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At Least 146 Killed or Disappeared for 'Defending Life Itself' Last Year
"It is critical that governments and companies turn the tide to uphold defenders’ rights and protect them rather than persecute them," said the lead author of the new Global Witness report.
Sep 17, 2025
At least 142 people were killed and four were confirmed missing last year for "bravely speaking out or taking action to defend their rights to land and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment," according to an annual Global Witness report published Wednesday.
"Year after year, land and environmental defenders—those protecting our forests, rivers, and lands across the world—continue to be met with unspeakable violence," said Laura Furones, the report's lead author, in a statement. "They are being hunted, harassed, and killed—not for breaking laws, but for defending life itself."
"Standing up to injustice should never be a death sentence," Furones declared. "It is critical that governments and companies turn the tide to uphold defenders' rights and protect them rather than persecute them. We desperately need defenders to keep our planet safe. If we turn our backs on them, we forfeit our future."
The report, Roots of Resistance, begins by listing the activists who were murdered or disappeared for six months or more in 2024. It also says: "We acknowledge that the names of many defenders who were killed or disappeared last year may be missing, and we may never know how many more gave their lives to protect our planet. We honor their work too."
The most dangerous country for environmental defenders, by far, was Colombia, with 48 deaths. Jani Silva, a defender there living under state protection, said that "as this report shows, the vast majority of defenders under attack are not defenders by choice—including myself. We are defenders because our homes, land, communities, and lives are under threat. So much more must be done to ensure communities have rights and that those who stand up for them are protected."
Colombia was followed by Guatemala (20), Mexico (18), Brazil (12), the Philippines (7), Honduras (5), Indonesia (5), Nicaragua (4), Peru (4), the Democratic Republic of Congo (4), Ecuador (3), and Liberia (3). There was one confirmed killing each in Russia, India, Venezuela, Argentina, Madagascar, Turkey, Cameroon, Cambodia, and the Dominican Republic. The four disappearances were in Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines.
"This brings the total figure to 2,253 since we started reporting on attacks in 2012. This appalling statistic illustrates the persistent nature of violence against defenders," the report states. It stresses that while the new figure is lower than the 196 cases in 2023, "this does not indicate that the situation for defenders is improving."
The report notes that "120 (82%) of all the cases we documented in 2024 took place in Latin America," while 16 killings occurred in Asia and nine were in Africa. It emphasizes that "underreporting remains an issue globally, particularly across Asia and Africa. Obstacles to verify suspected violations also present a problem, particularly documenting cases in active conflict zones."
A third of all land and environmental defenders killed or disappeared last year were Indigenous. The deadliest industry was mining and extractives, at 29, followed by logging (8), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (2), hydropower (1), and poaching.
In addition to detailing who was killed or disappeared, what they fought for, and how "the current system is failing defenders," the report offers recommendations for "how states and businesses can better protect defenders."
Currently, said Global Witness project lead Rachel Cox, "states across the world are weaponizing their legal systems to silence those speaking out in defense of our planet."
"Amid rampant resource use, escalating environmental pressure, and a rapidly closing window to limit warming to 1.5°C, they are treating land and environmental defenders like they are a major inconvenience instead of canaries in a coal mine about to explode," she continued.
"Meanwhile, governments are failing to hold those responsible for defender attacks to account—spurring the cycle of killings with little consequence," she added. "World leaders must acknowledge the role they must play in ending this once and for all."
The recommendation section specifically points to the upcoming United Nations climate summit, COP30, in Belém, Brazil, "a city amid one of the world's most biodiverse regions—and one of the most dangerous countries to be a land and the environment defender."
"The protection and meaningful participation of land and environmental defenders at COP30 and beyond is an essential element of the fight against climate change," the document says. "It must become a core principle of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity process."
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The Forests I Love Are Threatened—But Here’s Why I Still Have Hope
Working together, we can continue to advance a better, more sustainable vision for the South.
May 06, 2025
May is one of my favorite months to go walking through the forests near my home in Cedar Mountain, North Carolina. Up here, near the mountainous border between the Carolinas, the air smells sweet and clean this time of the year, filtered by the bounty of trees. I’ve gotten to know some of them like neighbors: the cucumber magnolias, maples, sourwoods, and, of course, dogwoods.
I am a lifelong lover of forests. I am also the executive director of the Dogwood Alliance, an environmental organization dedicated to preserving Southeastern forests. As such, I make sure to pay attention to the forests and the trees.
Lately, when I visit the forests, I see scars. I see the smoldering scars of the recent fires that sent my husband and me into a panicked evacuation. Or, I see the giant holes where trees used to be before Hurricane Helene, which devastated the area and kept me stranded in New York City for days unable to get in touch with my husband or my daughter. Ironically, I was at the annual gathering known as Climate Week as everyone learned that the Asheville area is not a climate haven. Nowhere really is. My neck of the woods is beautiful, but not invincible.
We’re not only fighting what’s bad but also working toward what’s good.
Still, when it comes to climate change, our forests are our best friends and biggest protectors. They can block the wind and absorb the water before it inundates communities. They’re also among the oldest and best tools in the toolbox when it comes to climate change because nothing—and I mean nothing—stores carbon like a good, old-fashioned tree.
And as destructive as the hurricane and the fires were, the biggest threat to our forests remains the logging industry. The rate of logging in our Southern U.S. forests is four times higher than that of the South American rainforests. Despite claims to the contrary, the logging industry is the biggest tree-killer in the nation.
The wood-pellet biomass industry is a major culprit. Over the last 10 years, our region has become the largest wood-pellet exporter in the entire world. Companies receive massive subsidies to chop our forests into wood pellets that are then shipped overseas to be burned for electricity. This process is a major waste of taxpayer dollars and produces more carbon emissions than coal.
