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Are rainforests doomed? Not necessarily.

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Thursday, April 4, 2024

Serranía de Chiribiquete, a mountainous region in the Colombian Amazon. New data from the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland reveals forest loss declined last year in Colombia, among other countries. | Guillermo Legaria/AFP via Getty Images In a grim new analysis of tropical forests, there are a few important glimmers of hope. Last year, the planet lost 9.2 million acres of its tropical forest, an area a bit larger than the entire state of Maryland, according to new data from environmental group World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. That’s like losing about 10 soccer fields of forest per minute — for an entire year. Obviously, that sounds bad. It is bad. For decades on end, the world has watched its rainforests disappear and give way to giant farms and cattle ranches that feed the public’s desire for meat and other food products. Roughly one-third of the world’s tropical forests are now gone. And that loss has fueled both the extinction crisis and climate change; the carbon stored in trees often gets released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide after they’re cut down, helping warm the planet. Yet against this backdrop of destruction, there are a few different, more hopeful stories. The WRI analysis shows that, in a few regions, including Columbia and Brazil, deforestation declined dramatically last year or remained lower than it once was. In other words, more trees were left standing, compared to previous years. This is not only good news but it reveals something critical: With the right laws and good governance, countries can keep their tropical forests intact. Losing the planet’s rainforests is not inevitable. Where forests were destroyed last year The new analysis, based on an enormous amount of satellite imagery, found that the tropics lost slightly less forest in 2023, compared to 2022. You can see the recent dip in the chart below. It shows forest loss over the last two decades, nearly all of which is human-caused. But the amount of destruction is still substantial, Mikaela Weisse, director of WRI’s Global Forest Watch project, said in a call with reporters last week. “The overall tropical rates of primary forest loss remained stubbornly consistent with past years,” Weisse said. “All of that forest loss resulted in 2.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions,” she added, which is equivalent to almost half of all the greenhouse gas emissions in the US. The WRI analysis focuses on the tropics, because that is where the vast majority of global deforestation — the deliberate clearing of trees — takes place. Yet it also includes some broader statistics of global change, which show that there was a massive spike in forest loss worldwide last year compared to 2022 due to the record-breaking wildfires in Canada. Just three countries account for the bulk of the recent destruction in the tropics: Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Bolivia. That’s partly because they’ve got a lot to lose. Brazil, for example, is home to nearly a third of the world’s tropical forests, whereas the lion’s share of the Congo Basin rainforest — the second largest in the world — is in DRC. In most cases, topping the charts for destroying forests is as bad as it seems. In the DRC, for example, consistently high rates of forest loss are eroding the planet’s “last major carbon sink,” Elizabeth Goldman, a researcher at Global Forest Watch, said on the press call, “meaning that forest absorbs more carbon than it emits.” The problems here are especially challenging to solve. Many people clear patches of the forest with fire to grow food for their families, not to profit. A troubling situation is also occurring in Bolivia, where deforestation continues to surge. 2023 was the country’s third year in a row of record-breaking destruction, the analysis found — part of a decade-long trend of increasing loss, fueled by agriculture. (Colonies of Mennonites, a religious group, are behind much of this recent deforestation.) In Brazil and a handful of other countries, meanwhile, the high rate of forest loss masks what is actually a somewhat hopeful story. Bucking the trend: Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia Although Brazil lost nearly 3 million acres of tropical forest last year — much of which vanished from the Amazon — 2023 was actually a relatively good year. The country lost about a third less primary forest compared to 2022, a drop you can clearly see in the chart below, reaching the lowest level of loss since 2015. It’s a tale of two presidents: Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula. An icon of the left and a leader of Brazil’s Workers Party, Lula first governed between 2003 and 2011, a period that saw a massive drop in deforestation, at least partly due to his pro-environmental agenda. Then Bolsonaro came into power. The right-wing leader stripped enforcement measures, cut spending for science and environmental agencies, and fired environmental experts, among other activities largely in support of the agribusiness industry. Forests were flattened. Now, Lula is back, after again winning office for a term that started early last year. He’s promised to curtail deforestation, including by stepping up enforcement and tracking criminal activity. And so far, it seems he’s having some success, according to WRI and the Brazilian government. “We have the opportunity again of being a champion on climate, and Lula has promised to do that,” Ana Paula Vargas, Brazil program director at Amazon Watch, an environmental advocacy group, told me last summer. There’s more good news from Colombia, where destruction has similarly softened. Last year, the country’s rate of forest loss dropped in half, according to WRI, after several years of extreme deforestation — largely due to the region’s changing, complicated politics. Finally, there’s Indonesia, where there’s also a reason to be hopeful. Home to one of the world’s most diverse and carbon-rich tropical forests, complete with orangutans and tigers and the world’s largest flower, forest loss in Indonesia remains well below its peak of forest loss in the early 2010s (although the country did see a spike in deforestation last year, per the WRI analysis). Diego Giudice/Bloomberg via Getty Images A tractor applies pesticides to a soybean field in eastern Bolivia. For much of the last few decades, Indonesia has cleared forests to plant near rows of oil palm trees — the crops that produce palm oil, now among the most common oils worldwide. It’s used in everything from baby shampoo to ice cream. The industry has been incredibly destructive, to wildlife, local communities, and, really, the entire planet (the stability of which depends on keeping carbon in the ground). But about 10 years ago, the story began to change. Environmental activists launched campaigns against the most harmful palm oil companies. Indonesia’s government put stricter policies in place. Groups like WRI and TheTreeMap, a data organization, started monitoring deforestation more closely from space, making destruction harder to hide. And as a result, the industry — though still far from perfect — started cleaning itself up. “I don’t want to sit here and say that the palm oil industry has suddenly become shiny green and sustainable, but it’s mostly stopped deforestation,” Glenn Hurowitz, the founder and CEO of Mighty Earth, an environmental advocacy group, told me last year. To be clear, countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Indonesia are still clearing their forests by the thousands of acres. It remains a problem that world leaders should not ignore. But the stories here also suggest that a different future for these ecosystems, among the most important in the world, is possible. Forests can be protected. Laws — and the enforcement of them — can root out harmful activities. Activism can actually transform an entire industry. Yes, what’s happening in places like Brazil and Colombia is just a speck of hope in a world of destruction, but it’s an important reminder that the fate of the world’s tropical forests is in our control.

