#deforestation

#deforestation

A sprawling tale of two Singapores, the short documentary Sandcastles draws connections between Singapore, Michigan - a 19th-century ghost town swallowed by sand following widespread deforestation - and the island country of Singapore, where rapid development and land reclamation has, for decades, been enabled by the importation of sand. More poetic exploration than call to action, the work surveys waterways, cycles of development and the transient nature of sand - deceptively sturdy over short timescales but, over decades, quite volatile.

Toilet paper, a product that is used for a few seconds before being disposed of forever, is typically made with trees, energy-intensive manufacturing processes and chemicals that can pollute the environment. Experts say more consumers are seeking toilet paper made from recycled content or sustainable materials, but it can be hard to know what to look for. Sustainable toilet paper often costs more, but can have significant environmental benefits.

Floods ravage villages, leaving thousands displaced in makeshift shelters with little aid. At just 20 days old, Muhammad Hafidz has already endured extraordinary hardship. He and his family are among hundreds of thousands displaced by devastating floods in Aceh Tamiang, where local authorities report all 300,000 residents have been affected by the disaster. Environmental groups attribute the severity to widespread deforestation, which has resulted in entire villages being washed away.

I used to cut trees and never took the titis into account, says Centena, calling the cotton-tops by their local name. I ignored them. I didn't know that they were in danger of extinction, I only knew I had to feed my family. But now we have become friends. Weighing barely a pound (half a kilogram), the tiny monkeys are among the most threatened primates in the world, driven to the brink by medical experiments, rampant deforestation and the illegal pet trade.

It was a tense moment. A group of about 50 people from the Munduruku, an Indigenous people in the Amazon basin, had blocked the entrance to the Cop30 venue in protest, causing long lines of delegates to snake down access roads, simmering in the morning heat. The Munduruku, unhappy about the ruination of their forest and rivers by industry and their lack of voice at Cop30, demanded to speak to Lula da Silva, Brazil's president.

Indonesia has experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades, at an average of 5% a year since 1997. But this progress has been powered by carbon-intensive resources at a steep cost to the environment. Deforestation, peatland drainage and the extraction and burning of coal have powered Indonesia's development model, reshaping landscapes through timber, pulp and mineral excavation and palm-oil booms.

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."

The Israeli government's revocation of the nature reserve status for Jabal Abu Ghneim has led to significant environmental degradation and the establishment of settlements.

The trade tariffs implemented during Donald Trump's administration may inadvertently shift demand for soya-bean exports away from the United States, leading to increased deforestation risks.