Deforestation in the Tibú municipality. Colombian Army Vulcano Task Force
By René Mora, Translated by Romina Castagnino
- Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park protects the unique, remote rainforest in northeastern Colombia.
- Satellite data show the park lost 6.2% of its tree cover between 2001 and 2019, with several months of unusually high deforestation in 2020.
- Sources say illegal coca cultivation is rapidly expanding in and around Catatumbo Barí and is driving deforestation as farmers move in and clear forest to grow the illicit crop, which is used to make cocaine.
- Area residents say armed groups are controlling the trade of coca in and out of the region, and are largely operating in an atmosphere of impunity.
The Catatumbo River originates in northeastern Colombia's Norte de Santander Department and flows to Venezuelan Lake Maracaibo. For generations, it has provided passage for fishermen and small farmers; but increasingly, it is being used to transport illegal good like weapons, timber and coca crops, from which cocaine is produced.
<p>The location of the Catatumbo region sits on the border with Venezuela, making it a strategic route for armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to traffic drugs out of Colombia. Territorial disputes over coca-producing areas reportedly happen daily, and residents say they live in fear of displacement or even death if they speak out about illegal activities connected to the region's drug trade. Those who agreed to speak to Mongabay did so on the condition of anonymity; their names have been changed in this story.</p><p>"Be very careful with this information," said Pablo*, a farmer.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2ODc5MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTIyNjE0N30.TzMW_mGYslRJ70XrAaDrZ5qbvsZPZozBB7BW7QHcRvg/img.jpg?width=980" id="fce7b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="537ddc73f5964aaa249fde0493f8b5f0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="800" data-height="600" />
Recently cleared land in Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park. Colombian Army Vulcano Task Force
<p>In addition to a threatening environment for local communities, the illegal cultivation of coca and its manufacture into cocaine appears to be coming at the cost of the region's forests. Even areas given the highest level of protection are not immune – including Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park, where satellites are detecting <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">deforestation</a> creeping deeper and deeper into the park's old-growth rainforest.</p>The Rise of Coca
<p>Today Pablo cultivates legal crops, but until a few years ago he was a coca grower. He said he has watched as coca fields have expanded to the edges of the roads and banks of the Catatumbo River with total impunity, thus breaking with the old practice of growers cultivating coca in more remote, hidden areas.</p><p>"Now people burn pastures to cultivate coca that used to be destined for livestock or growing fruit … They don't respect anything, not even the river," Pablo said.</p><p>Pablo says that since the arrival of coca in 1997, the region has not been the same and that the situation deteriorated further after the signing of the FARC peace agreement in 2016.</p><p>"There are almost no trees left and the wells in the creeks and river where I bathed when I was a child no longer exist because of the landslides," said Pablo, who has lived more than 50 years in the same region.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5dc27b480aaca15992c06af66251fcd0"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JdzvmmDOkFo?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Pablo added that, ultimately, farmers have opted for the money that comes with coca cultivation over the peace of mind of growing legal crops.</p><p>"The business is not bad if you cultivate enough [coca leaves], not like the scraps I had," he said, referencing the less-than 10 hectares (24 acres) of land he once owned. He claims that coca fields tend to be larger now, some hundreds of hectares in size.</p><p>According to Pablo, one kilo of coca paste is selling for approximately 2.7 million pesos ($790). If the buyer is someone from the guerrilla group, they sell it for 2.58 million pesos ($755). Meanwhile, the price of one kilo of cacao – a popular legal crop in the area whose cultivation has been encouraged by the government to combat the coca industry – is just 8,000 pesos ($2.30).</p><p>Government policies and strategies aimed at reducing coca cultivation have been controversial.</p><p>"The programs have only targeted families that grow illicit crops," said Jericó, a cacao producer. "Families who do not have these crops have been displaced and are being indirectly told that they have to grow coca to be beneficiaries of the programs."</p>
Increasing Deforestation
<p><span>Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park is nestled in the foothills of the eastern mountain range in the department of Norte de Santander and covers 158,125 hectares (390,735 acres) with elevations ranging from 70 to 2,000 meters (230 to 6,562 feet) above sea level. Orchids, bromeliads, lianas and heliconias predominate in the park, as well as trees over 45 meters (148 feet) tall. It harbors part of the Catatumbo Moist Forest ecoregion, which is the only area north of the Andes inhabited by Amazonian plants and animals – and which has been heavily degraded by agriculture and oil extraction.</span></p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2ODc4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjM5MjUwM30.Gcj2XcidosnL2I4W8As-z0yAv2ahMW_ChbUzf_T9z4c/img.jpg?width=980" id="08a50" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6c0e61c933d5fed7436c63d60311366c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="800" data-height="600" />
Much of the forest of the Catatumbo region has been fragmented. Colombian Army Vulcano Task Force
<p>Catatumbo Barí is more than six hours from Cúcuta, the capital of Norte de Santander Department, and there is little, if any, passable road access. The best way to get there is by boat with the help of the Barí, the Indigenous group that occupies a sector of the park across two reservations: Motilón Barí which comprises 108,900 hectares (269,097 acres) and Gabarra-Catalaura of 13,300 hectares (32,865 acres).</p><p>Along the way to the park, fields of coca crops are easy to see.</p><p>"The crops are reaching Cúcuta," said an inhabitant of the region.</p><p>Tibú is one of the municipalities that has jurisdiction over the park. It's also the municipality with the highest deforestation rate in Norte de Santander. According to the latest report from the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam), 7,103 hectares (17,551 acres) were cleared in Tibú in 2019, representing 72% of its area.</p><p>According to the United Nations' Integrated Illicit Crops Monitoring System (SIMCI), 41,711 hectares (103,070 acres) of coca crops were cultivated across the region in 2019, an increase of more than 76% over 2016 when SIMCI recorded 24,831 hectares (61,358 acres) of coca cultivation.</p><p>Norte de Santander lost 11% of its tree cover between 2001 and 2019, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD), while Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/aoi/5ff740a7cb55fc001ba83567/?category=summary&gladAlerts=eyJ3ZWVrcyI6NTJ9&mainMap=eyJzaG93QW5hbHlzaXMiOnRydWV9&map=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%3D&mapMenu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6Im15LWdmdyJ9%27" target="_blank">lost 6.2%</a>. In both areas, preliminary UMD data for 2020 showing several spikes of deforestation that were "<a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/COL/22/?category=summary&gladAlerts=eyJ3ZWVrcyI6NTJ9&location=WyJjb3VudHJ5IiwiQ09MIiwiMjIiXQ%3D%3D&mainMap=eyJzaG93QW5hbHlzaXMiOnRydWV9&map=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&mapMenu=eyJkYXRhc2V0Q2F0ZWdvcnkiOiJsYW5kQ292ZXIifQ%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unusually high</a>" compared to years past.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2ODc1NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzMyODIwMH0.UssCVZOGdXi7ugY59mJTkVRiwD6nz0YgF3fro0bOxhk/img.jpg?width=980" id="05b06" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="59894ea9a53f6dfefea75f56f497576b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2000" data-height="1347" />
Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park protects some of the last primary rainforest in the region. But satellite data show deforestation continued to whittle it away in 2020 — including inside the park.
