Tree Huggers

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/31442824

Abstract

Tropical forests represent the warmest and wettest of Earth’s biomes, but with continued anthropogenic warming, they will be pushed to climate states with no current analogue1,2. Droughts in the tropics are already becoming more intense as they occur at successively higher temperatures3,4,5. Here we synthesize multiple datasets to assess the effects of hot droughts on a central Amazon forest. First, a more than 30-year record of annually resolved forest demographic data from a selective logging experiment showed higher tree mortality during intense droughts, particularly among fast-growing pioneer species with low wood density. Second, analysis of ecophysiological field measurements from the 2015 and 2023 El Niño droughts identified a soil moisture threshold beyond which transpiration rates rapidly declined. As rainless days beyond this threshold continued, drought conditions intensified, increasing the potential for tree mortality from hydraulic failure and carbon starvation. Third, analyses from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 demonstrated that under high-emission scenarios, a large area of tropical forest will shift to a hotter ‘hypertropical’ climate by 2100. Last, under a hypertropical climate, temperature and moisture conditions during typical dry season months will more frequently exceed identified drought mortality thresholds, elevating the risk of forest dieback. Present-day hot droughts are harbingers of this emerging climate, offering a window for studying tropical forests under expected extreme future conditions6,7,8.

On Tuesday, December 9, Brazil’s Senate approved a Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC48) in an expedited and irregular vote that seeks to enshrine the so-called Marco Temporal (“time limit” clause) into the Constitution. If enacted, the measure would allow individuals illegally occupying Indigenous lands, including land-grabbers such as cattle ranchers, to claim rights over territories already recognized as Indigenous territories. It would also expose some of Brazil’s most preserved ecosystems to escalating land grabs and economic pressure.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/31433260

Indigenous and other Ecuadorians have lived with millions of gallons of toxic pollution from Texaco’s operations for decades. Now, those victims’ tax dollars will go to Chevron, which acquired Texaco in 2001.

Over a quarter century in the Ecuadorian Amazon, oil giant Texaco (now Chevron) perpetrated an ecological disaster: It dumped 3.2 million gallons of toxic waste, spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil and flared nearly 50 million cubic feet of methane gas. The company also collaborated with U.S. evangelical missionaries to forcibly displace Indigenous peoples from their oil-rich lands. The victims have received no compensation.

Brazil’s Senate approved an environmental licensing bill that could expedite major infrastructure projects, including paving a highway that cuts through one of the most intact parts of the Amazon Rainforest in northwestern Brazil.

The BR-319 highway runs through 885 kilometers (550 miles) of rainforest, connecting Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, with Rondônia state farther south. It was built in the 1970s but is currently in disrepair.

Local politicians say it will help integrate Brazil’s northern Amazonas state with the rest of Brazil, bringing economic benefits to the region. But environmentalists fear paving it will bring more deforestation, pushing the rainforest past its tipping point.

The new special environmental license bill, first introduced as a temporary decree in August by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, gives the executive branch power to speed up and simplify environmental regulations for projects they define as strategic.

On Dec. 2 and 3, the bill sped through both houses of Congress before the decree’s 180-day deadline, officially converting it into law. It is now pending the president’s final approval.

• Monarch butterflies are in decline largely because of habitat degradation, including in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the forested mountains of Central Mexico.
• Researchers looked at aerial and satellite photography of forest cover in the Reserve over 50 years, assessing the impact of the Reserve’s protective decrees on logging.
• They found that implementation of logging bans worked well when the local community was consulted and compensated, and poorly when done without their involvement.

• Of the 193 members of the United Nations, 164 signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, agreeing to provide access as a right for all people to effectively participate in society, but many fall short when it comes to outdoor spaces.
• Researchers reviewed accessibility features provided by UNESCO Biosphere Reserves for physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive disabilities.
• They found that while more than half of the Reserves provide access for people with some physical disabilities, most do not appear to accommodate sensory, cognitive, or mental disabilities.

The devastation that has swept across Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra in recent weeks has forced Indonesia to confront an uncomfortable truth. What unfolded was not only a natural disaster but a collision between an exceptional climatic cycle and a landscape steadily stripped of its natural defenses.

More than 600 people have now been confirmed dead in the country, more than four hundred remain missing, and entire communities have been torn apart by the force of water, mud, and debris that surged with little warning. The scenes have become tragically familiar, houses swallowed by landslides, rivers breaking their banks, villages buried under mud that once clung to forest roots no longer there.

