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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/sugar/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>News on Sugar</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/sugar/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>World’s biggest deforestation project gets underway in Papua for sugarcane</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/worlds-biggest-deforestation-project-gets-underway-in-papua-for-sugarcane/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/worlds-biggest-deforestation-project-gets-underway-in-papua-for-sugarcane/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Sep 2024 16:57:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/19165137/5647Tanam_Tebu_Perdana_di_Merauke__Presiden_Jokowi_Pemerintah_Fokus_Kembangkan_Ketahanan_Pangan-768x452.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287611</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Papua, Southeast Asia, and West Papua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Food, food security, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Grasslands, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Land Rights, Plantations, Rainforests, Savannas, Sugar, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Excavators have begun clearing land in the Indonesian region of Papua in what’s been described as the largest deforestation undertaking in the world. A total of 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke district will be razed to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Excavators have begun clearing land in the Indonesian region of Papua in what’s been described as the largest deforestation undertaking in the world. A total of 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke district will be razed to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations, part of the Indonesian government’s efforts to boost domestic sugar production. Five consortiums, consisting of Indonesian and foreign companies, are confirmed to be participating in the 130 trillion rupiah ($8.4 billion) project, with roles ranging from developing sugarcane plantations and processing mills, to building the power plants to run them. At least one of the companies, PT Global Papua Abadi (GPA), has already seeding its concession, with President Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, planting the first seeds in a ceremony on July 23. “I see that the land here is flat and there’s plenty of water. I think this is an opportunity to turn Merauke into Indonesia’s food barn,” the president said at the ceremony. Satellite monitoring by technology consultancy TheTreeMap has detected large land clearings inside GPA’s concession since June 2024. Using alerts data from Nusantara Atlas, a forest monitoring platform run by TheTreeMap, the organization found at least 356 hectares (880 acres) of forest cleared during that time. Timelapse of deforestation within PT Global Papua Abadi&#8217;s concession. Image courtesy of TheTreeMap. This is contrary to the government’s claims that it will mitigate the environmental impact of the sugarcane project by avoiding forested areas as&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/worlds-biggest-deforestation-project-gets-underway-in-papua-for-sugarcane/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/worlds-biggest-deforestation-project-gets-underway-in-papua-for-sugarcane/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287611</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As in India, tigers in Nepal may seek refuge in sugarcane fields</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-in-india-tigers-in-nepal-may-seek-refuge-in-sugarcane-fields/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-in-india-tigers-in-nepal-may-seek-refuge-in-sugarcane-fields/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Aug 2024 01:19:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/11/05193318/india_165187-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=286822</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Biodiversity, Conflict, Conservation, Farming, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Sugar, and Tigers]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — On the morning of Aug. 1 in Dodhara-Chandani, a town on the banks of Mahakali, which serves as the western border between Nepal and India, a 23-year-old woman was attacked and killed by a tiger while working next to a sugarcane field. The big cat emerged from the sugarcane field and struck a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — On the morning of Aug. 1 in Dodhara-Chandani, a town on the banks of Mahakali, which serves as the western border between Nepal and India, a 23-year-old woman was attacked and killed by a tiger while working next to a sugarcane field. The big cat emerged from the sugarcane field and struck a blow on her head, killing the woman instantly. In May 2023, a tiger was reported to roam the Kalika Community Forest near the Nepal-India border in Bhajani Municipality-5 in far-western Nepal. According to local officials, the tiger was believed to have emerged from the surrounding sugarcane fields following the harvest season. “Although the relationship between tigers and sugarcane fields has been well documented in neighboring India, such work hasn’t been carried out in Nepal,” researcher Baburam Lamichhane said. While India is the second-largest sugarcane producer in the world, sugarcane farming has rapidly expanded in Nepal, from around 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) in 1961 to around 62,500 hectares (155,000 acres) in 2022, thanks to government incentives that make it ab easy-to-grow cash crop. The bulk of the growth has taken place in the Terai region of Nepal on the floodplains of the Koshi, Narayani, Karnali and Mahakali. Barring Koshi, the floodplains of the remaining three rivers in Nepal have seen another expansion during the same period—that of the population of Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris). “The nature of sugarcane farms is such that they mimic the tall grasslands found inside tiger habitats in protected areas,” said&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-in-india-tigers-in-nepal-may-seek-refuge-in-sugarcane-fields/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-286822</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sugarcane megaproject poses latest threat to Papua’s forests, communities</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/sugarcane-megaproject-poses-latest-threat-to-papuas-forests-communities/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/sugarcane-megaproject-poses-latest-threat-to-papuas-forests-communities/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jun 2024 15:56:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas JongSarjan Lahay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/03/28063848/IMG_5021-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=283450</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Alternative Energy, Avoided Deforestation, Biodiversity, Bioenergy, Biofuels, Climate, Climate Change, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Food, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Plantations, Rainforests, Renewable Energy, Sugar, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to establish 2 million hectares, or nearly 5 million acres, of sugarcane plantations in the eastern region of Papua, home to the last great expanse of rainforest in Southeast Asia. The country’s investment minister, Bahlil Lahadalia, said the land, spanning an area 30 times the size of Jakarta, was available in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to establish 2 million hectares, or nearly 5 million acres, of sugarcane plantations in the eastern region of Papua, home to the last great expanse of rainforest in Southeast Asia. The country’s investment minister, Bahlil Lahadalia, said the land, spanning an area 30 times the size of Jakarta, was available in Merauke district. He denied that this biodiverse landscape constituted “natural forest,” and justified clearing it in the interest of weaning Indonesia off sugar imports entirely by 2027. The government also has plans to develop cane-derived bioethanol as part of its transition away from fossil fuels. “Our country is one of the world’s largest in size. But [when] sugar price increases, we always import. We keep importing [sugar],” Bahlil said in Jakarta on April 29. Bahlil leads a task force formed by President Joko Widodo to allocate land for the project and streamline the licensing process for interested companies. To date, five consortiums, consisting of Indonesian and foreign companies, are confirmed to be participating in the 130 trillion rupiah ($7.9 