deforestation

Almost a third of the world population is now exposed to deadly heatwaves that are a result of climate change, says a study published in Nature Climate Change.

For the third time, Indonesia has extended its moratorium on issuing licenses to clear forests and peat land, says Reuters. The nation's environment and forestry minister told the news agency the extension will run for two years and allow officials time to develop regulations on forest use.

Brazil's environmental regulator says that meatpacking giant JBS "for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land," says Reuters. JBS denied the allegation, which comes at the same time the Brazilian meat industry is reeling from a meat-inspection scandal.

Nearly 2 million acres — 3,100 square miles — of forested land were cleared for agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon in the year ending July 2016, while Bolivia has cut down 865,000 acres, equal to 1,351 square miles, annually, says The New York Times. "A decade after the 'Save the Rainforest' movement forced changes that dramatically slowed deforestation across the Amazon basin, activity is roaring back in some of the biggest expanses of forests in the world," said the newspaper.

The maker of Nutella says the hazelnut spread would never be as good without palm oil, reports Reuters. The Italian company, Ferrero, defended the oil after a European Food Safety Authority report suggested that it is potentially carcinogenic when heated above 390 degrees Fahrenheit. The oil is regularly heated to high temperatures in industry manufacturing to remove its red color and odor.

Ralph Lauren Corp. joins a growing number of fashion companies that have pledged to not use products derived from cleared forests or that required grabbing land from indigenous people, says Reuters. The company says it has new plans to track its sourcing and avoid parts of the world that practice extreme deforestation and human rights abuses.

More than half the deforestation in the Malaysian half of Borneo is due to palm oil plantations and wood-pulp companies, according to four decades of satellite images, says Reuters. Borneo is shared by Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producers, as well as Brunei.

Environmental activists are being assassinated around the world because of their opposition to the palm oil industry, says Jocelyn Zuckerman in FERN's latest story, published with The New Yorker.

Researchers say Indonesia is clearing more forest land – as much as 2 million acres a year – than any other nation in the drive to produce palm oil and logs for paper mills. The government tightened a moratorium against converting peat swamps to plantations this week, said Associated Press, a step that a conservation group says will reduce fires during the dry season and could cut Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions substantially.

Some activist groups are abandoning the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil—a panel of palm producers, consumer companies, and activist groups that provides sustainability certificates for the industry—over complaints that it has not done enough to correct industry abuses.

Four hundred of the biggest food companies in the U.S. and Europe have pledged not to buy from suppliers responsible for deforestation. But no one can say for sure whether their promises are actually protecting forests, according to a report from Climate Focus.

In Gazi Bay, Kenya, a carbon-credit program is saving mangrove forests by encouraging fishermen to cash in instead of cutting down trees. As part of the Mikoko Pamoja (Mangroves Together) program, “[l]ocal people who are protecting and replanting mangroves are now selling 3,000 tonnes of carbon credits a year to international buyers, for about $5-$6 a tonne," says Reuters.

The world's leading grower of cocoa, Ivory Coast is confronting the mounting problem of deforestation by evicting tens of thousands of illegal cocoa farmers from its eight national parks, five nature reserves and 231 forest preserves, says Reuters. The eviction campaign is one of the nation's last chances to save its dwindling virgin forests, but could mean a large decline in production of its major cash crop, which is the source of chocolate.

Police officers in California's Humboldt County, where most of the state's pot is grown, are turning to environmental laws to catch illegal growers, reports USA Today.

With avocado prices on the rise and American demand booming, Mexican farmers are cutting down trees to plant the fruit. “Avocado trees flourish at about the same altitude and climate as the pine and fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan, the state that produces most of Mexico’s avocados,” says The Seattle Times.

With new leaders in office, Brazil and Colombia dramatically reduced their loss of mature tropical forest in 2023, said Global Forest Watch in an annual report on Thursday. Nonetheless, the world’s tropics lost 3.7 million hectares (more than 14,000 square miles) of primary forest. Losses have run at 3 to 4 million hectares annually for the past two decades.