Crow White swings out over the calm waters of the Cooper Island swimming hole at Palmyra Atoll in the equatorial Northern Pacific. The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are partnering to protect the Atoll while the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium is developing it as a center for scientific study. Copyright ©Tim Calver
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FEATURED NEWS
Report: Brazilian beef production could drop by 25% by 2050
AgriLand, Colm Ryan, 3 April
AgriLand shares a new report from Orbitas that finds efforts to address climate change through new policies, private sector action and other ACTIVITIES could significantly impact Brazil’s cattle sector by 2050. The report finds that by this date, Brazil could see beef production drop by 25 percent and pastureland decrease by 37 percent as other uses for land become more economically attractive. Yet, the report also shows that these shifts present significant new opportunities to invest in sustainable agriculture decoupled from deforestation as prices for producers may increase by 19 percent and Brazil’s agribusiness sector could see an 88 percent increase in private investment. Le Monde reports that the Presidents of France and Brazil have announced a new billion Euro green investment initiative to preserve nature with an aim to raise the funds by COP30. Mongabay covers a new bill under consideration in the Brazilian Congress that would leave all the country’s non-forestry vegetation unprotected, affecting an area twice the size of the United Kingdom. Mongabay also reports that the Innovative Finance for the Amazon, the Cerrado and Chaco (IFACC) initiative has allocated $234.5 million for projects aimed at expanding agriculture to already deforested land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands.
Explainer: Why some countries are aiming for ‘net-negative’ emissions
Carbon Brief, Daisy Dunne, 27 March
Carbon Brief publishes an explainer on why some countries are setting targets to have net-negative emissions in the wake of Germany’s new target set last month to reach this goal. The article explores which countries have set these targets, the details behind how they will use nature-based and carbon removal technology solutions in their plans and the ongoing debate of whether they are feasible.
Why the forest carbon market is bouncing back [Commentary]
Environmental Finance, Angela Churie Kallhauge, 28 March
Environmental Finance publishes a commentary from Angela Churie Kallhauge, Executive Vice-President of Environmental Defense Fund, sharing why rising demand and prices for high quality credits is good news for nature. Mongabay carries a commentary piece warning that carbon credit projects in Laos face headwinds due to land tenure laws and advocating for more resources to be given to communities to help create a more productive environment for these projects in the country.
The federal government promised to plant two billion trees. How’s that going?
CBC News, Christian Paas-Lang, 30 March
CBC News reviews the Canadian government’s challenges to meet its promise of planting two billion trees across the nation by 2031. The effort will require significant investment and faces challenges such as procuring enough seeds to begin the massive undertaking, finding available land to plant the trees and incorporating approaches that foster biodiversity to ensure the long-term success of the project.
Aruba Embraces the Rights of Nature and a Human Right to a Clean Environment
Inside Climate News, Katie Surma, 25 March
Inside Climate News covers a draft constitutional amendment under consideration in Aruba that would make the Caribbean nation the second country in the world to recognize that nature has the right to exist. Roughly 30 countries including Spain, Bolivia and Uganda have some legislative or judicial recognition that nature, certain ecosystems or individual species possess inherent rights, such as the right to exist and regenerate. The amendment would mark the first time that Aruba has changed its constitution since it broke with the Netherlands Antilles in 1986.
SPOTLIGHT
A new report from Orbitas, a Climate Advisers initiative, assessing Brazil’s cattle sector and how climate action can impact its financial outlook, finds significant risks for maintaining business-as-usual practices and fast growing opportunities to invest in sustainable agriculture and emerging markets. The report is accompanied by interactive financial modeling tools to help investors, producers, buyers and other stakeholders understand how efforts to solve climate change will change market dynamics into the future.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Fern shares an open letter, signed by 37 NGOs, calling for European Union Member States to implement the EU Deforestation Regulation on time and reject pushes for delay and watering down.