In a grim new analysis of tropical forests, there are a few important glimmers of hope.

Last year, the planet lost 9.2 million acres of its tropical forest, an area a bit larger than the entire state of Maryland, according to new data from environmental group World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. That’s like losing about 10 soccer fields of forest per minute — for an entire year.

Obviously, that sounds bad. It is bad.

For decades on end, the world has watched its rainforests disappear and give way to giant farms and cattle ranches that feed the public’s desire for meat and other food products. Roughly one-third of the world’s tropical forests are now gone. And that loss has fueled both the extinction crisis and climate change; the carbon stored in trees often gets released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide after they’re cut down, helping warm the planet.

Yet against this backdrop of destruction, there are a few different, more hopeful stories. The WRI analysis shows that, in a few regions, including Columbia and Brazil, deforestation declined dramatically last year or remained lower than it once was. In other words, more trees were left standing, compared to previous years. This is not only good news but it reveals something critical: With the right laws and good governance, countries can keep their tropical forests intact. Losing the planet’s rainforests is not inevitable.

Where forests were destroyed last year

The new analysis, based on an enormous amount of satellite imagery, found that the tropics lost slightly less forest in 2023, compared to 2022. You can see the recent dip in the chart below. It shows forest loss over the last two decades, nearly all of which is human-caused.

But the amount of destruction is still substantial, Mikaela Weisse, director of WRI’s Global Forest Watch project, said in a call with reporters last week. “The overall tropical rates of primary forest loss remained stubbornly consistent with past years,” Weisse said. “All of that forest loss resulted in 2.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions,” she added, which is equivalent to almost half of all the greenhouse gas emissions in the US.

The WRI analysis focuses on the tropics, because that is where the vast majority of global deforestation — the deliberate clearing of trees — takes place. Yet it also includes some broader statistics of global change, which show that there was a massive spike in forest loss worldwide last year compared to 2022 due to the record-breaking wildfires in Canada.

Just three countries account for the bulk of the recent destruction in the tropics: Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Bolivia. That’s partly because they’ve got a lot to lose. Brazil, for example, is home to nearly a third of the world’s tropical forests, whereas the lion’s share of the Congo Basin rainforest — the second largest in the world — is in DRC.

In most cases, topping the charts for destroying forests is as bad as it seems. In the DRC, for example, consistently high rates of forest loss are eroding the planet’s “last major carbon sink,” Elizabeth Goldman, a researcher at Global Forest Watch, said on the press call, “meaning that forest absorbs more carbon than it emits.” The problems here are especially challenging to solve. Many people clear patches of the forest with fire to grow food for their families, not to profit.

A troubling situation is also occurring in Bolivia, where deforestation continues to surge. 2023 was the country’s third year in a row of record-breaking destruction, the analysis found — part of a decade-long trend of increasing loss, fueled by agriculture. (Colonies of Mennonites, a religious group, are behind much of this recent deforestation.)

In Brazil and a handful of other countries, meanwhile, the high rate of forest loss masks what is actually a somewhat hopeful story.

