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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/timber-trade/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on timber trade</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/timber-trade/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>In South Africa, renewable energy latest part of timber industry’s green efforts</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-south-africa-renewable-energy-latest-part-of-timber-industrys-green-efforts/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-south-africa-renewable-energy-latest-part-of-timber-industrys-green-efforts/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Aug 2026 10:09:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mkhululi Chimoio]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/26100828/HarvestingTimber_MpumalangaSouthAfrica_YorkTimbersFairUse-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327323</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Emission Reduction, Energy, Environment, Forests, Governance, Renewable Energy, Timber, and timber trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — York Timber Holdings signed a 10-year renewable electricity agreement with electricity trader Discovery Green for power for its Jessievale sawmill in June 2026. Renewables will now make up approximately 90% of the mill’s electricity use, and the agreement is a trend that is spreading amongst commercial users in South Africa. “The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — York Timber Holdings signed a 10-year renewable electricity agreement with electricity trader Discovery Green for power for its Jessievale sawmill in June 2026. Renewables will now make up approximately 90% of the mill’s electricity use, and the agreement is a trend that is spreading amongst commercial users in South Africa. “The 10-year agreement gives York Timbers access to renewable electricity at scale, while improving long-term certainty regarding electricity costs,” said Linmari Pelser, the company’s group risk and compliance officer. Discovery Green is a subsidiary of one of South Africa’s largest health insurance schemes; Discovery’s renewable energy division works with companies that want to increase energy efficiency and shift to renewables, including “wheeling” agreements like the one with York Timber. Under the agreement, York Timber’s electricity will still arrive over the same infrastructure, but Discovery Green will coordinate the equivalent amount of power being fed into the national grid from a range of solar and wind producers across the country. York Timber also operates a 700 kW solar farm at the mill. Pelser said the agreement will reduce the sawmill’s greenhouse gas emissions, while reducing its exposure to electricity tariff hikes and potential future carbon-based costs, such as South Africa’s Carbon Tax. This tax on greenhouse gas emissions was introduced in 2019, and generous allowances that allowed most polluters to pay only a fraction of their assessed costs are scheduled to be lifted this year. Dan Ginsberg, head of actuarial and research and development at Discovery Green,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-south-africa-renewable-energy-latest-part-of-timber-industrys-green-efforts/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-south-africa-renewable-energy-latest-part-of-timber-industrys-green-efforts/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327323</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How narcos moved 108 tons of timber infused with drugs from Bolivia to Chile</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-narcos-moved-108-tons-of-timber-infused-with-drugs-from-bolivia-to-chile/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-narcos-moved-108-tons-of-timber-infused-with-drugs-from-bolivia-to-chile/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jul 2026 13:30:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/10131149/Chile-run-anti-drug-operation-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323075</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Chile, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Crime, Drug Trade, Environment, Forest Products, Forestry, Governance, Illegal Trade, Law, Timber, timber trade, Trade, trafficking, and Tropical hardwoods]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New risks to South American forests emerge as trees becomes a key element in drug trafficking.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new case has exposed the connection between drug trafficking webs and the export of timber from the Amazon and other regions of Bolivia. After Chile announced in June the largest drug seizure — 108 tons of cocaine and ketamine — in its history, authorities confirmed the substances were detected impregnated in Bolivian wood planks. This is not the first time shipments of the so-called “narco-timber” have been caught: The illicit practice dates back at least 20 years, using the same recurring routes. Mongabay accessed prosecutorial sources in both Chile and Bolivia, two Andean nations in South America sharing a land border of 861 kilometers (535 miles). According to investigations in Chile, 32 shipments were made from Bolivia by 15 timber companies, mostly in 2026. In financial terms, the total amount of drugs moved through this system had a value exceeding $8.3 billion in international markets, according to the breakdown. “It is a six-month investigation developed by the Prosecutor&#8217;s Office of Arica [a northern Commune], the Maritime Police, and the National Customs Service of Chile, which culminated in the detection of 45 contaminated containers [with drugs] in the ports of Arica, Valparaíso, and San Antonio,” the Prosecutor&#8217;s Office of Arica and Parinacota stated in a report. Cocaine and ketamine impregnated in timber were detected in Arica, northern Chile. Image courtesy of the National Customs Service of Chile. The timber shipments departed from Bolivia, mainly from the departments of Pando, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Beni and La Paz. The cargoes had ports&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-narcos-moved-108-tons-of-timber-infused-with-drugs-from-bolivia-to-chile/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-narcos-moved-108-tons-of-timber-infused-with-drugs-from-bolivia-to-chile/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323075</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Dutch importers linked to suspect Amazon timber, investigation finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dutch-importers-linked-to-suspect-amazon-timber-investigation-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dutch-importers-linked-to-suspect-amazon-timber-investigation-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jul 2026 20:34:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/02202022/a.-Beyond-Fire_Timber_03_DSC_4594-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322420</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Business, Environment, Environmental Law, EUDR, Forestry, Governance, Illegal Logging, International Trade, Logging, Sustainable Forest Management, timber trade, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Two Dutch timber importers are at the center of a new investigation that shows they may have purchased suspect wood sourced to one of the largest logging companies in Brazil, which had temporarily lost its permits and been banned from clearing. Brazilian logging company Samise Indústria Comércio e Exportação was clearing the forest to make [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Two Dutch timber importers are at the center of a new investigation that shows they may have purchased suspect wood sourced to one of the largest logging companies in Brazil, which had temporarily lost its permits and been banned from clearing. Brazilian logging company Samise Indústria Comércio e Exportação was clearing the forest to make roads and lumber yards months before receiving operating permits, according to an investigation by Earthsight, a U.K.-based nonprofit that exposes environmental and social crime. Employees also allegedly tampered with identification tags before inspections and transported illegally cleared lumber. Some of the wood was eventually moved to sawmills owned by Brazilian company Greenex S/A Indústria Comércio e Exportação de Madeira, then exported to Dutch companies Hoogendoorn Hout and Van den Berg Houtgroep, the investigation found. The transactions reveal weak points in international trade regulations and the certification process, intended to verify sustainably sourced wood, the report said. “[Trade regulations] must go beyond surface-level checks on their supply chains,” Rafael Pieroni, Earthsight’s Latin America team lead, said in a statement. “European importers must refrain from treating certification as a substitute for rigorous due diligence.” In the 2010s, Samise was one of three companies granted forestry concessions inside the 429,000-hectare (1.1-million-acre) Saracá-Taquera National Forest, which is covered almost entirely with primary forest and home to 29 mammal species found nowhere outside the Amazon. In May 2023, Samise’s operations were banned due to evidence of fraud discovered by Brazil’s Chico Mendes Biodiversity Conservation Institute (ICMBio), the agency responsible for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dutch-importers-linked-to-suspect-amazon-timber-investigation-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/dutch-importers-linked-to-suspect-amazon-timber-investigation-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322420</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Illegal timber imports from Cambodia, Laos skirt Vietnam safeguards, report reveals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/illegal-timber-imports-from-cambodia-laos-skirt-vietnam-safeguards-report-reveals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/illegal-timber-imports-from-cambodia-laos-skirt-vietnam-safeguards-report-reveals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jul 2026 11:35:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/09032420/RESIZED-Preah-Roka_Mongabay_Andy-Ball-5-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322242</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Laos, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corporations, Crime, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Governance, Illegal Logging, Logging, Primary Forests, Rainforests, Supply Chain, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Illegally sourced timber from Cambodia and Laos continues to enter Vietnam’s supply chains despite recent efforts to tighten legality controls, according to a new report from U.K.-based watchdog the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Falsified paperwork, manipulated harvesting quotes, and intermixing of timber from multiple sources are just some of the ways well-established criminal networks perpetuate [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Illegally sourced timber from Cambodia and Laos continues to enter Vietnam’s supply chains despite recent efforts to tighten legality controls, according to a new report from U.K.