Region Archives: International

Europe’s forests face increasing pressures. Impacts include fewer tall forests, climate change-induced wildfires, insect outbreaks, and, most recently, increased wood harvesting to meet additional demand for “home-grown” biomass in response to the Ukraine war and changing energy demands. Against this backdrop, the EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law would introduce critical safeguards to prevent further decline in the quality of Europe’s forests. The law seeks to protect remaining old-growth forests, set aside additional forests for restoration, and improve the biodiversity of forests managed for wood production. Here, we look at the latest data, including that from University of Maryland’s GLAD lab and available on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform, to investigate European forest changes.

Researchers believe they may have solved the mystery of zombie fires inside the Arctic Circle, which disappear underground in winter only to re-emerge and burst into flames again in spring. These fires occur in peatlands in Siberia, Canada and Alaska. Researchers originally thought the fires started on the surface and continued smouldering underground. Now there is a different explanation. When microbes break down peat, the process generates heat. Much as a haystack can spontaneously combust due to the action of microbes, which raise its temperature past the flashpoint, peat can get dangerously hot. But it does not catch fire until the air temperature rises in spring.

Todd McClay

The Climate Forestry Association (CFA) has praised the Government’s recognition of the forestry sector’s potential to play a major role in meeting New Zealand’s climate commitments. Minister of Forestry Todd McClay announced the Government would be introducing a package of initiatives during the course of this parliamentary term to support industry growth and to deliver positive outcomes across the forestry and wood processing value chain. …“It is important to ensure there is sufficient pipeline of logs to support domestic wood processing as well as encouraging the planting of new trees on suitable land to meet our international climate change commitments,” says Mr McClay. …“Forestry plays an important role in helping New Zealand meet its emissions reductions obligations. This review is the government’s first step on halting Labour’s attack on forestry through increased costs and regulations,” Mr McClay says.

Although considered an evolutionary force responsible for shaping ecosystems and biodiversity, fires’ natural cycle is being altered by human activities, increasing the odds of destructive megafire events. Here, we show that forest type modulates the responses of terrestrial mammals, from species to assemblage level, to a catastrophic megafire in the Brazilian Pantanal. We unraveled that mammalian richness was higher 1 year after fire passage compared to a pre-fire condition, which can be attributed to habitat modification caused by wildfires, attracting herbivores and open-area tolerant species. We observed changes in assemblage composition between burned/unburned sites, but no difference in mammalian richness or relative abundance. However, by partitioning the effects of burned area proportion per forest type (monospecific vs. polyspecific), we detected differential responses of mammals at several levels of organization, with pronounced declines in species richness and relative abundance in monospecific forests. 

IKEA has been accused of contributing to the rapid deterioration of Romania’s biologically rich forests. Two recent investigations reveal the impact of the flatpack furniture giant on the country’s Carpathian mountains, one of Europe’s largest remaining areas of old growth forests. According to a Greenpeace report, more than 50% of Romania’s ancient forests have disappeared in the past 20 years, due to corruption and poor law enforcement. A new report from the NGO details the role that IKEA and the Ingka Group, its largest franchisee, have played. …In a separate investigation, Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe visited Romania’s old growth forests to examine IKEA’s supply chains. Its report, claims that at least seven suppliers for IKEA’s leading wood products were linked to the “systematic destruction” of old growth forests. …Some forest campaigners feel IKEA is hiding behind the FSC, a certification scheme they claim is failing to protect old growth forests. 

In the not-so-distant past the furniture adorning most British homes was old-fashioned, solid and, given its relatively high cost, more or less permanent. Then IKEA arrived in the 1980s, and suddenly the nation’s living rooms and kitchens were filled with modern-looking furnishings carrying hip foreign names and very low price-tags. It’s a story replicated in IKEA’s 63 markets around the world. The privately held retailer, founded in Sweden, but now headquartered in the Netherlands, has enjoyed meteoric success with its flat-pack, do-it-yourself approach to homeware (and, for a sub-set of its customer base, its iconic meatballs). But its business model also entails a colossal materials footprint, and that is out of synch with today’s eco-conscious consumer market. …But how does a low-cost, high-volume retailer like IKEA undergo a sustainability transformation? Is full circularity really possible for a company of this size and type?

The Forestry Commission is to extend its measures to tackle a beetle pest across East Anglia. The Ips typographus, or larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle, is a serious pest of spruce trees in Europe and has been spotted in the region. Measures introduced in 2022 to the South East will now cover parts of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, as well as Lincolnshire, from 12 June. Spokesperson Andrea Deol urged landowners and timber processors to “remain vigilant” because “we are now entering the next [beetle] flight season”. The insect is present in spruce trees, especially Norway spruce, in most of Europe and has probably blown into the region. It was first spotted in the UK in Kent in 2018 and prefers stressed or dying trees, but could attack healthy trees in the right conditions, according to the commission.

Tropical forests store a third of the world’s carbon in their wood and soils. However, their future as a carbon sink has been uncertain. Scientists have long wondered whether nutrient-poor tropical soils would limit the ability of mature and recovering forests to thrive. A study published in New Phytologist offers a hopeful response, suggesting that forests have flexible strategies that help them overcome the challenge of scarce nutrients. “We may not have to worry about it so much,” concluded senior author Sarah Batterman, a tropical forest ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. “Because of these flexible strategies, trees may be able to support a carbon sink in the future, even with nutrient constraints. Our findings support the potential of tropical reforestation and conserving intact forests as a long-term climate solution.” …Forests of different ages responded differently to the nutrient additions, showing that “trees are actively responding to their nutrient environment,” said Wong.

