We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
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Key developments
Deforestation dropping, but not fast enough
LOSING FOREST: The world lost almost 11m hectares of forest each year over the past decade – an area almost the same size as Iceland, the UN Global Forest Resources Assessment found. The overall rate of deforestation slowed over 2015-25 – compared to annual losses of 13.6m hectares over 2000-15 and 17.6m hectares over 1990-2000. [Carbon Brief will publish an article later this week detailing more key findings.] Elsewhere, a different UN report found that annual spending on forests must more than triple to $300bn by 2030 to meet climate and nature goals.
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POOR PROGRESS: At the same time, a third report found that more than 8m hectares of forest was destroyed in 2024 – which is 63% above the trajectory needed to put an end to deforestation by 2030. The Forest Declaration Assessment report said that countries are off track to meet a pledge from more than 100 countries to halt and reverse global deforestation by 2030. It noted that agriculture caused 86% of global deforestation in the past decade. In its coverage of the report, Climate Home News noted that experts said the findings were a “wake-up call” ahead of COP30 in the Amazon.
FOREST FINANCE: An investigation from Global Witness found that banks and asset managers around the world generated $26bn from “financing deforesting companies” through investments, loans and other financial services between 2016 and 2024. US financial institutions earned the biggest gains, it said. Elsewhere, the EU “u-turn[ed]” on plans to delay its anti-deforestation law until 2026, instead suggesting tweaks to allow more time for compliance, according to Politico. Separately, an NGO report found that timber imports from companies operating in the EU “can be traced to logging on Indonesia’s Borneo island”, Agence France-Presse said.
Nature congress
EXTINCTION RISK: A new global assessment published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that more than 60% of the world’s bird species are in decline, the Guardian reported. In 2016, the equivalent figure was 44%. The outlet underscored that deforestation, largely bolstered by the expansion of agriculture and human development, is the main cause of falling populations. The Washington Post added that Arctic mammals, such as seals, whales and polar bears, are also “increasingly threatened by extinction” due to pressures from climate change.
SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT: The IUCN report also showed some “bright spot[s]”, as is the case with green sea turtles, which “have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts”, explained the Washington Post. A scientist leading the sea turtle assessment told the New York Times that the rebound “comes down to reducing threats”. As another example of species recovery, the outlet pointed to the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, where two bird species on the brink of extinction are now listed as species of least concern, thanks to restoration work carried out by conservationists.
BIODIVERSITY CONGRESS: The report was published against the backdrop of this year’s IUCN congress on biodiversity conservation, which saw members adopt a 20-year strategic vision that boosts human rights and social justice alongside conservation, according to the IUCN. EFE Verde reported on the congress, where there was a call to action for countries to speed up the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and to ensure that 30% of the planet is protected by 2030. However, new analysis from Carbon Brief showed that just 28% of countries have submitted their plans for biodiversity conservation to the UN a year after the deadline.
News and views
WILDFIRE WATCH: The annual “state of wildfires” report found that extreme wildfires released more than 8bn tonnes of CO2 during the March 2024-February 2025 global fire season. The report, published by an international team of scientists and covered by Carbon Brief, showed that wildfires covered at least 3.7m square kilometres – an area larger than India – and exposed more than 100 million people around the world to these extremes.
BIOFUEL BOOST: At COP30, Brazil is expected to ask countries to quadruple their use of “sustainable fuels” over the next decade, including biofuels, biogas and hydrogen, as reported by the Guardian. A leaked document seen by the outlet revealed that Brazil argues biofuels will displace fossil fuels. However, biofuels – which are fuels derived from organic matter – are considered controversial by environmental experts, due to their potential to increase deforestation and promote monocultures, the outlet added. Separately, a new Carbon Brief Q&A explored how countries are using biofuels to meet their climate targets.
AGRIBUSINESS MOVE: Brazil’s agribusiness – the largest emitting-sector in the country and a major driver of deforestation – plans to present the country as a leader in sustainable agriculture at the upcoming COP30, Bloomberg reported. The farm lobby faces international pressure from policies such as the EU law that requires Brazil to ensure that its crop exports are free from deforestation, the outlet said.
