Help Support EcoWatch
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Green living spruce and gray dead spruce in the Harz mountain region on May 7, 2020 near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany. Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
More than a third of the world's old growth forests died between 1900 and 2015, a new study has found.
<p>In the study, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6494/eaaz9463" target="_blank">published in Science</a> Friday, nearly two dozen scientists used satellite data combined with more than 160 previous studies to show that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> are killing off older, taller <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trees" target="_self">trees</a> and leaving forests younger and shorter, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/grand-old-trees-are-dying-leaving-forests-younger-shorter/" target="_blank">National Geographic explained</a>. And the trend is likely to continue.</p><p>"We will see fewer forests," University of Wisconsin forest ecologist and study coauthor Monica Turner told National Geographic. "There will be areas where there are forests now where there won't be in the future."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">More than 20 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/scientists?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#scientists</a> show global conditions lead to younger, shorter trees: <a href="https://t.co/KR2Tnwx4Af">https://t.co/KR2Tnwx4Af</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/deforestation?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#deforestation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/forests?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#forests</a> 🎄<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/science?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#science</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/researchhighlight?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#researchhighlight</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/environment?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#environment</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LosAlamosNatLab?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LosAlamosNatLab</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ORNL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ORNL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NASA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Stanford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Stanford</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LBNL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LBNL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ScienceMagazine</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/McDowell_Trees?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@McDowell_Trees</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/poulterlab?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@poulterlab</a> <a href="https://t.co/NN7k7qcEaW">pic.twitter.com/NN7k7qcEaW</a></p>— PNNL (@PNNLab) <a href="https://twitter.com/PNNLab/status/1266087442081296390?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The study was led by Nate McDowell of the U.S. Department of Energy's <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/" target="_blank">Pacific Northwest National Laboratory</a> (PNNL), who explained why this change was such a big deal.</p><p>"A future planet with fewer large, old forests will be very different than what we have grown accustomed to," he said in a <a href="https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/global-environmental-changes-leading-shorter-younger-trees" target="_blank">PNNL press release</a>. "Older forests often host much higher <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> than young forests and they store more carbon than young forests."</p>
<p>Old growth tree loss is being driven by a number of factors, many of them linked to the climate crisis in some way. Warmer temperatures limit photosynthesis, both stunting and killing trees. Increased <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">droughts</a> both kill trees directly and lead to attacks by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" target="_self">insect</a> pests. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">Wildfires</a> and infestations by insects, fungi and choking vines are all on the rise. Humans have also killed old growth trees more directly by chopping them down.</p><p>These factors combine to alter forest makeup, PNNL explained:</p><blockquote>Known as deforestation, the phenomenon has led to an imbalance of three important characteristics of a diverse and thriving forest: (1) recruitment, which is the addition of new seedlings to a community; (2) growth, the net increase in biomass or carbon; and (3) mortality, the death of forest trees.</blockquote>
<p>"Mortality is rising in most areas, while recruitment and growth are variable over time, leading to a net decline in the stature of forests," McDowell said.</p><p>While previous scientists had predicted increased carbon dioxide would lead to more tree growth, McDowell's team found this was only the case in younger forests with lots of nutrients and water. Otherwise, he explained to National Geographic, hotter temperatures reduce moisture, causing trees to shed leaves and close pores to retain water, which makes it harder for them to absorb carbon dioxide.</p><p>"[It's like] going to an all-you-can-eat buffet with duct tape over their mouths," he said.</p>
<p>Tree loss is truly a worldwide problem. In the Western U.S., Canada and Europe, where data is most abundant, the rate of tree death has doubled in the last four decades, and older trees have disproportionately been affected. Worldwide, humans have cut down 12 percent of the world's forests since 1900, and the proportion of the world's forests that are more than 140 years old has declined from 89 to 66 percent during that time, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/28/climate-crisis-world-forests-shorter-younger-study" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>The study spells bad news for trees' ability to help combat the climate crisis.</p><p>"When old trees die, they decompose and stop sucking up CO2 and release more of it to the atmosphere," McDowell told National Geographic. "It's like a thermostat gone bad. Warming begets tree loss, then tree loss begets more warming."</p>
<p>However, professor Simon Lewis of University College London, who was not involved in the study, pointed out that while forests are getting younger on average, some crucial old growth forests are actually increasing their area.</p><p>"The world's intact tropical and boreal forests are both globally important as carbon sinks, and are getting larger," he told The Guardian. "The world's forests currently slow climate change, and while future mortality trends could reverse this, the ideas in the new report don't change what the world needs to do: stabilise the climate by quickly driving fossil fuel emissions to zero and protect the world's forests."</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Family Forests Are Key to Fighting Climate Change. - EcoWatch ›
- Amazon Deforestation Is Causing 20% of Forests to Release More ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A group of doctors prepared to treat coronavirus patients in Brazil. SILVIO AVILA / AFP via Getty Images
More than 40 million doctors and nurses are in, and they are prescribing a green recovery from the economic devastation caused by the new coronavirus.
<p>More than 350 health organizations representing some 40 million medical professionals, as well as more than 4,500 individual health workers from 90 countries, signed a <a href="https://healthyrecovery.net/" target="_blank">letter</a> to the G20 leaders Tuesday urging them to craft what they are promoting as a #HealthyRecovery by taking measures such as reforming <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuel</a> subsidies and fighting pollution and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a>.</p><p>"A truly healthy recovery will not allow pollution to continue to cloud the air we breathe and the water we drink," the health professionals wrote. "It will not permit unabated <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate change</a> and deforestation, potentially unleashing new health threats upon vulnerable populations."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Health workers are at the frontline of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> pandemic, working tirelessly to ensure that people receive the treatment they need. <br><br>Now millions of them have signed a letter with a simple message: We need a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HealthyRecovery?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HealthyRecovery</a> from this crisis.<br><br> 👉<a href="https://t.co/MfkPaoUu8A">https://t.co/MfkPaoUu8A</a> <a href="https://t.co/XErStuXCAM">pic.twitter.com/XErStuXCAM</a></p>— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) <a href="https://twitter.com/UNFCCC/status/1265287853694738433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The signatories represent about half of the world's medical workers, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/26/world-health-leaders-urge-green-recovery-from-coronavirus-crisis" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. They include the World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, the Commonwealth Nurses and Midwives Federation, the World Organization of Family Doctors and the World Federation of Public Health Associations, according to a <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/medical-professionals-want-green-recovery-from-covid-19" target="_blank">UN Climate Change press release</a>. The letter also has the support of the World Health Organization and the Global Climate and Health Alliance, <a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/world-needs-green-recovery-health-experts-tell-g20-leaders-doc-1s95mj3" target="_blank">AFP reported</a>.</p><p>By writing the letter, the health workers are joining a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/un-earth-day-coronavirus-climate-crisis-2645802263.html">growing movement</a> for a recovery from the impacts of the virus and subsequent lockdown measures that also addresses the climate crisis and other environmental problems.</p><p>"Health professionals are at the frontlines of this emergency, and we are seeing the immense loss of lives because of acting too late," World Medical Association President Miguel Jorge said, as The Guardian reported. "We know now more than ever that healthy lives depend on a healthy planet. As we walk on the road to recovery, we need to build a system that will protect us from further damage. We need a healthy and green recovery."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WMA joins +40 million doctors, nurses and health professionals calling upon <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/G20?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#G20</a> leaders to put public health at the center of their countries' <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> recovery plans. <a href="https://t.co/QMZJuXj065">https://t.co/QMZJuXj065</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HealthyRecovery?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HealthyRecovery</a> <a href="https://t.co/Dz6tIRJQbc">pic.twitter.com/Dz6tIRJQbc</a></p>— World Medical Association (@medwma) <a href="https://twitter.com/medwma/status/1265284083082498050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The letter highlighted the damage caused by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" target="_self">air pollution</a>, which led to seven million early deaths a year before the emergence of the new coronavirus. There is <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-air-pollution-fatality-2645656760.html" target="_self">evidence</a> that exposure to air pollution could make the new disease more deadly, and one of the most memorable effects of the lockdown measures has been the clearing of skies from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-china-pollution-2645356657.html" target="_self">China</a> to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-italy-air-pollution-2645508891.html" target="_self">Italy</a> as factories closed and cars stayed off the roads.</p><p>To maintain some of these gains while fighting the climate crisis, the health professionals recommended reforming fossil fuel subsidies and putting more of that money towards <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/renewable-energy" target="_self">renewable energy</a>, something they argued would grow global GDPs by nearly 100 trillion dollars by 2050.</p><p>They also urged G20 leaders to involve their chief medical and scientific advisors in creating economic stimulus plans.</p><p>"The enormous investments your governments will make over the coming months in key sectors like health care, transport, energy and agriculture must have health protection and promotion embedded at their core," they wrote.</p><p>The next G20 meeting has been scheduled for November, according to AFP.</p><p>However, some world leaders on the list, such as U.S. President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> and Brazil's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a>, have already faced criticism for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/doctor-bright-coronavirus-trump-drug-2645811981.html" target="_self">sidelining science</a> in their response to the coronavirus and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-amazon-deforestation-coronavirus-2645950493.html" target="_self">using the crisis</a> as an excuse to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dismantles-environmental-protections-under-cover-of-coronavirus-2645989316.html" target="_self">roll back environmental protections</a>.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- A 'Green Stimulus' Could Battle Three Crises: Coronavirus ... ›
- German Business Leaders Call for Climate Action With COVID-19 ... ›
- Canadian Groups Fight for a Just Covid-19 Recovery - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Charlie Rogers / Moment / Getty Images
As the COVID-19 virus was spreading around the world, deforestation in the world's rainforests rose at an alarming rate, the German arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a study published on Thursday.