billion) project, with roles ranging from developing sugarcane plantations and processing mills, to building the power plants to run them. One of the first orders of business is to rezone 419,000 hectares ( million acres) of forested area, six times the size of Jakarta, into non-forest area, thereby allowing it to be deforested — legally. In South Papua province alone, this amounts to 25,654 hectares (63,392 acres) of intact forest that’s been approved for clearing, according&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/sugarcane-megaproject-poses-latest-threat-to-papuas-forests-communities/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-283450</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Labor abuse and work accidents on plantations of Cameroon’s largest sugar producer</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/labor-abuse-and-work-accidents-on-plantations-of-cameroons-largest-sugar-producer/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/labor-abuse-and-work-accidents-on-plantations-of-cameroons-largest-sugar-producer/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jan 2024 18:27:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Yannick Kenné]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/31170012/3-Christine-Maisali-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278315</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cameroon, and Central Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, Crime, Economics, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Industry, Pollution, Poverty, Social Justice, and Sugar]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[NKOTENG, Cameroon — At the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (Société Sucriere du Cameroun, SOSUCAM), the year 2023 came to a close on a grim note: the death of a man named Mballa Olomo. The temporary worker lost his life as a result of burns suffered in a work accident that occurred in December at one of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NKOTENG, Cameroon — At the Cameroon Sugar Corporation (Société Sucriere du Cameroun, SOSUCAM), the year 2023 came to a close on a grim note: the death of a man named Mballa Olomo. The temporary worker lost his life as a result of burns suffered in a work accident that occurred in December at one of the company’s plants based in Nkoteng, a Cameroonian town north of Yaoundé, the nation’s capital. The 43-year-old town native had been a seasonal worker at the industrial agriculture company for about ten years. The company is a subsidiary of the French group SOMDIAA, which manufactures and markets food commodities and runs six sugar cane plantations across Africa. The accident that cost Olomo his life is one of many that have occurred at SOSUCAM. Accidents are countless on the company&#8217;s plantations in Nkoteng and Mbandjock, where the company grows sugar cane on nearly 25,000 hectares (61,776 acres) of agricultural land. A recent report by the company’s seasonal workers&#8217; union revealed that about a hundred work accidents occurred on the company&#8217;s plantations between November 2022 and June 2023. Last April, a vehicle transporting workers and moving at high speed overturned on the Nkoteng plantation, injuring 35 people, two of whom were seriously injured. A seasonal worker (a cane cutter) on the SOSUCAM sugar cane plantation in Nkoteng. Image by Yannick Kenné. In Cameroon, the government encourages the expansion of industrial agriculture companies considering them to play an essential role in development. The government also believes that they&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/labor-abuse-and-work-accidents-on-plantations-of-cameroons-largest-sugar-producer/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-278315</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study links pesticides to child cancer deaths in Brazilian Amazon &#038; Cerrado</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/study-links-pesticides-to-child-cancer-deaths-in-brazilian-amazon-cerrado/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/study-links-pesticides-to-child-cancer-deaths-in-brazilian-amazon-cerrado/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Nov 2023 17:30:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shi En Kim]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/10151036/pesticide-in-bahia-cerrado-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=275270</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Air Pollution, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Conservation, Controversial, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Food, Food Industry, Green, Health, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Agriculture, Pesticides, Planetary Health, Plantations, Poisoning, Pollution, Public Health, Soy, Sugar, Threats To Rainforests, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The researchers estimate that 123 childhood deaths during the 2008-19 period are associated with exposure to pesticides from the soy fields, amounting to half the deaths of children under 10 from lymphoblastic leukemia in the region.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Marin Elisabeth Skidmore visited Brazil in 2019, she heard rumblings among the locals about elevated childhood cancers and tragic premature deaths. At that time, she was conducting research in the state of Rondônia, a sparsely populated area in west Brazil that was pressing up against the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. The region, like many other locales encroaching upon the rainforest stronghold, was facing a boom in soybean production. Cleared tracts that were once used for livestock grazing were rapidly repurposed for growing soybeans. With this transition from pastureland into cropland came a spike in pesticide use over the years. These pesticides, the community leaders bemoaned, were likely behind the rise in pediatric cases of leukemia. The link between agricultural chemicals and cancer risk has been previously established by medical experts. But few studies had mapped these substances’ footprint at a population level in Brazil. After Skidmore returned home to the United States, she crunched the numbers. Her latest study in the journal PNAS reports that Brazil’s rise in soybean production may have come at a cost: between 2008 and 2019, an estimated half of the leukemia deaths of children under 10 in soy-expansion regions were connected with pesticide exposure. “We&#8217;re just seeing new populations being exposed to these pesticides that have not been exposed in years prior,” Skidmore tells Mongabay, now an applied economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “We want to shed light on the costs and benefits of this [agricultural] intensification.” Brazil is the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/study-links-pesticides-to-child-cancer-deaths-in-brazilian-amazon-cerrado/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-275270</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cambodia awards swath of national park forest to tycoon Ly Yong Phat’s son</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/cambodia-awards-swath-of-national-park-forest-to-tycoon-ly-yong-phats-son/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/cambodia-awards-swath-of-national-park-forest-to-tycoon-ly-yong-phats-son/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jul 2023 02:31:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald FlynnMeng Kroypunlok]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/25153445/DJI_0599-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271331</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Cardamom Mountains, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corruption, Crime, Deforestation, Development, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, forest degradation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Governance, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, Industrial Agriculture, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Logging, National Parks, Plantations, Protected Areas, Protests, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Rubber, Sugar, Timber, timber trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the entire park since 1998. This land rush has seen a 28% decrease in forest across the 182,342-hectare (450,577-acre) park between 2001 and 2022. According to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the entire park since 1998. This land rush has seen a 28% decrease in forest across the 182,342-hectare (450,577-acre) park between 2001 and 2022. According to Global Forest Watch, some 45,600 hectares (112,700 acres) of tree cover vanished during those 21 years, as tycoons and political allies of longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen carved up the coastal protected area in Cambodia’s southwestern Koh Kong province. Key among these political allies is Ly Yong Phat, a multimillionaire Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) senator, an adviser to Hun Sen, and president of the Oknha Association — a union for Cambodia’s many tycoons, or Oknha — who has been awarded 16,275 hectares (40,216 acres) of Botum Sakor National Park since 2008. The senator has acquired tens of thousands of hectares of land across Koh Kong and Kampong Speu provinces, mostly for plantations operated by companies run by his wife, Kim Heang, and their five children. In January this year, another concession handed a 6,234-hectare (15,405-acre) plot of Botum Sakor to a company where Ly Phoonrat, the youngest son of the senator, serves as a director. In total, three new roads spanning some 45 kilometers have been cut through the best-preserved part of Botum Sakor National Park. All three roads link to concessions owned by Ly Yong Phat, a ruling party senator and Cambodian tycoon with&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/cambodia-awards-swath-of-national-park-forest-to-tycoon-ly-yong-phats-son/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271331</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Poisoned by pesticides: Health crisis deepens in Brazil’s Indigenous communities</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/poisoned-by-pesticides-health-crisis-deepens-in-brazils-indigenous-communities/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/poisoned-by-pesticides-health-crisis-deepens-in-brazils-indigenous-communities/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Jan 2023 20:57:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/01/16203216/pexels-gilmer-diaz-estela-6345502-scaled-e1673901240276-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264619</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Global Commodities]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Air Pollution, Bees, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Controversial, Corn, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Food, Food Industry, Green, Health, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Agriculture, Insects, Law, Law Enforcement, Pesticides, Planetary Health, Plantations, Poisoning, Pollution, Public Health, Regulations, Soy, Sugar, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s use of pesticides has spiked in recent years, growing by over 300,000 tonnes since 2010, according to experts. A recent report, published by the NGO Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN) in partnership with the Federal University of Mato Grosso’s institute of public health, reveals the harmful effects of these chemicals on Indigenous populations living in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s use of pesticides has spiked in recent years, growing by over 300,000 tonnes since 2010, according to experts. A recent report, published by the NGO Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN) in partnership with the Federal University of Mato Grosso’s institute of public health, reveals the harmful effects of these chemicals on Indigenous populations living in Mato Grosso, the region with the highest pesticide concentrations in the country. According to its findings, each inhabitant of Mato Grosso is estimated to have been exposed to 65.8 liters of pesticides—some of these substances banned—in 2018. The situation is worse for people living in the state’s rural cities where exposure is estimated to exceed 300 liters per inhabitant each year. A machine sprays pesticides on soybean crops in Mato Grosso, a state in the Brazilian Amazon. Supporters of the Safer Food Bill say it will reduce food prices for consumers, provide food security for the country, and boost Brazil’s economy. Image © Bruno Kelly/Greenpeace. Mato Grosso is a high-producing agricultural region in the country and the leading producer of cotton among all Brazilian states. Cotton is the crop that uses the most pesticides in the state and is the second-largest pesticide-using crop in the country. Mato Grosso lies at the intersection of the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado tropical savannah and the Pantanal wetlands—areas of great importance for global climate stabilization. To assess the impact of the agriculture sector in the region, samples were taken from plants, trees and water on Indigenous lands for laboratory&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/poisoned-by-pesticides-health-crisis-deepens-in-brazils-indigenous-communities/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/01/poisoned-by-pesticides-health-crisis-deepens-in-brazils-indigenous-communities/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264619</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Casinos, condos and sugar cane: How a Cambodian national park is being sold down the river</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/casinos-condos-and-sugar-cane-how-a-cambodian-national-park-is-being-sold-down-the-river/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/casinos-condos-and-sugar-cane-how-a-cambodian-national-park-is-being-sold-down-the-river/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 May 2021 00:32:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[James Fair]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/05/03234737/cambodia_161666-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=242256</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Trackers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Elephants, Endangered Environmentalists, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Illegal Logging, Logging, Mammals, National Parks, Old Growth Forests, Palm Oil, Pangolins, Primates, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Satellite Imagery, Sugar, Timber, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known to be richly diverse in both fauna and flora. It’s home to more than 500 bird and at least 44 mammal species, including Sunda pangolins, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known to be richly diverse in both fauna and flora. It’s home to more than 500 bird and at least 44 mammal species, including Sunda pangolins, dholes (Cuon alpinus, a wild canid), Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and pileated gibbons (Hylobates pileatus), all of which are classified as either Critically Endangered (Sunda pangolin) or Endangered in the IUCN Red List. Over the past two decades, however, Botum Sakor has acquired a darker reputation for having one of the highest rates of deforestation in Cambodia, with those who are prepared to go on the record describing it as a “paper park” that is being effectively destroyed. Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) are critically endangered. Their primary threat is poaching (as a group, pangolins are considered the world&#8217;s most trafficked animals) but habitat loss is also a big concern for the species. Image by Frendi Apen Irawan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The park itself covers an expanse of just over 170,000 hectares (420,00 acres), but large areas have already been deforested. Satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch (GFW) show that it lost 24,500 hectares of humid primary rainforest between 2002 and 2020. In other words, 24% of the park’s old growth forest was cleared over the past 18 years. Total tree cover&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/casinos-condos-and-sugar-cane-how-a-cambodian-national-park-is-being-sold-down-the-river/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/casinos-condos-and-sugar-cane-how-a-cambodian-national-park-is-being-sold-down-the-river/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-242256</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sugarcane threatens Amazon forest and world climate; Brazilian ethanol is not clean (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/sugarcane-threatens-amazon-forest-and-world-climate-brazilian-ethanol-is-not-clean-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/sugarcane-threatens-amazon-forest-and-world-climate-brazilian-ethanol-is-not-clean-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Nov 2019 11:55:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lucas FerrantePhilip M. Fearnside]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/18114933/BANNER-sc-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224531</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, Pantanal, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biofuels, Conservation, Controversial, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Forests, Green, Industrial Agriculture, Land Use Change, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, Sugar, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is opening the Amazon and Pantanal wetland biomes to sugarcane production, risking deforestation and intensified carbon emissions.