And it seems that regardless of who is in charge at the state or federal level, they consistently fail to protect forests. Most recently, President Donald Trump signed executive orders that threaten to turbocharge logging and wood production while subverting cornerstone legal protections such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The truth is that policies that increase logging and wood production will only make communities like mine even more vulnerable to climate impacts, while decreasing the likelihood of recovery. The Trump administration's efforts to ramp up logging and close environmental justice offices are especially troublesome given the disproportionate impact that the forestry industry has on disadvantaged communities.
It can be an alarming picture to look at, especially when I think about the communities that will be harmed the most: low-income communities of color. But, I’m not new to this movement. I’ve seen again and again, those same communities rise up and fight off some of the biggest multinational corporations on the planet and hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire.
We’ve successfully clawed back subsidies for the biomass industry, slowing the growth of wood-pellet plants, and sounded the alarm when these facilities violated important pollution limits. They’ve had to pay millions of dollars in fines, shut down plants, and scrap plans for expansion. This is what gives me hope for the people and forests of the South.
We’re not only fighting what’s bad but also working toward what’s good.
Just last month, Dogwood Alliance’s community partners in Gloster, Mississippi scored a major victory. The community exerted huge pressure on the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to deny a permit to expand wood-pellet production for Drax—one of the most powerful multinational biomass corporations—and won! This means that the town’s residents will not have to face increased air pollution, noise pollution, traffic, and the greater mutilation of their bucolic landscape. If Gloster, a town of less than 1,000 people, can beat a megacorporation, I know we can stand up to the Trump administration and continue to advance a better, more sustainable vision for the South.
Through my work, I have the absolute privilege of partnering with some of the most inspiring leaders in the environmental justice movement. For example, we are partnering with Reverend Leo Woodberry, a pastor in South Carolina, to create a community forest on the land where his ancestors were once enslaved. With the support of community-focused donors, soon the Britton’s Neck Community Conservation Forest will be full of hiking trails, camp sites, and an ecolodge for locals and tourists from around the world to enjoy. This rise in outdoor recreation and (literal) foot traffic will create a badly needed economic rejuvenation for the local community, thus turning standing trees into gold. After all, outdoor recreation creates five times more jobs than the forestry industry.
This is not an isolated story. Four years ago this month, the Pee Dee Indian Tribe cut the ribbon on their educational center and 100-acre community forest in McColl, South Carolina as part of their effort to create a regenerative economy that prioritizes ecological harmony. All across the South, people are protecting the forests that protect them through a new community-led Justice Conservation initiative, which prioritizes forest protection in the communities on the front lines of our nation's most heavily logged areas.
The other day, when I went for my walk, I noticed that the scars are starting to give way to shoots of new growth. This is the time of year when the trees come alive, lighting the forest with purple and pink and white blossoms. That, to me, is hope. That, to me, is a miracle.
Right now, it feels like the whole world is on edge, bracing for the next major weather event. I know how helpless it can feel to watch the communities you love experience severe damage, I’ve lived it. But we are our own best hope. Just like the trees in a forest, we’re stronger together. Whether you live here in the South or across the country, I invite you to join us in protecting our forests and supporting the types of projects we’re spearheading through the Justice Conservation initiative.
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On This Earth Day, Get Out and Fight Against Trump’s Greed and Destruction
Americans who oppose Trump’s actions can get out and peacefully protest this Earth Day and call on their congressional representative and senators to fight back and rein in this lawless administration.
Apr 22, 2025
Since the day U.S. President Donald Trump took office, his administration has relentlessly pursued an agenda that puts the profits of his billionaire allies above the well-being of the American people and our environment.
Trump’s strategy seems clear: Do so much damage so quickly that no one can focus on one issue for long before something else draws attention away.
Yet Earth Day reminds us that our public lands, wildlife and, climate are priorities among the flurry of broad and harmful executive actions.
Wildlife Under Siege
The latest in Trump’s onslaught of attacks on our environmental protections came just days ago with a proposed rule change on endangered species.
Trump wants to gut the very core of these protections: preserving crucial wildlife habitat, even though habitat destruction is the primary driver toward extinction for most animals. Instead, Trump would limit what it means to “harm” endangered species to killing or hunting animals directly.
Endangered species rollbacks are just one of far too many Trump orders and actions that chip away at hard-fought protections for people and the planet.
If Trump gets his way, logging, mining, drilling, developing, or polluting the lands where animals live or breed wouldn’t be considered “harm” to imperiled wildlife. With such reckless action, we could lose endangered species like grizzly bears entirely, while species that have bounced back because of these protections—including bald eagles—could head back toward extinction again. It’s just not possible to protect animals and plants from extinction without protecting their natural home.
This comes after Trump already cut funds to life-saving international elephant and rhino conservation programs and fired thousands of workers across federal agencies who ensure endangered species are protected throughout the country.
Endangered species rollbacks are just one of far too many Trump orders and actions that chip away at hard-fought protections for people and the planet.
Attacking Science
Trump’s attacks on science and efforts to tackle climate change began on day one of his presidency, when he moved to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement, an international treaty to limit climate-warming emissions.
Trump escalated his war on science with a plan to defund crucial NASA research and climate science. Trump forced the removal of government websites that map climate, pollution, and offer environmental justice resources.
Then Trump took steps to revoke the government’s basis for tackling climate change, a finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the environment.
Without leadership from the White House, we will have to rely on state leaders to take action on climate change.
Chopping and Burning Natural Resources
Trump’s greed is on full display with his efforts to expand and prioritize oil, gas, coal, mining, and logging operations on public lands.
Trump just unleashed the chainsaws on our national forests with a goal of ramping up logging and road building on public lands. This will pollute the drinking water of 180 million Americans and clear the forests that many wildlife species need to survive. Cutting down older, fire-resilient trees will also make wildfires worse.
