We take a closer look at the evidence for the effectiveness of forest certification schemes on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast. The first installment of Mongabay's new "Conservation Effectiveness"…
Earth’s tropical forests store an incredible amount of carbon, and as they grow they are continually absorbing even more of the carbon in the atmosphere, which is why forest protection…
It’s not uncommon to find ecologist Greg Asner flying transects over the rainforests of the Amazon or Borneo. His specially outfitted plane has helped map out the three-dimensional structure of…
Logged tropical forests have a bit of a bad reputation in the conservation community. They’re often seen as sub-standard habitats for animals, especially when compared with the robust and varied…
Text by Jacopo Pasotti, photos by Elisabetta Zavoli MANGUNHARJO, Indonesia – A mangrove forest once surrounded this village on Java’s northern coast. That was before the woods were clear-cut to…
Researchers have compiled the first-ever carbon map of rainforests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC is home to 60 percent of the Congo rainforest, the second-largest…
USULUTAN PROVINCE, El Salvador – “Without the mangroves, we couldn’t live here,” says José Antonio Hernández. “We wouldn’t have any water.” He is standing on a rare dry patch of…
There is now one set of guidelines, agreed upon by both industry and civil society, for palm oil companies to use when implementing their commitments to address the deforestation associated…
During the UN climate talks in December 2015 that would ultimately produce the Paris Climate Agreement, indigenous leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America presented a fairly simple proposition: give…
A report released today, on the International Day of Forests, finds that forest protection in the United States must be drastically increased in order to mitigate the climate crisis and…
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s extensive forests seem like a bright spot in an otherwise-troubled country. With forests covering an area larger than Colombia, DRC has managed to sidestep the…
Forests hold extraordinary potential to check climate change, if they’re kept standing and allowed to siphon off planet-warming carbon. But sorting out how big that role can be – and…
The 2015-16 El Niño had a record-breaking impact on the Amazon rainforest, with the region experiencing new extremes of heat and drought, a recent study found. Weather conditions such as…
Plans for a huge power plant situated near the world's largest mangrove forest in Bangladesh has incited outrage from many Bangladeshi conservationists and citizens. This weekend, those in other countries…
Seven oil palm-growing African nations pledged today to protect their tropical forests by shifting to sustainable palm oil production. The TFA 2020 Marrakesh Declaration for the Sustainable Development of the…
The inclusion of the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation program, known as REDD+, as a standalone article in the Paris Climate Agreement was widely hailed as an…
ith the European Union’s parliamentary approval this week, and ratification by 74 nations responsible for more than 55 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, the landmark Paris Agreement on climate…
1. Half lost, half survive Mangroves once covered much of the world’s tropical coastline, but half of the mangrove forests have been lost in the last half century, according to…
This World Mangrove Day, the tropical island-nation of Sri Lanka is getting its own mangrove museum. The museum, inaugurated by the Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena today, will showcase how mangroves…
he Amazon rainforest is popularly known as the “the planet’s lungs” — absorbing and storing 100 billion tons of carbon and preventing it from entering the atmosphere. Maintaining that vast…
Other stories in Mongabay's Conservation, Divided series: Part 2: How big donors and corporations shape conservation goals Part 3: Conservation today, the old-fashioned way Part 4: Conservation's people problem Epilogue: Conservation…
t the start of the rainy season thousands of people trudge across tropical landscapes lugging baskets full of tree saplings on their backs. These men and women are carrying the…
n December 12, 2015 representatives from 196 nations approved the Paris Agreement to address the challenges of climate change. Proponents praised the agreement as a long-term pathway to curbing global…
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that vines called lianas reduce the carbon storage capacity of tropical forests by crowding out and…
Clad in wetsuits, four divers finned past a grey slope of rubble. This desolate, submarine pile in the Wakatobi islands in eastern Indonesia is all that remains from years of…
A new study finds that 2 percent of Southeast Asia's mangroves were lost during the past decade, owing primarily to aquaculture, rice, and palm oil.
Global Forest Watch Climate tracks carbon loss as the world attempts to halve deforestation-related emissions and fend off climate catastrophe.
Scientists warn dams and other human activities may submerge many of the region's mangroves by 2070.
by 1 October 2015
There’s $20 million to be had by anyone in the world who can tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today -- what to do about the enormous…
Though scientists are striving hard to discover how the world's forests will respond to climate change – whether they will tip from being carbon sinks to being carbon sources –…