JAKARTA — The tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, as forest loss in deforestation hotspots like Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continued…
Bangladesh's famous Rajshahi silk industry has been struggling in recent years for many reasons, including the excessive dependency on imported low-cost yarn. The recent erratic weather has been worsening the…
In the transition zone between the eastern Amazon and the Cerrado, an interaction between climate change and agricultural expansion may be resulting in increased temperature and reduced rainfall. This is…
Climate change impacts could cost countries in Central America up to $314 billion per year by 2100 if ecosystem services provided by the region’s forests are affected, a recent study…
May is about to end. There are no trees that provide shade to reduce the heat that exceeds 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). José Jesús Pérez Castro walks along…
Over the past decade, communities affected by transnational palm oil and rubber company Socfin’s plantations have raised complaints with local authorities and in international media. Socfin recently initiated an investigation…
DHAKA — Studies on the hazards of microplastics have tended to focus on their presence in the food chain and risks to human health. A new study now shows they…
JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged three major palm oil companies in connection with a cooking oil shortage that rocked the world’s top producer of palm oil. The Attorney General’s…
“Thanks to the oil palm, I have money in my pocket.” He boasts it without modesty. He says his 11 planted hectares (27 acres), with 145 plants in each, give…
An afro-descendent community in northern Ecuador is fighting to retake its land from a palm oil company that has allegedly used questionable permits and expensive lawsuits to maintain a hold…
Planting clusters of native trees in oil palm plantations can boost biodiversity without sacrificing yields, according to a new study. Researchers say the findings from an experimental project on the…
In western Mexico, a forest was cleared in a couple of days. It was the early morning of a spring day in 2020. A dozen workers arrived in two trucks…
Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.
Looking from above, the Nuevo Progreso Mennonite camp is a patch of brown hues that spreads irregularly on a green carpet. You can only see uniform crops that seem to…
BATANGHARI, Indonesia — In a sweltering oil palm field in Batanghari village, Rokani fixes a sickle to an 11-meter (36-foot) pole and begins cutting down bunches of fruit from the…
Sustainable liquid biofuels are needed to reduce the carbon footprint of fossil fuel-powered planes, ships, trucks and cars. Grass feedstock has shown promise in biofuel labs, but commercial scaling up may be an insurmountable hurdle.
Beneath the luxurious foliage and the majestic trees of the Amazon Rainforest lies a counterintuitive reality: a mostly infertile soil that becomes swiftly depleted once its plant coverage is stripped…
Satellite images give us a dimension of forest cover loss. From one year to the next, and sometimes in just a few weeks, a forest can be wiped off the…
KOLAKA, Indonesia — Ansal grabbed a makeshift raincoat, an empty rice sack, and ran home as the rain began to pound the fields of Pomalaa. A few hours later, after…
The environmental issues facing Venezuela are serious and wide-ranging: illegal mining in the Amazon, national water shortages, mudslides and flooding exacerbated by climate change, the degradation of protected areas, oil…
ADDIS ABABA — Indigenous communities in the Lower Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia have taken ownership and management responsibilities of what is now Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area, the…
Hundreds of millions of people around the world live in spots considered critical for the protection of wildlife. More than three-quarters of these populations exist in less-industrialized countries, where poverty…
The latest recipe is here: you’ll need a cup of minerals, two tablespoons of air and water, a few billion microorganisms, a teaspoon of organic matter and … a pinch…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke hundreds of logging, plantation and mining permits across the country is marred with irregularities including companies continuing to operate or engage in…
Mayra Parra presses play on her laptop, and the video on the screen comes to life for the Perez family in the town of Abriaquí, Colombia. As a spectacled bear…
In the Yucatec Maya language, Balam-Kú means “jaguar temple.” That’s the name of the biggest state reserve in Campeche, in southern Mexico. Part of the Maya rainforest, this area is…
In front of his rural home in the district of Thyolo in southern Malawi, Douglas Tana grows maize on a tenth of a hectare, or a quarter acre. Before 2010,…
Large-scale soy production for European markets has long been associated with deforestation in South America’s forests, including in the continent’s second-largest, but lesser-known, forest, the Gran Chaco in Argentina and…
Mark Wishnie felt pleased when he heard the news: Joe Biden announced his support of a $50 million debt investment for the timber farmland project he heads at Latin America’s…
BELO-SUR-MER, Madagascar — The situation was dire in Kirindy Mite National Park during a visit in November 2022. The previous year, a huge tract of forest had been ravaged by…