Today the California Senate approved legislation that would ban the ivory and rhinoceros horn across the state. AB 96 passed 26-13, reflecting widespread support for the measure, which aims to…
Global forest loss amounted to 18.7 million hectares (46 million acres) in 2014, a decline of about 9 percent relative to 2013 and 20 percent compared to 2012, according to…
Confirming what civil society groups have been saying for months, new data from the Brazilian government suggests a steep increase in deforestation over the past 12 months. The satellite data,…
Tropical forests face a dire future unless humans adopt a radically different approach to protecting and managing them, warns a review published last week in the journal Science. The paper,…
While deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen sharply over the past decade, a larger share of forest loss is now being driven by actors who are more difficult to…
Leveraging controversy to raise awareness on threats to indigenous peoples and forests.
In a notable shift away from business-as-usual in Indonesia's plantation sector, forestry giant Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) will undertake ecosystem restoration in 7,000 hectares of commercial timber plantations,…
In what conservationists are hailing as a major breakthrough in efforts to protect Sumatra's fast-dwindling lowland rainforests, the Indonesian government on Wednesday finally approved an ecosystem restoration license for more…
Global Forest Watch, a platform that maps a wide range of forest data, is now optimized for mobile users, potentially extending the tool for ground-based forest monitoring and deforestation detection.…
While most people love chocolate, few are aware of the problems associated with the production of its main ingredient, cacao. The cacao business has traditionally been an ugly one, associated…
As you may have noticed, over the weekend Mongabay.com changed. This is the first phase of a roll-out that will take place over the next few weeks.
Indri Lemur. Photo by David Cook. Good news on the environmental front in Madagascar has been rare and fleeting in recent years, but today the Indian Ocean island's Prime Minister…
NCI's buriti project helps local communities benefit while protecting areas of this wild palm , working to provide added value sales of palm fruit and extracts. Courtesy of NCI. One…
Fire burning in Tesso Nilo. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Dozens of fires are raging across Indonesia's Tesso Nilo National Park National Park, a protected area that has lost more…
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff disappointed environmentalists with what they call weak commitments on reducing deforestation and supporting renewable energy. In a joint declaration issued with President Obama after her visit…
Over the past two years dozens of companies have established "zero-deforestation" or "deforestation-free" policies for the commodities they source, trade, and produce. The pace of adoption has been staggeringly fast…
Publicly-traded firm suspends new business with company planning to clear peatlands in Sarawak Palm oil growers who plan to convert peatlands and rainforests for new plantations have been warned: one…
Less than three weeks after APRIL unveiled a sustainability policy that is supposed to protect natural forests, an environmental group is alleging that one of the Indonesian forestry giant's subsidiaries…
June 23 update BLD Plantation Bhd, a Malaysian palm oil company, plans to clear some 14,000 hectares of peatlands in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, potentially putting it in…
Choco rainforest in Colombia. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Norway and Colombia are in talks to establish a partnership to protect the South American country's rainforests. According to a joint…
Rhett Butler is the founder and CEO of Mongabay. Rhett founded Mongabay out of his passion for wildlife and wild places. He has traveled widely in the tropics and enjoys photography, hiking, and scuba-diving.
