The Forest Research and Training Centre (FRTC) is pleased to announce the launch of Nepal’s National Land Cover Monitoring System (NLCMS) to mark Earth Day. The system uses cloud computing and artificial intelligence to generate consistent data on how much of a region is covered by forests, wetlands, agriculture, and other land and water types, on an annual basis.

AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia has established a fund to support its national tree-planting campaign, Xinhua reported on Thursday citing the presidential press office.

The nationwide campaign to plant at least 1 billion trees by 2030 was officially launched last year as Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh told the United Nations General Assembly that the country aims to combat climate change and desertification.

• A subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim has cleared natural forests a tenth the size of Seoul in Indonesia’s Papua region over the past six years, a new report alleges.
• The report, published by various NGOs, alleges that the cleared areas consisted of primary forests serving as a habitat for threatened species and a source of livelihood for Indigenous Papuans.

• The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke permits for plantation firms to operate in forest areas could lead to lawsuits filed by the companies, environmental law experts say.
• The permits were rescinded at the start of the year, not because of any environmental violations, but rather because the concession holders were deemed to be moving too slowly in exploiting the resources.
• But the unilateral revocations have set up an unprecedented legal mess, observers and industry representatives say, with no clarity over whether a company that has lo

• With the Indonesian government refusing to renew a three-year ban on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations, experts are warning of a deforestation free-for-all.
• The end of the moratorium means companies can once again apply to develop new plantations, including clearing forests to do.
• This coincides with a rally in the crude palm oil price due to tightening supply, which activists say portends a possible surge in deforestation.
• According to one analysis, rainforests spanning an area half the size of California, or 21 mil

• A new report suggests that the garment industry is contributing to deforestation in Cambodia due to factories relying on illegal forest wood to generate electricity.
• Garment factories were found to use at least 562 tons of forest wood every day, the equivalent of up to 1,418 hectares (3,504 acres) of forest being burned each year, according to the report.
• Between 2001 and 2019, Cambodia is reported to have lost an estimated 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres) of forest through deforestation.

Main photo: Special Assistant to PM on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam addresses the media about the launch of the Forest Restoration and Carbon Offset Programme at the Ministry of Climate Change. Image Credit: PID

Islamabad: The Pakistan government has announced it will collaborate with the private sector to restore at least 50,000 acres of degraded forest land across the country.

When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for a new, ethical era in palm oil production. Consumers could finally open a jar of Nutella or unroll their lipstick confident that the palm oil it contained didn’t come from a plantation that was, say, located inside of a rainforest reserve or patrolled by soldiers accused of burning local villages to the ground. The Okomu Oil Palm Company in southwestern Nigeria might give them second thoughts.

The recent arrests of staff of a Ugandan civil society organization, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), have been criticized as an attempt to stifle defenders of human rights and the environment in the East African country. AFIEGO has been prominent in campaigns against sugarcane plantations in the country’s western Bugoma Forest, as well as defending the rights of communities affected by Uganda’s growing oil industry.

In most of the communities in the country and even elsewhere around the globe, lands are mostly owned by men. Thus women have little access and rights to ownership of lands where they could cultivate.

However, the FAO the country representative, Moshibudi Rampedi said “we need to take specific measures to make it easier for women and girls to have equal tenure rights and have access to lands, fisheries and forest.”

The FAO representative was speaking recently during a Women Land Rights Policy Forum.

Nepal’s Indigenous peoples have suffered a litany of human rights violations over the past five decades as a result of abusive conservation policies, said Amnesty International and the Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC), in a new report published today.