Newsletter 2019-09-26

FEATURED

As the Amazon burns, Colombia’s forests decimated for cattle and coca by Antonio José Paz Cardona [09/26/2019]

– The environmental corridor that connects the Amazon, the Orinoquía and the Andes mountain range is in danger as a result of the ongoing deforestation.
– Tinigua National Natural Park lost 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres) between 2017 and July 2019, almost all of it primary forest, while the other parks also lost significant amounts of forest.
– The analysis identifies the main cause of the deforestation as the conversion of forests to pastures for land grabbing and livestock ranching, by invaders taking advantage of the scant government presence in the region.

Notes from the road: 5 revelations from traveling the Pan Borneo Highway by John C. Cannon [09/25/2019]

– Construction of the Pan Borneo Highway will add or expand more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of roadway in Malaysian Borneo.
– Mongabay staff writer John Cannon spent several weeks traveling the proposed route in July 2019 to understand the effects, both positive and negative, the road could have on communities, wildlife and ecosystems.
– The project is designed to energize the economies of the region, and though officials have responded to entreaties from NGOs to minimize the harmful impacts of the road, they remain singularly focused on the economic benefits that proponents say the highway will bring.

War on graft in mining, palm oil hit by new law weakening Indonesian enforcer by Hans Nicholas Jong, Lusia Arumingtyas [09/25/2019]

– Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission and its supporters have warned that the passage of a new law will severely hamper the fight against graft, including in the natural resources sector.
– The law is the culmination of more than a decade of attempts by parliament — whose members have frequently been charged and convicted of corruption — to curb the powers of the commission known as the KPK.
– The KPK had in recent years intensified its focus on tackling graft in the mining, plantation and natural resources industries.
– The sector has long been rife with corruption, most commonly the issuance of permits and concessions by local officials in exchange for bribes from companies.

Oil palm, cattle and coca take a toll on Colombia’s indigenous Jiw by Maria Fernanda Lizcano [09/24/2019]

– They illegally grow oil palm as a monoculture, contributing to water shortages for the area’s indigenous groups.
– The Jiw indigenous community also has a land dispute with several families who have settled in their territory.
– The National Land Agency of Colombia has been tasked with resolving the dispute.

Prompted by Amazon fires, 230 investors warn firms linked to deforestation by Sue Branford [09/23/2019]

– Prompted by the Amazon fires in Brazil and Bolivia, 230 global investors with $16.2 trillion in assets have issued a strongly worded statement warning hundreds of unnamed companies to either meet their commodities supply chain deforestation commitments or risk economic consequences.
– The statement was published by Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an international network of investors and Ceres, a U.S. non-profit which works with investors to promote sustainability.
– Among the 230 signatories are CalPERS (the California Public Employees’ Retirement System), which manages the largest public pension fund in the United States, and some more unexpected firms, such as China Asset Management.
– Elsewhere, consumer pressure has led the VF Corporation, a US apparel and footwear firm which owns Timberland and The North Face brands, to announce it has stopped buying Brazilian leather. It remains to be seen whether a global Brazilian boycott linked to deforestation will develop.

15 years after tsunami, Aceh reckons with an inconsistent fisheries recovery by Sonali Prasad [09/23/2019]

– When a tsunami killed tens of thousands of people in Indonesia’s Aceh province, international donors contributed billions of dollars to disaster recovery efforts
– Today, gaps in post-disaster recovery are still visible. A breakdown of community dynamics post-disaster limited the effectiveness of some initiatives.
– The example of Aceh provides lessons to be learned for future disaster recoveries under the “build back better” approach, including the importance of long-term thinking when it comes to such initiatives.

NEWS

Wilderness cuts the risk of extinction for species in half by John C. Cannon [09/26/2019]
– Wilderness areas buffer species against the risk of extinction, reducing it by more than half, a new study shows.
– Places with lots of unique species and wilderness with the last remaining sections of good habitat for certain species had a more pronounced impact on extinction risk.
– The authors contend that safeguarding the last wild places should be a conservation priority alongside the protection and restoration of heavily impacted “hotspots.”

