Newsletter 2020-07-30

 

FEATURED

2019 was the deadliest year ever for environmental activists, watchdog group says by Ashoka Mukpo [07/29/2020]

– In a new report, the watchdog group says that at least 212 environment and land defenders were killed across the world in 2019.
– The deadliest countries were Colombia and the Philippines, with 64 and 43 killings respectively.
– Despite making up only 5% of the world’s population, representatives of Indigenous communities accounted for 40% of those killed.
– Killings related to agribusiness jumped by 60%, to 34 in 2019 – researchers say as consumption of commodities like beef and palm oil increases, so too will deadly conflict over land.

Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report by Sharon Guynup [07/28/2020]

– A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
– This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
– While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
– The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.

Marijuana farms expand in Paraguay reserve despite gov’t crackdowns by Aldo Benitez [07/27/2020]

– Approximately 600 metric tons of marijuana was seized by agents of Paraguay’s National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) in an operation in the heart of the forests of Morombí Reserve, between the departments of Canindeyú and Caaguazú.
– Over eight days, some 70 officers destroyed 202 hectares of marijuana and dismantled 23 camps set up by drug traffickers.
– But sources say this is just the tip of the iceberg and many more illegal marijuana farms are pockmarked throughout Morombí, increasing by the day. Satellite data support this, showing the reserve’s deforestation rate skyrocketed in 2019 and continues to climb into 2020.

 

NEWS

Migratory freshwater fish in peril as report shows population plunge by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [Thu, 30 Jul 2020]
– A new report finds that migratory freshwater fish species have declined on a global scale by 76% since 1970, with the highest drops experienced in Europe.
– The biggest threat to migratory freshwater fish is habitat degradation or alteration, such as dams, culverts and road crossings, while other threats include habitat loss, overfishing, pollution, and climate change.
– The authors of the report recommend taking actions to help restore migratory freshwater fish populations, including the restoration of free-flowing rivers by removing dams and other obstructions.

Podcast: Hellbenders, super-spreaders, and other salamanders face uncertain futures by Mongabay.com [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– The United States is home to the world’s greatest diversity of salamanders, so experts are worried about another pandemic that is headed for the country, one that has salamanders in its sights.
– Hellbenders are North America’s largest salamanders, living in rivers and growing to an incredible length of over two feet. Eastern newts are tiny and terrestrial, but both are susceptible to the fungal pathogen called Bsal.
– On this episode we speak with Dr. Becky Hardman from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Dr. Anna Longo of the University of Florida about these fascinating and unique species, and discuss what is being done to prepare for a Bsal invasion that experts say is inevitable.
– This is the sixth and final episode of the “Mongabay Explores” series about salamanders, published during alternate weeks from our flagship podcast, the Mongabay Newscast.

Indigenous Ashaninka launch fundraiser to help Amazon neighbors amid pandemic by Maria Fernanda Ribeiro [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– In early July, the Ashaninka indigenous people launched a fundraising campaign to encourage food production in communities living near the Kampa do Rio Amônia Indigenous Territory, in the Brazilian state of Acre.
– The “Ashaninka for the Peoples of the Forest” campaign plans to raise 1 million reais (about $200,000) to distribute food, farming tools and fishing gear to 1,800 local families, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
– There have been no reports of any Ashaninka being infected with COVID-19 to date; isolated by barriers they set up in the river leading to their village, they’re surviving on their traditional farming techniques.
– Nearby communities, however, depend on food aid and lack medical care in highly complex cases, prompting the Ashaninka to launch the fundraising campaign out of a sense of duty.

