Between 1990 and 2005 Ghana lost an estimated quarter of its national forest cover. Illegal timber harvesting was rife, and poor governance and a lack of transparency plagued the forest sector.
Things began to change for the...
31/07/2017
As Polish authorities disregard national protests and international pressure to stop logging, activists face increasing hostility in order to protect Białowieża, Europe’s last primeval forest. Activists estimate that 600-900 trees...
27/07/2017
The European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee today voted to increase removals of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by forests from 2030 onwards, recognising the important role that EU...
11/07/2017
This paper summarises Fern staff member Julia Christian's lessons from studying community forestry in Mexico and Petén (Guatemala), from March-July 2016, hosted by the Mexican non-governmental organisation Reforestamos. To see a...
10/07/2017
There were tears of joy in Kracow, Poland and the ancient Białowieża Forest when UN delegates called for its illegal logging to be halted.
Despite being acknowledged as a jewel of temperate primeval forests, and being both a UNES...
06/07/2017
The European Commission (EC) has finally released two long-awaited and hotly anticipated draft reports about the future of the EU’s flagship forest policy and a potential new Action Plan on deforestation. Over three days more than...
An ad hoc delegation of the European Parliament’s Development Committee recently visited Cameroon to look at forest management and assess EU involvement. They recommended that the EU continue its support for the stalled Voluntary...
Forest fires in central Portugal, close to Pedrógão Grande, have killed more than 60 people and, combined with the fire of Góis, consumed nearly 50,000 hectares of forest in 2017. These fires have also exposed one of the pitfalls...
Greenpeace Netherlands released secret documents from the EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement (JEFTA), 23 June 2017, which reveal – once again – EU policy incoherence in tackling deforestation. According to Greenpeace, provisions on...