Global fisheries deprive local communities of key nutrients, study finds by Stephen Leahy [09/26/2019]
– New study shows that fish in tropical regions have higher concentrations of calcium, iron and zinc – critical for human health – than fish in colder waters.
– Fish already being caught off the shores of many nutritionally-vulnerable countries could easily meet needs for vital micronutrients for people living within 100 kilometres of the coast
– Fish – including small species traditionally landed, processed, and eaten locally – is instead being processed into fishmeal for export.

IPCC special report finds oceans and cryosphere changing rapidly due to global warming by Mongabay.com [09/25/2019]
– As a massive expanse of unusually warm water spreads across the northeastern Pacific Ocean for the second time in the past five years, the latest special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released today, finds that marine heatwaves have “very likely” become twice as frequent and increasingly intense over the past four decades.
– The report focuses on the benefits of taking action to limit global warming — and the costs of delaying that action — for the world’s oceans and cryosphere (the parts of Earth’s surface that are frozen, such as ice sheets and frozen ground). It is the work of more than 100 authors from 36 countries who assessed 7,000 scientific publications to assemble the latest scientific findings on the current and future impacts of global climate change.
– Conservationists characterized the report as a dire wake-up call for world leaders. “With today’s release of the Special Report… international leaders are confronted by the stark and immediate consequences of failing to adequately address greenhouse gas emissions, as they impact the oceans,” Jason Patlis, executive director of the Marine Conservation Program at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), said in a statement.

The sink and the safeguard: Benefits of protecting and restoring intact forests for people and planet (commentary) by Lauren E. Oakes [09/25/2019]
– The need for protecting intact forests is pressing, and not just in the hotspots for rapid land use change like the Amazon or the Congo Basin.
– Forests in countries and regions experiencing relatively lower rates of deforestation, such as Suriname and Gabon, are also at risk of future degradation. Yet these High Forest Low Deforestation (HFLD) countries receive a relatively small portion of climate finance, challenging the ability to conserve and maintain many of the last intact forests.
– When it comes to climate action, we tend to think of adaptation and mitigation as distinct strategies: efforts either to cope with the impacts or to curtail them. But in fact, research indicates that a significant percentage of initiatives aimed at mitigation also have adaptation outcomes. This is particularly evident in the forest and agricultural sectors. The same holds true for intact forests. Including these forests in the country-level targets of the Paris Agreement is a win-win on both fronts.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Panthera: At least 500 jaguars lost their lives or habitat in Amazon fires by Shreya Dasgupta [09/25/2019]
– The fires in the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of September 17, experts at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, estimate. The numbers will continue to increase until the rains come, researchers say.
– In Bolivia in particular, the fires have so far destroyed over 2 million hectares of forest in one of South America’s key “catscape”, a region that Panthera has identified as having the highest predicted density of cat species on the continent.
– Panthera researchers also predict that many more jaguars will also likely starve or turn to killing livestock in neighboring ranches as a consequence of the fires, likely increasing conflict with the ranchers.

The thinning fabric of Earth’s forest cover (commentary) by Tom Evans [09/24/2019]
– The ever-smaller number of forests that remain truly intact and free from degradation are a precious resource, pivotal in addressing the twin challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss as well as offering many other benefits to people. But are we taking good care of them? Not yet.
– More and more of the world’s remaining forests are switching from healthy core to degraded, carbon-emitting edges, or isolated patches as intensive human use drives fragmentation, logging, over-hunting, fires, and a host of other pressures large and small.
– Decision makers mistakenly perceive that forest intactness is not as important or urgent as deforestation, or that it is too difficult to measure and monitor. We must lift these constraints, put better policies in place, and expend far more effort into halting the degradation of forests on the ground, in particular in those 20-30 countries where the most-intact forests are concentrated.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

‘The Blob’ is back: Pacific heat wave already second-largest in recent history by Mongabay.com [09/24/2019]
– The original Blob was a vast expanse of unusually warm water in the northeast Pacific that persisted from 2014 to mid-2016. (The unusual moniker came about because the marine heatwave appeared as a giant red blob on ocean surface temperature maps.) It eventually stretched all the way from the Gulf of Alaska to the California coast and had a number of adverse effects, contributing to a global coral bleaching event and impacting coastal salmon fisheries.
– The new Blob resembles the first in extent and location, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which reported on September 5 that the current marine heat wave in the northern Pacific is already the second-largest recorded in the past 40 years, behind only the 2014-2016 Blob.
– Sea surface temperatures in the northeast Pacific have been more than 3 degrees Celsius above average during the current heat wave. In the 2014-2016 Blob, water temperatures reached up to 5.5 degrees Celsius above average in some places.

