The price of oil controls much of what happens in Venezuela, determining the nation’s economic health, policies and politics. In 1995, when that price fell to just 16 dollars per…
The boundaries of Odzala-Kokoua National Park contain some of the best-preserved old-growth rainforest in the Republic of Congo. Its terrain varies from hills rising to 350 meters (1,148 feet) to…
Last week, 24 countries and the European Union unanimously agreed to create the world’s largest marine protected area off Antarctica. The deal was brokered at the meeting of the Commission…
No roads shall pass through Mount Leuser National Park. So said the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry in response to just such a proposal from the governor of North Sumatra…
closer look at a deforestation “hotspot” in central Peru finds oil palm expansion to be the primary driver of forest loss. That’s according to a recent report by Monitoring of…
ver the past million years of Earth’s history, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been generally low, fluctuating within a range of 200 to 300 parts-per-million (ppm). But this…
In Bolivia, the Brazil nut is the second most exported non-traditional product after soybeans, according to official figures. In 2015 more than 20,000 tons of Brazil nuts were exported, earning…
ver the past three decades, few countries lost forest cover faster than Cambodia: over a quarter of the country's forests were cleared since 1990. Much of that destruction was driven…
Northern La Paz - Fifteen years ago, ex-miner Pedro Espinoza decided to leave behind gold mining and go to live in the middle of a forest in the Yiquimuni area,…
Last week, Indonesia joined 81 other nations by signing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement, which replaces the Kyoto Protocol as the country’s commitment to reducing its…
The cachet of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has taken a hit with the withdrawal of support for the organization by an Australian watchdog that had pushed some of…
The ancestor of the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is the Florida spectacled bear (Tremarctos floridanus), which migrated from the Florida peninsula a million years ago. But while the Florida spectacled…
If current trends persist, the population abundance of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish could decline an average of 67 percent by 2020. That’s one of several sobering findings detailed…
Deforestation rates have been rising in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in recent years, threatening the country's forest-dependent wildlife and releasing millions of tons of CO2 into the…
It is well documented that our planet, along with its biodiversity and life-sustaining resources, is severely threatened. Lesser known is that some of the bravest among us, our environmental defenders,…
The small population of Irrawaddy dolphins in Lao People's Democratic Republic is now functionally extinct, the World Wildlife Fund announced yesterday. Only three Irrawaddy dolphins are thought to remain in Laos…
Pacific bluefin tuna are severely overfished. A stock assessment released last April found that the Pacific bluefin population has dropped by 97.4 percent from its historic, pre-fishing levels, leaving just…
Bangladesh is planning its biggest power plant yet -- a 1320 megawatt coal-fired power plant, slated to be built very close to the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and a…
Ecologists have struggled to peg a value to logged forests for the plants and animals that call them home. They know, for example, that these altered landscapes don’t offer the…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — The road from this inland provincial capital in southern Borneo to the delta city of Banjarmasin is littered with degraded forests and peat swamps, hallmarks of a…
Scientists have long proposed that the international trade in furs and skins that took off in the 20th century led to an “empty forest” scenario in the Amazon, but no…
Saramurillo, Peru — As a protest by Peruvian Amazonian indigenous communities against oil pollution on their lands entered its eighth week, tensions rose on October 23 after a new pipeline…
now leopards may be hard to spot in the wild, but they make easy targets for poachers, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Between…
Try to get your head around this one. There is this beautiful natural forest area in West Kalimantan, called Sungai Putri, which roughly translates as the River of the Princess.…
As temperatures in higher latitudes consistently ranging from three to five degrees Celsius above normal fall averages combine with warmer ocean temperatures, Arctic sea ice has begun displaying irregular, unexpected…
On Friday, Oct. 21, rangers in India's Kaziranga National Park found the carcass of a male rhinoceros, shot dead and with his horn sawed off by poachers. Rangers had been…
Last week, the government of Belize announced that it would begin oil exploration in the Atlantic-Caribbean waters, very close to the world’s second largest reef system -- the Belize Barrier…
It’s no secret that many mammals face a dire future, as we humans hunt them to satisfy our desire for protein, medicines and animal parts. But until now, scientists have…
IRRAWADDY DELTA, Myanmar – In a country with forests under increasing threat, Myanmar's southern Irrawaddy Delta is home to one last precious pocket of green: Mein-ma-hla Kyun Wildlife Sanctuary. Although the Irrawaddy…
Travel website TripAdvisor, and its booking service Viator, will no longer sell tickets to tourism experiences that allow petting or touching of wild animals, the company announced on October 12.…
