insert_link Environment Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right? By Aimee Gabay, via Mongabay Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a pillar of stability and opportunity for at least 16 million people worldwide, particularly in rural, impoverished communities. But with these pros also come cons. Given the serious contamination and environmental degradation associated with it, nations around the world are pushing for more sustainable laws and regulations. The question remains for policymakers, however: Can policymakers ever get it right? […] todayAugust 14, 2024 80
insert_link Environment Hopes fade for more survivors in Indian landslide rescue Indian rescue crews scoured mud-caked tea plantations and villages Thursday with little hope of finding more survivors from successive landslides that killed around 200 people. Days of torrential monsoon rains have battered the southern coastal state of Kerala, with blocked roads into the Wayanad district disaster area complicating relief efforts since Tuesday. The number of fatal floods and landslides in India has increased in recent years and […] todayAugust 1, 2024 16
insert_link Environment Analysis: Michelin’s no-deforestation claims in Indonesia rubber plantation a stretch Rubber manufacturer Michelin claims to have avoided millions of tons of carbon emissions and saved thousands of hectares of primary forest in a sustainable rubber plantation project in Indonesia. Michelin joined the project in 2014 after buying a stake in the Indonesian rubber company RLU, which in 2018 raised $95 million in green bonds. In 2022, Michelin became RLU’s sole shareholder, and repaid the green bonds raised by the project. […] todayMay 30, 2024 37
insert_link Africa Ghana’s forests are being wiped out: what’s behind this and why attempts to stop it aren’t working By John Tennyson Afele, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Ghana has around 7.9 million hectares of forested land (35% of the total land area), according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Around 7.6 million hectares are primary or naturally regenerated forest, and around 297,000 hectares are planted forest. In 2022, Ghana lost 18,000 hectares of primary forest, a nearly 70% increase from […] todayMay 15, 2024 31
insert_link Africa Madagascar’s ancient baobab forests are being restored by communities – with a little help from AI By Seheno Andriantsaralaza, Université d’Antananarivo Six of the world’s eight baobab species are indigenous to Madagascar, where the distinctive trees with giant trunks have historically grown in huge forests. But these forests are threatened by slash-and-burn agriculture – 4,000 hectares of baobab forest in Madagascar are destroyed every year. Baobab trees can live for 1,000 years and one hectare of land can support eight […] todayMay 13, 2024 46
insert_link Environment Report links H&M and Zara to major environmental damage in biodiverse Cerrado A report by U.K. investigative NGO Earthsight links supply chains of fashion giants H&M and Zara to large-scale illegal deforestation, land-grabbing, violence and corruption in Brazil. The country’s Cerrado region, home to a third of Brazil’s species, has already lost half of its vegetation to large-scale agriculture and is under increasing pressure from a booming cotton industry. The two major producers linked to illicit activities, SLC Agrícola and Grupo Horita, […] todayApril 23, 2024 17
insert_link Environment A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon A paper trail left by a notorious land grabber reveals how he used relatives and an employee as fronts to evade environmental fines and lawsuits, shedding light on this widespread practice in the Brazilian Amazon. Fronts prevent the real criminals from having their assets seized to pay for environmental fines, besides consuming time and resources from the authorities, who spend years trying to prove who the real financier of the […] todayApril 23, 2024 17
insert_link Environment Toilet paper: Environmentally impactful, but alternatives are rolling out By Petro Kotzé Toilet paper is so common in some countries it’s only noticed when it’s not there, as exemplified by the panic buying that prompted shortages when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Thought to be in use in China since the sixth century, inventor Joseph C. Gayetty patented the first U.S. commercial “medicated paper” in the 1850s. Since then, demand has soared in many places, bolstered by rising population, […] todayMarch 18, 2024 80
insert_link Environment In Cambodia, an official’s cashew factory churns out timber from a protected forest By Gerald Flynn & Phoung Vantha Vegetation lurches over a concrete wall that runs alongside a quiet road in the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. Behind the wall, and the rusty gate that serves as the only entrance point, sits one of Cambodia’s three medium-sized cashew nut processing factories. At 2 p.m. on a Thursday in late November last year, the road is silent under the […] todayFebruary 20, 2024 17