Category Archives: Trees and forests

‘We depend on the Tongass’: Alaskans fight to save US’s largest national forest

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Tribal leaders to testify before Congress in battle against Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections

Tribal leaders, fishermen and environmentalists from Alaska will testify before Congress on Wednesday in a bid to save America’s biggest national forest – the latest battle against the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.

The Tongass national forest, one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests which plays a crucial role in fighting the climate crisis, is under threat of logging as Alaska seeks exemption from the Roadless Rule, which protects millions of acres of pristine forests across the US. The Tongass is considered the “crown jewel” of the national forest system, sequestering huge amounts of carbon dioxide to keep the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.

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Poorly planned Amazon dam project ‘poses serious threat to life’

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Operator faces choice of weakening 14km barrier or potentially devastating a biodiversity hotspot

The biggest hydroelectric project in the Amazon rainforest has a design flaw that poses a “very serious” threat to human life and globally important ecosystems, according to documents and expert testimony received by the Guardian.

The studies suggest engineers failed to anticipate the impact of water shortages on the Pimental dam at Belo Monte, which has been closed and turned into a barrier. This is forcing the operators to choose between a structural weakening of the 14km-wide compacted-earth barrier and a reallocation of water in the reservoir or on the Xingu river, which is home to indigenous communities, fishing villages and some of the world’s most endangered species.

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Money and maps: is this how to save the Amazon’s 400bn trees?

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Alarmed by the impact of logging, indigenous Peruvians are using satellite mapping to manage their land

The first thing Ramón heard about the deal was the televisions. A number of families from the Asháninka indigenous group had received them from outsiders, in exchange for land. Loggers were interested in the mahogany, oak and tornillo trees that grow to impressive heights in this part of the rainforest around Cutivireni in central Peru.

The loggers had other means of persuasion, besides bribery. They might offer to build a school or a meeting house in exchange for timber. When the work ran over budget, they would demand money – and since the Asháninka had none, they would take more trees to service the debt, according to Adelaida Bustamante, the community treasurer. And if that failed, they used violence. In 2014, four forest defenders from the Asháninka were murdered for their campaign to keep loggers off their land (Ramón asked me not to use his real name).

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Forest guardians: the Asháninka of Peru – in pictures

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In an area of the Amazon vulnerable to illegal loggers, Cool Earth, a UK-based charity, is working with the Asháninka people to reduce deforestation. Photographer Alicia Canter travelled to Cutivireni in central Peru

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Brazilian ‘forest guardian’ killed by illegal loggers in ambush

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Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed by armed loggers in the Araribóia region in Maranhão

A Brazilian indigenous land defender has been killed in an ambush by illegal loggers in an Amazon frontier region.

According to a statement by the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Association, Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot and killed inside the Araribóia indigenous territory in Maranhão state. Another tribesman, Laércio Guajajara, was also shot and hospitalised and a logger has been reported missing. No body has yet been recovered.

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‘Once they’re gone, they’re gone’: the fight to save the giant sequoia

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A conservation group plans to buy the largest privately owned sequoia grove as the climate crisis threatens the species’ future

Few living beings have experienced as much as the giant sequoias. With ancestors dating back to the Jurassic era, some of the trees that now grow along California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains been alive for thousands of years, bearing witness to most of human history – from the fall of the Roman empire to the rise of Beyoncé.

But a couple hundred years of human encroachment on to the sequoias’ habitat, combined with the climate crisis, increasingly intense wildfires, and drought have threatened the species’ future. The last of the world’s most massive trees now live on just 73 groves scattered across the Sierras. Most lie within protected national parks such as Sequoia national park, where visitors flock from around the world to marvel at General Sherman, the world’s most massive tree.

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Faces for fallen trees: the man behind Rome’s tree stump sculptures

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Cities on Instagram: Andrea Gandini is breathing new life into the ancient city’s many decapitated tree trunks

You may not know his face or name, but if you’ve visited Rome recently, chances are you may have seen his work.

Sculptor Andrea Gandini, 22, is transforming tree stumps around the city by carving faces into them. In the last four years he has made 65 such sculptures in the capital as part of his Troncomorto (“dead trunk”) project, documenting his creations on his Instagram account.

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Prince Harry’s Instagram takeover barks up the right tree

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While his captions weren’t up to much, the prince’s takeover of the National Geographic’s Instagram on his tour in Africa had a larger purpose

When celebrities become guest editors of corporate social media accounts, it usually results in dozens of pouting selfies. For this reason, Prince Harry’s takeover of the National Geographic Instagram account to encourage people to “look up” and get lost in the beauty of trees is a weirdly enticing concept.

On Monday, the Duke of Sussex curated a set of images of forest canopies each taken by National Geographic photographers, which went out to the publication’s 123 million followers. The idea was to highlight the importance of conservation while spotlighting the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy campaign, which will result in two national parks being created in South Africa, where Harry is touring. As part of the campaign, 50 countries have either dedicated indigenous forest for conservation or committed to planting millions of new trees to combat climate change.

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Philippines’ war on drugs fuels attacks on land defenders – report

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Study shows martial law in an island territory is also being used as pretext for violence

President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and declaration of martial law in an island territory are being used as a pretext to attack people defending their land and environment in the Philippines, new research shows.

The resource-rich archipelago in south-east Asia is the world’s most murderous country for people who oppose logging, destructive mining and corrupt agribusiness. At least 30 people were killed in the Philippines last year, following 48 in 2017, dislodging Brazil from the top spot for the first time since the independent watchdog Global Witness began monitoring in 2012.

