N4C Weekly Brief – Sept 27 – Oct 3

FEATURED NEWS

Brazil’s government starts expelling non-Indigenous people from two native territories in the Amazon

Associated Press, Mauricio Savarese, 2 October

Associated Press reports Brazil’s government began removing thousands of non-Indigenous people from two native territories in a move that will affect thousands who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The South American nation’s intelligence agency ABIN said in a statement that the goal is to return the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja lands in Pará state to the original peoples.  Reuters covers the efforts by Brazil’s congressional farm lobby to swiftly pass a bill to counter a recent Brazilian Supreme Court decision rejecting their proposal to restrict recognition of Indigenous lands. Capital Reset reports that the Brazilian government has identified and georeferenced a territory of 50 million hectares,  equivalent to the country of Spain, of “undesignated” federal lands and forests to establish newly recognized Indigenous lands, quilombola territories, environmental conservation units, extractive reserves and agrarian reform settlements. Reuters reports Switzerland and the U.S. have donated $8.4 million to Brazil’s Amazon Fund to help stop deforestation and preserve the world’s largest tropical rainforest. International Center for Journalists covers their efforts to uncover the largest case of land theft in the Brazilian Amazon.

Why Companies are Doubling Down on Nature [Commentary]

TIME, Shyla Raghav, 29 September

TIME carries a commentary from its new Chief Climate Officer Shyla Raghav arguing that, as companies are increasing investments in nature, they also need to increase their advocacy for more action. TIME also covers whether the voluntary carbon market can overcome the challenges of questions of its validity. Carbon Brief publishes an infographic on how carbon markets are supposed to work and deep dive reports on media claims of the impacts of carbon projects and how companies use offsets to achieve net-zero claims.

Forest restoration can fare better with human helping hand, study shows

Mongabay, Jeremy Hance, 28 September

Mongabay shares a study from a two-decade-old experiment in the tropical rainforest of Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, revealing that human-assisted restoration of logged forests can increase the speed of an ecosystem’s recovery. The researchers also found that planting a diverse suite of seedlings, instead of only one species, led in just one decade to greater biomass and forest complexity. The study provides more weight to the argument that greater forest species diversity in general — and specifically for restorations — delivers more ecosystem services, possibly including carbon sequestration. The Guardian reports on a new paper that argues that monoculture tree-planting schemes are threatening tropical biodiversity while only offering modest climate benefit. 

Ivory Coast deforestation rate rises as EU green imports law looms

Reuters, Maytaal Angel, 29 September

Reuters reports that deforestation in top cocoa producer Ivory Coast increased last year after declining for several years, a major report has found, raising questions about how the country will comply with a new EU law preventing commodity imports linked to forest loss. The report was published by the Cocoa and Forests Initiative (CFI), a UN-backed partnership launched in 2017, when Ivory Coast, No. 2 cocoa grower Ghana and more than 30 major cocoa and chocolate companies signed onto it at the COP 23, in Germany. Euronews shares an opinion piece from Proforest’s Africa and Global Director arguing that the EU Deforestation Regulation needs to work for Africa too.

Indonesia’s peatland restoration claims in question as fires flare up

Mongabay, Hans Nicholas Jong, 2 October

Mongabay researches the Indonesian government’s claims that companies have restored 3.7 million hectares of peatland — an area larger than Belgium — in an effort to prevent the nation’s annual peat fires. This claim has come into question following an increase in the number of hotspots in peatlands, including inside oil palm concessions that had burned in past years and went up in flames again this year. An investigation by The Gecko Project found the government appeared to have inflated the figure of 3.7 million hectares, with the actual figure derived from the government’s own methodology closer to 2.7 million hectares.

SPOTLIGHT – Join us at Bloom 23

Nature4Climate is proud to be an Ecosystem Partner of Bloom 23 — the leading event for professionals advancing strategies to protect and regenerate nature — taking place October 24-25 in San Jose, CA. Join us and more than 500 professionals to explore the markets, technologies and partnerships key to addressing the climate and biodiversity crises hand-in-hand. Learn more and use the code B23N4C when you register for 20% off the All-Access Pass.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Conservation Finance Network releases a glossary of conservation-related terms, including abbreviations and acronyms.

Science Based Targets initiative shares the results of its public consultation on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation.

Sylvera responds to the latest carbon market criticism and argues why taking down the carbon markets won’t stop climate change.

The Rights and Resources Institute seeks a consultant to review the current state of Indigenous, Afro-Descendant and Local Community-Based Livelihoods in six countries: Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal and Peru.

GFANZ shares commitments arising from a high-level roundtable of businesses, financial institutions, and standard setters on building demand in the voluntary carbon market for high-integrity use of carbon credits on their transition pathways to net-zero.

The Food Systems Partnership calls for organizations interested in becoming a member of the Farmer Co-Host of the Food Systems Pavilion as part of FSP’s effort to establish farmers as a non-paying co-host involved in the workings of the pavilion.

Jurisdictional Approaches Resource Hub publishes a position paper setting initial guidelines for companies on the claims they can make about how their investments or actions have contributed to performance improvement in a landscape.

Icebreaker One seeks input into what the questions should be for a survey to be released on October 6 aiming to address the following research question: what is currently out there, and what is needed to help accelerate impact to Net Zero?

GlobeScan releases a Climate & Nature Nexus survey to consolidate ideas to help inform how companies, partner organizations, and governments can integrate their work on nature.

Forest Peoples Programme shares an introductory series for Indigenous peoples and communities of educational materials on Carbon Markets, Forests and Rights.

The U.S. National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Department of Commerce published a notice and call for partnership for a matching fund opportunity for ocean and coastal mapping and request for partnership proposals.

The USDA Forest Service announces a notice of funding opportunity for grants to support in an anticipated series of Landowner Support for Forest Resilience funding under the Inflation Reduction Act.

FAIRR releases a report on regenerative agriculture to assess the growing number of regenerative agriculture commitments across publicly listed agri-food companies to understand whether these are meaningful enough to deliver climate, nature and social goals.

ZSL SPOTT shares a Request for Proposal for an opportunity with ZSL’s Sustainable Business and Finance Programme, to showcase how Forest IQ can be utilised in adopting the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework.

World Animal Protection published a report that reveals Brazilian meatpacker JBS recently bought corn and soy crops from a farming operation that illegally exploits indigenous land, clearing and planting it in violation of Brazilian law.

CASE STUDY OF THE WEEK

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. 

Yaeda – Eyasi Landscape

WHERE: YAEDA VALLEY, NORTHERN TANZANIA

TYPE OF NCS SOLUTION: PROTECT  

In the Yaeda Valley, the Yaeda – Eyasi Landscape protects the forests, ensuring the local Hadza hunter-gatherer and Datooga pastoralist communities can preserve their traditional way of life. This NCS Lighthouse project conserves 110,527 hectares, using PES to finance the development of education and health funds, outreach clinics, and capacity training.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK – 50 Million Hectares

The area of undesignated land in Brazil that the government aims to establish as newly recognized Indigenous lands, quilombola territories, environmental conservation units, extractive reserves and agrarian reform settlements.

GOOD NEWS

Indigenous community fighting a mine in Palawan wins a milestone legal verdict

Following petitions by Indigenous communities in Palawan, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a writ mandating a nickel mining project and associated government agencies respond to the communities’ environmental concerns. The issuance of the writ is an initial step in a legal process activists say they hope will result in the permanent suspension of the nickel mine, which is operating within a protected area. The legal process is currently on hold due to a court recess, but the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued the mine a cease-and-desist order the same day the court issued the writ.
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