Bucking the trend: Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia

Although Brazil lost nearly 3 million acres of tropical forest last year — much of which vanished from the Amazon — 2023 was actually a relatively good year. The country lost about a third less primary forest compared to 2022, a drop you can clearly see in the chart below, reaching the lowest level of loss since 2015.

It’s a tale of two presidents: Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula.

An icon of the left and a leader of Brazil’s Workers Party, Lula first governed between 2003 and 2011, a period that saw a massive drop in deforestation, at least partly due to his pro-environmental agenda. Then Bolsonaro came into power. The right-wing leader stripped enforcement measures, cut spending for science and environmental agencies, and fired environmental experts, among other activities largely in support of the agribusiness industry. Forests were flattened.

Now, Lula is back, after again winning office for a term that started early last year. He’s promised to curtail deforestation, including by stepping up enforcement and tracking criminal activity. And so far, it seems he’s having some success, according to WRI and the Brazilian government. “We have the opportunity again of being a champion on climate, and Lula has promised to do that,” Ana Paula Vargas, Brazil program director at Amazon Watch, an environmental advocacy group, told me last summer.

There’s more good news from Colombia, where destruction has similarly softened. Last year, the country’s rate of forest loss dropped in half, according to WRI, after several years of extreme deforestation — largely due to the region’s changing, complicated politics.

Finally, there’s Indonesia, where there’s also a reason to be hopeful. Home to one of the world’s most diverse and carbon-rich tropical forests, complete with orangutans and tigers and the world’s largest flower, forest loss in Indonesia remains well below its peak of forest loss in the early 2010s (although the country did see a spike in deforestation last year, per the WRI analysis).

A tractor applies pesticides to a soybean field in eastern Bolivia.

For much of the last few decades, Indonesia has cleared forests to plant near rows of oil palm trees — the crops that produce palm oil, now among the most common oils worldwide. It’s used in everything from baby shampoo to ice cream. The industry has been incredibly destructive, to wildlife, local communities, and, really, the entire planet (the stability of which depends on keeping carbon in the ground).

But about 10 years ago, the story began to change. Environmental activists launched campaigns against the most harmful palm oil companies. Indonesia’s government put stricter policies in place. Groups like WRI and TheTreeMap, a data organization, started monitoring deforestation more closely from space, making destruction harder to hide. And as a result, the industry — though still far from perfect — started cleaning itself up.

“I don’t want to sit here and say that the palm oil industry has suddenly become shiny green and sustainable, but it’s mostly stopped deforestation,” Glenn Hurowitz, the founder and CEO of Mighty Earth, an environmental advocacy group, told me last year.

To be clear, countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Indonesia are still clearing their forests by the thousands of acres. It remains a problem that world leaders should not ignore. But the stories here also suggest that a different future for these ecosystems, among the most important in the world, is possible. Forests can be protected. Laws — and the enforcement of them — can root out harmful activities. Activism can actually transform an entire industry.

Yes, what’s happening in places like Brazil and Colombia is just a speck of hope in a world of destruction, but it’s an important reminder that the fate of the world’s tropical forests is in our control.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

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More Logging Is Proposed to Help Curb Wildfires in the US Pacific Northwest

U.S. officials are proposing increased logging on federal lands across the Pacific Northwest under changes to a sweeping forest management plan that’s been in place for three decades

