WORLD RAINFOREST

Act now or lose the Pantanal forever (commentary) (Oct 15 2024)
- This year, over two million hectares of the world’s largest wetland, the Pantanal in Brazil, have burned, as agribusiness drains it and climate change dries it, reducing river flows and allowing fires to spread.
- Many species rely on a healthy Pantanal to survive, including 2,000 species of plants, 580 bird species, 271 kinds of fish, and 174 mammal and 57 amphibian species, many of which are endangered or threatened.
- “To truly protect it, we need an immediate halt on further agricultural expansion, major restoration projects for the land which has already burned, and bold global action to slash carbon emissions,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Delays in land titling threaten the conservation success of quilombos in Brazil (Oct 15 2024)
- Titled quilombo territories — traditional Brazilian communities originally formed by runaway enslaved people — have significantly lower deforestation rates, making them crucial for conserving Brazil’s natural biomes.
- However, only 4.33% of all Quilombolas in Brazil have been granted proper land rights.
- Quilombola communities in Alcântara have fought for their land rights since the 1970s, facing displacement and government neglect, but the Brazilian Air Force is pushing for an expansion of the local space center, delaying the recognition of Quilombola land claims.
- Brazil has admitted to human rights violations against the Alcântara Quilombolas, but progress on land titling remains slow and uncertain.

The tribal leader dedicating his life to protect Philippine’s critically-endangered national bird (Oct 15 2024)
- Tribal leader Datu Julito Ahao has dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to protecting Philippine eagles, a critically endangered national bird, in the wild.
- Considered an “unsung hero” by conservationists, he has ensured the survival of 16 juvenile eagles in the wild and founded the Bantay Bukid forest guard program to conserve the raptor’s habitat around Mount Apo, the country’s tallest peak and frontier of the bird’s conservation.
- There are an estimated 400 pairs of Philippine eagles left in the wild, with their existence under persistent threat from deforestation and hunting or trapping.
- Ahao is a trusted partner of the nonprofit Philippine Eagle Foundation, a leading conservation organization in the southern Philippines that hatches and breeds the eagles in captivity.

Africa’s little-known golden cat gets a conservation boost, with community help (Oct 15 2024)
- Mwezi “Badru” Mugerwa is a Uganda-based ecologist and conservationist whose work is focused on biodiversity monitoring using camera traps in East Africa’s rainforests, and specifically the African golden cat.
- In 2013, Mugerwa started his conservation nonprofit called Embaka, the local Rukiga name for the golden cat, to work with hunting communities around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.
- The organization provides alternative livelihoods to communities through various initiatives to steer them away from hunting and snaring in the national park, which has impacted golden cat numbers there.
- This year, Mugerwa is leading a pan-African monitoring program for the species to assess its distribution, population density and threats, with an eye to replicating Embaka’s activities in other countries.

As 25 Earth vital signs worsen, scientists warn of ‘irreversible climate disaster’ (Oct 15 2024)
- Earth is inching closer to irreversible climate change according to a recent report by an international group of climate researchers and Earth System scientists.
- Tracking 35 planetary vital signs — used to gauge Earth’s response to human activities — researchers found 25 are at record risk levels, including greenhouse gas concentrations, fossil fuel consumption, rising temperatures, forest loss, and biodiversity decline.
- The authors underline the immediate need for wide-ranging climate action to rein in fossil fuel use and control emissions, alongside other measures to stave off a deepening climate crisis. “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” they wrote.

Indonesia civil society rallies behind student investigated over nickel protest (Oct 15 2024)
- On Aug. 27 and Sept. 9, student advocates Christina Rumalatu and Thomas Madilis were called in for questioning by the Indonesian police following a demonstration linking floods to nickel mining in North Maluku province.
- The August demonstration in Jakarta blamed the deadly flash floods on land-use changes caused by the nickel mining boom underway in eastern Indonesia.
- The nickel mining complex in Halmahera “should not overreact to protests and try to criminalize people who are angry about the damage the nickel industry is doing to their land and water,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Climate Rights International.
- In a significant display of combined action, civil society organizations, legal advocates, youth groups in eastern Indonesia and the country’s human rights commission are rallying behind the Halmahera demonstrators, who may face prosecution under Indonesia’s widely criticized defamation law.