-based watchdog the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Falsified paperwork, manipulated harvesting quotes, and intermixing of timber from multiple sources are just some of the ways well-established criminal networks perpetuate the illicit trade, EIA teams uncovered during a four-year investigation. “We repeatedly observed mechanisms through which timber from questionable sources could be incorporated into formal trade channels,” says Thomas Chung, forest timber campaigns lead for the EIA. Vietnam is one of the world’s largest timber exporters. As a major manufacturing hub of furniture, flooring and other wood products, it plays a key role in international supply chains, shipping roughly $17 billion in timber and timber products in 2025. Timber from neighboring Laos and Cambodia represents a relatively small share of Vietnam’s total supply, the EIA report says, accounting for less than 9% of all timber shipments into the country. However, it carries an outsized legality risk that significantly undermines Vietnam’s efforts to ensure legal sourcing. To maintain access to lucrative export markets, such as the U.S., the EU, Japan and China, the country has made several recent updates to its national timber legality framework, known as the Vietnam Timber Legality Assurance System (VNTLAS). However, the EIA investigation indicates these efforts are being grossly undermined by persistent imports of illegal timber from Cambodia and Laos, exposing key weaknesses in the VNTLAS system. A consistent issue was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/illegal-timber-imports-from-cambodia-laos-skirt-vietnam-safeguards-report-reveals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/illegal-timber-imports-from-cambodia-laos-skirt-vietnam-safeguards-report-reveals/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322242</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pulp and paper giant APRIL adds major deforesters as suppliers after revising sustainability policy</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/pulp-and-paper-giant-april-adds-major-deforesters-as-suppliers-after-revising-sustainability-policy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/pulp-and-paper-giant-april-adds-major-deforesters-as-suppliers-after-revising-sustainability-policy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jun 2026 15:12:59 +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/20/2025/12/15111219/DJI_0028-min-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321412</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central Kalimantan, Global, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Business, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, EUDR, Forest Products, Forestry, Forests, Great Apes, Habitat Loss, Law, Orangutans, Primates, Pulp And Paper, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Supply Chain, Timber, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Pulp and paper giant APRIL made recent changes that are concerning to environmental groups. These changes include suspending and reviewing its flagship sustainability policy, lowering its deforestation commitments, and sourcing wood from two companies responsible for some of Indonesia&#8217;s largest recent forest losses. The company, part of the Singapore-headquartered Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Pulp and paper giant APRIL made recent changes that are concerning to environmental groups. These changes include suspending and reviewing its flagship sustainability policy, lowering its deforestation commitments, and sourcing wood from two companies responsible for some of Indonesia&#8217;s largest recent forest losses. The company, part of the Singapore-headquartered Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group, the world’s largest manufacturer of viscose rayon, said the changes are needed to align its policies with international standards and secure fiber supplies following the loss of several long-term suppliers. Environmental groups, however, said the move weakens a key safeguard that APRIL has long cited as evidence of its no-deforestation commitments. The controversy centers on APRIL&#8217;s decision to add Indonesian concessions PT Industrial Forest Plantation (IFP) and PT Mayawana Persada (Mayawana) as its wood suppliers, integral to manufacturing viscose. Both companies, based on Kalimantan, have experienced extensive forest loss in recent years and have been repeatedly criticized by environmental groups. Previously, RGE and its subsidiaries, including APRIL, pledged not to source wood from plantations linked with deforestation since 2015. It is a pledge the company had reportedly broken. Its new corporate promise lowers the cutoff date to 2020, drawing sharp criticism from environmental groups. APRIL said IFP began delivering wood fiber to the company in May 2026. However, vessel-tracking data reviewed by Mongabay indicated that at least five barges carrying timber from the vicinity of IFP&#8217;s operations in Central Kalimantan were tracked traveling to Futong Port in Riau between mid-March and mid-April. Futong serves&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/pulp-and-paper-giant-april-adds-major-deforesters-as-suppliers-after-revising-sustainability-policy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/pulp-and-paper-giant-april-adds-major-deforesters-as-suppliers-after-revising-sustainability-policy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321412</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil FOIA confirms Lula &#038; Macron talked before key CITES vote on endangered tree</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Apr 2026 00:01:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Emmanuelle PicaudFernanda WenzelSpoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/22100823/c-lula-and-macron-in-a-boat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317918</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Europe, France, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Forests, Governance, Mongabay investigation, Plants, Politics, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Supply Chain, timber trade, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Early in 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s office denied that he had a phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, about easing proposed trade restrictions on Brazil’s endangered national tree. The denial to Mongabay came during reporting for a story published in February about Brazil’s efforts to seek the highest trade [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Early in 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s office denied that he had a phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, about easing proposed trade restrictions on Brazil’s endangered national tree. The denial to Mongabay came during reporting for a story published in February about Brazil’s efforts to seek the highest trade protections for Brazilwood (Paubrasilia echinata) — safeguards that were diluted during a global summit of representatives to CITES, a wildlife trade treaty signed by 184 countries and the European Union. Now, following a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Mongabay, Lula’s office confirmed that he had, in fact, been in communication with Macron just before a key vote on the proposal at the CITES conference, held five months ago in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The conversations between Lula and Macron were “regarding the negotiations then underway” as part of CITES deliberations, according to Brazil’s Special Advisory Office of the President of the Republic. The office responded to Mongabay’s FOIA request on April 6. It did not specify what was discussed and did not state if the talks happened over a phone call, text or other means. The FOIA response marks the first official confirmation that the two leaders were in communications at CITES over the issue. Native to the country’s Atlantic Forest and a national symbol, Brazilwood is coveted in the music industry to make high-quality violin bows, which sell for as high as 7,000 euros ($8,200) apiece. The demand has led the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317918</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EU deforestation law nudges timber trade, Indonesia probe shows, but risks persist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eu-deforestation-law-nudges-timber-trade-indonesia-probe-shows-but-risks-persist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eu-deforestation-law-nudges-timber-trade-indonesia-probe-shows-but-risks-persist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Apr 2026 04:31:26 +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/20/2026/04/17040959/Picture1-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317697</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Europe, European Union, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forests, International Trade, Rainforests, Regulations, Supply Chain, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Several European timber firms have cut ties with suppliers linked to deforestation in Indonesia following a 2025 investigation, suggesting that an upcoming European Union regulation is already influencing behavior ahead of its implementation at the end of 2026. Still, new trade data show imports from high-risk suppliers continued in 2025, raising concerns that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Several European timber firms have cut ties with suppliers linked to deforestation in Indonesia following a 2025 investigation, suggesting that an upcoming European Union regulation is already influencing behavior ahead of its implementation at the end of 2026. Still, new trade data show imports from high-risk suppliers continued in 2025, raising concerns that timber linked to forest clearance may still be entering EU supply chains. In their 2025 investigation, U.K.-based NGO Earthsight and its Indonesian partner, Auriga Nusantara, traced timber from recently cleared forests in Indonesian Borneo to European importers, using government documents, satellite imagery and trade records. Analyzing nearly 10,000 unpublished documents submitted to Indonesian authorities, the investigators identified cases where timber produced through forest clearance had entered European supply chains in some cases. The findings showed that the top five users of deforestation-linked wood in Indonesia in 2024 all exported products to the EU. Their main European customers were companies in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, which together ordered more than 23,000 cubic meters (812,200 cubic feet) of wood products that year, including plywood, decking and door frames. While only some shipments could be directly verified, the investigation pointed to a wider risk that timber linked to deforestation is entering EU markets through opaque supply chains. But despite these findings, the investigation has already prompted changes among some of the companies involved, with several cutting ties with the suppliers named in the report. Under the EU’s new antideforestation regulation, the EUDR, set to come into force&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eu-deforestation-law-nudges-timber-trade-indonesia-probe-shows-but-risks-persist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eu-deforestation-law-nudges-timber-trade-indonesia-probe-shows-but-risks-persist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317697</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/as-traditional-forest-governance-erodes-in-peru-ghost-permits-fill-the-vacuum/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/as-traditional-forest-governance-erodes-in-peru-ghost-permits-fill-the-vacuum/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Mar 2026 20:23:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michele Calamaio]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/30182350/19_Peru_Ghost_01-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316593</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation and Land rights and extractives]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Corruption, Crime, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Logging, Natural Resources, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, Traditional People, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HONORIA, Peru — Jacqueline Flores sits cross-legged on a wooden platform inside a dim Asháninka maloca, the Indigenous longhouse where her dress, painted with geometric patterns, seems to merge with the resin-sweet smell of plants macerating for ceremony. Outside, the Boiling River murmurs. Inside, her voice rises in a long, trembling ícaro, part prayer, part [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HONORIA, Peru — Jacqueline Flores sits cross-legged on a wooden platform inside a dim Asháninka maloca, the Indigenous longhouse where her dress, painted with geometric patterns, seems to merge with the resin-sweet smell of plants macerating for ceremony. Outside, the Boiling River murmurs. Inside, her voice rises in a long, trembling ícaro, part prayer, part medicine, part declaration of her identity. This South American ancestral colloquialism for ‘magic song’ serves her a specific purpose, she says: to anchor herself to something older than memory. “I’m a student of the plants,” she says, “to help humanity and people who need to ‘heal’.” In the ‘80s, Jacqueline’s ancestors were forced to leave their Asháninka territory in Peru’s central rainforest to escape the violence of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) terrorist group. “A lot was lost,” she says. She sees it in the fragmentation of neighboring communities, internal divisions and the disappearance of shared points of reference. Her work — improving her own healing center, Pumayaku, recovering her language and reconnecting with her territory after displacement — is her answer to that loss. In the Peruvian Amazon, erosion of traditional governance is reshaping the forest as powerfully as any force of globalization, according to anthropologist Glenn Shepard. Ancestral culture fades, languages are forgotten, rituals weaken and community guidance fractures, while