U.S. officials would allow increased logging on federal lands across the Pacific Northwest in the name of fighting wildfires and boosting rural economies under proposed changes to a sweeping forest management plan that’s been in place for three decades.The U.S. Forest Service proposal, released Friday, would overhaul the Northwest Forest Plan that governs about 38,000 square miles (99,000 square kilometers) in Oregon, Washington and California.The plan was adopted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton amid pressure to curb destructive logging practices that resulted in widespread clearcuts and destroyed habitat used by spotted owls. Timber harvests dropped dramatically in subsequent years, spurring political backlash.But federal officials now say worsening wildfires due to climate change mean forests must be more actively managed to increase their resiliency. Increased logging also would provide a more predictable supply of trees for timber companies, officials said, helping rural economies that have suffered after lumber mills shut down and forestry jobs disappeared.The proposal could increase annual timber harvests by at least 33% and potentially more than 200%, according to a draft environmental study. The number of timber-related jobs would increase accordingly.Harvest volumes from the 17 national forests covered by the Northwest Forest Plan averaged about 445 million board feet annually over the past decade, according to government figures. Cutting more trees would help reduce wildfire risk and make communities safer, the study concluded. That would be accomplished in part by allowing cuts in some areas with stands of trees up to 120 years old — up from the current age threshold of 80 years.The change could help foster conditions conducive to growing larger, old growth trees that are more resistant to fire, by removing younger trees, officials said.A separate pending proposal from President Joe Biden's administration aims to increase protections nationwide for old growth trees, which play a significant role in storing climate change-inducing carbon dioxide.“Much has changed in society and science since the Northwest Forest Plan was created,” Jacque Buchanan, regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region, said in a statement. He said the proposal would help the agency adapt to shifting conditions, as global warming increases the frequency of droughts and other extreme weather events.The proposed plan also calls for closer cooperation between the Forest Service and Native American tribes to tap into tribal knowledge about forest management. Tribes were excluded when the 1994 plan was crafted.Environmentalists greeted the proposal with skepticism. The group Oregon Wild said it was “deeply troubling” that the Forest Service would release the proposal just ahead of a change in presidential administrations.“It appears that the Forest Service wants to abandon the fundamental purpose of the Northwest Forest Plan–protecting fish and wildlife and the mature and old-growth forests they need to survive,” John Persell, an attorney for the group, said in a statement.A draft environmental study examined several potential alternatives, including leaving the existing plan’s components in place or changing them to either reduce or increase logging. A timber industry representative who co-chaired an advisory committee on the Northwest Forest Plan said the proposed plan resulted from discussions involving committee members, the Forest Service and others.“We want to see a modern approach to federal forest stewardship that protects us from catastrophic wildfires, reduces toxic smoke, meaningfully engages tribes, and delivers for our rural communities and workers,” said Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resource Council.The publishing of the proposal begins a 120-day public comment period. The Forest Service's environmental review is expected to be completed by next fall and a final decision is due in early 2026.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Forests

Climate

Government

How do you save a rainforest? Leave it alone

Research shows that, instead of replanting rainforests, allowing them to bounce back naturally would work best

Johnny Appleseed’s heart was in the right place when he walked all over the early United States planting fruit trees. Ecologically, though, he had room for improvement: To create truly dynamic ecosystems that host a lot of biodiversity, benefit local people, and produce lots of different foods, a forest needs a wide variety of species. Left on their own, some deforested areas can rebound surprisingly fast with minimal help from humans, sequestering loads of atmospheric carbon as they grow. New research from an international team of scientists, recently published in the journal Nature, finds that 830,000 square miles of deforested land in humid tropical regions — an area larger than Mexico — could regrow naturally if left on its own. Five countries — Brazil, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Colombia — account for 52 percent of the estimated potential regrowth. According to the researchers, that would boost biodiversity, improve