the Amazon reached a zenith in 2019, with widespread media attention that often conflated these intentionally set blazes with the more familiar wildfires of drier temperate forests. While destructive, these more frequent wildfires are a part of the ecology of the regions in which they occur. The destruction wrought by fires&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/covid-19-and-rainforest-fires-set-up-potential-public-health-crisis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/covid-19-and-rainforest-fires-set-up-potential-public-health-crisis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-231575</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Marijuana cultivation whittling away Madagascar’s largest connected forest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/marijuana-cultivation-whittling-away-madagascars-largest-connected-forest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/marijuana-cultivation-whittling-away-madagascars-largest-connected-forest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 May 2020 18:48:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/29175657/madagascar_nosy_komba_0171-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=230846</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar and Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Deforestation, Drug Trade, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Lemurs, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Between the cacao fields of northwest Madagascar and the vanilla of the northeast, a chain of rainforests bob along the highland interior. Tsaratanana Reserve, home to the country’s highest peak, has long been a key link in the chain, with abundant primary forest mostly undisturbed by human activity. Yet the reserve now faces threats on [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Between the cacao fields of northwest Madagascar and the vanilla of the northeast, a chain of rainforests bob along the highland interior. Tsaratanana Reserve, home to the country’s highest peak, has long been a key link in the chain, with abundant primary forest mostly undisturbed by human activity. Yet the reserve now faces threats on an unprecedented scale. Primary and secondary forest in Tsaratanana Reserve is being cleared at a rapid rate, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland visualized on Global Forest Watch (GFW). Local officials say slash-and-burn agriculture for marijuana cultivation is to blame. Scientists say that if this deforestation continues, it will fragment the reserve’s well-connected forests and threaten the animals that live there — many of which are endemic, which means they’re found nowhere else in the world. Satellite data show the area comprising Tsaratanana has been experiencing heavy deforestation over the past two decades, with forest loss bleeding well into the reserve. While mostly occurring in lowland areas of the reserve, data and imagery show that deforestation appears to be expanding towards the higher reaches. Source: Hansen/GLAD/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA, accessed through Global Forest Watch. Satellite imagery shows recent re-clearing of areas cleared in 2019. Some of these clearings appear to be expanding into primary forest. Source: Planet Labs/Sentinel 2. Although most cultivation is being done in lowland areas, clearing also appears to be affecting some areas of higher elevation. Source: Planet Labs. Satellite imagery shows what appear to be fires burning on mountaintops in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/marijuana-cultivation-whittling-away-madagascars-largest-connected-forest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/marijuana-cultivation-whittling-away-madagascars-largest-connected-forest/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-230846</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘They never intended to conserve it’: Outcry as loggers gut Cambodian reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/they-never-intended-to-conserve-it-outcry-as-loggers-gut-cambodian-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/they-never-intended-to-conserve-it-outcry-as-loggers-gut-cambodian-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2020 11:52:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Andrew Nachemson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/12164312/Sunda_Clouded_Leopard_Neofelis_Diardi_Santago-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=230165</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers and Mekong Forest Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Habitat Loss, Illegal Logging, Logging, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Species Discovery, Timber, timber trade, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In late February, conservationist Kheng Khou tried to enter Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which he routinely patrols with other members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and his colleagues were denied access and threatened with arrest. Local authorities told them they couldn’t enter because they didn’t have permission from the Cambodian Ministry [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In late February, conservationist Kheng Khou tried to enter Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which he routinely patrols with other members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and his colleagues were denied access and threatened with arrest. Local authorities told them they couldn’t enter because they didn’t have permission from the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, but Khou suspects another reason. “If the PLCN goes there, we’ll collect and publish evidence and then the world would know about the deforestation and destruction happening even in the protected area,” he said. Prey Lang, which stretches across five provinces in northern Cambodia, is one of the region’s last remaining large areas of old growth rainforest. In recent years, the area has come under renewed threat from politically connected timber companies. And while the companies themselves are relatively new, some of the individuals behind them have been plundering Cambodia’s forests for decades. A pile of freshly hewn lumber sits in a pile in Prey Land Wildlife Sanctuary. Image courtesy of the Prey Lang Community Network. The same