<p><span>National Natural Parks of Colombia (PNN) is the environmental authority that oversees Catatumbo Barí. The areas outside the park are overseen by the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Northeast Frontier (Corponor), which manages renewable natural resources in Norte de Santander. Sandra Gómez, deputy director of Corponor, explains that high deforestation rates outside the park are due largely to the expansion of the agricultural frontier, illicit crops, illegal mining and timber trafficking.</span></p><p>"Entering is difficult and inaccessible because of (the lack of) roads, the ongoing conflict and security issues. All this makes illegal activities easier," Gómez said.</p><p>The latest report from SIMCI found 1,448 hectares (3,578 acres) of coca cultivation inside Catatumbo Barí in 2019, representing 15% of the area deforested between 2001 and 2019 and a 60% jump over 2018. However, this may pale in comparison to 2020; according to a government source who studies the area, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, 90% of the deforested land in Catatumbo Barí has now been planted with coca crops, with the remaining 10% used as cropland for plantains and yucca, or as livestock pasture.</p><p>According to SIMCI figures, coca crops had reached two indigenous reservations within Catatumbo Barí as of 2019, with 411 hectares cultivated in the Motilón Barí reservation and 43 hectares in the Gabarra-Catalaura reservation. Totaling 454 hectares (1,121 acres), this marks a 66% increase in coca cultivation in the two reservations compared to 2018.</p><p>Juan Carlos Quintero, president of the Catatumbo Small Farmers Association (Ascamcat), said that coca cultivation, as well as the expansion of large-scale oil palm plantations, is worrying. He added that the departure of government oversight after the signing of the 2016 FARC peace deal has created an atmosphere of impunity in the region.</p><p>"The national government is only present with the army," Quintero said, adding that armed groups soon invaded territory left vacant by the FARC and unprotected by the government.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="44b0df60252ff809d28729b0db73ce42"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9QeAIdB3G2k?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Gómez said the situation in the Catatumbo region stems from a structural problem that facilitates land grabbing. Under a law that dates back to 1959, the government earmarked territories for forest protection; however, they did not formally register the land, which would have avoided land use disputes and help mitigate environmental degradation of protected areas.</p><p>"The problem is land grabbing and illegal land-use change … as there is no physical registration, people buy land and then cultivate coca," Gómez said. "If it goes bad, they sell it. [These lands] are vacant lots and they belong to the nation."</p><p>Rodrigo Botero, director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), says that the Colombian government wants to officially map the tenure of all the different plots in the region, which is the first step needed to register the ownership, use, extension, occupation time and legal status of the land.</p>
Long-Term Consequences
<p>Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park has untouched areas of rainforest that are still unstudied by the scientific community. Carlos Herney Cáceres Martínez, a biologist who has done research in various Colombian parks, has tried to enter the protected area for years to conduct genetic sampling of the Andean bear (<em>Tremarctos ornatus</em>). The project aims to characterize the connectivity of Andean bear populations in Colombia, and from the eight different regions where its presence has been registered, Catatumbo Barí is the only area where sampling has not been yet possible due to the difficulty of accessing the park.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2ODc1OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODc1MjY3OH0.7MP672jxBYREuEpu3BQ3MiuJNUhLFknSjkaFMILjsSU/img.jpg?width=980" id="a9a64" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="33998baf94cebc126862f1ab160f143d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="512" />
<p><br></p>The Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus), also called the spectacled bear, is the last remaining species of short-faced bear. It is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Futureman1199 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
<p>Cáceres said deforestation like that which is happening in and around Catatumbo Barí has cascading repercussions that can ripple through ecosystems and the human communities that depend on them.</p><p>"When a humid forest is affected, everything is affected: the capture of carbon dioxide, oxygen leveling, water regulation, erosive processes (…) Not only are plants or animals lost, as a society we are losing a free service that the planet offers us to have a healthy life," Cáceres said. He added that fire – which is often used to clear land – can be particularly destructive to the region's forest.</p><p>"We know that it is very difficult for them to return to their natural state," he said. "For [a forest] to recover 50% they need at least 100 years."</p><p><em>This </em><em>is a translated and adapted version of a story that was </em><em><a href="https://es.mongabay.com/2020/12/cultivos-ilegales-y-deforestacion-asfixian-al-parque-nacional-catatumbo-bari-en-colombia/" target="_blank">first published by Mongabay Latam</a> </em><em>on Dec. 2, 2020.</em></p><p><em><strong>Editor's note:</strong> This story was powered by <a href="https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/places-to-watch" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Places to Watch</a>, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to quickly identify concerning forest loss around the world and catalyze further investigation of these areas. Places to Watch draws on a combination of near-real-time satellite data, automated algorithms and field intelligence to identify new areas on a monthly basis. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW is supporting data-driven journalism by providing data and maps generated by Places to Watch. Mongabay maintains complete editorial independence over the stories reported using this data</em>.<br></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/cocaine-production-driving-deforestation-into-colombian-national-park/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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This picture taken on September 16, 2015 shows 13-year-old Indonesian girl Asnimawati working at a palm oil plantation area in Pelalawan, Riau province in Indonesia's Sumatra island. ADEK BERRY / AFP / Getty Images
Tens of thousands of children in Indonesia and Malaysia work to harvest the palm oil that ends up in several beloved Western snacks, including Girl Scout cookies.
<p>An in-depth <a href="https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-forests-indonesia-scouts-83b01f2789e9489569960da63b2741c4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Associated Press report</a> published recently used U.S. customs records and the most up-to-date information from producers, traders and buyers to link palm oil harvested using child labor to major brands including Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg's, PepsiCo and Ferrero, one of two makers of Girl Scout Cookies. </p>
<p>"I thought Girl Scouts was supposed to be about making the world a better place," 14-year-old Girl Scout Olivia Chaffin told The Associated Press. "But this isn't at all making the world better."</p><p>Palm oil took off as a global commodity around 20 years ago after health warnings about trans fats caused food manufacturers to switch to the extremely cheap oil. It is now in about half of all supermarket products and almost 75 percent of cosmetics, but appears on labels under more than 200 different names.</p><p>Campaigners in the past have raised concerns about the oil's environmental impact. Around <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/palm-oil-environmental-costs-2640781015.html" target="_self">85 percent</a> of the industry is fed by plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rainforests" target="_self">Rainforests</a> are often cleared to make way for palm oil plantations in the two countries and elsewhere, and this has a devastating impact on many species, including orangutans. A recent study found that 50 percent of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> in Borneo between 2005 and 2015 was linked to palm oil.</p><p>Child labor is another major problem for the industry, according to The Associated Press. The UN's International Labor Organization estimates that 1.5 million children aged 10 to 17 work in Indonesia's agricultural industry, of which palm oil is the dominant crop. In Malaysia, a 2018 study found that more than 33,000 children work in the industry, and that almost half of them are between the ages of five and 11.</p>
<p>Children working on these plantations face hazards like exposure to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" target="_self">chemicals</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" target="_self">pesticides</a>, and many are denied proper healthcare and the chance at an education. In Malaysia, where the industry is mostly staffed by foreign workers, children without proper immigration papers are even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.</p><p>"For 100 years, families have been stuck in a cycle of poverty and they know nothing else than work on a palm oil plantation," Kartika Manurung, who has published reports on labor issues on Indonesian palm oil plantations, told The Associated Press. "When I … ask the kids what they want to be when they grow up, some of the girls say, 'I want to be the wife of a palm oil worker.'"</p><p>Environmental concerns first motivated then-11-year old Chaffin to investigate the source of the palm oil in the Girl Scout cookies she sold. Chaffin, who had earned a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, saw that the palm oil listed on the cookie boxes was supposed to come from sustainable sources. However, she looked closer and saw the word "mixed", which meant that sustainable and non-sustainable sources had been combined in the cookie recipe.</p><p>She swore off cookie-selling and launched a petition one year ago urging Girl Scouts to abandon palm oil.</p><p>"Some of my fellow girl scouts and I are boycotting Girl Scout cookie sales until palm oil is replaced with a completely sustainable oil," <a href="https://www.change.org/p/girl-scouts-of-the-usa-remove-palm-oil-from-girl-scout-cookies?recruiter=1073806&use_react=false" target="_blank">she wrote</a>. "Please sign my petition because the rainforest is a very important part of life."</p><p>Chaffin told The Associated Press that learning about the child labor issues made her more motivated to fight for the oil's removal.</p><p>Girl Scout cookies are made by two U.S. bakers: Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky and ABC Bakers in Virginia. Little Brown Bakers says its palm oil is from "mixed" sources, which means as little as one percent might be sustainable. ABC Bakers puts money towards promoting sustainable production. These bakeries belong to two parent companies, Weston Foods of Canada and Ferrero of Italy. Weston Foods would not provide any details of its supply chain, making it impossible for The Associated Press to determine if child labor was used by any of its suppliers.</p><p>The Girl Scouts did not respond to The Associated Press before the study was published, but did address the article on social media.</p><p>"Child labor has no place in Girl Scout Cookie production. Our investment in the development of our world's youth must not be facilitated by the under-development of some," the organization <a href="https://twitter.com/girlscouts/status/1344351388403429377" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a>.</p><p>They <a href="https://twitter.com/girlscouts/status/1344351420666023936" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> that their bakers and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) should take action if standards were being violated.</p>
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More and more Americans are retrofitting their bathrooms with high-end bidets, allowing them to enjoy cleanliness and hygiene without creating as much paper waste. Not all bidets are created equal, however, and before deciding on a particular brand, it's important to do your homework. Take a look at our comprehensive Toto bidet review, and our reviews of Tushy and Omigo, to learn more about all of their options.
