Forest and air quality advocates in the United States have long argued that manufacturing wood pellets from leveled forests and burning the compressed wood for energy is neither a green…
MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.
The company’s rapid downfall raises questions about how it can supply its annual 6 million metric tons of wood pellets to the UK, EU and Asia, and how nations relying on biomass to meet energy and climate commitments will cope.
The researchers estimate that 123 childhood deaths during the 2008-19 period are associated with exposure to pesticides from the soy fields, amounting to half the deaths of children under 10 from lymphoblastic leukemia in the region.
Pope Francis is calling on policymakers, corporations and the world’s people to act decisively on climate. His plea comes as the faith-based climate movement — which built momentum after the 2015 Paris agreement — is lagging.
In the runup to the COP28 climate conference in December, which critics say has been largely co-opted by fossil fuel interests, Pope Francis has issued a strongly worded document critical of world leaders who make bold climate promises then fail to act.
Agribusiness magnate from the USA, who is already the biggest producer of corn-based ethanol in Brazil, plans to leverage “green” investments from governments and banks to meet negative carbon emissions using an unproven method.
Large-scale soy production for European markets has long been associated with deforestation in South America’s forests, including in the continent’s second-largest, but lesser-known, forest, the Gran Chaco in Argentina and…
The past decade has seen a wave of academic and activist writings criticizing the use of militarized conservation to protect nature. In this commentary piece, we argue that the use…
The world’s largest producer of biomass for energy, Enviva, has seen its stock price tumble, as operational, financial and legal problems pile up, with investors possibly also concerned about the company’s tarnished green image.
Last year, farmer protests erupted throughout the Netherlands, riding a wave of rural anger at government plans to drastically halve nitrogen emissions by downsizing and closing farms. This quickly swept…
Last July, as the Ukraine war raged, the EU barred all Russian woody biomass imports; even as South Korea took in Russia’s supply. Illicit woody biomass may also still be flowing to the EU from Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Brazil’s use of pesticides has spiked in recent years, growing by over 300,000 tonnes since 2010, according to experts. A recent report, published by the NGO Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN)…
A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.
An existing regulation designating the burning of forests to make energy as being renewable has been reversed in Australia. That decision seems unlikely to alter the EU’s heavy commitment to biomass burning.
Policymakers could finalize revisions to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive by year end, even as forest activists offer new evidence denouncing wood pellets as an energy source, and calling for an end to subsidies.
A biomass industry insider tells Mongabay in exclusive interviews that Enviva, the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy, is disingenuous in its green, eco-friendly claims to the public and stockholders.
A Mongabay investigation into palm oil contamination in the Brazilian Amazon has helped federal prosecutors to obtain a court decision this week to scrutinize the environmental impacts of pesticides used…
While forest advocates had high hopes, the EU parliament voted this week not to declassify woody biomass as a renewable energy source, paving the way for more EU, U.S., and Canadian forests to be turned into wood pellets and burned.
The death knell of coal has been proclaimed, but policy loopholes in Asia allow for cofired power plants, where coal and wood are combined as fuel. Both fuels produce lots of carbon emissions, but those from wood aren’t counted.
Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after reading my articles and hearing…
The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
For the first time, a portion of the EU government has challenged the sustainability of burning forest biomass to make energy, a controversial policy pushed by the forestry industry but condemned by environmentalists.
Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning biomass, such as wood pellets, to make energy, with potentially adverse impacts on the global climate, deforestation and biodiversity.
The export of 22 wild-caught elephants from Namibia to the United Arab Emirates in March has raised concerns over their welfare and stoked criticism of how Namibia manages its wildlife.…
The EU remains committed to burning forests to make energy, despite conclusive scientific evidence of its climate destabilizing impacts. In a new strategy, forest advocates plan to take the EU to court to fight that policy.
Farmers with land interdicted by environmental authorities were granted loans with public money through a bank that belongs to the world’s largest agricultural machinery manufacturer.
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
California is the world’s largest driver of oil exports in the Amazon, researchers of two environmental NGOs, Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch have found. By tracking crude oil exports from four…
With vulnerable nations enraged as oil nations censor critical COP26 Glasgow accord language, the world is struggling mightily today to hammer out an agreement to truly curb climate change.