Forest Trends in the News

Carbon markets, particularly offsets, are shaking off their past and becoming a vital instrument for reaching CO2 reduction goals, protecting and conserving biodiversity at scale, as well as meeting many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They need to succeed.

Weak enforcement continues to undermine efforts to tackle exploitative labour practices in the forestry sector. Despite an elaborate constitution and other laws that meet international requirements, Ghana’s lack of effective regulation enforcement impedes sustainable agricultural production at the national and international level.

Name any fast-food restaurant, personal care product or home good you have bought recently, and chances are it contributed to the deforestation of the Amazon. Now name a big bank ― any big bank, really. More than likely it has helped finance that destruction.

“No podían construir grandes represas ni conocían las avanzadas técnicas de ingeniería que en la actualidad poseemos; sin embargo, los pobladores del antiguo Perú desarrollaron un sistema hidráulico que les permitió manejar los riesgos de sequía en climas extremos. Los mismos que hoy podrían ayudar a mejorar el suministro de agua de la capital.”

Carbon offsetting has increased in popularity and people want to know how it really helps.

Financial Times article on Vietnam’s trade. Includes a statement from Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance’s Phuc Xuan To.

Select dispatches responding to the surfacing evidence of climate change. Includes a statement from Ecosystem Marketplace’s Stephen Donofrio.

For the first time, the Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) has opened the books to share information with the public on revenue Myanmar’s government collects from harvesting timber. Last month, the MEITI released two reports juxtaposing statistics on production and tax payments from government ministries’ ledgers with corresponding figures reported by the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise […]

The issue of corporate deforestation is on the rise, taking root in supply chains in a surprising range of sectors. And the risks to companies for inaction are rising, too.

YANGON—Internationally known for forestry products such as teak, timber extraction in Myanmar is lucrative. The website of the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) boasts that the “forestry sector in Myanmar is one of the major contributors to the national economy.” A new report from the Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) reveals that the forest sector […]