rainforests

Cutting Deforestation | Earth Wise

August 10, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change because the destruction of tropical rainforests worldwide eliminates a crucial natural sink for carbon. Between 2015 and 2020, roughly 39,000 square miles of forest were cut down, an area about 70% the size of the entire state of New York. In many places, such as the Amazon and Congo Basins, deforestation continues to accelerate. In Bolivia, deforestation rose 59% over the past five years; in Ghana, the rise was 71%.

A new report from the World Resources Institute revealed one bright spot in the deforestation story: both Indonesia and Malaysia have cut deforestation by more than half in recent years. The two countries have managed to keep rates of primary forest loss to near record-low levels.

Over the past five years, Indonesia saw a 64% decline and Malaysia a 57% decline in deforestation. Indonesia is the second largest source of deforestation with only Brazil removing more trees.

Indonesia has a national goal of having its forests absorb more carbon than they release by 2030. They have moved to curb logging and limit the clearing of land for palm oil plantations. They have also ramped up efforts to suppress forest fires.

It is good that Indonesia and Malaysia and some other countries have shown progress in reducing forest loss. However, too many other countries have seen continued activities and policies that are causing acceleration of deforestation in critical areas. Protecting forests is an important part of the effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. Preserving forests also is essential for protecting the people and the biodiversity that depend on them.

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Indonesia, Malaysia Have Cut Deforestation in Half in Last Half-Decade

Photo, posted March 22, 2021, courtesy EPJT Tours via of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Saving The Sumatran Rhino | Earth Wise

January 2, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest and most ancient rhino species and is the only surviving species with hair. It is critically endangered. Because of poaching and habitat destruction, there are fewer than 50 of them left in the wild and those are scattered in the rainforests of Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo. Mating encounters between surviving males and females are increasingly rare.

The last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died in 2019 but cell samples from that individual are the basis of an ambitious effort in bioengineering.

Researchers from the Max Delbruck Center in Germany are taking skin cells from the deceased rhino and turning them into stem cells. The hope is to use these stem cells to derive egg and sperm cells to be the basis of assisted reproduction. Fertilization would take place in a petri dish. The resultant embryos would then be carried to term by surrogate rhino mothers.

The researchers have reported success generating induced pluripotent stem cells or IPS cells from the rhino skin samples. IPS cells are able to divide indefinitely and can transform into any cell type in the body.

The next step is to try to cultivate primordial germ cells – the precursors of eggs and sperm.

This work is going on because it is increasingly difficult to preserve the Sumatran rhino population by gathering together remaining individuals in wildlife Reserves. Females that have not been pregnant for a long time often become infertile because of cyst growth on their reproductive organs, and some are just too old to bear young.

It may take extraordinary efforts like these to save these animals from extinction.

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A second chance for the Sumatran rhino

Photo, posted April 30, 2008, courtesy of Willem V. Strien via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Rainforest Promises | Earth Wise

December 23, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The recent UN climate summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt brought with it lots of pledges for action. Among them was a promise from the three countries that are home to more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests to try to do something to protect them.

The ministers of Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed an agreement pledging cooperation on sustainable management and conservation, restoration of critical ecosystems, and creation of economies that would ensure the health of both their people and their forests.

The plan has no financial backing of its own. The countries are pledging to work together to establish a funding mechanism that could help to preserve the tropical forests that both help regulate the Earth’s climate and sustain a wide range of animals, plants, birds, and insects.

That such an agreement has come about at all is a result of the election of Luiz Lula da Silva as Brazilian president, replacing Jair Bolsonaro, who was famously an opponent of any and all environmental conservation or protections. President Lula addressed the attendees of the climate summit promising that “Brazil is back.” He described his country as having been in a cocoon for the past four years under his predecessor. He declared that going forward, Brazil will be a force to combat climate change. Given the importance of the Amazon rainforest, that is critical for the success of the world’s efforts.

Like all other issues on the table at the climate summit, the real challenge is not to come up with meaningful pledges on climate action, it is to be able to follow through on those pledges. If past summits are any indication, that is not an easy task.

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Brazil, Indonesia and Congo Sign Rainforest Protection Pact

Photo, posted September 15, 2013, courtesy of Moises Silva Lima via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A Miracle Tree | Earth Wise

September 27, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The world needs to be fed without destroying the environment. We need to grow more trees to store more carbon on earth and reduce the amount in the atmosphere. But meanwhile, we decimate rainforests to produce palm oil and grow soybeans.

A startup company in California called Terviva thinks they have a solution. It’s called pongamia, which is an ordinary looking tropical tree. It produces beans packed with protein and oil, much like soybeans. However, it has the potential to produce much more nutrition per acre than soybeans and it is hardy enough to grow on pretty much any kind of land without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, or irrigation. In short, it is a miracle crop for a hot and hungry planet that is running out of fertile farmland and fresh water.

Pongamia is not a new or rare tree. It is common in India but grows all over the world. It is often planted as an ornamental here in the U.S.