At the UN, losing the race against time to fight climate change by Ashoka Mukpo [09/24/2019]
– World leaders gathered on Sept. 23 to address the climate crisis, but activists say they still aren’t doing enough.
– Although nearly 70 countries committed themselves to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, aside from the European Union most were relatively small and largely incidental to the global economy.
– The urgency of the summit was underscored by leaked details of a U.N. report set to be released this week, which suggests sea ice is melting much faster than expected and that irreversible tipping points have already been reached.

From threat to solution: Rethinking the role of communities in nature conservation (commentary) by Michael Brown, Samantha Cheng, Jim Tolisano [09/24/2019]
– We need to fully embrace that nature conservation, at its core, is a social process. The entire premise of conservation rests on people changing their lives in ways both great and small in order to sustain nature — thus conservation cannot succeed without community support. However, the role that frontline communities play in conservation planning and decision-making remains bewilderingly murky.
– New research highlights the contradictory roles within which frontline communities are framed: on one hand, they are seen as essential leaders and drivers of conservation; on the other hand, communities are often portrayed as posing threats to biodiversity. Confronting this tension is necessary if conservation aims to minimize trade-offs for both people and nature and ensure that the costs of conservation are equitably distributed.
– Shifting the paradigm that dominates nature conservation today — our expectations, approaches, models, and tools — to one that brings frontline communities into the planning, delivery, learning, and adaptive processes is essential if we are to keep our natural world thriving.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Nine new Fijian bees described, some restricted to a single mountaintop by Mongabay.com [09/24/2019]
– From the island country of Fiji, researchers have described nine new, and four previously known, species of bees belong to the genus Homalictus, a group that’s not been taxonomically reviewed in Fiji for 40 years.
– Many Homalictus bee species either have very restricted distributions or are known only from single mountaintops, the researchers say, and could soon become extinct due to changes in climate and other environmental risks.
– The researchers underscore the need for repeated field surveys to document and describe species from Fiji before they are lost.
– One of the four previously described bee species may have already gone extinct, having not been recorded since 2010, despite extensive surveys in the area.

For one Indonesian village, mangrove restoration has been all upside by Fathul Rakhman [09/24/2019]
– Demand for firewood in recent years led to the depletion of the mangrove forest in the Indonesian village of Paremas.
– But the local government and NGOs worked with the community to emphasize the importance of restoring the mangrove, with surprising results.
– Today, the tidal pools on the coast provide food that can both sustain the locals and provide an income, allowing families to be less dependent on the remittances sent home by mothers and fathers working arduous jobs overseas.
– In addition to protecting biodiversity, the mangroves also absorb energy from large ocean swells and stop garbage from piling up in foul-smelling sumps on the beach.

Call for scientists to engage in environmental movements strikes chord by John C. Cannon [09/24/2019]
– Scientists have a “moral duty” to partake in environmental movements such as the Extinction Rebellion and the Global Climate Strike, a pair of ecologists argues.
– The engagement of scientists could spark a deeper interest in — and action to address — these issues, they write.
– The participation of scientists will also lend credibility to the urgency of such movements, the scientists say.

Report highlights business, political players behind Philippine environment defender deaths by Imelda Abano, Leilani Chavez [09/24/2019]
– Global Witness, an eco-watchdog, has linked businesses and investors, including development banks to the increasing violence against land and environmental defenders in the Philippines, a practice rooted in the country’s “business at all costs” approach, it says in a new report.
– In a previous Global Witness report, released in July, the Philippines was named the deadliest country in the world for environmental defenders after recording 30 deaths in 2018 alone.
– The report calls on international banks and providers of foreign loans and aid to refrain from investing in big-ticket projects that endanger environmental defenders in the Philippines.