<p>The study, which analyzed satellite data of 18 countries compiled by the University of Maryland, found that deforestation rose by 150% this March compared 2017-2019 average for the same calendar month.</p>
<p>Around 6,500 square kilometers (2,510 square miles) of rainforest were felled in March alone — an area seven times the size of Berlin, the WWF said.</p><p>"This indicates that we're dealing with a coronavirus effect on the exploding rates of deforestation," Christoph Heinrich, the head of nature conservation with WWF Germany, said in a statement.</p>
Indonesia Forests Hit Hardest
<p>The forests most heavily hit by deforestation in March were in Indonesia, with more than 1,300 square kilometers lost. </p><p>The Democratic Republic of Congo saw the second-largest forest loss with 1,000 square kilometers followed by Brazil with 950 square kilometers.</p><p>The Brazilian non-profit research institute Imazon told news agency DPA that deforestation was up in April as well. The institute recorded a loss of 529 square kilometers in the Amazon in April, a rise of 171% compared to last year.</p>Tied to COVID-19
<p>The WWF says there's ample evidence to suggest the boom in rainforest deforestation is being fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>With stay-at-home orders and strict lockdowns in place in countries around the world, authorities haven't been able to patrol nature preserves and indigenous territories as often — a situation that criminal organizations and illegal loggers have been using to their advantage.</p><p>The virus has also prompted massive job losses in many countries, leaving many newly-unemployed people increasingly desperate for sources of income.</p><p>The WWF noted that the legal timber trade is a substantial source of income for several African countries but is virtually on ice amid various coronavirus shutdowns. The broken supply chains have led to concerns that the forests are losing their value and forest conservation efforts are losing their foothold.</p><p>Along the Mekong River in southeast Asia, tourists have disappeared and with them a substantial source of income for local merchants selling forest products like honey, nuts or berries. Many have left the cities and returned to their home villages and are cutting down trees for firewood or a source of income.</p><p>The WWF said governments providing financial and technological support to locals could help reduce the rise in deforestation.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/wwf-rainforest-deforestation-more-than-doubled-under-cover-of-coronavirus/a-53526064" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Tavurvur Volcano near Kokopo on Papua New Guinea. Daisuke Kishi / Getty Images
By John C. Cannon
Change. That's what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into the remote corner of Papua New Guinea where she raised her family, altering the contours of the society she knew.
<p><br/></p>
<p>"Things have changed a lot over the years for the women," Yongol said. "The male members of society or even other males from other clans, they go ahead and make decisions in private spaces, which means women are not included."</p><p>Often, those decisions determine the fate of the forests that the people of Mu, Yongol's village in the rural local-level government of East Pomio on New Britain Island, have lived next to and subsisted on for generations. In East Pomio, part of Pomio district in East New Britain province, mothers have traditionally passed what they have down to their children. The principle has worked well, Yongol said, because women have a vested interest in ensuring that the land continues to provide for them.</p><p>"Women are looking at how they sustain the lives of their children in the future generations," she said, "whereas men are more looking at short-term benefits."</p><p>But the influx of "development" — first to harvest the island's tropical timber in the 1990s, and more recently to set up oil palm plantations — backed by politicians and lawmakers in distant capitals, has shifted the calculus around the value of the land. Yongol and the other women gathered at the Vunapope Catholic Mission on a muggy November afternoon said they feel sidelined, shut out of decisions about what's to happen to the forests where they have traditionally tended their gardens, gathered wood and harvested wild-growing food.</p><p>In another cruel twist, Elizabeth Tongne said, these attitudes also lead to the scapegoating of women for standing in the way of progress.</p><p>"They're blaming us for stopping development on the land," she said.</p><p>Tongne, sporting a worn T-shirt emblazoned with "Badass PACIFIC Feminist," is the founder and director of <a href="https://iwda.org.au/wide-bay-conservation-association/" target="_blank">Wide Bay Conservation Association</a>, a local community-based organization named for the thumb of the Solomon Sea pushing into New Britain's eastern shore next to East Pomio. She and her team at Wide Bay organized a seven-day convention to coincide with the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/" target="_blank">International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women</a> at the Catholic mission just outside Kokopo, the provincial capital of East New Britain.</p><p>The women, leaders from Mu and a handful of other East Pomio villages, spent the days sharing their stories, identifying the problems they face, like domestic and community violence, and coming up with strategies to address them. Tongne and her team also aimed to provide them with information that would help their fellow women, as well as children and young girls, back home. They held presentations on the importance of education and avoiding teenage pregnancy, and they covered tangible skills such as farming, banking and "marketing" (selling goods like produce, tobacco and betel nut at market). As Tongne explained, the loss of the forest has left women and young girls with fewer options in their home villages.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODg4NjA0Nn0.Kh16MWlWHf458G0xefBLT8qfWoSaQH3rrnxkp7aczA4/img.jpg?width=980" id="43eee" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="903bb1e9b53a68e9cb3910d892279b58" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Fresh produce at the Kokopo market. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
A Changing Island
<p>The forested mountains rising in sight of Kokopo are constant reminders of the island's volcanic past — and present, if <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28978089" target="_blank">the 2014 eruption</a> of the still-puffing Tavurvur volcano northwest of town is any indication. But the face of the island is shifting faster than the pace of geologic time, especially with the recent creep of oil palm over the past two decades. From the air, the crop's progress lurches inward from the province's outer edges: deep green canopy giving way first to brown earth and splintering logging roads and then to neat rows of the drooping, top-heavy trees that produce the world's most popular vegetable oil.</p><p>The dense forests that covered more than 98% of the province as recently as 2010 have begun to wink out, according to <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/PNG/4/3?mainMap=eyJzaG93QmFzZW1hcHMiOmZhbHNlLCJzaG93UmVjZW50SW1hZ2VyeSI6ZmFsc2UsInNob3dBbmFseXNpcyI6dHJ1ZSwiaGlkZUxlZ2VuZCI6ZmFsc2V9&map=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%3D&mapPrompts=eyJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6InN1YnNjcmliZVRvQXJlYSIsInN0ZXBJbmRleCI6MCwiZm9yY2UiOnRydWV9&menu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6IiIsImRhdGFzZXRDYXRlZ29yeSI6IiJ9&recentImagery=eyJjbG91ZHMiOjI1LCJzZWxlY3RlZCI6bnVsbCwic2VsZWN0ZWRJbmRleCI6MH0%3D&subscribe=eyJvcGVuIjpmYWxzZSwiZGF0YXNldHMiOlsidW1kLWxvc3MtZ2FpbiIsImdsYWQtYWxlcnRzIl19&treeLoss=eyJpbnRlcmFjdGlvbiI6e319" target="_blank">satellite data</a>. Tongne said that oil palm companies began building roads and clearing forest for plantations in East Pomio around 2008. Today, clearings and plantations creep up coastal hillsides, albeit at a much smaller scale than the expanses you'd see in Borneo or other parts of Southeast Asia.</p><p>Pomio is the remotest district in East New Britain, Tongne told me, and perhaps that's saved it from some of the heavier forest loss seen in other parts of the province. Still, between 2001 and 2018, data from the University of Maryland show that tree cover has diminished by nearly 9% in the province, which has lost more than 1,370 square kilometers (529 square miles) of forest in that time. Much of that has happened in the last decade, with forest loss peaking at 201 km2 (78 mi2) in 2015, in a province covering a total of 15,816 km2 (6,107 mi2). Recent satellite images captured over the past few months show many new frontiers of deforestation encroaching into old-growth rainforest in East New Britain, including roads expanding inland from Pomio's coast.</p><p>Around the world, corporations comb through ecosystems in search of resources to feed their bottom lines. Timber and palm oil are the top commodities in this South Pacific corner of Papua New Guinea, but similar patterns emerge whether the prize is oil, natural gas, copper or gold.</p><p>Replete as it is with valuable minerals and the world's third-largest rainforest full of tropical timber, Papua New Guinea continues to struggle with economic development. Outsiders, meanwhile, have profited from those resources, as Australia did in its role as colonial administrator until 1975, and foreign companies from the U.S., Australia and China continue to do today.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5Mzk3MTIwNH0.6GDcM0G6_l6Z_6-kVsMrMq8SD_wn6hZczgcwbtto1ko/img.jpg?width=980" id="20a90" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bf0caffac0bb8bd399c5a64cb3c0e8cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
East New Britain province has lost nearly 9% of its tree cover since 2001, and deforestation has accelerated since then, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland. The inset shows logging roads proliferating around the town of Pomio on Jacquinot Bay. To the northeast, in East Pomio rural local-level government on Wide Bay, deforestation for timber and oil palm has seeped inland. Source: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA/Planet Labs, accessed through Global Forest Watch on May 13, 2020.
