WWF is urging investors to do more to promote sustainable palm oil, backed by findings from a new survey released during a high-level meeting of investors and producers in Singapore.
A report this week in the Gulf Times claims that Bangladesh’s environment department as well as environmental activists are opposing the setting up of a coal-fired power plant near the Sundarbans, which they fear would adversely affect the world’s biggest mangrove forest in Bagerhat district of Khulna.
UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, is facing money-laundering allegations following the disclosure of a series of documents linking Malaysian top politicians to secret UBS bank accounts in Hong Kong and Zurich.
According to Malaysian media reports, the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) have been tracing the flow of over USD90 million through UBS bank accounts in Hong Kong, which are alleged to be kickbacks for the illegal logging of tropical hardwoods in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo, one of the world’s most biodiverse habitats.
Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has been accused of a “double default” on international creditors, after an investigation revealed that the company has decimated tropical forests it promised to conserve under “legally binding” debt restructuring agreements.
Every two seconds, an area of forest the size of a football field is clear-cut by illegal loggers around the globe, but a new World Bank report shows how countries can effectively fight illegal logging through the criminal justice system, punish organized crime, and trace and confiscate illegal logging profits.
The report, Justice for Forests: Improving Criminal Justice Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging, says that to be effective, law enforcement needs to look past low-level criminals and look at where the profits from illegal logging go.
South Korea has signed an memorandum of understanding with Indonesia whereby it will receive 100 million tonnes of carbon emission credits over the next decade in return for planting trees in a 200,000-hectare plot of land in Sumatra.
Greenpeace yesterday said that it has handed evidence to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and Indonesia’s CITES Secretariat which it says proves that one of the world's leading pulp companies, is systematically violating Indonesia’s laws protecting ramin, an internationally protected tree species.
The Thai government has put forest rehabilitation and preservation on the national agenda by allocating about USD99 million to regenerate land over the next five years, the Bangkok Post reported on Tuesday.
New research from KPMG International has found that that if companies had to pay for the full environmental costs of their production, they would lose 41 cents for every USD in earnings on average.
The finding is contained in a newly released study by the firm, Expect the Unexpected: Building Business Value in a Changing World, which identifies 10 “megaforces” that will significantly affect corporate growth globally over the next two decades.
Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) claims of independent sustainability certification for its operations aren’t supported by the certification schemes and assessors it has nominated, an investigation by WWF has found.
None of these certifications cover the most controversial operations of APP’s wood suppliers – mass clearing of native forests which are home to critically endangered tigers, elephants and orang-utans and clearing and drainage of peat areas which result in massive greenhouse gas emissions.
According to a report in Environmental Finance, Ireland has become the first country in the world to recognize forest carbon credits in its tax regime – paving the way for the issuance of forest bonds, according to a leading banker.
Nine supermarket chains in the United States have responded to the World Wildlife Fund’s new “Don’t Flush Forest Tigers” campaign by dropping toilet and tissue paper brands that use wood fiber from Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) group.
The world’s foremost experts group on birds, the International Ornithologists’ Union, has just confirmed a new species of bird that was discovered on the mountain peaks of Hong Kong. Given the common name Chinese Grassbird, their estimated numbers are few (initial estimates suggests no more than 50-100 pairs in Hong Kong); therefore, the cause for conservation should be great.
It might be fortunate that the hill and mountaintop habitats where these birds make their home are largely found within Hong Kong’s country parks network.
Bangladesh's environment directorate has suspended tree felling in the Korean Export Processing Zone (EPZ) near the southern port city of Chittagong.
While the country is suffering serious national deforestation, the move is nonetheless unusual. A demand by the environment department for the inspection of papers authorising tree cutting in the Korean EPZ is likely to upset the controlling company, the YoungOne Group.
Over 2,500 acres are being prepared as industrial plots in the EPZ area.
Indonesia has the potential to realize major reductions in national greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, and simultaneously earn significant new income for national and regional governments, if policies to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) are developed with strong and specific economic incentives, said scientists in a new paper published in the leading scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
India's National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ruled that it can listen to anyone's complaint that the environment requires protecting. The decision means any citizen can make a complaint against a project even if they are directly affected by it.
Large-scale miners and commercial wood producers have hit back at special interest groups linking their respective sectors to the devastation wrought by tropical storm Sendong in northern Mindanao and nearby provinces in the southern Philippines, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
A group of environmental experts finished a preliminary investigation regarding 'ecological immigration' near a cross-border lake in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province earlier this month, reported Xinhua.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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