Aidenvironment shares an updated Realtime Deforestation Monitoring (RDM) report highlighting 8 case studies linked to the soy and beef supply chains in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes. The cases present 9,827 hectares of deforestation in Par·, Bahia, and Tocantins states.
American Forest Foundation announces that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded the organization $20 million of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds through its Forest Landowner Support (FLS) program. The funds will support rural American economies by equipping underserved and small-acreage forest landowners to access emerging private markets – like the voluntary carbon market – for climate mitigation and forest resilience.
WEF shares a video highlighting UpLink, a competition searching for innovations that conserve, protect and restore biodiversity.
Conservation International shares research updates on its paper mapping carbon sinks: some of these essential carbon reserves have been lost, but new protected areas are now storing millions of metric tons of irrecoverable carbon.
IFAW asks candidates in the upcoming European elections to publicly pledge their support for key environmental and wildlife protection policies, and urges citizens to vote with the future of the planet in mind.
IUCN presents a proposal for a specific article on “Biodiversity Aspects” in the future Plastics Treaty, putting forward IUCN’s key expertise within a new global environmental treaty.
Audubon interviews several facilities managed by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to understand how they think about and prepare for natural disasters that imperil critically endangered species under human care.
UNEP publishes a new report co-authored with WRAP finding that the world squanders over 1 billion meals a day. Out of the total food wasted in 2022, 60 per cent happened at the household level, with food services responsible for 28 per cent and retail 12 per cent.
Woodwell Climate Research Center shares expertise from leading U.S. scientists and policy experts that outlines key recommendations aimed at bolstering the scientific foundation for implementation of Nature-based Climate Solutions (NbCS) across the nation.
WBCSD provides an overview of the contents of the EU Deforestation Regulation and preparatory steps for compliance for companies established in the EU.
WBCSD shares initial lessons from the Farmer First Clusters Initiative and publishes an interactive map through which a broad audience can visualize impacts and lessons learned from the field.
Department of Health and Human Services calls for applications sharing community-led strategies and tools to address health disparities in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental risks and hazards including those related to climate change.
Re:wild and Colossal Biosciences announce a joint partnership that aims to accelerate global efforts to save species on the brink of extinction, search for lost species, and restore key habitats for species recovery and rewilding.
CASE STUDY
N4C is compiling an index of NBS case studies, together with an interactive map, to highlight action on the ground. Each week, we will be choosing a case study to present, to help give concrete examples of work being done to bring NBS theory into practice.
Biodiversity Preservation & Sustainable Cardamom Cycle Project
WHERE: CERRO SAN GIL, GUATEMALA
TYPE OF NCS SOLUTION: RESTORE
The mountain range of Cerro San Gil has been threatened by cattle ranching, slash-and-burn farming techniques and monoculture, which have stripped the soil of its fertility and pushed rural communities to go further upslope in search of arable land. This project is a large-scale reforestation and agroecology project to couple natural resources preservation with improved livelihoods for local Maya communities. The project has far planted 3 million trees and restored 2,000 acres of land. This includes rubber plantations with cardamom, which generate new economic activity.
NUMBER OF THE WEEK – 96 MtCO2e/yr
The annual carbon dioxide emissions that could be sequestered by meeting Brazil’s potential to increase carbon stored in grazing lands by 2050. A new report assessing financial impacts on Brazil’s cattle sector from climate transitions finds significant potential returns for investing in soil restoration for current pasture lands. See more details on the potential for natural climate solutions in N4C’s naturebase.
GOOD NEWS
International Court Issues First-Ever Decision Enforcing the Right to a Healthy Environment
Residents of La Oroya, Peru, known as one of the most polluted cities on Earth, have won a landmark victory from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ruled last week that Peru was responsible for the physical and mental harm that a metallurgical facility’s pollution inflicted on 80 people. The court ordered the government of Peru to provide free medical care to the victims and to compensate each individual upwards of $30,000 each, depending on each person’s specific circumstances. The landmark ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will have far reaching implications for communities affected by extreme pollution.