The Connection Between Violence and Deforestation
<p>Around the world, the "colonial" approach aimed at extracting valuable resources has destroyed "traditional and customary social relations" in local communities, Jeanette Sequeira, vice director and gender program coordinator at the Global Forest Coalition, said in a telephone interview.</p><p>"Often, this is in the land of indigenous peoples and local communities where there's already insecure land tenure," she said. "When you have corporations coming in and occupying these lands, there's just total loss of governance."</p><p>Global Forest Coalition and its more than 100 member organizations around the world have studied the interplay between gender and forest loss around the world. While the context of each local situation is unique, Sequeira said that the coalition's partners have seen the impact that forest loss can have on the most vulnerable members of society. In many cases, that means women.</p><p>"Deforestation and climate change and environmental degradation do lead to an increase in violence against women," Sequeira said. "I think that's a claim we can make more and more."</p><p>Along with the evaporation of the trees, the rights of women to determine what happens to the land they depend on have likewise vanished, Monica Yongol said, as the other women in the room nodded in agreement. The changes have jolted their communities. They've made it harder to provide for their families. And problems like teenage pregnancy, drug use and domestic violence in their communities have cropped up that the women say didn't exist before.</p><p>Several argue that the problem is rooted in the silencing of women's voices that's become more common. Yongol recounted a meeting held by a landowner company, a common organizational structure in Papua New Guinea formed by landholders to negotiate with developers, such as logging companies, on behalf of communities.</p><p>A woman at the meeting stood up and asked why the group hadn't informed all of the landowners about what would happen if the outside company interested in their land secured development rights, Yongol said. The tenets of free, prior and informed consent, <a href="http://www.fao.org/indigenous-peoples/our-pillars/fpic/en/" target="_blank">accepted global standards</a> set forth by the United Nations, hold that all community members should be aware of the plans for the land they depend on. In this case, however, the chairman dismissed her comment, telling her that she shouldn't have a say — because she was a woman.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTk2NDUyNn0.Pb_TqR3wtSoRloISc-UHMlFxyDvf9tsKyXJz6589z3A/img.jpg?width=980" id="8f118" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3d921dd3acf6fa662ae5775847d4c2a8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Forest clearance and plantations have crept inland from Wide Bay, an arcing inlet in Pomio District. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
<p>The influx of developers didn't introduce such sexist attitudes to this part of Papua New Guinea. John Suka, a former teacher and now an elected councilor for the East Pomio rural local-level government, said that much of the problem stems from the "old ways."</p><p>There is "no fairness or equality," he said. "That's the first thing, maybe because of some traditional or customary ways of thinking."</p><p>Suka said that the upheaval in these societies triggered by surging interest from outside companies has exacerbated the situation. Without secure claims to the land, women are in a precarious position, especially when companies' respect even for the rights of a community as a whole is tenuous at best.</p><p>Society prior to the arrival of logging companies and plantation developers was neither perfectly fair nor equitable, Suka said. But, he added, the temptation to turn land rights, however spurious, into upfront cash and other benefits for certain members has changed the respect for other customs, such as that of matrilineal inheritance. And it's led some men to assume the roles of brokers in which they speak for entire communities.</p><p>At times, certainly, Suka said, "They have sold what they shouldn't be selling."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDcxMzQ1Nn0.gF1bzpeK8RSsHGDyWGerLtu4H7FklXsSK3IfSiYkfjk/img.jpg?width=980" id="549ac" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="82a2164f59c4be138815db89159d97b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The airstrip at Tokua, south of Kokopo, with still-active volcanoes in the background. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
Cascading Effects
<p>Tongne said that these developments often touch off a chain of consequences for women.</p><p>"Once land is sold and taken away from them, there is a greater violence against women," she said, for several reasons. The forests in East New Britain, and indeed many parts of the country, have long served as a storehouse of ready food and supplies. They're essential in times of plenty, and they serve as vital emergency caches when times are tough.</p><p>"If there's a drought, the women know where to find food in the forest," Tongne told me.</p><p>But as logging and industrial agriculture replace forests close to home, women are forced to travel farther to gather food and other resources or to tend their gardens. That time spent on the road is time they're not looking after their homes or raising their children, Tongne said.</p><p>"The men begin to beat them up," she added. "Violence comes about because there is no food on the table."</p><p>On these extended journeys to the forest, women might face the threat of attack from people from other villages or clans, or from the workers brought in from outside communities by the companies.</p><p>Before, "We had a lot of safety and security. We can walk, visit friends, long distances to other villages," said Lucy Teine, a 50-year-old woman from the East Pomio village of Iwai. "But now, with the population that's coming in to work in those developments, that's now a threat for us."</p><p>The fraying of the social fabric exacerbated by outsiders who might harbor different values is a symptom of a larger issue. Foundational blame for these changes lies with the mentalities that colonialism introduced, according to Sequeira.</p><p>While sexism has persisted in many societies around the world, "Indigenous communities had, in many cases, more equitable gender relations before the advent of colonialism," she said. "Women and men had different, respected roles and status in communities."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NjkwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTE2NjIwN30.rckr7Nojn7ixl6UBPWg7-YS-hfBeNrMX8vHBJl3m84E/img.jpg?width=980" id="0174f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="130511d5333fdbb0954e4be3d76aa613" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
John Suka, an elected councilor in the East Pomio local-level government, at the Vunapope Catholic Mission. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
A Global Issue
<p>The Global Forest Coalition and its partners have been investigating issues like these around the world. They've found that, while the details may change from place to place, there are broad commonalities among the communities affected by land development and extractivism, Sequeira said.</p><p>"We know that these [roles] became eroded as we had colonial administrations and just the complete dispossession and destruction of indigenous identity," she said.</p><p>In Colombia, she said, women and men are supposed to have equal rights to the land. But, "That's not really how it plays out."</p><p>"You still have women who have to ask permission [from] their husbands or partners for being able to use a bit of land to cultivate medicinal herbs and other food for household consumption," Sequeira said.</p><p>In many places — though not everywhere —laws are in place that should protect land rights, including those of women, she added. Where the system falls short is in implementing these statutes. What that means, broadly, is that forests suffer when women don't have a say in land rights.</p><p>"[W]omen play a vital role in forest conservation," Sequeira and her colleagues wrote in a November 2019 blog <a href="https://globalforestcoalition.org/forest-conservation-must-address-violence-against-women/" target="_blank">post</a>. "Women interact daily with forests and other ecosystems, relying on them for household needs and their livelihoods, but also for conservation and restoration."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NjkwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5Mjc1OTgyM30._ep7z47M8SHhsgwIb-JZErcvmtNrZ9I5lSd3W1JU15Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="bc8c4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e09d9b1bcaa7226c53e226dd9d129789" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Several active volcanoes sit just northwest of the town of Kokopo. Tavurvur last erupted in 2014. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800909001852?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">Research</a> conducted in India and Nepal and published in the journal <em>Ecological Economics </em>has shown that forests do better when women are involved in the decision-making process. But impediments, from patriarchal attitudes to "wife bashing" as domestic violence is viscerally referred to in East New Britain, can stand in the way of that progress on both the conservation and social justice fronts.</p><p><a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=588784240401882;res=IELIND" target="_blank">A 2010 countrywide study</a> , published in the journal <em>Contemporary PNG Studies</em>, found that almost two-thirds of women had suffered gender-based attacks.</p><p>John Suka said addressing the problem of violence is critical. But up until now, it's not been something that's been seen as a priority. In most cases, government agencies don't have the capacity — or the will — to enforce these laws, he said.</p><p>"All the levels of government have the responsibility, but the point is, they don't implement what they are supposed to be implementing," Suka added. "It's a great failure across the board."</p><p>He said that a shift in thinking is called for.</p><p>"Of course, before we were kept in a little box with our own way of life," he said. "Today, we are in a new world."</p><p>Sequeira said she agrees that changing systemic attitudes is paramount.