Astroturf campaign by the Consumer Alliance for Global Prosperity suffers defeat
A campaign by the Consumer Alliance for Global Prosperity, a group that campaigns on behalf of Asia Pulp and Paper’s interests in the United States, failed to stop Kroger from banning APP’s paper products from its stores. Kroger, America’s largest grocery store, on Thursday said it would no longer sell Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) products due to concerns over deforestation. The move came after Greenpeace targeted Kroger,...
Final House vote on Brazil’s Forest Code likely delayed
Last week Brazil’s Senate voted in favor of the new Forest Code, which regulates how much forest a property owner is required to maintain. But before the new Forest Code becomes law, it must pass the lower house and then win approval by President Dilma Rousseff. With Congress going on recess this week, it now appears the vote will be delayed until after lawmakers return in February. Environmentalists are gearing up for a fight...
Banana plantation threatens rainforest valley (video)
Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains were recently spared a titanium mine, however now the region faces a new peril: bananas. The Australian firm Indochina Gateway Capital Limited has proposed a banana plantation in the Southern Cardamom Mountains. The plantation would likely destroy an elephant corridor for one of Cambodia’s last wild elephant populations. In addition, pesticides used in the plantation could pollute local...
Last chance for the Xingu River and its people? (video)
Brazil recently announced it was going ahead with building the hugely controversial Belo Monte dam, although the construction is set to flood rainforest, change the character of the Xingu River, and displace at least 16,000 people, although transforming the lives of many tens-of-thousands more. Indigenous people along the Xingu have been fighting the dam for decades. Mongabay.com has been following the Belo Monte dam closely:...
Girl Scouts fighting palm oil receive wider media coverage (video)
After five years of campaigning, two Girl Scouts fighting palm oil in Girl Scout cookies are receiving wider media coverage this week after meeting with heads of Girl Scouts of the US. The organization has now agreed to research different options, such as sustainably-grown palm oil or using another ingredient, reports the Wall Street Journal. Above, the Girl Scout activists are interviewed on the CBS Early Show. For more information:...
Activism: save the cerrado, starting at your supermarket
Note: mongabay.com does not endorse the action below, but believes its readers may be interested in taking action or discussing the issue in comments. Save the Cerrado from WWF-UK on Vimeo. South America’s great savanna the cerrado is under siege by agriculture and cattle ranching. Half of the ecosystem has vanished in the last 50 years. Now the first ‘green’ soy is being released by the International Round Table on...
Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron visit indigenous community threatened by mega-dam (video)
Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron visit an Arara village on the Big Bend of the Xingu River, which is imperiled by Brazil’s mega-dam Belo Monte. For more information on the Belo Monte: Bill Clinton takes on Brazil’s megadams, James Cameron backs tribal groups (03/28/2011) Former US President, Bill Clinton, spoke out against Brazil’s megadams at the 2nd World Sustainability Forum, which was also attended by...
Elementary school children urge KFC to stop cutting down forests (video)
With 6,000 hand-drawn postcards, four elementary school kids travel from Charlotte, North Carolina to Louisville, Kentucky (350 miles) to urge KFC to use recycled paper and stop endangering forests on North Carolina’s coast. Lead by 10-year-old forest activist, Cole Rasenberger, the group delivered the postcards to executives at KFC. “I had a second grade project to be an environmental activist,” Rasenberger explains. “I found...
Trailer: When Two World’s Collide (video)
When Two Worlds Collide (trailer) from Yachaywasi Films on Vimeo. The film follows the struggle of indigenous people to save their Amazonian home from the Peruvian government and industrial corporations, especially focusing on the role of Alberto Pizango, hero and leader to indigenous people, who was arrested last year in Peru for sedition and rebellion. According to the film’s website: “The hazardous journey of an...
