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by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer As Stefanie Glinski reported for the Thomson Reuters Foundation this week, large-scale deforestation in Afghanistan, due primarily to the past 40 years of war, has advanced flooding in the country (as trees prevent soil erosion and serve as a buffer against flooding). According to Glinski, “Trees have long been […]
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A recent study published in Science found that a significant percentage of beef and soy exported from Brazil to the EU is connected with illegal deforestation. As YaleE360 reported that “as much as 22 percent of soy and 60 percent of beef…back to illegal tree felling and fires in the Amazon and Cerrado regions.”
Why This Matters: The study’s lead author Raoni Rajão said, “Until now, agribusiness and the Brazilian government have claimed that they cannot monitor the entire supply chain, nor distinguish the legal from the illegal deforestation.” This new study undercuts that idea, showing that Brazil can (and must) monitor agribusiness’ connections to illegal deforestation.
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By Julia Fine A new study published this month by Jennifer A. Devine et al. found that in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, forests governed via community-based resource management are more resilient to narco-deforestation than state-run parks. As Fred Pearce reported in Yale Environment 360, the study calculated that up to 87% of the deforestation was […]
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A new study published yesterday in the journal Science Advances found that in Indonesia, a country with bountiful but highly exploited natural resources, a national anti-poverty program also reduced deforestation as a side benefit.
Why This Matters: Indonesia is one of the poorest nations in the world, and has the third-largest amount of tropical rain forest. It also, according to Global Forest Watch, is the country with the third-highest rate of rainforest loss in the world in 2019.
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As Sustainability Times wrote, the planet has been losing much of its forest cover, especially in tropical regions. Over the past three decades, some 420 million hectares of forest have been lost worldwide through deforestation. But deforestation along with numerous other environmental stresses have affected forests in a multitude of ways. A new global analysis reveals […]
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The World Resources Institute reported this week that nearly 30 million acres of forest were destroyed globally in 2019, an increase of 3% over 2018, with the heaviest losses in the tropics. How much forest is that? It’s a football field every 6 seconds.
Why This Matters: Our best natural defense against climate change is holding on to mature forests — and it is also one of the key ways to defend against pandemics.
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