</p><p>"What we need is more than just policies and sanctions," she said. Elsewhere, she added, campaigns and dialogues around gender equality and women's rights have been effective at transforming the "culture of violence." Women, too, have taken control of their own plight, forming "brigades" that accompany vulnerable women on trips outside the community — say, to the forest.</p><p>Sequeira said women in other parts of the world also engage the broader community using "naming and shaming protocols" to call out perpetrators of violence against women. And both men and women partake in neighborhood watch programs.</p><p>She also said that violence on the personal level must be seen through the broader lens of what's happening to people's land in the community traced back to colonial paradigms.</p><p>"Dispossession and loss of land rights and extractivism … are also forms of patriarchal violence," Sequeira said in the interview.</p><p>In their blog post, she and her colleagues wrote that not only must women deal with the traditional ways of thinking that often relegate them to less-than status. They "must often defend their forests against the massive threats from extractivism, whether it be industrial livestock and agriculture (such as the production of soy and palm oil) or mining mega-projects."</p><p>"Forest conservation can never be successful or bring about social justice," they added, "if it does not address the prevalence of the various manifestations of violence against women, and especially so on the front-lines of the environmental and climate crisis."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/gender-based-violence-shakes-communities-in-the-wake-of-forest-loss/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Aerial picture showing a deforested piece of land in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil on August 23, 2019. Carl de Souza / AFP / Getty Images
by Rhett A. Butler
Despite the global economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon appears to be continuing largely unabated with forest clearing over the past 12 months reaching the highest level since monthly data started being released publicly in 2007, according to official data released Friday by the country's national space research institute INPE. Forest loss in Earth's largest rainforest has now risen 13 consecutive months relative to year-earlier figures.
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MDQwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDAzNTM1Nn0.QXa50sYrlGTk0ny7fsA7w3XsTwHm4sq9hjsqVjhsEoo/img.jpg?width=980" id="062f3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c5a7d620c73e1099a852d468a218ec80" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>INPE's deforestation monitoring system, DETER, detected 406 square kilometers of forest loss in the "legal Amazon" during the month of April. That brings the extent of deforestation measured by the system to 9,320 square kilometers for the year ended April 30, 2020, 40% higher than where it stood a year ago and more than twice as high as it was in April 2018.</p><p>5,606 square kilometers of forest have been lost since the "deforestation year" began August 1, 2019, the highest on record for this time of year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3NTY4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzg0NzM2N30.vg4xwAE29rAxqwMPxi780ulRhQODrJrVVm-k2o-nQcE/img.jpg?width=980" id="904be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d3abf923ab48f5882a02e486610d988d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of <a href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/" target="_blank">the Amazon rainforest</a>, has been trending upward since bottoming at 4,571 square kilometers in 2012. Prior to that, deforestation had been declining in the region thanks to better forest monitoring and environmental law enforcement, public and private sector efforts to curb forest clearing, the creation of new protected areas and indigenous territories.</p><p>According to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/in-cutting-deforestation-brazil-leads-world-in-reducing-emissions/" target="_blank">a 2014 study published in the journal Science</a>, the drop in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2004 and 2013 avoided the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent of taking all cars off American roads for three years — 3.2 billion tons.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MDQwNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzY4MjkxNX0.TCQ8p3P7K85e5KbuvxRZjeNOGF2hPAzD8I0l9dM27nw/img.jpg?width=980" id="b1acd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c1bd9831a9bb7abcc0aa7ed2b66c9e72" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Official Brazilian government data showing annual deforestation (Aug 1-Jul 31 year) in the Brazilian Amazon since 1988.
<p>The rise in deforestation has been particularly sharp since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in January 2019. Bolsonaro has <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/bolsonaros-brazil-2019-brings-death-by-1000-cuts-to-amazon-part-one/" target="_blank">rolled back environmental regulations</a>, granted amnesty from fines for illegal deforestation, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/brazil-guts-environmental-agencies-clears-way-for-unchecked-deforestation/" target="_blank">cut budgets for environmental law enforcement</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/future-of-amazon-deforestation-data-in-doubt-as-research-head-sacked/" target="_blank">diminished the role of scientists in the government</a>, blamed environmental NGOs for deforestation and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/brazilian-president-claims-leonardo-dicaprio-funded-amazon-fires/" target="_blank">claimed without evidence that Leonardo DiCaprio funded last year's fires in the Amazon</a>, and opened <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/brazils-new-forest-code-puts-vast-areas-of-protected-amazon-forest-at-risk/" target="_blank">protected areas</a> and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/brazil-opens-38000-square-miles-of-indigenous-lands-to-outsiders/" target="_blank">prospective indigenous territories</a> for extractive industries and agribusiness. He's openly called for more deforestation in the Amazon, while his administration has <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/brazil-sacks-officials-who-curbed-deforestation-on-amazon-indigenous-lands/" target="_blank">sacked officials charged with protecting forests and indigenous peoples</a> against illegal land invasions.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MDQxMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTM3MzE2MX0.Il_7ONWRaMLRwmrzl1f0H0yJLb8uvrPnur_hKOdWuso/img.jpg?width=980" id="6a7ab" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="95bcd8ecea2bfa8924a086e584d348e9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Amazon rainforest canopy in Brazil. Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay
<p>The combination of rising forest clearance and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/satellite-data-show-amazon-rainforest-likely-drier-more-fire-prone-this-year/" target="_blank">abnormally dry conditions across vast swathes of Brazil</a> is setting up the region for an active fire season. Last year, fires in the Amazon made international headlines when the resulting smoke billowed over Sao Paulo, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/amazon-rainforest-fires-leave-sao-paulo-in-the-dark/" target="_blank">blocking out the sun mid-day</a>. Widespread condemnation from NGOs, human rights groups, business leaders, celebrities, and European political leaders as well as global calls for boycotts of Brazilian companies and products prompted Bolsonaro to mobilize the army to help with fire-fighting efforts. Yet Bolsonaro pressed forward with policies and actions that will increase deforestation and fires nonetheless, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/experts-blame-bolsonaro-for-surge-in-deforestation-warn-of-worse-to-come/" target="_blank">say experts</a>.</p><p>Accelerating deforestation, forest degradation, and drought in the Amazon is of great concern to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">scientists who warn that the entire biome may be near a tipping point</a> where large areas of wet <a href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/" target="_blank">rainforest</a> could transition to dry tropical woodlands and savanna. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/impending-amazon-tipping-point-puts-biome-and-world-at-risk-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">Such a transition</a> could have dramatic implications for regional rainfall, with the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone potentially shifting northward, leading to drier conditions across <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/a-healthy-and-productive-amazon-is-the-foundation-of-brazils-sovereignty/" target="_blank">South America's breadbasket and major urban areas</a>. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/pro-deforestation-policies-could-be-ruinous-for-farmers-commentary/" target="_blank">The impact on regional economies</a> <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/amazon-tipping-point-puts-brazils-agribusiness-energy-sector-at-risk-top-scientists/" target="_blank">could be substantial</a>, while the impact on ecosystem function and biodiversity of the Amazon could be devastating, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/amazon-forest-to-savannah-tipping-point-could-be-far-closer-than-thought-commentary/" target="_blank">according to researchers</a>.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/amazon-deforestation-increases-for-13th-straight-month-in-brazil/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Amazon Rainforest Reaches Point of No Return - EcoWatch ›
- Brazil's Amazon Rainforest Is the Wild West for Illegal Gold Miners ... ›
- Brazil Using Pandemic as Smokescreen for New Attacks on the ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Deforestation and river pollution in the Amazon rainforest near Menkragnoti Indigenous Land, Pará, Brazil. Marcio Isensee e Sa / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Activists warn that the far-right government in Brazil is using the coronavirus pandemic as a smokescreen to undermine protections for the Amazon rainforest.