internal corruption can concurrently become the driving force behind deforestation and the quiet dismantling of Indigenous stewardship. As elder-based authority, ritual discipline and long-term leadership degrade, collective decision-making gives way to document-based control,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/as-traditional-forest-governance-erodes-in-peru-ghost-permits-fill-the-vacuum/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316593</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil wanted more protections for its endangered national tree. Then France called</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Feb 2026 08:30:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Emmanuelle PicaudFernanda WenzelSpoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/26124349/lula-macron-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314859</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Business, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Forests, Governance, Plants, Politics, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Supply Chain, timber trade, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Just three months ago, Brazil seemed close to winning the highest level of international trade protections for the country’s symbol and namesake, the Brazilwood tree (Paubrasilia echinata). On Nov. 26, Brazil’s delegation was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the summit of CITES, the global trade convention under which 184 countries plus the European Union have agreed [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Just three months ago, Brazil seemed close to winning the highest level of international trade protections for the country’s symbol and namesake, the Brazilwood tree (Paubrasilia echinata). On Nov. 26, Brazil’s delegation was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the summit of CITES, the global trade convention under which 184 countries plus the European Union have agreed on rules to protect wildlife from unsustainable commerce. The Brazilians were confident that they would gain approval for their formal proposal to protect the endangered tree from all international commercial trade. “There was massive support,” said a Brazilian delegate attending the meeting, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “There was a feeling that it would pass.” Found only in Brazil&#8217;s Atlantic Forest, P. echinata&#8217;s population declined by 84% over the last three generations, and is currently down to around 10,000 adult trees, according to Brazilian environmental officials. The species was exploited during colonial times to meet European demand for the red dye that comes from its wood and was used to color fabrics. Since the mid-18th century, the world’s music industry has prized the wood, also known as pernambuco, for its resonance, durability and flexibility for bows to play violins, cellos and other stringed instruments. Each bow can be worth up to 7,000 euros (more than $8,200), making the wood treasured not just by those in the music business, but also by smugglers. As the tree’s numbers dwindled, Brazil&#8217;s National Center for Flora Conservation (CNCFlora) escalated the species’ conservation status in 2024 from endangered&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314859</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Researchers find concerning gaps in global maps used for EUDR compliance</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 14:57:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19083601/d.-BANNER-UF18USU-A84A9875-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311699</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Business, Cacao, Cattle, Coffee, Conservation, Deforestation, Economics, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Industry, International Trade, Logging, Plantations, Politics, Rainforests, Rubber, Soy, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate forest areas, which could lead to inaccurate assessments of deforestation risk. The authors write that those inconsistencies point to the need for EU companies to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate forest areas, which could lead to inaccurate assessments of deforestation risk. The authors write that those inconsistencies point to the need for EU companies to be discerning about which maps they use to ensure they comply with the regulation. The requirements will go into effect for most companies on Dec. 30, 2026, after a second postponement in as many years by the European Parliament. Only two of the 21 data sets in the assessment met all of the indicators used to assess risk used by the EUDR. The regulation will apply to seven commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and timber — as well as the products they’re used to make. Companies and government agencies are planning to use maps of satellite and other remote-sensing data to determine whether products entering EU countries are linked to deforestation after Dec. 31, 2020, the regulation’s cutoff date. Importing companies and the EU countries’ government agencies tasked with screening imported goods for compliance will compare georeferenced plots for a commodity with historical maps of forest and tree cover to determine whether it was produced at the expense of recently cleared forest. But many such maps exist, and the EUDR doesn’t specify the use of any one map. That means that a company using one map to verify compliance might come&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311699</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pulp giant RGE admits possible deforestation breach in Bornean wildlife habitat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/pulp-giant-rge-admits-possible-deforestation-breach-in-bornean-wildlife-habitat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/pulp-giant-rge-admits-possible-deforestation-breach-in-bornean-wildlife-habitat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 13:54:23 +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/20/2025/09/18204309/indonesia_160271-25-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311741</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Certification, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, International Trade, Pulp And Paper, Rainforests, Supply Chain, Sustainability, Sustainable Forest Management, timber trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper companies has acknowledged to Mongabay a potential breach of its no-deforestation commitment in its supply chain, raising questions about the company’s attempt to regain sustainability certification under the Forest Stewardship Council. A new report by U.S.-based campaign group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) alleges that Singapore-based [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper companies has acknowledged to Mongabay a potential breach of its no-deforestation commitment in its supply chain, raising questions about the company’s attempt to regain sustainability certification under the Forest Stewardship Council. A new report by U.S.-based campaign group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) alleges that Singapore-based pulp and paper giant Royal Golden Eagle’s (RGE) supply chain is linked to deforestation in Indonesia, despite the group having adopted a no-deforestation policy in 2015. RGE, owned by Indonesia’s billionaire Tanoto family, is one of the world’s largest producers of wood pulp and the various products made from it, including paper, tissue, packaging, and viscose rayon. According to the report, RGE’s pulp and paper unit in China, Asia Symbol, sourced wood from two pulpwood plantations in Indonesian Borneo where 5,565 hectares (13,751 acres) of natural forest were cleared between 2020 and 2024. The analysis draws on satellite data, field investigations, and customs and wood supply records compiled by supply chain transparency platform Trase in its latest update on Indonesia’s pulp sector. The forest clearance occurred in the watershed of the Mahakam River, which contains some of the largest remaining tracts of intact rainforest in Indonesia and supports populations of critically endangered and iconic species, including the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), Mahakam population of the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), and the Bornean population of the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis). Previously thought to be extinct in the wild on Borneo, Sumatran rhinos were detected in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/pulp-giant-rge-admits-possible-deforestation-breach-in-bornean-wildlife-habitat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311741</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New technologies offer hope in fight to save the world’s imperiled rosewoods</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/new-technologies-offer-hope-in-fight-to-save-the-worlds-imperiled-rosewoods/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/new-technologies-offer-hope-in-fight-to-save-the-worlds-imperiled-rosewoods/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2025 16:14:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Katarina Zimmer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/11134007/rosewood-feet-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311125</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China, Global, and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, Rosewood, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, Tropical hardwoods, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[News about the poaching and smuggling of threatened species often centers on products like tiger bone, rhino horn or pangolin scales. But much of the world’s illegally sourced wildlife products are actually trees — in particular, 33 hardwood species in the Dalbergia genus, better known as rosewood. Rosewood can sell for tens of thousands of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[News about the poaching and smuggling of threatened species often centers on products like tiger bone, rhino horn or pangolin scales. But much of the world’s illegally sourced wildlife products are actually trees — in particular, 33 hardwood species in the Dalbergia genus, better known as rosewood. Rosewood can sell for tens of thousands of dollars per cubic meter and has the highest overall trafficking value of any wildlife product in the world: Between 2014 and 2018, rosewood accounted for 32% of the monetary value of illegally traded wildlife products seized by law enforcement. But a recent paper in the journal Biological Conservation finds that new technologies could save the world’s rosewoods from being little more than plunder. Demand for the richly colored, aromatic and durable timber continues to grow in China, where rosewood furniture has long been a symbol of status and luxury. International regulations have failed to stop the rampant harvesting of the tropical trees, whose value only grows with their increasing rarity. Two Southeast Asian species — Siamese (Dalbergia cochinchinensis) and Burmese rosewood (D. oliveri) — are now critically endangered, driving rosewood traders to other rainforests in Africa and South America. This appetite threatens the very existence of the unique trees as well as their important ecological roles, such as enriching soil with nitrogen, reducing soil erosion, and providing habitat for wildlife. But technologies exist that could help stop the trees’ plight, according to the paper by a team of scientists at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden’s Center&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/new-technologies-offer-hope-in-fight-to-save-the-worlds-imperiled-rosewoods/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311125</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Ghana ships first ‘gold standard’ timber to EU, questions about FLEGT&#8217;s future remain (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/as-ghana-ships-first-gold-standard-timber-to-eu-questions-about-flegts-future-remain-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/as-ghana-ships-first-gold-standard-timber-to-eu-questions-about-flegts-future-remain-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Nov 2025 17:17:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Fred Pearce]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/03154304/IMG_6803-Ghana-e1762189069257-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308741</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Europe, European Union, Ghana, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Commentary, Forests, Governance, International