REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, the climate crisis, REDD, and natural climate solutions. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
10 February 2020
Conserving and restoring forests won’t be cheap and easy after all
By Carol J. Clouse, GreenBiz, 10 February 2020
In Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” the character who represents industry succumbs to a feverish greed and chops down every last tree in the forest surrounding Thneedville. In real life these days, the corporate world is all about planting them.
From Microsoft to JetBlue to Royal Dutch Shell, an increasing number of companies are seeking to offset a portion of their greenhouse gas emission by investing in forest protection and reforestation. This new corporate enthusiasm for trees could create the boon advocates of programs such as the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation initiative (REDD+) have longed for. However, if businesses really want to put a dent in Earth-warming emissions by protecting and planting trees, the future of carbon offsetting through forestry will have to look very different from the past.
Want to Grow Trees? Consider These 5 Lessons
By Sean DeWitt, Jared Messinger, and Nadia Peimbert-Rappaport, World Resources Institute, 10 February 2020
Forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. So in 2014, hundreds of governments and corporations made a landmark pledge to cut the rate of natural forest loss by half and restore 150 million hectares of land by 2020. But five years later, the global state of forests has dramatically worsened.
It’s in this setting the World Economic Forum unveiled a plan to “plant a trillion trees.” (For context, there are roughly 3 trillion trees worldwide today.) The United States, among others, endorsed the plan.
A stark climate warning from the green swan
By Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network, 10 February 2020
There’s more than a touch of déjà-vu about The green swan, another alarm call from the serious world of senior bankers about what the future is likely to hold.
Way back in 2006 the British economist Lord Nicholas Stern wrote his review warning of the serious impacts of climate change, in particular its effect on the global economy and the world’s financial systems.
Can carbon offsets make you a green flyer?
By Marina Efthymiou, RTÉ, 10 February 2020
Ryanair is now one of the top 10 carbon emitters within Europe. The Transport and Environment NGO suggests that aviation is Europe’s biggest climate failure. Flight shaming is now a fact. People are encouraged to stop taking flights as a means of transport. The anti-flying movement is now a hot potato for the aviation industry.
Explainer: Nine ‘tipping points’ that could be triggered by climate change
By Robert McSweeney, Carbon Brief, 10 February 2020
The persistent march of a warming climate is seen across a multitude of continuous, incremental changes. CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Ocean heat content. Global sea level rise. Each creeps up year after year, fuelled by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
And while climate records are being routinely broken, the cumulative impact of these changes could also cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically and irreversibly.
These “tipping points” are thresholds where a tiny change could push a system into a completely new state.
Fires and floods: Australia already seesaws between climate extremes – and there’s more to come
By Neville Nicholls, The Guardian, 10 February 2020
“Unprecedented” is the word that keeps being tied to the apocalyptic weather Australia has faced over the past few months.
Bushfires have always been a reality in Australia, but never recorded on this scale with such widespread damage. It’s estimated that more than 60,000 sq km have been scorched in New South Wales and Victoria alone. Days of smoke have shrouded Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. And after the fires, flooding at the weekend in NSW and parts of Queensland left thousands without power and dozens of schools closed on Monday.
[Cambodia] Ministry reports million-dollar carbon credit sale
By Khuon Narim, Khmer Times, 10 February 2020
The Environment Ministry reported yesterday the government received $2.1 million by selling carbon credits to global conglomerates last year.
Merriam-Webster defines a carbon credit as a tradable credit granted to a country, company, etc., for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases by one metric ton below a specified quota.
The Kingdom sold its first carbon credits in 2016 to an American company.
Community forestry: Framing sustainability in the Democratic Republic of Congo
By Elena Vissa, CIFOR Forests News, 10 February 2020
Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012), a prominent researcher on common-pool resources – which include forests – and one of only two women to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics, argued that when communities can effectively control natural resources, they will manage them to their benefit and ensure long-term sustainability.
However, she cautioned that the following conditions must be met: knowledge, trust and communication within community members; the existence of institutions; and the absence of an intervention by an external authority.