The Trump administration declared a so-called “emergency situation” in 59% of our national forests. This is a phony declaration concocted to reduce protections against industrial logging and offer up about 112 million acres of national forests to become timber. Instead of majestic landscapes, we’ll be left with more flammable clear-cuts, polluted waters, and extinct species.
Trump promised to “unleash American energy” by offering up our public lands for oil, natural gas, and coal extraction. He’s eliminating protections and rubber-stamping approvals without environmental review or air pollution permits for oil and gas processing facilities.
It seems nothing is too sacred or precious to sell off for parts. Trump could even open up the Grand Canyon area for uranium mining and is likely to eliminate at least two national monuments, the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California.
Gutting National Treasures
In addition to the weakening all of these protections, national parks, national monuments, and public lands have taken other major hits from Trump’s mass layoffs, office closings, and freezing funds. Trump has gutted all the necessary resources to keep these spaces functional, yet is still requiring the public to have access.
Our beloved parks can’t operate or remain open without the necessary staff and Park Rangers to keep visitors safe. Even when normally staffed, an average of 11 visitors die each year at the Grand Canyon alone. What will happen now as Trump is willfully putting visitors at risk?
Rising Resistance
Like Trump’s harmful environmental moves, many other administration actions are deeply unpopular. Trump’s approval ratings are only getting worse. So people are rightfully taking to the streets to peacefully oppose the administration’s damaging policies and to say “hands off!” our planet, our home.
Our organization is fighting back in court. We will use every legal tool at our disposal to halt the Trump administration’s implementation of these reckless environmental actions. State lawmakers should rebuff the dismantling of our environmental safeguards and protect their lands, wildlife, and our climate.
Americans who see the greed behind Trump’s actions can get out and peacefully protest this Earth Day and call on their congressional representative and senators to fight back and rein in this lawless administration. We can’t lose hope. Today, we build momentum and fight for a greener future.
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Trump Keeps Declaring Fake Emergencies That Make Our Real Emergency Worse
Pre-Trump, there was one true emergency on our planet—its rapid heating. Now of course there’s another—the implosion of economies.
Apr 09, 2025
We are living through a week unlike any other in my lifetime; maybe the last truly comparable stretch was the bank closure that marked the start of the FDR administration, but then the president was there to tell Americans they had nothing to fear; now we have a president who can only insist we “take our medicine.” He is constantly hyping the fear, and he is doing it with the constant invocation of a word—”emergency”—designed to send us into ever-deeper panic.
So I’ve been doing my best to think as calmly about that word as I can, with the hope that it will offer at least a bit of mental pathway through this horror and perhaps point toward the exit.
Let’s start with one of the less-noticed executive orders of the past week—by no means the most important, though if it is carried out it will probably affect more square miles of the U.S. than any other. This is a memorandum from Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture and hence the overseer of America’s vast National Forests. In it she declares “an emergency situation on America’s National Forest system lands.”
This emergency on our national forests, in the administration’s view, is
due to uncharacteristically severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species, and other stressors whose impacts have been compounded by too little active management.
For example: • The 2023 Wildfire Hazard Potential for the Unites States report identifies 66,940,000 acres of NFS lands under a very high or high fire risk.
• Roughly 78,800,000 acres of NFS lands are already experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing, insect and disease infestations.
As a result, the Forest Service is commanded to dramatically increase the amount of logging on these forests, exempting them from the longstanding system of oversight and challenge from communities and tribes affected by logging. Forest supervisors have been told to increase the volume of timber offered for sale on our lands by at least 25%.
Now, as many of us have been patiently explaining for years, the biggest cause of increased fire on our forests is the dramatic increase in global temperatures that has extended fire season in California virtually year-round, and for extra months on either end across the West. The biggest infestation of insects has come from pine bark beetles, and that is directly tied to a fast-warming climate. As Cheryl Katz explained almost a decade ago:
Bark beetles are a natural part of the conifer forest life cycle, regularly flaring and fading like fireworks. But the scope and intensity in the past two decades is anything but normal, scientists say, in large part because rising temperatures are preventing the widespread winter die-off of beetle larvae, while also enhancing the beetles’ killing power. Not only are the insects expanding into new territory, they’re also hatching earlier and reproducing more frequently. New infestations become full-blown with astonishing speed, and the sheer numbers of beetles exceeds anything forest experts have seen before. [One expert] says he’s seen spruce beetle epidemics in Utah so intense that when the insects had killed all the trees, they began attacking telephone poles.
To the extent that forests needed thinning to reduce wildfire risk (and it’s not at all clear that it does), the Biden administration worked to get the effort underway, spending $4 billion on the work—in some areas they were ahead of schedule, and in others behind, but overall
“the scale of spending is unprecedented,” said Courtney Schultz with Colorado State University. The forest policy expert said millions of acres had been through environmental review and were ready for work.
“If we really want to go big across the landscape—to reduce fuels enough to affect fire behavior and have some impact on communities—we need to be planning large projects,” she said.
Where the work was lagging, it was largely the result of a lack of bodies—something that will be considerably harder now that the Forest Service has laid off 3,400 workers. But at any rate, the new logging mandated under the “emergency declaration” isn’t the careful thinning work that might reduce fire intensity—instead, the forest industry is getting access to what it really wants, large stands of big trees. It is, in other words, a money grab by vested interests that supported Trump’s campaign.
That new cutting will make climate change worse, because as we now understand that letting mature forests continue to grow is the best way to sequester carbon. Meanwhile, cutting down those forests will mean far fewer trees to hold back the increasing downpours that climate change is producing. (A new study released yesterday showed that even in areas of the West where climate change is drying out forests and increasing blazes, there’s also a big jump in deluges—what one expert called an “eye-popping.”) I remember sitting down with the chief of the Forest Service under former President Bill Clinton, almost three decades ago, and even then he said the service’s internal data showed the greatest dollar value of the forestlands was water retention, not timber.
