Rainforests are an important defense against climate change because they absorb carbon. But many are being destroyed on a massive scale. 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 […]
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. Wildcat miners come […]
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. If seen through to completion, the Tanah Merah project will generate an estimated $6 billion in timber and create […]
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. The findings, published Tuesday, also indicated that larger ecosystems may disintegrate at a faster rate than smaller ones. “The messages here are stark. We need to prepare for […]
Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered state-owned oil company, Pemex, to build an $8 billion oil refinery. So, the company has followed orders and razed protected mangrove trees to clear way for the controversial project, according to Quartz. Satellite images posted on Quartz show the cleared land to accommodate the construction. Mangrove forests, which […]
The world’s tropical forests are rapidly losing their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, worrying scientists that a major carbon dump will transform them into a carbon source, according to research published Wednesday. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, found that in 15 years the Amazon could turn into a carbon […]
by Justin Catanoso Pope Francis, in an effort to reignite his influence as a global environmental leader, released an impassioned document Feb. 12 entitled Dear Amazon — a response to the historic Vatican meeting last autumn regarding the fate of the Amazon biome and its indigenous people. In a 94-page “exhortation,” Francis argued for the […]
Talk is cheap, says the acting executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, who begged governments around the world to make sure that 2020 is not another year of conferences and empty promises, but instead is the year to take decisive action to stop the mass extinction of wildlife and the destruction […]
Right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has found a new person to blame for the record number of wildfires that have ravaged the Amazon rainforest this year: actor and environmental advocate Leonardo DiCaprio. “Leonardo DiCaprio is a great guy, isn’t he?” Bolsonaro said Friday, as CNN reported. “Donating money to set the Amazon on fire.” This […]
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