Germany Seeks British Man’s Arrest in Carbon Trading Scam
Associated Press, 10 February 2020
German prosecutors said Monday they are seeking the arrest of a British businessman charged with heading a criminal gang that stole 125 million euros ($133 million) by fraudulently trading in carbon emissions.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt said the 46-year-old man “substantially organized and directed” a so-called system carousel, which involved a chain of transactions with carbon dioxide emissions certificates designed to confuse tax authorities.
As 2020 fire season nears, Indonesian president blasts officials for 2019
By Hans Nicholas Jong, Mongabay, 10 February 2020
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has demanded accountability from his top officials over the land and forest fires that hit the country last year, as the government braces for the onset of this year’s dry season.
The fires in 2019 burned nearly 16,000 square kilometers (6,200 square miles) — an area half the size of Belgium — mostly on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. While affecting a smaller area than the more widely publicized Amazon fires of last year, the burning in Indonesia churned out nearly twice as much carbon dioxide.
11 February 2020
Defying expectations of a rise, global carbon dioxide emissions flatlined in 2019
IEA press release, 11 February 2020
Despite widespread expectations of another increase, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions stopped growing in 2019, according to IEA data released today.
After two years of growth, global emissions were unchanged at 33 gigatonnes in 2019 even as the world economy expanded by 2.9%. This was primarily due to declining emissions from electricity generation in advanced economies, thanks to the expanding role of renewable sources (mainly wind and solar), fuel switching from coal to natural gas, and higher nuclear power generation. Other factors included milder weather in several countries, and slower economic growth in some emerging markets.
Deforested parts of Amazon ’emitting more CO2 than they absorb’
By Gabriel Gatehouse, BBC News, 11 February 2020
Up to one fifth of the Amazon rainforest is emitting more CO2 than it absorbs, new research suggests.
Results from a decade-long study of greenhouse gases over the Amazon basin appear to show around 20% of the total area has become a net source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One of the main causes is deforestation.
12 February 2020
Planting Trees Won’t Save the World
By Erle C. Ellis, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis, New York Times, 12 February 2020
One trillion trees.
At the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump drew applause when he announced the United States would join the forum’s initiative to plant one trillion trees to fight climate change. More applause for the decision followed at his State of the Union speech.
Adopt a carbon tax to protect tropical forests
By Edward B. Barbier, Ricardo Lozano, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, and Sebastian Troëng, Nature, 12 February 2020
Deforestation must be stopped in tropical countries to tackle the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. The vast majority of Earth’s species are in the tropics; forests there have taken in much of the carbon added to the atmosphere by human activities. Safeguarding these forests is central to slashing greenhouse-gas emissions and meeting the internationally agreed United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Global economic growth will take big hit due to loss of nature
By Phillip Inman and Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, 12 February 2020
Loss of nature will wipe £368bn a year off global economic growth by 2050 and the UK will be the third-worst hit, with a £16bn annual loss, according to a study by the World Wildlife Fund.
Without urgent action to protect nature, the environmental charity warned that the worldwide impact of coastal erosion, species loss and the decline of natural assets from forests to fisheries could cost a total of almost £8tn over the next 30 years.
Hunger stalks southern Africa as climate crisis deepens
AFP, 12 February 2020
Just under a year ago, Alice Posha fled her home in the middle of the night and then watched as it was swept away by floods.
The torrential rain came from Cyclone Idai, one of the worst storms ever to hit Africa and the fiercest on record to strike Buhera, a district in the usually arid province of Manicaland in eastern Zimbabwe.
Australian senator claims ‘eco-terrorists’ caused bushfires
RTÉ, 12 February 2020
An Australian senator has called on the nation’s spies to investigate whether “eco-terrorists” were responsible for the country’s unprecedented bushfire crisis.
Addressing parliament, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells – a senior member of the ruling conservative Liberal Party and former government minister – echoed online conspiracy theories to claim it “defies logic” that hundreds of bushfires could have started at the same time.
EU accused of climate crisis hypocrisy after backing 32 gas projects
By Daniel Boffey, The Guardian, 12 February 2020
The EU has given its formal backing to 32 major gas infrastructure projects in a move critics say will lock Europe into burning fossil fuels for generations.