So, to summarize: We’ve invented an emergency where none exists. (The only thing even resembling an emergency in timber supply will come if we continue to tariff Canadian producers). We’ve abandoned most of the slow and patient work to deal with a problem, and replaced it with a boondoggle designed to increase short-term profits for Trump donors. That will juice the one actual emergency we do face worse—the rapid increase in global temperature—and it will make the effects of that emergency harder to deal with.
I’d submit that the “emergency” that Trump is actually responding to—the one that motivated his Big Oil donors to donate half a billion dollars in the last election cycle—is the rapid increase in renewable energy deployment.
This pattern more or less holds across the board. Each “emergency” we’re supposedly dealing with is, at worst, a long-term problem that needs serious and patient work, work that had begun in earnest under the Biden administration. Fentanyl deaths and illegal border-crossings—which if you can remember back three weeks ago were the original “emergency” justifying tariffs on Canada and Mexico—had both been falling sharply in the last year. The “emergency” justifying tariffing every country on Earth and also the penguins was the exact opposite of an emergency: a 50-year hollowing out of industrial areas, which again had begun to reverse because of the Inflation Reduction Act—specifically targeted by the Trump administration for reversal. As The Washington Post pointed out this week, a “stunning number” of battery and EV factories have been canceled in the last month, most of them in red states.
According to data from Atlas Public Policy, a policy research group, more projects were canceled in the first quarter of 2025 than in the previous two years combined. Those cancellations include a $1 billion factory in Georgia that would have made thermal barriers for batteries and a $1.2 billion lithium-ion battery factory in Arizona.
“It’s hard at the moment to be a manufacturer in the U.S. given uncertainties on tariffs, tax credits, and regulations,” said Tom Taylor, senior policy analyst at Atlas Public Policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investments appear to be stalled, he added, but haven’t been formally canceled yet.
“It’s working-class people in places like Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan, and Arizona that have seen some of these projects get canceled,” Keefe said. “And I can tell you who’s benefiting—China and other countries that are doubling down.”
I said before that there was one true emergency on our planet—its rapid heating. Now of course there’s another—the implosion of economies, likely to lead (if history is its usual guide) to military conflict. But I’d submit that the “emergency” that Trump is actually responding to—the one that motivated his Big Oil donors to donate half a billion dollars in the last election cycle—is the rapid increase in renewable energy deployment.
Reuters reported over the weekend that, for the first time in American history, less than half of electricity generated in March came from fossil fuels: “More power was instead generated using renewable sources such as wind and solar, which in March reached an all-time high of 83 terawatt hours.” It’s wonderful news, of course, heralding the chance at a new world. But that’s the crisis that Big Oil faces, and to fight it they’ve been willing to drag us all down.
It’s small comfort that the man they picked to do that job, Donald Trump, is so stupid that in the process of wrecking the American economy he’s actually putting big pressure on the oil industry too. He’s doing his best: Alone among industries, fossil fuel was exempted from tariffs, in what The Guardian called “a clear sign of the president’s fealty to his big oil donors over the American people,” and yesterday he commanded the Department of Justice to try and stop states from suing the oil industry or enforcing the Climate Superfund laws that charge Exxon et al. for the bridges and roads that taxpayers must constantly rebuild. (Trump comically called these efforts “extortion,” even as he attempts to blackmail every country on Earth, plus of course the penguins, with his tariffs). Trump’s even trying to boost coal this week, even though the data shows that 99% of the time it would be cheaper to build new renewables.
But the damage he’s doing to the world economy threatens to spill over to the oil industry—as the price of a barrel plummets, the chances of drilling new wells plummets too. According to the Times yesterday, Harold Hamm—Trump’s industry bundler—was wondering how to explain to the president that “when you get down to that $50 oil that you talked about, then you’re below the point that you’re going to drill, baby, drill.” Fossil fuel stocks have fallen sharply. Ha ha.
But in reality there’s one immediate and overwhelming emergency. It’s name is TrumpMuskVance, and it’s threatening to engulf almost everything in its unholy flames. People—even a few senators (thank you Cory Booker)—have begun pulling the alarms, and the volunteer fire company has begun to respond (such thanks to all who came out for the Hands Off rallies this weekend). We’re going to need quick wits, courage, incredibly hard work, and some real luck to put out this moronic inferno—but that’s the job of being a citizen in 2025. You matter as a political actor, more than any of us ever have before; I’ll make sure you know of the opportunities to put your talents to use!
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The Fix Our Forests Act Is a Logging Bill Disguised as a Firefighting Bill
If passed, it would open millions of acres of forests to logging without scientific review or citizen input. A better name for this legislations would be the Fix It So We Can Log Without Citizen Oversight Act.
Feb 10, 2025
It comes in a box with a picture of a fire extinguisher on the front. Below it the words: Guaranteed to stop wildfires. But when you open it up there’s a chainsaw inside. Tucked beside it is a piece a piece of paper saying, “Now without citizen overview!”
That’s the Fix Our Forests Act, a logging bill disguised as a firefighting bill. The tell is in the numerous and creative ways it would obstruct citizen input, from delaying citizen review until after the trees are cut to reducing the statute of limitations for filing lawsuits from six months to 120 days, seriously straining the ability of small citizen groups to apply legal restraint. It waives National Environmental Policy Act protections on fire-sheds as large as 250,000 square acres and allows loggings to proceed even if courts find the logging plan violates the law. There are no limits on the size and age of trees that can be cut, and the language is so vague that even clear cuts could qualify as “fuels treatment.” If passed, it would open millions of acres of forests to logging without scientific review or citizen input. A better name for this legislations would be the Fix It So We Can Log Without Citizen Oversight Act.
