Pressroom

Weak enforcement continues to undermine efforts to tackle exploitative labour practices in the forestry sector. Despite an elaborate constitution and other laws that meet international requirements, Ghana’s lack of effective regulation enforcement impedes sustainable agricultural production at the national and international level.

The Amazon is burning again, and has been for years – largely because of small farmers and land speculators clearing land to graze cattle or grow soybeans. As a result, the region is dangerously close to the point of no return. A relatively small increase in deforestation could cause the entire Amazon to “flip” to […]

Pope Francis leaves on Wednesday for Africa, where poverty, the environment, foreign exploitation of resources and corruption are expected to be high on his agenda as he visits the continent where Catholicism is growing fast. He will spend most of the Sept. 4-10 trip in Mozambique and Madagascar and briefly visit Mauritius at the end.

Name any fast-food restaurant, personal care product or home good you have bought recently, and chances are it contributed to the deforestation of the Amazon. Now name a big bank ― any big bank, really. More than likely it has helped finance that destruction.

“No podían construir grandes represas ni conocían las avanzadas técnicas de ingeniería que en la actualidad poseemos; sin embargo, los pobladores del antiguo Perú desarrollaron un sistema hidráulico que les permitió manejar los riesgos de sequía en climas extremos. Los mismos que hoy podrían ayudar a mejorar el suministro de agua de la capital.”

Carbon offsetting has increased in popularity and people want to know how it really helps.

Financial Times article on Vietnam’s trade. Includes a statement from Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance’s Phuc Xuan To.

Select dispatches responding to the surfacing evidence of climate change. Includes a statement from Ecosystem Marketplace’s Stephen Donofrio.

Last month, the Myanmar EITI released two reports that represent an important step toward improved transparency and accountability in Myanmar’s forest sector. These reports uncover irregularities that “may point toward mismanagement or illegal activities. Unclear legal frameworks and weak enforcement in Myanmar’s forestry sector – a remnant of decades of military rule – have created […]

For the first time, the Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) has opened the books to share information with the public on revenue Myanmar’s government collects from harvesting timber. Last month, the MEITI released two reports juxtaposing statistics on production and tax payments from government ministries’ ledgers with corresponding figures reported by the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise […]