Cargill and World Resources Institute today announced a new 2-year partnership to work across value chains to better manage deforestation and water risk. This partnership brings WRI’s cutting-edge tools to the agriculture sector on a global scale.
Companies, especially those with consumer-facing brands, have become increasingly concerned about the reputational, operational and legal risks posed by deforestation. So some are seeking out ways to root it out of their supply chains.
For better or for worse, plantation forests are here to stay. But through sustainable management and a "landscape approach," plantations can actually help contribute to the global restoration movement. Researcher Jared Messinger explains.
Despite the fact the Indonesia's peatlands are a major carbon sink, we know surprisingly little about them—much of the information out there about their extent, thickness and change is inaccurate. The recently launched Indonesian Peat Prize aims to change that.
A history of deforestation has made Vietnam, China and South Korea especially vulnerable to coastal storms, floods and sandstorms. In the face of these crises, all three nations are pursuing the same solution&mdashrestoring degraded landscapes.
Nigel Sizer looks back on the past five years as director of WRI's Forests program. Starting next month, he'll take up his new role as president of the Rainforest Alliance.
Tree plantations continue to expand worldwide to meet demand for timber, wood fiber, fruits, and vegetable oils such as palm oil. Many countries report national statistics on the area of land in plantations, but the extent and locations of these plantations are often not documented.
New data on Global Forest Watch shows that in some of the world's most heavily forested nations, more than 90 percent of tree cover loss is happening in natural forests rather than plantations. That's a problem since natural forests, especially those in the tropics, provide much greater climate, biodiversity and water benefits over planted lands.
James Anderson uses the Global Forest Watch platform to analyze forest change in his hometown of Northfield, Minnesota.
After more than 10 years of negotiations, REDD+, a program to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, is finally permanently enshrined in an international climate agreement.
These new commitments, part of Initiative 20x20, already fulfill a quarter of the restoration goal set forth in Brazil's national climate plan to restore and reforest 12 million hectares by 2030.
Because palm oil production is a major driver of deforestation in the humid tropics, it poses potential reputational risks to companies associated with it. But how should businesses trace palm oil in their supply chains? One way is to look at palm oil mills.
In just one year, Initiative 20x20 has secured commitments to restore 27.7 million hectares of land by 2020—an area the size of the United Kingdom —with private impact investors earmarking $730 million to support restoration projects in the region.
Deforestation continues to be recognized as a key source of greenhouse gas emissions that must be addressed as part of the overall package coming out of COP21.
More than ever, governments, companies and civil society organizations are committing to ambitious goals to protect the world’s remaining forests and combat emissions from deforestation.
GFW Climate shows that between 2001 and 2013, greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation across the world’s tropical forests were larger than Russia’s annual emissions. And that's just one finding of many.
Forests, which cover about one-third of the land on Earth, are an often under-appreciated resource for addressing climate change. But this year, things could be different.
The Malaysian state of Sarawak was once home to one of Asia’s most biologically diverse tropical rainforests. That was until a technical report by a British aristocrat initiated 25 years of support for a disastrous forest management program that continues to this day.
Satellite data reveals that concessions cover more than half the Malaysian state of Sarawak, often overlapping with sensitive intact forests that are being degraded at one of the highest rates in the world.
A recent government audit found evidence of timber laundering, where exporters make illegally logged wood appear to be legitimately harvested by concocting “ghost trees” – trees that never existed, except on paper.