MEPs voted to support the European commission’s proposal by 443 votes to 169 on Wednesday, with 36 abstentions, provoking environmental groups to lament Brussels’ “hypocrisy” over the climate emergency.
Wildfire researcher deported amid growing rift between Indonesian government and scientists
By Dyna Rochmyaningsih, Science, 12 February 2020
After living and working in Indonesia for about 15 years, French landscape ecologist David Gaveau suddenly left the country on 28 January. Indonesian immigration authorities had ordered Gaveau, a research associate with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, on Java, to leave because of a visa violation.
[Indonesia] Riau prepares for land and forest fires this year
ANTARA News, 12 February 2020
Riau Governor Syamsuar issued a land and forest fire emergency preparedness status, effective Feb 11-Oct 31, 2020, as wildfires sporadically ravaged certain areas of 10 of the province’s 12 districts and cities since early 2020.
The Riau Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) was quoted by ANTARA in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau Province, on Wednesday, as stating that the land and forest fires have, so far, gutted some 271 hectares of land in the districts of Siak and Bengkalis as well as Dumai City.
13 February 2020
‘People want to avoid flight shame, without actually avoiding flights’
By Roger Tyers, Independent, 13 February 2020
Despite flying being the single fastest way to grow our individual carbon footprint, people still want to fly. Passenger numbers even grew by 3.3 per cent globally last year alone. The hype around “Flygskam” – a global movement championed by climate activist Greta Thunberg that encourages people to stop travelling by plane – seems to have attracted more media attention than actual followers.
WWF Reveals Biggest Losers in Unchecked Nature and Climate Crisis
Sustainable Brands, 13 February 2020
A new report reveals for the first time the countries whose economies would be worst affected over the next 30 years if the world doesn’t act urgently to address the global environmental crisis.
The Global Futures report — a partnership between WWF, the Global Trade Analysis Project at Purdue University, and the University of Minnesota’s Natural Capital Project — includes first-of-its-kind analysis that calculated the economic cost of nature’s decline across 140 countries. The findings show that if the world carries on with “business as usual,” the US would see the largest losses of annual GDP in absolute terms, with US$83 billion wiped off its economy each year by 2050 — an amount equivalent to the entire annual GDP of Guatemala.
Climate crisis: One-third of all plant and animal species could be extinct in 50 years, study suggests
By Harry Cockburn, Independent, 13 February 2020
In just 50 years’ time, a third of all plant and animal species on our planet could be wiped out due to man-made climate change, US scientists have warned.
The damning new study of humanity’s impact on ecosystems around the world examined recent extinctions due to climate change, along with rates of species movement and various projections of future climatic conditions.
Guest post: Could climate change and deforestation spark Amazon ‘dieback’?
By Prof Peter Cox, CarbonBrief, 13 February 2020
Last summer, the Amazon rainforest was in the news again for all the wrong reasons. Deforestation rates are on the rise under the leadership of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and 2019 brought the highest number of forest fires in almost a decade.
For the global climate, this is a cause for concern. The Amazon plays a vital role in the climate system, recycling water to help sustain rainfall in the region and drive atmospheric circulations in the tropics. In addition, destroying the forest would have a major impact on atmospheric CO2.
Australia’s climate crisis has been building for years but no one listened
By Helen Regan, CNN, 13 February 2020
Australia was already grappling with extreme heat and one of the worst droughts on record when devastating bushfires tore through the bone dry land.
For months, the infernos have raged through Australia’s southeast, leaving parts of the country choking under some of the worst air pollution in the world.
Since September, more than 18 million hectares (44 million acres) of bush, land and forest have been burned. At least 28 people have died, around 3,000 homes have been destroyed and about one billion animals could have been affected.
Bolsonaro attacks Pope Francis over pontiff’s plea to protect the Amazon
The Guardian, 13 February 2020
Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonarohas lashed out at Pope Francis after the pontiff pleaded for the protection of the Amazon rainforest, and attacked the environmental group Greenpeace as “rubbish”.
“Pope Francis said yesterday the Amazon is his, the world’s, everyone’s,” said Bolsonaro, who has often railed against international criticism of his environmental policies as an attack on Brazilian sovereignty.
