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News articles on Corruption

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Mongabay.com news articles on corruption in blog format. Updated regularly.

No sacrifices to ending deforestation in the Amazon, only gains
(4/29/2008) Regular columnist and co-creator of Brazil's environmental news website, O Eco, Sergio Abranches has great credibility in Brazil's eco-awakening. A professor of political science, Abranches uses his unique talents to reach a widening audience in Brazil for environmental, energy, and climate change news and discussion. He speaks expertly on any number of topics: from Amazonian deforestation to the current food crises to economic and political transformations for a warming world.


Land invasions undermine Amazon forest law
(4/3/2008) Land invasions are undermining a Brazilian law that requires ranchers to keep 80 percent of their land forested, according to reports from the Amazon state of Mato Grosso. A run up in land prices, driven by surging soy and cattle production in the region, combined with a lackadaisical response from law enforcement authorities are blamed for the incursions.


Papua New Guinea's Environment Minister says foreign firms attempted to bribe him
(2/4/2008) The Environment and conservation minister of Papua New Guinea, Benny Allen, has stated that three different foreign firms attempted to bribe him.


Poverty and corruption reduce effectiveness of rainforest parks
(7/9/2007) Poverty and corruption are linked to higher incidence of fire in tropical forest reserves, reports a new study published in the journal Ecological Applications. Poor, corrupt countries -- like Cambodia, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone -- have the least effective parks when measured in terms of the incidence of fire relative to surrounding "buffer" areas. The findings have significant implications for rainforest conservation efforts.


Borneo governor arrested in rainforest for palm oil fraud
(12/20/2006) The governor of East Kalimantan on Indonesian part of the island of Borneo has been suspended and faces life in prison for his involvement in an oil palm plantation scheme that caused the deforestation of a million hectares of tropical rainforest.


Forest fires result from government failure in Indonesia
(10/15/2006) Indonesia is burning again. Smoke from fires set for land-clearing in South Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra are causing pollution levels to climb in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok, resulting in mounting haze-related health problems, traffic accidents, and associated economic costs. The country's neighbors are again clamoring for action but ultimately the fires will burn until they are extinguished by seasonal rains in coming months


Saving the world in six "easy" steps
(7/6/2006) General ideas toward a future where I won't have to apologize to my grandkids. Lots of people more intelligent than I am have theorized ways to "save the world" in terms of the preserving the environment in its current condition for future generations. Without getting too specific I believe there are six key concepts to address in achieving this goal.


Saving Orangutans in Borneo
(5/24/2006) A look at conservation efforts in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. I'm in Tanjung Puting National Park in southern Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. At 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) Tanjung Puting is the largest protected expanse of coastal tropical heath and peat swamp forest in southeast Asia. It's also one of the biggest remaining habitats for the critically endangered orangutan, the population of which has been great diminished in recent years due to habitat destruction and poaching. And orangutans have become the focus of a much wider effort to save Borneo's natural environment. We are headed to Campy Leakey, named for the renowned Kenyan paleontologist Louis Leakey. Here lies the center of the Orangutan Research conservation Project. Established by Birute Mary Galdikas, a preeminent primatologist and founder of the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI), the project seeks to support the conservation and understanding of the orangutan and its rain forest habitat while rehabilitating ex-captive individuals. The Orangutan Research conservation Project is the public face of orangutan conservation in this part of Kalimantan, the Indonesia-controlled part of Borneo. Borneo, the third largest island in the world, was once home to some of the world's most majestic, and forbidding forests. With swampy coastal areas fringed by mangrove forests and a mountainous interior, much of the terrain was virtually impassable and unexplored. Headhunters ruled the remote parts of the island until a century ago.


Shippers in Indonesia fight decree on illegal logging
(5/21/2006) According to a report from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), shippers in Indonesia are threatening to stop transporting logs if the government insists on enforcing a new decree on the transportation of illegal timber. The Indonesian National Ship-owners Association says that the Indonesian government's proposal to impound ships carrying illegal timber would cause massive losses to the local shipping industry, according to the ITTO Tropical Timber Market Report. The association contends that authorities should only confiscate illegal wood, not the ships.


Bush Administration misleads public on deforestation effort
(5/21/2006) The Bush Administration is misleading the American public and the United Nations about its efforts to address tropical deforestation according to analysis by the Tropical Forest Group, an environmental advocacy group based in Santa Barbara, California. The Tropical Forest Group alleges that the US Tropical Forest conservation Act (TFCA), a key initiative to reduce carbon emissions and tropical deforestation, has been neglected for a year and a half despite recent claims by the Bush Administration that it was actively supporting the program.


Papua New Guinea's forests under threat from corruption, illegal logging
(3/8/2006) Illegal logging is destroying large areas of rainforest in Papua New Guinea according to a report released last week by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.


Congo's forests get some relief from World Bank grant
(12/15/2005) Last week the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) received a $90-million grant from the World Bank to support the central African country's transition from instability and civil war. The grant addresses key areas in DRC's forestry sector and alleviates some of the concerns expressed by environmentalists shortly before the resolution was passed.


Illegal timber from Honduras reaching the United States
(11/4/2005) U.S. companies are unknowingly importing illegal Honduran wood, contributing to deforestation, corruption and poverty in the Latin American country, according to a yearlong undercover investigation by the Center for International Policy and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).


Honduras wins aid pact tied to human rights, anti-corruption efforts
(7/10/2005) Last month Honduras became to second country to receive aid under the controlversial Millennium Challenge Account program when it signed a five-year $215 million funding deal. The Millennium Challenge Account gives grants to countries committed to respecting the rule of law and reducing corruption.


A long-term approach to helping the poor in Africa through private enterprise
(7/5/2005) This past Saturday millions of people watched the anti-poverty "Live 8" concerts held in London, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Philadelphia and Barrie, Canada. Live 8 coincides with tomorrow's G8 summit of world leaders and aims to raise awareness of the need for aid, debt relief and fairer trade for Africa. While the cancellation of debt and delivery of aid to Africa is a noble and needed cause for a desparately poor continent, policy makers will need to ensure that funds are spent wisely to maximize the benefits for the largest number of Africans.


A look at why is Madagascar so poor
(5/22/2005) Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries. In the Human Development Index of 2003, an indicator created by the United Nations Development Programme which measures achievements in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income, Madagascar was ranked #149 out of 175 counties. Most Malagasy live on less than a dollar per day and nearly half of the country's children under five years of age are malnourished.


Role of Developing Nations in Rainforest Conservation
(3/1/2005) Increasingly, developing nations are adopting environmental plans both to look good in the eyes of international financing organizations, and in finally realizing the adverse affects of deforestation for their own economies and peoples. In 1996, Mexico announced its first national environmental program aimed at saving the last remaining 10 percent of its forests. Other countries have initiated such projects, but still a fair number are quite ecologically backwards. Malaysia, which claims to have the best conservation program in Southeast Asia, recently appealed a high-court decision that tried to hold up construction of a huge hydroelectric project in Bakuin, Sarawak (Bornean Malaysia). The court decided that the dam construction company, Ekran, must comply with regulations established by Malaysia's Environmental Quality Act of 1974--which holds that Malaysian citizens have the right to examine and comment upon environmental studies before construction. The Malaysian government appealed this decision to Malaysia's Court of Appeals so the hydroelectric project could proceed as quickly as possible.



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