This year’s climate pattern created the perfect storm. Meteorological agencies warned that an active monsoon phase combined with warm ocean temperatures would push rainfall to exceptional levels across western Indonesia.

With no COP30 roadmap, hopes of saving forests hinge on voluntary initiatives

A rare tropical storm then formed in the Malacca Strait, unleashing torrential rains and wind gusts for several days. The Malacca Strait is one of the least likely places on Earth for tropical cyclones to form, making this event an exceptional anomaly. What might have once been manageable seasonal extremes became lethal when these torrents met degraded catchments and eroded hillsides.

Heavy rain alone does not create walls of mud and logs crashing into villages, it is heavy rain falling on land that is no longer able to hold or absorb it. In many affected districts, people reported water arriving faster and more violently than anyone could remember, carrying with it an astonishing volume of uprooted trees and logs that locals insist did not come from natural forest fall alone.

Conveyor belts of timber

This is where public suspicion has grown. The floods across the three provinces did not just bring water, they brought evidence. Viral videos showed rivers transformed into conveyor belts of timber, beaches covered with logs, and bridges jammed with uprooted trunks.

Environmental groups quickly pointed to long standing problems of deforestation and illegal logging that weaken watersheds and destabilize slopes. Some officials at the local level echoed these concerns, noting that the amount of cut wood carried by the floods appeared far beyond what would be expected from natural tree fall.

While the national government has cautioned against drawing conclusions too quickly, insisting that investigations into the origins of the timber are underway, the visual evidence has only deepened public frustration. Communities living downstream know what an intact forest looks and behaves like during heavy rain, and they know what a damaged one unleashes.

Legal concessions worsen problem

Recent data reinforces the scale of the problem. Independent monitoring groups reported that Indonesia lost more than two hundred sixty thousand hectares of forest in 2024, with over ninety thousand hectares lost on the island of Sumatra alone. This level of annual loss places Indonesia among the world’s highest tropical deforestation hotspots. Although much of this deforestation occurred inside legal concessions, the ecological impact is no less severe.

When natural forest is cleared, whether for plantations, industry, or illicit timber extraction, the soil becomes exposed, drainage shifts, and slopes lose integrity. Even more troubling, authorities uncovered a major illegal logging operation in the Mentawai Islands in late 2025, seizing more than four thousand cubic meters of illicit timber. This suggests that illegal extraction remains alive in areas where oversight is weak and access is difficult.

Comment: Europe must defend its deforestation law – for forests, business and its reputation

Such practices hollow out forest structure in ways that are not always visible until disaster strikes. Government policy has played an ambiguous role in this trajectory. On one hand, Indonesia has made international commitments to curb deforestation and has deployed satellite based early warning systems to identify suspicious land clearing.

On the other hand, the expansion of legal concessions for agriculture, timber, and mining has allowed vast tracts of natural forest to be converted. Even when legal, these transitions often degrade watersheds and reduce the natural capacity of landscapes to regulate water.

Local governments, strapped for revenue and political support, frequently view concessions as economic lifelines, while enforcement against illegal operators remains uneven. The result is a patchwork of legal and illegal pressures that steadily erode ecological resilience.

Protecting forests is a safety issue

The tragedy in Sumatra marks a warning that can no longer be ignored. Climate variability is intensifying, rainfall extremes are becoming more frequent, and the combination of strong storms and weakened landscapes will make disasters deadlier if current trends continue.

Indonesia cannot control the monsoon, but it can control the health of its forests. Protecting the remaining natural forest in Sumatra is no longer simply an environmental issue, it has become a matter of public safety and national stability.

Norway pledges $3bn in boost for Brazil-led tropical forest fund

Looking forward, the government must take a sharper turn. Enforcement against illegal logging must be strengthened through transparent monitoring and community based surveillance in remote areas. The issuance of new concessions in sensitive watersheds should be paused while existing ones undergo ecological audits.

Local governments in Sumatra need sustained funding for reforestation and slope stabilization projects, not one off emergency responses. Finally, national and provincial authorities must collaborate to restore degraded catchments before the next extreme rainfall arrives.