Burning down the house? Enviva’s giant U.S. wood pellet plants gear up by Saul Elbein [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– An outdated Kyoto Climate Agreement policy, grandfathered into the 2015 Paris Agreement, counts electrical energy produced by burning biomass — wood pellets — as carbon neutral. However, new science demonstrates that burning forests for energy is dirtier than coal and not carbon neutral in the short-term.
– But with the carbon accounting loophole still on the books, European Union nations and other countries are rushing to convert coal plants to burn wood pellets, and to count giant biomass energy facilities as carbon neutral — valid on paper even as they add new carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The forest industry argues otherwise.
– It too is capitalizing on the loophole, building large new wood pellet factories and logging operations in places like the U.S. Southeast — cutting down forests, pelletizing trees, and exporting biomass. A case in point are the two giant plants now being built by the Enviva Corporation in Lucedale, Mississippi and Epes, Alabama.
– Enviva and other firms can only make biomass profitable by relying on government subsidies. In the end, forests are lost, carbon neutrality takes decades to achieve, and while communities may see a short-term boost in jobs, they suffer air pollution and the risk of sudden economic collapse if and when the carbon loophole is closed.

Sri Lanka’s hourglass frog is only an hourglass frog 77% of the time by Ifham Nizam [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– A study into an endemic tree frog in Sri Lanka, Taruga eques, has found wide variations in both color and dorsal marking.
– The authors of the study say this high variance, or polymorphism, squares with what researchers already known about other tree frog species, and makes T. eques’s common name — hourglass tree frog — a misnomer.
– Polymorphism is important in amphibians to help regulate body temperature and evade predators, but hasn’t been researched in frogs in Sri Lanka until this new study, despite the island being known as a biodiversity hotspot.
– Amphibians like T. eques are threatened by habitat loss, forest fragmentation and climate change.

A jaguar nicknamed “Short-Tail” the first known to cross between Belize and Guatemala by Liz Kimbrough [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– A jaguar nicknamed “Short-Tail” was caught on camera in both Belize and Guatemala, making him the first individual confirmed to cross the international boundary between the two countries.
– This finding highlights the importance of international, transboundary collaboration to study and protect jaguars.
– Jaguars are threatened by habitat loss, deforestation, loss of prey, and illegal hunting.

Upgrade of Indonesian palm oil certification falls short, observers say by Hans Nicholas Jong [Wed, 29 Jul 2020]
– The Indonesian government’s planned update to its palm oil sustainability certification program doesn’t do enough to protect Indigenous communities from land grabs or prevent the destruction of forests, groups say.
– The Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme prohibits the conversion of Indigenous lands to oil palm plantations, but relies on the official framework for recognizing Indigenous land claims that covers only a tiny fraction of such areas.
– It also fails to explicitly call for the protection of secondary forests, allowing an area greater than the size of California to potentially be cleared for more plantations.
– There is also no provision for independent monitoring of the ISPO certification scheme itself that would provide credibility and oversight to the system.

‘Criminalizing’ dissent, martial law fuel attacks on Philippine environmental defenders by Leilani Chavez [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– Attacks on environmental and land defenders in the Philippines have escalated under President Rodrigo Duterte, with at least 43 deaths in 2019, watchdog group Global Witness says in its latest report.
– It recorded a total of 119 defender deaths in the Philippines since Duterte took office in mid-2016.
– Martial law in Mindanao, which was only lifted last December, combined with Duterte’s counterinsurgency campaigns and wide-scale anti-drug war, exacerbated the threats against defenders, local groups say.
– A plurality of the casualties in the global tally are in mining and agribusiness; the Philippines registered the most number of deaths in both sectors, the report says.

On World Tiger Day, let’s recommit to the goal of doubling wild tiger populations by 2022 (commentary) by Stuart Chapman [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– A goal to double the number of wild tigers by 2022 remains one of the most ambitious conservation targets for a single species ever adopted, and deserves renewed attention for International Tiger Day on July 29.
– However, a recent survey of people charged with managing 40 protected areas in tiger range countries reveals that funding for half of them has been cut since the global pandemic began.
– Investing in ‘tiger protected areas’ is an investment in ecosystems that millions of people also depend on, and should not be cut if the world wants to achieve the goal of doubling the animals’ populations.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Arrests in Indonesian probe into latest case of labor abuses on Chinese fishing boats by Basten Gokkon [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– Police in Indonesia have arrested and charged five recruitment agency executives in connection with the death of a migrant worker and abuse of 21 others on board Chinese fishing boats.
– This development is the latest crackdown by Indonesian authorities since May, following a spate of revelations about Indonesian workers suffering abusive conditions on board Chinese fishing boats. Three investigations are underway in connection to at least six deaths.
– The Indonesian police say they are partnering with Interpol to investigate the network of migrant seafarer trafficking abroad.
– Fisheries and human rights experts say forced labor at sea, particularly on distant-water fishing vessels, is frequently linked to illegal, unregulated and undocumented (IUU) fishing.