water quality and availability, and suck up 23.4 gigatons of carbon over the next three decades. “A rainforest can spring up in one to three years — it can be brushy and hard to walk through,” said Matthew Fagan, a conservation scientist and geographer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a coauthor of the paper. “In five years, you can have a completely closed canopy that’s 20 feet high. I have walked in rainforests 80 feet high that are 10 to 15 years old. It just blows your mind.” That sort of regrowth isn’t a given, though. First of all, humans would have to stop using the land for intensive agriculture — think big yields thanks to fertilizers and other chemicals — or raising hoards of cattle, the sheer weight of which compacts the soil and makes it hard for new plants to take root. Cows, of course, also tend to nosh on young plants. Planting a bunch of the same species of tree — à la Johnny Appleseed — pales in comparison to a diverse rainforest that comes back naturally. Secondly, it helps for tropical soil to have a high carbon content to nourish plants. “Organic carbon, as any person who loves composting knows, really helps the soil to be nutritious and bulk itself up in terms of its ability to hold water,” Fagan said. “We found that places with soils like that are much more likely to have forests pop up.” And it’s also beneficial for a degraded area to be near a standing tropical forest. That way, birds can fly across the area, pooping out seeds they have eaten in the forest. And once those plants get established, other tree-dwelling animal species like monkeys can feast on their fruits and spread seeds, too. This initiates a self-reinforcing cycle of biodiversity, resulting in one of those 80-foot-tall forests that’s only a decade old. The more biodiversity, the more a forest can withstand shocks. If one species disappears because of disease, for instance, another similar one might fill the void. That’s why planting a bunch of the same species of tree — à la Johnny Appleseed — pales in comparison to a diverse rainforest that comes back naturally. “When you have that biodiversity in the system, it tends to be more functional in an ecological sense, and it tends to be more robust,” said Peter Roopnarine, a paleoecologist at the California Academy of Sciences, who studies the impact of the climate on ecosystems but wasn’t involved in the new paper. “Unless or until we can match that natural complexity, we’re always going to be a step behind what nature is doing.” Governments and nonprofits can now use the data gathered from this research to identify places to prioritize for cost-effective restoration, according to Brooke Williams, a research fellow at the University of Queensland and the paper’s lead author. “Importantly, our dataset doesn’t inform on where should and should not be restored,” she said, because that’s a question best left to local governments. One community, for instance, might rely on a crop that requires open spaces to grow. But if the locals can thrive with a regrown tropical forest — by, say, earning money from tourism and growing crops like coffee and cocoa within the canopy, a practice known as agroforestry — their government might pay them to leave the area alone. Susan Cook-Patton, senior forest restoration scientist at the Nature Conservancy, said that more than 1,500 species have been used in agroforestry worldwide. “There’s a lot of fruit trees, for example, that people use, and trees that provide medicinal services,” Cook-Patton said. “Are there ways that we can help shift the agricultural production towards more trees and boost the carbon value, the biodiversity value, and livelihoods of the people living there?” The tricky bit here is that the world is warming and droughts are worsening, so a naturally regrowing forest may soon find itself in different circumstances. “We know the climate conditions are going to change, but there’s still uncertainty with some of that change, uncertainty in our climate projection models,” Roopnarine said. So while a forest is very much stationary, reforestation is, in a sense, a moving target for environmental groups and governments. A global goal known as the Bonn Challenge aims to restore 1.3 million square miles of degraded and deforested land by 2030. So far, more than 70 governments and organizations from 60 countries, including the United States, have signed on to contribute 810,000 square miles toward that target. Sequestering 23.4 gigatons of carbon over three decades may not sound like much in the context of humanity’s 37 gigatons of emissions every year. But these are just the forests in tropical regions. Protecting temperate forests and sea grasses would capture still more carbon, in addition to newfangled techniques like growing cyanobacteria. “This is one tool in a toolbox — it is not a silver bullet,” Fagan said. “It’s one of 40 bullets needed to fight climate change. But we need to use all available options.” This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/climate/save-rainforest-carbon-science-biodiversity/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org Read more about carbon capture and trees

