JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deforestation rate hit a historic low in 2020, with the government crediting its various policies prohibiting forest-clearing, and experts attributing the trend to more rains, falling oil…
Scientists warn that we are approaching the Amazon biome tipping point, but proposed solutions in Brazil appear stillborn, politically impractical or lack sufficient scale and/or funding.
Tropical forests are guardians against runaway climate change, but their ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is wearing down. The Amazon, which accounts for more than half of…
Nearly 2 billion people live within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of a forest, and many rely on forests directly as a source of livelihood. But forests also play a critical…
South America’s French Guiana, a French overseas department, is slated for major new liquid biofuel power stations, fueled by soy plantations that will cause largescale Amazon deforestation, say environmentalists.
AKLAN, Philippines — In December 1989, Elizabeth Ramos, now 63, heard from a neighbor that a mangrove reforestation project was underway near her home in the province of Aklan in…
A new tiny orchid species with fiery orange flowers has been discovered on a mountain peak in the northern Philippines’ Cordilleras range. The wild orchid species was named Dendrochilum ignisiflorum…
Shifting rainfall patterns, especially those exacerbated by climate change, could drive large parts of the Amazon rainforest to become drier savanna, a new study has found. Rainfall acts like a…
One recent study shows how hotter tropical forests may add significantly to climate change woes. But another suggests how active restoration of degraded tropical forests could help avoid climate disaster.
The world’s protected areas are largely a jumble of disjointed refuges, separated from each other by the encroachment of human impacts, a recent study has found. Fewer than 10% of…
Just 6.5% of Earth’s best-quality and least-disturbed tropical forests are legally protected. Only 47% of remaining humid tropical forests globally have high ecological integrity.
Only one eighth of the 100 most influential timber and pulp companies have both a commitment to eliminating deforestation and an established system to monitor their progress.
A wave of planned “mega” infrastructure projects across the tropics of Latin America threatens the region’s forests and the biodiversity and carbon they contain, a group of scientists warned Aug.…
By 2070, rising soil temperatures could cause germination failure in 20% of tropical plants, and reduced rates in more than 50%, with the potential to disrupt and alter tropical ecosystems.
For two years, regions of Brazil that depend on precipitation fed by Amazonian vegetation have seen rainfall below historical averages, impacting crops and harvests. A recent bulletin from a federal agency points to agribusiness itself as one of the drivers of this pattern.
The new Science Panel for the Amazon — modeled on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — aims to consolidate knowledge on the Amazon rainforest and guide future public policies to conserve it.
This week, Greenpeace International released a series of dramatic photos revealing megafires burning in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, Russia. The images, captured on July 16 by drone, show red…
In a step towards understanding the impending Amazon rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, scientists have quantified the knock-on effect that drought and deforestation have on each other for the first time.
17 former Brazilian Finance ministers and Central Bank presidents reject Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policies, urging end to Amazon deforestation and adoption of economic policies addressing climate change.
Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
Filipino lepidopterist Jade Aster T. Badon is accustomed to traveling to some of the remotest parts of the Philippines in search of new butterfly species. In August 2019, he made…
Scraping sounds fill the nights at Mapungubwe, a national park at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers, where the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet. Families…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is set to receive $56.15 million from Norway, the first payment based on the results of the Southeast Asian country’s efforts to preserve its vast tropical rainforests…
Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
A few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, the small town of Boguchany in Siberia, Russia, had its hottest April on record. On April 25, the temperature soared to…
KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at what’s driving the intense fire seasons we’ve seen around the world in recent years, what can we expect from the…
Large biomes, like the Amazon rainforest, have closely linked habitats and species, which could lead to a domino effect and a rapid ecosystem collapse; even small effects can cause a crash over time.
For the first time last August, indigenous groups felt the global community was taking seriously their potential contributions to climate crisis policy. Indigenous peoples have long been labeled among the…
The Brazilian savanna has always been a dry place, but the massive conversion of native vegetation to soy is making it far dryer, as is deepening, climate change-driven, drought.