week that Khou and others were denied access to Prey Lang, deforestation in the area spiked. Ida Theilade, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, grew concerned by heightened deforestation activity detected by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab at the University of Maryland in the U.S., which uses satellites to identify areas of tree cover loss larger than 30 square meters. In response, she sent an open letter to Prey Lang stakeholders&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/they-never-intended-to-conserve-it-outcry-as-loggers-gut-cambodian-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/they-never-intended-to-conserve-it-outcry-as-loggers-gut-cambodian-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-230165</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Healing the world through ‘radical listening’: Q&#038;A with Dr. Kinari Webb</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/healing-the-world-through-radical-listening-qa-with-dr-kinara-webb/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/healing-the-world-through-radical-listening-qa-with-dr-kinara-webb/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Apr 2020 18:51:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/04/30184938/sabah_3977-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=229726</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Climate Change, Community-based Conservation, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deforestation, Economics, Environment, Fires, Forests, Global Warming, Governance, Green, Habitat Loss, Logging, National Parks, Old Growth Forests, Pandemics, Pangolins, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Supply Chain, Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Forest Management, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dr. Kinari Webb believes this because she has witnessed it — up close: Amid this global pandemic, the health of the planet is intricately connected to public health around the world. In an op-ed she co-authored in The Hill in connection with Earth Day, she wrote: “The coronavirus is perhaps the biggest wakeup call we [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dr. Kinari Webb believes this because she has witnessed it — up close: Amid this global pandemic, the health of the planet is intricately connected to public health around the world. In an op-ed she co-authored in The Hill in connection with Earth Day, she wrote: “The coronavirus is perhaps the biggest wakeup call we have ever had to the fact that failing to take nature into account puts our own health in danger.” More than a decade ago, Webb, a medical doctor and founder of the nonprofit Health in Harmony, plunged into a remote jungle community of 60,000 mostly impoverished people in Indonesian Borneo near Gunung Palung National Park. She had gone there first to study orangutans. Logging was rampant. Local agriculture was anemic. The health of the population was often dire. Through some 400 initial hours of community discussions — “radical listening,” Webb calls it — she and her team learned that many were logging, and thus destroying precious ecosystems, in order to pay for health care. They worked to change that dynamic. By training locals in sustainable agriculture and offering health care at deep discounts if logging ceased, they saw significant results. Improved infant mortality and public health. Drastically reduced deforestation. Recovering ecosystems along with the biodiversity living within the rainforests. Can radical listening and community-based solutions focusing heavily on environmental protection and public health point the way toward preventing the next pandemic? In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Webb tackles that question and others on the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/healing-the-world-through-radical-listening-qa-with-dr-kinara-webb/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-229726</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘A crisis situation’: Extinctions loom as forests are erased in Mozambique</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/a-crisis-situation-extinctions-loom-as-forests-are-erased-in-mozambique/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/a-crisis-situation-extinctions-loom-as-forests-are-erased-in-mozambique/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Dec 2019 20:58:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Njagi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/12/05193735/MOZAMBIQUE-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=225062</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Mozambique, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Deforestation, Environment, Extinction, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Logging, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Species Discovery, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[NACOPA, Mozambique — It’s nighttime on Mount Nallume in central Mozambique and the chirping of frenzied crickets fills the thick forest air. Then, toward midnight, another voice joins the cacophony. “I found one!” yells Julian Bayliss to his colleagues Vanessa Muianga and Phil Platts. Muianga is a curator and freshwater expert at the Museum of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NACOPA, Mozambique — It’s nighttime on Mount Nallume in central Mozambique and the chirping of frenzied crickets fills the thick forest air. Then, toward midnight, another voice joins the cacophony. “I found one!” yells Julian Bayliss to his colleagues Vanessa Muianga and Phil Platts. Muianga is a curator and freshwater expert at the Museum of Natural History in Maputo while Platts and Bayliss are conservation scientists, Platts at the University of York and the IUCN Climate Change Specialist Group, and Bayliss at the African Butterfly Research Institute (ABRI), the Transglobe Expedition Trust and Oxford Brookes University. According to Bayliss, they are the first biologists to set foot on Mount Nallume. They emerge from the underbrush holding a tiny green chameleon just a few inches long. This pygmy chameleon (genus Rhampholeon) holds special significance for the researchers; they suspect it could be a species new to science, one that may live nowhere else in the world except for in this small forest. And soon, Bayliss says, it may live