Trade, Rainforests, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ghana has become the first African country to win fast-lane access to European Union markets for its timber. A trading license negotiated with the European Commission over 16 years means all logging in the West African country is now recognized as being untainted by illegality, and is carried out with the consent of nearby forest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ghana has become the first African country to win fast-lane access to European Union markets for its timber. A trading license negotiated with the European Commission over 16 years means all logging in the West African country is now recognized as being untainted by illegality, and is carried out with the consent of nearby forest communities, who are compensated in cash or in kind. Armed with the license, traders can sell Ghanaian timber into Europe without further checks on its legality, a landmark that will be recognized by a gathering of Ghanaian and European politicians, timber industry officials and others on Nov. 4 in Brussels. The Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) license — among a series of measures introduced by the EU more than 20 years ago to tackle the root causes of illegal logging — has widespread support from industry and civil society in Ghana, as do the national rules on forestry and timber tracking and trading that underpin it. Richard Nsenkyire, managing director of Samartex Timber and Plywood, one of Ghana’s leading timber exporters, says the license marks “the beginning of a new era in compliant international trade” for Ghana, which “will guarantee access to the EU market.” Yet there are fears that Ghana’s FLEGT license, the first in Africa and only the second in the world (after Indonesia), could also turn out to be the last — a victim, in part, of a political climate in which the EU appears to be retreating from many&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/as-ghana-ships-first-gold-standard-timber-to-eu-questions-about-flegts-future-remain-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-308741</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Protected areas hit hard as Mekong countries’ forest cover shrank in 2024</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/protected-areas-hit-hard-as-mekong-countries-forest-cover-shrank-in-2024/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/protected-areas-hit-hard-as-mekong-countries-forest-cover-shrank-in-2024/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Oct 2025 03:33:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/22033617/DJI_0794-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307108</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Laos, Mekong Basin, Myanmar, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, data, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forest Loss, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Hydroelectric Power, Illegal Logging, Illegal Mining, Industrial Agriculture, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Mining, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Reforestation, Remote Sensing, Sustainable Forest Management, Timber, timber trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — The Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined area of tree cover of nearly a million hectares in 2024, or an area almost the size of Lebanon. That’s according to Mongabay’s analysis* of satellite data published by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory at the University of Maryland, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — The Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined area of tree cover of nearly a million hectares in 2024, or an area almost the size of Lebanon. That’s according to Mongabay’s analysis* of satellite data published by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory at the University of Maryland, in partnership with Global Forest Watch (GFW). GFW data show 991,801 hectares (2.45 million acres) of tree cover were lost in 2024, including nearly 220,000 hectares (544,000 acres) of primary forest, across the five Mekong countries. More than 30% of tree cover loss recorded in 2024 occurred inside protected areas, although across the region, the rate of deforestation — both within protected areas and outside of them — slowed slightly from 2023. Despite this, the drivers of deforestation vary somewhat from country to country, and last year’s losses still reflect a grim trajectory for forests in the Mekong region. The economies of almost all Mekong countries are heavily reliant on agriculture, with forests cleared for both agribusiness-run plantations or subsistence farming plots. But research indicates the conversion of forest to croplands has resulted in increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and subsequently poorer agricultural yields. Illegal logging has also ravaged the Mekong’s forests, while large-scale infrastructure projects threaten critical ecosystems. Global Forest Watch data was used to calculate national level tree cover loss, while Mongabay&#8217;s analysis of GLAD data was used to calculate forest loss inside protected areas. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay. Calamity in Cambodia’s protected&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/protected-areas-hit-hard-as-mekong-countries-forest-cover-shrank-in-2024/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/protected-areas-hit-hard-as-mekong-countries-forest-cover-shrank-in-2024/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307108</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Americans’ love of RVs tied to destruction of orangutan habitat: Investigation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/americans-love-of-rvs-tied-to-destruction-of-orangutan-habitat-investigation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/americans-love-of-rvs-tied-to-destruction-of-orangutan-habitat-investigation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Sep 2025 11:03:21 +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/20/2019/08/14034755/kalteng_0891-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305644</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, North America, Southeast Asia, United States, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Industry, International Trade, Plantations, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Supply Chain, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Global calls are mounting for RV companies in the U.S. to change their policies following new revelations that some of America’s best-selling RVs are built with plywood from the destruction of orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo. While companies like Winnebago say they’re now “working quickly to better understand the concerns raised,” environmentalists warn [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Global calls are mounting for RV companies in the U.S. to change their policies following new revelations that some of America’s best-selling RVs are built with plywood from the destruction of orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo. While companies like Winnebago say they’re now “working quickly to better understand the concerns raised,” environmentalists warn that corporate and regulatory inaction continues to drive the loss of Indonesia’s rainforests. Two reports — by U.K.-based NGO Earthsight and Indonesian environmental group Auriga Nusantara as well as U.S.-based campaign group Mighty Earth — trace how tropical timber from rainforest clearance in Indonesia enters the supply chains of leading U.S. RV makers, including Jayco, Winnebago and Forest River. The findings highlight governance gaps in Indonesia, where forest clearing for industrial concessions remains legal, and regulatory weaknesses in the U.S., whose laws prohibit illegal logging but not legal deforestation. Since the investigations were published, Mighty Earth has published a petition to urge RV companies to change their timber sourcing policies to exclude any wood from deforestation. The online petition seeks 1,500 signatures and so far has garnered more than 1,000. “Before it&#8217;s too late, it&#8217;s time to protect our rainforests, uphold the rights of Indigenous communities, and save the incredible animals that live there,” the petition says. “Tell RV CEOs: We demand that you only use deforestation-free and Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood in your supply chains and RV manufacture.” Tropical forest cleared by PT Indosubur Sukses Makmur in Borneo, January 2025. Image courtesy of Auriga /&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/americans-love-of-rvs-tied-to-destruction-of-orangutan-habitat-investigation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305644</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EUDR implementation comes laden with potential unintended consequences</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Sep 2025 19:05:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/04150701/Image_7-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305415</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Asia, Brazil, Cerrado, East Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Global, Indonesia, South America, Southeast Asia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroforestry, Cacao, Coffee, Conservation, Crops, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Farming, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Globalization, International Trade, Land Use Change, Palm Oil, Pasture, Politics, Regulations, Supply Chain, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Set to enter into force Dec. 30, 2025, the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) aims to halt the bloc’s contribution to global forest loss. Experts Mongabay spoke to agree the EUDR promises to become a landmark legislative tool for curbing commodities supply chain-related deforestation at the international level. But those analysts also warn of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Set to enter into force Dec. 30, 2025, the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) aims to halt the bloc’s contribution to global forest loss. Experts Mongabay spoke to agree the EUDR promises to become a landmark legislative tool for curbing commodities supply chain-related deforestation at the international level. But those analysts also warn of “unintended consequences” built into the law that could imperil the initiative’s objectives and effectiveness and in some cases raise the risk of further deforestation or land use change spreading to other ecosystems. Once it is implemented, the EUDR requires producers of a wide range of commodities — including cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood — prove their products are not being sourced from land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. EUDR implementation was delayed in 2024 when transnational companies and commodity producing nations complained to the EU of being unprepared for the law. That hiatus raised widespread concerns the delay might be used for “watering down” the statute. But the postponement could also allow time for potential EUDR defects to be addressed. The Rainforest Alliance, for example, which has supported the law from its inception, “definitely saw the unintended consequences from the start,” says Fanny Gauttier, the NGO’s European public affairs lead. Prime among those unintended consequences, she says, is the possibility of the EUDR accidentally excluding many of the world’s smallholder farmers. Other experts point to the potential “leakage” of commodities once destined for EUDR nations being shipped to unregulated markets. Add&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305415</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Let’s understand the value of the forest’ says Liberia’s Silas Siakor</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/lets-understand-the-value-of-the-forest-says-liberias-silas-siakor/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/lets-understand-the-value-of-the-forest-says-liberias-silas-siakor/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2025 11:25:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/01093841/edb884ea-00f1-4a96-b10e-b1e414790373-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305234</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Liberia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community Forests, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Foreign Aid, Forests, Governance, Human Rights, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Law, Law Enforcement, Logging, Plantations, Politics, Rainforests, Timber Laws, timber trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rainforests