LONG LIVE THE WHALES: A “historic lawsuit” to protect whales in the Gulf of California has been accepted for a hearing by two district courts in Mexico, Animal Político reported. The suit aims to declare the area a “critical habitat” and rule that previously granted permits for shipping liquefied natural gas through the gulf are unconstitutional. El País also covered the news and added that a coalition of civil-society organisations is advocating for the recognition of whales as “subjects of rights”.
LARGE EMISSIONS: In 2023, 45 major meat and dairy companies emitted more than 1bn tonnes of greenhouse gases, comparable to the emissions of top fossil-fuel producers, according to a new report by civil society organisations. The report found that the top five highest-emitting firms – JBS, Marfrig, Tyson, Minerva and Cargill – were responsible for 480m tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions. The 45 firms’ methane emissions exceeded those from the EU and UK, it added. Elsewhere, Nestle withdrew from a global alliance of dairy producers for reducing methane emissions, without providing a reason, Reuters reported.
PRICE HIKE: Over the past year, extreme weather has driven up prices by 16% for five products – butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate – together responsible for 40% of food inflation over that time, according to research covered by the Daily Mail. The outlet said that “alternating periods of drought, extreme heat and heavy rainfall are affecting farmers” globally. The Financial Times also covered the report, writing that its “findings challenge the narrative promoted by industry groups that have linked high grocery bills to domestic policies”.
Spotlight
Researching climate impacts on Thai tree seeds
This week, Carbon Brief details how Kew Gardens researchers are studying the effects of extreme heat and drought on trees in Thailand.
Forests in Thailand, as in many other parts of the world, are feeling the effects of climate change – from the country’s mountain peaks in the north to its mangroves on the southern coast.
Scientists at Kew Gardens are assessing how certain tree species react to high temperatures and drought to help inform efforts in re-planting degraded forests across the country.
The is one of several projects from Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, which this week marks its 25th anniversary. It is the world’s largest collection of wild plant seeds, holding almost 2.5bn seeds from 40,000 different species.
Incubating seeds
For the Thailand project, researchers collected 60,000 seeds from three tree species growing across the country. They focused on tree types which benefit local people, such as the Sapindus rarak, whose seed can be used as a washing detergent.
The scientists sought seeds from areas with “different climates and altitudes” – ranging from the country’s highest mountain, Doi Inthanon, to its lowlands – to try to find out which areas yield resilient seeds, Dr Jan Sala, a researcher at the seed bank, told Carbon Brief.
The Kew team is collaborating on the project with the Forest Reforestation Research Unit (Forru), a research team at Chiang Mai University in Thailand that restores degraded forests.
The researchers are still analysing their data and hope to publish the findings next year, but Sala said initial observations show some “interesting” differences in how the thousands of tree seeds respond to warming and drought. He told Carbon Brief:
“We cannot say this for sure because we have not finished the analysis, but hopefully we identify a couple of populations…that are resilient to climate change.”
To study this, they put each of the thousands of seeds into incubators and subjected them to temperatures ranging from 5C to 50C across different periods of time. They wanted to see how the seeds germinate under various conditions and identify “whether a population or species reacts differently to temperature rising”, Sala says.
Building resilient forests
Dr Inna Birchenko, a research associate at the Millennium Seed Bank who was also involved in the project, told Carbon Brief that the Thailand study findings can help to ensure that restored forest plots have the “best chance for long-term survival”.
She noted that resilient forests “contribute to decarbonisation by locking carbon in the trunks, as opposed to just being a wasteland or being an agricultural land”.
Sala said the researchers hope to not only help Forru decide which seeds to use in different restoration projects, but also provide more information to “all practitioners across Thailand”.
Birchenko noted that while temperate trees are generally well-researched, tropical species are “so understudied”. She told Carbon Brief:
“Every day, I’m trying to find extra information about the genetics of this or that species, and there is absolutely nothing…So we are hoping that this potentially snowballs into more effort into this area.”