nowhere at all. This chameleon might belong to a species new to science. Photo by Julian Bayliss. Nallume’s forest, home to the chameleon and other wildlife — including more species Bayliss suspects are new to science — is rapidly disappearing as residents from nearby communities chop down its trees for lumber and burn it for food. Bayliss estimates that at its current pace of deforestation, it will be gone in five to 15 years. And it’s not the only one. Dotted throughout&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/a-crisis-situation-extinctions-loom-as-forests-are-erased-in-mozambique/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-225062</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fires and greenhouse gases fuel drying of the Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/fires-and-greenhouse-gases-fuel-drying-of-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/fires-and-greenhouse-gases-fuel-drying-of-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2019 13:18:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/11100907/amazon_era_2016_lrg.1929ec5c26b846de889ccfff6a1c3392-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224302</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Bioenergy, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Climate Science, Conservation, Deforestation, Drought, Earth Science, Environment, Fires, Forest Carbon, Forests, Global Warming, Green, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Solutions, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The burning of vegetation and the release of climate-warming gases into the atmosphere are conspiring to dry out the Amazon rainforest, according to a new study. “We observed that in the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in dryness in the atmosphere as well as in the atmospheric demand for water above [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The burning of vegetation and the release of climate-warming gases into the atmosphere are conspiring to dry out the Amazon rainforest, according to a new study. “We observed that in the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in dryness in the atmosphere as well as in the atmospheric demand for water above the rainforest,” Armineh Barkhordarian, an assistant researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the lead author of the study, said in a statement. Fires in the Amazon captured the world’s attention in the late summer of 2019. Though a recent analysis demonstrated that most of the fires were burning on recently deforested land, not the forest itself, the release of “black carbon” into the atmosphere above the forest is still having a substantial impact. These fires, primarily set to clear the way for agriculture and pastures, feed a cycle in which droughts and fires will continue to be more likely. A fire in the Peruvian Amazon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Publishing their work Oct. 25 in the journal Scientific Reports, Barkhordarian and her colleagues used satellite-mounted instruments to come up with what’s known as the vapor pressure deficit, or VPD, across tropical South America. The VPD is the gap between the maximum amount of moisture the air can hold and how much moisture is actually there, and it’s been notching upward — meaning drier air in the Amazon — over the past few decades. The team’s analysis leaves little doubt that humans are&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/fires-and-greenhouse-gases-fuel-drying-of-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224302</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Colombian town faces earthquakes, pollution, water shortage as industry expands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/colombian-town-faces-earthquakes-pollution-water-shortage-as-industry-expands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/colombian-town-faces-earthquakes-pollution-water-shortage-as-industry-expands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Nov 2019 15:51:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Álvaro AvendañoDiana Velasco]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/08153329/Rubiales-6-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224237</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers and Global Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Bioenergy, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Oil, Old Growth Forests, Palm Oil, Plantations, Pollution, Primary Forests, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This article is a collaboration between Rutas del Conflicto and Mongabay Latam. &#160; PUERTO GAITÁN, Colombia — When Modesto Paredes bought 25 acres of land 10 years ago in the Colombian municipality of Puerto Gaitán, he thought that he would be living in paradise. The area, located in Meta Department, is known for its fertile, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This article is a collaboration between Rutas del Conflicto and Mongabay Latam. &nbsp; PUERTO GAITÁN, Colombia — When Modesto Paredes bought 25 acres of land 10 years ago in the Colombian municipality of Puerto Gaitán, he thought that he would be living in paradise. The area, located in Meta Department, is known for its fertile, red soil and expansive plains. It is also bordered by two rivers – the Tillavá River to the south, and Caño Rubiales to the north – that supply water to the Puerto Gaitán. There’s something else near Paredes’ farm: the Rubiales oil field. Controlled since 2016 by Ecopetrol, a Colombian oil company, the Rubiales oil field produces thousands of barrels of oil every day. In addition to the infrastructure used to produce crude oil, the area has been transformed by palm oil, with more than 8,600 acres of oil palm trees cultivated across the landscape. This monoculture that has replaced many of the area’s gallery forests and native plants like the moriche palm (Mauritia flexuosa), with satellite data from the University of Maryland showing ongoing deforestation expanding from the edges of oil palm plantations. The region surrounding Puerto Gaitán is comprised of native plains laced with low-lying gallery forests. However, these forests are being eaten up as plantations expand, with satellite imagery showing several areas of primary forest have been cleared in the past year. Source: GLAD/UMD, accessed through Global Forest Watch This oil palm