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Whistleblower Sounds Alarm About Destruction of Tribal Sites in North Carolina

A career archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service says managers have been engaging in irresponsible and illegal behavior that has resulted in damage to Native American sites across the forested slopes of North Carolina

Spear points, hammer stones and picks lost to history under layers of leaves, roots and rocks — it was the evidence Scott Ashcraft was looking for. The ancient tools were inadvertently unearthed in 2021 by a bulldozer fighting a wildfire along a steep slope in western North Carolina. Ashcraft, a career U.S. Forest Service archaeologist, knew these wooded mountainsides held more clues to early human history in the Appalachian Mountains than anyone had imagined.He tried for years to raise the alarm to forest managers, saying outdated modeling that ignored the artifacts sometimes hidden on steep terrain — especially sites significant to Native American tribes — needed to be reconsidered when planning for prescribed fires, logging projects, new recreational trails and other work on national forest lands. Instead, Ashcraft says managers retaliated against him and pushed ahead with their plans, often violating historic preservation and environmental protection laws by side stepping consultations with tribes, limiting input from state archaeologists and systematically suppressing scientific data.In a letter shared with The Associated Press, Ashcraft sent his concerns Thursday to top officials in the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Interior Department, White House Council on Native American Affairs and National Congress of American Indians. He described an escalating pattern of illegal, unethical and irresponsible behavior by forest managers in North Carolina that stands in sharp contrast to the historic strides the Biden administration has made nationally to include Indigenous expertise when making decisions about public land management.Although the case focuses on a single state, Ashcraft said it highlights a bigger problem — that there are no guardrails to keep the Forest Service from using outdated modeling and skirting requirements to consult with tribes before moving ahead with projects.“It’s seems that project completion, feathers in caps and good performance evaluations have outweighed the protection of cultural resources,” Ashcraft told the AP in an interview.The letter is the latest salvo in a federal whistleblower case that began when Ashcraft filed a lengthy disclosure with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspector general in 2023. That office turned the case back to the Forest Service, where regional officials declared that legal requirements had been met.The whistleblower disclosure gained the attention of preservation experts and other researchers as hostility by forest managers mounted against Ashcraft, the heritage resources program manager for the Pisgah National Forest.Emails and other documents reviewed by the AP show many of Ashcraft's duties were reassigned to other employees and he was prohibited from communicating with tribes.Regional forest officials have not directly addressed allegations of retaliation against Ashcraft, but they have doubled down on promises to work with the dozen tribes that have ancestral connections to the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests.Nationally, the Biden administration has moved toward recognizing the connection Native Americans have to their homelands through the publication of action plans and guidance for dealing with sacred sites. In 2022, President Joe Biden issued a memo aimed at setting minimum standards for how agencies should carry out consultations with tribes.It appears that system broke down in North Carolina, said Valerie Grussing, the executive director of the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. The group has been in discussions with tribes and top forest officials about violations there.“What’s happened at the forest unit and the regional level is egregious. It’s unconscionable,” she said. “It’s not just a breaking of the federal trust responsibility, but of established relationships.”James Melonas, supervisor of the four forests in North Carolina, said in a statement that an independent group of experts was tapped last year to review several projects to ensure compliance with federal laws and tribal consultation obligations after “an internal concern” was raised.The experts recommended more training for employees on the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act and a full review of the forest heritage program. Regional forest officials said that internal review was done in May, confirming that obligations were met.“Honoring this rich tribal heritage along with co-stewardship of these lands with tribal nations is a top priority for the Forest Service," Melonas said.Some tribal officials say the Forest Service did not reach out to them when conducting the reviews.Ashcraft’s attorneys have partnered with the legal nonprofit Whistleblower Aid. They contend that Ashcraft has put his career on the line to bring attention to what they described as the “willful destruction of Native American heritage sites.”Andrew Bakaj, chief legal counsel for Whistleblower Aid, said virtually none of the key stakeholders with knowledge of the violations were interviewed as part of the agency's review and the report has been kept out of the public eye.The concerns raised by the whistleblower are not the first time the Forest Service has been accused of not following procedures. Documents obtained by the AP in 2016 revealed that portions of the Trail of Tears were ripped up in eastern Tennessee when an employee approved the construction of berms and trenches without authorization. The Forest Service later apologized to the Cherokee Nation and other tribes.Ashcraft has surveyed vast tracts of forest over his 31-year career. Without further investigation of steep slopes, he said the extent of the damage done in western North Carolina as a result of managers relying on outdated modeling can't be fully known.The whistleblower disclosure provides examples in which forest managers have allegedly tried to obstruct further archaeological investigations on steep slopes. It states that recreational trail projects – including a multimillion-dollar effort to expand hiking and biking networks east of Asheville -- have already been built over some areas and that prescribed burns have been implemented despite the need for more assessments and tribal consultation.“These actions are irreparably damaging or destroying an untold sum of Native American cultural and archeological sites including some of great significance. This conduct continues to this day,” Ashcraft warned in his letter.The intent isn't to stop work on forest lands, Ashcraft said, but rather to document sites before they're altered or reroute work in cases where areas are more sensitive and need protection.The Center for the Investigation of Native and Ancient Quarries has worked with Ashcraft and other scientists to uncover dozens of sites — many of which have a “surprising density” of Native American cultural materials and evidence of land use dating back thousands of years.Within the scar of the Seniard Creek Fire south of Asheville, they turned up stone axes and other tools used for digging at quartz and soapstone quarries — all examples of what researchers described as engineering feats by sophisticated societies that called this region home about 6,000 years ago."Here we are at higher elevations and steeper slopes with an absolutely magnificent resource eroding downslope,” said Philip LaPorta, executive director of the center and adjunct senior research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.LaPorta said discoveries like the one near Asheville should make people think differently about how Indigenous people used steep landscapes.The whistleblower disclosure was shared with the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Catawba Indian Nation, the Muscogee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band.The Eastern Band of Cherokee were hopeful about having more meaningful and frequent consultations with forest managers after the agency adopted a revised plan for the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests in 2023. However, a specialist with the tribe said not much has changed. In his letter, Ashcraft wrote that the identification and preservation of Native American heritage sites goes beyond a single agency, tribe or whistleblower. "It concerns all of us,” he wrote. “Protection of these resources is a duty shared by actors across state and federal government, sovereign tribes as well as civil society. When one fails — spectacularly and in bad faith — it is up to the rest to step in.”For Native Americans, Grussing said it goes beyond the artifacts found in a particular spot. It's an intangible energy that comes from being connected to a place.“That's what is at stake," she said. "These are irreplaceable cultural resources and places. They’re nonrenewable.”Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Forests

Agriculture

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Global carbon emissions inch upwards in 2024 despite progress on EVs, renewables and deforestation

As world leaders gather at COP29 to consider reducing emissions, the latest global carbon budget shows CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels are still going up, not down, despite some promising signs.

