The year in rainforests: 2015
Between the landmark climate agreement signed in Paris in December 2015, Indonesia's fire and haze crisis of the late summer and early fall, and continuing adoption of zero deforestation policies…
Articles by Rhett A. Butler
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.
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Mongabay’s 10 most popular conservation news stories in 2015
In 2015 Mongabay published nearly 1,300 news stories in English and over 600 articles in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Chinese. Mongabay-Indonesia posted over 1,800 stories in Indonesian.…
Christmas gift to the planet: massive rainforest reserve created in Borneo
Christmas has come early for some of the planet's most endangered animals: the Malaysian state of Sabah has established a 68,000-hectare rainforest reserve that houses orangutans, elephants, and clouded leopards,…
How does the global commodity collapse impact forest conservation?
Since early 2014, prices for most commodities produced in the tropics have plunged. Palm oil is down by 40 percent, logs from Malaysia and Cameroon are off by roughly a…
Norway extends forest conservation initiative
The Norwegian government has extended its multi-billion dollar forest protection initiative. At the Paris climate convention on Friday, Norwegian Minister of Environment and Climate Tine Sundtoft said the country would…
New short film urges world to ‘stop the burning’
If world leaders are serious about addressing climate change, staving off the sixth great extinction, and raising living standards of the world's rural poor, they must 'stop the burning' of…
Amazon deforestation jumps in Brazil, but remains historically low
Deforestation jumped 16 percent in the Brazilian Amazon to 5,831 square kilometers for the year ended July 31, 2015, but still remained well below historical levels, according to data released…
Rainforests could provide half global climate solution by 2050
Protecting, restoring, and better managing tropical forests could provide as much as half the net carbon emissions required to meet a 2-degree Celsius climate target, argues a commentary published this…
Environmentalist gunned down by illegal miners in Peru
Another prominent environmentalist has been killed in Peru. On Thursday night, Alfredo Ernesto Vracko Neuenschwander, a woodworker who led a movement to resist forest invasions by illegal gold miners in…
Singapore court: illicit timber trafficking through our ports not our problem
In a decision that environmentalists say sets a “dangerous precedent” against efforts to stop trafficking in illegal timber, a court in Singapore has okayed the release of a large shipment…
Peru creates ‘Yellowstone of the Amazon’: 3.3M acre reserve home to uncontacted tribes, endangered wildlife
See our feature article on Sierra del Divisor: ‘A critical gift': Peru rejoices as a new national park is born After more than a decade of discussion and planning, Peru…
Bird market photo yields an unknown monkey species in Indonesia
Author's note 10/23/15: the status of the golden-crowned langur is now being challenged by some primatologists, who say the photographed individuals used for the description may have been bleached by…
Indonesia’s massive haze problem is Jokowi’s big opportunity
This week data from Guido van der Werf of the Global Fire Emissions Database showed that carbon emissions from fires raging across Indonesia's peatlands have surpassed 1.4 billion tons of…
Carbon emissions from Indonesia’s peat fires exceed emissions from entire U.S. economy
Greenhouse gas emissions from peat fires in Borneo and Sumatra are currently exceeding emissions from the entire U.S. economy, putting Indonesia on track to be one of the world's largest…
Plantation companies challenged by haze-causing fires in Indonesia
With political pressure mounting on plantation companies, including threats of fines and legal action by the Indonesian and Singaporean governments and boycotts in consumer countries, palm oil and timber giants…
Palm oil company caught destroying primary forest in endangered ecosystem
Activists have documented a palm oil company destroying lowland rainforest in Sumatra's endangered Leuser Ecosystem. Last month, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) reported that PT. Tualang Raya was clearing rainforest in…
NASA photo shows New Guinea going up in flames
While fires in Borneo and Sumatra are garnering most of the headlines for the choking air pollution they are causing across Southeast Asia, New Guinea is also experiencing widespread fire…
Greenpeace releases dramatic drone video of Indonesia’s fires
Greenpeace has released dramatic drone video footage showing burning forests and smoldering peatlands in Borneo. The video shows fires burning on peatlands, rainforests, and oil palm plantations surrounding Gunung Palung…
Deforestation declines in the Amazon rainforest
Destruction of primary forests across the Amazon basin has declined significantly since the 2000s, finds research published Monday by a group of Latin American social and environmental organizations known as…
Can technology help clean up the palm oil industry?
With fire-driven haze casting a pall over Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, the palm oil industry is facing intense pressure to clean up its act. While most big companies have adopted…
NASA photo reveals Asia’s choking haze
A satellite image released this week by NASA shows the extent of haze currently blanketing much of Southeast Asia. The photo captures plumes of smoke emerging from fires burning in…
Norway pledges $47M/yr to help Congo countries save forests
Norway and several European Nations, along with the United Nations and the World Bank, today committed to a new initiative that takes aim at the underlying causes of deforestation in…
Nature guide freed in Madagascar 5 months after arrest for exposing rosewood trade
Armand Marozafy, a nature guide in Madagascar who was arrested on defamation charges for sending an email exposing two businessmen allegedly linked to illegal rosewood logging, has been released after…
Norway pays Brazil $1B to fulfill pledge for curbing deforestation
The Norwegian government has fulfilled its billion dollar commitment to Brazil for the South American country's success in reducing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. In a statement issued Wednesday, Norway…
U.N. data suggests slowdown in forest loss
Highly anticipated data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that global forest loss has slowed significantly over the past five years relative to the…
How many trees are cut down every year?
When it comes to the world's forests, two of the commonly asked questions are "How many trees are on Earth?" and "How many trees are cut down each year?" A…
California takes step toward banning elephant ivory, rhino horn trades
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 reached 46 million acres in 2014
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…
Brazil’s deforestation alert system reports surge in Amazon forest clearing
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,…
Rainforests doomed unless world adopts ‘development without destruction’, warn scientists
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,…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- To renew or not to renew? African nations reconsider EU fishing deals
- Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta
- Twilight zone fishing: Can we fish the ocean’s mesopelagic layer?
- As plastic talks wrap up in Canada, fishers in Indonesia count the costs
Amazon Conservation
- Bird populations are mysteriously declining at an Amazon park in Ecuador & beyond
- New ban threatens traditional fishers in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state
- Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities
- Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
Land rights and extractives
- Impunity and pollution abound in DRC mining along the road to the energy transition
- Women weave a culture of resistance and agroecology in Ecuador’s Intag Valley
- Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
Endangered Environmentalists
- Final cheetah conservationists freed in Iran, but the big cat’s outlook remains grim
- Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
