Deforestation

The “Grainway” freight train project cutting through the Brazilian Amazon is expected to receive its first environmental license next month. This article was originally published on Mongabay. By Jennifer Ann Thomas, translated by Maya Johnson A controversial project to build a rail line for transporting soybeans and other commodities through Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon may get its environmental license as soon as April. Prosecutors in the state of Pará, where the line will terminate at the Miritituba river port, have filed a court request for a suspension of the project until prior consultation with the affected Indigenous communities have been carried out. The request seeks to challenge the project on its economic viability, with prosecutors arguing that without detailed data on costs and compensation measures, there is no way of knowing how the project will impact on public coffers. This is the first time that prosecutors have highlighted a project’s viability to seek its suspension. A controversial freight railway line that would cut through Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon looks set to be approved for construction by the federal government as soon as April, despite a lawsuit pending against it by local prosecutors. ...

In this article, Erik Molvar outlines the serious nature of climate change. He offers evidence-based clarity on why destroying fragile woodlands, that holds carbon in place, needs to stop. The dawn breaks each morning on a hundred different mountain ranges in the Great Basin, with few human eyes to see it. Many of these mountain chains will be unfamiliar to most – the Toquimas, the Wah Wahs, the Goshutes, the Sheeprocks, the Fox Range – but the one thing they all have in common is their juniper woodlands that have been here for thousands of years. On the mesas and tablelands of the Colorado Plateau, guarding the slickrock canyons and mazes of badlands that are American icons, are the fragile woodlands (don’t bust the crust!) of pinyon and juniper that perfume the air with that ineffable scent of wild country. Today, just as the world awakens to the reality that we need as much carbon sequestration as possible, these arid woodlands are under assault from a coordinated campaign to deforest the West, orchestrated by the livestock industry. ...

In this article Shad Engkilterra exposes plans to expand clearcutting across vast portions of the U.S., to fast track the process, bypass environmental laws and regulations, and destroy forests on a huge scale. ‘Scorched Earth’: In Final Days, Trump Admin Finalizes Sweeping Clearcutting Rule Across West, While Cutting Public out of the Process by Shad Engkilterra / EnviroNews Trump and his administration are pushing through policy changes to keep the public in the dark and avoid public input requirements at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a group of prominent environmental NGOs decried today in a press release. With just a little over a month left in office, Trump’s BLM is moving forward with plans that will allow fast-track approval on a massive blanket clearcutting initiative for native forests and shrubs throughout the West. ...

This is an update regarding the chronology of events for the Old Growth Blockade which strives to protect the last old-growth temperate rainforests on Vancouver island, currently facing near-total eradication by the British Columbia government and logging companies. The Rainforest Flying Squad launches the Bugaboo Creek blockade to prevent road building into the last ancient forests of the watershed. Friday, December 11th, a group of Forest Protectors with the Rainforest Flying Squad have moved the Bugaboo Blockade south to block a road adjacent to the world famous Avatar Grove, to prevent road building crews from continued road building into the south side of the Bugaboo’s Ancient Rainforest in Camper Creek on Pacheedaht Territory. ...

Stop Thinning Forests is a community compilation, sponsored by Deep Green Resistance, of research and voices that speak in defense of our forests against the atrocities that are being committed on those communities in the name of “fire mitigation” and “forest health.” The Forest Service, in partnership with the timber industry, uses propaganda to promote the idea that thinning helps lessen fire severity while improving forest health. The research on the benefits of forest thinning is financially backed by the timber industry, and congressional passing of bills that promote thinning are backed by the lobbying efforts of the industry. The main goal for thinning forests is to increase revenue by allowing the timber industry to get into forests that were previously protected by environmental laws. Recent legislation has allowed the industry to bypass those laws and profit from forest products in the name of “forest health and restoration.” The Forest Service has consistently worked with the timber industry as a result of financial incentives and has been responsible for creating the infrastructure through use of federal tax dollars in the form of subsidies that enable the industry to “get the cut out.” ...

by Doug Pollock / Friends of OSU Old Growth In a recent, eloquent defense of a “no-compromise” approach to protecting our dwindling wild areas, author George Wuerthner quotes Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society: “We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no straddlers, for, in the past, they have surrendered too much good wilderness and primeval areas which should never have been lost.“ Mr. Wuerthner provides a long list of key conservation victories, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Olympic National Park – all of which were protected because heroic people refused to compromise. He cites notable failures, as well, writing: ...

by Blake Lavia and Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo / Talking Wings Collective Oct 9th, 2020, Movimiento por la Defensa de la Sierra, Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico Five thousand acres of cloud forest are currently being threatened in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico. This land is, at present, being held by squatters, who, with the backing of local politicians, have claimed to be the forest’s rightful owners. They displaced dozens of families and are threatening one of Mexico’s most vital ecosystems. These 5,000 acres of land contain three municipal parks and one archeological site. While the land’s original stewards and forest protectors are engaged in a legal battle with the “invaders,” the deforestation of this fragile ecosystem has already commenced. This act of environmental devastation has wide political/economic ramifications. If you control Coatepec’s mountains, you control the subsistence and livelihood of millions. ...

Fairy Creek Blockade: defending old growth forests on unceded Pacheedaht territory by Reuben Garbanzo, on Lekwungen territory Joshua Wright, is a seventeen year old film-maker from Olympia, Washington with an irrepressible passion for protecting the last remaining old-growth temperate rainforests; and has handy access to a state-of-the-art digital mapping program that allows him to track and monitor industrial logging activities in near-real time. In early August, this year, he gave heads up to Vancouver island grassroots forest activists to a road-building crew subcontracted to Surrey-based tenure-holder of TFL 46, Teal Jones, cresting the ridge into the old-growth Yellow Cedar headwaters of Ada’itsx/ Fairy Creek watershed, the last unlogged tributary of the San Juan River system, unceded Pacheedaht territory, near Port Renfrew. ...

Communal house of uncontacted Indians inside the Uru Eu Wau Wau territory, photographed in 2005. © Rogério Vargas Motta/IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources). Survival International / October 14, 2020 The survival of several uncontacted tribes is now at risk after fires were set inside their territories. Activists have described this year’s Amazon fires, and President Bolsonaro’s war on indigenous peoples, as “the gravest threat to the survival of uncontacted tribes for a generation.” ...

The Capitol State Forest, Washington — Early Wednesday afternoon just as the fog melted off, a convoy of trucks from at least four different law enforcement agencies parked on a logging road for an unannounced raid on a camp of forest protection activists, sweeping the camp away and leaving one man in the forest canopy tied to a unique contraption that continues to impede work on the controversial “Chameleon” timber sale. The officers came from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Patrol, the state Fish and Game Department, and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) which planned and sold the timber sale and oversees all of the Capitol State Forest. They temporarily closed the roads to through traffic while they cleared the activists from the camp. ...