Brazil's federal environment agency last year gave out the fewest fines for breaking conservation laws since 1995, the agency's press office told Reuters on Monday.
At first glance, the news seems good: tropical deforestation declined for the second year in a row, according to new satellite data. But digging in a little deeper reveals a more complicated, grimmer reality.
Small farmers around the world burn woodlands to create fertile fields, releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. In Belize, one project wants to move farmers away from this old method toward greener pastures.
Local and indigenous communities seem to hold the key to protecting both forests and the massive amounts of carbon that they contain — and on which we all depend.
Forest fires are underway in Indonesia as the rainy season tails off, marking the return of potentially widespread burning that threatens to once again blanket parts of the country in a toxic haze and belch out huge volumes of carbon dioxide.
