Environmental headlines

RIO DE JANEIRO – Horto, a secluded neighborhood in the south of Rio de Janeiro with a view of the famed Christ the Redeemer statue, is enveloped by forest. Tropical…

In April 2021, authorities in the Philippines made a notable discovery. On a beachfront property on Sitio Green Island in Palawan province, they found shell after shell of giant clams,…

Guatemala is getting ready to implement new regulatory programs for the cattle industry in hopes of slowing the rate of deforestation in some of the country’s most at-risk tropical forests.…

New research has tracked biomass industry carbon emissions, finding that U.S. wood pellet production, transatlantic shipping, and U.K. and E.U. pellet burning, plus a loss of stored forest carbon, combine in substantial unreported emissions.

Mining areas are dangerous for many reasons: they’re linked to a heightened risk of cancer, poisoning, heart and respiratory diseases. Now, researchers have identified a hitherto overlooked hazard: roads. Miners…

The recently issued Kunming Declaration from the High-Level Segment of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference lays the foundation for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to be negotiated next year.…

Indigenous Penan tribespeople have set up road blocks to stop a timber company from logging on land in Malaysian Borneo that they consider part of their ancestral heritage. The Penan…

Today we’re looking at the ways resource extraction is impacting the people and the environment in one of the world’s most important tropical forest nations, the Democratic Republic of Congo.…

The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of…

Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…

Medical, public health, and conservation experts are calling for greater pathogen surveillance and regulation of the legal wildlife trade in order to quickly identify pathogens and prevent the next pandemic.

Before the clearing and excavators and bulldozers, before plans to build a gold mine and oil palm plantations, the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves in Johor, Malaysia, were wildlife-rich jungles…

Farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire are full of praise for cashew, the Brazilian nut tree introduced in the 1960s – ironically, it turns out – to combat deforestation. They rhapsodize…

I was texting my Scandinavian friend who works for a donor agency, informing him about my plan to write about the role of donors in the global sustainability agenda when…

Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all…

Today around 350 Mauritius fodies fly around the lowlands of Île Aux Aigrettes, a small island off the coast of Mauritius. Their flourishing flocks belie the predation and habitat destruction…

There is a sacred hill in Nicaragua known as Kiwakumbaih, where the ancestors of the Indigenous Mayangna people would go to hold important annual events. To this day, it continues…

For pet enthusiasts, buying an exotic, rare or endangered species can be done legally, and many pet owners want to obey the law. The problem is that illegally obtained animals,…

We are in a moment of heightened attention and momentum around reforestation and forest restoration. In particular, tree planting is in vogue, bolstered by pop celebrity billionaires and large initiatives…

Protected forests, such as those in national parks, are unlikely to be cut down when surrounded by intact forests. Conversely, when a protected forest’s neighboring lands are degraded, it’s likely…

This week delegates to the long-delayed global biodiversity summit began the opening round of negotiations over a new international framework meant to address the world’s biodiversity crisis. Originally intended to…

The idea of a “pristine wilderness” in conservation efforts — a natural zone free of people — is an erroneous construct that doesn’t reflect the reality of how many high-value…

In August 2019, an unprecedented number of fires ripped through the Brazilian Amazon, sparking worldwide interest in reports of burning rainforest. In fact, the majority of blazes were on land…

PASURUAN, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia have managed to put out a wildfire that had been tearing through a national park that’s home to rare leopards and eagles. The fire…

Last month, nine organizations collectively announced a $5 billion pledge toward biodiversity conservation efforts worldwide. Most of the participants are philanthropic foundations, but one signatory is Rainforest Trust, a conservation…

COLOMBO — Himesh Dilruwan Jayasinghe was on a butterfly chase in Sri Lanka’s Knuckles Mountains, in the Indian Ocean island’s central highlands. He’d tracked down a rare butterfly known as…

JAKARTA/BATAM, Indonesia — National policies in Indonesia fail to provide full protection for deckhands working at home and abroad, experts say. Reports of labor right violations against Indonesian mariners have…

COVID-19 has devastated communities around the world, but for some Indigenous groups, the pandemic posed an existential threat. Few people are better placed to speak to the impact COVID is…

When farmer Mônica de Souza Ribeiro moved into her landless settlement in the state of Goiás in central Brazil in the late 1990s, she was overwhelmed by the sheer amount…

MAKOKOU, Gabon — Villagers in northeastern Gabon have embarked on a first-of-its-kind initiative to reclassify part of a logging concession as a protected area and hunting ground, citing its ecological…