Land Use Change News

The Bolsonaro government is pressing ahead with plans to fast track a powerline through the Waimiri-Atroari Reserve without indigenous consultation.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is opening the Amazon and Pantanal wetland biomes to sugarcane production, risking deforestation and intensified carbon emissions.

As the world races to meet the goal of protecting 17 percent of Earth’s land surface, a new study looks at how effective protected areas are at reducing human pressures…

In the past, only the Amazon and Cerrado were monitored for tree loss, but now Amazon Fund money will pay for Pantanal, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga and Pampa monitoring.

400,000 rural women are guardians to 25 million hectares of babassu palm forest where the Brazilian Amazon meets the Cerrado savanna, but industrial agribusiness is moving in.

JAKARTA — Scientists have described a new bird species found only on the Indonesian island of Alor, where a growing human population is already encroaching on the bird’s volcanic habitat.…

JAKARTA — The Forest Stewardship Council has released a batch of heavily redacted reports into its probe of violations by a palm oil company operating in Indonesia, after it was…

Amazon cattle, soy and timber producers employ “laundering” tricks to hide illegal deforestation. Easy solutions exist, but political will is weak: experts.

JAKARTA — In late September, international news outlets caught flak for their coverage of Indonesia’s largest mass protests since the 1998 uprising that led to the fall of the dictator…

Mamuru River traditional riverine and Sateré indigenous communities are fighting to save the rainforest and their way of life against invading illegal loggers and land grabbers.

The Brazilian president met with the Chinese leader last week on trade, but China remained silent on the Amazon fires, deforestation and other environmental issues.

Brazil’s army helped control Amazon fires in September, but loggers, miners and land grabbers — likely emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — are bringing a surge in deforestation.

When the Tapanuli orangutan was discovered in 2017 in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, it became the eighth known species of great ape in the world (including humans). The last…

Starting October 6, the Catholic Church will hold its first ever synod focused on an ecological biome. Bishops, indigenous leaders and activists will meet and set plans to help save the Amazon.

Brazil’s failure to monitor cattle from source, to sale, to slaughterhouse, creates an immense deforestation regulatory loophole according to a new report.

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

Major investors with $16.2 trillion in assets warn hundreds of companies to either meet supply chain deforestation commitments or risk economic consequences.

The president’s aggressive environmental deregulation, along with rising deforestation leave Brazil with little chance of reducing its carbon emissions.

It was the “next new frontier” for palm oil. A “mutually beneficial relationship” that would be a win-win for struggling nations in Africa and multinational producers running out of land…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  When a string of palm oil companies arrived in the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua…