How do you get a small rancher to give up cutting trees for pasture and instead produce high-value and sustainable agricultural products without the requisite skills, money, or access to…
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…
In May 2017, the NGO Mighty Earth revealed the destruction of government forest reserves in Côte d’Ivoire by cocoa cultivation: out of 234, only six were still relatively intact. Deforestation…
Consumption patterns, especially in wealthier countries, are eating away at forests in some of the world's most biodiverse regions. In the U.S., the thirst for coffee drives forest loss in…
Dark, milk, or somewhere in between, chocolate is a favorite treat all over the world. The Theobroma tree, the genus responsible for our cravings, thrives in shady, tropical regions. But…
You may have noticed a little green frog on the chocolate, coffee or tea packages in your pantry. This tiny logo means a product has the Rainforest Alliance seal of…
IJARE, Nigeria — The silver blade slides through the log laid over a metal bed beneath the sawmill machine. When the careful routine ends, one of the two operators pulls…
In seeking an alternative to the develop-or-conserve dichotomy that governs policymaking over the Amazon, Brazilian scientists have come up with the Amazonia Third Way, a plan to preserve the region’s biodiversity by supercharging sustainable forestry practices with technology.
JAKARTA — A top Indonesian official has declared a halt to new oil palm plantations in the country’s heavily forested Papua region in favor of other, “greener,” crops, apparently contradicting…
This was meant to be a moment of triumph in the long battle to save the world’s forests. The year when the bold commitment hundreds of companies made to eliminate…
A unique island ecosystem and culture lying 270 kilometers (170 miles) off Papua New Guinea is once more in the crosshairs. Over the past decade, Woodlark Islanders have defended their…
LAGOS, Nigeria — Emmanuel Olabode stands over the fire at the Eri camp in Omo Forest Reserve, in southwest Nigeria’s Ogun state. The tongues of flames flicker to the wave…
Commercial agriculture drives some 40 percent of deforestation in the tropics, as suppliers clear forest to plant soy, oil palm, rubber, and cacao or to raise beef cattle. More than…
This week, Norway released the 2018 investment holdings of its massive government pension fund. Notably absent were four plantation companies previously listed in the portfolio: Olam International, Halcyon Agri Corp,…
COMBU ISLAND, Brazil - It is rare to find someone who doesn’t like chocolate. When the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave cocoa its scientific name in 1753, he chose Theobroma…
Caura National Park is under pressure from gold miners, but Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous groups have teamed with NGOs and companies to do sustainable agroforestry and safeguard forests.
Deep in the forest of the Bolivian Amazon, fire burns through thousands of acres of ancient Amazon rainforest. It’s a crude way to destroy an ecosystem. The scene offers no…
Despite international commitments to halt deforestation by 2020, forests continue to be felled at an alarming rate. As a recent report reveals, at least 10 million hectares of tropical forest…
Hunting for meat consumption and the bushmeat trade is threatening several species of hornbills in Ghana, in some cases leading to their complete disappearance, according to a recent study. Ecologist…
Sefwi Wiawso doesn’t feature in Ghana’s tourist guides. Its main town, Wiawso, is little more than a single road — albeit one bursting with vitality and color, with hawkers selling…
At COP23, the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany that wrapped up last week, top cocoa-producing countries in West Africa announced new commitments to end the massive deforestation for cocoa…
In a rare instance of a merger in the non-profit world, the Rainforest Alliance and UTZ, two influential agricultural sustainability certification bodies, have announced they will come together under the…
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…
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…
United Cacao didn't need authorization to clear its plantation near Tamshiyacu, said a court in Loreto, Peru, resolving for the time being one of a series of questions about the…
Chocolate company collaborates with NGO to conserve Madagascar's iconic wildlife while helping bolster the prospects of a long-overlooked reserve Madécasse produces chocolate bars from cocoa grown and processed in Madagascar.…
Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa, also boasts an ecosystem of great biological richness and species diversity, with over 2,250 endemic plants and 270 vertebrate species. Unfortunately, it…
Trends in commodity certification markets Market share for certified commodities. All figures courtesy of IISD's report The volume of commodities produced under various social and environmental certification standards jumped 41…
Çağan Şekercioğlu uses radio equipment to track an orange-billed nightingale-thrush in the Costa Rican countryside. A new study by Şekercioğlu indicates that wooded 'shade' plantations where coffee and cacao are…
Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss…