Greta and Mesoamerica’s five great forests (commentary) by Jeremy Radachowsky, Chris Jordan [09/23/2019]
– In New York’s Battery Park last Friday night, Greta Thunberg rightly said, “This is an emergency. Our house is on fire.” She continued, “This Monday, world leaders are going to be gathered here in New York City for the U.N. Climate Action Summit. The eyes of the world will be on them. They have a chance to take leadership, to prove they actually hear us.”
– In Mesoamerica, leaders are listening and acting. During the Climate Summit, Mesoamerica’s leaders announced their commitment to protect the “Five Great Forests of Mesoamerica” and shared some of their governments’ lessons learned to date to reduce forest fires and tackle deforestation.
– We are supporting them by promoting an initiative in which governments, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society are coming together to protect 10 million hectares and restore 500,000 hectares in these critical forest areas, thereby helping safeguard the world’s climate.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Paradise, polluted: Cook Islands tries to clean up its tourism sector by Monica Evans [09/23/2019]
– Tourism accounts for almost 70 percent of the Cook Islands’ economy, but the industry is proving extremely damaging to its delicately balanced island ecosystem, and is contributing to islanders’ detachment from traditional ways of life.
– Now, though, some tourism players, activists and government officials are pushing the industry to change tack in hopes it can start to sustain the island’s people and culture while protecting its ecology, too.
– Tourism operators are being asked to live up to the sustainability street cred that the country’s 2017 decision to designate its entire exclusive economic zone as a multiple-use marine protected area has granted it on the international stage.

Sri Lanka eyes lucrative charismatic species to save lesser-known ones by Malaka Rodrigo [09/23/2019]
– Though a global biodiversity hotspot with high endemism, Sri Lanka’s wildlife tourism is driven by a select group of “charismatic” species, including the Asian elephant, leopard, sloth bear, blue whale and sperm whale, none of which are endemic to the island.
– Sri Lanka still relies on conservation paradigms set decades ago, aimed at protecting these high-profile animals, but experts call for the adoption of new conservation strategies to protect the island’s biodiversity, moving beyond the charismatic species.
– A group of tropical biologists have called for the establishment of ecological corridors linking fragmented biodiversity-rich habitats in Sri Lanka’s wet zone to ensure the protection of unique endemic species not included among the charismatic species.
– Often lost in the shadow cast by the charismatic species are a wealth of amphibians and reptiles, found nowhere else on Earth, with new species continuing to be discovered on an almost regular basis.

‘From possibility to certainty’: Climate strikers seek action to avert disaster by Imelda Abano [09/22/2019]
– Youth activists taking part in the global climate strike have underscored the urgency of taking meaningful action to mitigate the environmental and humanitarian disasters posed by the climate crisis.
– Many low-lying territories in Asia and the Pacific are already struggling with rising sea levels, posing a major challenge for governments dealing with unprecedented levels of internal displacement.
– The activists have also filed a petition with the U.N. Human Rights Commission, seeking to hold polluters accountable for the human rights violations arising from the climate crisis.
– They also want to countries like the Philippines, one of those considered most vulnerable to climate change impacts, to fight harder for justice from richer, more polluting countries.

Sri Lanka wields mangroves, its tsunami shield, against climate change by Dilrukshi Handunnetti [09/22/2019]
– Fifteen years after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Sri Lanka’s government intends to keep expanding the island’s coastal green belt — the chain of mangrove swamps credited with limiting the damage and destruction of the deadly waves.
– The government plans to add 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of rehabilitated mangrove swamps to the island’s current mangrove cover of 15,670 hectares (38,700 acres), largely by reclaiming fish farms and salt-drying pools.
– Coastal towns in the tourism-dependent southern district of Galle are leading the way in those efforts, with their community-led mangrove regeneration programs considered among the most successful.
– There’s also wide recognition of the importance of engaging more women in these efforts and expanding awareness about environmental sustainability.

