Indonesia, Brazil biggest culprits in tropical forest loss linked to industrial mining

In the first study to quantify the impact of industrial mining on tropical forest loss, an international team of scientists found that just four countries are largely to blame: Brazil, Indonesia, Ghana and Suriname.

Together, the four forest-rich nations accounted for roughly 80 per cent of tropical deforestation caused by large-scale mining operations from 2000 to 2019, according to the study published on Monday (Sep 12) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While at least 70 per cent of deforestation is done to clear land for agriculture, the scientists called out industrial mining as an emerging concern due to the growing global appetite for minerals used in clean-energy technologies to combat climate change.

"The energy transition is going to require very large amounts of minerals - copper, lithium, cobalt - for decarbonised technologies," said coauthor Anthony Bebbington, a geographer at Clark University in Massachusetts. "We need more planning tools on the parts of governments and companies to mitigate the impacts of mining on forest loss."

Already, mines worldwide extract more than twice the amount of raw materials than they did in 2000, the study said.

For the study, the researchers studied global satellite images and data tracking forest loss alongside location information for industrial-scale mining operations from the past two decades. The study did not measure the impacts from small-scale and artisanal mining, which can also be a challenge as pollution goes unregulated.

Overall, there were 26 countries responsible for most of the world's tropical deforestation since 2000.

But around industrial mining sites, the four countries dominated. The biggest losses were in Indonesia, where coal mines on the island of Borneo have expanded to meet fuel demand from China and India.

Ghana and Suriname also showed high deforestation rates around gold and bauxite mines delivering material used in aluminium and other products. In Brazil, gold and iron ore extraction drove mining deforestation.

Mining operations often clear forests to make room for expanding extraction sites and tailing storage facilities, as well as to build access roads and settlements for miners.

Road-building and development activities are often not included in environmental impact assessments, conducted before a mine is approved, said environmental engineer Juliana Siqueira-Gay at the sustainability nonprofit Instituto Escolhas in Brazil, who was not involved in the study.

Indonesia, Norway ink deal to reward rainforest protection

 Indonesia and Norway signed a deal on Monday (Sep 12) to reward deforestation reduction months after the collapse of a similar US$1 billion agreement that was part of an UN-backed global initiative criticised for its ineffectiveness.

Protecting trees is key to meeting climate goals but environmentalists blame Indonesia - home to the world's third-largest rainforest area - for a deforestation-free-for-all by allowing companies to clear land for new plantations.

Jakarta claims it has made progress by reducing the rate of primary forest loss for five straight years and Oslo will now reward it with "results-based contributions" for cutting emissions, Norway's ministry of climate and environment said in a statement.

"Today we are proud to embark on a new partnership to support the Indonesian government's impressive results and ambitious plans," said Norwegian Minister for Climate and Environment Espen Barth Eide in a statement.

But environmental activists say the deal will not change the situation in Indonesia with vast swathes of rainforest still being destroyed to make way for palm and timber plantations that threaten endangered species and push indigenous people off their lands.

"The agreement does not solve existing problems, including recognition of indigenous people," Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Iqbal Damanik told AFP.

"The point made is 'successfully reducing deforestation', not zero deforestation. It means there is still deforestation in Indonesia going forward."

The countries had signed a landmark deforestation deal in 2010 with Norway offering Indonesia US$1 billion to slash its emissions.

But Jakarta cancelled it last year saying it didn't see enough of the money, while research showed it only made a small dent in Indonesia's carbon-cutting targets.

Critics of the United Nations-backed REDD+ mechanism under which the deal was struck said it was ineffective and trampled on indigenous communities' rights.

Under the new agreement Norway will send Jakarta an initial US$56 million payment for its deforestation reduction from the year 2016 to 2017, the statement said.

It will then pay Indonesia for years of reductions that followed after verifying the drops in deforestation, meaning it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Jakarta.

Indonesia has an ambitious goal to reach a net carbon sink - storing more carbon than it releases into the atmosphere - by 2030 but its vast forests are still shrinking.

The country's tree cover has decreased by 18 per cent since 2000, a loss that accounts for 6.5 per cent of the global total since then, according to Global Forest Watch, a monitoring programme of the environmental research group World Resources Institute.