plantation (highlighted by a yellow rectangle in the map above)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/colombian-town-faces-earthquakes-pollution-water-shortage-as-industry-expands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224237</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaria surges in deforested parts of the Amazon, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/malaria-deforestation-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/malaria-deforestation-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Oct 2019 11:30:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/10/23042500/Anopheles_stephensi.6050afc8afe147649084270e19625d1b-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=223705</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, Deforestation, Diseases, Ecology, Economics, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Health, Illegal Logging, Insects, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Planetary Health, Public Health, Rainforests, Research, Slash-and-burn, Threats To Rainforests, Traditional People, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tropical deforestation may spur the transmission of malaria at levels much higher than once thought, according to a recent study. Disease ecologist Andrew MacDonald and his Stanford University colleague Erin Mordecai analyzed more than a decade of data showing the occurrences of malaria in nearly 800 villages, towns and cities across the Brazilian Amazon. They [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Tropical deforestation may spur the transmission of malaria at levels much higher than once thought, according to a recent study. Disease ecologist Andrew MacDonald and his Stanford University colleague Erin Mordecai analyzed more than a decade of data showing the occurrences of malaria in nearly 800 villages, towns and cities across the Brazilian Amazon. They also looked at satellite-tracked deforestation over that same time frame. Understanding the effect each variable has on the other is tricky. That’s because the rise in malaria cases that follows deforestation appears, in turn, to diminish continued deforestation. The disease slows local economies and discourages people from settling in high-malaria areas. A soy field abuts the forest in the Brazilian Amazon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. MacDonald and Mordecai found that a 1 percent rise in the incidence of malaria corresponds to a 1.4-percent dip in deforestation. This “feedback” has clouded conclusions from earlier research about deforestation&#8217;s true effect on malaria, MacDonald, now based at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in an email. To cut through the confusion, the researchers controlled for malaria’s impact on deforestation in their analysis. They then found that previous estimates had been about three times lower than the actual effect of deforestation on malaria. The team calculated that a 10 percent rise in deforestation led to a 3.3 percent average increase in malaria transmission. For 2008, that amounted to another 9,980 cases across the Brazilian Amazon. They reported their results in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/malaria-deforestation-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-223705</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Madagascar calls for assistance as fires imperil its protected areas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/madagascar-calls-for-assistance-as-fires-imperil-its-protected-areas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/madagascar-calls-for-assistance-as-fires-imperil-its-protected-areas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Oct 2019 08:50:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/10/11041143/madagascar_190790-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=223377</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, Conservation, Corn, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Logging, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[18-1804-152996-CSD]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fires razed more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) of forestland in Madagascar’s Ankarafantsika National Park in August and September — four times the size of New York City’s Central Park. By now, the worst appears to be over, an official said. “Currently, there are some fire points around the park, and the field team works [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fires razed more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres) of forestland in Madagascar’s Ankarafantsika National Park in August and September — four times the size of New York City’s Central Park. By now, the worst appears to be over, an official said. “Currently, there are some fire points around the park, and the field team works closely with the local force (armed forces, local population, firefighter, regional and municipal administration) to extinguish them,” Mamy Rakotoarijaona, director-general of park operator Madagascar National Parks (MNP), told Mongabay in an email on Oct. 8. “We can say that the fire is mastered; on the other hand, caution is in order.” The park, in northwestern Madagascar, is home to the country’s fast-disappearing dry deciduous forests. Less than 5 percent of the country’s original dry forests survive today. The park also includes swamp forests and riparian forests that adjoin water bodies. The forests of Ankarafantsika support a marvelous array of life: about 850 plant species, more than 85 percent of which are endemic to Madagascar and 16 species of which are endemic to the park; more than140 bird species, and eight lemur species. The national park was established in 2002 by stitching together three existing reserves, spread across 130,000 hectares (321,000 acres), that have held protected status since the early 1900s. However, official protection has not shielded the park from the recurring threat of human-caused bushfires. Slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced widely in Madagascar and is a major driver of deforestation. People burn and clear forestland to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/madagascar-calls-for-assistance-as-fires-imperil-its-protected-areas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/madagascar-calls-for-assistance-as-fires-imperil-its-protected-areas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-223377</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mexican