<h2>Toto overview</h2><p>Toto is a company that has been around for over 100 years. They aim to improve people's quality of life, and they do that specifically by focusing on bathrooms. To that end, Toto is known for high-quality products including toilets, faucets, showers, bathtubs, and bidets. </p><p>Toto has also expressed an admirable commitment to ecological stewardship. As <a href="https://www.totousa.com/about-toto/toto-way" target="_blank">their corporate website</a> notes, they strive to "protect the global environment by conserving finite natural resources and energy." One example of this is their donation of any imperfectly fired porcelain products for recycling and reuse as porcelain floor tile. Their <a href="https://www.totousa.com/about-toto/living-toto-library/smart-sustainable-packaging-solution" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">packaging</a> uses differing levels of recycled post-consumer paper products while their forklifts operate using <a href="https://www.totousa.com/about-toto/living-toto-library/plant-based-hydraulics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">plant-based hydraulics</a> made from soybean oil instead of traditional hydraulic oil.</p><p>Toto is definitely a company with a superior reputation when it comes to bathroom accessories in general, and bidets in particular. Here are reviews of some of the specific products in the Toto line.</p><h2>Toto bidet reviews</h2><p>There are two different bidet product families available from Toto: standalone bidets and bidet seat attachments. Their standalone models include the Piedmont bidet, the Lloyd bidet, and the Clayton bidet, while their bidet toilet seat offerings include a wide selection in the popular Washlet line. Here are details on the three standalone options and three of the most popular bidet seat attachments.</p><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><h3>Toto standalone bidets</h3><h4></h4>
<h2>Toto bidet pros and cons<br></h2><p>Whether you're considering a standalone bidet or a bidet seat attachment, here are some of the pros and cons to help you compare your options.</p><h3>Pros</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Standalone bidets, such as the ones offered by Toto, are designed in a wider range of elegant, contemporary styles. If you are looking to remodel your bathroom, splurging for a standalone bidet makes sense.</li><li>Toto offers a wide selection of bidet and bidet attachment options. Some of their more advanced units feature night lights, adjustable nozzle positions, warm air dryers, and adjustable settings for the temperature of the water.</li><li>All of the Toto bidet attachments we reviewed include self-cleaning nozzles for added hygiene. They are also designed for DIY installation, and easily connect to your existing toilet's water supply without the need for a plumber or electrician.</li></ul><h3>Cons</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Toto's line of standalone bidets and bidet seat attachments are more expensive than some other brands, especially some of their more high-end models.</li><li>Standalone bidets may not be as convenient for those who have mobility issues.</li><li>All of Toto's bidet seat attachments are electric, and don't feature an eco or energy-saving mode like some other options.</li></ul><h2>The benefits of buying a bidet</h2><p>Why buy a bidet at all? There are plenty of perks, both for you and the planet:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Bidets offer a more thorough, hygienic cleaning than toilet paper.</li><li>They're considerably more eco-friendly, using less water and paper.</li><li>Because you'll use so much less toilet paper, bidets are also more cost-effective.</li><li>Compared with TP, bidets can be really soothing to the skin.</li><li>They have special benefits for women, and especially pregnant women, helping minimize the risk of a UTI.</li><li>Bidets are highly accessible, even to those with limited mobility.</li><li>A bidet makes it much easier to teach your children about proper bathroom hygiene.</li></ul><h2>Considerations when buying a bidet</h2><p>As you consider all of your options for getting a bidet, here are a few of the key factors to consider:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Look for a bidet with a self-cleaning nozzle. This will help keep things hygienic.</li><li>Electric vs. non-electric? Electric bidets can offer more comfort features, like a heated seat, but they also use more energy than a non-electric one.</li><li>Is it a standalone bidet, a bidet seat, or a bidet attachment? While a standalone bidet is a completely separate fixture from your toilet, a bidet seat will completely replace your existing seat and a bidet attachment will be installed onto your existing toilet seat. These are usually the least expensive, but also come with the fewest features.</li><li>Does the bidet connect to your home's hot water? If it doesn't, you will only be able to clean with cold water.</li><li>Make sure you can adjust the settings. For the most comfortable bidet, look for controls that let you customize the water pressure, the angle of the water stream, the temperature of the water, and the temperature of the seat, if it is heated.</li></ul><p>Use these questions to determine whether the bidets from Toto are right for you.</p><h2>Toto bidets: a leader in comfort and efficiency</h2><p>Toto makes durable, elegant, and highly functional products that will allow you to enjoy all the hygienic and environmental benefits of a bidet. You can also read our full review of the best bidets to compare with other brands like Brondell, Kohler, Tushy, and BioBidet.</p><p><em><strong>Josh Hurst </strong></em><em>is a journalist, critic, and essayist. He lives in Knoxville, TN, with his wife and three sons. His writing on natural health, nutrition, and supplements has appeared in Health, Shape, and Remedy Review.</em></p>
Piedmont
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDgyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMjI3MjE3Nn0.QqBs95yaFQnGwAuf0t3XaSCc7pvrSEUalnl9UulrODg/img.jpg?width=980" id="a0c63" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9d10ad2b08c5d00642b44787c1b099ad" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/TOTO-BT500B-01-Piedmont-Vertical/dp/B00084P3GO/ref=sr_1_3?crid=ZG6AGN0U9VQL&dchild=1&keywords=toto+piedmont+bidet&qid=1613591898&sprefix=toto+piedmo%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-3" target="_blank">Toto's Piedmont bidet</a> offers an elegant, classic design, and it also comes with built-in safeguards that prevent it from ever overflowing. It is available in several color options, and will look good with any contemporary bathroom design.</p><p><strong>Why buy:</strong> This is the most affordable standalone bidet in Toto's catalog. This bidet is a good option if you are remodeling your bathroom or are building a home and want to save water and paper waste from the start. Priced starting at $533, you can find it through other retailers for around $280.</p>
$533
Lloyd
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDgzMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTU0Nzk0Nn0.h9XeFBojZff_4Un8swlIoamX7xAwO1wH3RKAiiZb96k/img.jpg?width=980" id="e5d22" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="83ff9c9b3ed8f1b5e92ff99c14ad9b0c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/TOTO-BT930B-01-Vertical-Cotton/dp/B0015IVUOQ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=toto%2Blloyd%2Bbidet&qid=1613592001&sr=8-2&th=1" target="_blank">Lloyd bidet</a> has a much bolder, "skirted" design, but it also shares the Piedmont's flushing rim and integral overflow features, which keep you from ever experiencing spillage.</p><p><strong>Why buy: </strong>This is a fancier product with a more striking appearance, and is mainly suited for a larger, more formal design. It retails for a slightly higher price point: The Lloyd model starts at $780 in total, but you can find it for $526 through other retailers.</p>
$780
Clayton
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDgzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTI4MTYyNn0.xNOnfejHaWbEVHRbO1vFVdUoWbFvevja40qRVr6L4dI/img.jpg?width=980" id="df200" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0cdb567e670fb2e46f50fbc43c99158c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p>The company's flagship standalone bidet is known as the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/TOTO-BT784B-01-Clayton-Vertical/dp/B0018L9JUC/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=toto+clayton+bidet&qid=1613592108&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Clayton</a>. It includes the same overflow safeguards as the other two, and of course, each of these products is backed by Toto's longstanding commitment to excellent craftsmanship.</p><p><strong>Why buy: </strong>This is the most traditional in its visual style, and, with a number of colors to choose from, it will look great in almost any bathroom design. The Clayton starts at $734, but is available through other retailers for around $426.</p>
$734
<h3>Toto bidet seats</h3>
Toto Washlet C200
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDgzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MTY3OTY1M30.3coYAuyqJLBcw8hQszI8Shbcfyr6nn9V0ek-kXv2kgQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="61762" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b7c91d2511149e271c7f0139f1580788" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p>This electronic smart bidet seat fits onto your existing toilet bowl and offers a number of comfort features, including a heated seat, automatic air deodorizer, adjustable warm water, warm air dryer, self-cleaning wand, and a wireless remote control.</p><p><strong>Why buy:</strong> We chose the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UCIOX2Q/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=-XjvJQOmffOcAmiCOZvtAA&hsa_cr_id=7413316040901&pd_rd_plhdr=t&pd_rd_r=0e0e7f3d-0baf-4977-85d3-663f618a76d8&pd_rd_w=Yi3yF&pd_rd_wg=LUFHB&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_lsi3d_asin_1_img" target="_blank">Toto C200</a> as the overall best bidet in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/best-bidet-toilet-seats-2650502928.html" target="_self">our review</a> of top brands. In addition to the features mentioned, its dual action oscillating and pulsating spray and pre-mist function provide a comfortable and sanitary clean.</p>
$715
Toto Washlet S500e with EWATER+
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDgzOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTgzNTIyMH0.idaacYO4MzHGTeajRkSCVHOo3TH7tehRN8TAH2s75ko/img.jpg?width=980" id="f6ed5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="87fa67b17e4c8e06f74bfbce87bf4809" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/TOTO-SW3046-01-Electronic-Contemporary/dp/B078GTKSXK/ref=sr_1_2?crid=15NGPC9YFANKH&dchild=1&keywords=toto+s500e&qid=1613960063&sprefix=toto+s500e%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Toto Washlet S500e</a> bidet seat includes the features found in the C200, plus instantaneous water heating, front and rear wash functions, two-user preset memory, and the company's <a href="https://www.totousa.com/technologies/ewater" target="_blank">EWATER+ technology</a>. This system uses electrolyzed water to keep the wand and toilet bowl clean.</p><p><strong>Why buy:</strong> This high-end Toto electric bidet seat can help you reduce water and toilet paper use, and it can help reduce the need for chemical cleaning products with its EWATER+ technology.</p>