We need a green life support plan (commentary) by Gabriel Thoumi and John Waugh [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– Tourism — much of it nature-based – comprises 2% of sub-Saharan African nations’ GDP, which can rise to up to 38% for some countries. It is also critical to sovereign credit analysis, giving countries access to capital markets, external financing and funds to support government programs, including nature-based tourism. But with the collapse of international tourism in response to COVID-19, sub-Saharan African countries are facing credit rating downgrade risks, putting conservation funding at risk.
– Without income from nature-based tourism, many small- and medium-size enterprises in the nature-based tourism sector risk closure, and wildlife conservation will be seriously compromised as landowners and locals could be incentivized to convert conserved land into agriculture production and partake in illegal activities such as overfishing, with significant negative results for countries’ nature-based assets.
– With the long-term sustainability of these nature-dependent economies threatened, the authors argue for standardized, methodical and systemic funding for the conservation, protection and restoration of the natural capital.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

For the Amazon’s rarest wild dog, deforestation is a very real threat by Claudia Geib [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– The short-eared dog, an elusive species endemic to the Amazon, could lose 30% of its habitat in just the next seven years.
– Researchers say the species should be listed as vulnerable, instead of near threatened, on the IUCN Red List to highlight the threats it faces from habitat loss and climate change.
– New research shows the short-eared dog may be a vital disperser of Brazil nut trees, helping prop up a $44 million industry.

What makes a Sumatran tiger different? Candid Animal Cam heads to southeast Asia by Mongabay.com [Tue, 28 Jul 2020]
– Every Tuesday, Mongabay brings you a new episode of Candid Animal Cam, our show featuring animals caught on camera traps around the world and hosted by Romi Castagnino, our writer and conservation scientist.

Indigenous-led technology solutions can boost biodiversity and ensure human rights (commentary) by Alice Sheppard, Jerome Lewis, Marcos Moreu, Megan Laws and Simon Hoyte [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– The United Nations Development Program recently carried out an assessment of claims that the human rights of Baka hunter-gatherers are being violated by conservation guards around Messok-Dja park in the Republic of Congo.
– But there is an alternative: to put the Baka and other Indigenous peoples and local communities at the heart of decision-making.
– Such decisions are increasingly being informed by technology projects designed with, or alongside, Indigenous peoples and local communities.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

What funds are needed to prevent another pandemic? Just 2% of COVID-19’s estimated cost by Mongabay.com [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– The authors of a new research-based opinion piece in the journal Science estimate that the total cost of COVID-19 could reach $16 trillion, but spending between $20 billion and $30 billion every year to stem deforestation and regulate the wildlife trade could drastically lower the risk of another pandemic.
– COVID-19 has already claimed nearly 650,000 lives and could wipe out $5 trillion in global GDP this year alone.
– Zoonotic diseases that jump from animals to humans are emerging with increasing frequency in recent decades, but investments in preventing these spillover events are paltry, the authors argue.
– The rapid rate of forest loss and incursions into previously untouched woodlands, especially in the tropics, and a poorly regulated global wildlife trade, have exposed humans to a host of novel viruses.