Introduced by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), and having passed in the House, it’s now being rushed through the Senate in an attempt to capitalize on the heightened fire concern surrounding the tragic LA fires. A vote is expected any day now.
If our forests are broken, might it be the successive rounds of logging trucks and roads, chainsaws and feller bunchers, herbicidal treatments and industrial replanting of greenhouse-grown monocrops that did the breaking?
The bill claims to “protect communities by expediting environmental analyses, reducing frivolous lawsuits, and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration projects.” But if protecting communities were really the goal, this bill would pour resources into the only methods proven to do that: hardening homes and defending immediate space.
Most homes don’t catch fire directly from flames themselves, but from embers blown ahead of a fire. Simple measures like screening vents, covering gutters, and pruning vegetation directly around buildings dramatically improve their fire resilience. Thinning vegetation in the immediate surroundings, within 100 feet or so of the dwelling, can also help. These were among the recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. But rather than heed those recommendations by investing in boots on the ground to harden homes and educate communities, the bill diverts resources to backcountry logging.
The U.S. Forest Service has spent years making the argument that “mechanical treatment” of forests reduces wildfire. Independent research, however, comes to different conclusions, that thinning harms the forest and actually increases the very conditions that favor fire—heat, dryness, and wind. The reasons are fairly obvious. For instance, removing trees makes it harder for forests to slow wind, increasing the wind speeds of potential fires and thus the speed of spread. It also allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor, heating up the ground. Even more importantly, trees don’t just stand around soaking up sunlight, they also cool and hydrate their surroundings. It’s called transpiration, and can be understood as a kind of sweating, just like we do to keep cool in the sun. A single tree can have the cooling power of up to 10 air conditioners.
But that really is just the beginning. Those trees also help make rain. By sweating water vapor they not only cool the air, they deliver water vapor to the sky, feeding the formation of clouds. Even more remarkable, they seed that vapor with biochemicals such as terpenes (the forest scent) and other bits of biota that provide the grains for eventual rain drops to condense around. Forests make clouds. Those clouds then rain down, watering other forests, hydrating soil and vegetation, and increasing resilience to wildfire.
In other words, what the Fix our Forests Act calls dangerous fuels are also air conditioners and humidifiers, rain makers and rain catchers, as their needles gather and slow the falling of rain, allowing it to seep into the ground and make its way to aquifers, which will prove critical during the dry season. Of course, older, deeply rooted trees are best able to tap this water, but there are no protections for them in the Fix Our Forests Act.
Given that the concern is fire, it’s remarkable how little this legislation ever mentions water, its antidote. Though I did find, in section 119, under “Watershed Condition Framework Technical Corrections,” calls to strike the word “protection” from watershed provisions in a previous, similar bill, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, under George W. Bush. (To see a short, simple demonstration of how plant moisture effects flammability, watch this.)
Perhaps the problems with this bill are explained by the first word of the bill’s title: “Fix.” You can fix a car. You can fix a broken plate. But can you “fix” a forest? Can you “fix” a living ecosystem of infinite complexity? Such language represents an outdated way of thinking about the living world around us, and marks the very kind of thinking that’s gotten into this mess in the first place. And one needs to ask: If our forests are broken, might it be the successive rounds of logging trucks and roads, chainsaws and feller bunchers, herbicidal treatments and industrial replanting of greenhouse-grown monocrops that did the breaking?
Yes, there are instances where careful thinning of small trees and undergrowth is indicated, such as right around built communities or in industrial plantations planted too densely. But such measured action doesn’t need this bill, and this bill isn’t about such measured action. Rather, as put by Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations with Defenders of Wildlife, the bill “will do little of anything to combat fires and instead plays favorites with the timber industry which is hungry to consume more of our forests—removing large fire-resilient trees and devastating the lands and species which call them home.”
As mentioned, the bill is moving quickly. Last minute citizen outcry is the only thing standing in its way.
The following Senators have been identified as key votes: John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Angus King ((-Maine), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
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'Frightening': Over 1 in 3 of World's Tree Species Face Extinction
"Trees directly underpin the survival of a staggering array of species—including us," said one scientist.
Oct 29, 2024
More than one-third of Earth's tree species are at risk of extinction, with logging, forest destruction for agriculture and urban development, and human-caused global heating most responsible for this "frightening" development that threatens life as we know it, according to a report published Monday.
The 2024 Global Tree Assessment—released at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia and published as part of this year's International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) "Red List" of threatened species—warns that more than 16,000 of the 47,000 tree species analyzed in the report are at risk of extinction.
The report blames deforestation and catastrophic global heating, caused by human burning of fossil fuels, as the main drivers of tree extinction. More than 5,000 tree species on the IUCN Red List are felled for construction timber, while 2,000 species are used for fuel, food, and medicines.
According to the report:
Trees now account for over one-quarter of species on the IUCN Red List, and the number of threatened trees is more than double the number of all threatened birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians combined. Tree species are at risk of extinction in 192 countries around the world...
The highest proportion of threatened trees is found on islands. Island trees are at particularly high risk due to deforestation for urban development and agriculture at all scales, as well as invasive species, pests, and diseases. Climate change is increasingly threatening trees, especially in the tropics, through sea-level rise and stronger, more frequent storms.
"Trees are essential to support life on Earth through their vital role in ecosystems, and millions of people depend upon them for their lives and livelihoods," IUCN director-general Grethel Aguilar said in a statement. "As the IUCN Red List celebrates 60 years of impact, this assessment highlights its importance as a barometer of life, but also, crucially, as a unique tool guiding action to reverse the decline of nature."
Climate, environmental, and biodiversity defenders pointed to the new report with alarm.