<p>With the world sheltered in place, the government assembled a "historic assault" on the Amazon and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">indigenous</a> tribes who live there, entities it is meant to protect, reported <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/deforestation-amazon-rainforest-accelerates-amid-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=70526188" target="_blank">ABC news</a>. The controversial legislation regarding indigenous lands potentially compounds tribes' vulnerability to invasion and infection, the news report said.</p><p>Brazilian President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a> and his supporters are sacking key environmental officials and quickly and discreetly dismantling rules shielding protected reserves of rainforest, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. The moves are the latest in the regime's development-friendly <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/jair-bolsonaro-boosting-deforestation-2639445982.html" target="_self">policy changes that have accelerated deforestation</a> in the world's largest rainforest.</p>
<p>Preliminary satellite data shows that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose more than 50 percent in the first three months of 2020, compared to the same three-month period last year, reported <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/deforestation-amazon-rainforest-accelerates-amid-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=70526188" target="_blank">ABC news</a>.</p><p>"Our territory keeps being invaded by loggers and hunters," Laercio Guajajara, a member of the Guajajara tribe, told ABC News. Despite the global health crisis, there were "still a lot of invasions," he said.</p><p>Bolsonaro is "notorious" for racist remarks against indigenous people, distrust of environmentalists and nationalist justifications for developing the Amazon, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>Bolsonaro told foreign journalists, "<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/jair-bolsonaro-boosting-deforestation-2639445982.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1">The Amazon is ours, not yours</a>," reported <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/world/americas/brazil-deforestation-amazon-bolsonaro.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>This approach makes him popular with farmers, wildcat miners, loggers and land-grabbers and dangerous for environmentalists and indigenous tribes, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> noted.</p><p>"The government has a project and it is advancing over the forest, over indigenous peoples, to benefit those who want the forest cut down," said Mariana Mota, a public policy specialist at Greenpeace Brazil, the news report said.</p><p>The mass deforestation that has increased under Bolsonaro has likely pushed the Amazon beyond the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-point-of-no-return-2645509920.html" target="_self">point of no return</a>, scientists said. The entire ecosystem could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-ecosystem-collapse-2645458118.html" target="_self">collapse within 50 years</a>, and that critical tipping point could be reached as early as next year, researchers said. If and when that happens, the rainforest would <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-carbon-emissions-2645127492.html" target="_self">become a carbon source rather than a global sink</a>, exacerbating the effects of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate change</a>.</p><p>The situation has only worsened since the coronavirus outbreak, with the covert passage of new rules that further undermine the Amazon and the tribes that live there.</p>
<p>At the disease's outbreak, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported that Brazil's environmental agency scaled back enforcement measures, leaving indigenous tribes and the lands they protect more vulnerable to loggers' attacks. In April, Bolsonaro's indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, passed a new rule that prevents certain long-held indigenous lands awaiting official designation from being labeled and protected as "indigenous" under the law while they wait, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/deforestation-amazon-rainforest-accelerates-amid-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=70526188" target="_blank">ABC News</a> said.</p><p>The seemingly-obscure rule <a href="http://www.in.gov.br/web/dou/-/instrucao-normativa-n-9-de-16-de-abril-de-2020-253343033" target="_blank">IN 09</a> could open up nearly one third of indigenous lands currently awaiting designation to illegal occupation and deforestation, the news report said.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro first announced another controversial presidential decree, <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Mpv/mpv910.htm" target="_blank">Provisional Measure (MP) 910</a>, in December 2019. The rule is now being fast-tracked towards becoming permanent law, ABC News said. MP 910 allows people who illegally logged or squatted on protected federal lands before December 2018 to purchase such lands at reduced prices.</p><p>This effectively legalizes "land-grabbing" in protected forests and indigenous reserves, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> noted. Farmers illegally squatting could each purchase up to 2,500 hectares of rainforest for cheap. According to the news report, land grabbing, a common practice in the Amazon, involves deforesting, burning the dead trees and putting cattle on the cleared lands to consolidate possession.</p><p>Imazon, a non-profit environmentalist group, found that the measure could lead to deforestation of an additional 16,000 square kilometers of rainforest by 2027, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/deforestation-amazon-rainforest-accelerates-amid-covid-19-pandemic/story?id=70526188" target="_blank">ABC News</a> added.</p>
<p>In a rare move, 49 federal prosecutors across Brazil <a href="http://www.mpf.mp.br/mt/sala-de-imprensa/Documentos%20para%20link/RECMT.pdf" target="_blank">called</a> for the rule to be annulled for its "unconstitutionality, unconventionality and illegality," <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> said, agreeing it would lead to a land-grab.</p><p>The decree has until May 19 to be approved by Congress, but lawmakers from the agricultural lobby are pushing for an immediate virtual vote in the midst of the pandemic and without standard scrutiny, reported both ABC News and The Guardian.</p><p>Farmers supporting the rule argue it will regularize the Amazon's chaotic land ownership and allow them to hold title to land where they've squatted. This, they argue, will provide access to credit, improve productivity and therefore reduce the need to further expand into the forest, reported The Guardian.</p><p>Reducing protections encourages land invasions, which bring violence and disease. Indigenous leaders and activists fear that history will repeat itself.</p><p>"Five centuries ago, these ethnic groups were decimated by diseases brought by European colonisers … Now, with this new scourge spreading rapidly across Brazil … [they] may disappear completely since they have no means of combating Covid-19," an <a href="https://secure.avaaz.org/po/community_petitions/presidente_do_brasil_e_aos_lideres_do_legislativo__ajude_a_proteger_os_povos_indigenas_da_amazonia_do_covid19/?cZZUvqb&utm_source=sharetools&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=petition-994813-ajude_a_proteger_os_povos_indigenas_da_amazonia_do_covid19&utm_term=ZZUvqb%2Bpo" target="_blank">open letter to Bolsonaro</a> warned, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/eve-of-genocide-brazil-urged-save-amazon-tribes-covid-19-sebastiao-salgado" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>"We are on the eve of a genocide," said Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado, who organized the petition and who has spent nearly four decades documenting the Amazon and its inhabitants, The Guardian reported.<br></p><p>Alessandra Munduruku, an indigenous leader from Pará state, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, "The indigenous peoples are alone and we have to fight against the virus, the loggers and the wildcat miners. We don't know which is worse."</p><p>Since the rollbacks, indigenous tribes have also reported increased logging and violent attacks. Seven indigenous leaders, many who were outspoken against illegal logging, have been murdered in the past six months, reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/brazil-using-coronavirus-to-cover-up-assaults-on-amazon-warn-activists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>"The invaders think they can enter the indigenous reserve because of the government agenda," said Ivaneide Bandeira, of the non-profit group Kanindé, reported The Guardian. "Covid is the cover and the excuse."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="263ca6561c3abc0359b4f12aaac3ba73"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eCeO_81jawk?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
From Your Site Articles
- Brazil's Amazon Rainforest Is the Wild West for Illegal Gold Miners ... ›
- Amazon Rainforest Reaches Point of No Return - EcoWatch ›
- Indigenous People May Be the Amazon's Last Hope - EcoWatch ›
- The Pope Makes Plea to Save the Amazon — Will the World Listen ... ›
- Illegal Loggers Murder Amazon Forest Guardian - EcoWatch ›
- Rainforest Deforestation More Than Doubled Under Cover of Coronavirus - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A lumber cuts a tree with a chainsaw. Taiyou Nomachi / Getty Images
By Richard Orange
The harvesting machine takes just one second to fell the towering spruce, and another to strip the branches and scan its trunk for defects.