have long played a central role in Liberia. Home to hundreds of thousands of people, they’re a source of sustenance, a site for cultural practice and habitat for forest elephants, western chimpanzees, and pygmy hippos. Massive rubber plantations carved out of them dominated the country’s economy for decades, and during the country’s civil war [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rainforests have long played a central role in Liberia. Home to hundreds of thousands of people, they’re a source of sustenance, a site for cultural practice and habitat for forest elephants, western chimpanzees, and pygmy hippos. Massive rubber plantations carved out of them dominated the country’s economy for decades, and during the country’s civil war they provided timber that funded rebel groups. After the guns fell silent, Liberia overhauled its forestry laws to give communities a bigger role, with foreign donors pledging vast sums to support the reforms. Today, some of those donors are pulling back on their commitments, and new threats to Liberia’s forests are emerging. Nobody knows the importance of Liberia’s forests — or the challenges of protecting them — better than Silas Siakor. A prominent voice pushing for community rights in forest management, he was instrumental in designing the postwar legal reforms as well as the exposure of logging corruption scandals. In 2006, Siakor was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work investigating illegal logging under former President Charles Taylor. With the prize money, he set up an environmental watchdog group, the Sustainable Development Institute. Now, he’s helping to run an innovative pilot project in Liberia’s southeast Sinoe county, where 28 communities are set to begin receiving direct “area-based payments” from the Irish government in exchange for conserving their forests. “Two things came to mind when I first started to think about this approach,” he told Mongabay. “How do we incentivize forest owners to keep their&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/lets-understand-the-value-of-the-forest-says-liberias-silas-siakor/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/lets-understand-the-value-of-the-forest-says-liberias-silas-siakor/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305234</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Liberia has a new plan to protect its rainforests. Can it work?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/liberia-has-a-new-plan-to-protect-its-rainforests-can-it-work/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/liberia-has-a-new-plan-to-protect-its-rainforests-can-it-work/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2025 11:20:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/05104807/woman-in-a-liberian-forest-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305241</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Liberia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community Forests, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Foreign Aid, Forests, Governance, Human Rights, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Law, Law Enforcement, Logging, Plantations, Politics, Rainforests, Timber Laws, timber trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Around half of West Africa’s remaining rainforests are in the small coastal nation of Liberia. They’re home to species like western chimpanzees and pygmy hippos, valuable stands of hardwood — and hundreds of thousands of people. Despite years of logging reforms backed by foreign aid, Liberia lost more than 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) of humid [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Around half of West Africa’s remaining rainforests are in the small coastal nation of Liberia. They’re home to species like western chimpanzees and pygmy hippos, valuable stands of hardwood — and hundreds of thousands of people. Despite years of logging reforms backed by foreign aid, Liberia lost more than 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) of humid primary forest in 2024 , driven by factors including agriculture, unsustainable logging and mining. A group of 28 communities in Liberia may have a solution, and it’s an elegantly straightforward one: Pay them to keep the forest standing. Under a new pilot project in southeastern Sinoe county, the government of Ireland is set to pay those communities $1.50 per hectare (2.5 acres) of forest they protect annually for the next two years. Fifty thousand hectares (124,000 acres) in two community-controlled rainforests are included in the pilot, with residents hoping to collectively receive $75,000 each year — about twice what a logging company would have paid them in land rental fees. Liberia’s Sapo National Park. Image by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay. The money will be spent on development projects chosen and funded by the communities themselves, with some oversight by the Liberian organization managing the pilot. That organization, Integrated Development and Learning, hopes it can find enough funding to scale up the pilot to a total of 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of rainforest. “It’s taking some responsibility and saying these communities are doing something for all of us, for the planet and environment, and therefore&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/liberia-has-a-new-plan-to-protect-its-rainforests-can-it-work/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305241</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Remedy frameworks can improve sustainable forestry certifications &#038; right past wrongs (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/remedy-frameworks-can-improve-sustainable-forestry-certifications-right-past-wrongs-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/remedy-frameworks-can-improve-sustainable-forestry-certifications-right-past-wrongs-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Aug 2025 19:32:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Marc Jessel]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/18230744/amazon_201724-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304057</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Certification, Commentary, Conservation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Forestry, Forests, Social Justice, Sustainability, Sustainable Forest Management, Timber, timber trade, and Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For decades, environmental, social and governance systems have focused on stopping harm before it happens. Standards, certification schemes and corporate sustainability policies have all aimed to deter destruction, especially in forests and other high-risk ecosystems. But the uncomfortable truth is this: while these systems have helped reduce future damage, they remain largely unequipped to deal [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For decades, environmental, social and governance systems have focused on stopping harm before it happens. Standards, certification schemes and corporate sustainability policies have all aimed to deter destruction, especially in forests and other high-risk ecosystems. But the uncomfortable truth is this: while these systems have helped reduce future damage, they remain largely unequipped to deal with the harm that has already occurred. Across the globe, Indigenous and local communities continue to grapple with the long-term consequences of deforestation and other harms, often at the hands of companies that have since been excluded from sustainability frameworks. Yet exclusion is where accountability often ends. Companies are removed from certification or policy schemes, but are rarely required to take meaningful steps to repair the social or environmental damage they caused. This creates a structural gap in global sustainability, a growing disconnect between corporate accountability systems and the people and ecosystems they are meant to protect. Environmental justice cannot be achieved through prevention alone. It must also address historical harm, through remedy that is credible, community-driven, and verifiable. Stacks of certified sustainably harvested wood in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Remedy isn’t a new concept. In the human rights space, it has long been recognized, most notably by the United Nations, as a process that includes acknowledging past harm, providing redress, and taking steps to restore dignity and prevent recurrence. It’s time we bring the same level of commitment to environmental governance. Remedy is not about erasing the past, it’s about facing it,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/remedy-frameworks-can-improve-sustainable-forestry-certifications-right-past-wrongs-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304057</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cross-border operation cracks down on environmental crimes in the Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/cross-border-operation-cracks-down-on-environmental-crimes-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/cross-border-operation-cracks-down-on-environmental-crimes-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2025 16:00:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mie Hoejris Dahl]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/06152253/Illegal-Mining-Green-River-Brasil-Photo-3-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303861</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Crime, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Illegal Logging, Illegal Mining, Illegal Trade, Indigenous Peoples, Law Enforcement, Mining, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, timber trade, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY – About two dozen police officers, government officials and a data specialist sat side by side in a command center in northern Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. For two weeks, they reviewed live camera footage and tracked geolocations of police actions that were part of Operation Green Shield, a field initiative targeting cross-border environmental crime [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MEXICO CITY – About two dozen police officers, government officials and a data specialist sat side by side in a command center in northern Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. For two weeks, they reviewed live camera footage and tracked geolocations of police actions that were part of Operation Green Shield, a field initiative targeting cross-border environmental crime across the Amazon Rainforest. Criminal groups engaging in destructive, illicit activities have expanded across vast stretches of the Amazon over the past decade. They move largely unimpeded across national borders within the Amazon Rainforest, where state presence is often weak and government efforts remain fragmented and siloed. Between June 23 and July 6, 2025, Operation Green Shield relied on cross-border cooperation and technology to target illegal mining, wildlife trafficking, poaching, illegal logging, fuel smuggling and illegal waste. Yet environmental crime continues to proliferate across the Amazon Basin, experts warn. The operation deployed more than 1,500 police officers across the Amazon Basin in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. They made more than 90 arrests and more than 350 coordinated simultaneous raids, seizing assets worth more than $64 million. Police seized more than 310 tons of raw minerals and 61 tons of calcium oxide (used to separate metal from ores) from illegal mining sites. They recovered more than 2,100 live animals and 6,350 dead specimens, including birds, lizards and mammals. The National Police of Peru told Mongabay they had seized lizard heads, yellow-spotted river turtles (Podocnemis unifilis), Andean foxes (Lycalopex culpaeus), caimans, parrots, sloths and other species.