Oil palm plantation and rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation Bhd has completed its acquisition New Britain Palm Oil Ltd,…
Elephant in South Africa.. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. China has established a one-year ban on imports of carved African elephant ivory. Conservationists say the move, effective immediately, sends an…
Zebra Shark (Stegastoma fasciatum). Photo credit: Jürg Brand The government of Madagascar has established the Indian Ocean island's first shark sanctuary in an area famous for its marine biodiversity, reports…
Local farmer in Indonesian New Guinea Countries poised to receive World Bank funds for achieving reductions in deforestation have insufficient safeguards for ensuring that local communities don't lose out in…
Forests like this rainforest in Borneo provide an array of 'ecosystem services' including carbon storage, flood and erosion control, transpiration, climate moderation, and biodiversity, among others. Forest Trends, a non-profit…
Activists have petitioned the world's largest sovereign wealth fund to drop its investment in a company they say is linked to large-scale corruption in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. In…
Reef manta rays (Manta alfredi) swim off Nusa Penida in Indonesia. Photo Credit: Paul Hilton/Greenpeace For the first time, Indonesia has sentenced an illegal manta ray trafficker to jail time…
Oil palm plantation in Indonesia IOI Corporation officially committed to what its subsidiary, palm oil trader IOI Loders Croklaan, pledged last November: it will no longer source palm oil linked…
Clear-cut logging in Alaska. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Seven conservation societies have joined a campaign to push the Obama administration to end old-growth forest logging in Alaska's Tongass National…
The Black-and-yellow broadbill (Eurylaimus ochromalus) is found in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma Myanmar is home to at least 1,114 bird species after researchers identified 20 previously undocumented…
Lowland rainforest in West Papua. An Indonesian police official busted for illegal logging in West Papua has been missing from jail for nearly a year after being granted permission to…
Map of REDDX countries. Only a small fraction of the $7.3 billion pledged under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program has actually been disbursed, find a new…
Logging roads and damaged forest in Sarawak compared with the largely intact forest of Brunei. In 2011, former chief minister Taib Mahmud famously claimed that 70 percent of Sarawak's forests…
Truck carrying raw logs in Myanmar. Photo courtesy of EIA 155 Chinese citizens have been arrested in Myanmar for illegal logging, reports Agence France-Presse. According to a statement from China's…
Logging road in neighboring Sabah. Legal logging has caused substantial forest loss and degradation in Sarawak over the past 30 years, depleting canopy cover, altering forest structure, exacerbated hunting, and…
Google Maps image showing Arajuno Canton Indigenous leaders are calling for the release of six tribesmen implicated in a raid on an oilfield in Eastern Ecuador that left six soldiers…
Paul Rosolie in an Amazon swamp at night. Photo by: Mohsin Kazmi. In 2014 Mongabay published more than 1,100 stories in English and over 450 posts in Spanish, French, Italian,…
PT Buana Adhitama, Indonesia , 13 November 2013. New oil palm plantation development amid evidence of recent forest clearance in PT Buana Adhitama (BAT). The area had been identified as…
Part II of II. See Part I The Etendeka round-eared sengi (Macroscelides micus). Photo by: Galen Rathbun/California Academy of Sciences. Biologists describe upwards of 15,000 previously undocumented species every year.…
Part I of II. See Part II The Ankarafa skeleton frog was described in the summer of 2014. The frogs are called 'skeleton' because of their semi-transparent skins. Photo by:…
Baby Sumatran orangutan. Photos by Rhett A Butler. Tomorrow the European Union will begin enforcing legislation that mandates labeling of specific vegetable oils on food products. The move means consumers…
Illegal logging road through the Murunahua reserve for isolated indigenous peoples. Image © Chris Fagan of Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC). Forest-dependent peoples face grave threats from deforestation and other depredations,…
White rhino in South Africa. Photo by Rhett Butler South African conservationist Ian Player has died at the age of 87. Player, the brother of professional Gary Player, had an…
Deforestation in Madre de Dios in 2005. Photo by Rhett Butler Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon increased significantly last year, says a top official. Speaking to the press at U.N.…
Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by…
Oil palm fruit. Photos by Rhett Butler Home products giant IKEA has made a time-bound commitment for eliminating palm oil linked to deforestation and human rights abuses from its supply…
Courtesy of Junior Explorers Kids are spending more time using tablets and smart phones for learning and entertainment. But hours spent gaming, Tweeting, and playing on Instagram and Facebook, may…
The edge of the Amazon rainforest in Peru Field plots in the Amazon are often not representative of the habitats surrounding them, potentially biasing extrapolations made across the region, argues…
Odani sawmill in the middle of the Amazon. A Greenpeace report alleges that this sawmill, and several others, are sourcing illegal timber. Photo by: © Greenpeace. Authorities in Belgium seized…
Juvenile and subadult of the new species Paroedura hordiesi. Credit: Jörn Köhler. Researchers have described a previously undocumented species of gecko in Madagascar. The species, named Paroedura hordiesi, lives among…
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