$1530
Toto Washlet A100
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3MDg0Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzU0OTU3MH0.g2PYzguGXvB1l7RvWBcw_xNtlpy8hsmcwui8Twr3CMA/img.jpg?width=980" id="08295" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d3d798b5d7737cddaadfd9f6fa5a84d6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="400" data-height="400" />Toto USA
<p>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/TOTO-SW2014-01-Electronic-SoftClose/dp/B0165UFOGS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=30E9Y1LAN9ZRW&dchild=1&keywords=toto+washlet+a100+elongated+bidet+toilet+seat&qid=1613589664&sprefix=toto+washlet+a100%2Caps%2C167&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFBR1FMUTdJR1hXNUEmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAyNjIwOTkxUE1EWk5CQjg2QTZPJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA0NDc1MzExSk1UMk5CQzJYVUhVJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==" target="_blank">A100</a> is an entry-level Washlet bidet attachment, but still offers numerous comfort features. It includes a heated seat with temperature control, aerated warm water with a dual action spray, and an attached arm control panel.</p><p><strong>Why buy: </strong>One of the most affordable Toto bidet options, it still lets you adjust the water temperature and pressure settings, and features rear and front cleaning functionality for a feminine wash.</p>
$499
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Humans Destroyed Intact Ecosystem Land the Size of Mexico in Just 13 Years
21 September 2020
Science
A palm tree plantation in Malaysia. Yann Arthus-Bertrand / Getty Images Plus
Between 2000 and 2013, Earth lost an area of undisturbed ecosystems roughly the size of Mexico.
<p>That's the mind-melting finding of a <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30418-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590332220304188%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">new study published in One Earth</a> Friday, and the researchers say it has "profound implications" for global <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> and for humans who rely on natural resources.</p><p>"We were expecting there to be high levels of intact ecosystem and wilderness loss, but the results were shocking," lead researcher Brooke Williams of the University of Queensland told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/19/shocking-wilderness-the-size-of-mexico-lost-worldwide-in-just-13-years-study-finds?fbclid=IwAR2XlFeNEaoMktkBPoteocAS4Bi-Kx5dErhWX9qzNB-CZ9VBsBpxmdEMrTw" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "We found substantial area of intact ecosystems had been lost in just 13 years – nearly two million square kilometres – which is terrifying to think about. Our findings show that human pressure is extending ever further into the last ecologically intact and wilderness areas."</p>
<p>In total, the researchers found that 1.9 million square kilometers (approximately 700,000 square miles) of previously intact ecosystem area had been "highly modified" during the study period. They also found that 58.4 percent of Earth's land ecosystems were under "moderate or intense" pressure from human activity, while only 41.6 percent of ecosystems were intact and 25 percent were true wilderness.</p><p>The 1.9 million square kilometers lost were mostly tropical and subtropical grasslands in Asia, South America and Africa, according to the <a href="https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/14950/STUDY-Since-2000-A-Mexico-Sized-Chunk-of-Intact-Land-Has-Been-Swallowed-up-by-Humanity.aspx" target="_blank">Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which participated in the research</a>. The rainforests of Southeast Asia also suffered significant human encroachments.</p>
<p>To achieve these results, an international team of 17 scientists from six countries used satellite imagery to assess the human footprint on land-based ecosystems and how it had changed between 2000 and 2013, The Guardian explained. The researchers found that human pressure increased on nearly 20 percent of the globe and decreased on only around six percent.</p><p>"Data does not lie," senior author James Watson from WCS and the University of Queensland said in the WCS press release. "Humanity keeps on shrinking the amount of land that other species need to survive. In a time of rapid <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate change</a>, we need to proactively secure the last intact ecosystems on the planet, as these are critical in the fight to stop extinction and halt climate change."</p>
<p>The study comes amidst other dire news for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and biodiversity. A UN study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nature-destruction-biodiversity-loss-un-2647682550.html" target="_self">released last week</a> found that world governments had failed to achieve any of the 20 targets they had set for preserving biodiversity by 2020. Another study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/humans-destroying-wildlife-report-2020-2647567577.html" target="_self">published this month</a> found that wildlife populations had plummeted 68 percent on average over the last 50 years.</p><p>Williams explained to WCS why the loss of intact ecosystems is such a big deal for humans and other animals.</p><p>"Intact lands are relied on by biodiversity for habitat, and by people for ecosystem services such as climate regulation and clean water," Williams said. "We continue to take these last functioning places for granted, and our results show urgent action is needed to protect those lands that do remain intact."</p>
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These Scientists Are Listening to the Borneo Rainforest to Protect Biodiversity
17 August 2020
Science
A team of scientists are using the sound of the Borneo rainforest as an indicator of its health and the state of its biodiversity. berkeley_geography / Wikimedia Commons
By Sean Fleming
The Borneo rainforest is a treasure trove of biodiversity. It is home to 221 species of land-living mammals and 420 species of birds, not to mention 15,000 species of flowering plants and 3,000 species of trees.
<p>A team of scientists from Imperial College London, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership has been recording the health of the Borneo rainforest. Known as the SAFE Project, they are using the sound of the forest as an indicator of its health and the state of its biodiversity.</p><h3>Listen Carefully</h3><p>Professor Rob Ewers, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial and Principal Investigator for the SAFE Project, said: "The <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/190939/livestream-sounds-rainforest-hear-what-changes/" target="_blank">health of a forest ecosystem can often be attributed to how much noise it creates</a>, signaling how many species are around. As well as listening to whole soundscapes, we hope that in the future the system will be able to pick up individual species and record their presence – or absence – from certain areas."</p><p>Like rainforests all over the world, it is under pressure. Between 1985 and 2001, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, Kalimantan, <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/our_focus/forests_practice/deforestation_fronts2/deforestation_in_borneo_and_sumatra/" target="_blank">lost around 56% of protected lowland tropical rainforests</a> to illegal logging. An area of 29,000km² (almost the size of Belgium) was felled as loggers took advantage of global demand for timber, in the absence of a sufficient economic alternative.</p><p>While laws to protect forests are in effect across the island, they are often violated, according to conservation organization the WWF.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU2MTM5MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2OTQwNjk5MX0.IFrqBON9v8yUg-CILmLAptJf5gysQkdODJmhgJNz6Uo/img.png?width=980" id="e2b56" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b4a8954e1bfd3ed471d421bbe34266b2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="790" data-height="514" />
Estimated deforestation by type of forest and time period, pre-1700-2000. FAO/Our World in Data
<p>Due to the challenges of the rainforest's climate, the SAFE researchers couldn't use off-the-shelf products for their project. Heat and humidity can be tough on sensitive electronic equipment.</p><p>So they built their own recorders using the Raspberry Pi hardware platform. The solar-powered devices automatically send data over the mobile phone network, eliminating the need for anyone to collect it in memory cards.</p><p>The team made instructions for building the equipment available to all online, so that other researchers can build their own versions.</p>
The Sound of Progress
<p>Sarab Sethi, a PhD student from Imperial College, was involved in the design of the audio recorders. "If we can get a fingerprint of each audio stream, we can compare how the soundscapes are different between different sites and begin to quantify the changes as land-use changes, for example when forests are logged," he said.</p><p>The SAFE team has also created a website that <a href="http://acoustics.safeproject.net/12:00/10/51442" target="_blank">streams some of the rainforest recordings</a>.</p><p>A similar project from the Rainforest Connection is also using audio to tackle illegal logging. With schemes in South America, Africa and Asia, the organization <a href="https://rfcx.org/home" target="_blank">uses a system based on old mobile phones to record ambient noise in rainforests</a>. It uses a cloud-based AI engine to spot the sound of chainsaws in those recordings. If any are detected, it sends a real-time alert to the relevant authorities.</p><p>About <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank">17% of the Amazon rainforest has been lost in the past 50 years</a>, according to the WWF. It describes the loss of forested areas near population centers as "rampant" and says that cattle ranching is the main cause of the deforestation.</p>From Your Site Articles
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In the tropics, farmers often slash and burn forests to clear fertile land for crops, but a new method avoids that technique. Inga Foundation video
Rainforests are an important defense against climate change because they absorb carbon. But many are being destroyed on a massive scale.
