Articles by Morgan Erickson-Davis

Late last week, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government announced the creation of the country's first new national park in more than four decades. Spanning an area of Congo Basin…

An ongoing expedition in Bolivia's Madidi National Park has recorded its 1,000th bird species, highlighting the park as a hotspot of avian biodiversity. The park is thought to contain more…

Last week, some 500 members from governments, corporations, and NGOs from 47 countries convened in Norway to discuss tropical forest conservation at the Oslo REDD Exchange (REDDX). The event concluded…

Palm oil – an ingredient in products from lipstick to cookies to soap – started its journey to ubiquity in the rainforests of western Africa. Squeezed from fruit of the…

Over the past 15 years, Cambodia has lost enough tree cover to fill the U.S. state of Connecticut as forests are logged and agroindustries clear land for rubber and other…

Yesterday, Peru's forest authority issued a public statement confirming illegal actions on the part of United Cacao and called on the London Stock Exchange to hold the company accountable for…

Several years ago, two dams were built across the Madeira River in western Brazil. Now researchers have found that doing so has led to the flooding of more than 36,000 hectares…

Illegal gold mining has become a big problem for Tambopata National Reserve in southern Peru. Despite its status as an official protected area, mining has encroached along the river that…

Last week, dozens of indigenous and nongovernmental organizations issued a letter to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and UK market regulators urging them to remove UK commodity company United Cacao…

Late last month, news reports heralded a new move by the Myanmar government that would ban the logging of all hardwood in the country. However, it now appears that the…

The discoveries include three new frogs, three new catfish, and one new lizard species.

As Indonesia attempts to head off another year of catastrophic fires and smoke that choked the archipelago and many other parts of Southeast Asia in 2015, attention is increasingly turning to…

The quest for gold has been stripping rainforest from around rivers in the Amazon Basin, with not even protected areas immune from mining. The situation has gotten so out of…

More than a decade ago, China enacted one of the largest forest conservation programs in the world. But has it worked? It has, according to an analysis published recently in…

In the mountainous rainforests of India's Western Ghats lives a unique family of dancing frogs. Now, scientists have discovered they have yet another surprising distinction – their tadpoles live underground. The…

In late January and early March, a huge fire ripped through the forests of the Republic of Congo. Satellite data show it totaled more than 15,000 hectares (150 square kilometers),…

This weekend saw the designation of 20 new UNESCO biosphere reserves around the world. Included in these is the brand new Tsá Túé International Biosphere Reserve, the first in northern…

Tucked away in northeastern Peru, a huge cacao plantation has been taking shape over the past few years. Touted by industry as a source for "sustainable" chocolate, critics say it…

Scientists on a multi-year expedition in Bolivia's Madidi National Park have recorded nearly a thousand species of butterflies – with many more expected to come. Madidi National Park sits along…

According to a new study, strict wildfire control has changed the forests in the eastern U.S. over the past century, leading to less drought resistance. Researchers are warning this could make…

After snowballing for years and culminating in a peak of nearly a million cubic meters of wood smuggled in 2014, the illegal timber trade between Myanmar and China appears to…

Brian pushes off from the rock wall, surfing along the pool's surface before plunging into its depths. Legs outstretched, Brian seizes a fish and swims quickly under a rock to…

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the world's biggest remaining tracts of rainforest (second only to the Amazon in size), home to unique and threatened species…

As human development encroaches into the world's forests, conservation organizations and governments are looking for effective ways to track deforestation. A couple years ago an online platform called Global Forest Watch…

The northeastern Australian state of Queensland is home to lush tropical forests, unique wildlife, and rivers that feed into the largest reef system in the world. But researchers write that…

The "year of the monkey" dawned recently in China - and with it, a trendy new exotic pet. Pygmy marmosets are all the rage among China's wealthy elite, who are…

In 2013, the European Union enacted the EU Timber Regulation law (EUTR) to help stem the tide of illegally sourced timber into EU states. But a recently released report by…

New commitments coming out of December's COP21 in Paris set their eyes on forests as a way to curb global warming. But a recent article published in Science warns that…

Research has shown that land held by indigenous and local communities tends to be more effectively protected from human-driven changes like deforestation than land managed by governments or private entities.…

An accidental discovery late one night in the forests of northeastern India has led to an entirely new genus of tree frogs, one that does some really strange things. The…