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[John Deere sugarcane harvester at work in the production of ethanol, Piracicaba, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mariordo Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his Ministers of Economy and Agriculture jointly signed a decree that extinguishes the environmental zoning for sugarcane that had restrained the advance of this crop into the Amazon and the Pantanal (Brazil’s famous wildlife-rich wetlands). The change dramatically threatens these biomes. Sugarcane plantations have been shown to threaten biodiversity — their effects extending beyond the cultivated areas to adjacent forests. In 2018, the Brazilian Senate considered revoking the 2009 decree that established zoning for sugarcane in the Amazon and Pantanal. As we pointed out in a letter published in Science at the time of the 2018 Senate proposal, allowing sugarcane to expand into Amazonia would affect biodiversity and ecosystem services, with impacts that extend to other areas of the country. For fear of international boycotts, the 2018 proposal was even opposed by the Sugarcane Industry Union (UNICA), a position that has now changed. Thankfully, in 2018 enough senators in the key committees were convinced of the proposal’s disastrous consequences that they ruled against releasing the crop. Now under President Bolsonaro, the same disaster is being unleashed by a simple presidential decree. The president of the Sugarcane Industry Union, Evandro Gussi, recently published a note on UNICA&#8217;s website that, ignoring all research on the subject, claimed that environmental zoning for sugarcane would no&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/sugarcane-threatens-amazon-forest-and-world-climate-brazilian-ethanol-is-not-clean-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/sugarcane-threatens-amazon-forest-and-world-climate-brazilian-ethanol-is-not-clean-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224531</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In surprise move, Brazil has removed restrictions on Amazon sugarcane production</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/in-a-surprise-move-even-to-the-sugarcane-industry-president-bolsonaro-has-removed-restrictions-on-sugarcane-production-in-the-brazilian-amazon-experts-expect-land-speculators-to-benefit/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/in-a-surprise-move-even-to-the-sugarcane-industry-president-bolsonaro-has-removed-restrictions-on-sugarcane-production-in-the-brazilian-amazon-experts-expect-land-speculators-to-benefit/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Nov 2019 12:46:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Naira Hofmeister]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/13123443/2396791310_7455b24a21_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224390</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Illegal Deforestation and Global Commodities]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Cerrado, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Clean Energy, Commodity Roundtables, Conservation, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Ethanol, Forest Destruction, Forests, International Trade, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Sugar, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In a surprise move even to the sugarcane industry, the president has removed restrictions on Amazon sugarcane production; land speculators could benefit.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A decree issued by President Jair Bolsonaro that would allow the cultivation of sugarcane in the Amazon — where it currently isn&#8217;t allowed —  has surprised even the local sugarcane industry, which has previously rejected the notion as unfeasible, unnecessary, and a minefield of reputational risk. The decree was published in the government&#8217;s official gazette on Nov. 5. Since then, no representatives from UNICA, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, have commented on the change. In its only statement on the matter, published on its website, UNICA described the zoning regulation repealed by Bolsonaro’s decree as an “instrument of the past.” But it also emphasized that under the RenovaBio bioethanol initiative, Brazil&#8217;s national biofuels policy that comes into force in 2020, that the industry had “decided that it would be [committed to a] zero … deforestation policy.” The industries most closely associated with deforestation in the Amazon are cattle ranching and soy cultivation. The sugarcane industry, which has made Brazil the world’s No. 2 producer of bioethanol fuel after the United States, has avoided that association for several reasons. The first is that the crop is simply unsuited for that particular environment; heat or drought stress causes the plant to stop growing. The industry has also seen no justification for expanding into protected areas when available land is plentiful elsewhere. The newly repealed Sugarcane Agroecological Zoning regulation provided for the possibility of planting sugarcane on approximately 60 million hectares (150 million acres) outside forest areas, in degraded or pasture areas, without&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/in-a-surprise-move-even-to-the-sugarcane-industry-president-bolsonaro-has-removed-restrictions-on-sugarcane-production-in-the-brazilian-amazon-experts-expect-land-speculators-to-benefit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/in-a-surprise-move-even-to-the-sugarcane-industry-president-bolsonaro-has-removed-restrictions-on-sugarcane-production-in-the-brazilian-amazon-experts-expect-land-speculators-to-benefit/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224390</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/dam-in-ethiopia-has-wiped-out-indigenous-livelihoods-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/dam-in-ethiopia-has-wiped-out-indigenous-livelihoods-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2019 10:21:39 +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/20/2019/06/10185101/Kelly_Fogel-3769.d369bc9aea734b91bff6ea2a95ba723b-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=219374</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Ethiopia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Agriculture, Cats, Conservation, Culture, Dams, Deforestation, Development, Ecology, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Forests, Human Migration, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Infrastructure, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Reform, Land Rights, Land Speculation, NGOs, Parks, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Plantations, Politics, Poverty, Poverty Alleviation, Protected Areas, Redd, Resource Conflict, Social Conflict, Social Justice, Subsistence Agriculture, Sugar, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Forest Management, Traditional People, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists call it flood-retreat agriculture. As a swollen river blankets a dry plain and then recedes, it replenishes the thin soil with enough nutrients to sprout grass for cattle and allow the cultivation of crops like corn and sorghum. It’s an approach that indigenous groups have been practicing for centuries around the world, allowing them [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists call it flood-retreat agriculture. As a swollen river blankets a dry plain and then recedes, it replenishes the thin soil with enough nutrients to sprout grass for cattle and allow the cultivation of crops like corn and sorghum. It’s an approach that indigenous groups have been practicing for centuries around the world, allowing them to subsist in arid and otherwise marginal climates. These methods had long been part of the culture for several such groups living in the Omo River Valley in southern Ethiopia. But the construction of the Gibe III hydroelectric dam, beginning in 2006, has seemingly ended that way of life. The dam now shunts electricity to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, as well as to Kenya to the south and controls the river’s flow to irrigate sprawling fields of sugarcane. For the indigenous, a host of problems, including hunger, poverty, conflict and human rights abuses, have filled the void, says Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank. “The floods of the River Omo have ended,” Mittal told Mongabay. “There’s such grief and pain.” Cattle gathering in the Kortcho village of the Kara group. Image © Kelly Fogel. With the backing of the Ethiopian government, the winds of economic development have cast a cloud over three indigenous groups in particular living in the Lower Omo Valley. The Bodi, the Mursi and the Northern Kwegu have, along with others, been marginalized as Africa&#8217;s second-most populous country has tried to increase its economic output,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/dam-in-ethiopia-has-wiped-out-indigenous-livelihoods-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/dam-in-ethiopia-has-wiped-out-indigenous-livelihoods-report-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-219374</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Video: Scientists surprised to discover tiny toadlets can glow</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/video-scientists-surprised-to-discover-tiny-toadlets-can-glow/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/video-scientists-surprised-to-discover-tiny-toadlets-can-glow/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Mar 2019 15:05:14 +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/20/2019/03/29145657/Brachycephalus_ephippium_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=216997</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Amphibians, Animals, Cattle, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Frogs, Green, Herps, Industrial Agriculture, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Research, Soy, Sugar, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The forest floor along Brazil’s Atlantic coast is home to a species of teeny-tiny frogs called pumpkin toadlets (Brachycephalus ephippium), so named because of their bright orange color that warns would-be predators that they contain a deadly toxin. Now, new research reveals they have another trick up their sleeves – they glow. The discovery came [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The forest floor along Brazil’s Atlantic coast is home to a species of teeny-tiny frogs called pumpkin toadlets (Brachycephalus ephippium), so named because of their bright orange color that warns would-be predators that they contain a deadly toxin. Now, new research reveals they have another trick up their sleeves – they glow. Pumpkin toadlets (Brachycephalus ephippium) are tiny, reaching only about a centimeter (half an inch) in length. Photo by Carol Manzano via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) The discovery came as something of a surprise. A team of researchers from institutions around the world was studying the pumpkin toadlets’ acoustic abilities. During mating season, the toadlets crawl around en masse in the leaf litter, softly buzzing in their quest for procreation. But when the researchers took a closer look, they discovered that the little frogs did not have the ability to hear high-frequency sounds – they couldn’t hear their own mating calls. Communication is a big part of frog life. Most frogs attract mates by vocalizing (think of the familiar croaking in springtime swamps), but a few species employ other means. For instance, India’s dancing frogs, which inhabit swift-moving streams that are that are too noisy for ribbiting, wave their legs to seduce potential paramours. So just how do love song-deaf pumpkin toadlets find mates? The researchers thought the answer might lie in some sort of visual display, and in one of their experiments tried shining a UV light on them. To their surprise, the toadlets’ backs and heads&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/video-scientists-surprised-to-discover-tiny-toadlets-can-glow/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/video-scientists-surprised-to-discover-tiny-toadlets-can-glow/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-216997</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Another 700 hectares of Bolivian rainforest lost to sugarcane surge</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/another-700-hectares-of-bolivian-rainforest-lost-to-sugarcane-surge/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/another-700-hectares-of-bolivian-rainforest-lost-to-sugarcane-surge/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Nov 2016 21:11:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/11/10210356/amazonia-bosques-deforestacion-areas_naturales_protegidas-5-768x509.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=190840</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Loss, Forests, Habitat Loss, Industrial Agriculture, Plantations, Rainforests, Sugar, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In northern Bolivia, a sugarcane operation is carving large plantations out of rainforest. New imagery shows that forest loss has ramped up over the past month, with around 700 more hectares cleared since the end of September. The plantation expansion is occurring 12 kilometers from Madidi National Park, considered one of the world&#8217;s most biodiverse [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In northern Bolivia, a sugarcane operation is carving large plantations out of rainforest. New imagery shows that forest loss has ramped up over the past month, with around 700 more hectares cleared since the end of September. The plantation expansion is occurring 12 kilometers from Madidi National Park, considered one of the world&#8217;s most biodiverse protected areas. Data from the forest monitoring site Global Forest Watch show that some the forest loss from this expansion happened within a particularly large, undisturbed tract of forest called an Intact Forest Landscape (IFL). Satellite imagery indicates this most recent surge of clearing is approaching another IFL lobe, and was less then one kilometer away as of November 5. On-location reporting by Mongabay-Latam in late September found that the plantations and nearby sugar refinery are owned and operated by Bolivian company Empresa Azucarera San Buenaventura (EASBA) and were built by Chinese company Camce Union Engineering (CAMC). The Bolivian government has invested $263 million in the project, with the goal of encouraging domestic sugar production. An aerial image of part of the EASBA sugarcane plantation. Photo by Eduardo Franco Berton Inaugurated in October 2015, the 2016 harvest is expected to produce 14,000 metric tons of sugar and one million liters of alcohol from about 1,300 hectares of plantation land, according to Ramiro Lizondo, general manager of the sugar refinery. Lizondo told Mongabay-Latam that EASBA is planning on upping that to 120,000 metric tons of sugar – and 11,700 hectares of plantations – by 2023. In-step with&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/another-700-hectares-of-bolivian-rainforest-lost-to-sugarcane-surge/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/another-700-hectares-of-bolivian-rainforest-lost-to-sugarcane-surge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-190840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Exclusive: Rainforest rapidly cleared for sugarcane in Bolivia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/exclusive-rainforest-rapidly-cleared-for-sugarcane-in-bolivia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/exclusive-rainforest-rapidly-cleared-for-sugarcane-in-bolivia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Oct 2016 21:22:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Eduardo Franco Berton]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/10/01180026/amazonia-bosques-deforestacion-areas_naturales_protegidas-5-768x509.