News Selection – Tropical Forests
Recent news chosen to illustrate and update Tread Softly briefings on Tropical Forests.
Despite a decade of zero-deforestation vows, forest loss continues
13/6/2019: A 2010 resolution by 400 of the world’s largest companies to achieve zero net deforestation by 2020 is nowhere near on track, according to a Greenpeace report.
Source: Mongabay
Brazil guts environmental agencies, clearing way for unchecked deforestation
10/6/2019: Recent developments illustrate the extent to which the country’s environmental policies and law enforcement agencies are being dismantled by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. Source: Mongabay
Malaysia calls on SE Asia to back palm oil against ‘unfair’ claims
3/5/2019: The Malaysian government has called on its neighbours to help defend the palm oil industry against what it deems a discriminative campaign by the European Union to stop recognizing the commodity as a biofuel ingredient.
Source: Mongabay
The world lost a Belgium-sized area of primary rainforest in 2018
25/4/2019: The tropics lost 12 million hectares of tree cover in 2018, including 3.6 million hectares of primary rainforests - which store more carbon than other forests and are irreplaceable when it comes to sustaining biodiversity.
Source: World Resources Institute
How trade fells trees in Brazil and Indonesia
17/4/2019: Research has found that 29-39% of the carbon dioxide released through deforestation is driven by international trade — with farmers felling forests to clear space for croplands, pastures and plantations that grow goods often consumed abroad.
Source: DW
Questions remain as Vietnam reaches major REDD+ milestone
1/4/2019: In late 2018, Vietnam became the first Asia-Pacific country to reach eligibility for results-based carbon reduction payments under the UN-REDD Program, fulfilling its safeguard requirements.
Source: Mongabay
Companies to miss 2020 zero-deforestation deadline
21/3/2019: A report released for International Day of Forests calls on major companies to do more to ensure their actions match their rhetoric on ending tropical deforestation in their supply chains by 2020.
Source: Mongabay
Brazil’s key deforestation drivers: pasture, cropland, speculation
19/3/2019: Studies show that the main driver of Brazilian deforestation is land speculation, whereby land speculators deforest an area, possibly for timber, then converting the land to pasture, and then again quickly selling the land to a soy farmer. Source: Mongabay
New study finds young forests have a huge climate impact
26/2/2019: A recent study finds young forests sequester more carbon per year than old-growth forests, upending conventional wisdom that old-growth tropical rainforests are the planet’s biggest carbon sinks.
Source: Mongabay
Indonesia reduces deforestation, triggering results-based Norwegian aid
21/2/2019: Norway has announced that it will provide the first results-based payment to Indonesia as part of its REDD+ agreement. Indonesia was one of the few tropical nations to reduce its deforestation rates in 2017. Source: World Resources Institute