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/cross-border-operation-cracks-down-on-environmental-crimes-in-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-303861</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Insignificant risk’ EUDR proposal threatens fight against deforestation, critics say</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/insignificant-risk-eudr-proposal-threatens-fight-against-deforestation-critics-say/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/insignificant-risk-eudr-proposal-threatens-fight-against-deforestation-critics-say/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jul 2025 17:07:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/24165241/AP25199052827551-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303145</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe and European Union]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Beef, Cacao, Cattle, Coffee, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, EUDR, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, International Trade, Law, Logging, Palm Oil, Politics, Rainforests, Rubber, Soy, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A last-minute proposal to revise the European Union’s sweeping antideforestation law has conservationists worried about yet another delay to the law’s implementation and weaker oversight of supply chains. The EU deforestation-free products regulation, or EUDR, is scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year, imposing new restrictions on imports linked to forest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A last-minute proposal to revise the European Union’s sweeping antideforestation law has conservationists worried about yet another delay to the law’s implementation and weaker oversight of supply chains. The EU deforestation-free products regulation, or EUDR, is scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year, imposing new restrictions on imports linked to forest loss. But some officials want to simplify a section of the law to make trade easier — a hazardous delay tactic, some critics say. “Further attempts to delay the application of the regulation or to undermine its well thought through architecture will damage the credibility of the EU and frustrate the efforts of companies and third countries that have invested in reaching compliance,” said Together4Forests, a campaign of more than 220 environmental groups. The EUDR requires producers — including those in European countries — to prove cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood weren’t sourced from land that was deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. Technically, the law took effect in 2023 but allowed countries an 18-month transition period to give producers time to meet the new trade regulations. Last year, the transition period was extended by another 12 months, citing producers’ lack of preparedness. It’s now due to go into force on Dec. 30 this year. Corn and soy fields in Brasilia, Brazil. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) The rigor of the regulations each country faces is based on a benchmarking system that categorizes them as either high, standard or low risk. This has been&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/insignificant-risk-eudr-proposal-threatens-fight-against-deforestation-critics-say/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/insignificant-risk-eudr-proposal-threatens-fight-against-deforestation-critics-say/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303145</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Community patrols can slash environmental crime by 80% (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/community-patrols-can-slash-environmental-crime-by-80-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/community-patrols-can-slash-environmental-crime-by-80-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jul 2025 17:09:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Caetano Franco]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/21162232/1620px-Reserva_Sustentavel_Mamiraua_ThiagoALacerda_09-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302889</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Commentary, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Forests, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Logging, Illegal Mining, Illegal Trade, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Law Enforcement, Organized Crime, Poaching, Protected Areas, Research, timber trade, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, local communities are leading the charge against environmental crime — and they’re succeeding. Our new peer-reviewed study published in Conservation Biology has found that community-led patrols reduced illegal activities such as unregulated fishing, hunting and logging by up to 80% in two vast protected areas, even in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, local communities are leading the charge against environmental crime — and they’re succeeding. Our new peer-reviewed study published in Conservation Biology has found that community-led patrols reduced illegal activities such as unregulated fishing, hunting and logging by up to 80% in two vast protected areas, even in the near-total absence of formal government enforcement. These findings come from a decade-long analysis of the Voluntary Environmental Agents (VEA) Program, a community-based monitoring initiative in the Mamirauá and Amanã sustainable development reserves in Brazil’s Amazonas state. From 2003 to 2013, more than 200 trained residents carried out nearly 20,000 patrols, totaling around 150,000 hours of activity. When communities are equipped with training, resources and institutional support, they can become powerful guardians of biodiversity. Local participation in environmental protection offers a scalable and cost-effective approach that not only enhances rule enforcement but also strengthens social legitimacy and long-term compliance — especially in remote or underresourced regions. A community patroller in the region studied. Image courtesy of Bruno Kelly/Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá. Patrolling with purpose The study tracked illegal activities across 12 community-managed territories within the two reserves. VEAs, often mobilized through community alerts, responded to environmental infractions including poaching of pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, and the use of banned fishing gear. Crime detection was higher during informant-led patrols and increased with the number of patrollers and time spent in the field. But what stood out was the overall downward trend:&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/community-patrols-can-slash-environmental-crime-by-80-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302889</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EU remains major wildlife trafficking hub, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eu-remains-major-wildlife-trafficking-hub-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eu-remains-major-wildlife-trafficking-hub-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Jun 2025 14:34:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/23142429/herp_1038-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=301185</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[European Union]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, timber trade, Traditional Medicine, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The European Union remains a major hub for global wildlife trafficking, with nearly 5,200 seizures reported in 2023. The confiscations mostly involved critically endangered European eels (Anguilla anguilla), timber and medicinal plants, according to a new report by wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC. Worth an estimated $23 billion a year, the illegal wildlife trade is a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The European Union remains a major hub for global wildlife trafficking, with nearly 5,200 seizures reported in 2023. The confiscations mostly involved critically endangered European eels (Anguilla anguilla), timber and medicinal plants, according to a new report by wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC. Worth an estimated $23 billion a year, the illegal wildlife trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss and transnational crime, according to the U.N. The report underscores the urgent need for stronger enforcement, increased public awareness, and global cooperation to curb the trade. TRAFFIC’s latest report draws on data from the European Trade in Wildlife Information eXchange website, which compiles centralized seizure and offense records from 34 European countries. The report found that more than 1 million specimens were seized across the EU between January and December 2023. These included more than 600,000 live animals and 10,000 live plants. The seizures involved at least 574 species — 489 animals and 85 plants — listed under the global wildlife trade convention CITES. “The EU remains a significant market for wildlife trafficking, as commercial entities and individuals continue to smuggle wild species and their products into, through, and from EU Member States,” Anastasiya Timoshyna, director of TRAFFIC’s European program office, said in a news release. Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain accounted for nearly 75% of reported seizures. While 86% of intercepted shipments were destined for the EU market, destination details in seizure records indicate that others were en route to countries such as the United States and United&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eu-remains-major-wildlife-trafficking-hub-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eu-remains-major-wildlife-trafficking-hub-report-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-301185</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Attacks on Cambodian environmental journalist continue to pile up</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/attacks-on-cambodian-environmental-journalist-continue-to-pile-up/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/attacks-on-cambodian-environmental-journalist-continue-to-pile-up/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 May 2025 06:30:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald FlynnNehru Pry]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/12060503/C1292.00_02_10_08.Still001-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298923</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Community Forests, Corruption, Crime, Deforestation, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Illegal Logging, Journalism, Land Grabbing, Media, Mining, Monitoring, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, and timber trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — Ouk Mao, a Cambodian environmental journalist, was reporting on the continued logging of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary when he was attacked on March 24 by a group of men he identified, including a former police officer. Mao, who has previously helped Mongabay to expose the destruction of a community forest in Stung Treng province, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BANGKOK — Ouk Mao, a Cambodian environmental journalist, was reporting on the continued logging of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary when he was attacked on March 24 by a group of men he identified, including a former police officer. Mao, who has previously helped Mongabay to expose the destruction of a community forest in Stung Treng province, had been working for a local online news outlet and was traveling into the beleaguered wildlife sanctuary with a colleague to follow up on a tip. According to Mao’s sources, loggers were clearing a patch of protected forest with an excavator — the common precursor to a land grab. Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is a lowland rainforest spanning roughly 490,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) and straddling four provinces, including Stung Treng, in central Cambodia. Despite its protected status, Prey Lang has long been targeted by illegal timber traders, mining companies and poachers, with officials tasked with protecting the forest often accused of being complicit in its destruction. Mao and his colleague were able to locate the excavator, taking photos and videos, while also documenting the trail of deforestation that had been left in its wake. At around 2 p.m. on March 24, as the group was leaving Prey Lang, with Mao and his colleague heading back to their homes in Stung Treng province, they were stopped by four men. “They demanded we delete our footage and photos,” Mao said. Screenshot of footage recorded by Ouk Mao&#8217;s colleague documenting the physical attack by on the journalist.