As tidal power rides a wave of clean energy optimism, pitfalls persist (Oct 14 2024)
- The world’s oceans could play a role in supporting the clean energy grids of the future. But that possibility hinges on the successful rollout of tidal stream and wave technology. Tidal stream energy taps into the power of run-of-river or ocean movements, while wave energy generates electricity using windblown waves.
- Years of hype and failed projects have bedeviled the tidal stream industry, which is the more progressed of the two technologies. But with demonstration projects in the U.K. seeing success, momentum is now building toward commercialization.
- Tidal stream technology — using river mouth, seabed-mounted or floating turbines — could offer reliable renewable energy for island communities, cutting their current reliance on costly imported fossil fuels. But technological, environmental and supply chain hurdles remain on the path to scaling up.
- While tidal and wave power will never dominate the global grid, they could play a valuable niche role in the global energy transition.

Why biodiversity credits cannot work (commentary) (Oct 14 2024)
- Byron Swift, a conservationist with over 40 years of experience working across Latin America, argues that biodiversity credits are fundamentally flawed and not a viable solution to the extinction crisis.
- He contends that while market mechanisms like carbon and biodiversity credits aim to address conservation and emissions reduction, they face significant challenges that undermine their effectiveness.
- Swift believes biodiversity credits are promoted primarily for the benefit of financial intermediaries rather than for their genuine potential to conserve biodiversity, and he advocates for other funding mechanisms.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

New tourism restrictions to protect Bangladesh’s unique wetlands and coral-rich island (Oct 14 2024)
- Since 1999, Bangladesh has declared 13 biodiversity-rich areas as Ecologically Critical Areas (ECA) under the country’s environment protection act.
- However, the government has failed to conserve the ECAs over the years other than a few project-based protection measures undertaken in some of the areas like Saint Martin’s Island, Tanguar Haor, Hakaluki Haor, Cox’s Bazar Beach and Sonadia Island.
- Now, the current civil society-led government plans to limit tourism in biodiversity hotspots to ensure the health of the ecosystem.
- The coral-rich Saint Martin’s Island and one of the country’s largest wetlands, Tanguar Haor, will see the first through tourism restrictions.

Angkor Plywood, the ‘timber cartel’ shipping Cambodian forests internationally (Oct 14 2024)
- A year-long Mongabay investigation shows that one of Cambodia’s most notorious logging companies likely illegally exported rare tree species to Vietnam and China for years.
- We found evidence Angkor Plywood has been illegally logging timber from protected areas and violating various laws by exporting sawn logs — and doing all this with impunity, in part thanks to its well-connected founders.
- Shipping records from 2021-2023 show Angkor Plywood exported a type of timber coveted in the furniture trade from a species it should never have been allowed to log or trade, according to a government source.
- A veteran activist calls Angkor Plywood a cartel and “driving force” behind the extensive logging and forest destruction taking place Cambodia.

Deforestation remains low, but fires surge in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest (Oct 12 2024)
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon remains near a six-year low, with 561 square kilometers cleared in September, a 30% decline from the previous year.
- Fires in the Amazon have surged dramatically, with an 18-fold increase in the area affected by fires, from 4,700 to 39,983 square kilometers, driven by a historic drought.
- Fire hotspots detected by satellite in the Amazon increased by 70%, rising to 145,357 compared to 85,670 the previous year.
- Scientists warn that deforestation, forest degradation, and climate change could destabilize the Amazon, affecting rainfall patterns and biodiversity across South America.

West Africa’s forgotten felines endangered by conflict and research gaps (Oct 11 2024)
- The WAP Complex of protected areas that straddles the border region of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger is one of West Africa’s most important protected areas and a haven for many iconic endangered species.
- Servals, caracals and African wildcats are also found in the WAP Complex, but almost nothing is known about their status, distribution, ecology or threats.
- Covert surveys of medicine markets in the region have found serval and caracal skins, though it’s not known if the skins originated within the WAP Complex.
- The presence of jihadist militants in the region severely impacts conservation and research, particularly in the Niger and Burkina Faso portions of the complex.

Hotel built without permits on disputed land riles neighboring Paracas reserve in Peru (Oct 11 2024)
- A controversial hotel opened its doors to the public in 2023 in the Paracas National Reserve’s buffer zone, which acts as a protective strip around the reserve to minimize any impact on the protected area.
- The Hotel Boutique Atenas is owned by a former police officer with a history of land ownership conflicts. The hotel does not appear to have the required permits from Peru’s National Service of Natural Protected Areas, Mongabay Latam found.
- It was also built on a property currently subject to a land dispute. Marine farmers who work there claim to have been forcefully displaced from this area.