“Well, the pope may be Argentinian, but God is Brazilian.”
Coronavirus Is Shutting Down So Many Factories That Oil Demand Is Tanking
By Alex Lubben, Vice, 13 February 2020
So many factories in China — including the ones that make iPhones and GM cars — have shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak that global demand for oil has tanked for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008.
Demand for oil is expected to drop by 435,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of this year compared to a year ago, according to the International Energy Agency. And the full-year outlook is dim: The agency slashed expectations for demand in 2020 by 30% from where they were before the pandemic.
[Colombia and Costa Rica] Carbon taxes are key to stop deforestation
By Edward Barbier and Sebastian Troëng, Climate Home News, 13 February 2020
Humans destroyed tropical forests last year at a punishing clip — with forest destruction in the Amazon soaring 85% since 2018.
Yet amid this wave of deforestation, two countries are bucking the trend.
In fact, Colombia and Costa Rica saw not only a drop in deforestation rates, but renewed efforts to restore previously degraded forests that generated revenue for their economies.
What did these two verdant countries have in common? Both have imposed taxes on carbon emissions.
Indigenous-led community efforts redefine forest management in Kenya
By Julie Mollins, CIFOR Forests News, 13 February 2020
An organization in Kenya is making a big impact through its support for forest-related projects initiated by local communities, according to the UN-REDD Programme.
Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners (ILEPA) recently worked with the Maji Moto community near Narok County, helping frame a proposal for a new dam project, reports Griet Dierckxsens, Africa regional communications and knowledge management specialist with UN-REDD.
[Nepal] Indigenous organizations slam London Zoo: “Why are they asking for money to help us?”
Survival International, 13 February 2020
London Zoo has been fiercely criticized by indigenous organizations in Nepal over a fundraising video which campaigners describe as “patronizing rubbish.”
Three organizations representing the Tharu people who were evicted from the world-famous Chitwan National Park in Nepal, have written to the ZSL, the zoo’s parent body, saying: “ZSL doesn’t do anything to help the Tharu people who have been evicted from the park in the name of conservation, so why are they asking for money to help us?”
The Indigenous Approach to National Forest Monitoring in Peru
By Isabel Gonzales and Maricarmen Ruiz, UN-REDD Programme, 13 February 2020
In Peru, about 12.7 million hectares of Amazon rainforest lies in the territories of indigenous communities, territories that represent more than 19% of the country’s forests. Peru’s indigenous communities play an essential role in the sustainable management of land and forests and, as such, in mitigating and adapting to climate change. By maintaining a close link with their forests, they remain the best allies of forest conservation and monitoring.
Greenpeace activist applies for top job at Poland’s coal-burning utility
By Agnieszka Barteczko, Reuters, 13 February 2020
Greenpeace activist, Pawel Szypulski, said on Thursday he was applying for the chief executive job at Poland’s biggest utility PGE, with a plan to eliminate polluting coal from the group’s power production by 2030.
State-run PGE generates electricity mostly from burning lignite and hard coal. The group plans to invest more in renewable sources of energy, mostly in offshore wind, but Szypulski says this is not enough.
UK to lead global fight against illegal logging and deforestation
By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, 13 February 2020
The UK is to spearhead a major global crackdown on illegal timber and deforestation, with plans to form a coalition of developing countries against the trade as part of its hosting of crunch UN climate talks this year.
Deforestation is a leading factor in rising global greenhouse gas emissions, but many developing nations lack the means and institutions to combat illegal logging and regulate forest industries. The Department for International Development (DfID) will shortly lay out plans to help countries strengthen the rule of law, support the trade in responsible forestry and provide on-the-ground assistance to stamp out illegal logging.
[USA] David and Patricia Vos dedicated to planting a trillion trees
By Coy Ferrell, Fauquier Times, 13 February 2020
“I think this is the most important stuff I’ve ever done,” said David Vos of Delaplane, and that’s saying something.
