Latest news with #AlexanderVillegas
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Amazon fires drive unprecedented global forest loss in 2024, report says
By Manuela Andreoni and Alexander Villegas SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Massive fires fueled by climate change led global forest loss to smash records in 2024, according to a report issued on Wednesday. Loss of tropical pristine forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres), an 80% spike compared to 2023 and an area roughly the size of Panama, mainly because Brazil, the host of the next global climate summit in November, struggled to contain fires in the Amazon amid the worst drought ever recorded in the rainforest. A myriad of other countries, including Bolivia and Canada, were also ravaged by wildfires. It was the first time the annual report, issued by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland, showed fires as the leading cause of tropical forest loss, a grim milestone for a naturally humid ecosystem that is not supposed to burn. "The signals in these data are particularly frightening," said Matthew Hansen, the co-director of a lab at the University of Maryland that compiled and analyzed the data. "The fear is that the climate signal is going to overtake our ability to respond effectively." Latin America was hit particularly hard, the report said, with the Amazon biome hitting its highest level of primary forest loss since 2016. Brazil, which holds the largest share of the world's tropical forests, lost 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), the most of any country. It was a reversal of the progress made in 2023 when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office promising to protect the world's largest rainforest. 'This was unprecedented, which means we have to adapt all our policy to a new reality,' said Andre Lima, who oversees deforestation control policies for Brazil's Ministry of Environment, adding that fire, which was never among the leading causes of forest loss, is now a top priority for the government. Bolivia overtook the Democratic Republic of Congo as the second country with the most tropical forest loss despite having less than half the amount of forest as the African nation, which also saw a spike in forest loss last year. Bolivia's forest loss surged by 200% in 2024, with a drought, wildfires and a government-incentivized agricultural expansion as the leading causes. Across Latin America, the report noted similar trends in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Conflicts in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo also boosted deforestation rates, as armed groups used up natural resources. Outside the tropics, boreal forests, which evolved with seasonal fires, also posted record-high tree loss in 2024, with Canada and Russia each losing 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) in 2024 as wildfires got out of control. Southeast Asia bucked the global trend with Malaysia, Laos, and Indonesia all posting double-digit decreases in primary forest loss, as domestic conservation policy, combined with efforts by communities and the private sector, continued to effectively contain fires and agricultural expansion. Another outlier was the Charagua Iyambae Indigenous territory in southern Bolivia, which was able to keep the country's record fires at bay through land-use policies and early warning systems. Rod Taylor, the global director for forests at the WRI, said that as leaders descend on the Amazonian city of Belem for the next climate summit, he would like to see countries make progress in introducing better funding mechanisms for conservation. "At the moment," he said, "there's more money to be paid by chopping forests down than keeping them standing."
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
China's BYD, Tsingshan scrap plans for Chile lithium plants, newspaper reports
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chinese automaker BYD and metals group Tsingshan have both informed Chilean authorities that they are withdrawing plans to construct lithium processing plants in Chile, newspaper Diario Financiero reported on Wednesday. BYD filed its intent to withdraw with the national assets ministry, while Tsingshan told development agency Corfo it would no longer pursue the project, the newspaper said. Tsingshan confirmed to Reuters that it had withdrawn its plans while BYD declined to comment. Last May, BYD said it had postponed plans to produce a lithium cathode plant for electrical vehicles in Chile's north. The $290 million investment was originally slated to come online this year. Tsingshan, meanwhile, had plans for $233.2 million plan to produce lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which was also originally slated to become operational this year. (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Alexander Villegas and Sarah Morland)
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TotalEnergies seeks permit for $16 billion green hydrogen project in Chile
SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Subsidiaries of energy major TotalEnergies have applied for an environmental permit for a $16 billion green hydrogen and ammonia project in southern Chile, a regulatory filing showed on Monday. The project, run by the Chilean subsidiary TEC H2 MAG, is expected to begin operations in 2030 and includes a wind farm, seven electrolysis centers for green hydrogen, a desalination plant, an ammonia plant, and maritime infrastructure for shipping. The Andean nation has been promoting the development of clean hydrogen projects, but some companies say lengthy permitting and a lack of infrastructure has led the country to the head start it had in green hydrogen. According to the project's website, the environmental permit process is expected to take two years, with construction to begin in 2027. The ammonia plant, which will be commissioned in stages, will produce up to 10,800 metric tons per day. (Report by Fabián Andrés Cambero; Writing by Alexander Villegas; editing by Barbara Lewis) Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
