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Tropical forest losses rise in 2022 despite pledge to end them

An aerial view shows a deforested area during an operation to combat deforestation near Uruara, Para State, Brazil, on 21st January, 2023.

Reuters The world lost an area of old-growth tropical rainforest the size of Switzerland last year, as deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon continued unabated, a forest monitoring project report said on Tuesday.  Global Forest Watch, which is backed by the non-profit World Resources Institute and draws on forest data collected by the University of Maryland, […]

Peru’s Indigenous tribes use tech tools to track Amazon deforestation

Peru Amazon deforestation

Bogota, Colombia Thomson Reuters Foundation Peruvian Indigenous groups equipped with remote sensing technology and satellite-based alerts have been helping to track and report forest loss in the Amazon as drug trafficking fuels deforestation, research published on Monday showed. Members of nearly 40 Indigenous communities in Peru’s northern border region of Loreto were trained to use […]

Global rainforest loss “relentless” in 2020, but South-East Asia offers hope

Indonesia firefighters

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Thomson Reuters Foundation Tropical forest losses hit their third-highest level in almost two decades last year, despite improved conservation in parts of South-East Asia, researchers said on Wednesday, warning of rising deforestation risks as nations restart pandemic-hit economies. The loss in 2020 of 4.2 million hectares of primary forest – intact areas […]

Pandemic likely made 2020 “another devastating year” for world’s forests

Brazil Amazon Indigenous lands deforestation

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Thomson Reuters Foundation The rate of destruction of the world’s tropical forests is likely to have gathered pace last year, green groups warned, as the pandemic weakened environmental regulations, cut funding for protection work and forced city migrants back to rural areas. In 2019, tropical rainforests disappeared at a rate of one football […]

Satellite alerts seen helping fight deforestation in Africa

London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation A system using satellite data to send free alerts when trees are destroyed has been linked to a significant drop in forest losses in Africa, researchers and academics said on Monday. Deforestation dropped by an average of 18 per cent across nine central African countries after the alerts were introduced, found […]

No let-up in global rainforest loss as coronavirus brings new danger

Forests Brazil Amazon

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Thomson Reuters Foundation Tropical rainforests disappeared at a rate of one football pitch every six seconds last year, researchers said on Tuesday, urging countries to include forest protection in post-pandemic plans. The loss in 2019 of 3.8 million hectares of tropical primary forest – which means intact areas of old-growth trees – […]

Tree planting extends an olive branch across the climate divide

Planting trees

New York City Thomson Reuters Foundation The world’s business and government leaders may have found a way to fight climate change without having to call global warming by its name or agree on what is causing it. Last week, the World Economic Forum – which dedicated its 2020 gathering in Davos, Switzerland, to climate change […]