Vos holds a M.S. and a Ph.D. from MIT and has worked on some of the most important problems in aeronautical engineering over his 30-year career. He holds a variety of patents in his field. He led Google X’s Project Wing, developing autonomous delivery drones.
But his current work has nothing to do with futuristic aeronautics. Instead, he is putting his considerable creative energy toward finding a way to plant trees.
14 February 2020
The Word ‘Anthropocene’ is Failing Us
By Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher, Lit Hub, 14 February 2020
The term “Anthropocene” is profoundly unsatisfying. As many scholars have by now argued, it treats “humanity” as a single entity that somehow dominates the entire planet. It obscures and depoliticizes profound differences between (groups of) people with vastly different impacts and claims. As argued by Lesley Head, the Anthropocene narrative also suffers deeply from deterministic, linear, even teleological thinking, as though history simply had to lead us to this moment of “the great acceleration.” And Head also shows that the nature–culture dualism is part and parcel of the Anthropocene narrative.
Inside the global conservation organization infiltrated by trophy hunters
By Roberto Jurkschat, Earth Journalism Network, 14 February 2020
Giraffes may well tower over all other animals in the natural world — but in the wild, their numbers are rapidly dwindling, and they are desperately in need of protection. The giraffe population in Africa has collapsed by 40% over the last three decades, with climate change and agricultural expansion the main factors.
In 2018, six African countries — the Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Senegal — joined together to sound the alarm about this stark decline. They believed there was another threat the animals faced: the international trade in giraffe trophies and body parts.
Reflections on Cop 25
By Roz Corbett, Resilience, 14 February 2020
It’s hard to sum up COP25 easily. In my mind it looks a little bit like those experiments with magnets and iron filings. Thousands of tiny particles of people drawn towards an event that is both multidimensional and very polarised along N-S lines. It was supposed to be in Chile, in the global south, but for the fourth year out of five the COP was held in Madrid in Europe, and so, unlike a standard N-S magnet, the ‘north’ again had more weight.
NGOs Warn UN Council to Deliver Aviation Program of Integrity to Cut Climate Pollution
Environmental Defense Fund, 14 February 2020
A global coalition of non-governmental organizations is warning a United Nations body of “substantial backlash” if it fails to deliver a robust program of high integrity to reduce climate pollution from airlines.
In a letter to the UN International Civil Aviation Organization Council, the International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation said “the stakes could not be higher” for the Council as it considers rules to establish a carbon offsetting and reduction program known as CORSIA for the aviation sector.
Delta announces $1bn plan to be first carbon neutral airline
By Dominic Rushe, The Guardian, 14 February 2020
Delta announced an ambitious plan on Friday to become the first US airline to go carbon neutral, committing $1bn over the next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global business.
The move by Delta will put pressure on other airlines to follow suit at a time when the UN is warning that airplane emissions of carbon dioxide will triple by 2050.
Indonesia targets pulpwood, palm oil firms in civil suits over 2019 fires
By Hans Nicholas Jong, Mongabay, 14 February 2020
The Indonesian government is planning to sue five companies, and possibly up to 16, over the fires that burned on their concessions last year. But recent cases indicate it will have a hard time getting any of the companies to pay up.
The 2019 fire season was the worst in four years, razing nearly 16,000 square kilometers (6,200 square miles) of land nationwide — an area half the size of Belgium — and emitting more than double the amount of carbon dioxide of the fires in the Amazon.
Why Paraguay Can Be a “Beacon State” for Forest Management
By Achim Steiner ()UNDP, Inger Andersen (UNEP), and Qu Dongyu (FAO), IPS, 14 February 2020
Imagine a forest that covered half of your entire country. A biodiverse forest which supports thousands of species from giant anteaters to armadillos to jaguars. A forest that is home to one the world’s last uncontacted tribes.
That forest is in fact a reality in Paraguay, a South American country of seven million people, landlocked between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. It is home to much of the Gran Chaco forest that is considered the second largest forested landscape in South America — second only to the Amazon rainforest.
And like other countries which are home to the great forests of South America, Paraguay too battled raging wildfires in 2019.
