Category Archives: Trees and forests

Amazon loses London-sized area of rainforest in a month with Bolsonaro’s reign under threat

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Large area destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before possible change of president

Amazon deforestation has soared ahead of Brazil’s environmentally vital presidential election, with an area almost the size of Greater London lost last month alone.

Government satellites show a 1,455-sq km area of rainforest was destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before a possible change of president could bring Jair Bolsonaro’s era of destruction to an end.

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‘This land belonged to us’: Nestlé supply chain linked to disputed Indigenous territory

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Investigation reveals cattle raised on Mỹky territory ended up in global supply chain including food giant

On one side of the fence, in dense forest, the Mỹky people grow their crops: cassava, pequi and cabriteiro fruit. On the other side, ranchers raise cattle on devastated land. That land is the Mỹky’s, they say.

Xinuxi Mỹky, the village elder, says this region used to be a forest where different villages thrived. Only one now remains and the farms have cut into that land as well. “This pasture, where the whites live, was also our village, but now they are raising cattle. The land belonged to us: Indigenous peoples.”

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Brazilian forest guardian killed weeks after joining Amazon summit

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Janildo Oliveira Guajajara had recently taken part in an Amazon assembly organised by murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira

A rainforest activist from one of Brazil’s leading Indigenous protection groups has been killed just weeks after participating in an Amazon assembly organised by the murdered Indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira.

Janildo Oliveira Guajajara, a member of the Guardiões da Floresta (Forest Guardians) collective, was reportedly shot dead in the early hours of Saturday near the Araribóia Indigenous territory where he lived.

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Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says

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Swathes of rainforest have reached tipping point, research by scientists and Indigenous organisations concludes

Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found.

“The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,” the report concludes. “Brazil and Bolivia concentrate 90% of all combined deforestation and degradation. As a result, savannization is already taking place in both countries.”

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Toxins in soil, blasted forests – Ukraine counts cost of Putin’s ‘ecocide’

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Environmentalists are measuring the impact of Russian military’s devastation and hope to force Moscow into making reparations

The woods outside Chernihiv were quiet in late August when Anatoliy Pavelko scrambled into a 10-metre bomb crater with a trowel and an icebox full of sample jars. He wanted to find out what the Russian FAB-250 bomb left behind when it carved this gaping hole into the ground in the spring.

Four months earlier, the environmental lawyer was dug in on a frontline just a few kilometres away, shells crashing around him in the bitter fight to keep Russian forces out of Kyiv.

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Anglo-French oil firm threatens Amazon reserve for isolated Indigenous people

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Perenco sues Peru government for repeal of law that offers recognition to proposed Napo-Tigre reserve

Isolated Peruvian tribes face a threat to their existence from a push to scrap a planned Indigenous reserve led by an Anglo-French oil company, Indigenous groups say.

The firm, Perenco, whose slogan is “Oil remains an adventure”, filed an injunction in May for the repeal of a law offering preliminary government recognition to a proposed Napo-Tigre reserve. The first hearing is scheduled on 7 September.

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US and DRC to work together on protection of rainforest and peatlands

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Antony Blinken announces formal working group during Kinshasa visit, while voicing concerns over auction of oil and gas permits

The US and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have agreed to form a working group to protect the enormous Congo basin rainforest and peatlands, which are threatened by oil and gas exploration.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement in Kinshasa on Tuesday while expressing his concern over the sale of dozens of oil and gas permits in the DRC that included blocks in Virunga national park and the Cuvette Centrale tropical peatlands, part of an area described as “the worst place on the planet” to drill for oil and gas.

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Victoria passes laws raising penalties for environmental protesters at logging sites

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Despite pleas from unions and the Greens, the bill easily passed upper house after Coalition sided with Labor

New laws to crack down on protests at Victorian logging sites have been pushed through state parliament despite an 11th-hour push from unions.

The Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 passed Victoria’s upper house on Thursday evening, with the final vote count 30 to five after Labor and the coalition joined forces.

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WA ring road approved by federal government threatens ancient trees and endangered wildlife

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Tanya Plibersek’s department gave green light despite state of environment report finding Australia’s natural heritage is in poor and deteriorating health

Ancient giant trees and threatened birds, mammals and ecosystems are being sacrificed for a ring road south of Perth approved by the Albanese government, leading conservationists say.

Habitat for the critically endangered western ringtail possum and endangered black cockatoos will be allowed to be cleared for a section of the $1.25bn Bunbury outer ring road.

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Reforestation company ‘devastated’ after causing wildfire in Spain

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Blaze, estimated to have damaged 14,000 hectares, started after spark escaped from soil excavator

An international reforestation company has said it is “devastated” after one of its contractors accidentally caused a massive fire in Spain, where dozens of calamitous wildfires have raged this week.