Sumatra has paid an unbearable price for years of ecological neglect combined with a climate growing more volatile. The next disaster is a question of when, not if. Whether it becomes another national tragedy or a turning point will depend on how seriously Indonesia treats the forests that remain standing and the people living beneath them.

• Indigenous Dayak communities report wildlife encroaching into villages, land grabbing, and loss of cultural and livelihood resources as a palm oil company begins clearing forests on their customary lands — in some cases without consent or even prior notification.
• PT Equator Sumber Rezeki (ESR) has already cleared nearly 1,500 hectares (3,700 hectares) of rainforest inside this region that’s designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and orangutan habitat, with much of the deforestation occurring this year and signaling far more destruction to come.
• The company’s parent group, First Borneo, is driving widespread deforestation across Kapuas Hulu with two other plantations, yet its palm fruit is still entering global “zero-deforestation” supply chains through intermediary mills despite corporate no-buy pledges.
• Environmental groups are urging the government to halt or revoke ESR’s permits and protect the orangutan-rich landscape, warning that continued clearing undermines Indonesia’s climate commitments and threatens both biodiversity and cultural survival.

Brazil’s lawmakers have voted, by an overwhelming majority, to weaken the nation’s environmental licensing system, overturning key protections that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had vetoed earlier this year.

“A road is always the death of the rainforest, and that’s been borne out by literally every case you can think of.”

archived (Wayback Machine)

Today, outside Puerto Maldonado, a sandy wasteland spreads along both sides of the highway. The area, known as La Pampa, used to be lush tropical rainforest. But after years of gold mining, it is a denuded expanse where shallow toxic waters pool in sickly brownish-yellow puddles and pale leafless trees spike across the horizon. Small settlements have sprouted along the highway—and within them, prostitution, human trafficking and violence, much of it connected to organized crime.

Luis Fernandez, executive director of Wake Forest University’s Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation has extensively studied the impact of small-scale mining on deforestation in the Amazon. He says Madre de Dios has always been known to have alluvial gold deposits. But the wastelands of La Pampa are there for one reason: “The highway, the infrastructure,” Fernandez said. “If you have to bushwhack through the jungle, you might find a lot of gold, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money, so you don’t.”

[...]

After miners exhausted the creeks and rivers, they moved into the forest and cut down patches of trees to mine there. “Then that starts to fragment the forests,” Fernandez explained. “And then you start to get to even bigger areas. And once they start to interconnect, you change the water table, and then you start to lose a lot more carbon. … These big standing forests are starting to dry out because you’re changing the groundwater, and then they burn.”

[...]

“Access is everything,” said Meg Symington, vice president of global integrated programs at the World Wildlife Fund, who has extensively studied the Amazon. “Ninety-five percent of deforestation happens within five-and-a-half kilometers of a road, or one kilometer of a river.”

Fuck roads.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30847120

Using advanced satellite data and machine learning, the researchers tracked more than a decade of changes in aboveground forest biomass, the amount of carbon stored in trees and woody vegetation. They found that while Africa gained carbon between 2007 and 2010, widespread forest loss in tropical rainforests has since tipped the balance.

Between 2010 and 2017, the continent lost approximately 106 billion kilograms of forest biomass per year. That is equivalent to the weight of about 106 million cars. The losses are concentrated in tropical moist broadleaf forests in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, and parts of West Africa, driven by deforestation and forest degradation. Gains in savanna regions due to shrub growth have not been enough to offset the losses.

As winter closes in across much of North America, migratory birds are heading south to warmer climes and more abundant food. But until recently, scientists didn’t have a good understanding of exactly where they went.

Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology U.S. analyzed observations from eBird, a global citizen-science database of sightings submitted by bird-watchers. They found that in 2022 more than half of the 314 migratory bird species they studied went to the five great forests of Central America.

They write that 5 billion migratory birds funnel through Central America each year. Many stop in the rainforests, alpine wetlands and mangroves of the five great forests: Selva Maya in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala; Moskitia in Honduras and Nicaragua; Indio Maíz-Tortuguero in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; La Amistad in Costa Rica and Panama; and the Darién in Panama and northern Colombia. Collectively, these forests cover more than 10 million hectares (2.5 million acres), the researchers write.

The European Union has voted to postpone implementing a key antideforestation law for the second year in a row, citing technical concerns. Critics of the move warn that a delay and other proposed changes will further weaken the law.