Susan Santa Maria, ShutterstockCarbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuels continue to increase, year on year. This sobering reality will be presented to world leaders today at the international climate conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Our latest annual stocktake shows the world is on track to reach a new record: 37.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ emitted from fossil fuels in 2024. This is an increase of 0.8% from the previous year. Adopting renewable energy and electric vehicles is helping reduce emissions in 22 countries. But it’s not enough to compensate for ongoing global growth in fossil fuels. There were also signs in 2023 suggesting natural systems may struggle to capture and store as much CO₂ in the future as they have in the past. While humanity is tackling deforestation and the growth in fossil CO₂ emissions is slowing, the need to reach an immediate peak and decline in global emissions has never been so acute. The Global Carbon Project The Global Carbon Budget is an annual planetary account of carbon sources and sinks, which soak up carbon dioxide and remove it from the atmosphere. We include anthropogenic sources from human activities such as burning fossil fuels or making cement as well as natural sources such as bushfires. When it comes to CO₂ sinks, we consider all the ways carbon may be taken out of the atmosphere. This includes plants using CO₂ to grow and CO₂ being absorbed by the ocean. Some of this happens naturally and some is being actively encouraged by human activity. Putting all the available data on sources and sinks together each year is a huge international effort involving 86 research organisations, including Australia’s CSIRO. We also use computer models and statistical approaches to fill out the remaining months to the end of the year. Fossil fuel emissions up This year’s growth in carbon emissions from fossil fuels is mainly from fossil gas and oil, rather than coal. Fossil gas carbon emissions grew by 2.4%, signalling a return to the strong long-term growth rates observed before the COVID pandemic. Gas emissions grew in most large countries, but declined across the European Union. Oil carbon emissions grew by 0.9% overall, pushed up by a rise in emissions from international aviation and from India. The rebound in international air travel pushed aviation carbon emissions up 13.5% in 2024, although it’s still 3.5% below the pre-COVID 2019 level. Meanwhile, oil emissions from the United States and China are declining. It’s possible oil emissions have peaked in China, driven by growth in electric vehicles. Coal carbon emissions went up by 0.2%, with strong growth in India, small growth in China, a moderate decline in the US, and a large decline in the European Union. Coal use in the US is now at its lowest level in 120 years. The United Kingdom closed its last coal power plant in 2024, 142 years after the first one was opened. With strong growth in wind energy replacing coal, the UK CO₂ emissions have almost been cut in half since 1990. Changing land use Carbon emissions also come from land clearing and degradation. But some of that CO₂ can be taken up again by planting trees. So we need to examine both sources and sinks on land. Global net CO₂ emissions from land use change averaged 4.1 billion tonnes a year over the past decade (2014–23). This year is likely to be slightly higher than average with 4.2 billion tonnes, due to drought and fires in the Amazon. That amount represents about 10% of all emissions from human activities, the rest owing to fossil fuels. Importantly, total carbon emissions – the sum of fossil fuel emissions and land-use change emissions – have largely plateaued over the past decade, but are still projected to reach a record of just over 41 billion tonnes in 2024. The plateau in 2014–23 follows a decade of significant growth in total emissions of 2% per year on average between 2004 and 2013. This shows humanity is tackling deforestation and the growth of fossil CO₂ emissions is slowing. However, this is not enough to put global emissions on a downward trajectory. Annual CO₂ emissions continue to increase, reaching a record high in 2024. The shaded area around each line shows the uncertainty in the estimates. Global Carbon Project, CC BY More countries are cutting emissions – but many more to go Fossil CO₂ emissions decreased in 22 countries as their economies grew. These countries are mainly from the European Union, along with the United States. Together they represent 23% of global fossil CO₂ emissions over the past decade (2014–23). This number is up from 18 countries during the previous decade (2004–13). New countries in this list include Norway, New Zealand and South Korea. In Norway, emissions from road transport declined as the share of electric vehicles in the passenger car fleet grew – the highest in the world at over 25% – and biofuels replaced fossil petrol and diesel. Even greater reductions in emissions have come from Norway’s oil and gas sector, where gas turbines on offshore platforms are being upgraded to electric. In New Zealand, emissions from the power sector are declining. Traditionally the country has had a high share of hydropower, supplemented with coal and natural gas. But now wind and particularly geothermal energy is driving fossil generation down. We are projecting further emissions growth of 0.2% in China, albeit small and with some uncertainty (including the possibility of no growth or even slight decline). China added more solar panels in 2023 than the US did in its entire history. Individual country emissions vary widely, but there are some signs of progress towards decarbonisation. Global Carbon Budget 2024/Global Carbon Project, CC BY-ND Nature shows troubling signs In the 1960s, our activities emitted an average of 16 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year globally. About half of these emissions (8 billion tonnes) were naturally removed from the atmosphere by forests and oceans. Over the past decade, emissions from human activities reached about 40 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year. Again, about half of these emissions (20 billion tonnes) were removed. In the absence of these natural sinks, current warming would already be well above 2°C. But there’s a limit to how much nature can help. In 2023, the carbon uptake on land dropped 28% from the decadal average. Global record temperatures, drought in the Amazon and unprecedented wildfires in the forests of Canada were to blame, along with an El Niño event. As climate change continues, with rising ocean temperatures and more climate extremes on land, we expect the CO₂ sinks to become less efficient. But for now, we expect last year’s land sink decline will recover to a large degree as the El Niño event has subsided. About half of the CO₂ emissions were removed from the atmosphere by forests and oceans. When we tally up all of the sources compared to the sinks, the budget should balance. We find a slight imbalance of 1.6Gt/year due to limitations of the data. Global Carbon Budget 2024/Global Carbon Project, CC BY Looking ahead Our latest carbon budget shows global fossil fuel emissions continue to increase, further delaying the peak in emissions. Global CO₂ emissions continue to track in the middle of the range of scenarios developed by the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We have yet to bend the emissions curve into the 1.5–2°C warming territory of the Paris Agreement. This comes at a time when it’s clear we need to be reducing emissions, to avoid worsening climate change. We also identified some positive signs, such as the rapid adoption of renewable energy and electric cars as they become cheaper and more accessible, supporting the march toward a net-zero emissions pathway. But turning these trends into global decarbonisation requires a far greater level of ambition and action. Pep Canadell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program - Climate Systems Hub. Corinne Le Quéré receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the UK Royal Society. She was granted a research donation by Schmidt Futures (project CALIPSO – Carbon Loss In Plants, Soils and Oceans). Corinne Le Quéré is a member of the UK Climate Change Committee. Her position here is her own and does not necessarily reflect that of the Committee. Glen Peters receives funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.Judith Hauck receives funding from the European Research Council (OceanPeak) and the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation program (OceanICU – Improving Carbon Understanding). The work reflects only the authors' view; the European Commission and their executive agency are not responsible for any use that may be made.Julia Pongratz receives funding from German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.Pierre Friedlingstein receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme Robbie Andrew receives funding from the Norwegian Environment Agency and the European Union's Horizon Europe.

