Community Forestry News

Five communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the more than 10,000 residents who call them home, now have legal control of the forests on which they depend.…

This is the second story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Senegal: After reviving fish and forests, Jola villages tackle new threats Women’s work in…

This is the main story in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Kawawana ICCA. Read the others: Watching the wildlife return: Q&A with a rural Senegalese river monitor Women’s work in…

NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya — Caroline Chepkoeh looked around her idyllic property, perched on a hilltop surrounded by green maize fields as far as the eye can see. A storm front…

EMBOBUT FOREST, Kenya — One morning in May, David Kisang, 50, sat outside his tiny dome-shaped hut, with its walls made of sticks and black polythene for a roof, sipping…

JAKARTA — International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was marked on Aug. 9 in Jakarta by musical performances and traditional cuisine. But the festive mood was tempered by news…

Papua New Guinea’s timber industry is plagued by illegality, including lax enforcement of forestry laws, the misuse of logging licenses and the sidelining of local communities, according to a new…

Local forestry groups have reported increased illegal logging in the weeks before Cambodia’s July 29 election, according to reporting by the Phnom Penh Post. “[Our] community is very worried about the…

Peru has lost much of its dry forest in recent years, to the extent that only around 5 percent remains today. To stop further loss, residents of communities in northern…

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has put a new community forest strategy in place, a move that proponents say could help provide Congolese with the chance to have a…

“The forest gives us everything, everything we need, but we also have to give it something in return,” says Carmelina Martinez. “It really is our heritage, we have to appreciate…

LOKOLAMA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- Sometime in March, I found myself trudging forward in a remote swamp in the heart of the Congo rainforest. As I worriedly tried to…

On today’s episode, a special report on the community-based conservation and agroforestry operations known as ejidos in Mexico. Listen here:   I traveled to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in February to…

Some strategies for protecting forests and wildlife, such as protected areas and community forestry, have become immensely popular around the world. But do these conservation strategies truly achieve the objectives…

Ejidos are part of a land tenure system in Mexico by which land is communally managed by local villages. Many ejidos, such as Ejido Caoba in the state of Quintana…

The Indian government has initiated the process of revamping its national forest policy, but the new draft has critics on edge. The current National Forest Policy 1988 (NFP-1988) was announced 30…

The call goes out over the radio: An unknown car has entered Ejido Cruz de Ocote, a community-managed forestry operation in the state of Puebla, Mexico. A short time later,…

The camera follows the men through the forest as they arrive at the splintered stump of what looks to have been a massive tree. “For me, the forest is a…

Jaguar numbers at specific study sites in Central and South America are rising, based on surveys over the past decade and a half by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Elizabeth Bennett,…

How effective is environmental restoration? On today’s episode, we seek answers to that question through the lens of a much needed new project at the University of Cambridge collecting restoration…

Most conservation projects today must answer a key question: How does the project affect the local people? But high-quality studies that measure the impacts of conservation projects on people’s well-being remain…

When a farmer cuts down a tree in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there’s often a reason for it. She’s most likely clearing the land to plant crops — the…

JAKARTA — Of the nearly 3,000 villages located within peatlands throughout Indonesia, only one is permitted to manage the forest — a glaring omission that the government has been slow…

Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…

PUNAN ADIU, Indonesia — It’s no ordinary day here in the tiny village of Punan Adiu, tucked away in the northeastern corner of Indonesian Borneo. Devit, 9, is rushing off…

TAMBRAUW, Indonesia — It took more than two hours by boat, through a driving rain, to reach the village of Saubeba from the nearest large town of Sausapor in Indonesia’s…

TABA PADANG, Indonesia — Yoyon remembers being elected head of his village back in 2010, here on the southwestern coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, following a spate of…

MAROANTSETRA, Madagascar — Two years ago, a group of foreigners visited Marovovonana, the riverside village where Amélin Toto Arison runs a general store, to make a presentation about carbon. Arison…

SAVA REGION, Madagascar – Squatting barefoot in a field of mud on the outskirts of Marojejy National Park, easing rice seedlings from the earth, Paul Tiozen shrugged out one of…

BONN, Germany – A few weeks ago, international scientists, government officials and forest advocates visiting a remote community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) confirmed the presence of…