The initial idea for making use of the hardy tree was to use its oil as a biofuel. The seeds of pongamia are known to have a bitter taste and disagreeable odor, which is why the seeds or oil were never used for human or animal feed. However, Terviva has developed a way to de-bitter pongamia oil. Once this is done, it becomes a golden-colored substitute for olive oil. It also has enormous potential as a protein for plant-based milks and meats, since it contains all nine essential amino acids.

Terviva has raised more than $100 million to further develop pongamia and is now partnering with Danone, a $25 billion multinational food company, to develop pongamia as a climate-friendly, climate-resilient, non-GMO alternative to soy and palm oil.

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This super-tree could help feed the world and fight climate change

Photo, posted December 15, 2015, courtesy of Lauren Gutierrez via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Forests And Water | Earth Wise

June 15, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We hear a great deal about the environmental services provided by forests. Deforestation is one of the major factors contributing to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And, of course, forests – most notably rainforests – are major contributors to biodiversity. A new study by the U.S. Forest Service looked at the role forests play in providing water for Americans.

According to the study, published in the journal Water Resources Research, forested lands across the U.S. provide 83 million Americans with at least half of their water. 125 million people – well over a third of the country – receive at least 10% of their water from forests. Notably, in the drought-stricken western U.S., nearly 40 million people get more than half of their drinking water from forests that are increasingly threatened by wildfires.

The study looked at surface water sources for more than 5,000 public water systems. It provides a critical update to the map of where our water comes from. The study focused on surface waters such as lakes, rivers, and streams because it is too difficult to trace sources of groundwater on a national scale. Included is a new database of inter-basin water transfers, which are how surface water moves from places where it is plentiful to where it is not. Examples are the California Aqueduct and the Central Arizona Project which respectively supply Los Angeles and Phoenix with drinking water.

In Los Angeles, 69% of the water coming in through inter-basin transfers originated in forested lands. In Phoenix, the figure is 82%. There are many urban communities that obtain more than half of their drinking water from inter-basin transfers. Even far from forests, water from forests is essential for millions of Americans.

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U.S. Forests Provide 83 Million People with Half Their Water

Photo, posted September 26, 2016, courtesy of Don Graham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Russian Forests And Climate Mitigation | Earth Wise

August 24, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Russia is the largest country in area in the world, almost equal in size to the sum of the next two largest – Canada and the U.S. Russia is also the world’s largest forest country, containing more than one-fifth of the world’s forests. As a result, the country’s forests and forestry activities have enormous potential for impacting climate mitigation.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, there has been a decline in the availability of information on the state of Russia’s forests. The Soviet Forest Inventory and Planning System compiled information until 1988. Since then, the Russian National Forest Inventory has been the source of forest information on the national scale, and it hadn’t produced a comprehensive inventory until 2020.

The new data indicates that Russian forests have in fact accumulated a large amount of additional biomass over the intervening years. Using the last Soviet Union report as a reference point, the new results show that the ongoing stock accumulation rate in Russian forests over the 26-year period is of the same magnitude as the net forest stock losses in tropical countries.

Thus, it is clear that Russian forests have great potential in terms of global climate mitigation as well as potential co-benefits relating to the green economy and sustainable development. It is important to note that as the impact of climate change increases, disturbances to the Russian forests could have severe adverse effects on global climate mitigation efforts.

While much of the world’s attention is rightfully upon tropical rainforests in the Amazon and elsewhere, it is important to not ignore the largest country in the world hosting the largest land biome on the planet where even small percentage changes in the amount of forest biomass could have a major global impact.

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Russian forests are crucial to global climate mitigation

Photo, posted June 6, 2015, courtesy of Raita Futo via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Disappearing Rainforests | Earth Wise

July 2, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Forest loss is a major contributor to climate change, and it is continuing at a rapid pace. The tropics lost about 30 million acres of tree cover in 2019, a third of which was within humid tropical primary forests, which are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. To put that loss in a human-scale perspective, it is the equivalent of losing a football field of primary forest every six seconds for the entire year.

The losses last year were 2.8% higher than in the previous year, and these losses have continued over the past 20 years despite worldwide efforts to halt deforestation.

Brazil single-handedly accounted for over a third of all global loss of humid tropical primary forests. Bolivia experienced record-breaking tree cover loss due to fires. The losses in its forests were 80% greater than in any previous year. The fires were often started by people who were trying to clear land for agriculture but had the fires go out of control. Several countries in Africa’s Congo Basin also experienced sustained or worsening forest loss.

Indonesia, often the focus of the world’s attention for its deforestation activities, actually saw a 5% reduction in primary forest loss in 2019. It was the third year in a row for lower losses. The now-permanent moratorium on clearing forests for oil palm plantations and logging seems to be working.

Going forward, the coronavirus pandemic poses additional threats to the world’s forests in the near future. There may be a tendency to sacrifice forests in pursuit of economic recovery, which will only lead to future complications for the health and livelihoods of millions of people around the world.

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We Lost a Football Pitch of Primary Rainforest Every 6 Seconds in 2019

Photo, posted February 7, 2011, courtesy of Chad Skeers via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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