FBI and Chilean police take down international gang of thieves
By Alexander Villegas SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean police forces, aided by the FBI, took down an international gang of thieves that carried out robberies in the United States, authorities said on Wednesday. The raid, codenamed "Operation Pennsylvania," took place across dozens of homes in Santiago on Tuesday night and led to the arrests of 23 people and seizure of 1.3 billion pesos ($1.36 million) worth of goods and real estate, according to police. "This phenomenon of international thieves has regretfully existed in our country for many years, but it's unfortunately been on the rise recently," prosecutor Eduardo Baeza said during a press conference, adding that they historically operated in Europe but have been focusing more on the United States recently. Chileans have been arrested in recent high-profile robberies, including the theft of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's purse in a Washington restaurant this month and a series of break-ins to the homes of professional athletes, including Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce, boyfriend of pop star Taylor Swift. Johnny Fica, head of the Investigative Police of Chile's (PDI) money and asset laundering division, said many of the detainees had no criminal records in Chile but were career criminals abroad that laundered assets in Chile. Fica said the investigation began last year and was carried out with information from the FBI. Images from the raid show drawers filled with iPhones, luxury watches, cars, purses and shoes. "What you see is part of a life of luxury they had here in Chile. A lot of them liked to show off," Fica said, adding that many of the groups were family or close-knit units. "Their goal was clear, they wanted to enjoy the profits of their crimes in this country and they didn't skimp on spending because they felt like they had, until now, impunity."
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Yahoo
Illegal luxury timber from Brazil's COP state makes its way to US and Europe, investigation finds
By Alexander Villegas (Reuters) -Almost 2,000 container ships carrying illegally harvested timber from the Brazilian Amazonian state that will host this year's U.N. climate summit has reached Europe and the U.S. in recent years, showed an investigative report by an environmental NGO. The report released on Thursday by London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) featured satellite imagery, records and interviews with industry sources to trace about 53,000 cubic meters of timber to four sites in the state of Para that had been sanctioned, were under embargo or had other irregularities such as illegal gold mining. Para capital Belem will host the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference - or COP30 - from November 10-21. "The findings suggest a pervasive culture where corrupt deals and the manipulation of legal frameworks are widespread," the EIA, founded in 1984, said in the report. Wrongdoing or negligence was detected at nearly every step of the supply chain, from permitting to harvesting to exporting, it said. Laws in the U.S., Europe and Brazil to stem illegal logging have existed for decades, but the many loopholes that allow the illicit industry to thrive underscores the difficulty of policing a continental forest. In several cases, the EIA said Para's environmental regulator SEMAS renewed or failed to remove concessions where infractions had been reported, including one case that was later embargoed by federal environmental regulator Ibama. In a response to Reuters' questions, SEMAS said it was "reinforcing its standards and mechanisms" to evaluate forestry management plans and was committed to conserving forest resources, noting it seized over 12,000 cubic meters of illegal timber and embargoed more than 500,000 hectares of land due to mining and deforestation from February 2023 to January 2025. "The cases mentioned in the report will be analyzed and ... if irregularities are found, those responsible will be punished," SEMAS said. ENDANGERED SPECIES The EIA said it linked 19 sawmills, 16 exporters and 30 U.S. and European importers to what it suspected was tainted timber, which included high-value and protected species like ipe and cumaru that are used for luxury decking and furniture but are also on the endangered list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. It said companies including U.S.-based Sabra International had previously been flagged as buying illegal timber. Sabra International and several of the importing and exporting companies did not immediately reply to Reuters questions about the allegations. The EIA also said it found myriad red flags in the timber supply chain. Some sites that claimed to produce timber showed little to no evidence of logging, indicating they were used for laundering wood extracted illegally, the agency said. Some other sites that supplied exported timber had been previously fined or subjected to an embargo for illegal logging or had been reported for illegal mining, which would require operations to cease under Brazilian law, the report showed. After harvesting, sourcing documents are easily bought and sold to launder the illegal timber and the EIA said it interviewed several industry sources who claimed to have bribed officials to ease permitting or pass inspections. One anonymous sawmill representative said documents to launder ipe are obtained easily from other concessions. "Everyone does it," one sawmill representative said when it came to buying and selling timber credits.