officials battle a tide of fire eating away at a protected reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/mexican-officials-battle-a-tide-of-fire-eating-away-at-a-protected-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/mexican-officials-battle-a-tide-of-fire-eating-away-at-a-protected-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Sep 2019 13:45:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/09/12200113/2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=222567</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Old Growth Forests, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[04759]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CAMPECHE, Mexico —When a fire broke out in June in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico, more than 200 volunteer firefighters and specialists were deployed to help keep it contained. Faced with limited road access and marshy terrain, the team needed nearly three days to reach the fire and start getting the flames under [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CAMPECHE, Mexico —When a fire broke out in June in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico, more than 200 volunteer firefighters and specialists were deployed to help keep it contained. Faced with limited road access and marshy terrain, the team needed nearly three days to reach the fire and start getting the flames under control. By that time, 3,087 hectares (7,628 acres) of protected jungle had been destroyed. Officials remain uncertain about the exact cause of the fire, but speculate that it most likely started as a result of a farmer acting careless with slash-and-burn agricultural practices, the most common cause of deforestation in the Yucatan Peninsula’s largest protected area. The jungles of Calakmul, located in the state of Campeche, normally burn within a 90-day window lasting from April to June, though fires sometimes begin as early as February and last as late as July, depending on the year. Intact forest landscapes (IFLs) are areas of native land cover that are large and intact enough to retain their original biodiversity levels. Only one IFL remains in the Yucatan, and Calakmul Biosphere Reserve protects a large portion of it. While fire activity around Calakmul has died back in recent weeks, it has intensified in other areas. Source: GLAD/UMD; NASA FIRMS. “VIIRS Active Fires.” Accessed through Global Forest Watch on September 12, 2019. Satellite data from NASA show that while burning in Calakmul largely followed the normal April-June season in 2019, fire activity in the surrounding areas of Campeche began ramping&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/mexican-officials-battle-a-tide-of-fire-eating-away-at-a-protected-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/mexican-officials-battle-a-tide-of-fire-eating-away-at-a-protected-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-222567</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Small-scale farming is a big threat to biodiversity in the western Amazon: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/small-scale-farming-is-a-big-threat-to-biodiversity-in-the-western-amazon-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/small-scale-farming-is-a-big-threat-to-biodiversity-in-the-western-amazon-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jul 2019 16:01:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/07/24154455/birdwatching-in-western-amazon_1210px-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=220769</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Farming, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Research, Slash-and-burn, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Smallholder farming poses a significant threat to biodiversity in the western Amazonian forests of northeastern Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, a study led by researchers at Princeton University has found. In the southeast Amazon, large-scale, mechanized farming and ranching are driving forest loss, but smallholder slash-and-burn agriculture is the primary driver [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Smallholder farming poses a significant threat to biodiversity in the western Amazonian forests of northeastern Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, a study led by researchers at Princeton University has found. In the southeast Amazon, large-scale, mechanized farming and ranching are driving forest loss, but smallholder slash-and-burn agriculture is the primary driver of forest destruction in the western Amazon, considered to be the largest intact tropical forest wilderness remaining on Earth. Small-scale agricultural operations are generally considered to be much less harmful to wildlife than the wholesale clearance and conversion of forests to pasture or cropland, but the study, published in the journal Conservation Biology in May, shows that small-scale farmers’ activities are having a substantially negative impact on wildlife and plant life all the same. The study looks at the species composition and distribution of birds and trees in the Amazonian lowlands of Peru’s Loreto Department. Lead author Jacob Socolar is a bird expert who led the research as a Ph.D. student while working in the lab of David Wilcove, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton and a co-author of the study. Together with Elvis Valderrama Sandoval, a botanist at the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana, Socolar and Wilcove examined four habitat types where small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture is taking place — upland forests, floodplain forests, white-sand forests, and river islands — and compared their findings in those areas with relatively untouched, primary forests. “We wanted to know how tropical biodiversity responds to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/small-scale-farming-is-a-big-threat-to-biodiversity-in-the-western-amazon-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/small-scale-farming-is-a-big-threat-to-biodiversity-in-the-western-amazon-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-220769</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fire, cattle, cocaine: Deforestation spikes in Guatemalan national