In Sri Lanka, a South American flower usurps a tree sacred to Buddhists and Hindus by Malaka Rodrigo [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– The cannonball tree, with its red, pink and yellow flowers with a soft fragrance, is native to South America and gets its name from its large, round fruit.
– The British introduced the plant to Sri Lanka, India and other parts of Asia in the 19 century, and its flower has since been imbued with religious significance by many Hindus and Buddhists, who believe it comes from the sacred sal tree.
– But the real sal tree is the native Shorea robusta, mentioned in the Buddhist and Hindu tales that predate the arrival of the cannonball tree by more than 2,000 years.
– The cannonball tree is increasingly misidentified as the sal tree, including in school textbooks and official ceremonies.

Scientists launch ambitious conservation project to save the Amazon by Shanna Hanbury [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), an ambitious cooperative project to bring together the existing scientific research on the Amazon biome, has been launched with the support of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
– Modeled on the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the first Amazon report is planned for release in April 2021; that report will include an extensive section on Amazon conservation solutions and policy suggestions backed up by research findings.
– The Science Panel for the Amazon consists of 150 experts — including climate, ecological, and social scientists; economists; indigenous leaders and political strategists — primarily from the Amazon countries
– According to Carlos Nobre, one of the leading scientists on the project, the SPA’s reports will aim not only to curb deforestation, but to propose an ongoing economically feasible program to conserve the forest while advancing human development goals for the region, working in tandem with, and in support of, ecological systems.

Investigation links meat giant JBS to Amazon deforestation by Mongabay.com [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– An investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Guardian and Reporter Brasil has uncovered evidence that a driver working for the world’s largest meatpacker, JBS, was involved in transporting cattle from a farm that has been fined for forest destruction to another farm that directly supplies JBS.
– Photographs from the social media account of the truck driver appear to show him in a convoy bearing the JBS logo transporting “skinny” cattle from Fazenda Estrela do Aripuanã, a ranch in the northwest of Mato Grosso state that has previously been fined for illegal deforestation, to another farm that directly supplies JBS.
– JBS said it was investigating the incident; it added that the driver worked for an “independently-run transport service.”

App harnesses citizen power to keep tabs on Philippines’ coral reefs by Jen Chan [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– A series of coral bleaching events have affected reefs across the Philippines in previous years, and this year alone 11 such incidents have been reported.
– But bleached reefs aren’t necessarily dead, with some still able to recover if they are resilient enough and if no further stressors come into play.
– Given that the Philippines has an estimated 33,500 square kilometers (nearly 13,000 square miles) of reefs, a volunteer group is relying on a small but growing army of citizen scientists to keep track of these bleaching incidents by submitting photos online or through an app.
– Citizen science could also help identify other threats to coral reefs, including crown-of-thorns infestation and disease outbreaks, as well as identify corals that are more resilient.

Indonesian fishers face livelihood threat from ‘beautiful’ tourism project by Agus Mawan [Mon, 27 Jul 2020]
– The coastal district of Majene on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is being developed to attract tourists.
– Local fishers, however, have opposed the Waterfront City development project, saying it will damage the ecosystem that they depend on as their main source of livelihood.
– Environmentalists also allege maladministration by the district government in allowing the project based on an environmental impact analysis that doesn’t square with the real impact on the ground.
– The Majene government says it will continue with the project, calling the opposition one-sided.

Problem pachyderms? ‘Geofencing’ helps reduce Sri Lanka’s human-elephant conflict by Malaka Rodrigo [Sun, 26 Jul 2020]
– In the past two decades, Sri Lankan scientists have pioneered an effort to track the movements of more than 100 elephants using GPS satellite tracking collars.
– Panu Kota, one of the last two remaining elephants (Elephas maximus maximus) living in the UNESCO World Heritage Sinharaja Forest Reserve, was GPS satellite collared in June 2019, enabling authorities to receive a signal whenever the roaming elephant enters nearby villages and to make timely interventions to reduce confrontations between the transgressing elephant and villagers.
– Data generated through the radio tracking system has shown that elephant translocations have failed because elephants regularly return to their home range, requiring new solutions to mitigate human-elephant conflict.
– Authorities say the elephant tracking data can help develop mechanisms to minimize human-elephant conflict by shedding light on the animals’ movements and identifying areas not often visited by elephants for development and agriculture.

