A new report from the nonprofit Coffee Watch says that modern coffee production in Brazil continues to be a significant driver of deforestation, with hundreds of thousands of hectares of native forest cleared inside coffee farm boundaries since 2001. Beyond the global implications for biodiversity and climate change, the continued loss of forest in key coffee regions presents economic threats to the Brazilian coffee sector, driving a cycle of drought and yield volatility, according to the report.
The proposal for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) , which Brazil is set to launch at the COP30 climate meeting in Belém next month, will offer countries financial incentives to halt deforestation across more than one billion hectares of tropical forests. But the low payment rate of US$4 per hectare risks undervaluing such lands. The reliance on simplistic metrics for tree cover might enable bad actors to meet standards while harming forests.
An illegal gold rush has cleared 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and is accelerating as foreign, armed groups move into the region to profit from record gold prices, according to a report. About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and its Peruvian partner organisation, Conservacion Amazonica, found.
Deforestation and glacial melting are the two leading causes compounding the climate crisis in the north of Pakistan. It was a routine day, and 26-year-old Muntazer Mehdi had performed his mid-afternoon prayers. Then, after lunch, the mountains started growling. The tailor, who lived in Chogogrung village at the foothills of the Siachen glacier the world's second-largest non-polar glacier knew what he had to do: Run.
The new law widely referred to as the devastation bill passed in congress in the early hours of Thursday by 267 votes to 116, despite opposition from more than 350 organisations and social movements.
"Consumers probably expect that when buying a luxury product, the high price tag guarantees some level of ethics and sustainability," Lara Shirra White, an Earthsight researcher told DW. "They don't expect that the leather bag might be linked to deforestation and human rights violations."
In the Brazilian Amazon, ranchers face a challenging landscape marked by droughts and pressure from multinational corporations, struggling to balance profitability with environmental responsibility.