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by and - Better data on land tenure would help Paraguayan beef exporters reach higher-value markets while protecting Indigenous Peoples from deforestation that threatens their way of living.
forests
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by Elizabeth Dow Goldman and Mikaela Weisse - October 23, 2017New data on global tree cover loss shows that Brazil experienced a major spike in tree cover loss in 2016.
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by Susan Minnemeyer and Octavia Payne - October 17, 2017Active fire alerts produced by NASA and available online at Global Forest Watch Fires show the deadly wildfires whipping across California's wine country are among the worst in the state's history.
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by Josefhine Chitra, Arief Wijaya and Rizky Firmansyah - October 15, 2017In Indonesia's easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua, most people welcome the government's commitment to economic development, often in the form of oil palm expansion. But the impact of development can include irreparable deforestation and health crises. It's a delicate balancing act.
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by Carlos Nobre - October 12, 2017Once a staple food in Amazonia and now in demand across the world, the açaí demonstrates the economic value of keeping forests standing.
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by Arief Wijaya, Hanny Chrysolite, Mengpin Ge, Clorinda Kurnia Wibowo, Almo Pradana, Andhyta Firselly Utami and Kemen Austin - October 2017This working paper identifies key national mitigation policies and quantifies their emissions abatement potential to allow Indonesia to select a strategy to deliver on its climate commitment. The analysis focuses on the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the land-use and energy sectors, which account for over 80 percent of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
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by Patrick Nease and Octavia Payne - September 13, 2017Knowledge is power for the women of Sungai Berbari, Indonesia. With forest data from the Global Forest Watch platform and advocacy training from Women Research Institute, they are influencing where and how nearby agricultural companies operate.
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by Frances Seymour and Jonah Busch - September 11, 2017Forests contribute to a broad range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and deforestation can undermine their achievement. With development strategies on the agenda at this week's UN General Assembly, the authors of Why Forests? Why Now? offer points to ponder.
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by Rachel Biderman - September 11, 2017As Brazilian President Michel Temer fought for his political life over the past three months, he sought support from powerful interests to keep from being impeached. His efforts paid off, but this victory for the president brought a threat to his nation’s indigenous peoples and to Brazil’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
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by Natasha Ferrari - August 28, 2017Sean DeWitt, director of the Global Restoration Initiative, and Miguel Calmon, WRI Brasil director of forests, say forest restoration means this generation can be the first to leave the planet better off than they found it.
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by Hayden Higgins - August 22, 2017Frances Seymour talks about her contributions to setting up a $1 million prize to stir innovation in technology for locating peat, a project WRI Indonesia is overseeing. Indonesia's peatlands are one of the world's premier stocks of carbon, but mapping them remains a stubborn hurdle to their protection.
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by Nancy Harris and Donna Lee - August 21, 2017The climate mitigation potential of forests is immense. To help prepare for next year's Global Stocktake of NDCs, new publications by the Climate and Land Use Alliance clarify the way forests are counted under UNFCCC rules.
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by Frances Seymour - August 09, 2017Frances Seymour, author of Why Forests, Why Now, talks about the fuel faith can give us to confront the injustice of climate change.
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August 02, 2017Returning to WRI as a Distinguished Senior Fellow on forest and governance issues, Frances Seymour reflects on the impact of technology and international efforts to turn the tide on deforestation.
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by Hidayah Hamzah - July 31, 2017When Jakarta isn't submerged by floods, its residents experience incredible water stress. These twin problems—too much water and too little—are linked by a common solution: restoring the watershed's forests.
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by Katie Lyons, Tesfay Woldemariam and Fred Stolle - July 27, 2017Computers are invaluable aides to tracking deforestation. But some issues require local expertise to crack—in this case, allowing WRI to map drylands forests that add up to an area equivalent to the Amazon rainforest.
publication
by Elizabeth Dow Goldman, Nancy Harris and Thomas Maschler - July 2017This paper discusses findings from a spatial land use change modeling study on future forest loss in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s forests. Key findings include a historical analysis of forest loss, identification of the influence of drivers on forest loss, the amount and location of future forest loss and associated carbon emissions, and implications for future land-use and climate policy decisions.
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by Katie Reytar - July 25, 2017One of the poorest countries in Africa, Malawi once faced water shortages and power outages as its forests disappeared. Now, it has launched bold new strategies to restore trees to the landscape.
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by Arief Wijaya, Reidinar Juliane, Rizky Firmansyah, Tjokorda Nirarta "Koni" Samadhi and Hidayah Hamzah - July 19, 2017To help clarify heated debate over what drives deforestation in Indonesia, new analysis of Global Forest Watch data shows that most forest loss -- 55 percent -- occurs in legal concession areas, where some tree removal is allowed, but 45 percent happens outside these areas.
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by Dean Affandi, Adi Pradana, Gita Syahrani and Novita Liangga Kumala - July 18, 2017In Indonesia, a land grab by a palm oil company violates local villagers’ land rights. The path to justice is far from easy―but a new mapping initiative could help remove obstacles.