"The significance of the Global Tree Assessment cannot be overstated, given the importance of trees to ecosystems and people," said Eimear Nic Lughadha, senior research leader in conservation assessment and analysis at the U.K. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "We hope this frightening statistic of 1 in 3 trees facing extinction will incentivize urgent action and be used to inform conservation plans."
Fran Price, the Worldwide Fund for Nature's forest practice lead, said in a statement that "IUCN's Global Tree Assessment paints a shocking picture of the state of the world's trees."
"Trees are invaluable allies in tackling climate change and a critical foundation of our natural world," Price added. "The report is an eye-opening reminder that current efforts are falling short in safeguarding these vital natural assets. It's time to take stronger action against illegal logging and trade and enact stronger laws that protect our trees."
David Hole, an IUCN-U.S. board member and Conservation International scientist, asserted that "trees directly underpin the survival of a staggering array of species—including us."
"This latest IUCN update is flashing a warning light that those green giants need more of our attention and support the world over," he continued. "Thriving, naturally diverse forests are essential in mitigating both climate change and biodiversity loss. Not only do they store more carbon, they are also more resilient to natural and human-driven threats."
"We know what we have to do," Hole added. "We need to provide real and effective protection for tree species across the globe—particularly those that are imminently threatened. And we must do that in ways that support local people and communities, and doesn't cut them off from what is often a critical resource."
There is hope: Besides cutting carbon emissions and combating deforestation, Hole pointed to the "enormous untapped potential" of restoring native trees in previously degraded agricultural lands.
"Not only could we store more carbon, we could also enhance food security, support biodiversity, and increase agricultural systems' resilience to the myriad pressures that climate change is increasingly placing them under," he said. "These are the types of innovative approaches that can make a big positive difference—and it is vital we start implementing them at scale."
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Green Groups Applaud 1 Million Public Comments Urging Biden to Protect Old-Growth Forests
"The Forest Service should listen to the public and finalize policies that truly safeguard our oldest forests," a coalition of environmental organizations advised.
Sep 21, 2024
Green groups on Friday pointed to the more than 1 million public comments urging the U.S. Forest Service to protect old-growth forests from logging in urging the Biden administration to increase what critics say are inadequate protections for mature trees in a proposed federal amendment.
The Forest Service (USFS)—a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture—received massive input during four rounds of public comment on the National Old-Growth Amendment Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
The USFS' proposed national old-growth amendment follows a 2022 executive order by President Joe Biden that directed the agency to draft policies to protect mature trees in national forests, which are imperiled by but also play a critical role in fighting fossil fuel-driven climate change.
"The national old-growth amendment should be a transformative policy that positions the United States as an international leader in harnessing nature to confront the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis."
Climate campaigners panned Biden's order as "grossly inadequate." Since the executive order, the Biden administration has allocated $50 million for old-growth forest conservation under the Inflation Reduction Act, which the president signed in August 2022.
In June, USFS announced a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed amendment to Biden's directive. Environmentalists called the draft a "step forward" while urging the administration to do more to protect mature forests.
"Since 2022, hundreds of thousands of people have called for an end to logging old-growth and urged that our mature forests also be protected. The Forest Service should listen to the public and finalize policies that truly safeguard our oldest forests," a coalition of green groups including the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Earthjustice, Environment America Research and Policy Center, National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and WildEarth Guardians said in a joint statement.
"As the Forest Service reads the comments it has received over the last 90 days, it will find a common theme. The old-growth policy proposed in June fails to meet the central mission of the executive order—it does not protect old-growth trees from logging and allows projects that would log old-growth forests out of existence through numerous loopholes. The policy also does nothing to protect mature forests, which are needed to increase the abundance and distribution of old-growth trees and forests."
As CBD explained:
Mature and old-growth forests are carbon storage powerhouses. With thicker protective bark and higher canopies than younger trees, mature and old-growth trees are more resilient to wildfire. They also provide critical wildlife habitat, filter clean drinking water for communities, provide countless outdoor recreation opportunities, and capture the imaginations of Americans young and old.
Federal forest management prioritizes timber production and routinely sidesteps science to turn big, old trees into lumber and wood chips. Logging releases a significant amount of stored carbon, which can take centuries to be recaptured. It also eliminates older trees' ability to sequester additional carbon and damages the other ecosystem services and biodiversity values these forests provide. Many older stands and trees have no enduring protection, and hundreds of thousands of acres in national forests are at risk of being logged.
"The national old-growth amendment should be a transformative policy that positions the United States as an international leader in harnessing nature to confront the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis," the groups' statement asserted. "We hope to see the nationwide old-growth amendment strengthened so it can become a centerpiece of our nation's climate and conservation legacies."
In a separate statement, Environment America public lands campaign director Ellen Montgomery said that "the Forest Service should listen to the more than a million people who have commented over the last two years, urging it to end logging of old-growth trees."
"The response from the public to our on-the-ground efforts to build support for a strong national old-growth amendment has shown that people want to see older trees protected," she continued. "These trees and forests are home to wildlife that we love from birds to bears. They are our allies to fight back against climate change, and all we have to do is make sure they stay upright."
"We hope the Forest Service recognizes the truth that the public knows: old-growth trees are worth more standing," Montgomery added.
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Sightings of Uncontacted Tribe Spur Calls to End Logging in Peruvian Amazon
"This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it's absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro's territory is properly protected at last," said the director of Survival International.
Jul 16, 2024
A leading rights group on Tuesday called for loggers to be "thrown out" of a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon following recent sightings of people belonging to what is believed to be the world's largest uncontacted Indigenous tribe.
London-based Survival International published video and photos of dozens of Mashco-Piro people taken near the village of Monte Salvado in southeastern Peru near the Brazilian border. The group said that in recent days, more than 50 Mashco-Piro have appeared near the village, which is inhabited by the related Yine people. A group of 17 Mashco-Piro were also recently sighted near the neighboring village of Puerto Nuevo.