With Europe’s move to delay tropical forest protections, everything burns (commentary) (Oct 10 2024)
- Last week, the European Commission flip-flopped and announced it wants to delay a new law designed to reduce tropical deforestation (EUDR) for a year, instead of allowing it start in January 2025.
- This decision isn’t just destructive for forests, it’s also bad for business — it flies in the face of hard efforts by thousands of companies who did everything to get into compliance on time — and is also bad for democracy, a new op-ed argues.
- “For the millions of EU citizens who supported the law, here is a message of hope. We lost a battle with the Commission’s effort to delay the EUDR, but the war for our climate still hangs in the balance, and the fight is on. European elected representatives can yet stand firm in support of the global forests and millions of people who depend on them, and reject the Commission’s proposal.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

U.S. court approves historic settlement for Honduran farmers’ case against the World Bank’s IFC (Oct 10 2024)
- A Delaware Court has approved a settlement between the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and several Honduran land defenders who faced violence at the hands of security forces allegedly linked to Dinant Corporation, a Central American palm oil corporation to which the World Bank had loaned $30 million dollars in 2009. The IFC has agreed to settle and to pay nearly $5 million in reparations, without any admission of liability.
- The IFC, one of the most influential lending institutions in the world, lost its “absolute immunity” granted by the U.S. government that protected it from prosecution after the Supreme Court heard a case regarding its financing of energy project in India — but until now, it has not moved to pay reparations to a community allegedly adversely affected by its investments.
- Violence continues in the Aguán Valley region where Dinant plantations are concentrated, and land defenders who denounced alleged links between the Dinant Corporation and illegal armed groups have been killed in a resurgent wave of killings of land and water defenders.

Despite court ruling, Yaqui water rights abuses ignored (Oct 10 2024)
- For decades, the Yaqui peoples in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora have been fighting to defend their rights to the Yaqui River, which is sacred to the Indigenous tribe and has been drained of all its water in their territory after decades of overexploitation, unequal water distribution and droughts.
- In 2010, the government approved the construction of an aqueduct, known as the Independencia Aqueduct, to supply water to several cities in the state, which was later found to be a violation of the tribe’s rights.
- Despite a favorable court ruling, which found that the Mexican government did not consult the Yaqui tribe before the aqueduct’s approval, it did not suspend its construction, which was inaugurated in 2012, despite evidence that it would cause irreparable damage to the community.

Community-led wetland restoration may hold key to Harare’s water crisis (Oct 10 2024)
- In Zimbabwe’s biodiverse but fast-developing capital city of Harare, a small community has formed a wetland restoration project, known as Conservation of Monavale Vlei, to protect biodiversity and prevent degradation.
- The Monavale wetlands are under threat in part due to environmental problems caused by development, inadequate infrastructure and poor waste management.
- Over the years, the city’s water tables have been falling, as Harare extracts groundwater faster than the aquifers are replenished to meet the demands of its growing population. This issue combined with drought results in a serious water crisis.
- By replicating the Monavale Vlei model, which supports rich biodiversity, residents and experts said the city could benefit from the many ecosystem services the project provides, including water storage, groundwater recharge and water purification.

Combined effects of human activities increase risk to ecosystem services (Oct 10 2024)
- A global analysis finds that exposure to multiple human-caused stressors is reducing the ability of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services. However, precisely how these myriad human-induced environmental changes interact to disrupt ecosystems and alter these vital services is poorly understood.
- Researchers analyzed more than 1,000 experiments that measured the response of ecosystems to one, two or three human-caused environmental stressors. The scientists found that the ability of ecosystems to maintain their current function declines as the number of stressors they are exposed to increases.
- The scientists also analyzed data from a long-term experiment on the effect of four simultaneous environmental stressors on plant productivity. This single study showed that ecosystem services’ resistance to change gradually declines with long-term exposure to multiple environmental stressors.
- The new study sheds light on a crucial unanswered environmental science question: How do interactions between multiple planetary boundary transgressions accelerate the collapse of key Earth system processes that keep the planet habitable?

