Women could be a key to great ape conservation in the Congo
Ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has taken a heavy toll on the country’s women, with sexual violence there gaining the DRC a label as the…
No safe forest left: 250 captive orphan chimps stuck in sanctuaries
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Two male chimps, Avi and Max, take turns inside an electric-fenced compound where eight Central chimpanzees are housed at the Mefou Primate Sanctuary not far from Cameroon’s…
Illegal bushmeat trade threatens human health and great apes
Great apes should be humanity’s best bet for conservation — charismatic, intelligent, strikingly familiar, with big emoting eyes. It’s hard to think of creatures with whom the public empathizes more…
New species of wild ginger discovered in DR Congo
In a remote mountainous rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), scientists have discovered a new species of wild ginger. The newly described plant -- discovered on the…
The people of DRC’s forests
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, is home to a massive amount of forest – in the range of 112 million and 154 million hectares (between 276 to…
Successful forest protection in DRC hinges on community participation
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…
Discovering the Congo carbon sink
Laden with carefully thought-out food supplies, Greta Dargie carried her heavy pack as she waded through the mud. Getting to field sites in the swampy forests of the Cuvette Centrale…
Proposed Trump policy threatens Critically Endangered Grauer’s gorilla
For weeks, the primatologists had followed a group of Grauer’s gorillas over rugged terrain — hacking through dense rainforest; following knife-edged ravines; and crossing a nearly impenetrable mountainous landscape in…
Loving apes celebrated this Valentine’s Day
The world’s most peace-loving apes will be getting a little love themselves this Valentine’s Day, as the California Senate recently passed a resolution to create the first World Bonobo Day…
World’s largest tropical peatlands discovered in swamp forests of Congo Basin
A vast area of peatlands in the swamp forests of the Congo Basin, known as the Cuvette Centrale peatlands, has just been mapped for the first time and shown to…
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Forest protection funds flow to DRC despite ‘illegal’ logging permits
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has received millions of dollars aimed at stopping deforestation and promoting sustainable development from donor countries and organizations despite breaching a…
NGO takes action to save great apes in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands
The Lebialem Highlands, located in Cameroon’s southwest, is a global biodiversity hotspot, a place long protected from development by its ruggedness and small human populations, though that is no longer…
Logging in certified concessions drove intact forest landscape loss in Congo Basin
A study published in the journal Science Advances this month found that, between 2000 and 2013, the global area of intact forest landscape declined by 7.2 percent, a reduction of…
Primates face impending extinction – what’s next?
The Year of the Monkey has just ended, and won’t come around again for another 12 years. In the meantime, what is happening with our closest living relatives, the nonhuman…
Indigenous traditional knowledge revival helps conserve great apes
Great apes need intact, safe habitat to thrive. But deforestation and hunting have imperiled that safety, with four out of six species now Critically Endangered, including Eastern and Western gorillas,…
Trade in skulls, body parts severely threatens Cameroon’s great apes
Nests, footprints and dung have been leading primatologists to new gorilla populations in the Congo Basin nation of Cameroon for over a decade. In 2002, researchers discovered nearly 100 Western…
What to expect for rainforests in 2017
While 2016 lacked the drama of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, surging deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest and ongoing destruction of forests for industrial plantations meant that it was…
The year in tropical rainforests: 2016
Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…
Protecting gorillas at all costs: park rangers of the Congo
KAHUZI-BIEGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of the Congo - I came out of my room and a park ranger was standing just outside the door with an AK-47 in his hands.…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- In Cambodia, a rare acquittal in a climate of danger for green activists
- On Peru’s border, the Tikuna tribe takes on illegal coca growers
- Peru: Invaders claim their first victim at the Macuya Forest Investigation Center
Indonesias forest guardians
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
- In Indonesia, bigger catches for a fishing village protecting its mangroves
Amazon infrastructure
- Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act
- Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- Amazon fish kill at Sinop spotlights risk from 80+ Tapajós basin dams
Asian rhinos
- Is the rhino horn trade a cartel? Economic analysis suggests it works like one
- Indonesia agrees to attempt Sumatran rhino IVF with eggs from Malaysia
- When it comes to captive breeding, not all Sumatran rhinos are equal
