Amazon rainforest destruction slows sharply year to date, report says
Sao Paulo, BrazilReuters Destruction across the Amazon rainforest so far this year has slowed dramatically, down 55.8 per cent from the same period a year ago in a major turnaround for the region vital to curbing climate change, according to an analysis provided to Reuters. The analysis by the non-profit Amazon Conservation’s MAAP forest monitoring […]
Biggest rainforest nations form triple alliance to save jungle
Nusa Dua, Indonesia Reuters The world’s three largest rainforest nations Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia on Monday formally launched a partnership to cooperate on forest preservation after a decade of on-off talks on a trilateral alliance. Reuters reported in August that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, elected as Brazil’s President at the end […]
Wow!: Climate-resistant coffee trees could save Mozambique rainforest
SISIPHO SKWEYIYA and EMIDIO JOZINE, of Reuters, report on how coffee plants are providing incentives to protect the rainforest…
Two-thirds of tropical rainforest destroyed or degraded globally, NGO says
Brasilia, BrazilReuters Humans have degraded or destroyed roughly two-thirds of the world’s original tropical rainforest cover, new data reveals – raising alarm that a key natural buffer against climate change is quickly vanishing. The forest loss is also a major contributor of climate-warming emissions, with the dense tropical forest vegetation representing the largest living reservoir […]
Amazon losses help drive growing wildfires elsewhere in Brazil
Sao Paulo, BrazilThomson Reuters Foundation Losses of Amazon rainforest are helping drive increasingly severe droughts in southern Brazil and Argentina that are contributing to surging wildfires there this season, a Brazilian scientist said. More than three million hectares of land have burned this year in Brazil’s wildlife-rich Pantanal, a tropical wetlands that normally alternates between […]
Global warming fast shrinking rainforest role as climate protector
Kuala LumpurThomson Reuters Foundation The amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide that can be sucked up from the atmosphere and stored by tropical forests is falling as the global climate heats up, researchers said on Wednesday. They warned in a study that rainforests could tip from absorbing carbon to becoming a source of emissions faster than […]
Asian pulp giants pressed to paper over rivalry to save rainforest
Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaThomson Reuters Foundation Asia’s pulp and paper giants – which supply materials for stationery, tissues and toilet roll – are being urged by environmentalists to follow the palm oil industry in stepping up collaboration to tackle forest loss and fires in Indonesia. Singapore’s APRIL Group and its main rival Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & […]
ESSAY: AMAZONIAN BISHOPS CONDEMN ATTACKS ON RAINFOREST AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
US Catholic commentator THOMAS REESE, in an article first published on Religion News Service, looks back at this week’s Amazon Synod…
CATHOLIC CHURCH: OPPOSITION TO AMAZON SYNOD SPURS NEW RIGHT-WING COALITION IN BRAZIL
EDUARDO CAMPOS LIMA, of Religion News Service, reports from Brazil ahead of the Vatican’s Amazon synod which starts this Sunday…
Resisting the loggers: Swiss explorer film spotlights threatened Malaysian tribe
Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaThomson Reuters Foundation A film about one of the world’s last hunter-gatherer tribes living in Malaysia’s rainforest premiers on Thursday, with its Indigenous actors urging authorities to formally grant them land rights after a decades-long battle. Paradise War, which debuts at the Zurich Film Festival, follows the 1984 expedition made by intrepid Swiss […]