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Zimbabwe’s policy makers believe that deforestation is a threat to the economy, but citizens believe environmental degradation is an outcome of the country’s dire political and economic situation.
There are more than 3,600 territories in Brazil that are home to Quilombola, descendants of escaped slaves, but few hold titles to the land.
(Elielson Pereira da Silva)
Jair Bolsonaro’s government has put forward laws that could put Indigenous land into the hands of mining, agricultural and timber businesses.
An abandoned gold mine in the Guyana rainforest.
kakteen / shutterstock
Mining strips nitrogen from the soil and means the forest struggles to grow back even after mines are abandoned.
Discussing and agreeing on the boundaries of the community concession is a key first step towards official status for these communities in Yanonge, DRC.
CIFOR/Axel Fassio
Forests must improve communities’ livelihoods to rise as a sustainable management solution
Pangolins have been found with covonaviruses that are genetically similar to the one afflicting humans today.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images
Yellow fever, malaria and Ebola all spilled over from animals to humans at the edges of tropical forests. The new coronavirus is the latest zoonosis.
Forests around the world are changing, affecting unique biodiversity.
Malkolm Boothroyd
New findings show how changes in land use have complex effects on animal and plant species.
The Cendrawasih, commonly known as the Bird of Paradise, is facing extinction.
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By identifying the roots of global ills such as climate change and biodiversity, there’s an opportunity for coordinated action as countries lay new pathways for a post-COVID world.
Lagos State plans to embark on mass planting of trees
Adekunle Ajayi/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Precautions must be taken to realise the full advantage of the benefits associated with trees.
EPA-EFE/Joedson Alves
A repeat of 2019’s disastrous fire season is possible in 2020, and it would have dire consequences.
Indigenous Shipibo people using facial masks made of leaves in the province of Uyacali, Peru.
AIDESEP / EPA
The lockdown may be a greater worry than the disease itself.
Antonio, from the Yanomami village of Watoriki, photographed in November 1992. After contact with Brazilian society in the 1970s, more than half the Yanomami population died from infectious diseases.
William Milliken
There are telling parallels between the current pandemic and those that decimated indigenous populations in the post-Columbian era in the Amazon.
Pxfuel
Before you stock the pantry with chocolate this Easter, think twice about whether it’s ethically produced.
South America’s bi-oceanic highway, which will stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic – cutting right through Paraguay – is scheduled for completion in 2022.
Joel Correia
Mennonites settled in Paraguay’s arid Chaco forest a century ago, fleeing religious persecution. Their agricultural success is now driving deforestation, social change and rapid development.
An Amazon forest in Brazil’s Para state after deforestation and wildfires March 9, 2019. Unlike in some tropical forests, the animals of the Amazon are not adapted to survive fire.
Gustavo Basso/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A new study finds 70% of Amazonian dung beetles were killed by the severe fire and droughts of 2015 to 2016. By spreading seeds and poop, dung beetles fertilize forests and aid regrowth of vegetation.
On Feb. 18, 2020, in Seoul, South Korea, people wearing face masks pass an electric screen warning about COVID-19.
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
COVID-19 is not the first – nor likely the last – to emerge from the two continents.
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Insects are essential to the functioning of land and freshwater ecosystems but species populations are being lost at a rapid rate globally.
Collecting firewood on the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state, Brazil, Oct. 13, 2017. A new bill could open Brazil’s Native lands to development.
APU GOMES/AFP via Getty Images
Native Brazilians are among the Amazon’s most effective defenders against logging and mining, because they’re fighting not just for the environment but for their people’s very survival.
A Brazil nut tree in Jaú National Park, Amazonas, Brazil.
Victor Caetano-Andrade
Trees in tropical forests are more than carbon sponges – they’re cultural artefacts.
Village Forests can reduce poverty and also deforestation if done properly.
Fehmiu Roffytavare/Shutterstock
Village Forests under the Social forestry Scheme can not only reduce poverty but also deforestation, study finds.
Tropical peat swamps like this are being cleared at record rates.
Jamikorn Sooktaramorn/ Shutterstock
Researchers found that palm oil plantations up to five years old were more harmful to the climate than already established ones.