<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/14740994/height/45/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/direction/backward/" height="45" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>In the tropics, farmers often slash and burn forests to clear fertile land for crops. The practice involves cutting down vegetation and burning it. But the soil's fertility does not last long, so the farmers must clear a new patch of forest every few years.</p><p>"People believe it's the only possible way of growing crops," says ecologist Michael Hands.</p><p>But he says there's an alternative. Hands directs the Inga Foundation, which teaches farmers in Honduras and Costa Rica a method called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingafoundation.org/alley-cropping/">inga alley cropping</a>.</p><p>The inga is a fast-growing tree with roots that fix nitrogen, so it replenishes the soil.</p>
<p>In alley cropping, farmers plant inga trees in rows. Their shade kills weeds and creates space for planting maize or beans. Then the trees are pruned back so sunlight can reach the crops until harvest.</p><p>"And you can repeat the process the following year," Hands says.</p><p>The ingas' roots keep the soil rich, so the farmer does not need to slash and burn more land. That means less carbon pollution and less labor.</p><p>"It's definitely transforming people's lives," Hands says.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/farmers-learn-alternative-to-slashing-and-burning-rainforests/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A lone burnt tree stands on a deforested area in the surroundings of Porto Velho, Rondonia State, in the Amazon basin in west-central Brazil, on Aug. 24, 2019. CARL DE SOUZA / AFP / Getty Images
By Ajit Niranjan
Civil society groups and public prosecutors in Brazil are taking President Jair Bolsonaro's government to court for failing to protect the Amazon rainforest, adding pressure to an administration already under fire for mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic.
<p>Lawsuits filed last week challenge the government on two fronts: reducing inspections of exported timber — while demoting the environment agency expert whose team advised against it — and freezing climate funds to preserve forests that other countries also rely on to offset their carbon emissions.</p><p><br/></p>
<p>They are among a series of legal challenges that have been launched in Brazil after a tumultuous year-and-a-half of Bolsonaro rule. His administration has overseen a rise in deforestation, attacked the rights of people indigenous to the Amazon and relaxed rules to prevent illegal <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-deforestation-eu-firms-linked-to-illegal-logging-in-brazil/a-48442226" target="_blank">logging</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mass-deforestation-how-trade-fells-trees-in-brazil-and-indonesia/a-48280649" target="_blank">ranching</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-amazon-rainforest-has-become-the-wild-west-for-illegal-gold-miners/a-52623368" target="_blank">mining</a>.</p><p>Bolsonaro is a climate change denier who considers the environment to be a kind of enemy, said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Brazil-based think tank Climate Observatory, which provided the legal analysis behind the lawsuits. "It's very hard to believe Bolsonaro will change his behavior or mindset. What we really need to do is neutralize the attacks on the environment."</p>
<p>In recent weeks, the Brazilian government has been rebuked by foreign governments, investors and businesses for enabling deforestation — and by courts and protestors at home for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/where-could-brazils-criminal-investigation-of-jair-bolsonaro-lead/a-53284984" target="_blank">political interference</a> and its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>Brazil's supreme court ordered the government on Monday to resume publishing <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/supreme-court-rules-brazil-must-share-virus-data/a-53754069" target="_blank">coronavirus statistics</a> after it purged the health ministry website of COVID-19 case numbers and death tolls. The virus has killed more than 37,000 people in Brazil, which has the second-most coronavirus cases in the world behind only the U.S. "The manipulation of statistics is a maneuver of totalitarian regimes," said supreme court judge Gilmar Mendes. "The trick will not exempt responsibility for the eventual genocide."</p><p>Deforestation, meanwhile, had already last year hit its highest level since 2008. On Tuesday the country's space research agency INPE revised its estimates, saying it they were higher than previously thought. Using satellite data, the scientists calculated that year-on-year <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazil-reports-even-more-deforestation-after-revising-data/a-53767938" target="_blank">deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon</a> rose by 34 percent between August 2018 and July 2019, felling an area of forest about as big as Jamaica.</p><p>Georg Witschel, Germany's ambassador to Brazil, told <a href="https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/11/desmatamento-na-amazonia-faz-cada-vez-mais-dificil-acordo-ue-mercosul-diz-embaixador-alemao.ghtml" target="_blank">Brazilian news outlet G1</a> on Thursday that deforestation makes it "increasingly difficult" to ratify the free trade agreement between the EU and South American trade bloc Mercosur.</p>
Coronavirus and Deforestation
<p>Brazil's environmental and health crises are closely linked. The coronavirus pandemic had given fresh impetus to land grabbers razing swathes of forests as lockdowns have kept law enforcement officers at home.</p><p>Now, the fires that typically follow the felling of trees could further strain health systems.</p><p>Blazing wildfires, like the ones that devastated the Amazon last year, spout pollutants that lower air quality and work their way into people's lungs, exacerbating the same <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-air-pollution-might-raise-risk-of-fatality/a-52977422" target="_blank">breathing diseases</a> that leave people more vulnerable to the coronavirus. A joint peak in forest fires and COVID-19 cases could overwhelm hospitals without "incisive intervention by the State to curb illegal acts," according to a report published in May by INPE.</p><p>That could collapse health systems in several Amazonian states that are already operating at the limit, the authors wrote. "If the turning point of the epidemiological curve of COVID-19 does not occur immediately, in May 2020, there will certainly be an overlap of fires with the pandemic."</p><p>This could spell disaster for indigenous peoples and uncontacted tribes, said Sarah Shenker, a campaigner with Survival International. "In Brazil, there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes and they could be wiped out if invaders are not removed from their territory."</p><p>Even before the current coronavirus crisis, scientists warned that <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/how-deforestation-can-lead-to-more-infectious-diseases/a-53282244" target="_blank">forest loss makes pandemics more likely</a> by increasing the chance that diseases jump from animals to humans. A study published in the journal PNAS in October found that deforestation of the Amazon significantly increases transmission of malaria, a different type of disease.</p>Preserving the Climate
<p>The Amazon rainforest — 60 percent of which lies in Brazil — is one of the world's great carbon sinks. Preserving its trees and plants is crucial to meeting international targets that <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/co2-emissions-gap-un-report-warns-of-collective-failure-to-act/a-51407286" target="_blank">limit global warming</a> to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.</p><p>Lawsuits that take years to complete are not going to produce results fast enough, said Ricardo Galvao, a former director of INPE who was <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-research-chief-sacked-after-deforestation-row-with-bolsonaro/a-49874119" target="_blank">fired by Bolsonaro</a> in August.</p><p>To curb deforestation in the Amazon, said Galvao, the best tools are "positive actions that show [that] exploring the forest, rather than destroying it, gives economic returns." For instance, international organizations like the UN could certify products from sustainably managed forests and countries could lower import taxes on such "green-stamped" goods.</p><p>Brazil has a legal commitment to reduce deforestation in the Amazon to a rate equivalent to about 3,900 square kilometers per year from 2020 onwards. In 2012, measures to protect the Amazon had brought deforestation down to 4,600 square kilometers, close to the target, but by 2019, it had rebounded to 9,800 square kilometers. </p><p>The Brazilian government, which in May brought in the military to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazil-deploys-military-to-protect-amazon-rainforest/a-53398270" target="_blank">protect the forest</a>, has disputed its image as an environmental pariah. "We are the country that most preserves the environment in the world," said Bolsonaro on World Environment Day last week. "Unjustly, [we are] the most attacked."</p><p>Data from Brazil's Institute of Socioeconomic Studies show government spending on forest inspection dropped from R$17.4 million (US$3.5 million, €3.1 million) to R$5.3 million from the first five months of 2019 to the same period in 2020, while funding for activities under Brazil's national climate change plan were cut from R$436 million last year to R$247 million this year.</p><p>Ibama, the Brazilian environment agency, did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Big tracts of the rainforest have no recorded owner, making it easier to illegally grab land, and a lack of law enforcement can even mean that farmers who comply with regulations struggle to compete with those who don't.</p><p>Working with sustainable farmers and fixing land ownership structures could help Brazil slow deforestation during the coronavirus pandemic and recession, said Monica De Los Rios, Brazil coordinator at the nonprofit Earth Innovation Institute. "This is the most critical moment in the history of the Amazon."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/to-stop-amazon-deforestation-brazilian-groups-take-bolsonaro-to-court/a-53785160" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646172097#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Brazil burnt, logged and bulldozed a third of the area lost, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia placing second and third. Brasil2 / Getty Images
Satellite data collated for the World Resources Institute (WRI) showed primal rainforest was lost across 38,000 square kilometers (14,500 square miles) globally — ruining habitats and releasing carbon once locked in wood into the atmosphere.
