One of the consequences of climate change is the increase and aggravation of natural phenomena such as droughts, floods and storms. To make matters worse, the consequences of the current human-induced climate change are further aggravated by a number of destructive activities, among which we will focus on two: deforestation and monoculture tree plantations.
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The Chocó is a biogeographical region that forms part of the neotropics (meaning that it contains the largest area of tropical rainforest). Its high rainfall levels, tropical temperatures and isolation have helped make it one of the world’s most biologically diverse regions as well. In Colombia it encompasses the Pacific Coast region and, among others, the department of Chocó, located between the jungles of Darién and the basins of the Atrato and San Juan Rivers.
The Niyamgiri Hill, in Orissa, an outstanding natural beauty place rising more than one thousand meters, has some of the most pristine
and dense humid forests in the region and is the source of Vamshadhara river and of major tributaries of Nagaveli river. It is also the
most sacred site of the Dongria - literally 'hill people'-, a dwindling sub-section of the Kondh peoples, who have inhabited the forests of
eastern India for several thousand years.
Liberia’s forests hold great promise for its people, but that promise is quickly evaporating as the Liberian government mismanages this valuable resource. The government is awarding flawed logging contracts, community rights are being trampled underfoot, and civil society organizations are under threat of censorship (1) for speaking out.
Heavy rains started pouring on January 14 and continued for almost one month in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak, hitting especially the central and northern region.
In 2008, the value of the carbon market increased by 84 per cent, with total transactions increasing from US$64 billion in 2007 to US$118 billion in 2008. Surely, with all that money changing hands, there must be some good news to report about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
During the last weeks, the world became an impotent witness to the horror of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.
To establish a communal forest may look like a good proposal. However, it may be not, according to many local villagers from the district of Dzeng (Center Province, Department of Nyong and So'o), who have denounced the attempt of the current Dzeng’s mayor to make use of their forest lands for commercial exploitation. Some 25.182 hectares of forest lands would be classified as a "communal forest", an intermediate category between logging concessions and community forests.
The Inga hydroelectric scheme (Inga 1, Inga 2, Inga 3 and Grand Inga) is located 140 miles southwest of capital city Kinshasa. It lies on the largest waterfall by volume in the world, the Inga falls, where the Congo River drops 96 m (315 ft) over the course of nine miles with an average flow of 42,476 m³/s.
The project started in 1920 during Belgian colonial rule. Colonial authorities forced the site’s first inhabitants to leave without any compensation. Inga’s displaced communities haven’t received any compensation till today.
Yasuní National Park stretches along the basins of the Yasuní, Cononaco, Nashiño and Tiputini Rivers. Aside from the fact that these are major rivers in their own right, they are also surrounded by floodplains, wetlands, lagoons and lake systems like the Jatuncocha, Garzacocha and Lagartococha. This area is also the ancestral territory of the Waorani indigenous people and two indigenous tribes living in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and Taromenane.
The Ayoreo Indigenous People are one of an estimated 100 uncontacted tribes around the world and the only uncontacted people in South America outside the Amazon basin. The Totobiegosode (‘people from the place of the wild pigs’) are the most isolated sub-group of the Ayoreo and live in the Chaco, a vast expanse of dense, scrubby forest stretching from Paraguay to Bolivia and Argentina.
More than three years ago, a large vessel arrived without warning at Tañon Strait, one of the richest fishing grounds in Central Philippines and a global center for marine biodiversity. For two months, the M/S Veritas Searcher owned by the Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. Ltd. (Japex) roamed the strait to determine the existence of oil and natural gas deposits using highly sophisticated technology to detect and determine the extent of these deposits.