Conservation scientists meeting in Mexico are warning that planned expansion of industrial monocultures in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula poses a threat to traditional agricultural practices that help maintain biodiversity and ecosystem…
The discovery of the elusive okapi, once believed to be a mythical unicorn, was one of the most exciting taxonomic findings of the twentieth century. This mysterious mammal lives deep inside…
New research has, for the first time, made use of very high resolution images of Earth’s drylands, revealing that they hold a much larger portion of the world’s forests than…
TIK SIRONG, Indonesia — It is often said in this archipelago country that the best solutions come through consensus. The phrase typically refers to people. But sometimes a compromise is…
Uaxactún, Guatemala - Research has shown that indigenous peoples and local communities play a key role in biodiversity and forest conservation in Central America and Mexico. Drawing on case studies…
“By themselves the figs could build a forest,” ecologist EJH Corner wrote almost a century ago. Now a fascinating book, Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: the secret history and redemptive future…
Deforestation in Tanzania is often attributed to unsustainable charcoal production, shifting cultivation, overgrazing and illegal timber harvesting. This is, for instance, the case in The REDD Desk’s resource on Tanzania,…
Coffee is more than just a cup of something hot you grab on your way to work, and a drink of choice for billions of people. It is an economic,…
Coffee is the drink of choice for millions of us. But the world’s second-most traded commodity originates in Ethiopia – and its home is under threat. Ethiopia isn’t all dusty…
U Ye Aung spent most of his adult life in a war zone. For over 60 years his village of Kalaikyi served as the frontline in one of Myanmar’s longest…
For more than two decades, a violent civil war and its aftermath raged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), leading to the deaths of millions of people. Forests…
Conversations that involve lowering the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by agricultural means rarely include the sort of techniques championed by award-winning author, Yale University lecturer, and Project Drawdown…
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,…
The world's largest pulp and paper supplier, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), will establish an up to $10 million program to support the economic development of 500 villages in and…
ew places offer a glimpse of Indonesia’s forlorn environmental track record like Meru Betiri, a 58,000-hectare national park tucked away in the southeast corner of Java island. The park is…
Every day at noon Bahar and Nasirah set out on foot into the South Sulawesi backcountry. The couple moves instinctively through single-stem plants, gathering chilies and pumpkin, knowing as each day…
Deep in the mountains of eastern Bali sits a traditional Aga village, whose inhabtants – legendarily the island’s first – still reside and abide by ancient ways. Long before Indonesian…
Jemi Delvian was astonished the first time he stood in the dipterocarp forest of Indonesia’s Pahmungan village. The lead singer of Hutan Tropis, the Sumatran punk rock band that cares…
When the children of Mendiro hamlet would hear the year 1998 in school, chances were it heralded a lesson on Indonesia’s violent lurch to democracy after the devastating financial crash…
Dingo is a busy man. As the head of Tanjung village, in the Kapuas Hulu region of West Kalimantan, he barely has time for family as he works tirelessly toward…
Abdullah Rajab is not young. He has a shock of white hair. And when he laughs, it’s clear that many of his teeth are missing. But whenever a youngster asks…
or hundreds of years water has run down the western foothills of Indonesia’s second largest volcano over the nearby Tiu Teja falls. But here on the slopes of Mount Rinjani…
head of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s arrival with world leaders in New York to sign the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an international group of researchers gathered outside Jakarta this…
Buoyed by the raft of recent research demonstrating how local control is often a boon for forest health, a UN agency calls for greater investment in smallholder farmer organizations.
A recent report discusses how regreening may offer a possible solution to the chronic economic and political instability in some regions of Africa.
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…
Update: Mr. Herndon appeared here on Mongabay's podcast in late 2017 to report that volume two has now been completed, and that the encyclopedia now spans 1,000 pages. In one of the…
A thunderhead builds over a lush agricultural mosaic in a coffee growing region of Ethiopia. Photo credit: Evan Buechley. The next time you order that "wake up" cup of Joe…
Cashew nuts grow in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: P.J. Stephenson. Forests could help alleviate global hunger, according to a new report released Wednesday…
Rainforest cleared for oil palm plantations. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly today on a new cap on biofuels derived from edible crops, which critics say…