<p><br/></p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rainforest-losses-stubbornly-unabated/a-53658340?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle.</a></em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646150833#/" target="_self"></a></p>
<p>The count by the University of Maryland means that 2019 was the third most devastating year for primary forests — comprising old-growth trees and highly diverse wildlife — since scientists began such surveys two decades ago.</p><p>Brazil burnt, logged and bulldozed a third of the area lost, with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia placed second and a distant third, <a href="https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/data-and-research/global-tree-cover-loss-data-2019" target="_blank">concluded WRI experts from the Global Forest Watch (GFW) project</a>.</p><p>"Primary forest loss was 2.8% higher in 2019 than the year before and has remained stubbornly high for the last two decades despite efforts to halt deforestation," exclaimed the study's authors.</p><p>Brazil's losses preceded President Jair Bolsonaro's legislative moves to loosen rules that would otherwise protect regions from minerals extraction and agriculture.</p>
<p>"Hot spots" identified in satellite images, said the WRI, had corresponded with reports of land-grabs inside the Trincheira/Bacaja indigenous reserve of Brazil's Para state.</p><p>Deforestation across the Amazon was nearing a threshold, calculated another in March, that once crossed would see it morph into arid savannah within 50 years.</p><p>Indonesia was "one of the few bright spots in the global data," wrote WRI fellow Frances Seymour and colleagues, referring to a 5% loss decline since 2018.</p><p>Tougher enforcement and bans on new oil-palm concessions, had all helped, said Arief Wijaya, expert at World Resources Institute Indonesia.</p>
Bolivia Has 80% Higher Loss
<p>In its Global Forest Watch report, the WRI highlighted Bolivia, saying its removal of primary forest and surrounding woodlands — to produce soy and range cattle in 2019 — had been 80% higher than any of its previous years on record.</p><p>"Its highly biodiverse Chiquitano Dry Forest was particularly affected, with reports that nearly 12% of it burned," said the study.</p><p>Other countries with severe losses had been Peru, Malaysia and Colombia, followed by Laos, Mexico and Cambodia — from 1,620 square kilometers and 800 square kilometers in primal forest lost.</p><p><strong>Indigenous Rights Protect Forests Too</strong></p><p>WRI's Seymour said a "mounting body of evidence" suggested that legal recognition of indigenous land rights "provides greater forest protection:</p><p>"We know that deforestation is lower in indigenous territories," Seymour said.</p><p>Global Forest Watch (GFW) project manager Mikaela Weisse said, if left undisturbed, areas stripped of virgin rainforest would "take decades or even centuries" to get back to their original state.</p><p>Those virgin rainforests destroyed comprised but a third of all tree cover (119,000 million hectares, including plantations) lost across the global tropics in 2019, said the study. </p><p>Its authors again warned that slashing forests had major implications for global goals to curb climate change. </p><p>"At least 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are associated with 2019 primary forest loss, equivalent to the annual emissions of 400 million cars," said the authors. </p><p>Trees are estimated to absorb about a third of all planet-warming emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, including petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.</p>
Pandemic Weakens Enforcement
<p>The current Covid-19 pandemic had changed dynamics, said Weisse, weakening enforcement of forest-protection laws and leaving rural families desperate to feed themselves back home after losing jobs in cities.</p><p>In April, scientists grouped within the Global Carbon Project estimated that coronavirus-induced economic slowdowns would trim carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5% year-on-year.</p><p>It was "something not seen since the end of World War Two," said project chair Rob Jackson, professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, California.</p><p><span></span>But, recalling the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, climate scientist Corinne Le Quéré at England's University of East Anglia, forecast in April that emissions were likely to rebound if structural changes were not instituted.</p>Glasgow's COP26 Postponed
<p>Last week, host Britain confirmed that UN climate talks due in Glasgow, known as COP26, had been postponed a year until between November 1 and 12 2021.</p><p>Experts involved in those long-running negotiations insist that global emissions must start dropping this year to avoid irreversible impacts, including polar melts, record hot weather, rogue storms, and ocean level rises.</p>From Your Site Articles
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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
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Worried About Biodiversity? End Industrial Activity in the Rainforest
22 May 2020
Insights + Opinion
The Ebo Forest in Cameroon, Africa, is a biodiversity hotspot, home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog. San Diego Zoo Global
By Lamfu Fabrice Yengong and Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis. In May last year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that over 1,000,000 species are threatened with extinction worldwide. On May 22, the International Day of Biodiversity, it is important to recall the silent victims of our country's obsession for industrial growth at the expense of our forests.
<p>Tropical rainforests are estimated to harbor more than half of the world's plant and animal species. They are also essential for access to water, regulating temperature and preventing soil erosion. It's time to return the forests to indigenous and local communities. </p><p>In our country, Cameroon, the conservation of biodiversity, global climate goals and human rights of indigenous and local communities are all put at stake for industrial exploitation of the rainforest, driven by short-sighted thinking. Biodiversity hotspots are put at risk by industrial logging and agriculture, as trees are cut for the tropical timber market and entire forests cleared to make room for oil palm and rubber plantations. The government tries to assure conservationists that some space will be reserved for the wildlife in the forest it trashes, but even protected areas are not truly safe. </p><p>Companies, usually foreign-owned, are rapidly destroying rainforests that have existed for years. Local communities are left poorer after their traditional source of livelihood is desecrated. The only ones getting rich are a small group of beneficiaries that are close to the circles of power. </p><p>Some low-income countries that are rich in forests are resorting to quick solutions like logging and industrial agriculture. But industrial logging concessions and rubber and palm oil plantations are never the job-creating mechanism they promise to be. That has been demonstrated over and over again in forest countries around the world.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/407/" target="_blank">the Dja Faunal Reserve</a>, a UNESCO world heritage site in the South of Cameroon, is home to more than 100 species of mammals, including at least 14 primates, such as the endangered western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, and white-collared mangabey, as well as species such as the endangered forest elephant, and the African grey parrot, bongo antelope and leopard.</p><p>The Dja Faunal Reserve is adjacent to the Sudcam rubber plantation, mainly owned by rubber giant Halcyon Agri. Sudcam has cleared more than 10,000 hectares (approximately 25,000 acres) of dense tropical rainforest in the South region of Cameroon – an equivalent of 10 football pitches a day – to make way for a rubber plantation between 2011 and 2018. The rubber plantation has rattled the lives of several indigenous communities, namely the Baka, but it has also aggravated the lives of those numerous protected species in the Dja Reserve.</p><p>To indigenous and local forest dependent communities, the rainforest serves as a source of nutritious foods and traditional medicine, much of which science has yet to explore. The forest is also the foundation of their social life, from recreational to ritual practices. Furthermore, biodiversity loss itself is a direct and immediate threat to the livelihood of indigenous peoples like the Baka next to the Sudcam plantation.</p><p>Upon the arrival of rubber company Sudcam, the indigenous community has lost access to its forest and specifically to the animals and plants they rely on. As Sudcam gets richer, it leaves entire communities in impoverishment, abjectness and destitution. </p>
<p>That is the fate which the chiefs of the Banen people of the Littoral region in Cameroon are trying to avoid <a href="http://www.cameroon-info.net/article/cameroun-denonciation-le-peuple-banen-du-littoral-soppose-a-la-confiscation-de-ses-terres-371484.html" target="_blank">in their current struggle</a> against the destruction of large parts of the Ebo forest. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/blog/ebo-forest-a-stronghold-for-cameroons-wildlife/" target="_blank">Ebo Forest</a> is a biodiversity hotspot, one of the intact forest ecosystems in the Gulf of Guinea, stretching over 2000 square kilometers (approximately 772 square miles). Ebo Forest is home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog – the largest living frog on the planet. Accordingly, it was designated over a decade ago by the Cameroon Government as a National Park. </p><p>However, on February 4, the same government of Cameroon authorized two logging concessions (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P8O3pc1JeLaAnDF1ERXvRrIAzjnw09SG/view" target="_blank">UFA07005</a> and <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n2cgvavirDdYmApiTd5vLV0hQRova6Ed/view" target="_blank">UFA07006</a>) inside the area of Ebo Forest. The planned concessions are enormous – about the size of London. Again, the government of Cameroon wants to convince us that conservation can be done with chainsaws. </p><p>Biodiversity loss doesn't only mean our children would get to see some of the world's most marvelous creatures only in documentary films. The consequences are far greater and more tangible.</p>
