A patrol of eleven men is hiking along a rough jungle trail spotted with the blackened foliage of several small brush fires. Nearby trees, smoke-stained at their bottoms but still…
Rafael Orjuela, a community leader in Cartagena de Chairá, Colombia, moved to the Amazonian department of Caquetá in 1979 to escape severe economic hardship in the interior Andes region. At…
Driving up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco, you approach the world’s largest contiguous temperate rainforest. But don’t look for any markers or directions. There aren’t any. In fact,…
In 2007, Richard Branson, the British business magnate, offered a $25 million prize to anyone who can invent a device capable of removing significant volumes of carbon dioxide from the…
This is the second story in a two-part series on logging in the Solomon Islands. The first article, which focuses on the country at large and how its governance is…
This is the first story in a two-part series on logging in the Solomon Islands. The second article, which focuses on the island of Nende and how residents of one…
As you approach Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, five hours north of Phnom Penh, it’s difficult to tell exactly where the park begins. There is no audience of trees to greet…
Halcyon Agri Corp, the world’s largest rubber processor, is taking steps toward a more sustainable and transparent natural rubber supply chain following vocal public outcries from environmental NGOs last year.…
At first glance, the news seems good: global tropical deforestation declined for the second year in a row, according to new satellite data. But digging in a little deeper reveals…
PUERTO GALILEA, Peru — In 2009, special decrees signed by then-president Alan García opened up vast swaths of Peruvian indigenous territory to resource exploitation. Indigenous groups in the northern portion of…
Before becoming the chief of police at the Police Specialized in Crimes Against the Environment (DEMA) in the northern Brazilian state of Amapá, Leonardo Brito had never worked in the environmental field…
TELA, Honduras — On Feb. 6, 1995, an unidentified white pickup truck rolled up to the home of environmental activist Jeanette Kawas. It was a quiet Monday evening in the…
The forest floor along Brazil’s Atlantic coast is home to a species of teeny-tiny frogs called pumpkin toadlets (Brachycephalus ephippium), so named because of their bright orange color that warns…
JACKSONVILLE, Liberia — When rebels tore through the ancient forests of Sinoe county during the civil wars that ravaged Liberia between 1989 and 2003, villagers often fled to the only road…
“Maybe what happened to my brother will also happen to me,” says Joseph Paborada, Chair of the indigenous organization Pangalasag. It has been over six years since his brother Gilbert, the…
As the “Green New Deal” (GND) takes shape to decarbonize the economy, promote economic growth, and address environmental injustice, it is crucial to incorporate the key sectors of the blue economy…
There’s another world beneath the soil of Central Texas, one that is dark, wet, and mysterious. It’s an isolated kingdom ruled by a unique group of underground salamanders. Now, new…
This week, Norway released the 2018 investment holdings of its massive government pension fund. Notably absent were four plantation companies previously listed in the portfolio: Olam International, Halcyon Agri Corp,…
The United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF) has accepted the first proposal for REDD+ results-based payouts from Brazil, effectively paying the country for reducing its deforestation rates in 2014 and…
Forests store vast quantities of carbon and play a huge role in the world’s carbon cycle – as well as in human hopes of mitigating global warming. Tropical rainforests, the…
The Philippines was highly forested about a century ago. But today, forests cover less than a third of the country, due to logging, agriculture, fuelwood extraction and mining. To tackle forest depletion,…
North America is the world’s hotspot of salamander diversity. The continent is home to all salamander families but one (Hynobiidae, found only in Asia) and nearly half of all salamander…
It all started in 2008 when scientists started noticing fire salamanders in the Netherlands were disappearing. By 2011, nearly all salamanders in affected Dutch populations had been killed off, as…
The burned forest and coca crops that have dominated the landscape along the road for the past two hours are gradually being transformed into coffee plantations. These are the last…
ATTAPEU PROVINCE, Laos – In July, a hydroelectric dam collapse in Laos released five billion cubic meters of water into surrounding countryside – the equivalent of two million Olympic swimming…
Small farmers feel the pressure as Ecuador’s palm oil sector expands The first commercial oil palm trees were planted in Ecuador in 1953. Since then, the country has become Latin…
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Biologists Chace Holzheuser and Bruce Means are on their hands and knees in a Florida swamp, pawing through dark water, leaves and muck as cicadas hum unceasingly…
From the air one can observe the destruction wrought by an open-pit mining project in Cerro Petaquilla and on the ground people talk about its environmental consequences. A security checkpoint…
Its cement wings spanning over 20 feet, the effigy of the Philippine eagle was sculpted in Davao City’s People’s Park to commemorate the country’s national bird and celebrate a time…
South America’s Gran Chaco is a hot, semi-arid biome that stretches from eastern Bolivia down through western Paraguay into Argentina, barely touching Brazil on its way. It’s characterized by sparse…