China’s Demand For Resources News

Eight past environmental ministers assail policies. Amazon Fund and 334 Brazilian parks at risk; sweeping illegal deforestation amnesties head to approval.

Soy, cattle and timber producers charged with illegal Amazon deforestation continue to trade actively with international markets and to be financed by global investors.

If Brazil alone were to cover the US-China soy deficit, land area dedicated to soy in Brazil could increase by 39 percent, with a loss of up to 13 million hectares of forest.

Brazil’s president met with Donald Trump this week, with trade and agribusiness topping the agenda; a USAID $100 million Amazon biodiversity impact investment fund was also advanced.

An upcoming Amazon Synod at which Catholic clergy from nine Amazon nations will discuss ecological, indigenous and climate issues is seen by Brazil as international interference.

Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.

China’s ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative could introduce alien invasive species into several countries, threatening their native biodiversity, warns a new study. Announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in…

It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…

Central Island province in the Solomon Islands has blocked new logging and mining operations in an apparent attempt to halt the degradation of the archipelago’s sensitive ecosystems. “With timber on…

China’s imports of timber from Papua New Guinea (PNG) are winnowing away the country’s forests, according to a group of NGOs, researchers and landowners. Without action by Chinese leaders, they…

The largest carnivorous mammal of tropical America – the King of Beasts of the Amazon rainforest – is the jaguar. Found from the deserts of the American southwest as far…

Brazil has plans for an expansive Amazon and Cerrado rail network, including two transcontinental Atlantic to Pacific lines, but development likely depends on China.

Logging in the Solomon Islands, a small country of 667,000 people in the South Pacific, is decimating natural forests there at around 19 times the rate considered sustainable, the watchdog…

KUANTAN, Malaysia — Beijing is more than 4,200 kilometers (2,600 miles) north of the sandy beaches, oil palm plantations and tropical forests that distinguish peninsula Malaysia’s less prosperous South China…

Papua New Guinea’s timber industry is plagued by illegality, including lax enforcement of forestry laws, the misuse of logging licenses and the sidelining of local communities, according to a new…

Logging to feed furniture factories in China, spurred by demand from the United States, is thinning the forests of Central Africa, recent research has found. Lead author Trevon Fuller, an…

When Chinese President Xi Jinping extolls China’s Belt & Road Initiative, he uses words like “green”, “low carbon” and “sustainable”. Is this reality or just ‘greenwashing’—vague and flimsy promises that…

Billions in backing for infrastructure by international development finance institutions (DFIs) triggered large-scale Andes Amazon deforestation from 2000-15 – a trend now poised to hit the Amazon basin: study.

KUCHING, Malaysia —  As governments in Southeast Asia target economic growth through infrastructure development, China, the world’s second-largest economy, has emerged as a ready funder for some of the most…

Everyone loves a wildlife story. Watching the latest blue-chip natural history series complete with hushed narration about nature’s grandeur — or reading the latest online science about evolution or quirky…

Wildlife crime investigators now have a new method that builds on the forensic techniques used to collect fingerprints and other identifying marks in helping them track down traffickers of pangolins…

The unintended consequences of a U.S./China trade war could shift Chinese soy purchases from the U.S. to Brazil, leading to rising Amazon deforestation, and a hazardous climate change tipping point.

A multinational search in May resulted in the arrest of eight men, including three government officials, for allegedly smuggling pangolin scales and elephant tusks, according to Freeland, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking…

Brazil’s bancada ruralista has attached a wave of riders to bills in Congress that could overthrow the nation’s environmental and indigenous protections. There is a high chance of passage.

The pangolin trade remains brisk, as conservationists scramble to identify populations and lobby for tough protections, while U.S. zoos make a controversial try to raise them.

In a span of five days in late April, Mexican police arrested two men attempting to take hundreds of dried swim bladders, harvested from a critically endangered species of fish,…

The $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative promises new ports, roads, railways, dams and an energy grid reaching from China across Asia to Africa, but at what environmental cost?

Thirty-eight environmental and social groups are demanding an end to indigenous intimidation by a dam building consortium on the Teles Pires River that includes Chinese and Portuguese firms.

The government of the United Kingdom announced today that it plans to introduce a stringent ban on the trade of ivory. “Ivory should never be seen as a commodity for…

The Cerrado Manifesto could reduce rapid conversion of forest to cropland in Brazil’s savannah, but commodity firms Cargill, Bunge, ADM need to sign on, analysts say.