The second half of the 20th century was a time of unprecedented change in the Amazon rainforest. The ecosystem was opened up by government road-building and colonization schemes in the…
Wade Davis is a celebrated anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and author who has written thought-provoking accounts of indigenous cultures around the world. These have ranged from The Serpent and the Rainbow…
Latin America has more than twice as many plant species as tropical Africa and Southeast Asia, accounting for about a third of global biological diversity, concludes a new study published…
New Guinea's diversity of life, cultures and landscapes has long inspired prominent scientists, from Alfred Russel Wallace to Jared Diamond. Sitting just below the equator at the nexus of Asia…
Trees capture carbon, produce oxygen, and run on sunlight. So when it comes to fighting climate change, the more trees the better, right? As it turns out, this isn’t always…
New Guinea is the planet's most floristically diverse island, reports a comprehensive assessment of vascular plant species published in the journal Nature. To hear this article read aloud, click here:…
In the rural Indonesian village of Hongoi*, indigenous Dayak Modang women like Lina* have had to come up with creative ways to continue their long-held tradition of weaving. Some Dayak…
A recent study suggests that a lot of fraudulently or inaccurately identified wood turns up in products on the U.S. market and that inspectors’ capacity to root out these issues…
After two years of severe drought, lacking electricity and water, with a $500 annual budget, the Botanical Garden of Caracas struggles valiantly to protect its precious collection.
For more than 200 years, naturalists, adventurers, explorers and plant hunters have navigated the Earth, documenting the planet’s rich, unique plant life in journal pages, books and herbaria. From hard…
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh — Where a year ago there were only the desolate remains of a forest scythed from hills to house hundreds of thousands in the world's largest refugee camp,…
ADDIS ABABA — Five miles northwest of Addis Ababa’s thriving city center is the lush Gullele Botanic Garden (GBG), the first well-established site of its kind in Ethiopia that covers…
Tropical forests are incredibly diverse ecosystems, and ecologists have long wondered why. New research studying a specific Panamanian tree – the yellow-flowering Handroanthus guayacan – has provided an answer. But…
RIO DE JANEIRO — The botanical garden here sits just below Corcovado hill, at the feet of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. Boasting 54 hectares (133 acres) and more…
ANKAFOBE, Madagascar — When he first told colleagues at the Missouri Botanical Garden that lemurs still lived in the forest in Ankafobe, Jean Jacques Rasolofonirina said he was met with…
Sometimes for a scientist, the disconnected pieces of years of research come together in a single, “really awesome” point in time. For ecologist Greg Asner, where it happened was about…
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Like many countries, there is money in Ethiopia’s forestry sector – both regulated and unregulated. The most recent official figures from Global Forest Watch show that…
A yellow meranti (Shorea faguetiana) in Sabah, a state in Malaysian Borneo, has been crowned by researchers the tallest tree in the tropics. The giant, which measures 89.5 meters (293.6…
Nepenthes rafflesiana, a large pitcher plant commonly found in swampy forests of Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Pitcher plants (Nepenthes species) have long captivated our fascination. Typically growing in…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Chuck Cannon As a professor at Texas Tech, Dr. Chuck Cannon has been, among other things, working to create a system of…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Jaboury Ghazoul Tropical rainforest in Sumatra. Jaboury Ghazoul uses his expertise in plant ecology to address societal issues ranging from climate change…
The Amazon rainforest is so vast, and so diverse, that seemingly simple questions— such as which species of trees are most common— remain unanswered. Researchers are finally seeing the forest…
A special issue of Mongabay's open-access academic journal, Tropical Conservation Science, explores the state of knowledge of the nutmeg (Myristicaceae) tree family. While the commercial value of species within the…
While monitoring the retreat of the Teardrop Glacier in the Canadian Arctic, scientists have found that recently unfrozen plants, some of which had been under ice since the reign of…
Flowers of a new species from the nettle family known only from caves, Pilea cavernicola, where it grows in very low light conditions. Photo by: Alex Monro. The South China…
Biodiversity conservation is huge field, but at its heart we find something very small: the seed. From seeds come the plants we need and food for the animals we hope…
Grassland in Kenya As the world warms, scientists are working rapidly to understand how ecosystems will change, including which species will benefit and which will falter. A new study in…
Rambutan fruit. Photo courtesy of Orangutan Foundation International. Among conservationists and biologists, the mega-island of Borneo is a sort of Mecca. Its rich plant and animal biodiversity, as well as…
Very few studies have been conducted on invasive species in Nigeria, however a new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Science has discovered 25 invasive plants in a…
A local botanist was killed in crossfire between the Filipino military and suspected communist guerrillas with the New People's Army on Monday, reports the Inquirer.net. Leonardo L. Co, a botanist,…
