Their claims were rejected, raising concerns whether due process was followed

The recent Amazon wildfires brought everyone to a choking standstill as the world’s largest tropical rainforest and the lungs of our planet were going up in flames. Environmentalists blamed the far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who pushed for development of the protected land reserves and is against environmental fines. Speculation is rife that the fires started with a deliberate attempt by loggers and farmers to clear the forests.

This month, the world’s leading climate scientists issued a report on land confirming what we already know: forests are a critical weapon in the battle against climate change. Yet as competition for land mounts, the destruction of forests for agriculture, mining, and infrastructure rages on.

• Forestry is big business in Guyana. The sector contributed 2.27 percent to Guyana’s GDP in 2016, with total forest products exports valued at $41.9 million. Approximately 20,000 people, mainly in the rural and hinterland areas, are employed in the sector.
• Guyana’s laws provide for indigenous villages to obtain titles for the land they occupy and, currently, indigenous peoples own 14 percent of the country’s land.

Land rights have direct bearing on the incomes of marginalized individuals and communities, and the potential to transform their living conditions by breaking the cycle of poverty.

he Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched two new publications, ‘Forest Futures, Sustainable pathway for forests, landscapes and people in Asia Pacific Region’ and ‘Forestry Sector Review: Pakistan’. The reports were launched by the Advisor to the Prime Minister on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam and FAO Representative in Pakistan, Minà Dowlatchahi in Islamabad.

Protecting the world’s remaining tropical forest cover from natural resource extraction is essential if the worst of climate change is to be avoided, and the rights of people who depend on those forests are to be respected. For this to happen, politicians have to see political advantage in voting for laws and budgets that promote such protection.

According to a report, authorising the indigenous communities’ land titles can improve forest management and carbon storage

Recognising land tenures of indigenous communities and their management rights over forests can help tackle climate change, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that’s yet to be made public.

At the beginning of the 20th century, 80 per cent of India was covered in thick forests. Now the forest cover has dropped to a mere 17 per cent.

Recently, Forest Survey of India (FSI) released its biennial State of Forests Report 2017 that stated that forest cover in the country has increased by about one per cent, but several other reports highlight that this increase is not due to increase in forest area but is the artefact of increase in agricultural green cover.

A conservation group has purchased almost 400 square miles of land in a project that could offer a new model to protect natural environments

WASHINGTON - Private investors have backed what supporters say is one of the largest conservation acquisitions ever in the eastern United States, offering a promising new model to protect land.

Rights enforcement must be strengthened for forest landscape restoration efforts to succeed, said Steven Lawry during a webinar presentation hosted by the global forest team at GIZ, Germany’s development agency.

Lawry,  a principal scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), presented findings on the role of tenure security in the adoption of forest landscape restoration practices.

Sociological study finds pros and cons in a REDD+ carbon credit scheme in the Brazilian Amazon that rewards small-scale ecosystem service providers in local communities.

• To safeguard the almost 90 percent of its land still covered with forest, the small Brazilian state of Acre implemented a carbon credit scheme that assigns monetary value to stored carbon in the standing trees and rewards local “ecosystem service providers” for their role protecting it.

Sourcing products from sustainable production areas and offering farmers better loans for environmentally friendly practices are just two ways to support sustainable development – ultimately benefiting millions of farmers and significantly reducing deforestation