Several logging companies are operating within just a few miles of where the Mascho-Piro were spotted. One company operating inside Mashco-Piro territory, Canalaes Tahuamanu, has laid more than 120 miles of road there to facilitate timber extraction. The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as a sustainable and ethical operator, even though it is known to be felling trees inside Mashco-Piro territory. Survival International is calling on the FSC to withdraw its certification.
"This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it's absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro's territory is properly protected at last," Survival International director Caroline Pearce said in a statement Tuesday. "The FSC must cancel its certification of Canales Tahuamanu immediately—failure to do so will make a mockery of the entire certification system."
Alfredo Vargas Pio, president of the local Indigenous group Native Federation of the Río Madre and its Tributaries, called the new photographs "irrefutable evidence that many Mashco-Piro live in this area, which the government has not only failed to protect, but sold off to logging companies."
"The logging workers could bring in new diseases which would wipe out the Mashco-Piro, and there's also a risk of violence on either side," he added, "so it's very important that the territorial rights of the Mashco-Piro are recognized and protected in law."
In 2014, Peruvian authorities evacuated residents from Monte Salvado by boat after around 200 Mashco-Piro armed with bows and arrows raided the village, killing livestock and pets and taking food and tools. In 2022, Mashco-Piro members killed 21-year-old Peruvian logger Gean del Aguila and wounded another man with arrows as they fished on the Tahuamanu River.
In the 1890s most Mashco-Piro were either enslaved or exterminated by private mercenaries hired by self-described Peruvian "Rubber King" Carlos Fitzcarrald—immortalized in the 1982 Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo. Surviving Mashco-Piro fled deeper into the Amazon and avoided contact with most outsiders. They fiercely defended their territory from intruders. However, in recent decades, loggers have penetrated and exploited Mascho-Piro lands.
There are believed to be more than 750 Mascho-Piro living in Peru. They sometimes cross the border into Brazil.
"They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side. At this time of the year they appear on the beaches to take tracajá eggs," Rosa Padilha of the Indigenous Missionary Council in the Brazilian state of Acre told The Guardian, referring to a species of Amazon turtle.
"That's when we find their footprints on the sand. They leave behind a lot of turtle shells," Padilha added. "They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run."
Around 15 other uncontacted Indigenous tribes with as many as 15,000 members are believed to remain in the Peruvian Amazon. It is illegal to make contact with such peoples for fear they would contract common human illnesses that could be fatal to unexposed populations without immunity.
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Stop Green Genocide in Cameroon
Fortress conservation has pushed the Baka people from the rainforests of the Congo Basin into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon, while the logging that truly threatens the forest continues.
Jul 16, 2024
Clouds of red dust rise into the sky and hang in the air as the truck roars past. It's impossible to breathe as the dust gathers in the folds of villagers' clothes, settles on rooftops, and coats the forest's green leaves. The next truck goes by, and another cloud rises up in its wake. They carry massive tree trunks felled in the rainforests of the Congo Basin. The Baka people struggle to breathe every day, as logging companies from China, France, Italy, and Lebanon descend on the tropical forests and cut everything in their path.
The Baka have been pushed into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon. Amid the din of passing trucks, they tell me they have been barred from their forest—they can no longer hunt for food, access their sacred sites, fish, or gather medicinal plants. Government authorities and "nature conservation" organizations say it's not the clear-cutting loggers destroying the forests. They blame the Baka—Indigenous hunter-gatherers who rely on the forests to live.
You're probably wondering how such a paradox can be tolerated. This is the heart of what's known as fortress conservation, driven by the erroneous belief that Indigenous people cannot look after their own land.
The Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) supports national parks, including Lobéké, Nki, and Boumba Bek parks. The organization funds heavily armed rangers who prevent the Baka from entering their forest by arresting, beating, and torturing them. The Baka are forced to live in small roadside villages—without access to their own lands. Logging companies' concessions surround the parks. And it's not hard to see that it's their activities—not the Baka—threatening the Congo Basin forest, especially as most of the timber is destined for export to industrialized countries.
The companies sometimes operate within the parks. But WWF and other major conservation NGOs look the other way. Instead, they create partnerships with the companies for "sustainable forest management." But let's be honest: For WWF, it has more to do with the money they receive from the companies than actual conservation. WWF and the companies set up "anti-poaching units," with yet more guards attacking the Baka—all while the trucks keep roaring by. The certification labels on the timber say "sustainable"—so does the companies' advertising. But, watching the trunks trundle past before me, and seeing the destruction of the forest, that is laughable. There's no such thing as sustainable destruction.
National parks are not—as the conservation industry would have us believe—rare islands of unspoiled nature that mitigate the surrounding destruction. Instead, they are an integral part of a strategy designed to maximize profit from the environment and its resources while pointing the finger of blame at local communities—the people who are least responsible for the destruction.
Michel is chief of a Baka village on the edge of Lobéké National Park. He explains: "Our grandparents used the forest at Lobéké, before WWF arrived. Since they came, we don't go there anymore. If you go there, in the park, you won't be able to go home without problems. They're not protecting anything—they just want to kick us out."
For the Baka, the loss of their forest takes all of that away. It's not just losing a place to live or access to food; it's losing their identity. So, it's not just a matter of material hardship, it's also the destruction of a people.
Baka children no longer learn about the forest plants: It's too dangerous to take them into the forest to teach them. The Baka say that for them the forest is absolutely everything. It sustains them and it provides everything that gives meaning to their lives. Without access to their forest, the Baka's future is in jeopardy.
Tragic as it may seem, the situation was much worse just a few years ago. WWF-funded guards waged a veritable war against the Baka. They harassed people, invading their homes, beating and torturing anyone they found—including the elderly who weren't quick enough to flee. Many Baka had to abandon their villages to escape. Some fled to neighboring Congo.