Bolsonaro’s Brazil unlikely to achieve Paris Agreement goals: experts by Elisângela Mendonça [09/22/2019]
– Brazil is the eighth largest global economy, and the seventh largest national producer of greenhouse gases, with significant emissions due to deforestation, especially in the Amazon.
– Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, Brazil committed to cutting 37 percent of its carbon emissions by 2025, and 43 percent by 2030.
– However, the anti-environmental, climate change and deforestation policies of President Jair Bolsonaro are putting those goals at serious risks, say experts.
– Environmentalists are especially suspicious of a September deal between Bolsonaro and US President Trump to promote private-sector sustainable development in the Amazon via a $100 million biodiversity conservation fund.

On World Rhino Day, looking back on an eventful year by Mongabay.com [09/22/2019]
– September 22 marks World Rhino Day, a global event established to celebrate the world’s five rhinoceros species, and to reflect on the challenges facing them.
– The year that has elapsed since World Rhino Day 2018 has been a eventful one for rhino conservation.
– Here, we look back at Mongabay’s coverage of some of the biggest stories from both Africa and Asia.

Youth climate strikes sweep Asia ahead of UN Climate Action Summit by Leilani Chavez [09/21/2019]
– When Super-Hurricane Haiyan descended on the Philippines in 2013, it not only left behind more than 7,400 casualties and nearly $5 billion in destruction. It also helped birth a strong youth climate justice movement.
– That movement is now surging across Southeast Asia, with major climate strikes by students in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia on September 20.
– Such acts of defiance are not easy in Asia, where deference and obedience to parents and elders is deeply ingrained. But with the whole world at risk, Asia’s young people are in the streets and determined to save the future for their nations and themselves.

As climate crisis deepens, wildlife adapts, maybe with lessons for us by Mongabay.com [09/20/2019]
– Shifts in the timing of lifecycle events, like reproduction or migration, are widely thought to be the most common response of wildlife to global warming.
– In recent years, pikas have been observed modifying their foraging habits in ways that may be behavioral adaptations to a changing climate.
– A long-term study in Kutai National Park on the island of Borneo in Indonesia has shown how extreme weather, brought by the intensifying El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, is affecting the behavior, habitat requirements, feeding ecology and birth intervals of orangutans.
– Researchers have discovered that African penguins, may be falling into a sort of “ecological trap,” one that humans created through overfishing and climate change.

In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, September 20, 2019 by Mongabay.com [09/20/2019]
– There are many important conservation and environmental stories Mongabay isn’t able to cover.
– Here’s a digest of some of the significant developments from the week.
– If you think we’ve missed something, feel free to add it in the comments.
– Mongabay does not vet the news sources below, nor does the inclusion of a story on this list imply an endorsement of its content.

Industrial palm oil investors struggle to gain foothold in Africa by Ashoka Mukpo [09/20/2019]
– Twenty-seven concessions intended for industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa have either failed or been abandoned in the last decade.
– Of the 49 that remain, less than 20 percent of the allocated land has been developed.
– Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby recently announced its intention to withdraw from Liberia after years of conflict with communities and environmental groups.

‘Full-blown crisis’: North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970 by Mongabay.com [09/20/2019]
– Since 1970, bird populations in the continental U.S. and Canada have suffered a net loss of 29 percent, or 2.9 billion birds.
– Grassland birds seem to have been hit the hardest: there’s been a 53 percent reduction in grassland-bird populations since 1970; more than 700 million breeding individuals have been lost, and three-quarters of all examined grassland bird species are declining.
– The study did not look into the causes of the bird declines, but the researchers say the patterns of loss in North America are similar to those observed elsewhere in the world, and the causes, including habitat loss, are likely to be similar.

All set to strike: Students, youths and activists clamor for climate justice by Imelda Abano [09/20/2019]
– Millions of young people around the world are expected to go on strike to demand immediate and meaningful action by governments and corporations to tackle the climate crisis.
– Youth activists have gathered in New York ahead of the U.N. climate summit there, where they took part in a people’s summit supported by more than 200 environmental and human rights groups.
– A key aspect of the climate injustice being highlighted is the fact that people in poorer countries will be hit hardest by the impacts of a changing climate.
– In the Philippines, one of the countries at greatest risk from those impacts, the government has backed the youth-led climate strike and called on developed countries to step up their climate actions.