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Rewilding will make Britain a rainforest nation again | George Monbiot

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I will take vision and a willingness to confront vested interests, but we can restore our trashed ecosystems

The forests still burn, but the world now looks away. In both the Amazon basin and the rainforests of Indonesia, the world-scorching inferno rages on, already forgotten by most of the media. Intricate living systems, species that took millions of years to evolve, are being incinerated in moments, then replaced with monocultures. Giant plumes of carbon tip us further into climate breakdown. And we’re not even talking about it.

Related: World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds

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Greta Thunberg: ‘We are ignoring natural climate solutions’

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Film by Swedish activist and Guardian journalist George Monbiot says nature must be used to repair broken climate

The protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked, Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have warned in a new short film.

Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.

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‘Chaos, chaos, chaos’: a journey through Bolsonaro’s Amazon inferno

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A 2,000km road and river odyssey in Brazil reveals consensus from all sides: Bolsonaro has ushered in a new age of wrecking

From afar it resembles a tornado: an immense grey column shooting thousands of feet upwards from the forest canopy into the Amazonian skies.

Up close it is an inferno: a raging conflagration obliterating yet another stretch of the world’s greatest rainforest as a herd of Nelore cattle looks on in bewilderment.

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Amazon fires are a shameful indictment of our lust for excess

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The flames engulfing the world’s biggest rainforest are a human tragedy as well as an environmental one. We are all to blame

The scale of the devastation caused by the wildfires still raging in the Amazon is hard to comprehend. This is a rainforest that provides one-fifth of the world’s oxygen; it is hard not to feel powerless and despairing in the face of the disaster overtaking the region.

But however strong – and bitter – the feeling about this as an environmental catastrophe, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is also a human tragedy.

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Amazon fires are ‘true apocalypse’, says Brazilian archbishop

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Erwin Kräutler says he expects next month’s papal synod to denounce destruction of rainforest

The fires in the Amazon are a “true apocalypse”, according to a Brazilian archbishop who expects next month’s papal synod at the Vatican to strongly denounce the destruction of the rainforest.

The comments by Erwin Kräutler will put fresh pressure on the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, following criticism from G7 leaders last month over the surge of deforestation in the world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink.

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Amazon fires show world heading for point of no return, says UN

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Biodiversity chief calls for countries to unite to halt rapid degradation of nature

The fires in the Amazon are “extraordinarily concerning” for the planet’s natural life support systems, the head of the UN’s top biodiversity body has said in a call for countries, companies and consumers to build a new relationship with nature.

Related: Brazil: fears for isolated Amazon tribes as fires erupt on protected reserves

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Brazil: fears for isolated Amazon tribes as fires erupt on protected reserves

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  • Fires broke out in 131 indigenous reserves from 15-20 August
  • Campaigners say indigenous territories easy targets for loggers

Fires have been reported in protected indigenous reserves of the Brazilian Amazon, raising fears that loggers and land grabbers have targeted these remote areas during the dramatic surge in blazes across the world’s biggest rainforest.

Blazes have been seen on the Araribóia indigenous reserve in Maranhão state – a heavily deforested reserve on the Amazon’s eastern fringes, which is home to about 80 people from an isolated group of Awá indigenous people, described by the NGO Survival International as the world’s most endangered tribe.

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Jair Bolsonaro demands Macron withdraw ‘insults’ over Amazon fires

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Brazilian and French presidents continue feud over G7 aid package for wildfires raging in Amazon rainforest

Brazil’s far-right president and his backers have escalated their row over the Amazon with Emmanuel Macron, attacking the French president’s “lamentable colonialist stance” as fires continued to rage in the world’s biggest rainforest.

As Brazil said it would reject a $20m (£16m) G7 contribution to fight the fires, Jair Bolsonaro spurned Macron’s criticism of his environmental record and flaunted Donald Trump’s support for his far-right administration.

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Amazon rainforest fires: Brazil to reject $20m pledged by G7

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Senior official says funds should be spent on reforesting Europe and not on ‘colonialist practices’

A senior Brazilian official has told Emmanuel Macron to take care of “his home and his colonies” as Brazil rejected an offer from G7 countries of $20m (£16m) to help fight fires in the Amazon.

“We appreciate [the offer], but maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe,” Onyx Lorenzoni, the chief of staff to President Jair Bolsonaro, told the G1 news website.

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G7 cash for Amazon fires is ‘chump change’, say campaigners

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World leaders offer $20m now plus reforestation plan, but critics want major policy shifts

The G7’s pledge of $20m (£16m) to douse the fires in the Amazon has been dismissed as “chump change” by environmental campaigners, as concerns grow about political cooperation on deforestation and other climate issues.

The summit host, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, told reporters he would try to deal with the long-term causes by creating an international alliance to save the rainforest, with details of a reforestation programme to be unveiled at next month’s UN climate meeting in New York.

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Macron: ‘All G7 powers must help Brazil fight raging Amazon fires’

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French president talks up trade sanctions as world leaders convene and thousands of Brazilians march against Bolsonaro

Emmanuel Macron has asked for world powers to help Brazil and its neighbours fight the fires raging in the Amazon and to plan huge replanting programmes. The appeal came as the French president piled pressure on Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who has been accused of fuelling the burning of the rainforest.

As environmental protesters marched nearby, the G7 summit’s, opening meeting was dominated by the spectre of economic repercussions for Brazil and its South American neighbours and showed how the Amazon is becoming a battleground between Bolsonaro and the west. Many governments have become alarmed that vast swathes of the Amazon are going up in smoke, affecting biodiversity and worsening the climate crisis.

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