park</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/invaders-cattle-cocaine-deforestation-spikes-in-guatemalan-national-park/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/invaders-cattle-cocaine-deforestation-spikes-in-guatemalan-national-park/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jun 2019 14:59:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/06/21145646/31-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=219505</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Archeology, Big Cats, Birds, Cats, Cattle, Deforestation, Drug Trade, Environment, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Industrial Agriculture, Land Rights, National Parks, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Satellite Imagery, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[4759]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A patrol of eleven men is hiking along a rough jungle trail spotted with the blackened foliage of several small brush fires. Nearby trees, smoke-stained at their bottoms but still alive, are painted with a messy green &#8220;M&#8221; for La Mestiza, the peasant community staking a claim on the area. Authorities consider La Mestiza residents [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A patrol of eleven men is hiking along a rough jungle trail spotted with the blackened foliage of several small brush fires. Nearby trees, smoke-stained at their bottoms but still alive, are painted with a messy green &#8220;M&#8221; for La Mestiza, the peasant community staking a claim on the area. Authorities consider La Mestiza residents to be intruders, as their village falls within Laguna del Tigre National Park, the largest such park in Guatemala. But community members have defended what they say is their right to live on the land and to use its resources, in some cases even resorting to violence. Five of the men on this patrol are park rangers. The other six are National Civil Police officers, who arrived late the night before to provide additional security. Together, they navigate the forest in a straight line, speaking only in whispers. The leaders hold machetes for clearing the trail of vines and ferns. Most hold water bottles, sometimes more than one. Even at 8:30 a.m., the sun hits so hard that sweat has begun dripping down their necks. Laguna del Tigre occupies about 1,300 square miles in northern Guatemala. Photo by Max Radwin for Mongabay. The patrol walks in a single file, speaking only in whispers. Photo by Max Radwin for Mongabay. The jungle becomes thinner and thinner until the patrol reaches a five-mile-long field, once as dense as the healthiest parts of the park but now scattered with cattle fences. It’s completely deserted. Over the most distant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/invaders-cattle-cocaine-deforestation-spikes-in-guatemalan-national-park/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/invaders-cattle-cocaine-deforestation-spikes-in-guatemalan-national-park/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-219505</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Stunting, loss of earning potential linked to Indonesia’s 1997 wildfires</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/stunting-loss-of-earning-potential-linked-to-indonesias-1997-wildfires/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/stunting-loss-of-earning-potential-linked-to-indonesias-1997-wildfires/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Feb 2019 10:31:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lauren Crothers]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Genevieve Belmaker]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/06/01201024/indonesia_20150774-495x330.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=215770</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Forests, Indonesian Forests, Indonesian Palm Oil, and Jokowi Commitments]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Fires, Forests, Health, Palm Oil, Planetary Health, Plantations, Public Health, Slash-and-burn, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[GLO-4060 QZA-16/0047.4, 2018-67916]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[It was 1997, and while record fires were raging across Indonesia a new socio-economic crisis may have been quietly unfolding among the country’s infants and unborn children, according to a new study. The study, released earlier this week, suggests that the fires had a direct and irreversible impact on those babies: Their growth was stunted [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It was 1997, and while record fires were raging across Indonesia a new socio-economic crisis may have been quietly unfolding among the country’s infants and unborn children, according to a new study. The study, released earlier this week, suggests that the fires had a direct and irreversible impact on those babies: Their growth was stunted by up to 3.4 centimeters (1.3 inches) compared to the norm for other 17-year-olds, which in turn may have negatively affected their abilities to earn a comparable income. While the practice is generally illegal in Indonesia, companies and farmers alike use fire to clear land for oil palm and other crops. In 1997, a drought caused by El Niño rapidly spread what were intended as controlled, land-clearing fires. Subhrendu Pattanayak, a professor at Duke University, and Jie-Sheng Tan-Soo, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, sought to assess the impact of this environmental disaster in the longer term. “Pursuit of short-term economic gains results in air pollution that causes long-term, irreversible health impacts.” To arrive at this conclusion, the pair studied 560 children tracked since 1993 from the Indonesian Family and Life Survey (ILFS), a series of surveys conducted by the RAND Corporation, as well as the mothers’ residential records and their babies’ birth dates in particular districts to “identify the air pollution exposure for each fetus from August to October 1997, when the fires and air pollution were most intense,” they wrote. They then focused on the children’s heights when they were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/stunting-loss-of-earning-potential-linked-to-indonesias-1997-wildfires/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-215770</doi>				</item>
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