The Guardian | Experience: I climbed the tallest tropical tree in the world by Jamiluddin Jami
It was a slow ascent: I needed to check for wasps, snakes and scorpions
I was born in Tawau, a Malaysian city on the island of Borneo, and grew up around logging camps – my dad worked in the industry. In the early 90s, a lot of the forest here started being cleared for commercial use. At the time, I just thought that was the way things were.
That changed when I began working in conservation as a teenager at the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership in the nearby Danum Valley. My job was to plant seedlings in places where the forest had been cut down. I began to learn about the importance of keeping the forest safe.
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#environment #treesandforests #malaysian #borneo #conservation
The Guardian | How weaving, glamping and kayak tours are helping to tackle deforestation in Argentina’s Gran Chaco by Sophia Boddenberg in Chaco and Natalie Alcoba in Buenos Aires
Small farmers and community-led conservation efforts are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’
Jorge Luna stands in a piece of Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest that he calls his own. Birds sing as he surveys skyscraping molle trees, known as pepper trees, palo santo and algorrobo, or carob trees. “It’s good wood,” says Luna, 55. “I was about to cut them down.”
Selling timber promises quick and easy money in the sprawling ecosystem that covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. But it comes at a steep price, contributing to rampant deforestation and irreversible damage to the forest.
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#argentina #conservation #deforestation #treesandforests #granchaco

Small farmers and community-led conservation groups are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’

Her research popularised the idea of the wood wide web, but the scientific backlash was brutal. As the author of The Mother Tree returns to the forest in a new book, she discusses her battle to reimagine our relationship with nature