<p>The extinction of forest elephants, for example, small relatives of African Savanna elephants, might also reduce the number of large trees that they support, trees that excel at storing carbon. In the Congo Basin forest, the disappearance of forest elephants might mean a loss of about three billion tons of carbon – equivalent to France's CO2 emissions over more than 25 years, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/science/elephants-climate-change.html" target="_blank">New York Times article</a> on recent research published in the journal <em>Nature Geoscience.</em> </p><p>Cameroon's government has made public commitments to preserve and protect biodiversity. Positive declarations and ambitious plans may win applause and some international funding, but all eyes should be on implementation. <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/press/8593/we-were-told-not-to-go-into-the-forest-anymore-greenpeace-investigation-exposes-human-rights-violations-by-halcyon-agri/" target="_blank">Field investigations by Greenpeace Africa</a> and others clearly show how far we are from protecting biodiversity. </p><p>In Cameroon's government, as well as in the meeting rooms and corridors of development agencies, decision makers often hold outdated views. Too often we hear that only through rapid and massive removal of the rainforest in favor of large-scale logging and industrial agriculture plantations can the country emerge out of poverty. </p><p>Yet that model has repeatedly failed the people, as short-term high profits always remained accessible only to a small circle of beneficiaries. On the contrary, local communities who have lived in harmony with nature for many generations are likely to face poverty, abuse, hunger and alcoholism <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-sustainable-development-ravaged-the-congo-basin/" target="_blank">wherever</a> forests are suddenly destroyed. It is becoming increasingly clear that the best solution for both human rights and the planet is for forests to be managed by local communities. They do so much better than the industrial loggers or plantation owners. </p>
<p>The Cameroonian government needs to realize that trashing forests is not the way to make the economy grow. Rapid and intensive exploitation of nature has more far-reaching consequences than short-term economic growth. To prevent the extinction of fauna and flora species, indigenous communities that live among them need the rights to manage their forest.</p>
<p>Standing for biodiversity means communities should get the rights to manage their forests, instead of the corporations that destroy them. </p>
<p class=""><em>Lamfu Fabrice Yengong is a Congo Basin researcher. </em></p><p><em>Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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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
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Land clearing by Digoel Agri. Pusaka
A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world's largest oil palm plantation, in a vast project that has been mired in allegations of lawbreaking.
<p>If seen through to completion, the Tanah Merah project will generate an estimated $6 billion in timber and create a plantation almost twice the size of London, at the heart of the largest tract of intact rainforest left in Asia. It will also release an immense amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, at a time when Indonesia has committed to reducing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/emissions" rel="noopener noreferrer">emissions</a> from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" rel="noopener noreferrer">deforestation</a>.<em></em></p>
<p>Since March of last year, the Digoel Agri Group, founded by a politically connected Jakarta family and now backed by an investor from New Zealand, has bulldozed 170 hectares (420 acres) of rainforest in a section of the project previously spared from land clearing, satellite imagery shows.</p><p>The clearance amounts to a fraction of the 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) allocated for the project, now controlled by several different conglomerates. But it signals that deforestation could quickly accelerate after a decade of false starts by other investors.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MjY0NDkwMH0._HQ_Z7kAXi4eZwIU3A0_ukjQSgfoKvQgtnXaYTPGZJw/img.jpg?width=980" id="6d55a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4d56d58401899bcc49dd41f190d8a9c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1059" data-height="766" />
A satellite view of Digoel Agri's forest clearance, seen in late November 2019.
<p>Since it was first conceived in 2007, the rights to the project have changed hands several times, involving a string of investors who have deployed crude and complex corporate secrecy techniques to hide their identities.</p><p>The licensing process for the project has been plagued by irregularities. A cross-border <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/the-secret-deal-to-destroy-paradise/" target="_blank">investigation</a> by The Gecko Project, Mongabay, Malaysiakini and Tempo, published in November 2018, revealed that key permits were signed by an elected official who was simultaneously serving a prison sentence for embezzling state funds.</p><p>A subsequent <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/revealed-government-officials-say-permits-for-mega-plantation-in-papua-were-falsified/" target="_blank">report</a> found that officials believe other essential permits — for both the plantation and a giant sawmill to process the timber — were falsified.</p><p>Two companies, majority-owned by anonymous firms registered in the United Arab Emirates, began operating on the basis of these permits, to the north of the land now held by Digoel Agri. In response to written questions from The Gecko Project and Mongabay they have denied the allegation that the permits were falsified.</p><p>On paper, Digoel Agri's involvement in the project represents a clean break from those allegations. The firm arrived on the scene after the suspect permits held by earlier investors were revoked and reassigned to it.</p><p>Jackson Iqbal de Hesselle, 32, a member of the Rumangkang family, which is behind Digoel Agri, said its operations were clean. "We're obeying the rules," he said in a recent interview at the firm's office in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province.</p><p>However, while there are no apparent links between Digoel Agri and the previous investors, its ability to operate is partly predicated on the allegedly compromised licensing process that went before.</p><p>The legal basis of Digoel Agri's activities rests partly on decrees rezoning the land to allow development, issued by the Ministry of Forestry in 2012, following requests from earlier investors. The applications were based on the plantation permits that were allegedly falsified.</p><p>As of late last year, Indonesian authorities had yet to investigate the allegations, officials from several agencies <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/revealed-government-officials-say-permits-for-mega-plantation-in-papua-were-falsified/" target="_blank">said at the time</a>.</p><p>NGOs scrutinizing the project assert that officials rushed into reallocating the lands to new investors without properly considering the allegations of irregularities in the licensing process and the environmental and social impacts the project would have.</p><p>Arie Rompas, the head of forest campaigns at Greenpeace Indonesia, called the Tanah Merah project a "public scandal" and said the permits underlying it should be examined and revoked.</p><p>"There is still an opportunity to save this area," he said.</p>
Enter the Rumangkangs
<p>Digoel Agri was set up by members of the Rumangkang family, according to the Indonesian government's corporate registry. The late family patriarch, Ventje Rumangkang, who <a href="https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/pendiri-partai-demokrat-ventje-rumangkang-meninggal-dunia-1stwRMdnjsT" target="_blank">died</a> in February at the age of 74, was a founder of Indonesia's Democratic Party, the vehicle for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's successful presidential run in 2004.</p><p>At their office in Jayapura, Jackson and his brother Jones Rumangkang, 44, said they had decided to invest in the Tanah Merah project after being encouraged to do so by bureaucrats in Boven Digoel, the district in which the project is located. They then formed several companies under the Digoel Agri brand and set about acquiring the permits.</p><p>The brothers said they were helped along by Fabianus Senfahagi, the head of a local indigenous people's association. He had played a role shepherding through the project in its early stages, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/the-secret-deal-to-destroy-paradise/" target="_blank">accompanying</a> surveyors sent by other investors around 2012.</p><p>A paper trail of correspondence among Fabianus and government officials shows he subsequently agitated for the permits to be revoked and reassigned to the Digoel Agri Group.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQzOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzYxNzczMX0.ZcD-KdlSgXx5kqObg-YRDbnfnUz4QLIR0D7G_E2I25s/img.png?width=980" id="e849c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c7a429fa0a26cf860930a108f7da9c6f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="476" data-height="673" /><p>His letters to the district government in 2014 claimed the local Auyu people were anxiously waiting for the project to begin. By this time, the land concessions that would be transferred to the Rumangkangs were majority-owned by Tadmax Resources, a Malaysian logging and property conglomerate. Minority stakes were retained by the Menara Group, an enigmatic Jakarta firm that brought the project to life in 2010.</p><p>Over the next three years, the permits held by Tadmax and Menara were revoked by the district and provincial governments. The stated rationale for cancelling them was the companies' failure to begin operating. However, bureaucrats at the Papua investment agency had also raised concerns that some of the permits had been falsified.</p><p>Tadmax and Menara have not responded to repeated requests to comment on these allegations.</p><p>By 2017, the concessions previously held by Tadmax and Menara had been reallocated to the Digoel Agri Group.</p>