<p>"This one is very straight," operator Antonio Petersson Kvennefelt says of the trunk gripped by the arm of his machine, as a screen in front of him flashes with data.</p><p>"The computer decides what it wants the logs to be. This one is for Långasjö, a sawmill in Sweden."</p><p>Kvennefelt has been working in the forests around the city of Växjö in southern Sweden for more than 20 years. When he started out, decisions were mostly left to the forest workers' judgement, but the industry is now more high-tech. </p><p>"The computer makes sure each sawmill gets exactly what that sawmill wants," he explains.</p><p><span></span>And across the world, what saw and pulp mills want is more and more wood.</p>
Demand for Wood
<p>According to the latest figures from the <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1256261/icode/" target="_blank">UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)</a>, global forest production hit record levels in 2018. Up 11% on the year before.</p><p>"We see an increasing demand for almost all of our products," says Göran Örlander, strategist at Södra, Sweden's largest association of forest owners. "The most obvious demand is for biofuels at the moment. Everybody wants to have biofuels to replace fossil fuels."</p><p>The idea is that burning wood becomes close to carbon neutral if the forests from where it is taken are replenished at the same rate as they are felled for fuel.</p><p>But critics question whether this is the case in every country which claims to provide sustainable wood, and say some of what is supplying the current boom in biomass fuels comes from existing forests rather than sustainably managed plantations.</p><p>They also point to the carbon emitted from the soil of cleared forests, and to the emissions created in the felling and processing of wood products.</p><p>In 2017, 200 scientists wrote to the EU questioning its assumption that wood biomass for energy should be treated as a renewable fuel.</p><p>Nonetheless, according to the trade body Swedish Forest Industries, the country's trees are now capturing and storing a net 48 million tons of CO2 a year as they grow, while another seven million are stored in long-lasting products made from Swedish wood. Taken together, that is enough to make Sweden effectively carbon neutral.</p><p>But Professor Johan Bergh, who heads the forestry department at Växjö's Linnaeus University, just a short walk away from Södra's offices, says there are very few other countries in the same position.</p><p>"Globally I don't think the forest resource is enough," he told DW. Particularly not, he added, to supply the transport industry with wood-derived bioethanol or biodiesel.</p><p>"A lot of forest would be needed to replace fossil fuels in vehicles," he says. "It would require at least half of the new forest growth in Sweden at a national level, and of course at a global level, it would be much, much more."</p><p>Other industries are also increasingly showing an interest in wood as a resource.</p>
Not Just for Heating
<p>Södra has teamed up with Dutch airline KLM to explore the feasibility of producing jet fuel from forest biomass, and is also working with the Scandinavian airline SAS on plans for a pilot biofuel plant in the north of Sweden.</p><p>Bioplastic packaging — some of which relies on wood fibers — currently makes up just one percent of total plastics production. But that is expected to grow over the coming years. </p><p>Architecture firms are also racing to use cross-laminated timber to replace carbon-intensive concrete and steel, and wood-based fibers now represent about six percent of all textiles.</p><p>The attraction is clear. When wood is used in buildings, for example, carbon is taken out of the carbon cycle and stored for as long as the building stands.</p><p>But according to preliminary findings from a joint United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and UN Food and Agriculture Organization study into future supply and demand scenarios, even if every effort were made to maximize global forest cover, doubling the use of wood in buildings, furniture and other products would reduce rather than increase the amount of carbon sequestered globally.</p><p><span></span>"The projected increase in wood products carbon in this scenario was not enough to offset the loss in biomass carbon due to increased removals depleting forest stocks," the authors wrote.</p>The Limits of Wood
<p>There are also limits to the use of wood for heat and power.</p><p>Back in 2010, EUwood, a study led by the University of Hamburg warned that "even if all measures for increased wood mobilization" were implemented, by 2020 the European Union's domestic sources would struggle to satisfy wood demands and meet renewable energy targets.</p><p>By 2018 the EU was already supplementing its wood pellet consumption with imports to the tune of eight million tons. And some conservationists argue member states' use of biomass is driving deforestation and boosting carbon dioxide levels.</p><p>But at Växjö Energy, a Swedish heat and power plant, which became a 100 percent biomass facility in December, chief executive Erik Tellgren is not worried about supply. He says forest owners currently leave most of the branches and tops of trees they cut down to rot.</p><p>"There is still a potential of at least twice the amount of residue streams in the forest today that is simply left there," he says. </p><p>There are also other potential changes that would create space for the expansion of global forest cover. Rod Taylor, Global Director of the Forests Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), believes a shift in global diet away from meat would allow the replanting of huge areas of marginal pastureland.</p><p>"The really big win comes through plantations in countries where wood grows fast, like in Brazil," he argues. "If you have very eroded, low productivity pastureland, and you start planting that up with trees, it could pull a lot of carbon out of the sky."</p><p>Bergh believes it would be possible to at least double forest stocks in key exporting countries such as Sweden, Canada and Russia, while increasing production at the same time.</p><p>But with so many industries now looking to the forests for their future carbon-neutral feedstock, even that would be unlikely to cover growing demand.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/is-there-enough-wood-in-the-world-to-feed-sustainability/a-53225899?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2645913821#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
- Coronavirus: Can we still live sustainably? - EcoWatch ›
- 8 Ways to Sequester Carbon to Avoid Climate Catastrophe - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
A pangolin is released into the wild in North Sumatra, Indonesia on April 27, 2015 after being seized from the illegal wildlife trade. NurPhoto / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Dipika Kadaba
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that human health is inextricably part of the ecosystem we exist in.
While the pandemic, which likely arose from the global wildlife trade, has brought entire industries to a screeching halt, the health consequences of other types of environmental damage are still ignored in favor of business-as-usual activities.
<p>According to recent studies, zoonotic diseases — those pathogens that can jump from animals to humans — are responsible for an estimated <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2001.0888" target="_blank">75% of emerging infectious diseases worldwide</a>. In the United States, approximately 72% of zoonotic diseases threatening human health since the year 2000 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10393-017-1211-7" target="_blank">originated from the legal or illegal wildlife trade</a>. The COVID-19 pandemic may be exceptional for its reach and social disruption, but its link to the destructive trade in wild animals is just one of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673612611519" target="_blank">many examples</a> of how human-made changes to the environment are spreading diseases.</p><p>Watch our video below to see some of the ways human health and environmental health are interconnected:</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0eb0821818d69aeaf48b51e2bffa72cf"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a6Fgz44RMPc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/dipikakadaba/" target="_blank">Dipika Kadaba </a>is an ecologist who uses data visualization and design to communicate environmental issues in her role as The Revelator's visual storyteller. Her interdisciplinary work originates in her background in environmental health research as a veterinarian, a graduate degree in conservation science, and a lifetime spent creating webcomics and animations for fun.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-damage-diseases/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- 15 Health Problems Linked to Monsanto's Roundup - EcoWatch ›
- 5 Things About Climate Change and Coronavirus From WHO ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
Trending
Forest destruction caused by mining gold deposits in Venezuela. Martin Harvey / The Image Bank / Getty Images
A group of biodiversity experts warned that future pandemics are on the horizon if mankind does not stop its rapid destruction of nature.