15 February 2020
Christiana Figueres on the climate emergency: ‘This is the decade and we are the generation’
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 15 February 2020
Christiana Figueres is a founder of the Global Optimism group and was head of the UN climate change convention when the Paris agreement was achieved in 2015.
Your new book is called The Future We Choose. But isn’t it too late to stop the climate crisis?
We are definitely running late. We have delayed appallingly for decades. But science tells us we are still in the nick of time.
The Way Delta Is Going Carbon Neutral Next Month Isn’t Good Enough, And CEO Ed Bastian Knows It
By Jeremy Bogaisky, Forbes, 15 February 2020
Delta Air Lines made an aggressive commitment Friday to go carbon neutral as of March 1, raising the ante for an industry shadowed by flight shaming, which has begun to reduce air travel in Europe. But CEO Ed Bastian stated plainly in a television interview that the principal means by which his airline will likely achieve carbon neutrality in the near term is rife with efficacy concerns.
16 February 2020
15 years after the Kyoto Protocol went into force, the climate crisis is worse than ever
By Rosie McCall, Newsweek, 16 February 2020
The Kyoto Protocol went to force a full 15 years ago today—and yet, the climate crisis is more urgent than ever.
On Sunday, 15 years will have passed since the Kyoto Protocol was ratified on February 16, 2005, which was eight years after it was negotiated back in 1997. Progress stalled because of a failure to achieve the quota of countries required to implement the protocol. The stalemate was finally broken when Russia signed up to the deal: once Russia joined, countries committed to Kyoto produced 55 percent or more of global emissions between them.
Major airlines say they’re acting on climate change. Our research reveals how little they’ve achieved
By Susanne Becken, The Conversation, 16 February 2020
If you’re a traveller who cares about reducing your carbon footprint, are some airlines better to fly with than others?
Several of the world’s major airlines have announced plans to become “carbon neutral”, while others are trialling new aviation fuels. But are any of their climate initiatives making much difference?
Those were the questions we set out to answer a year ago, by analysing what the world’s largest 58 airlines – which fly 70% of the total available seat-kilometres – are doing to live up to their promises to cut their climate impact.
Don’t underestimate the ability of trees to combat the climate crisis
By Dan Lambe (Arbor Day Foundation), Salon, 16 February 2020
Trees are having a moment in the media, and there are a lot of numbers being thrown around. From YouTube stars to politicians to business luminaries, some of the world’s most influential leaders are talking about how many trees it will take to combat climate change.
Notably, the ease and scalability of planting trees have caught the attention of corporations, investors, and employees, as well as sparking the imagination of average citizens. Planting trees is a simple, hugely effective strategy that can have widespread, positive repercussions for the environment.
Australian government granted BHP repeated approval to increase carbon emissions
By Adam Morton, The Guardian, 16 February 2020
Mining giant BHP has repeatedly applied and been granted approval to increase its emissions under an Australian government policy that promised to limit carbon pollution from big industry.
Government data shows BHP exceeded its initial emissions limits, set under the scheme known as the “safeguard mechanism”, at eight of its 14 large Australian industrial sites since 2016-17.
[New Zealand] Polluters making ‘windfall gains’ from scheme to reduce emissions
By Charlie Michell, Stuff, 16 February 2020
Major polluters have potentially been making “windfall gains” from an oversight within the country’s main tool for addressing climate change.
The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits.
It has also agreed to broadly review the extent of the subsidies, which have been controversial. Any changes would likely require further amendments to an amendment bill progressing through Parliament.
Fires continue devouring Thailand’s North
By Greeley Pulitzer, The Thaiger, 16 February 2020
Despite prohibitions on agricultural burning, wildfires continued ravaging forests across Thailand yesterday, especially in the North. Satellite images charting the progress of large fires yesterday morning showed the number of hotspots in the north had risen from 823 on Friday to 1,334. A total of 3,238 forest fires were recorded nationwide.
Call for answers over British government financing of palm oil firm
LeighDay, 16 February 2020
A group of environmental NGOs, including those representing local communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have written to financier CDC Group PLC (CDC) demanding answers about investments in palm oil company Feronia, which is at the centre of serious allegations of abuse in the DRC. CDC is owned by the UK government’s Department for International Development.