WWF report offers glimmer of conservation hope — yet warns of a planet in peril (Oct 10 2024)
- WWF’s recent “Living Planet Report” offers a bit of hope, showing that mountain gorilla populations increased by 3% between 2010 and 2016.
- Conservation interventions such as dedicated management of protected areas, extensive engagement with communities surrounding parks, close monitoring of habituated gorilla groups and veterinary interventions where needed are thought to have contributed, WWF notes.
- Still, the report shows that wildlife populations across Africa have declined by 76% in the past 50 years.
- The peril of the planet is also linked to the fact that financing is inadequate, with public and private entities very often investing in activities that harm ecosystems and drive climate change.

In the dark of the night, sponges help possum shrimp ‘smell’ their way home (Oct 10 2024)
- Tiny mysid shrimp in Mediterranean underwater caves use a unique “smelling” ability to navigate back to their specific home caves after nightly feeding trips in the open sea.
- Researchers discovered that these shrimp can distinguish their home cave’s unique “chemical seascape” from other nearby caves, spending up to 16 times longer in water from their home cave in experimental settings.
- The mysids’ ability to return to their caves is crucial for their survival and for the broader ecosystem, as they transport nutrients from the sea into cave environments.
- Climate change and pollution pose significant threats to this delicate ecosystem; they could alter the chemical signatures that guide the mysids and impact the sponges that help generate these signatures.

Tensions flare as Indonesian islanders resist China solar development (Oct 10 2024)
- A violent confrontation between local villagers and officers of a land developer on the island of Rempang resulted in injuries and a police complaint.
- At issue is the 7,000-hectare (17,000-acre) Rempang Eco-City development on a small island that requires the eviction of thousands of local people.
- The project comprises a vast glass factory operated by a Chinese firm that will also build solar panels.
- Indonesia’s human rights commission last year sided with local residents and recommended the government review the project for potential breach of land rights.

News of rich mineral reserves in Burundi forest reserve sparks debate (Oct 10 2024)
- The news that a large quantity of cassiterite and coltan ores has been found in a nature reserve in Burundi has led to widespread misunderstandings.
- Mining industry experts have been critical of the exploration claims and process, and conservationists are worried about the possible environmental impact of mining the deposits.
- Meanwhile, the government bodies responsible for overseeing the environment and mining say that all operations will be carried out in line with the mining and forestry codes.
- Some communities that are dependent on the reserve say they fear a wave of unforeseen evictions.

Javan fisherwomen lead fight against marine dredging amid fears of damage (Oct 10 2024)
- Fisherwomen on the north coast of Java Island are pushing back against plans to dredge sea sand for export, saying they fear it will worsen coastal erosion and harm marine ecosystems.
- Under a 2023 regulation, the government ended a 20-year ban on sea sand exports, sparking backlash despite claims that dredging will occur only in open waters.
- Communities in the north Java districts of Demak and Jepara, where fishing is the primary livelihood, say they are particularly concerned that dredging will severely disrupt their fishing grounds and harm their livelihoods.
- Experts also warn of long-term damage both to marine ecosystems and to the economy, including losses to fishers and the undermining of Indonesia’s marine carbon storage.

NGOs push EU to label Sarawak as ‘high risk’ source of timber, palm oil (Oct 9 2024)
- A recently published report by rights groups says that commodities from the Malaysian state of Sarawak should be labeled “high risk” under the new EU deforestation regulations, subjecting exports to additional scrutiny.
- Indigenous and human rights groups point to high rates of deforestation associated with timber and palm oil production in the state, and to alleged violations of human rights, including the right to free, prior and informed consent.
- Rights advocates say they believe the EU deforestation regulations could be a tool to push Sarawak’s timber and agro-industries toward better human rights practices.

The life and legacy of Ryan Killackey, the filmmaker who rallied international support for Yasuni (Obituary) (Oct 9 2024)
- Ryan Killackey, who passed away at 46 on October 4th, was a dedicated advocate for the natural world, with a particular focus on the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous communities.
- His passion for nature led him from wildlife biology in North America to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where he became captivated by Yasuni National Park’s extraordinary biodiversity.
- In 2005, he moved to Ecuador and began documenting the Waorani people’s struggle against oil extraction in Yasuni, eventually resulting in his acclaimed documentary, Yasuni Man.
- Despite the limits of his advocacy, his film helped raise awareness, contributing to Ecuador’s 2023 decision to end oil drilling in Yasuni, a bittersweet victory during his final days.