<p>Writing an article published Monday by <a href="https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus" target="_blank">The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services</a> (IPBES), the authors put the responsibility for COVID-19 squarely on our shoulders.</p><p>"There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones," the authors wrote on <a href="https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus" target="_blank">IPBES</a>.</p>
<p>The authors of the report include the three co-chairs of the comprehensive 2019 IPBES <a href="http://bit.ly/GAMediaRelease" target="_blank">Global Assessment</a> Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which found that one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction within decades. The fourth author, Peter Daszak, is the president of <a href="https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/personnel/dr-peter-daszak" target="_blank">EcoHealth Alliance</a> and is tasked with spearheading the <a href="https://ipbes.net/nexus" target="_blank">IPBES' next global assessment</a>, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>The authors argue that government stimulus plans need to include sustainable and nature-positive initiatives.</p>
<p>"It may be politically expedient at this time to relax environmental standards and to prop up industries such as intensive agriculture, long-distance transportation such as the airlines, and fossil-fuel-dependent energy sectors, but doing so without requiring urgent and fundamental change, essentially subsidizes the emergence of future pandemics," <a href="https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus" target="_blank">the authors wrote</a>.</p><p>They also fault wanton greed for allowing microbes that lead to novel diseases to jump from animals to humans.</p><p>"Rampant <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">deforestation</a>, uncontrolled expansion of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture">agriculture</a>, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a 'perfect storm' for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people," they wrote in their <a href="https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus" target="_blank">article</a>.</p>
<p>They warn that 1.7 million unidentified viruses known to infect people are estimated to exist in mammals and water birds. Any one of these may be more disruptive and lethal than COVID-19.</p><p>With that in mind, the authors suggest three facets that should be considered for COVID-19-related stimulus plans. Countries should strengthen environmental regulations; adopt a 'One Health' approach to decision-making that recognizes complex interconnections among the health of people, animals, plants, and our shared environment; and prop up healthcare systems in the most vulnerable countries where resources are strained and underfunded. "This is not simple altruism – it is vital investment in the interests of all to prevent future global outbreaks," the scientists argue in their <a href="https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus" target="_blank">IPBES</a> article.</p><p>"The programs we're talking about will cost tens of billions of dollars a year," Daszak told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "But if you get one pandemic, even just one a century, that costs trillions, so you still come out with an incredibly good return on investment.</p>
<p>"Business as usual will not work. Business as usual right now for pandemics is waiting for them to emerge and hoping for a vaccine. That's not a good strategy. We need to deal with the underlying drivers."</p><p>Their assessment has been supported recently by others in the scientific community. A <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2736" target="_blank">study</a> published earlier this month blamed human impact on wildlife for the current outbreak, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>The authors of the new article end their piece on an optimistic note about nature's resiliency. "We can build back better and emerge from the current crisis stronger and more resilient than ever – but to do so means choosing policies and actions that protect nature – so that nature can help to protect us," they wrote.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World's ... ›
- Environmental Scientists Want Help Coping With Their Grief ... ›
- Environmental Damage Is a War Crime, Scientists Say - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less
$3 Million and an Official Apology: Brazil’s Ashaninka Get Unprecedented Compensation for Deforestation on Their Land
18 April
Popular
Arison Jardim / The Ashaninka of the Amônia River Association
By Naira Hofmeister, Translated by Matt Rinaldi
- An unprecedented court settlement guaranteed reparations to the Ashaninka people of the state of Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon, whose lands were deforested in the 1980s to supply the European furniture industry. The logging company penalized was owned by the family of the current governor of Acre, Gladson Cameli.
- The conflict was resolved through mediation from the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, after the case had circulated in the courts with no resolution for 20 years.
- The indigenous people only agreed with the negotiation because it included an official apology and a recognition of their "enormous importance as guardians" of the Amazon.
<div></div>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/3-million-and-an-official-apology-brazils-ashaninka-get-unprecedented-compensation-for-deforestation-on-their-land/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>. </em><em></em></p><div></div>
<p>Far from the Brazil nut trees that shape the landscape of the <a href="https://terrasindigenas.org.br/pt-br/terras-indigenas/3716" target="_blank">Kampa do Rio Amônia</a> Indigenous Reserve in the western tip of the state of Acre, the <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/Povo:Ashaninka" target="_blank">Ashaninka</a> people realized their most important victory since the federal government first recognized their territory in 1992. On April 1, 2020, the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, signed an unprecedented settlement that guaranteed reparations for crimes committed almost 40 years ago. The <a href="http://www.mpf.mp.br/pgr/documentos/documentoassinado.pdf" target="_blank">agreement</a> gives this indigenous community the right to compensation of R$ 14 million (nearly US$ 3 million) with an official apology from the criminal offenders.</p><p><span></span>Their crime: cutting down of thousands of mahogany, cedar and other tree species to supply the European furniture industry from 1981 to 1987. The devastation struck a quarter of the area that currently comprises the indigenous reserve. Francisco Piyãko, the Ashaninka leader, was an adolescent at the time of the logging invasion. "What matters to us is what this agreement represents for the Ashaninka cause and how it can have repercussions in affirming the rights and values of the indigenous peoples in a broader sense," explained Piyãko to Mongabay.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE0NDA1MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjEzMDQ2Mn0.3FgS_tcOPfnZeV70vUcF34iy6jQIrgBrOgu4snWhLPE/img.jpg?width=980" id="d3a3e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="73b5348078c1a5f78d0092370479e5b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Celebration of the Ashaninka people in the Kampa of the Amônia River Indigenous Reserve, by the Peruvian border. Arison Jardim / The Ashaninka of the Amônia River Association
A Two-Decade Dispute
<p>The settlement marks the end of a legal dispute that started in 1996, when the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) brought a Public Civil Action against lumber companies owned by the powerful Cameli family. The same family as the current governor of Acre, Gladson Cameli, and his uncle, Orleir Cameli, who was also governor from 1994 to 1998.</p><p>The Ashaninka prevailed in their initial court case, in appeals courts and also in the Superior Court of Justice (the highest <a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Appellate_court" target="_blank">appellate court</a> in Brazil for non-constitutional questions). But as soon the case reached the federal Supreme Court in 2011, it stalled.</p><p>At an impasse, an extrajudicial settlement was imposed, but it took a year of regular negotiations until both sides accepted the terms of the agreement. "It was a great challenge for everyone, because the negotiation involved large sums and constitutional questions. It required a lot of study, partners and various public authorities to analyze each detail," observes Antônio Rodrigo, attorney for the Ashaninka.</p><p>"This is the first time in the history of Brazilian law that something like this happened. I'm so proud. It was hard, but wonderful," he summarizes.</p><p>According to a <a href="http://www.mpf.mp.br/pgr/noticias-pgr/acordo-historico-garante-reparacao-a-povo-indigena-ashaninka-por-desmatamento-irregular-em-suas-terras" target="_blank">notification posted on the Federal Public Ministry's website</a>, which qualified the result of the negotiation as "historic," Augusto Aras celebrated the enforcement of the constitution, "appreciating that the indigenous people have the guaranteed right to a decent life, to choose their own destiny and take part in political decisions."</p><p>"With this agreement, there is a feeling that we are building a new moment of peace, harmony and, above all, understanding that wounds exist to be healed, not perpetuated," Aras concludes.</p><p>One of the defendants in the case, Abrahão Cândido da Silva, was excluded from the settlement and still faces charges for the deforestation and invasion of the indigenous land. The case is on the <a href="http://www.stf.jus.br/portal/pauta/verTema.asp?id=134777" target="_blank">federal Supreme Court docket for April</a>. In this case, the Supreme Court ministers will decide not only whether to convict the remaining defendant, but also if there is a statute of limitations for claiming compensation for an environmental crime.</p><p>The federal Public Ministry maintains that this environmental damage is indefeasible, meaning it cannot be overturned, as it falls under the "right to life," and that determining a statute of limitations would deny future generations the right to fight for a healthy environment. That thesis was accepted by the Superior Court of Justice, and the Supreme Court review of their decision will take on a status of general repercussion — or, in other words, the ruling will apply to all cases from this point on.</p><p>"This definition will affect hundreds of thousands of cases. To give three recent examples of massive environmental crimes that took place in Brazil: we have Mariana, Brumadinho and, last year, the oil spill in Brazilian waters," asserts the attorney Rodrigo.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE0NDA1Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzU4MDI3MH0.GGo1eIDplqDP3QMJCcjAvWi3yKP00ETazc8VccYPY_Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="5805e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6d074ceed98430a5947fcd7d937d629b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />The Amônia River in the state of Acre. It crosses the indigenous reservation named for it, which is home to the Ashaninka in Brazil. Diego Gurgel / Government of Acre
Acknowledgement of Guilt Was Decisive
<p>The R$ 14 million will be paid to the indigenous people in installments over a period of five years. The ultimate beneficiaries of the compensation will be decided annually at an Ashaninka assembly, but it is required to be applied to projects "in defense of the community itself, the Amazon, the indigenous peoples and the peoples of the forest."</p><p>"Our resources will go to maintaining and bringing back our values. We are calling for this region to be increasingly respected and valued, for its products to be placed on the market with added value, which will, in turn, serve to guarantee sustainability. This is what are going to do: we are not going to stop," promises Francisco Piyãko, whose father, Antônio Piyãko, was the man responsible for <a href="http://cpiacre.org.br/conteudo/2020/04/09/reparacao-historica-ao-povo-ashaninka/" target="_blank">reporting the invasion to the world through an open letter published in 1991</a>.</p><p>On top of the damages paid to the Ashaninka, the logging companies will also have to pay R$6 million (US$1.2 million) to the Human Rights Defense Fund as compensation for the harm caused to society as a whole.</p><p>Still, for the Ashaninka, the high point of the settlement with the logging companies was the official apology, contained in the agreement signed by all parties.</p><p>"In the face of all the facts narrated and discussed at length for years in the Courts, (the logging companies) formally extend an official apology to the Ashaninka Community of the Amônia River for all the ills caused, respectfully recognizing the enormous importance of the Ashaninka people as guardians of the forest, dutiful in the preservation of the environment and in the conservation and dissemination of their customs and culture," the settlement states.</p><p>"If there had been no acknowledgement of guilt, the indigenous people would not have taken the deal," asserts Rodrigo, attorney for the Ashaninka.</p><p>According to Piyãko, this moral reparation transcends the financial settlement, symbolizing a victory for all the traditional peoples of Brazil and the world for the usurpation of their lands and traditional ways of life.</p><p>"Many indigenous communities have to see themselves in this acknowledgement, because there are things that cannot be paid in money," comments the Ashaninka leader. "Our intention is for this official apology to be the recognition of an error committed and (a promise) that, from this point on, it will be repeated no longer. And let it serve as a reference for other companies, because some laws and rights must be regarded and respected."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE0NDA1My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTI4OTIxN30._J7xanpd8WWUA9UduaoTuIxhnImkUivLSidNpt2Y9VI/img.jpg?width=980" id="438f3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ba215854fa2adb0418d6a2ab5e4e389d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Francico Piyãko in a celebration of the Ashaninka people. Arison Jardim / The Ashaninka of the Amônia River Associatio
From Your Site Articles
Read More
Show Less
Aerial view of the Esperanca IV informal gold mining camp, near the Menkragnoti indigenous territory, in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, in the Amazon basin, on August 28, 2019. Joao LAET / AFP / Getty Images
By Peter Yeung
From the skies above Creporizao, a remote town in the south of the Brazilian Amazon, the surrounding area looks like a vast blanket of dark green rainforest. But along the dirt roads and rivers that run through it like arteries are telling patches of muddy brown: illegal gold mines.