New lease on life beckons for Arroceros, Manila’s hidden jungle by Reynaldo Santos Jr [09/20/2019]
– Arroceros Forest Park in the heart of Manila is one of the few green spaces left in the bustling Philippines capital.
– Successive governments have tried to get rid of it for new developments, but the city’s newly elected mayor has announced plans to retain and rehabilitate it as part of his “green city” proposal.
– The park is home to more than 3,000 trees, including 60 native species, and serves as a rest stop for migratory birds.
– Often dubbed the “lung” of Manila, Arroceros has been shown to mitigate the city’s notorious air pollution, and plays a key role in minimizing flooding, another of the capital’s litany of problems.

Gravely injured orangutan rescued near site of controversial hydropower project by Hans Nicholas Jong [09/20/2019]
– A severely injured and malnourished Tapanuli orangutan has been rescued from a plantation near the site of a controversial hydropower project in Sumatra.
– The animal was found to have deep, infected gashes on its head and under its arm, which rescuers say were likely inflicted by humans.
– The orangutan may have been fleeing forest-clearing activity near the project site, which is located in the Batang Toru forest, the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
– This is not the first instance of orangutans apparently being driven out of their habitat by the project, which environmental activists and scientists say must be put on hold to protect the rarest great ape species in the world.

World’s biggest meatpackers buying cattle from deforesters in Amazon by André Campos – Repórter Brasil [09/19/2019]
– JBS, Marfrig and Frigol, among the world’s biggest meat producers, have been buying cattle from ranches associated with illegal deforestation and slave labor, an investigation by Repórter Brasil has found.
– The ranches in question are located in southern Pará state, the epicenter of the fires currently ravaging the Amazon, providing further evidence of the link between deforestation for cattle pasture and forest fires.
– The three companies say the information that would have flagged the ranches as problematic were not publicly available at the time they made their purchase, and point to their commitments to not source from ranches linked to environmental crimes.
– But a lack of animal traceability allows ranchers to use legalized farms to conceal sales of cattle raised in illegal areas through false declarations of origin, in a practice known as “cattle washing.”

Will a massive marine protected area safeguard Cook Islands’ ocean? by Monica Evans [09/19/2019]
– In 2017, the Cook Islands government passed the Marae Moana Act, which designated the country’s entire exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as a multiple-use marine protected area (MPA).
– Spanning almost 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles) — an area roughly the size of Mexico — the MPA is the biggest of its kind in the world.
– Now, as bureaucrats, NGOs and traditional leaders get to grips with implementing Marae Moana, many stakeholders are wondering what the act will mean in practice and whether it can meaningfully change the way the ocean is managed.

Palm oil giant Korindo silences critical report with cease-and-desist letter by Hans Nicholas Jong [09/19/2019]
– Korindo, a major palm oil operator in Indonesia’s Papua region, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to delay the publication of a report highlighting its various violations there.
– The report was to have been published Sept. 5 by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), but the organization says it’s had to postpone publication indefinitely.
– Mighty Earth, the campaign group whose focus on Korindo’s operations prompted the two-year FSC investigation, says Korindo effectively robbed local communities of hundreds of millions of dollars in land, natural resources and livelihoods.
– Korindo says it issued the letter to seek more time to address some points, and denies that it’s threatening litigation over the report. It also says it’s working to address the findings of violations.

PREVIOUS FEATURES

Deforestation increase dovetails with armed conflict in Colombia, study finds by Antonio José Paz Cardona [09/18/2019]
Indigenous communities, wildlife under threat as farms invade Nicaraguan reserve by Taran Volckhausen [09/17/2019]
Mexican officials battle a tide of fire eating away at a protected reserve by Max Radwin [09/16/2019]
A Papuan village finds its forest caught in a web of corporate secrecy by The Gecko Project and Mongabay [09/16/2019]
Facing a possible Climate Apocalypse: How should we live? (commentary) by Glenn Scherer [09/15/2019]
Decolonizing trees in a tropical city to nurture multi-cultural identity by Carinya Sharples [09/13/2019]
On an island coveted by miners, villagers prepare to raise a ruckus by Ian Morse [09/13/2019]