Mangrove forest restoration boosts Costa Rica communities (commentary) by Andrew Whitworth [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– Mangrove forests are key ecosystems that host high levels of biodiversity, temper storm surges, and sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
– Despite their importance, mangrove forests endure high levels of deforestation for coastal development, charcoal production, and shrimp farms.
– For World Mangrove Day on July 26, we share a report on an ambitious mangrove restoration effort in the Terraba Sierpe National Wetland in Costa Rica.
– This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Canada not walking the talk on its miners’ abuses abroad, campaigners say by Chris Arsenault [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– Canada is home base for nearly half of the world’s mining companies, but the country’s efforts to improve corporate accountability for environmental and human rights violations have fallen short, observers say.
– Internal documents show the government has stressed a voluntary approach to regulation, despite campaign promises to address abuses and outcry from campaigners.
– A government spokesperson says Canada has launched new initiatives to safeguard environmentalists and land-rights activists and to promote corporate responsibility.
– A recent Supreme Court decision could open the country’s legal system to allow victims of corporate abuses overseas to sue companies in Canada.

World Bank-backed attempt to commercialize Madagascar’s beef industry falters by Malavika Vyawahare [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– In 2018, the IFC, the arm of the World Bank that invests in the private sector, approved a $7 million investment in a company that wanted to buy zebu cattle from farmers in Madagascar and export the beef mainly to rich Middle Eastern countries.
– The BoViMA project hit a major roadblock when Malagasy President Andry Rajoelina banned the export of zebus last year, and has failed to recover.
– Despite being aimed at reducing poverty, the project has invited scrutiny for its potential impacts on food security, especially the sourcing of human-edible crops for cattle feed in one of the poorest and most water-scarce regions in the world.
– When fully operational, the slaughterhouse and feedlot would require 120,000 tons of feed and 150 million liters of water a year.

Bubbles, lasers and robo-bees: The blossoming industry of artificial pollination by Liz Kimbrough [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– Ninety percent of flowering plants require the help of animal pollinators to reproduce, including most of the food crops we eat.
– But massive declines in the populations of bees, the most efficient pollinators around, and the rising cost to farmers of renting them to pollinate their crops, has spurred the growth of the artificial pollination industry.
– The technologies being tested in this field include the delivery of pollen by drones and by laser-guided vehicles and even dispersal via soap bubbles.
– Proponents of artificial pollination say it can both fill the gap left by the declining number of natural pollinators and help in the conservation of these species; but others say there may not be a need for this technology if there was a greater focus on conservation.

Niobium mining in Brazilian Amazon would cause significant forest loss: Study by Taran Volckhausen [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– A recent study found that large-scale niobium mining proposals, if carried out in the remote northwest portion of the Brazilian Amazon, would likely cause significant forest loss and threaten biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.
– The study comes as President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for an expansion of industrial mining on indigenous lands and his administration turns a blind eye to expanding illegal mining that is threatening indigenous communities in the northern Amazon.
– There are two known niobium deposits in the region, at Seis Lagos and at Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, located in the Rio Negro River basin. The Brazilian portion of the Rio Negro River basin is home to 23 Indigenous groups, including the Yanomami people, and holds vast tracts of undisturbed rainforest, rich in biodiversity.
– The recent niobium study offers an example of how science can be proactive in analyzing the environmental impact of infrastructure development well before it happens, hopefully helping guide policy decisions to prevent deforestation, pollution, the spread of disease and other problems.

Sharks are ‘functionally extinct’ in many global reef systems, study finds by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [Fri, 24 Jul 2020]
– A new study surveyed 371 coral reefs in 58 countries, and found sharks were virtually absent from 20% of the surveyed reefs, indicating that they were functionally extinct from these ecosystems.
– The research team collected 15,165 hours of video via baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVS), and used this data to analyze shark abundance on global reef systems.
– The absence of sharks was usually connected to poor governance of nearby human settlements, including unregulated and destructive fisheries.
– While sharks were missing from many reefs around the world, other locations boasted healthy shark populations due to rigorous conservation efforts.