SYDNEY, Australia — State government agencies are amplifying bushfire risk in south-western Australia, say scientists, who further say that government efforts to discredit their research have backfired, resulting in newer and even stronger research. The original paper… published in 2022, examined 55 years of WA’s fire history data. Research lead, Curtin University Associate Professor Philip Zylstra, a former remote area firefighter in New South Wales, said their analysis of records kept by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions concluded that prescribed burning makes the bush more flammable. The research was dismissed a few months later without explanation by then-WA minister for the environment, Stephen Dawson. In 2023, the department finally provided its reasoning to Zylstra, who used this information to re-analyse the data. This re-analysis has now been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters and Zylstra said it found the results were actually more compelling once the department’s concerns were accounted for.

NEW ZEALAND — A two-year research project has shed light on the promising opportunities for regional New Zealand to adopt short rotation forestry (SRF) for bioenergy production. The findings are said to show that leveraging short rotation forestry will not only diversify regional economies, but also contribute to sustainable land management and generate environmental benefits as New Zealand looks for ways to meet its netzero emissions targets by 2050. Silviculture and forest carbon scientist Alan Jones says Scion’s modelling shows that short rotation forestry as a feedstock for bioenergy has the potential to replace 6% of New Zealand’s annual fossil fuel demand from less than 1% of the land area. …A key outcome from Scion’s research is a ‘how to’ guide for short rotation forestry targeting landowners, forest investors, and government agencies. It not only outlines the feasibility of SRF but also identifies specific regions most suitable for it in New Zealand.

In 2013, if you wanted to include forest loss numbers in your reporting, your options were limited to annual reports that used oft-dubious data self-reported by governments and the occasional peer-reviewed unicorn. Regardless of source, this data was a year old at best. But in 2014 the fog began to lift when the World Resources Institute released Global Forest Watch, an interactive, free-to-use online platform that visualizes and analyzes land cover change datasets around the world. Debuting with its flagship tree cover loss dataset and a smattering of context layers, the platform has blossomed into a comprehensive portal that connects the public to more than four dozen global, national and regional datasets. As an editor who specializes in data-driven coverage of land cover change, I’ve been using Global Forest Watch in my work at Mongabay since its debut 10 years ago.

Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta

A Tasmanian Aboriginal elder says he has no intention of appearing in court — or participating in the “colonial” judicial system — on a charge of trespass for taking part in a protest against native forest logging. A magistrate issued an arrest warrant for 81-year-old Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta on Monday morning, after he failed to appear in the Hobart Magistrates Court. …”I’m not going to be running and hiding from them. If they want to arrest me and bring it on, well yeah, that’s good,” said Mr Everett. He was arrested and charged on March 19 in a native forest coupe in Tasmania, and was bailed to appear on June 3; a hearing he did not attend. …The question of Aboriginal sovereignty, lack of treaty, and the jurisdiction of Australian courts over Aboriginal people are central to Mr Everett’s argument. …Mr Everett said treaty with Aboriginal people would help to clarify these matters.

Have you ever noticed this little symbol? Chances are you’ve seen it in passing, perhaps when you were out shopping for groceries, office supplies or furniture. Well, it turns out this little symbol makes a big difference—for people and the planet. It signifies Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, which lets consumers know that a product, or even the packaging it’s wrapped in, supports responsible forestry. But what does a responsibly managed forest mean? FSC, a nonprofit cofounded in 1994 with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other partners, mobilizes markets, including forest managers, manufacturers, traders and end users of forest products like consumers, to support responsible forest management that delivers environmental and social benefits. Those benefits include protecting the rights and resources of millions of people who live in forests and rely on the services they provide. Numerous studies have underscored the indispensable role FSC certification plays in ensuring forests around the globe thrive. 

With summer just around the corner, we’re all dreaming of sunshine and swimming in the sea – but with the hot weather comes the risk of wildfires. That’s where the European Union comes in. From June, they’re putting in place measures to bolster firefighting efforts in order to better protect communities across Europe – and the surrounding environment. Following devastating fires in 2023 – recorded as some of the very worst this century – the EU has put together a team of 556 firefighters from 12 countries. They’ll be strategically placed across key locations in Europe this summer, including in high risk areas like France, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Local fire brigades can find themselves overwhelmed when the scale of a wildfire outsizes the response capabilities of a country. The EU are also introducing a dedicated rescue fleet of firefighting aircraft, which will consist of 28 aeroplanes and 4 helicopters stationed in 10 of the bloc’s Member States.

Assumptions that tropical forest canopies protect from the effects of climate change are unfounded, say researchers. Crucial strongholds for biodiversity are under threat as temperatures are rising in tropical forests, the world’s most diverse terrestrial ecosystems, a new study reveals. It has been long assumed that the forest subcanopy and understorey – where direct sunlight is reduced – would be insulated from the worst climate change impacts by the shielding effect of the forest canopy. A new study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, used a microclimate model to examine temperatures beneath the rainforest canopy across the global tropics. This showed that between 2005 and 2019, most of the world’s undisturbed tropical forests experienced climate conditions at least partially outside the range of historic conditions. Many areas had transitioned to almost entirely new temperature averages.