Photos: illegal logging in Borneo
No pictures please: Illegal logger harvesting timber. On a recent trip to Borneo, Rhett Butler caught photographic evidence of illegal logging in Gunung Palung National Park. Shots taken from a recent visit to Gunung Palung National Park in Kalimantan. Photos by Rhett A. Butler, 2011. Illegally logged wood. Rainforest tree chopped down. Illegally logged timber in a pickup truck. Illegally logged...
Girl Scouts question palm oil in their cookies
Forest clearing in Sumatra for palm oil plantation. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Two Girl Scouts are asking their organization why palm oil is an ingredient in pervasive and popular Girl Scout Cookies. Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, after their concerns about the environmental and social impact of palm oil have long been ignored by the heads of the Girl Scout organization, have joined with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) to...
Trailer for Oka! Amerikee, eco-drama set in the Congo rainforest
Filmed in the Congo rainforest of the Central African Republic (CAR), a region rarely explored in film, the movie tells the story of an American ethnomusicologist living with the indigenous Bayaka people, also known as the pygmies, as loggers invade their land. According to the film’s website: “The movie is partly based on the life’s work of Louis Sarno, who has lived with and recorded the music of the Central African...
Photo: world’s most threatened forest
Forest along the Nam Ou river in Laos. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Deforestation for a rubber plantation in Laos. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Yesterday, Conservation International (CI) released a top 10 list of the world’s most threatened biodiverse forest. Number one were the forests of Indo-Burma, including Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma), and parts of China and India. This landscape includes the forests in Laos...
Cultural survival at stake for the rainforest Penan of Borneo
The Penan tribe in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo, are trying to stop logging and palm oil companies destroying their rainforest home. Survival International, the organisation supporting tribal peoples, is campaigning for the Penan’s rights to their land. Survival researcher Miriam Ross traveled to Sarawak to meet some of the tribe. In one nomadic Penan community, Pisang, a Penan hunter, told her his story.
Activism: CREDO joins the fight against the Belo Monte dam
Note: mongabay.com does not endorse the action below, but believes its readers may be interested in taking action or discussing the issue in comments. Credo, the progressive for-profit cell phone company, has thrown its hat in the ring in the environmental activists’ battle against the Belo Monte dam, joining International Rivers, Amazon Watch, and James Cameron. Credo now urges its activists to sign a petition, which states in...
Will forest conservation deal increase palm oil prices?
Bloomberg is reporting palm oil companies will be big winners should any forest conservation deal arise out of next week’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. The article quotes members of the palm oil industry, who argue that “any UN-led accord that restricts clearing rainforest for planting more palm trees would limit the supply of the edible oil crushed from their fruit and be a boon to prices for growers.” “It’s a...
Fear and conformity in conservation
Conservation is like guerrilla warfare. But are the similarities flattering for conservationists? No matter how big, conventional and entwined with power conservation organizations get, they still have the posture of guerrilla groups. While conventional warfare seeks to reduce an opponent’s capability through head-on confrontation, guerrillas seek to undermine the opponents’ strength and their public support. Guerrillas...
Which came first the forest or the rain?
By: Douglas Sheil Repost from Bwindi Researchers on Wildlife Direct During the rainy season in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, there’s an impressive storm and our water tanks overflow nearly every day. We’re in the equatorial rain forest after all: we have the location, trees and weather to prove it. But is the forest here because of the rain or is it the other way around? Being in a highland area we probably get...
Iracambi – Protecting the Beauty of the Atlantic Rainforest
A few weeks ago on Mongabay we featured an interview with Robin and Binka LeBreton, Directors of a Research Centre situated in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. The following is an excerpt from the diary kept by Clare Emily Raybould, a volunteer in January 2010…
New Borneo photos on mongabay.com
Mongabay.com has added new photos from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo including wildlife, palm oil plantations, and landscapes. One of the few surviving Critically-Endangered Bornean rhinoceros. Known as Tam, conservationists hope a female can be found for this captive male in order to help save the species. Photo by Jeremy Hance, 2009. Sunset over the rainforest at Tabin National Park. Photo by Jeremy Hance, 2009. Palm oil plantations as...
