Articles by Rhett A. Butler

Coral reef conservation efforts will soon get a major boost with a global monitoring system that will detect physical changes in coral cover at high resolution on a daily basis,…

Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…

Yesterday The Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation unveiled an ambitious plan to protect and connect 50 percent of the world’s land area as part of a broader effort to curb global warming,…

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest declined over the past year, reports the Brazilian government. According to preliminary data from Brazil's national space agency INPE, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon…

Perhaps no forestry company operating in Indonesia was more controversial from the late 1990s to the early 2010s in environmental circles than Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Throughout that period,…

Over the past half century, we've laid waste to the rainforests of Borneo. Fed by our insatiable demand for food, fuel, and fiber, vast tracts of cathedral-like landscape across the…

Over the past thirty years demand and production of oils crops like oil palm and soybeans has boomed across the tropics thanks to rising incomes, macroeconomic changes and government policies,…

While 2016 lacked the drama of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, surging deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest and ongoing destruction of forests for industrial plantations meant that it was…

Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…

Deforestation in the world's largest rainforest jumped 29 percent over last year, representing a sharp increase over the historically low deforestation rate seen just five years ago and the highest…

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…

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 Brazilian government has revised upward its estimate for the extent of Amazon rainforest destroyed last year. Figures released last week by Brazil's National Space Research Agency (INPE) put Amazon…

When most people think of Bangladesh's native ecosystems, the Sundarbans — the world's largest mangrove forest — are probably the first thing that come to mind. But the Sundarbans aren't…

Newly released data suggest that rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has reached the highest level since 2009. In the past week, Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE) and Imazon,…

Preliminary data suggests deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon may be on the rise after years of remaining at historic lows. According to data released last week by Imazon, a group…

Asia's burgeoning demand for wildlife is decimating wild populations around the planet, hastening the demise of biodiversity already under threat from habitat destruction and climate change, warned scientists meeting last…

Author's note: after posting, I located a better data set on plant species diversity, which altered the original rankings dropping Peru from #4 to #6. May 22 has been designated…

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation — the biggest private supporter of conservation in the world's largest rainforest — has pledged another $100 million toward efforts to establish and support…

In January, Rainforest Alliance, one of the world's most influential environmental groups for its work in developing eco-certification as a mechanism for raising social and environmental standards for commodity production,…