Global Canopy (GC) is a data-driven not for profit that targets the market forces destroying nature. We do this by improving transparency and accountability. We provide innovative open-access data, clear metrics, and actionable insights to leading companies, financial institutions, governments and campaigning organisations worldwide. Global Canopy is moving through a period of organisational growth and development and has identified a need to focus greater attention on the human rights aspects of our work.

An anthracite mine in rural KwaZulu-Natal which has operated for more than 30 years and has reportedly been involved in several controversies during this time involving water pollution, illegal mine expansion and water shortages in neighbouring rural communities, experienced a slurry dam collapse on 24 December 2021. Large volumes of potentially toxic and acidic coal-mine effluent have spilled into rivers flowing through rural communities and the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and iSimangaliso wildlife reserves.

Africa’s “Great Green Wall” initiative is a proposed 8,000-kilometer line of trees meant to hold back the Sahara from expanding southward. New climate simulations looking to both the region’s past and future suggest this greening could have a profound effect on the climate of northern Africa, and even beyond.

 Aerial photo of mining on one of the beaches that is part of the extension of the Tormin Mining area just south of Brand se Baai. (Photo: Warren Witte)

The Expropriation Expert Group, founded in 2013 as a collaborative effort of the universities of Cape Town, Groningen, and Nijmegen, is inviting original and innovative contributions to our sixth international conference and the fourth part of our Rethinking Expropriation Law series. We are returning to our roots, Groningen in the Netherlands, the place of our first conference, to continue the stimulating intellectual exchange on expropriation law at our previous conferences.

• With the Indonesian government refusing to renew a three-year ban on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations, experts are warning of a deforestation free-for-all.
• The end of the moratorium means companies can once again apply to develop new plantations, including clearing forests to do.
• This coincides with a rally in the crude palm oil price due to tightening supply, which activists say portends a possible surge in deforestation.
• According to one analysis, rainforests spanning an area half the size of California, or 21 mil

The Netherlands Agency for Enterprise and Development (RVO) is pleased to announce its collaboration with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Bamako, SNV, the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), the University of Legal and Political Sciences of Bamako and the National Coordination of Peasant Organizations for implementation of a LAND-at-scale project in Mali "Strengthening local capacities to manage land conflicts and protect customary rights". The intervention will run until 2023 and has a budget of €1.3 million.

The native Kichwa community santa Rosillo de Yanayacu, located in the Bajo Huallaga area( Huimbayoc district, San Martín region) has been threatened by groups of illegal loggers, who deforest the community's forest sowing threats and violence. For years, the community has been denouncing these permanent violations of its territory and against the lives of defenders. "Is the state waiting for us to be killed?!

• A new report suggests that the garment industry is contributing to deforestation in Cambodia due to factories relying on illegal forest wood to generate electricity.
• Garment factories were found to use at least 562 tons of forest wood every day, the equivalent of up to 1,418 hectares (3,504 acres) of forest being burned each year, according to the report.
• Between 2001 and 2019, Cambodia is reported to have lost an estimated 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres) of forest through deforestation.