Worker harvesting fresh fruit bunches in an oil palm plantation in Riau, Sumatra. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Declining crop prices usually spell bad news for farmers, and poor smallholders…
Click charts to enlarge Loss of tropical forests accelerated roughly 60 percent during the 2000s, argues a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings contradict previous research…
Society for Conservation Biology warns that Africa could follow Southeast Asia in losing substantial amounts of its forest Africa’s people, forests and wildlife are in trouble if the mostly unbridled…
Logging in Gabon. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Selective logging is causing long-term changes to tropical forests in Africa by facilitating the growth of weeds and vines, which reduces plant…
Forest abutting Sanaga river in Cameroon. Photo courtesy of Google Earth. Cameroon is struggling to make progress in combatting illegal logging. Regulatory budgets are too thin to protect the country’s…
Waza National Park in West Africa is a refuge to many endangered and vulnerable species. Walk through the grounds and you may see red-fronted gazelles grazing or giraffes sauntering between…
New study finds habitat fragmentation may lead to increased nest predation The tropical montane forests of the Cameroon mountain ranges boast fertile volcanic soils, high biodiversity of grasses and non-woody…
Tofala Wildlife Sanctuary will help protect 20-30 Cross River gorillas - about 10 percent of the subspecies The Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), the rarest and most threatened of…
Technique may offer effective, easy way to monitor hard-to-find animals Human pressures through tree clearing and poaching are reducing both forest and fauna in West Africa. In response to dwindling…
Scientists say both rich and developing countries must recognize primary forests as a conservation priority. Primary rainforest in Imbak Canyon in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The forest is…
As nations invest billions in extraction development, forests may suffer big losses Many of the minerals that enable our technology, back the value of our economies (or did at one…
New research shows African apes likely to be affected by palm oil, but there’s hope, says the author As palm oil producers increasingly look to Africa’s tropical forests as suitable…
Is there hope for Africa’s most threatened ape subspecies? The mountain forests at the Nigeria-Cameroon border are home to one of the rarest and most threatened subspecies of African apes…
New forestry laws in the works, but may not be enough Oil palm nursery in a Herakles Farm’s concession area. Photo: © Greenpeace/Alex Yallop. The potential for new laws governing…
A technology that uses discarded mobile phones to create a real-time alert system against logging and poaching will soon be deployed in the endangered rainforests of Central Africa. Rainforest Connection…
Aerial view of Herakles Farm's oil palm plantation nursery. Photo by: © Greenpeace/Alex Yallop. Greenpeace has just accused one of the world's most controversial oil palm companies, Herakles Farms, of…
Aerial view of the Herakles concession in Cameroon. Taken in June 2013.. Herakles Farms, an American agribusiness company, has been ordered to pay $4.6 million by a court in Cameroon…
Oil palm nursery in a Herakles Farm’s concession area. Last year Herakles Farms said it had permission to set up three nurseries covering 100 hectares even before producing a Social…
In the Lower Basin of the Sanaga River in Cameroon, near Lake Ossa and the Douala-Edea National Parks, manatees swim and float about like round, potato-shaped mermaids. This region is…
Environmental group, Greenpeace, has accused Herakles Farms of illegal logging in Cameroon after the company has already been lambasted by scientists and conservationists for its plan to build a 70,000…
A biological survey of forests slated for destruction for a palm oil project in Cameroon has uncovered 23 species of large mammals, including the world's most endangered chimpanzee subspecies, the…
Deforestation has fallen in Congo Basin countries over the past decade despite a sharp increase in the rate of forest clearing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to…
The Cameroonian government has lifted the suspension on controversial palm oil project in the northwestern part of the Central African nation, reports the AFP. The project, run by U.S.-based Herakles…
An American company has halted work on a controversial palm oil project in Cameroon due to opposition from local communities and environmentalists, reports Reuters. Herakles Capital, a U.S.-based investment firm,…
A scene of terror: the bodies of 89 elephants were found in Chad earlier in the month following a massacre by poachers. Photo courtesy of SOS Elephants in Chad. Eight…
'And also, they were alive when the poachers started to cut off their faces'—Celine Sissler-Bienvenu. Poached elephant on its knees with another lying dead behind it. Last year poachers killed…
Forest elephant in Gabon More than 60 percent of Africa's forest elephants have been killed in the past decade due to the ivory trade, reports a new study published in…
Forest and river in Herakles' concession area. Photo: © Greenpeace/Alex Yallop. Satellite mapping and aerial surveys have revealed that a controversial palm oil concession in Cameroon is almost entirely covered…
Rainforest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler 2012 was another year of mixed news for the world's tropical forests. This is a look at some of the…
Clearing of trees in a concession area of Herakles Farm’s area for a palm oil plantation. Greenpeace says these clearings are illegal since Herakles' lease has not been given final…