<p>In early 2019, Tadmax and Menara challenged this decision. A letter to the central government from Dr. Sadino & Partners, a law firm representing the joint investors, accused officials of illegally revoking the permits. They also argued that anyone using the same land on the basis of new permits — like the ones underlying Digoel Agri's operations — was committing a crime.</p><p>Jones and Jackson insisted that Digoel Agri was in compliance with the law and had obtained the permits it needed to begin operating, from the district and provincial governments.</p><p>Ordinarily, to convert rainforest to a plantation, Digoel Agri would also have needed to apply to the forestry ministry in Jakarta to rezone the land for development. But by the time the Rumangkangs arrived in Papua, this process had already taken place.</p><p>The Menara Group and its co-investors had obtained decrees rezoning the land from the then-minister in 2011. These decrees were issued on the basis of permits that provincial government officials have repeatedly reported were falsified.</p>
<p>In an interview last year, Sigit Hardwinarto, the ministry's director-general of forest planning, said the rezoning could be reviewed if the allegation that the permits had been falsified was reported to his department.</p><p>The rezoning of the land is a legacy of the administration of President Yudhoyono and then-Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan. During his tenure, Zulkifli <a href="http://www.greenomics.org/vast-majority-of-palm-oil-permits-granted-by-sby-regime" target="_blank">reportedly</a> rezoned 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of land for conversion to oil palm plantations.</p><p>Yudhoyono's successor, President Joko Widodo, and the new forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, have sought to strike a different path. In 2018, Widodo <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/indonesian-president-signs-3-year-freeze-on-new-oil-palm-licenses/" target="_blank">signed</a> a three-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for oil palm plantations.</p><p>The policy had been announced in the wake of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, in which Indonesia's vast peat swamps burned as a result of agricultural fires from the oil palm and timber plantation industries. Toxic smoke from the fires drifted into neighboring countries, creating a public health crisis.</p><p>The moratorium explicitly barred the forestry ministry from rezoning land for oil palm development. It also instructed the cabinet to review all existing oil palm permits with an eye toward possibly revoking them. Several weeks after the president first declared he would sign the moratorium, in 2016, Siti singled out the Tanah Merah project as one that merited scrutiny.</p><p>In comments posted on her <a href="http://www.sitinurbaya.com/kegiatan-menteri-lhk/569-unprecedented-steps-taken-to-reinforce-presidents-palm-oil-expansion-moratorium" target="_blank">personal website</a>, Siti referred disparagingly to the fact that the project appeared to have been established so the licenses could be "traded" to Malaysian investors, and said the president had instructed her to prioritize implementing the moratorium in Papua.</p><p>"We really have to safeguard [the forests of Papua] and must formulate and implement a development concept in Papua to the best of our ability," she quoted Widodo as telling her.</p><p>However, neither these policies nor the allegations around the Tanah Merah project have stymied its progress under the direction of new investors. NGOs monitoring the implementation of the moratorium have noted limited progress in Papua.</p><p>"There has been no significant progress in how this policy is implemented," said Arie, the Greenpeace campaigner. "The Tanah Merah project should be a strong case to see how this [policy] can be carried out seriously and effectively."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQ0NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzM2NTkxNH0.RLGZ7zm1UemDOEwBodOfhoUNpbQLYEYtHN8mU3P9gvw/img.png?width=980" id="59505" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3e81cf5fcb4e682a7e2b84c7c1baa808" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1646" data-height="1250" />
A road cuts through one of the Digoel Agri land concessions, seen in January. Pusaka
Competing Interests
<p>The Rumangkangs insist that the project will benefit the Auyu people. Jones said the ones he met were overjoyed about the prospect of a plantation on their land.</p><p>"They didn't just ask, they cried," he said. "The Auyu tribe is the poorest in Boven Digoel, even though they're so rich [in natural resources]."</p><p>The Rumangkangs have enlisted foreign investors to help them develop the plantation. Their chief partner is a New Zealand property developer named Neville Mahon. In 2018, Mahon became the majority shareholder of the Digoel Agri subsidiaries with land concessions in the project. He could not be reached for comment.</p><p>Mahon associate Thirunavukarasu Selva Nithan, an Australian national, is the sole director of the three companies, corporate records show. Contacted by email, he said he had resigned his position and directed questions to Jackson.</p><p>The involvement of these investors adds to a growing list of actors from across the world with a stake in what could become the world's largest stretch of oil palm. Malaysian logging giant Shin Yang has constructed a sawmill to process timber from the project.</p><p>North of the Digoel Agri concessions, investors whose identities are hidden behind anonymously owned companies in the United Arab Emirates have also begun clearing land, with the Menara Group and the sister of a prominent politician from Indonesia's National Mandate Party as their minor partners. So far, they've bulldozed 8,300 hectares (20,500 acres) of forest, nearly 3% of the project's total area.</p><p>Yet another firm holds the rights to the northernmost block of the project. Corporate records show it is majority owned by two holding companies registered to a letterbox address in Malaysia. The minor shareholder in that venture is the Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau.</p><p>Many Auyu remain steadfastly opposed to the Tanah Merah project, according to Franky Samperante, the director of Pusaka, an Indonesian nonprofit that advocates for indigenous peoples' rights.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQ0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3NTIwMjU3OX0.T5q2XeRAxcNYUvfyjZa35-Fn__foej2oQjRk1imsZfg/img.jpg?width=980" id="4fd7a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9b24cd26b8abc8784869535ba9d4a23c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="511" />
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/new-player-starts-clearing-rainforest-in-worlds-biggest-oil-palm-project/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Franky Samperante. Sandy Watt / The Gecko Project
<p>On a recent trip to the area, he found that members of the Kemon clan, whose land has been targeted by Digoel Agri, did not want the plantation to go ahead on the grounds that it would destroy their food and water supplies.</p><p>He questioned the government's decision to allow the plantation to move ahead, without investigating the allegation that permits held by the earlier investors had been falsified.</p><p>"In light of the irregularities that have arisen, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry must review the decrees rezoning the land," he said. "The government must impose sanctions on the perpetrators."</p>From Your Site Articles
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According to a new study the Amazon rainforest could die in 49 years and rapid deforestation is seen as the main culprit. luoman / E+ / Getty Images
Bigger ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest and the Caribbean coral reefs could be in danger of collapsing more rapidly than was previously assumed, a study has found.
<p>The findings, published Tuesday, also indicated that larger ecosystems may disintegrate at a faster rate than smaller ones.</p>
<p>"The messages here are stark. We need to prepare for changes in our planet's ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged," said Professor John Dearing of the University of Southampton, who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications.</p><p>According to the study, once the threshold is passed, the Amazon rainforest could die in 49 years, while the Caribbean coral reefs would take less than 15 years to collapse completely. In the first case, rapid deforestation is seen as the main culprit, while pollution and acidification is the main factor affecting the health of the corals.</p><p>"These findings are yet another call for halting the current damage being imposed on our natural environments that pushes ecosystems to their limits," Dearing concluded.</p>
<p>While large ecosystems take longer to reach their tipping point because of their size, once this point is reached, the deterioration occurs at a faster pace than smaller systems, the study found.</p><p>It studied 42 different ecosystems - including terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems - that varied vastly in size. Critics of this study, however, think that this was not enough, as there was no tropical rainforest included in the terrestrial ecosystems studied.</p><p>"It is very unlikely, if not dystopian, to expect that an area half the size of Europe will experience a complete shift in vegetation in just 50 years," Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate at the University of Oxford, told the Reuters news agency.</p>
<p>"While there is no doubt that the Amazon is at great risk and that a tipping point is likely, such inflated claims do not help either science or policymaking," she added.</p><p>However, the study's authors think that humanity may need to prepare for change sooner than expected, as the Amazon rainforest could reach its tipping point as early as next year.</p><p><span></span><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/amazon-ecosystem-could-collapse-in-less-than-50-years/a-52716809?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>
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