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=190138</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Deforestation, Environment, forest degradation, Forest Destruction, Forests, Habitat Loss, Industrial Agriculture, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Sugar, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This story originally appeared on Mongabay Latam. It was translated by Romina Castagnino. I am flying over Madidi National Park in a Cessna 172 aircraft. From the air, the phrase &#8220;green ocean&#8221; used by some scientists to describe the Amazon, makes more sense now. Behind the lens of my Nikon, the imposing Tuichi River makes its way [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story originally appeared on Mongabay Latam. It was translated by Romina Castagnino. I am flying over Madidi National Park in a Cessna 172 aircraft. From the air, the phrase &#8220;green ocean&#8221; used by some scientists to describe the Amazon, makes more sense now. Behind the lens of my Nikon, the imposing Tuichi River makes its way through the jungle like a fleeing snake. As I observe, I remember the book &#8220;Back from Tuichi&#8221; which tells the incredible survival story of Yossi Ghinsberg, an Israelite who was lost for 21 days in this region of Madidi. In only a few minutes, the young pilot, Henry Ruiz, beckons to direct our gaze to a completely different landscape that is coming from the left side of the aircraft. Just 12 kilometers from Madidi National Park, we can observe thousands of hectares of the Bolivian Amazon that have been razed and replaced by large sugar cane plantations. Satellite data from the University of Maryland and visualized on the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show that about 1,300 hectares (13 square kilometers) were deforested near San Buenaventura&#8217;s sugar refinery between 2011 and 2014. Then, late last month, Planet Labs detected a recent ramp-up in clearing activity, with around 600 more hectares affected near the mill and another 240-hectare area of deforestation to the west of the refinery. This latter area was cleared between July and September 2016, and was covered in primary forest as of the year 2000. This ongoing deforestation can be seen clearly from the air,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/10/exclusive-rainforest-rapidly-cleared-for-sugarcane-in-bolivia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-190138</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Advances from oil palm interests leave Sulawesi village unmoved</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/10/advances-from-oil-palm-interests-leave-sulawesi-village-unmoved/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/10/advances-from-oil-palm-interests-leave-sulawesi-village-unmoved/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Oct 2015 11:31:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Christopel Paino]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/10/03144107/2.-Petani-hutan-saat-membuat-gula-merah-aren.-Ini-adalah-gula-merah-terbaik-di-Gorontalo.-Sayangnya-harga-di-pasaran-tidak-menentu.-440x330.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia's Forest Guardians]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Gorontalo, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and Sulawesi]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community Development, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Heroes, Forestry, Forests, Logging, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Sugar, Timber, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[One March morning on the island of Sulawesi, not long after Yerri Otoluwa was appointed acting head of Rumbia village, two men she didn’t know arrived on her doorstep. “Can I help you?” the 34-year-old woman asked her visitors, who introduced themselves as officials from the local branch of Indonesia’s land agency. The men said [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[One March morning on the island of Sulawesi, not long after Yerri Otoluwa was appointed acting head of Rumbia village, two men she didn’t know arrived on her doorstep. “Can I help you?” the 34-year-old woman asked her visitors, who introduced themselves as officials from the local branch of Indonesia’s land agency. The men said they wanted to do a land survey. “Rumbia has been zoned for oil palm,” one of them informed her. Yerri was surprised, but she told them not to worry – the people of Rumbia wanted nothing to do with oil palm plantations. “Why not?” one of them persisted. “Palm oil is good for the community.” “According to you it’s good,” she retorted. “But according to us it’s not good.” “Why do you reject palm oil?” “Look, we don’t want it,” Yerri repeated, her voice beginning to rise. After 15 minutes, the men gave up and left, Yerri told Mongabay. The survey would have to wait. A street in Rumbia on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The village has turned down repeated advances from oil palm interests. Photo by Christopel Paino Residents of Rumbia, a village of 533 families a few hours from the city of Gorontalo in the eponymous province, have been saying no to oil palm companies for years. Usually, it’s representatives from the companies themselves who come in hopes of persuading local people to part with the rights to their land. In response to the advances, the citizens of Rumbia held a meeting&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/10/advances-from-oil-palm-interests-leave-sulawesi-village-unmoved/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-152902</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia to revive controversial sugarcane plan in Aru?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/indonesia-to-revive-controversial-sugarcane-plan-in-aru/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/indonesia-to-revive-controversial-sugarcane-plan-in-aru/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Jun 2015 11:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sapariah Saturi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/06/indonesia-to-revive-controversial-sugarcane-plan-in-aru</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Environmental Policy, Forestry, Forests, Green, Plantations, Rainforests, and Sugar]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A body of water in Aru, a cluster of about 90 islands in eastern Indonesia. Photo: FWI-AMAN The Indonesian agriculture minister&#8217;s recent comments that the Aru archipelago in the country&#8217;s eastern waters will be one of three sites for a major new sugarcane initiative has sparked an outcry among civil society groups. Just last year, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A body of water in Aru, a cluster of about 90 islands in eastern Indonesia. Photo: FWI-AMAN The Indonesian agriculture minister&#8217;s recent comments that the Aru archipelago in the country&#8217;s eastern waters will be one of three sites for a major new sugarcane initiative has sparked an outcry among civil society groups. Just last year, Aru, a cluster of around 90 islands in Indonesia&#8217;s Maluku province, caught the national spotlight when Malaysia-based Menara Group acquired rights to three quarters of its 629,000 hectares as part of a massive plantation venture. Following a public outcry fueled by the &#8220;Save Aru&#8221; Twitter campaign, then-Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan announced in April 2014 that he would not sign off on the company&#8217;s plans. Now, however, activists are wondering if those plans have been revived. According to the Jakarta Post, Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said last week that the government intended to harness foreign investment to establish at least 10 sugar factories and sugarcane plantations in Aru, Merauke in Papua, and Southeast Sulawesi. &#8220;We are planning to allocate 500,000 hectares of land in the three regions, calculating that one mill with a plantation will need at least 50,000 ha of land,&#8221; said Amran, who added that Environment and Forestry Ministry Siti Nurbaya had &#8220;agreed that the land in the three regions would be able to support the industry,&#8221; according to the Post. A bird of paradise perches on a branch in Aru. Photo: Tim Laman Aru Islands. Courtesy of Global Forest Watch. Jacky Manuputty, one&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/indonesia-to-revive-controversial-sugarcane-plan-in-aru/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-62840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazilian farmers urge return of big cats to Cerrado to protect crops from rampaging peccaries</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/brazilian-farmers-urge-return-of-big-cats-to-cerrado-to-protect-crops-from-rampaging-peccaries/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/brazilian-farmers-urge-return-of-big-cats-to-cerrado-to-protect-crops-from-rampaging-peccaries/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2015 17:33:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Brendan Borrell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/04/brazilian-farmers-urge-return-of-big-cats-to-cerrado-to-protect-crops-from-rampaging-peccaries/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Cerrado, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Big Cats, Corn, Environment, Green, Jaguars, Soy, and Sugar]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Cerrado corn crop with peccaries. Photo by Brendan Borrell. Margie Peixoto was driving her pickup across her farm in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul one February afternoon when she spotted some broken corn stalks and a trio of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) ambling along the red-clay road as if they owned it. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Cerrado corn crop with peccaries. Photo by Brendan Borrell. Margie Peixoto was driving her pickup across her farm in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul one February afternoon when she spotted some broken corn stalks and a trio of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) ambling along the red-clay road as if they owned it. The moment these wild pig relatives spotted the truck, they snorted, snarled and disappeared into the head-high crop, where dozens more likely hid. “Every year the group gets bigger and bigger, and every year the damage to the crop is greater,” said Peixoto, a fit middle-aged woman from Zimbabwe, who met her Brazilian husband while traveling in Africa, and immigrated here to farm more than 30 years ago. Peixoto estimates that wild peccaries destroyed as much as 10 percent of her crop last year, amounting to losses of 250,000 Brazilian reals ($100,000). One peccary attacked and killed the family dog. She is not alone in her concern. Marcos Da Silva Cunha, the director of the nearby Emas National Park, said that the size of peccary packs in the region’s agricultural areas can be as large as 80-100 individuals, compared to packs of 40 individuals observed in their natural habitat. Brazilian environmental regulators agree that the population explosion is a serious problem, but one that they have not yet been able to solve. Hunting isn’t the answer, since peccaries are protected both in and outside the national park. Instead, a few conservationists and farmers have proposed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/brazilian-farmers-urge-return-of-big-cats-to-cerrado-to-protect-crops-from-rampaging-peccaries/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-23880</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Guinea rainforest being leveled for palm oil, revealing gaps in zero deforestation pacts</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/new-guinea-rainforest-being-leveled-for-palm-oil-revealing-gaps-in-zero-deforestation-pacts/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/new-guinea-rainforest-being-leveled-for-palm-oil-revealing-gaps-in-zero-deforestation-pacts/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Feb 2015 23:35:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/02/new-guinea-rainforest-being-leveled-for-palm-oil-revealing-gaps-in-zero-deforestation-pacts/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Indonesia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Green, Palm Oil, Plantations, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Sugar, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Greenomics map showing recent clearing by Austindo Nusantara Jaya Agri in West Papua, Indonesia An Indonesian palm oil firm is destroying rainforests in New Guinea despite high profile zero deforestation pledges from its customers, finds research by Greenomics-Indonesia. Landsat imagery acquired and analyzed by Greenomics shows that Austindo Nusantara Jaya Agri (ANJ) is clearing high [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Greenomics map showing recent clearing by Austindo Nusantara Jaya Agri in West Papua, Indonesia An Indonesian palm oil firm is destroying rainforests in New Guinea despite high profile zero deforestation pledges from its customers, finds research by Greenomics-Indonesia. Landsat imagery acquired and analyzed by Greenomics shows that Austindo Nusantara Jaya Agri (ANJ) is clearing high carbon stock forests in the southern part of West Papua&#8217;s Bird&#8217;s Head Peninsula in Indonesian New Guinea. According to data from Global Forest Watch, clearance is occurring within an &#8220;Intact Forest Landscape&#8221;, which is defined as &#8220;an unbroken expanse of natural ecosystems within the zone of current forest extent, showing no signs of significant human activity, and large enough that all native biodiversity, including viable populations of wide-ranging species, could be maintained.&#8221; Global Forest Watch images showing intact forest landscape and primary forest in the areas (noted by pins) where Austindo Nusantara Jaya is clearing land for oil palm plantations. Click images to enlarge. The activity is occurring despite zero deforestation policies established by Musim Mas and Wilmar, palm oil giants that buy from ANJ, which itself is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a body that sets eco-certification standards. Reached by mongabay.com, Wilmar said it was unaware of the clearing by ANJ but promised to investigate the matter. The company noted that no one had filed a grievance via its online complaints system to report on the activity. Musim Mas did not respond to request for comment [Update: Musim Mas responded&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/new-guinea-rainforest-being-leveled-for-palm-oil-revealing-gaps-in-zero-deforestation-pacts/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24069</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia to squander fuel savings on biofuel subsidies that may drive deforestation, say groups</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/indonesia-to-squander-fuel-savings-on-biofuel-subsidies-that-may-drive-deforestation-say-groups/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/indonesia-to-squander-fuel-savings-on-biofuel-subsidies-that-may-drive-deforestation-say-groups/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Feb 2015 23:38:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/02/indonesia-to-squander-fuel-savings-on-biofuel-subsidies-that-may-drive-deforestation-say-groups/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Indonesia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, Biofuels, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Forests, Green, Oil, Palm Oil, Plantations, Subsidies, and Sugar]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Crude palm oil and palm fruit. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Instead of wisely investing the windfall generated by cutting petrol subsidies, Indonesia is poised to squander funds by increasing subsidies for biofuel production that could exacerbate social conflict and drive deforestation, warn environmental groups. Late last year, newly elected president Joko Widodo, popularly known [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Crude palm oil and palm fruit. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Instead of wisely investing the windfall generated by cutting petrol subsidies, Indonesia is poised to squander funds by increasing subsidies for biofuel production that could exacerbate social conflict and drive deforestation, warn environmental groups. Late last year, newly elected president Joko Widodo, popularly known as &#8220;Jokowi&#8221;, took advantage of plunging oil prices to eliminate petrol subsidies that were expected to cost the state $22 billion &#821; or more than 13 percent of the federal budget &#8212; in 2015. Reformers hoped that some of the savings could be reallocated for more productive purposes, like boosting education, healthcare, and programs for poor Indonesians. The fuel subsidy had been widely viewed as a handout to middle and upper class Indonesians who owned vehicles. But earlier this month, officials signaled they intend to apply some of the savings to prop up Indonesia&#8217;s biofuel industry, which turns palm oil and sugar cane into biodiesel and ethanol. According to Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said, the target subsidy for the current year will by 19.4 trillion rupiah ($1.53 billion), or more than six times last year&#8217;s figure. The subsidy would increase the proportion of biofuels used in Indonesia&#8217;s conventional fuel blend, helping support a palm oil market depressed by falling energy prices. Deforestation for an oil palm plantation in Riau, Sumatra in 2014. But environmentalists say the measure is a step backwards for Indonesia&#8217;s energy policy. “Shifting subsidies to land-based biofuel will worsen deforestation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/02/indonesia-to-squander-fuel-savings-on-biofuel-subsidies-that-may-drive-deforestation-say-groups/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24094</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cargill commits to zero deforestation across entire global supply chain: all commodities</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/cargill-commits-to-zero-deforestation-across-entire-global-supply-chain-all-commodities/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/cargill-commits-to-zero-deforestation-across-entire-global-supply-chain-all-commodities/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Sep 2014 09:34:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/09/cargill-commits-to-zero-deforestation-across-entire-global-supply-chain-all-commodities/</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Cattle, Conservation, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Farming, Forestry, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Ranching, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Soy, Sugar, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Destruction of rainforest in Malaysia for palm oil production. