Trees & reforestation

Brazil renews plan to restore 30 million acres of degraded land

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Brazil recently announced a plan to restore an area of degraded land about half the size of the U.K. by 2030, in a bid to combat climate change and biodiversity loss. The Planaveg 2.0 initiative, launched at the U.N. biodiversity summit, COP16, in Colombia on Oct. 28, aims to restore 30 million acres, about half of Brazil’s degraded land area. Home to 15-18% of the world’s known species, Brazil is the most biodiverse nation on Earth, making it a key player in global ecosystem restoration.

Cattle

Brazil fines meat ranchers and packers $64 million for raising and purchasing cattle from deforested Amazon

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IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, has fined meat packers and cattle ranchers — including the largest on the planet, JBS — $64 million for buying or raising cattle on illegally deforested land in the Amazon rainforest. The agency said 69 properties had been identified that had sold a total of 18,000 cattle who had been raised on deforested land. They also found 23 meat packing companies that had bought the cattle in Amazonas and Para states. Cattle ranching is the biggest driver of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

Morning fog over the brazilian rainforest in Brazil

Brazil upgrades park to protect South America’s tallest tree

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South America’s tallest tree, a 400-year-old red angelim in the northern tip of the Brazilian Amazon, is the star of a newly created conservation area called the Giant Trees of the Amazon State Park. The area was officially sectioned off from the larger Paru State Forest for stronger protection. Now, the 1.38-million-acre Giant Trees of the Amazon State Park has been upgraded to the “full protection” category. This means that activities like logging, permitted under the “sustainable use” category when it was previously part of Paru State Park, can no longer be proposed in its bounds.

Good news for wildlife conservation

Republic of Congo to catalyze investment in high-integrity forests

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Conservation authorities in the Republic of Congo have launched a plan to invest in the protection of “high-integrity forests” in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, treating these ecosystems as an asset class. The new initiative aims to fill a funding gap to protect the ROC’s forests by selling high-integrity forest (HIFOR) units, defined as representing “one hectare of healthy, high integrity tropical forest actively conserved within a large landscape for decades.”

Aerial view of forest with cleared areas

Honduras launches plan to eliminate deforestation by 2029

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Honduras this year launched a plan to eliminate deforestation by 2029, with a special focus on recovering land used by criminal groups for timber trafficking. The plan aims to evict groups living and working in protected areas and to “neutralize and establish control” of roads where timber is trafficked. Officials have already carried out hundreds of operations and arrested dozens of people tied to organized crime.

Trees

Norway’s forests have more than tripled in a hundred years

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Over the course of the last hundred years, Norwegian forests have tripled in size according to a new report. The survey from Statistics Norway shows that forest growth continued for the whole of the 20th and much of the 21st century, but has begun tapering off as spruce saplings planted by schoolchildren in the 1960s are now fully mature and beginning in some cases to die or be logged.

Mangrove tree in water above and below sea surface

Bangladeshi women embrace mangrove restoration as an alternative livelihood

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The vast Sundarbans mangrove forests along the southern coast of Bangladesh act as a shield and protect the coastal people and their livelihoods from tropical cyclones and tidal surges. In the last couple of years, the number of mangroves in the zone has increased as the government and some NGOs have introduced programs to plant mangrove trees on the coastal embankments as protection measures. Women from coastal villages, who know the ecosystem well, have been at the forefront of these reforestation projects and have also become entrepreneurial with mangrove forest resources.

Mangrove tree in the waters around Nosy Be Madagascar

Madagascar’s mangroves are rebounding after decades of deforestation

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A new analysis of satellite imagery dating as far back as 1972 reveals that mangroves in Madagascar are rebounding after decades of deforestation. The island’s total mangrove cover is down 8% compared with 1972, but a closer look at the data shows that the rate of loss has been declining and even reversed in the last decade. Between 2009 and 2019, Madagascar’s mangrove cover increased by 5%, with mangrove forests expanding even more in protected areas — showing that conservation efforts are working.

Colombia flag

Deforestation in Colombia falls to lowest level in 23 years

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The amount of forest loss fell from 1,235 sq km in 2022 to 792 sq km in 2023 – a 36% decrease, official figures revealed. Most of the environmental gains were in the Amazon rainforest, where the Colombian government is focusing much of its conservation efforts. The two main successes have been reaching agreements where farmers are paid to protect the land and negotiations with armed groups who are the de facto authority in deforestation hotspots.

A person preparing for planting the plant

Campesinos plant nearly a million trees in deforestation hotspot in the Colombian Amazon

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More than 700 campesinos from the municipality of Cartagena del Chairá have started restoring more than 11,000 acres of degraded rainforest in one of Colombia’s deforestation hotspots. In collaboration with researchers from SINCHI, the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute, and the Association of Community Action Boards, the families have recorded more than 600 plant and more than 100 animal species in the area.

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