Photos show scale of massive fires tearing through Siberian forests by Elizabeth Claire Alberts [Thu, 23 Jul 2020]
– A series of newly released images from Greenpeace International show megafires burning through the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, Russia.
– It’s estimated that fires have burnt more than 20.9 million hectares of land in Russia, and 10.9 million hectares of forest, since the start of 2020.
– The fires are being helped by unusually warm temperatures, including a reading of more than 38° Celsius (100° Fahrenheit) in the town of Verkhoyansk — the hottest on record inside the Arctic Circle.
– There are concerns that the smoke from the Siberian fires will cause respiratory problems for people living in urban areas, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Twins highlight world’s largest Asian elephant gathering in Sri Lanka by Malaka Rodrigo [Thu, 23 Jul 2020]
– Two elephant calves observed in Sri Lanka’s Minneriya National Park in June are the island’s first recorded live twins, a relationship confirmed by their social behavior, experts say.
– Their births coincide with the world’s largest Asian elephant gathering, which takes place in Minneriya. More than 300 elephants gather from July to October during the dry season to feed on grass shoots emerging from the drying lakebeds.
– “The Gathering” has been recognized as one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in the world, and it’s a huge tourist attraction. But a newly commissioned irrigation project now fills the Minneriya tank year around, threatening the annual event.
– Even though a trade-off agreement was made not to fill the tank beyond 70% of its capacity, researchers have observed elephants are leaving Minneriya in response to increased water levels in the tank.

Expand conserved areas to boost global economy ravaged by COVID-19: Report by Chris Arsenault [Thu, 23 Jul 2020]
– Protecting 30% of the world’s lands and oceans would cost $140 billion annually, with the target reachable by 2030, according to a report by an international team of scientists and economists released this month.
– Dramatically increasing protected areas would provide a buffer between human and wildlife communities, helping prevent pandemics such as COVID-19, while also greatly boosting economic growth and sustainability.
– The benefits of implementing the 30% conservation goal outweigh the costs by a five-to-one ratio, according to this first economic analysis of the U.N. protected areas target.
– Some countries have already met this goal, including Bolivia, Germany, Namibia, Poland, Tanzania, Venezuela and Zambia, but Brazil, home to the world’s largest remaining rainforest, is slipping on its previous conservation commitments.

In picturesque Boracay, a crown-of-thorns infestation is eating away at the reef by Jun N. Aguirre [Thu, 23 Jul 2020]
– The coral reef surrounding the resort island of Boracay, which the Philippine government wants to reopen to tourists, is under attack from a crown-of-thorns starfish infestation.
– Local officials receiving reports of a possible outbreak weren’t able to confirm for four months because of the COVID-19-related lockdown, and were only allowed to dive in early July.
– A similar outbreak occurred in 2018, which prompted officials to tap volunteer divers to help collect the crown-of-thorns.
– But with the pandemic and lockdown, officials are short of volunteer divers and are considering training fisherfolks to help save Boracay’s coral reefs.

 

PREVIOUS FEATURES

Photos: In southern Papua, navigating an alien world built on palm oil by Albertus Vembrianto [07/22/2020]
Environmental defenders voice concerns as COVID-19 crisis deepens by Lauren Crothers [07/21/2020]
World’s biggest meatpacker JBS bought illegally grazed Amazon cattle: Report by Sam Cowie [07/20/2020]
International investors urge Brazil to take real action to stop deforestation by Fernanda Wenzel/oeco [07/17/2020]
Nigeria’s wildlife traders, who weathered Ebola, eye post-COVID-19 boom by Orji Sunday [07/17/2020]
World Bank-funded factory farms dogged by alleged environmental abuses by John C. Cannon [07/16/2020]

 

MONGABAY ORG