Tag Archives: logging

Brazilian Indigenous Activists Join Peruvian Comrades Fighting ‘Genocide Bill’

Opponents warn that the proposed legislation is “a naked land grab by the oil and gas industry” that critically imperils Peru’s uncontacted tribes.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 6-13-2023 by Common Dreams

Brazilian and Peruvian Indigenous leaders speak out against a proposed bill that critics say threatens unconctacted tribes during a June 13, 2023 press conference at the Peruvian Congress. (Photo: AIDESEP/Twitter)

A delegation of Indigenous leaders from Brazil is in Peru this week to join forces with their counterparts there who are fighting to stop proposed legislation many critics call the “genocide bill” due to fears its passage could result in uncontacted tribes being wiped out by fossil fuel companies and other rapacious resource extractors.

Members of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), a coalition of tribes from the Amazon region, joined the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) and the Regional Organization of Eastern Indigenous Peoples (ORPIO) on Tuesday during a joint session of Peru’s Congress ahead of a Wednesday meeting of a congressional decentralization committee debating 3518/2022-CR, a bill that would modify a law protecting uncontatced tribes.

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Critics Slam ‘Reprehensible’ Iowa Bill to Expand Child Labor

“This is just crazy,” said the president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “A kid can still lose an arm in a work-based learning program.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 2-7-2023 by Common Dreams

Teen Job Fair. Photo: Fleet & Family Support Centers/flickr/CC

Labor advocates on Tuesday decried a business-backed bill introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Iowa that would roll back child labor laws so that teens as young as 14 could work in previously prohibited jobs including mining, logging, and animal slaughtering—a proposal one union president called dangerous and “just crazy.”

Senate File 167, introduced by state Sen. Jason Schultz (R-6) would expand job options available to teens—including letting children as young as 14 work in freezers and meat coolers and loading and unloading light tools, under certain conditions. Continue reading

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Green Groups Blame Bolsonaro Policies as Amazon Deforestation Sets New Monthly Record

“The Bolsonaro administration is abetting deforestation and environmental crime,” said one campaigner, “and what we harvest are these terrible, scary, revolting numbers.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 5-6-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Amazon Watch/Twitter

Brazil’s space research agency revealed Friday that deforestation in the country’s Amazon rainforest last month shattered the previous record for April, a development one conservation campaigner called “very scary” and an indication of the criminal level of environmental destruction occurring under the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

The National Institute for Space Research said nearly 400 square miles of the world’s largest rainforest was destroyed in Brazil last month, an area the size of 1,400 soccer fields and by far the biggest loss for April since record-keeping began in 2015, Agence France-Presse reports. Continue reading

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Moving beyond America’s war on wildfire: 4 ways to avoid future megafires

Tools for a prescribed burn conducted in the Sierra Nevada in November 2019.
Susan Kocher, CC BY-ND

Susan Kocher, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Ryan E. Tompkins, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Californians have been concerned about wildfires for a long time, but the past two years have left many of them fearful and questioning whether any solutions to the fire crisis truly exist.

The Dixie Fire in the Sierra Nevada burned nearly 1 million acres in 2021, including almost the entire community of Greenville. Then strong winds near Lake Tahoe sent the Caldor Fire racing through the community of Grizzly Flats and to the edges of urban neighborhoods, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people – including one of us. Those were only the biggest of the 2021 fires, and the risk isn’t over. A wind-blown fire that started Oct. 11 was spreading quickly near Santa Barbara on the Southern California coast. Continue reading

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‘Out of Control’: Brazilian Amazon Deforestation Hits Highest Level in a Decade

“At this rate, we will not be able to keep global warming below 1.5ºC, a target defined in the Paris agreement,” said the conservation institute Imazon.

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-20-2021

Kayapó Mekragnotire people blockading the BR-163 highway in Pará – 2020. Photo: Avispa Midia

Encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged to its highest annual level in a decade over the past year, with researchers warning that the accelerated destruction of the critical carbon sink is imperiling the ability to keep planetary heating below the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5ºC target.

Imazon, a Brazilian research institute whose mission is to promote conservation and sustainable development, reported Thursday that from August 2020 to July 2021, 10,476 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest were destroyed, a 57% increase over the previous 12-month period. Continue reading

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In ‘Critical Step’ for Climate, Biden to Restore Protections for Tongass National Forest

“The Tongass is not only one of the few truly wild places left on the planet, it is vital to our path forward as we deal with climate change,” said the Alaska-based group SalmonState.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-15-2021

Hikers walk through the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska. (Photo: U.S. Forest Service/Flickr/cc)

Conservation and climate action groups on Thursday applauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s announcement of far-reaching new protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest as well as a restoration of a key rule that former President Donald Trump rescinded three months before leaving office in a bid to open millions of acres to industrial logging.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the administration would put back in place the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, also known as the Roadless Rule, which Trump exempted Alaska from in a move that outraged Indigenous communities in the region as well as environmental advocates. Continue reading

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‘One Word for This: Vandalism’: Six Days Before Election, Trump Finalizes Plan for ‘Catastrophic’ Attack on Largest National Forest

“Destructive development in the country’s largest national forest—such as extractive logging and expansive road building—will be catastrophic for generations to come,” warned Greenpeace.

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-28-2020

Tongass National Forest. Photo: joshy_in_juneau/flickr/CC

Cue the chainsaws and bulldozers.

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced its finalized plan to gut protections for the nation’s largest national forest, Alaska’s Tongass, opening the carbon sink to clear-cut logging and irreparable ecological destruction.

The change—at total odds with public opinion—means 9.3 million acres of the wild public lands, home to the planet’s largest intact temperate rainforest, are exempted from the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, which prevented industrial activity. Continue reading

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‘Horrific’: Human Rights Advocates Call for Investigation Into Death of Second Monarch Butterfly Defender in Mexico

Raúl Hernández Romero’s family says he received threats regarding his work campaigning against illegal logging in the weeks before he disappeared.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-3-2020

El Rosario Monarch Butterfly reserve. Photo: Charlie Marchant/flickr/CC

Human rights defenders on Monday demanded a full investigation into the death of a second conservation activist in Michoacan state, Mexico, after the body of a tour guide in one of the country’s largest butterfly preserves was found several days after the man went missing.

The body of Raúl Hernández Romero was found at the top of a hill in the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary on Saturday, one day after the manager of the preserve, Homero Gómez González, was buried. Gómez’s body was found last Wednesday after a two-week disappearance. Continue reading

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