Thanks in large part to the work of Survival International, which catalyzed international support and investigations, the once-extreme level of violence has radically diminished. But the guards still beat Baka people if they try to enter the forest, and the severe trauma of the extreme physical violence of previous years remains. Célestin, a young Baka man in his mid-20s says: "We always think about violence. We go to sleep without having eaten, and we think about it. All the time."
The big conservation organizations are responsible for this chaos and pain. Once they've forced the Baka out of the forest, they offer "alternative livelihood projects" to draw them further away from their ancestral territory and way of life. Though they claim the projects compensate for the loss of the forest, it's just a less obvious way to go about destroying the Baka's lives and their bonds with their forest.
"They want to turn us into villagers," say the Baka. "We stay in the village all day, but we were born to be in the forest." WWF set up a mushroom-growing project in a Baka village. It provided equipment and training and built a warehouse. The Baka followed the instructions to grow and dry the mushrooms. But a year later, no one came to buy them, and WWF never returned. That's just one example among many. NGOs promise people chickens, sheep, ponds for fish farming, saying they'll have a "better" life. But for the Baka, the best life is one at peace in the forest, and the promises never materialize. "So far, we've had nothing. The people to whom these promises were made are dead now," testify the Baka.
The loss of their forest, as described by village chief Michel, leads to a disintegration of the social fabric, and loss of the foundations of the Baka identity and way of life. It is simply the destruction of them as a people: it's a green genocide. Nothing could compensate the Baka for the loss of their forest. The Baka survive by working in neighboring communities' fields, in conditions akin to slavery, paid tiny sums of money or just given alcohol. But it's dependent on the goodwill of those who "employ" them. (There is a big problem now with alcohol dependency among the Baka, not unlike the historical problems of other peoples who were dispossessed of their land, such as those in North America and Australia.)
"We are suffering. Those who make us work in the fields don't consider us human, they want to kill us. They give us so much to do, and if you refuse to work in the fields, they hit you," says Michel.
Michel, Célestin, and the rest of the Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities. It's not too late to prevent the conservation industry suffocating an entire people, just as the red dust suffocates everyone in its path. Let's stop this green genocide.
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Green Groups Praise 'Step Forward' on Biden Old-Growth Forest Plan
Advocates also argue that the administration "must go further to protect and restore resilient old-growth forests in a way that meets the challenges of the changing climate."
Jun 20, 2024
Environmental groups on Thursday welcomed the U.S. government's latest progress on President Joe Biden's directive to protect old-growth forests, which are threatened by but also play a key role in combating fossil fuel-driven climate change.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Forest Service announced a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed national old-growth forest plan amendment, which is set to appear in the Federal Register Friday, launching a 90-day public comment period.
"President Biden made a commitment to protect mature and old-growth forests in the United States, and today's announcement gets us one step closer to achieving that," said Sierra Club forest campaign manager Alex Craven. "Conserving what remains of our oldest forests is undoubtedly a positive step towards climate action."
"We look forward to engaging in this process to ensure the amendment not only retains, but increases, the amount of old-growth forests across the country," Craven continued. "Shifting our approach to national forests from resources meant for extraction to natural wonders worth preserving is long overdue."
"The Forest Service must fully meet President Biden's historic directive to protect old growth, as well as our much vaster mature forests, which still remain exposed to commercial logging."
On Earth Day in 2022, Biden issued an executive order—and a few months, he later signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which directed $50 million toward old-growth conservation. Since then, the Forest Service and Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have been working on efforts to conserve ancient U.S. trees.
"With our nation's forests absorbing more than 10% of our annual greenhouse gas emissions, protecting and expanding old growth is critical to delivering on the Biden-Harris administration's and conservation priorities," White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said in a statement Thursday.
BLM and the Forest Service have completed a historic inventory, which showed that they collectively manage approximately 32 million acres of old growth and 80 million acres of mature forests nationwide. The service also recently finalized a related threat analysis.
"The Forest Service continues to move this process forward," Earthjustice senior legislative representative Blaine Miller-McFeeley said Thursday. "However, the Forest Service must fully meet President Biden's historic directive to protect old growth, as well as our much vaster mature forests, which still remain exposed to commercial logging under the proposal."
According to The Associated Press, which obtained an early copy, the new analysis "shows that officials intend to reject a blanket prohibition on old-growth logging that's long been sought by some environmentalists" after concluding the policy "would make it harder to thin forests to better protect communities against wildfires that have grown more severe as the planet has warmed."
However, "the exceptions under which logging would be allowed are unlikely to placate the timber industry and Republicans in Congress, who have pushed back against any new restrictions," the AP reported.
As the Wilderness Society highlighted, the administration's proposal:
- Establishes affirmative direction that the conservation of our oldest forests is a critical part of addressing the wildfire crisis;
- Provides some protection for remaining old-growth forests from harmful logging;
- Creates a roadmap that promotes a collaborative, community-led approach for conserving old-growth forests, including identifying forests that should be stewarded to become old-growth in the future;
- Elevates the role of tribes in forest management through co-stewardship agreements; and
- Includes the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska within the amendment's scope of old-growth conservation.
"We need the U.S. Forest Service to create a clear path for old-growth conservation paired with climate-informed wildfire management, if our oldest forests are to remain for generations to come," said the group's president, Jamie Williams. "The proposed national old-growth amendment is a step in the right direction, but it must go further to protect and restore resilient old-growth forests in a way that meets the challenges of the changing climate."
The new draft analysis comes as deadly wildfires rage in the U.S. West while extreme heat hits the Midwest and Northeast. Scientists stress that both fires and heatwaves are more likely because of the climate crisis.
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