News & Politics
Loss of Biodiversity, Pollution, Climate Change and Human Rights Abuses from DeforestationDiscussion with Etelle Higonnet on the state of deforestation around the world with a particular focus on commodity agriculture and soy and palm oil in particular. We discuss the contribution to climate change and the loss of biodiversity from clearing wild forests for monoculture plantations. We also discuss the public health impact from polluted water and air for surrounding populations, in particular the haze from Indonesian forest clearing, as well as the egregious labor rights violations of the deforestation industry. We also discuss “paper tigers”, lack of political will and the effectiveness of public campaigns and pro-active and informed public and consumer choices.For More Info:http://www.mightyearth.orghttp://www.mightyearth.org/2015-haze-death-toll/http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094023http://climate.org/deforestation-and-climate-change/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/tires-your-car-threaten-asian-biodiversityhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159668https://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Indonesia-palm-oil-expansion_ICCT_july2016.pdfhttps://tropicalconservationscience.mongabay.com/content/v8/tcs_v8i1_95-113_Bitty.pdfhttp://humanityunited.org/pdfs/Modern_Slavery_in_the_Palm_Oil_Industry.pdfhttp://www.laborrights.org/publications/empty-assurances-human-cost-palm-oilhttp://www.ran.org/klk_case_study_2014http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-18/indonesias-palm-oil-industry-rife-with-human-rights-abuseshttp://www.verite.org/vision/march2014/bottomofthesupplychainhttp://www.verite.org/sites/default/files/images/Palm_White_Paper_May_2013_Final_Draft_0.pdfhttps://www.seafoodwatch.org/-/m/sfw/pdf/guides/mba-seafoodwatch-national-guide.pdf