Watch, read, listen
FLYING HIGH: A Guardian article visualised how bird migration around the world is being reshaped by “new threats”, including climate change.
ON THE MOVE: Yale Environment 360 explored how US border-wall construction is “creating a roadblock” to the return of jaguars in the country’s south-west as Mexico’s populations recover.
OVERFISHING ISSUES: An article in Vox looked at how nature conservation projects in Madagascar could be reshaped to prevent them “mak[ing] it harder for desperately poor people to make a living”.
VALUABLE VOCABULARY: An Atmos video addressed a study on how the English language is losing nature-related words, undermining people’s connection to nature.
New science
- China’s demand for Brazilian soya beans – used as animal feed – is driving agricultural expansion and deforestation in Brazil, with nearly 18m hectares of land in the South American country used to grow soya for export to China | Nature Food
- A review of climate adaptation practices among vegetable farmers in Africa found that most solutions focused on addressing drought, flooding and rainfall, primarily through technological solutions | Communications Earth and Environment
- Aboveground vegetation in Australian humid tropical forests has become a carbon source due to extreme temperatures and other climate anomalies, leading to higher rates of tree mortality and losses in biomass | Nature
In the diary
- 20-30 October: UN Convention on Biological Diversity subsidiary body meetings | Panama City
- 22-25 October: 43rd session of the European Forestry Commission | Istanbul, Turkey
- 26 October:Argentina legislative election
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 22 October 2025: Global forest loss dips; Bird species in peril; Climate impact on Thai trees appeared first on Carbon Brief.
An older teaching about land acknowledgement
As I have come to understand the spirit and intention of land acknowledgement, I often return to fond memories of my grandmother and her words of wisdom. She taught that the health of the places we call home comes first, because the wellbeing of the people depends on it.
In her teaching, land acknowledgement began with the land. Long before it became a paragraph read at the start of a meeting, it was a way of recognizing a homeland: its waters, its species, its seasons, and the spirit that revealed whether the place was well.
Her teaching echoes a practice found across many Indigenous Nations. Haudenosaunee gatherings, for example, have long opened with the Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, the Thanksgiving Address, often translated as “the words that come before all else.” The speaker greets and gives thanks to the people, the earth, the waters, the plants, the animals, the winds, the sun, the moon and the stars. Only after everything that sustains life has been acknowledged does the gathering turn to its own business.
That order changes what an acknowledgement is for. Its purpose was to share the story of a place with neighbours and to draw them into the work of tending it. People entered the story second, as the ones responsible for what had just been named.
Understood this way, an acknowledgement does more than open a meeting. It asks us to reconsider where we stand, and what we owe the ground beneath us.
Nations among nations
In her teaching, people are one nation among many. The salmon are a nation. So are the cedars, the bison, the medicine plants, and the pollinators. Each belongs to a place, carries its own responsibilities, and offers gifts no other nation can give.
This idea of kinship runs through many Indigenous philosophies. The phrase “all my relations,” heard in ceremonies and gatherings across Turtle Island, is a reminder that family extends beyond people to the animals, plants, waters and lands that make life possible. Some Indigenous languages carry the same understanding in their grammar, speaking of many plants, animals and natural forces as living beings rather than objects.
Sovereignty, understood through this relationship, is a kind of standing more than a form of control. Each nation belongs fully to its place and carries its share of that place’s life. No nation thrives alone, and none thrives by taking over the whole.
The land is also the source of instruction. Over generations, people watched how a river valley or a stretch of prairie kept itself well: who arrived when, who fed whom, and how much could be taken before the giving stopped. In my grandmother’s telling, those observations became instructions, and those instructions helped shape law and protocol. They guided when to harvest, where to camp, how to enter a neighbour’s territory, and what was owed in return.
Indigenous legal scholars today often describe this as law that comes from the land itself, learned by watching how living systems sustain one another. A plainer name for it is knowing how to live somewhere.
The host and the guest
One of the clearest teachings in this understanding of the world is the relationship between host and guest. My grandmother invited us to recognize that relationship in the lives of plants and animals.
