Bolivia has opened millions of hectares of protected areas to oil and gas extraction, reports The Guardian. The law, passed last month, grants exploration rights in at least 11 of…

Google Earth image showing the Surui tribe's territory (right) and unprotected areas (left) in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. Strictly protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon are associated with lower…

Orangutan orphaned after its mother was killed in an oil palm plantation in Sumatra. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Shoppers may be willing to pay a 15 to 56 percent…

Asiatic lion. Photo by: Sumeet Moghe/Creative Commons 3.0. A new survey last month put the number of wild Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) at 523 individuals, a rise of 27%…

Giant river toad. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. It's no secret that vital biodiversity hotspots in Southeast Asia are under threat from logging and the spread of oil palm plantations.…

As the rush for land in Southeast Asia continues at breakneck speed, often bringing with it social and environmental destruction, a new study by a major environmental research group explores…

Rainforest in Indonesia's Riau province. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Weak spatial planning and law enforcement, land tenure problems and a lack of transparency in licensing are some of the issues…

Imazon map showing deforestation in Amazonian conservation units. Ten percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between August 2012 and July 2014 occurred in protected areas, reports new research from…

Forest set alight to clear land for oil palm in Riau's peatlands June 3, 2015. Photos by Rhett Butler. With global sea levels going up at a rate of about…

In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, confronts the conservation community with an unconventional approach to stopping the ivory trade and illegal elephant killing. The views…

Bill Hinchberger with Veronica Goyzueta Welcome to Coca: "The unavoidable starting point for many of Ecuador's most fascinating jungle tours," proclaims Lonely Planet. And also the jumping off point for…

Protesters donned elephant costumes last month for a demonstration outside the Mandarin Oriental's London branch after the launch of the She's Not a Fan campaign targeting the luxury hotel chain's…

A Mexican gray wolf waits in a pen before being released to the wild. Photo credit: Arizona Game and Fish Department. Wolves use their noses to track their quarry by…

A spillway at Brazil's Jirau Dam. More than 400 hydroelectric dams are currently proposed, under construction, or have already been built across Amazonia. Photo credit: Philip Fearnside. Plans to build…

President Obama makes a statement about the trade agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and Europe known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in front of Lough Erne, Northern…

A logged-out forest in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province. Photo: Rhett A. Butler The reputation of oil palm business group Sawit Sumbermas Sarana (SSS), a holding of one of Indonesia's richest…

Liz Kimbrough with co-research by Anjali Kumar As South American countries begin to move beyond fossil fuels, many are looking to hydropower. The rivers flowing from the Andes Mountains down…

A laundry list of dangers threaten Amazonia’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous communities. Colonists and industry workers often grab tribal land for mining, logging, drug trafficking, or hydrocarbon extraction, which damage…

Saiga perish by the thousands in the Betpak-Dala region of Kazakhstan. Photo by: Sergei Khomenko/FAO. The good news: conservationists believe that whatever killed off over a hundred thousand saiga in…

A view of the 5,000-acre Bábaco ranch, the purchase of which was supported by the Quick Response Biodiversity Fund to expand the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, Mexico. Photo by…

A sage grouse struts his stuff. Photo credit: Tom Koerner/USFWS. We try to walk quietly on a path that's barely lit by a waning moon and the night's last stars,…

Captive Siberian tiger at the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS. The Siberian tiger population continues to rebound, according to the latest numbers from the…

Bolivia's government, supported by some small and most large producers, pushes to expand agricultural lands at the expense of the nation's environment. In April 2015, small-scale Bolivian farmers who painstakingly…

Trapped yellow-breasted buntings in China. Photo by: Huang Qiusheng. In 1914 the world's last passenger pigeon died. Nicknamed Martha, she was not killed by hunters—like so many others of her…

A female orangutan carries her baby down a newly built logging road. Photo credit: Brent Loken. For years scientists have believed that orangutans are primarily arboreal. Indeed, most photographs and…

An oil palm plantation near Tangkahan village in Indonesia's North Sumatra province. Photo: Quino Alonso The landscape during the five-hour ride from Medan, the capital of Indonesia's North Sumatra province,…

A white rhinoceros rests in Kruger National Park, South Africa, the epicenter of a spate of rhino poaching. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. Two adult rhinos and a calf lie…

A New Zealand dolphin, one of whose two subspecies, the Maui's dolphin, is critically endangered with a quickly diminishing population. Photo credit: Steve Dawson/NABU International Foundation for Nature. Maui's dolphins…

Protesters demonstrate in front of Bolloré’s headquarters near Paris calling on the multinational conglomerate to return land, or compensate farmers, over disputed concessions for plantations in Cambodia and three African…

Mukhtar used to be an illegal logger. Now he coordinates community forest rangers in Aceh. Photo: Rizal Purba In his former life, Mukhtar made a living felling trees illegally. He…