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Cargill, one of the world&#8217;s largest agricultural companies, has extended its zero deforestation commitment for palm oil to all commodities it produces. The commitment, announced Tuesday at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, is the most far-reaching zero deforestation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Destruction of rainforest in Malaysia for palm oil production. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Cargill, one of the world&#8217;s largest agricultural companies, has extended its zero deforestation commitment for palm oil to all commodities it produces. The commitment, announced Tuesday at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, is the most far-reaching zero deforestation policy ever established, covering Cargill&#8217;s sprawling global empire of businesses, including palm oil, sugar, soy, cattle, and cocoa. &#8220;We understand that this sort of commitment cannot be limited to just select commodities or supply chains,” said Cargill CEO David MacLennan. “That’s why Cargill will take practical measures to protect forests across our agricultural supply chains around the world.” &#8220;We know we can do it. Our stakeholders demand it. And it is the right thing to do.&#8221; Forest and soy fields in the Brazilian Amazon. In 2006 a Greenpeace campaign pushed the Brazilian soybean industry to adopt a moratorium on deforestation for soy production. That effort became the model for efforts to cut deforestation from cattle, pulp and paper, and palm oil supply chains. The commitment comes just days after Cargill announced it had signed a deal with The Forest Trust (TFT) to implement a &#8220;No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation&#8221; for its palm oil supply chain. It also follows years of campaigning by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) around the ag giant&#8217;s palm oil sourcing practices. The activist group immediately welcomed the commitment. &#8220;Today&#8217;s deforestation pledge by Cargill’s CEO is a welcome commitment and marks an&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/cargill-commits-to-zero-deforestation-across-entire-global-supply-chain-all-commodities/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24659</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil should convert pasture, not cerrado for biofuel crops</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/brazil-should-convert-pasture-not-cerrado-for-biofuel-crops/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/brazil-should-convert-pasture-not-cerrado-for-biofuel-crops/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jun 2014 21:13:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/06/brazil-should-convert-pasture-not-cerrado-for-biofuel-crops/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil and Cerrado]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, Biofuels, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Green, and Sugar]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Sugar cane in the tropics. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. If Brazil wants to respect its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions it should target low productivity cattle pasture rather than native cerrado for biofuel crops like sugar cane, argues a new paper published in Nature Climate Change. Brazil already has the world&#8217;s largest fleet [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[Sugar cane in the tropics. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. If Brazil wants to respect its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions it should target low productivity cattle pasture rather than native cerrado for biofuel crops like sugar cane, argues a new paper published in Nature Climate Change. Brazil already has the world&#8217;s largest fleet of &#8220;flex-fuel&#8221; vehicles, most of which run &#8220;gasohol&#8221; that includes sugar cane-derived ethanol. However climbing gas prices and growing car ownership will continue fueling a rise in demand for agricultural land. With the Amazon rainforest mostly off-limits due to government policies, the 2 million hectare woody grassland known as the cerrado is increasingly under threat. Conversion of this ecosystem puts not only native wildlife at risk, but also contributes to carbon emissions, according to the paper. Woods Hole Research Center scientists Marcia Macedo and Eric Davidson therefore argue that farmers and the government target the 2.5 million square kilometers of existing cleared lands in Brazil. &#8220;Because Brazil has a large supply of under-used, low productivity pastures that are suitable for sugar cane, there is no reason to clear additional native Cerrado for sugar cane production,&#8221; said Macedo in a statement, noting that over half of the cerrado has already been cleared. The researchers say that such a strategy could enable Brazil to more than meet its carbon emissions reduction target while at the same time growing food, fuel, and fiber production. CITATION: Marcia N. Macedo &#038; Eric A. Davidson. Climate and land use: Forgive us&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/brazil-should-convert-pasture-not-cerrado-for-biofuel-crops/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-25022</doi>				</item>
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					<title>Commodity eco-certification skyrockets, but standards slip</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/commodity-eco-certification-skyrockets-but-standards-slip/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/commodity-eco-certification-skyrockets-but-standards-slip/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2014 04:39:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/05/commodity-eco-certification-skyrockets-but-standards-slip/</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiesel, Biofuels, Cacao, Certification, Coffee, Environment, Ethanol, Farming, Forestry, Green, Logging, Palm Oil, Plantations, Soy, Sugar, and Sustainability]]>
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							<![CDATA[Trends in commodity certification markets Market share for certified commodities. All figures courtesy of IISD&#8217;s report The volume of commodities produced under various social and environmental certification standards jumped 41 percent in 2012, far outpacing the 2 percent growth across conventional commodity markets, finds a comprehensive new assessment of the global certification market. The report [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[Trends in commodity certification markets Market share for certified commodities. All figures courtesy of IISD&#8217;s report The volume of commodities produced under various social and environmental certification standards jumped 41 percent in 2012, far outpacing the 2 percent growth across conventional commodity markets, finds a comprehensive new assessment of the global certification market. The report &#8212; published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), Environment and Trade in a World of Interdependence (ENTWINED) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) &#8212; provides an in-depth review of certification for the banana, biofuels, cocoa, coffee, cotton, forestry, palm oil, soy, sugar, and tea markets. State of Sustainability Initiatives (SSI) Review 2014 reveals a number of important trends in the commodity certification market, including strong growth &#8212; indicating uptake by mainstream markets &#8212; and increased use of independent monitoring and enforcement. But it also finds chronic oversupply for certified commodities and weakening standards, suggesting that demand is failing to keep pace as certification bodies move to broaden participation. &#8220;While standard compliant production has reached significant levels across select commodities, actual sales of products as &#8216;standard compliant&#8217; have not grown as rapidly, resulting in significant oversupply (typically between one-third and one-half of total compliant production is actually sold as compliant). This situation means that companies have ample choice for sustainable sourcing (positive outcome), but also suggests that the market may be placing downward pressure on the prices of sustainable&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/05/commodity-eco-certification-skyrockets-but-standards-slip/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-25311</doi>				</item>
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