The long-delayed European Court of Auditors (ECA) report on the FLEGT Action Plan omitted key information but contained some welcome recommendations. Released on 22 October 2015, the ECA report described FLEGT as “innovative” but...
15/11/2015
From 19 to 23 October, countries met in Bonn for the last negotiations before next month’s climate summit in Paris, where a new global agreement to address climate change is expected. The week got off to a rocky start: the G-77...
Burning forest biomass undermines the EU’s objectives toward climate change mitigation, nature protection and a circular economy and has a devastating, irreversible impact on forests, according to a Fern briefing note calling on...
On 3 November 2015 Cameroonian activist Nasako Besingi – environmental campaigner, human rights defender and director of the TAIGO prize-winning NGOStruggle to Economise our Future Environment (SEFE) – was imprisoned for...
Liberian and international NGOs took part in a conference with Liberian government officials in Monrovia in October at a crucial juncture for the country’s forests, with the country’s parliament considering a Land Rights Act that...
Illegally-logged wood accounts for up to 30 per cent of international trade in timber. Revenues from timber crime likely run into billions of euros each year. Against this background, Fern carried out major research to find out if...
As the Paris climate summit nears, climate NGOs and indigenous groups are demanding that the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) global reporting standards for extractive industries include a requirement that foss...
He said he was a forest ranger. But he leaped out of an unmarked car and showed no ID before shouting at us and waving a heavy stick menacingly in our faces. The three of us, enjoying the afternoon sun on a short stroll through the woods, were trespassing in the Poloniny National Park, he said – a criminal activity. He harangued us for 15 minutes as we retraced our steps back to the main road. In Slovakia, the heavy machinery of logging companies is allowed inside its national parks – their work was all around us. But walkers often are not.
11/11/2015
The new transitional government of the Central African Republic is in the process of drafting a new constitution, and, for the first time, many forest communities have been consulted about their country’s future. The Voluntary...
05/11/2015