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/attacks-on-cambodian-environmental-journalist-continue-to-pile-up/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/attacks-on-cambodian-environmental-journalist-continue-to-pile-up/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298923</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Illegal wood from Colombia&#8217;s rainforests enters US and EU supply chains</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/illegal-wood-from-colombias-rainforests-enters-us-and-eu-supply-chains/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/illegal-wood-from-colombias-rainforests-enters-us-and-eu-supply-chains/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 May 2025 16:02:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mie Hoejris Dahl]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/06121817/Puntos-de-acopio-de-la-madera-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298685</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Colombia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Commodity agriculture, Corruption, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Governance, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Logging, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BOGOTÁ — Logs float downstream in long lines on the murky waters of the Atrato River in the depths of the Pacific rainforests of Colombia’s Chocó department. With few roads, this region in northwest Colombia relies on waterways for transportation, though some are blocked by remnants of the logging industry. Towering trees and thick undergrowth [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BOGOTÁ — Logs float downstream in long lines on the murky waters of the Atrato River in the depths of the Pacific rainforests of Colombia’s Chocó department. With few roads, this region in northwest Colombia relies on waterways for transportation, though some are blocked by remnants of the logging industry. Towering trees and thick undergrowth line the river, but sections of the banks are stripped bare, exposing the earth. A new investigation by the U.S.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals that most wood for flooring and decking from Colombia’s Pacific and Amazon forests, including the protected Dipteryx odorata (cumarú or choibá tree), is exported illegally. EIA’s “Decking the Forest” report exposes a long trail of irregularities across national wood companies, illegal armed groups, and companies in the U.S., the European Union, Canada and elsewhere. The report suggests that local Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities are exploited, threatened, and left with few alternatives as their lands deteriorate under pressure from the illegal timber trade. The EIA estimates that $24 million worth of processed timber exports between 2020 and 2023, including flooring and decking, lacked the required legal certification, citing export data from Colombian customs authorities and responses from local environmental authorities. This suggests that about 94% of such wood exports from Colombia during that period were illegal. About 20% of these exports were destined for the U.S., Canada and the EU. The report suggests that wood companies were allegedly forced to make payments to illegal armed groups in Chocó and Antioquia departments&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/illegal-wood-from-colombias-rainforests-enters-us-and-eu-supply-chains/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298685</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Global agarwood trade heavily dependent on wild, threatened trees: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/global-agarwood-trade-heavily-dependent-on-wild-threatened-trees-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/global-agarwood-trade-heavily-dependent-on-wild-threatened-trees-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Apr 2025 16:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/28055245/galen-crout-4xUxkAyQ2jY-unsplash-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298080</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Consumption, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, data, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Law, Law Enforcement, Overconsumption, Plantations, Regulations, Research, Timber, timber trade, Trade, Trees, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Agarwood, a fragrant resinous wood commonly referred to as oud, is a prized constituent in incense, perfumes, medicines and ornaments and remains in high demand across East Asia and the Middle East–North Africa region. A new study has found that, despite international protections, the multibillion-dollar trade relies heavily on wild-harvested endangered tree species — some [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Agarwood, a fragrant resinous wood commonly referred to as oud, is a prized constituent in incense, perfumes, medicines and ornaments and remains in high demand across East Asia and the Middle East–North Africa region. A new study has found that, despite international protections, the multibillion-dollar trade relies heavily on wild-harvested endangered tree species — some not even covered by CITES, the global wildlife trade convention. The paper, published in March this year in Global Ecology and Conservation by researchers from the Hong Kong-based Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, analyzed data from CITES and customs records between 2010 and 2020. They found that about 70% of the global agarwood trade relies on two species that are threatened under the global wildlife conservation authority IUCN: the critically endangered Aquilaria malaccensis and the vulnerable Aquilaria filaria.  Despite their threatened status, the study found, nearly 97% of A. filaria and 57% of A. malaccensis came from the wild between 2010 and 2020. “It&#8217;s quite clearly not sustainable,” agarwood trade expert Ian Thompson, who is not part of the study, told Mongabay on a phone call. “Until they get good data on enforcement and populations, the trees are going to continue to decline.” A new study has found that, despite international protections, the multibillion-dollar trade relies heavily on wild-harvested endangered tree species. Image courtesy of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden. Undocumented trade, overlooked markets The study highlighted discrepancies between CITES and customs data. “Significant trade volumes from Indonesia to Africa remain undocumented in CITES records,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/global-agarwood-trade-heavily-dependent-on-wild-threatened-trees-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/global-agarwood-trade-heavily-dependent-on-wild-threatened-trees-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298080</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia raises concerns over EU deforestation law’s impact on smallholders</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/indonesia-raises-concerns-over-eu-deforestation-laws-impact-on-smallholders/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/indonesia-raises-concerns-over-eu-deforestation-laws-impact-on-smallholders/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Apr 2025 14:01:57 +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/20/2025/01/08081207/oil-palm-workers-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297768</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Europe, European Union, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, data, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forest Loss, International Trade, Palm Oil, Rainforests, Regulations, Rubber, Supply Chain, Timber, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has raised serious concerns over the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, saying it imposes a heavy administrative burden on smallholders while lacking clarity and consistency in its enforcement. When it comes into force at the end of this year, the EUDR will ban imports into the EU market of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has raised serious concerns over the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, saying it imposes a heavy administrative burden on smallholders while lacking clarity and consistency in its enforcement. When it comes into force at the end of this year, the EUDR will ban imports into the EU market of seven forest-related commodities — soy, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, timber, rubber and beef — associated with deforestation and illegality. It will require producers and companies trading these commodities into the EU to provide detailed evidence proving they weren’t produced from land deforested since 2020. Indonesia, as the world’s largest palm oil producer and also a major exporter of timber, coffee, cocoa and rubber, stands to be significantly affected by the EUDR. The government is working with the EU to prepare producers and traders for full compliance ahead of the EUDR’s enforcement date of Dec. 30, 2025. However, concerns remain that the EU must address, Indonesian Deputy Foreign Minister Arief Havas Oegroseno said at a March 20 dialogue hosted by the NGO Kaoem Telapak in Jakarta. One key issue is ambiguity in the EUDR’s due diligence requirements. Arief pointed to Article 9 of the regulation, which requires “adequately conclusive and verifiable information&#8221; to demonstrate that a product is deforestation-free. He said the term &#8220;adequately conclusive&#8221; is vague and could lead to arbitrary enforcement, creating uncertainty for operators. Another sticking point is the requirement for operators to stay informed about various international regulations, which Arief said adds unnecessary complexity.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/indonesia-raises-concerns-over-eu-deforestation-laws-impact-on-smallholders/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/indonesia-raises-concerns-over-eu-deforestation-laws-impact-on-smallholders/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297768</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fake documents, real deforestation drive global trade in illegal Amazon timber</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/fake-documents-real-deforestation-drive-global-trade-in-illegal-amazon-timber/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/fake-documents-real-deforestation-drive-global-trade-in-illegal-amazon-timber/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Apr 2025 14:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Fernanda Wenzel]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/16133821/tabuas_ibama-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297703</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forest Destruction, Illegal Logging, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Law Enforcement, Logging, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#8220;Everyone does it.&#8221; That’s how the representative of a sawmill described the practice of selling fake documents to illegal timber from the Brazilian Amazon as legitimate, a fraud known as timber laundering. The testimony was collected by a team from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a U.S.-based organization that fights environmental crime, during investigations into [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&#8220;Everyone does it.&#8221; That’s how the representative of a sawmill described the practice of selling fake documents to illegal timber from the Brazilian Amazon as legitimate, a fraud known as timber laundering. The testimony was collected by a team from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a U.S.-based organization that fights environmental crime, during investigations into Brazil&#8217;s illegal logging practices.  