A host prepares the place before anyone arrives. A beaver family dams a stream, and the pond becomes a home for fish, frogs, birds and plants. A fallen tree becomes a nurse log, feeding the next generation of seedlings as it returns to the soil.
A host offers first. A flowering plant sets out nectar. A berry bush ripens fruit. These provisions come in their own season, not whenever a visitor happens to want them.
A host also makes its presence known. Birdsong, scent and the marks left along a trail tell newcomers that a place is already inhabited. The visitor does not arrive in an empty world.
The guest has responsibilities too. A guest attends to the season and to what the place can offer. A guest does not assume that everything within reach is theirs to take. A guest leaves something that helps sustain the relationship.
A bee takes nectar and carries pollen. Read through this teaching, that exchange offers an image of visiting well: receiving a gift while helping the host continue its life.
Many Indigenous harvesting protocols carry the same ethic into daily practice: ask before taking, take only what is needed, offer thanks, and leave enough for others and for the plant or animal to recover.
None of this suggests that every relationship in nature is peaceful or generous. These are ways of seeing responsibilities that people can learn to carry.
Everyone is both
No being is only a host or only a guest.
A tree makes room for other life while depending on soil, water, sunlight, fungi, and relationships beyond itself. People, too, may welcome others into their homes while remaining dependent on the larger homeland that sustains them.
The distinction between host and guest is therefore about roles, not ranks. Everyone receives. Everyone has something to give.
The question is whether the exchange sustains the place.
A visitor who takes without restraint leaves less for those who come next. A host who neglects the place has less to offer. Both have responsibilities, and neither can fulfil them alone.
This is the heart of reciprocity, a principle found across Indigenous philosophies: relationships stay healthy when gifts move in both directions. The Haudenosaunee teaching of the seventh generation extends that exchange across time, asking that decisions made today leave the place well for those not yet born.
Mutual benefit begins here, with the recognition that different beings carry different gifts and obligations.
What people carry forward
My grandmother’s teaching connects these relationships to the ways people meet their neighbours.
The host prepares a place, offers food and rest, and explains where the visitor has arrived. The guest makes themselves known, explains why they have come, listens to the terms of the visit, and brings something in return. The gift may be material. It may also be labour, knowledge, news, or a commitment to help.
Nations around the Great Lakes carried this ethic into treaty. The Dish with One Spoon, an agreement among the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and allied Nations, describes shared hunting grounds as a single dish. Everyone eats from it with one spoon, takes only what they need, leaves enough for others, and keeps the dish clean. The Two Row Wampum, between the Haudenosaunee and European newcomers, shows two vessels travelling side by side on the same river, each keeping its own ways and neither steering the other.
In this understanding, acknowledgement is more than naming the people associated with a territory. It is learning enough about a homeland to behave responsibly within it.
Whose home is this? What sustains it? What laws and agreements guide our presence? What can we receive, and what must we return?
These questions make acknowledgement a relationship rather than a recital.
They also make it diplomatic. A guest who recognizes the host’s homeland recognizes that they have entered a place with its own relationships and responsibilities. A host who welcomes the guest makes room for an encounter governed by those relationships.
Neither arrives without standing. Neither arrives without obligations.
Beginning with place
I write from the shores of the Bay of Quinte. Here, the teaching asks me to begin with the water, the shoreline, and the life they sustain. Before I describe myself, I must attend to where I am.
That does not make people or history less important. It places them within the homeland that gives them meaning. The people, their laws, their agreements, and their responsibilities all belong to the place.
In a time of longer fire seasons, troubled waters, and uncertainty about what the next season will bring, this teaching asks something difficult and useful of us: pay attention before you speak.
An acknowledgement cannot tell the story of a place if the speaker has stopped noticing it.
The land came first. Beginning there again means learning to name what sustains us, and accepting that what sustains us also asks something of us.
By Rye Karonhiowanen Barberstock
Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash
The post The Land Came First appeared first on Indigenous Climate Hub.