Harvard and TIAA’s Farmland Grab in Brazil Goes Up in Smoke

By Farmlandgrab.org Staff, Farmlandgrab.org

It may come as a shock to Harvard students, faculty, and alumni, as well as the millions of educators and others in the United States whose pensions are managed by TIAA, to learn that these two institutions are deeply and directly invested in this destructive expansion of agribusiness. Over the past twelve years, TIAA and Harvard University have collectively spent over $1 billion on Brazilian farmland, making them two of the largest owners of farmland in the Cerrado.

A Statement on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

By Staff, IPCC Response, IPCCResponse

We—Indigenous Peoples and local communities—play a critical role in stewarding and safeguarding the world’s lands and forests. For the first time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today recognizes that strengthening our rights is a critical solution to the climate crisis.

To Reduce Fire Risk and Meet Climate Targets, Over 300 Scientists Call for Stronger Land clearing laws

By Martine Maron, Andrea Griffin, April Reside, Bill Laurance, Don Driscoll, Euan Ritchie, Steve Turton, The Conversation

Australia’s high rates of forest loss and weakening land clearing laws are increasing bushfire risk, and undermining our ability to meet national targets aimed at curbing climate change.

Protecting the Coastal Douglas Fir Forest: Seven Practical Solutions

By Guy Dauncey, The Practical Utopian

The Coastal Douglas fir biogeoclimatic zone that dominates the landscape on the east coast of Vancouver Island is the smallest and most at-risk zone in B.C., with the highest number of species and ecosystems at risk, many of which are ranked globally as imperiled or critically imperiled.

The Road to the Seneca Cliff is Paved with Evil Intentions. How to Destroy the World’s Forests

By Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's legacy

With the era of cheap fossil fuels coming to a close, what's left as low-cost fuel is wood and that had to be the target of the next wave of exploitation. Naively, I was thinking that the rush to wood would have taken the form of desperate people moving to the woods with hand-held axes, but no, in Italy it is coming in a much more destructive way.

Burning Down the House: Myanmar’s Destructive Charcoal Trade

By Emmanuel Freudenthal, Mongabay

Deep in the heart of the forests of Myanmar, a massive trade in illicit charcoal to neighboring China is feeding a multi-million dollar industry that connects the forests and its people to industrial warehouses in China and the products they make for the world.

The Global Road-Building Explosion is Shattering Nature

By Bill Laurance, The Conversation

The bottom line is that if we’re smart and plan carefully, we can still increase food production and human equity across much of the world.

Feeding the World: Can we Preserve Forests, Go Organic, and Eat Meat?

By Roz Pidcock, Carbon Brief

It is possible to produce enough food to feed a growing population without another tree being felled, according to new research. But there’s a catch.

Planting a million trees for Malawi

By Sabine Joukes, New Internationalist Blog

We will continue to plant the trees together with Malawi’s communities, and we have a joint responsibility to see they survive.

How Forest Loss Is Leading To a Rise in Human Disease

By Jim Robbins, Yale Environment 360

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that the felling of tropical forests creates optimal conditions for the spread of mosquito-borne scourges, including malaria and dengue. Primates and other animals are also spreading disease from cleared forests to people.