With support from the Netherlands-based Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA), they found that 53,000 cubic meters (1.87 million cubic feet) of timber with signs of illegality were declared from five properties in Pará state between 2021 and 2024, an amount enough to fill 1,828 shipping containers. Of these, 1,521 m³ (53,714 ft³), or nearly 3%, were imported by U.S. and European companies. &#8220;The findings suggest a pervasive culture where corrupt deals and the manipulation of legal frameworks are widespread,&#8221; EIA concluded in its report, published in March. &#8220;The open boasting and normalization of these alleged illegal activities paint a troubling picture of a sector that disregards both the law and sustainable forestry practices,&#8221; it added. The wood tracked by EIA was supposedly extracted from five legal areas with sustainable forest management plans, which should follow strict environmental rules to minimize impacts on the rainforest. But when CCCA experts looked at satellite images of the harvest areas, they found no signs of logging, even though their owners had declared in Pará&#8217;s timber credit system that they had moved a large amount of wood from those areas. These credits, also known as&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/fake-documents-real-deforestation-drive-global-trade-in-illegal-amazon-timber/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297703</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New dams call into question Cambodia’s commitment to REDD+ projects</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/new-dams-call-into-question-cambodias-commitment-to-redd-projects/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/new-dams-call-into-question-cambodias-commitment-to-redd-projects/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Mar 2025 06:53:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald Flynn]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/19062114/DJI_0004-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296024</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Cardamom Mountains, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Market, Carbon Offsets, Conservation, Corruption, Crime, Dams, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Policy, Forest Carbon, Forest Destruction, Forests, Governance, Hydroelectric Power, Illegal Logging, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Redd, Timber, timber trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PURSAT, Cambodia — The Cambodian government has approved at least three new irrigation dams across the Cardamom Mountains, carving even deeper into forests currently being used for the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and Samkos REDD+ carbon credit projects. Construction is yet to begin on the new dams, which are slated to be built in Battambang, Koh Kong [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PURSAT, Cambodia — The Cambodian government has approved at least three new irrigation dams across the Cardamom Mountains, carving even deeper into forests currently being used for the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and Samkos REDD+ carbon credit projects. Construction is yet to begin on the new dams, which are slated to be built in Battambang, Koh Kong and Pursat provinces. Officials from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, and the Ministry of Mines and Energy all declined to comment on the irrigation dams or their environmental impacts. The approval of these dams raises further questions about the government’s commitment to the REDD+ mechanism for preserving forests. The Ministry of Environment, alongside New York-headquartered NGO Wildlife Alliance, co-manages both the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and the Samkos REDD+ projects, which will lose a further 5,200 hectares (about 12,850 acres) to the new irrigation dams. These same forests have already seen significant deforestation in recent months due to the ongoing construction of five new hydropower dams with reservoirs that collectively span 15,000 hectares (about 37,000 acres). Cambodia’s drive for “green” energy is now undermining REDD+ projects as forest is cleared to make way for reservoirs, transmission lines and the supporting infrastructure of the dams, resulting in fewer carbon credits available for sale from both the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and Samkos REDD+ projects. “It is true that the construction of these dams and roads will cause significant forest loss,” Suwanna Gauntlett, director of Wildlife Alliance, told Mongabay. All of this is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/new-dams-call-into-question-cambodias-commitment-to-redd-projects/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296024</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>An Australian state promised to turn native forest into a national koala park. It’s still being logged</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-australian-state-promised-to-turn-native-forest-into-a-national-koala-park-its-still-being-logged/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-australian-state-promised-to-turn-native-forest-into-a-national-koala-park-its-still-being-logged/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Feb 2025 23:25:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/26063508/A14I8388-scaled-e1740604286403-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=295077</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Forest Destruction, Protected Areas, Timber, timber trade, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The koala was officially declared endangered in the Australian state of New South Wales in February 2022. A year later, the Labor Party promised to create a 315,000-hectare (778,000-acre) Great Koala National Park to protect the iconic species in the state from extinction. Labor went on to win the state election that year over the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The koala was officially declared endangered in the Australian state of New South Wales in February 2022. A year later, the Labor Party promised to create a 315,000-hectare (778,000-acre) Great Koala National Park to protect the iconic species in the state from extinction. Labor went on to win the state election that year over the conservative Liberal/National coalition, the latter half of which opposes the plan. The koala park, however, still hasn’t materialized, and the forests proposed for inclusion in the protected area continue to be logged. There are already a scattering of national parks in this region of coastal forest that host koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), most of them isolated from each other by swaths of state forest. The idea behind the Great Koala National Park, or GKNP, is to stitch together the 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of national parks and 175,000 hectares (432,000 acres) of state forest into a single, protected mosaic. The Great Koala National Park initiative would connect 175,000 hectares of publicly owned state forests to existing national parks, creating a 315,000-hectare nature reserve in the Coffs Coast region and giving endangered species, like koalas, a safe place to live. Image courtesy of Paul Hilton/Earth Tree Images. Yet two years on, this park still doesn’t exist, despite popular support from ecologists and the local Indigenous Gumbaynggirr people, whose land comprises one of the existing national parks in the region. In a statement to a 2020 parliamentary inquiry into koala populations, Gumbaynggirr community member Michael Donovan said, &#8220;The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-australian-state-promised-to-turn-native-forest-into-a-national-koala-park-its-still-being-logged/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/an-australian-state-promised-to-turn-native-forest-into-a-national-koala-park-its-still-being-logged/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-295077</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Timber trade watchdog urges Poland to halt imports of Myanmar ‘blood timber’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/timber-trade-watchdog-urges-poland-to-halt-imports-of-myanmar-blood-timber/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/timber-trade-watchdog-urges-poland-to-halt-imports-of-myanmar-blood-timber/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Feb 2025 13:19:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/20131412/Timber_truck-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=294758</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Europe, Myanmar, Poland, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conflict, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Loss, Forestry, Forests, Illegal Logging, International Trade, Logging, Military, Rainforests, Timber, Timber Laws, and timber trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Highly prized teak from Myanmar continues to be imported into Poland, despite EU sanctions on the Southeast Asian country’s state-run timber monopoly following the 2021 military coup and violent crackdown on citizens. Environmental law nonprofit ClientEarth last month formally requested the Polish timber trade regulator urgently inspect firms engaging in the trade and take serious [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Highly prized teak from Myanmar continues to be imported into Poland, despite EU sanctions on the Southeast Asian country’s state-run timber monopoly following the 2021 military coup and violent crackdown on citizens. Environmental law nonprofit ClientEarth last month formally requested the Polish timber trade regulator urgently inspect firms engaging in the trade and take serious action to prevent imports of the banned timber. According to data from the Polish Central Statistical Office, the country imported more than $11.5 million worth of Myanmar timber between 2021 and 2024. Most imports were of teak (Tectona grandis), a durable and weather-resistant wood coveted by luxury furniture and yacht manufacturers. In its formal request to the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, ClientEarth said the persistent trade not only infringes the EU sanctions, but also brings Poland, an EU member state, into violation of the EU Timber Regulations (EUTR). The bloc ruled in 2020 that any import of Myanmar teak into the EU violates the EUTR because it’s not possible to determine whether it was harvested legally. The nonprofit previously raised a complaint about Poland’s non-compliance with the EUTR with the Council of the European Union in June 2023. However, it said it has yet to receive any response to its complaints, either from Polish authorities or through EU channels. “The EUTR rules are a key tool in the fight against the trade in illegal timber, but they need to be implemented effectively,” said Ranja Łuszczek, a lawyer at ClientEarth. “The lack of adequate action&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/timber-trade-watchdog-urges-poland-to-halt-imports-of-myanmar-blood-timber/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-294758</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/environmental-journalist-in-cambodia-shot-and-killed-by-suspected-logger/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/environmental-journalist-in-cambodia-shot-and-killed-by-suspected-logger/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Dec 2024 09:52:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gerald FlynnPhoung Vantha]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/11101042/Choeung-Chheng-banner-Redo-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=291436</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Endangered Environmentalists]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corruption, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, forest degradation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Freedom of Information, Global Environmental Crisis, Illegal Logging, Journalism, Murdered Journalists, Protected Areas, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SIEM REAP, Cambodia — Chhoeung Chheng, a journalist covering environmental issues for local online news outlet Kampuchea Aphiwat News, has died of his injuries after being shot in Siem Reap province on Dec. 4 by a suspected illegal logger. Chheng was rushed to a commune health clinic with a gunshot wound to the abdomen before being [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SIEM REAP, Cambodia — Chhoeung Chheng, a journalist covering environmental issues for local online news outlet Kampuchea Aphiwat News, has died of his injuries after being shot in Siem Reap province on Dec. 4 by a suspected illegal logger. Chheng was rushed to a commune health clinic with a gunshot wound to the abdomen before being transferred to Siem Reap Provincial Hospital where, in the early hours of Dec. 7, he died of his wounds. The attack took place at around 6 p.m. near Trapeang Phluoh village, Pongro Leu commune, Chi Kraeng district, Siem Reap province, close to Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, where Chheng and a colleague, Moeun Ny, had been traveling at the time. “We’d traveled from toward Trapeang Raing, which is a conservation area under ​​the Ministry of Environment, to take photos of illegal [forest] activities for producing news,” Ny told Mongabay. The pair had been traveling toward Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected forest that lost 72% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2023, according to Global Forest Watch data. Based on testimony from witnesses, this map shows the rough location of the shooting, which happened on the border of Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary as Chhoeung Chheng and Moeun Ny returned from the forest. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay. Much of that deforestation was due to economic land concessions that saw some 70,000 hectares of the sanctuary cleared to make way for rubber plantations. What remains of the forest has been further decimated by new&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/environmental-journalist-in-cambodia-shot-and-killed-by-suspected-logger/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-291436</doi>				</item>
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