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Campaigners in Italy urge pope to stop ‘sacrifice’ of 200-year-old tree for Xmas

Twenty-nine-metre tall fir destined to be chopped down and transported to St Peter’s Square in the VaticanEnvironmental campaigners in Italy’s northern Trentino province have started a campaign to stop the felling of a 200-year-old fir tree intended to form the centrepiece of the Vatican’s Christmas decorations.The so-called “Green Giant” is 29 metres tall and is due to be chopped down next week in a forest in the Ledro valley before being transported to the Vatican and positioned in St Peter’s Square, where it will then be unveiled on 9 December. Continue reading...

Environmental campaigners in Italy’s northern Trentino province have started a campaign to stop the felling of a 200-year-old fir tree intended to form the centrepiece of the Vatican’s Christmas decorations.The so-called “Green Giant” is 29 metres tall and is due to be chopped down next week in a forest in the Ledro valley before being transported to the Vatican and positioned in St Peter’s Square, where it will then be unveiled on 9 December.The Vatican’s Christmas tree tradition began in 1982 and ever since then a fir is donated each year, either from a region in Italy or another European country. The gift is often a source of pride.But several environmental associations in Trentino are determined to foil this year’s plan. They have written an open letter to Pope Francis asking him to stop what they described as “a useless sacrifice”. Meanwhile, more than 40,000 people have signed a petition and residents in Ledro, a town with a population of about 600, are reportedly planning a road-block protest to prevent the tree’s passage to Rome.The letter reminded the pontiff, who often lambasts climate crisis deniers, that some of his encyclicals have focused on safeguarding the environment.“It is inconsistent to talk about fighting climate change and then perpetuate traditions like this, which require the elimination of such an ancient and symbolic tree,” the associations wrote.The petition’s appeal urged people to sign against “the purely consumerist practice” of using living trees “for mere advertising purposes and a few ridiculous selfies”.However, Renato Girardi, the mayor of Ledro, hit back, telling the Italian press that he hadn’t expected “such malice”.“They are ruining the Christmas festivities just for a plant,” he added. “We only want to donate a fir tree, and I would like to underline that if it wasn’t donated it would end up in a sawmill.”He added that the valley’s forests are managed in compliance with PEFC, the European Commission forestry certification system.“The fir tree that will be removed is part of one of the lots that must be felled for the correct cultivation of the forest,” he said.Girardi denied claims by the campaigners that 39 more trees would be torn down and dispatched to the Vatican to adorn the internal areas of the tiny city-state in an operation alleged to cost €60,000 (£50,000).“There is no shortage of inaccuracies [in their appeal],” Girardi told the online newspaper, il Dolomiti. “It is true that 40 trees will go towards the Vatican but only one will be cut down in the woods of the Ledro while the other 39 will be purchased from specialised nurseries, because the Holy See had expressed, from the beginning preferred Nordmann fir trees suitable for interiors because they do not lose their needles. These trees have another particular characteristic: they do not grow in Ledro.”The cost of chopping down and transporting the Green Giant was, in fact, €6,000, he said.A spokesperson for the Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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