On Nov. 26, the European Parliament voted 402 to 250 in favor of an amendment that delays a start date for the landmark European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and introduces an array of exemptions to the law. When the law goes into effect, it will ban EU nations from importing goods like soy, beef, cocoa and palm oil that come from areas deforested after 2020.

If the amendment is ratified, it will delay EUDR implementation another year to Dec. 30, 2026, with an additional grace period for small businesses through June 30, 2027. The EUDR was originally set to take effect at the end of 2024, before being pushed forward a year to December 2025.

• In 2024, the DRC experienced an uptick in primary forest loss, with 590,000 hectares of forest lost, according to satellite data visualized on Global Forest Watch.
• Subsistence agriculture continues to be the main driver of forest loss, with recent research finding artisanal mining in the eastern DRC results in more forest loss than researchers previously thought.
• Wildfire emerged as a growing concern in the DRC in 2024, and data suggest fire activity may have have intensified further in 2025.
• Escalating conflict and insecurity in the eastern DRC also put increasing pressure on forest resources.

A new report by the Forests & Finance Coalition finds that despite years of voluntary climate commitments, banks and other financial institutions have continued to increase their investments in companies linked to deforestation. The value of investments in these companies — in industries such as beef, soy, palm oil and paper — has increased by almost $8 billion since the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, the report finds.

As of September 2025, investors held $42 billion in bonds and shares in more than 191 forest-risk companies identified in the report. The three largest investors are Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and Employees Provident Fund, both Malaysian state-owned entities, and U.S. investment manager Vanguard. Banks, including Brazil-based Banco do Brasil, Sicredi and Bradesco, provided $429 billion in loans and underwriting to more than 300 forest-risk companies, representing a 35% increase between 2016 and 2024.

“A decade after the Paris Agreement, we see little to no action from banks and investors to stop the money pipeline to tropical forest destruction,” Merel van der Mark, Forests & Finance Coalition coordinator and co-author of the report, told Mongabay in an email. “In fact, our data shows that overall, credit and investment keep growing, while banks and investors lack the necessary policies and processes to ensure this money will not harm forests, people and the climate. This means that we need far stronger, and mandatory, measures to start shifting these financial flows.”

None of the institutions mentioned in this story responded to Mongabay’s request for comment.

Investments vary by region, the report notes. North American, East Asian and Southeast Asian investors have increased their investments in forest-risk companies by $4.5 billion, $1.5 billion and $5.1 billion, respectively, since 2015, while European and South American investors have lowered their investments by $179 million and $2.4 billion.

Overall, the report concludes that a decade of voluntary commitments, such as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, have failed to curb destructive financing. The report calls for stricter regulations to ensure financial institutions include biodiversity and human rights risks into their risk management processes. Institutions must also strengthen accountability, due diligence and corporate disclosure, the report notes.

“To achieve real change, stronger regulations are needed,” Van der Mark said. “These should prohibit the financing of deforestation and rights violations, and must ensure financial institutions are held accountable for the impacts they finance. This would also create a level playing field and create change at the sector level.”

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• report cited

• A new study has found that the trunks of trees in the Amazon have become thicker in recent decades — an unexpected sign of the rainforest’s resilience in response to record-high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
• Nearly 100 scientists involved in the study have stated that old-growth forests in the Amazon are sequestering more carbon than they did 30 years ago, contradicting predictions of immediate collapse due to climate change.
• But the warning still stands: Despite the trees’ capacity to adapt, scientists fear that the extreme droughts and advancing deforestation could invert the rainforest’s balance and threaten its vital role in global climate regulation.

archived (Wayback Machine)

• A 30,019-hectare (74,178-acre) forest in Santa Cruz, Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to Bom Futuro, a Brazilian agriculture company with plans to clear the land, documents reviewed by Mongabay suggest.
• The forest is being sold by a local affiliate of Dutch wood flooring producer INPA, which has helped sustainably manage the area since the mid-2000s.
• Conservationists say the plot is an important part of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest, which acts as a transition between the Amazon Rainforest and the Gran Chaco and Cerrado savannas.

archived (Wayback Machine)

• European governments are pushing to delay and weaken the EU Deforestation Regulation, backing a one-year postponement to 2026 and major reductions in due-diligence requirements.
• The political shift is driven largely by Germany and supported by France, despite earlier European Commission rollbacks and opposition from only a few member states.
• Civil society groups warn that further delays would gut the law, punish early-compliant companies, and undermine the EU’s regulatory credibility.
• At COP30, the EU’s silence on deforestation has fueled accusations of hypocrisy as advocates say weakening the EUDR would have severe consequences for tropical forests.
• This story has been updated to include additional comments from Andi Muttaqien, executive director of Satya Bumi, on the implications of a potential EUDR delay for Indonesia.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30584091

What was once considered a climate holy grail comes with serious tradeoffs. The world wants more of it anyway.

