Rainforests in 2020: 10 things to watch
After a decade of increased deforestation, broken commitments, and hundreds of murders of rainforest defenders, the 2020s open as a dark moment for the world’s rainforests. Here are some key…
2019: The year rainforests burned
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s
The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time,…
Female gorillas recognize and respond to contagious disease
Salt clearings deep in the Congo basin host numerous breeding groups of Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). These intelligent social mammals usually reside in groups of two to eight…
The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.
Audio: Tool-using, ground-nesting chimp culture discovered in DR Congo
On today’s episode, we talk to primatologist Cleve Hicks, who recently led a research team that discovered a new tool-using chimp culture in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Listen here:…
The hidden costs of hydro: We need to reconsider world’s dam plans
With 3,700 dams in the planning stages worldwide, it is time for governments and builders to consider the true socio-environmental cost of hydroelectric dams before building them: study.
Saving the forests of the Congo Basin: Q&A with author Meindert Brouwer
It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…
Rapid population drop weakened the Grauer’s gorilla gene pool
The recent plunge in numbers of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has lopped off one-fifth of the subspecies’ genetic diversity, leaving it potentially vulnerable to…
Rainforests: storylines to watch in 2019
2018 wasn't a great year for tropical rainforests, with major conservation setbacks in Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, and the United States coming on top of back-to-back years of…
The biggest rainforest news stories in 2018
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
Audio: How an African bat might help us prevent future Ebola outbreaks
On this episode, we look at research into an African bat that might be the key to controlling future Ebola outbreaks. Listen here: Our guest is Sarah Olson, an…
Earth has more trees now than 35 years ago
Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world's tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers — an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined…
Study links US demand for Chinese furniture to deforestation in Africa
Logging to feed furniture factories in China, spurred by demand from the United States, is thinning the forests of Central Africa, recent research has found. Lead author Trevon Fuller, an…
Logging roads drive loss of intact forest in FSC-certified logging concessions
A recent analysis of logging roads in Africa’s Congo Basin has revealed that timber concessions certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) lost more blocks of untouched forests than non-certified…
Could El Niño and climate change spell the end for tropical forests?
The 2015-16 El Niño briefly turned Amazon, African and Indonesian tropical forests from carbon sink to carbon source. Will climate change make that shift permanent?
DRC adopts a strategy that will bolster community forestry, conservation group says
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…
DRC’s Virunga National Park closes until 2019 due to violence
In the midst of ongoing violence against rangers and a kidnapping of two British tourists, Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo announced it is closing to visitors…
East Africa’s mountain gorilla population now numbers more than 1,000
According to the results of a census released last week, the mountain gorilla population in East Africa’s Virunga Mountains numbered 604 as of June 2016, up from from 480 in…
To protect the Congolese peatlands, protect local land rights (commentary)
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…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
- Watchdog denounces arrests of four anti-mining activists in Indonesia
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Belo Monte boondoggle: Brazil’s biggest, costliest dam may be unviable
- Amazon’s Mura indigenous group demands input over giant mining project
- Mega-mining project slated for Brazilian Amazon sparks controversy
Asian rhinos
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesia to capture 3 wild Sumatran rhinos to add to breeding population
