The global push for biomass that can be burned for energy is causing concern about the price Indonesia's forests are paying.

Australia just overturned 20 years of case law to allow environmental groups to take corporations harming the environment to court.

Please crosspost to other communities which might be fitting.

Harvesting in Bulga state forest, inland from Port Macquarie, is just 400km from global nature-positive summit the government is hosting

• The EU parliament and council is considering a 12-month delay to its deforestation-free products regulation, which will require exporters to prove that beef, soy, rubber and other harmful commodities aren’t sourced to deforested land.

• The law was supposed to go into effect January 1, 2025, but faced mounting pressure from exporting countries and the industrial agricultural sector.

For the Maasai, Nyekweri forest has such a high ecological and socio-cultural value. But new conservancies aren’t working as best they could.

A really innovative study that went beyond statistical association and actually planted trees in low-tree neighborhoods and measured the impacts.

After the plantings, the research team reassessed residents' health. They found that those living in the greened area had 13-20% lower levels of a biomarker of general inflammation, a measure called high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) than those living in the areas that did not receive any new trees or shrubs. Higher levels of hsCRP are strongly associated with a risk of cardiovascular disease and are an even stronger indicator of heart attack than cholesterol levels. Higher CRP levels also indicate a higher risk of diabetes and certain cancers.

A reduction of hsCRP by this percentage corresponds to nearly 10-15% reduction in the risk of heart attacks, cancer or dying from any disease.

Although several previous studies have found an association between living in areas of high surrounding greenness and health, this is the first study to show that a deliberate increase in greenness in the neighborhood can improve health.

Nearly 40% of the Amazon's vital climate regions are unprotected, raising concerns about deforestation and the urgent need for preservation.

In case of paywall: https://archive.ph/jgkDt

A complaint lodged with the government alleges that Argentine provincial officials and businessmen are profiting from clearing the native forest.

In northern Argentina, lush, green spaces of forest give way to wide, open clearings. In aerial photos, the contrast couldn’t be starker: treetops with varying tones of green, and next to them, brownish empty land. Such is the reality for some parts of the province of Chaco, home to a part of the Gran Chaco, the second-largest forest in South America, after the Amazon. This vast dry forest has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, losing more than 130 square miles every month.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11260741

It’s long been thought that soil is the only effective terrestrial methane sink, as certain microorganisms use methane as a food source, but similar creatures live under a tree’s layer of bark, meaning that not only do our woody cousins withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in their roots, but also remove methane as well, about as effectively or perhaps more so than soil.

Years ago, I took an online course on mountains, and one fact that stuck with me from it was about how people in the USA accidentally polluted the water in New York City by cutting down trees.

It was the 1800s, and the trees in the Catskill Mountains were cut down to accommodate growing populations, and as a result, the water quality for New Yorkers deteriorated rapidly. Yes, the agriculture pollution and sewage did play a part, but the trees were decided to be such a big problem, that they decided something had to be done.

So, they purchased land, and planted 18000 trees to restore the natural ecosystem.

How does this water-cleaning work? With watersheds.

“Watershed: an area of high ground from which water flows down to a river” | Cambridge Dictionary

Imagine it is raining in a forest. Droplets hit the ground, and —thanks to the vegetation which slows runoff — it is absorbed into the soil like a sponge. As the water moves through the soil, microbes are actively removing harmful pollutants, silt is filtered, and plants removing fertilizers.

Some of the water will end up in our lakes and streams, but will be much cleaner than when it started.

"The ability of forests to aid in the filtration of water doesn’t only provide benefits to our health and the health of an ecosystem, but also to our pocketbooks. Forest cover has been directly linked to drinking water treatment costs, so the more forest in a source water watershed, the lower the cost to treat that water. Forests provide these benefits by filtering sediments and other pollutants from the water in the soil before it reaches a water source, such as a stream, lake or river." | American Forests

Since this intake and outtake of water is gradual, removal of these forests can even to lead to a higher chance of both droughts and floods.

More Info:

• https://youtu.be/QOrVotzBNto
• https://youtu.be/OfqOOqz0RhU