First the plant stalk is harvested, shredded, and crushed. The extracted juice is then combined with bacteria and yeast in large bioreactors, where the sugars are metabolized and converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. From there, the liquid is typically distilled to maximize ethanol concentration, before it is blended with gasoline.

[...]

The cycle goes a little like this: Farmers, desperate to replace cropland lost to biofuel production, raze more forests and plow up more grasslands, resulting in deforestation that tends to release far more carbon than burning biofuels saves. But as large-scale production continues to expand, there may be insufficient land, water, and energy available for another big biofuel boom — prompting many researchers and climate activists to question whether countries should be aiming to scale these markets at all. (Thomson Reuters reported that global biofuel production has increased ninefold since 2000.) Biofuels account for the vast majority of “sustainable fuels” currently used worldwide.

An analysis by a clean transport advocacy organization published last month found that, because of the indirect impacts to farming and land use, biofuels are responsible globally for 16 percent more CO2 emissions than the planet-polluting fossil fuels they replace. In fact, the report surmises that by 2030, biofuel crops could require land equivalent to the size of France. More than 40 million hectares of Earth’s cropland is already devoted to biofuel feedstocks, an area roughly the size of Paraguay. The EU Deforestation-Free Regulation, or EUDR, cites soybeans among the commodities driving deforestation worldwide.

“While countries are right to transition away from fossil fuels, they also need to ensure their plans don’t trigger unintended consequences, such as more deforestation either at home or abroad,” said Janet Ranganathan, managing director of strategy, learning, and results at the World Resources Institute in a statement responding to the Belém pledge. She added that rapidly expanding global biofuel production would have “significant implications for the world’s land, especially without guardrails to prevent large-scale expansion of land dedicated to biofuels, which drives ecosystem loss.”

Other environmental issues found to be associated with converting food crops into biofuels include water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, air pollution, and soil erosion. One study, conducted a decade ago, showed that, when accounting for all the inputs needed to produce different varieties of ethanol or biodiesel — machinery, seeds, water, electricity, fertilizers, transportation, and more — producing fuel-grade ethanol or biodiesel requires significantly more energy input than it creates.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30583991

• A recent study in Thailand finds that raising native tree seedlings inside repurposed bottle crates improves performance compared to standard methods in community-run nurseries.
• Saplings grown in bottle crates had better root formation and superior growth when planted out in a deforested site, thanks to better air circulation for the roots.
• Crating the saplings also saved on labor costs, which more than offset the cost of purchasing the crates.
• Adoption of the new method could improve the quality of saplings grown in community nurseries, a benefit for reforestation projects where sapling survival is key to success.

archived (Wayback Machine)

• Research from Brazil shows that tree species adapted to extreme heat may be key to reforesting areas affected by fires.
• The ongoing research focuses on plants native to the Cerrado savanna, a biome where fire is a natural mechanism for vegetation regeneration and seeds can germinate after the land is burned.
• The findings have practical implications for the Cerrado, which is the most burning-prone biome in Brazil, with the risk of fire exacerbated by agriculture.
• Proponents say restoration strategies that include heat-resistant species can minimize the impacts and prepare the restoration site for other species to take root.

archived (Wayback Machine)

MOCOA, Colombia—This isn’t the first time foreigners have shown up here, where the Andes Mountains meet the Amazon rainforest, insisting they needed what was under the ground.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30199684

• With the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, essentially all of Brazil’s government outside of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is promoting actions that push us toward tipping points, both for the Amazon Rainforest and the global climate.
• Crossing any of these tipping points would result in global warming escaping from human control, with devastating consequences for Brazil that include mass mortalities.
• The question of whether Brazil’s leaders understand the consequences of their actions is relevant to how they will be judged by history, but the climatic consequences follow automatically, regardless of how these actions may be judged, a new op-ed argues.

archived (Wayback Machine)