Deforestation

The prince, the presidents and the plan to save the rainforests

Posted by jamie — 6 April 2009 at 3:38pm - Comments

Rainforest lines the banks of the Congo river

Prince Charles has a cunning plan to protect rainforests like this one along the banks of the Congo river © Stok/Greenpeace

The almost complete lack of green issues on the G20 agenda has had heads shaking both in our office and across the environmental movement, yet there was one result this week worth celebrating. It didn't come from the G20 directly, but the presence of so many world leaders was an excellent opportunity for Prince Charles to gather many of them together to talk about rainforests.

For some time now, the Prince has (like us) been promoting the idea that stopping deforestation in places like the Amazon and Indonesia is an excellent way to put the brakes on climate change. His recent trip to the Amazon (documented by the Sun's new environment editor) was just the latest demonstration of the Prince's passion for the issue.

Article tagged as: climate change, deforestation, forests, forests for climate, G20, prince charles, PRP

March 2009 - the Month in pictures

Posted by jossc — 3 April 2009 at 11:03am - Comments

Greenpeace China projects a climate change message in Beijing

Greenpeace China projects a climate change message onto Yong Ding Gate: Beijing, March 23 2009

The latest monthly slideshow of Greenpeace activities around the world has just been published, and it's been a busy time. Lots of action around climate change, as you'd expect, with big events in the US and Brazil, and a symbolic projection onto the Yong Ding gate in Beijing, China. 

Article tagged as: climate change, deforestation, GM food, images, photos, rainbow warrior, slideshows

Is the Amazon rainforest doomed? Not if we can help it

Posted by jamie — 12 March 2009 at 3:53pm - Comments

There are some alarming stories in the press today about how much of the Amazon rainforest will be lost due to climate change. According to a new report from the Met Office's Hadley Centre, up to 85 per cent of it will disappear if we see a 4C rise in global temperatures.

It's a nightmare scenario and on the face of it, it makes you wonder if we shouldn't just throw in the towel - I have to admit to the occasional dark thought along those lines myself. But on the contrary, information like this illustrates yet again how crucial it is that we address climate change and deforestation together, and do it now before we get locked in to huge temperature rises.

Article tagged as: amazon, brazil, climate change, deforestation, forests, hadley centre, rainforests

Video: Fox News takes the tissue paper test

Posted by jamie — 6 March 2009 at 2:09pm - Comments

Fox News is a strange beast which is at once both wonderfully entertaining and deeply, deeply disturbing. Here in the UK, we're insulated from its 'Day Today gone real' presence (although I'm not so smugly parochial that I haven't noticed our own TV news drifting in a similar direction) and if it weren't for the wonder of YouTube, we might not see it at all.

So a big thumbs up to Rolf Skar from Greenpeace USA who gave an interview this week about the new tissue paper guide they've recently released. The two newscasters get to do a tissue texture test (recycled comes out good), and Rolf valiantly presses on when one says she finds recycled toilet paper "really hard and scratchy". But there are creams you can get for that.

Article tagged as: deforestation, forests, fox news, kleercut, tissue paper, USA, videos

Photos from the Amazon win international award

Posted by jamie — 3 March 2009 at 5:37pm - Comments

A section of rainforest surrounded by eucalyptus plantations in the Amazon

Eucalyptus plantations surround an area of rainforest in the Amazon: one of Daniel's winning images ©Greenpeace/Beltrá

Photographs illustrating the environmental problems we're facing provide one of the most powerful tools we have for our campaign work. Whether it's an image of the beauty that still remains or one of the havoc we humans so often create, sometimes one photo really can explain it all.

Article tagged as: agriculture, amazon, deforestation, forests, images, photography, photos, rainforests

How cattle ranches are chewing up the Amazon rainforest

Posted by jamie — 31 January 2009 at 9:38am - Comments
by-nc. Credit: Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá

For about three years now, we've been working on curbing the impacts of the soya industry on the Amazon rainforest in Brazil which, before the current moratorium was put into place, was replacing the forest with plantations on a massive scale.

However, there's another agricultural sector cutting deep into the forest which we're also going to tackle: cattle ranching. To assess the scale of the problem, Greenpeace researchers in Brazil have produced a new set of maps showing how the Amazon region has suffered.

Article tagged as: agriculture, amazon, brazil, cattle, climate change, deforestation, emissions, forests

Hackers help destroy the Amazon rainforest

Posted by jamie — 12 December 2008 at 11:11am - Comments

High-tech smuggling operations may not be what you'd normally associate with the ongoing clearance of the Amazon rainforest, but logging companies intent on plundering it for timber have been using hackers to break into the Brazilian government's sophisticated tracking system and fiddle the records.

To monitor the amount of timber leaving the Amazon state of Pará, the Brazilian environment ministry did away with paper dockets and two years ago introduced an online system. Companies logging the rainforest for timber or charcoal production are only allowed to fell a certain amount of timber every year and this is controlled by the use of transport permits issued by the state government's computer system.

Article tagged as: amazon, brazil, deforestation, forests, hackers, hacking, illegal logging

Brazil sets targets to stop deforestation, but is it enough?

Posted by jamie — 4 December 2008 at 11:42am - Comments

Flying over forest fires in the Amazon © Greenpeace/Beltra

Flying over forest fires in the Amazon © Greenpeace/Beltra

With the current climate talks now underway in Poznan, the Brazilian government has finally fulfilled a promise it made at the previous round of talks in Bali last year and set targets for reducing deforestation in the Amazon. It's great to see they finally have some targets to work towards (and it's been a long time coming) but as is often the way with these political initiatives, it all falls short of what's really needed.

Article tagged as: amazon, amazon fund, brazil, carlos minc, deforestation, forests, forests for climate, lula, poznan
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