Instruments like the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) are "voluntary", i.e., legally non-binding. These instruments are intended to have a direct influence on the governance of the tenure practice of states by providing an internationally recognized set of principles, and by simultaneously encouraging good practices.

In the last 15 years, Paraguay lost a greater share of its forest than almost any other country on Earth. While soy farming once drove deforestation in the east, the focus of Paraguay's forest loss has since moved west to the low-lying, thorn-forested Chaco, where cattle ranching has claimed over 3.7 million hectares (9 million acres) of forest for pastureland – an area about the size of the Netherlands – between 2001 and 2015.

Introduction

The Deforestation and Forest Degradation in the Amazon Biome map was produced by Imazon in order to contribute towards monitoring in the region. The methodology applied simultaneously generates mapping of deforestation and forest degradation [caused by logging activity and forest burning] using Landsat satellite images. Existing methods individually detect and map those processes, which can lead to overlaps in the results and increasing uncertainty in estimates of annual deforestation rates.

By Kathleen Buckingham

Trees have become an iconic image of environmentalism, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should plant millions of them.