Land Life, a Netherlands-based company with offices in Spain and the US, said the fire broke out on Monday at one of its reforestation projects in Ateca in the north-eastern region of Aragón.

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Wild species support half of world’s population, report finds

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Sustainability is key to survival of billions of people, says UN study, which notes income from wild species incentivises conservation

• Patrick Vallance: ‘We need to change if we’re to survive’

Wild plants, animals, fungi and algae support half of the world’s population but their future use is threatened by overexploitation, according to a new assessment by leading scientists.

From the 10,000 known wild species that humans harvest for food to the firewood that one in three people need for cooking, nature is key to the livelihoods and survival of billions of people in developed and developing countries, says a new UN report.

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‘Dom Phillips was natural storyteller – for us, he was always Uncle Dom’

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Nieces of journalist killed in the Amazon pay tribute to their uncle, who sent frequent and funny emails about life in Brazil

Dom Phillips was a storyteller. Through his career as a journalist, he told the stories of those who were unable to speak out and whose views were overlooked. His second book, How to Save the Amazon, aimed to do exactly this – to speak the story of the Amazon and the Indigenous people within it, and provide solutions to preserve their culture in conjunction with current Brazilian society.

For us, however, he was always Uncle Dom. He has been present in our lives since we were born and was very much involved with our upbringing when we were small children. He remained a positive influence, even when he moved to Brazil in 2007.

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Brazil police arrest third suspect in killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

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Jefferson da Silva Lima turned himself in to Amazon police as autopsy finds journalist and indigenous expert were shot

Brazil’s federal police said Saturday that a third suspect in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira has been arrested. The pair, whose remains were found after they went missing almost two weeks ago, were shot to death, according to an autopsy.

Phillips was shot in the chest and Pereira was shot in the head and the abdomen, police said in a statement. It said the autopsy indicated the use of a “firearm with typical hunting ammunition.”

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Police losing narco war in deadly Amazon region where duo disappeared

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A key police outpost lies in ruins after a daring raid – a sign of the growing danger on an increasingly lucrative smuggling route

In the crime-infested tri-border region where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, rumours abound over what happened at Puerto Amelia in January this year.

Were Brazilian drug traffickers responsible for burning the Peruvian police outpost on the River Yavarí to the ground?

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Young people wanted in UK forestry amid critical shortage of tree surgeons

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Institute of Chartered Foresters says 70% more staff must be recruited to meet current tree planting targets

When Kevin Martin was a child he spent days beneath the canopy of Hampshire woodlands while his father, a tree surgeon, scaled the heights of oak and ash above him.

Twenty years later, with a degree and with research for a master’s under way, Martin is in charge of tending to the 14,000 trees at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. With trees at the forefront of UK strategies to reach net zero by 2050, Martin and others like him are key professionals on the frontline of the fight to mitigate the impact of climate change and adapt to the changing conditions.

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Paris protesters celebrate saving trees around the Eiffel Tower

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City abandons €72m scheme to develop area and create huge garden in time for 2024 Olympics

Protesters in Paris are celebrating having saved more than 40 trees – one of them over 200 years old – from being chopped down or threatened with damage around the Eiffel Tower as part of a €72m scheme to create a huge garden.

Paris’s city hall has been forced to row back on plans to clear the area around the structure on the Champ-de-Mars to improve access to the tower and make the traffic-clogged area greener in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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Ancient cypress in Chile may be the world’s oldest tree, new study suggests

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The tree, in Chile’s Alerce Costero national park, is known as the Great Grandfather and could be more than 5,000 years old

Scientists in Chile believe that a conifer with a four-metre-thick trunk known as the Great Grandfather could be the world’s oldest living tree, beating the current record-holder by more than 600 years.

A new study carried out by Dr Jonathan Barichivich, a Chilean scientist at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory in Paris, suggests that the tree, a Patagonian cypress, also known as the Alerce Milenario, could be up to 5,484 years old.

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Ancient forest found at bottom of huge sinkhole in China

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Scientists believe site in Guangxi with trees up to 40 metres tall may contain undiscovered species

An ancient forest has been found at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in China, with trees up to 40 metres (130ft) tall.

Scientists believe it could contain undiscovered plant and animal species.

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Endangered tree seedlings planted in secret locations on NSW north coast

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Seeds from nightcap oak trees were collected and propagated after black summer bushfires destroyed or damaged 20% of the population

Seedlings of an endangered tree are being planted in secret locations on the New South Wales north coast in an attempt to save the species after devastating bushfires.

The critically endangered nightcap oak trees date back to the Gondwana supercontinent era and can grow up to 40 metres tall, but are only found in northern NSW.

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