- By 2030, Brazil aims to restore 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of degraded land through the Planaveg initiative, revised and launched by the government at the recent COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia.
- Experts have welcomed the move amid growing international commitments to protect biodiversity and stabilize the climate, but point to challenges such as securing resources and social mobilization.
- As ambitious as the target is, it still falls short of the 20.7 million hectares (51.2 million acres) of native vegetation that have been illegally degraded just on private rural plots.

- Scotland is the world’s third-largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), after Norway and Chile.
- The industry is seeking to significantly increase production in Scotland, driven by growing export demand.
- However, it faces ethical concerns over mounting fish mortality, as well as environmental concerns about pollution, the proliferation of sea lice affecting wild salmon, and opposition from several local communities.
- Industry members acknowledge the challenge of growing salmon amid rising sea temperatures, but say Scottish salmon farms have made progress in managing sea lice and other health challenges.

- A new camera-trapping study in Indonesia’s Aceh province has identified an ample but struggling population of Sumatran tigers, lending fresh urgency to calls from conservationists for greater protection efforts in the critically endangered subspecies’ northernmost stronghold forests.
- The study focused on the Ulu Masen Ecosystem, an expanse of unprotected and little-studied forest connected to the better-known Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth that houses rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans.
- The big cat population and its prey likely contend with intense poaching pressure, the study concludes; their forest home is also under threat from development pressure, illegal logging, rampant mining and agricultural encroachment.
- As a key part of the Leuser–Ulu Masen Tiger Conservation Landscape, experts say Ulu Masen merits more conservation focus to protect the tigers, their prey populations and their habitats.