Miri – Saying that building access road to Ulu Baram must be subjected to building of Hydroelectric Dam sounds like blackmailing. Like any other citizen anywhere in any country, the people of Baram are entitled to infrastructure and all other amenities which the government of day should provide. If...
New paper in Nature analyses the wide-scale negative impacts of damming rivers in the Amazon basin. The Amazon basin will suffer significant and irreversible environmental damage if hundreds of planned dams are constructed. The hydrophysical and ecological disturbances will impact the Amazon basin’s floodplains, estuary, and sediment plume. The benefits will not...
The Chinese dam-building company Sinohydro, which is responsible for the construction of three hydroelectric dams in Malaysia, is failing to implement its own sustainable development policy framework. In this article International Rivers Policy Director Peter Bosshard examines Sinohydro’s continued evasion of its sustainability commitments, including its recent decision to consider building several...
A new report from Friends of the Earth International has determined that the ‘sustainable’ tropical timber trade, particularly in Malaysia, is not actually sustainable at all. The report suggests that the trade could become more sustainable with changes in policy by timber importers, which would include requirements such as free,...
The World Wildlife Federation (WWF) released analysis of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) showing only a handful of member producers are making adequate progress towards the goal of becoming 100 percent sustainable. Read more below. Read more from Sustainable Brands Read more about Borneo Forest and Climate Policy...
Research published in 2012 provided a better understanding of tropical deforestation’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Two studies — one published in Science and the other published in Nature Climate Change, concluded that while deforestation now accounts for a lower share of global emissions relative to the late 1990s, it still represents roughly 10...
The Eyes on the Forest report [PDF] finds that APRIL and its suppliers cleared at least 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of natural forest between 2008 and 2011 in Riau, accounting for 27 percent of all forest loss in the province during the period. Some of the area cleared by APRIL and its...
Penan leaders issue stern warning to loggers. “We will do everything necessary to protect our forests”: Penan leaders from Sarawak’s Middle Baram region (Photo : www.bmf.ch) It could well have been a plot from Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness. Except that, instead of the African Congo, the clashes between...
