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All over the Congo Basin pressure on civil society is growing, with an alarming rise in violence and other restrictions on civil society. In the Republic of Congo, repressive measures range from constraints on freedom of assembly, to excessive red tape and limitations on NGOs’ being able to freely express opinions without fear of retaliation.

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Human society is in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems, the world’s leading scientists have warned, as they announced the results of the most thorough planetary health check ever undertaken. From coral reefs flickering out beneath the oceans to rainforests desiccating into savannahs, nature is being destroyed at a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10m years, according to the UN global assessment report.

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An overwhelming majority of Europeans want new laws to ensure that the food they eat and the products they buy don’t drive global deforestation, according to a YouGov poll. Eighty-seven per cent of those polled across 25 EU countries agreed that legislation was necessary to protect forests. Ninety-one per cent also said they cared deeply about forests and agreed that deforestation is harmful for people and wildlife.

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A new strategy put forward by fossil fuel corporations to plant trees as ‘compensation’ for climate change is not only a greenwashing gimmick, but a dangerous tactic that could exacerbate the problems caused by fossil fuel exploitation.
Fossil fuel giants ENI (Italy) and Shell (the Netherlands) have announced reforestation programmes as compensation for carbon emissions, in a push to greenwash a corporate model that has caused widespread environmental devastation, land grabbing and the destruction of livelihoods. The two companies are responsible for environmental disasters and crimes as a result of their fossil fuel activities in Nigeria and many other places across the globe.

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In 2016 Greenpeace warned that the growing demand of avocados in the international markets was leading to large scale deforestation. Unfortunately Greenpeace were right, and  deforestation kept growing. 
Most of the country’s avocado is produced in the states of Michoacan, Jalisco and Mexico. In the past decade, the number of avocado orchards has multiplied (by tenfolds in the case of  Jalisco).  Global Forest Watch data shows that forest clearing to establish avocado plantations has pushed into the boundaries of the Monarch Butterfly santuary.
  1. Rebuilding Notre Dame will be difficult: the forests that provided the wood are all but gone
  2. Congo: military open fire on communities protesting oil palm development
  3. WWF: packaging drives pulp’s deforestation risks
  4. Local people speak out against the project of a mega ski resort in the Ukrainian Carpathians