In the Phong Dien Nature Reserve in central Vietnam, an unlikely resource is hindering formal conservation efforts. Deep in the forest, villagers scavenge for scrap metal left during the Vietnam…
Deforestation worsens famine in Africa, but drylands restoration could help. Millions of people across the Horn of Africa are suffering under a crippling regional drought and tens of thousands have…
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has introduced a new program, Bolsa Verde (Green Allowance), to compensate the poor for environmental protection, reports Globo News. Eighteen thousand families living in extreme poverty…
A boy pushing a shopping cart load of wires going for burning in the Agbogbloshie ghetto in Accra, Ghana. Photo by: Kwei Quartey. In Agbogbloshie, a slum outside the capital…
As many people in the United States question whether renewable energy is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, Germany now derives 20.8 percent of its electricity from renewable sources—a 15…
Walruses haul-out of the water en masse. Photo by Baine Thorn/NOAA. Recent, unprecedented walrus haul-outs and increased instances of long-distance swims by polar bears show the direct impacts on wildlife…
Next Tuesday, four Brazilian judges will hear an appeal from a rancher convicted of organizing the 2005 murder of Dorothy Stang, an elderly American nun who worked with small farmers…
High rates of deforestation are likely to continue in Pará and Mato Grosso, while federal and especially state conservation units fail to protect Brazil's rainforest. A new report from Imazon,…
Deforestation in the Amazon jumped sharply in some Brazilian states since last year, according to data released in recent weeks by Imazon, a Brazilian NGO that tracks deforestation. Overall deforestation…
A new study of Uganda's Kibale National Park refutes the conventional wisdom that parks cause poverty along their borders. "Apparently the park provides a source of insurance; [locals] can hunt,…
Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Republic of the Congo sentenced an ivory smuggler to an unprecedented four years in prison, proving the government's rising willingness…
Indigenous protesters are targeting a new road in the Bolivian Amazon, reports the BBC. The 190-mile highway under construction in the Bolivian Amazon will pass through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory…
Imagine if your job was to locate extinct species. In 2010, biologists with The Search for Lost Frogs set out on a tropical mission hoping to confirm the existence of…
Africa’s forests are fast diminishing to the detriment of climate, biodiversity, and millions of people of dependent on forest resources for their well-being. But is the full conservation of Africa's…
World aquaculture production by continent in 2008 (China treated separately). Land areas are adjusted proportionally to reflect production volumes. Aquaculture is the best way to meet future demand for seafood,…
Violence in the Brazilian Amazon continues, 5th rural activist assassinated this month A rural worker who confronted illegal loggers operating in the Brazilian state of Pará was found murdered near…
The proposed revision of Brazil’s Forest Code could prevent the country from meeting its lower emissions target and is unlikely to ease rural poverty, concludes a new study by the…
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of global warming that occurred nearly 56 million years ago due to massive releases of greenhouse gases, is frequently referenced as an analogue…
Rural social movements oppose Forest Code revisions claimed by the agribusiness lobby to be for their benefit. Authorities in Brazil have sent an elite police force consisting of 60 officers…
Despite environmentalists' efforts to combat "rainforest beef" in the 1980s, pasture expansion for cattle is still the primary cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, says a new report produced…
Forest loss along the edge of Mount Dongotomea in South Sudan is visible from Google Earth. South Sudan’s tropical montane forests are fast disappearing according to new analysis by PRINS…
The voluntary carbon market posted a 34 percent gain in 2010, trading a record 131 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtC02e). While the US accounted for the majority of…
If swift action is not taken to prepare farmers in the developing world for hotter, drier, shorter growing seasons, climate change may threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of…
A great desert skinks popping out of its burrow. Photo by: Adam Stow, Macquarie University. Researchers from Macquarie University in Australia have discovered that the threatened great desert burrowing skink…
The salmon-crested cockatoo is now listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Native to islands in eastern Indonesia, the parrot is at risk due to logging…
Maersk shipping containers, each with a wood floor, stacked up along the Panama Canal. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Danish shipping giant Maersk pledged this week to stop purchasing…
Brazil's conservation units are poorly run and in need of better funding, finds a new study published by Brazil's Ministry of the Environment and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).…
Redwood trees in Huddart County Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Save the Redwoods League is partnering with Google Earth Outreach and iNaturalist.org to connect citizens and scientists in…
Cattle pasture and Amazon forest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency busted an illegal logging ring following analysis of satellite imagery, reports Globo. Illegal loggers managed to…
Redwood trees in Huddart County Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Save the Redwoods League is partnering with Google Earth Outreach and iNaturalist.org to connect citizens and scientists in…