<p>Wildcat miners come to the area seeking their fortune. Every day, hundreds of laborers embark on long journeys up and down the Crepori river to reach the gold pits, while others fly in on small planes that land on makeshift airstrips. Such scenes have become common across the world's largest rainforest, and are being held up as the cause of widespread destruction.<br></p><p>Jose Maria, a miner from the state of Maranhao, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to the east — who does not reveal his full name — is waiting on the river banks for a ride. "We're here to do honest work and earn a living," he said. "I don't see what the problem is."</p>
<p>But the pits where Jose Maria and fellow miners work are located on the more than two million-hectare territory of the Munduruku, one of the largest indigenous tribes in the Amazon, whose mineral-rich lands are protected under Brazil's 1988 Constitution.</p><p>A 2019 survey by polling institute Datafolha showed 86% of Brazilians oppose mining on indigenous territory, yet it has been encouraged by Brazilian president <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-bolsonaro-proposes-bill-allowing-mining-on-indigenous-land/a-52273665" target="_blank">Jair Bolsonaro's controversial bill, which calls for the legalization of commercial mining on indigenous land.</a></p><p>Submitted to Brazil's Congress in early February, the bill has yet to be put to a vote. A planned ballot was pushed back with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, telling Congress it was "not the right moment." But he also stressed that the bill was "not unconstitutional."</p>
<p>Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy told DW it was planning to "regulate activities" on indigenous land, adding that the process would require "consultation with the indigenous communities," which would be able to participate in mining activity.</p><p>While some in the Munduruku have been won over by the allure of riches, and allow gold extraction on their land in exchange for money, the majority remain opposed to illegal mining.</p>
'Full-scale gold rush'
<p>About 13% of Brazil's territory is classified as indigenous land, spread across more than 400 reserves. But <a href="https://www.amazoniasocioambiental.org/en/" target="_blank">according to the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network</a>, there are more than 450 illegal mining sites in the Brazilian Amazon, where most of those reserves are located.</p><p>The proposed law would likely lead to a dramatic rise in the level of mining activity.</p><p>"Once you open the door, it will become a flood," Glenn Shepard, an American anthropologist who works with indigenous populations affected by illegal mining, told DW. "The law will create a precedent for miners to go in. It's already a full-scale gold rush going on, and these indigenous groups are losing control."</p><p>Greenpeace's journalism team, Unearthed, has reported that <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/04/03/coronavirus-brazil-amazon-gold-rush-indigenous-groups-deforestation/" target="_blank">gold miners planned to continue working through the coronavirus pandemic</a>, increasing fears of spreading the disease to indigenous groups. </p><p>In advance of the vote on the bill, the Ministry of Mines and Energy told DW it had received more than 4,000 applications for mining-related activities on indigenous land.</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazilian-indigenous-tribesmen-shot-in-hit-and-run-attack/a-51574624" target="_blank">Tensions between miners and local communities are already high.</a> In June last year, Brazil's indigenous rights agency, Funai, reported dozens of miners dressed in military uniform invading the Wajapi community, in the Brazilian Amazon, stabbing and killing one of its leaders.</p><p><a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/spotlight-criminalisation-land-and-environmental-defenders/" target="_blank">According to research by international NGO, Global Witness</a>, 20 land and environmental defenders were killed in Brazil in 2018 alone. Globally, the nonprofit cited mining as the deadliest sector, with 46 reported murders in the same year.</p>
The deforestation issue
<p>Environmentally, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-sees-alarming-rise-in-deforestation/a-51668498" target="_blank">one of the biggest impacts of mining is logging.</a> A 2017 report published in the journal Nature Communications found that mining accounted for 9% of all forest loss in the Amazon between 2005 and 2015.</p><p>Satellite <a href="https://maaproject.org/2020/gold_brazil/" target="_blank">analysis </a>published by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project revealed that 2,000 hectares of gold mining-related deforestation occurred in 2019 across the Munduruku indigenous reserve, more than double the amount recorded the year before.</p><p>Last November dozens of tribal leaders from the Amazon met with officials in Brasilia to file claims and report serious threats to their territories.</p><p>Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a leader from Para state who attended the meeting, says the legalization of mining would "be the death of our people."</p><p>Besides bringing "disease and prostitution to our people, drug addiction to our children, and violent conflict to the Munduruku men," she said gold mining activity is also killing fish through mercury poisoning.</p><p>Released across the region's major Tapajos River during the mining process, mercury is seeping into the tributaries like those that snake past the mining town of Creporizao. Local communities rely on these rivers for many of their water needs.</p><p>Late last year, in the first study of its kind, Erik Jennings, a neurologist based in the city of Santarem, took blood and hair samples from 112 tribespeople to assess mercury levels.</p><p>"It's a slow genocide," Jennings told DW. "The mercury can cause serious cognitive and visual impairment, and deform fetuses."</p>
Problematic legal trade
<p>Even the legal gold trade in Brazil is largely unregulated, which facilitates illegal business and plays a significant role in the destruction of the Amazon. Prosecutors in Para state say the lack of regulation in the legal trade and the fact that receipts are paper-based carbon copies make it easy for criminals to thrive and illegal gold to enter the legal system.</p><p>"The practice of fraud in the sector is quite easy, and the investigation of illegalities becomes an almost insurmountable obstacle," Luis de Camoes Lima Boaventura, public prosecutor in the Amazonian city of Santarem said.</p><p>"Until a computerized system is installed, the authorities cannot check, in real time, the legality of the transactions. To make a transaction of illegal gold, all you currently need is a pen and paper."</p><p>According to National Mining Agency estimates, around 30 tons of gold worth some 4.5 billion reals ($1.1 billion, €900 million) are illegally traded in the state of Para annually. That is around six times more than the amount legally declared.</p><p>When miners like Jose Maria return to Creporizao at the end of what can be days away, they come to one of a dozen gold shops that line the main drag to melt what they have mined into standardized bars. Once that is done, illegally-mined gold, which is responsible for widespread deforestation, pollution and violence in the Amazon, has entered the system and can no longer be traced.</p>From Your Site Articles
- Gold Miners Murder Indigenous Leader, Force Villagers in Brazil's ... ›
- Illegal Gold Mining Is Laying Waste to the Amazon - EcoWatch ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read More
Show Less