According to communications consultant Meindert Brouwer, author of Central African Forests Forever, there are still opportunities to save the Central African — or Congo Basin — rainforest. Brouwer's 216-page, 17-chapter…
For several weeks in 2015, the sound of chainsaws cutting down trees was incessant in the Angangueo municipality in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When a group of people tried…
When scientists described the Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa) as a species new to science in 2020, it was already staring extinction in the face. Fewer than 260 of the fluffy…
Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and…
On Dec. 9, the Ugandan parliament passed a bill allowing the controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) to proceed. Construction can now begin according to the agreement signed between…
HUMBANG HASUNDUTAN, Indonesia — Indonesia has an enormous variety of plants with medicinal properties, and traditional herbal medicines such as jamu are still widely used by both urban and rural…
Achieving net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century was one of the goals of the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last November. Guyana claims to have…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of…
Under threat since 2020, the 20-year satellite monitoring program for deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, a global biodiversity hotspot, may end in April due to lack of funding. "Part of…
Up in the trees of a misty sky island, folded into the foliage, a tiny rainfrog bears the name of a climate giant. The new-to-science species, found on a mountain…
In 2017, catastrophic flooding in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, left at least 1,000 people dead and many more homeless. In a matter of minutes, mudslides wiped out homes and destroyed…
U.S. timber companies imported nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, circumventing sanctions and channeling millions of dollars in revenue to the country’s junta, according to a…
MINDANAO, Philippines — For environmental groups in the Philippines, 2021 went out with a big blow: on Dec. 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reversed a 4-year-old…
Last year, when Colombia’s parliament approved a reform of the nation’s environmental crime laws, the legislation received stark opposition from a surprising assortment of environmentalists, human rights activists and smallholder…
With about 80% of its forests still untouched, Acre is one of Brazil’s least-deforested Amazonian states. Bordered by Peru on the west, it represents just 1.7% of Brazil’s huge land…
When researchers found a begonia plant twice as tall as a person, they knew they had something extraordinary. Of the more than 2,000 known begonia species, most are the size…
DENPASAR/JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to have a network of dozens of villages with aquaculture farms by the end of the year, in a bid to spur the post-pandemic…
“All of a sudden, in one little lump, this project leaked into my mind,” Thomas Lovejoy recalled to writer David Quammen for the book The Song of the Dodo, about…
JAKARTA — Across large swaths of Indonesia, forests have been cleared to make way for oil palms, making the plantation industry one of the leading drivers of deforestation in the…
TANAKEKE ISLANDS, Indonesia — Wading through a mangrove swamp in the coastal waters of Indonesia’s Tanakeke Islands, Hayati wiped the sweat from her brow and tried her best to keep…
It's difficult to overstate the enormity of biodiversity on the island of New Guinea. It contains over 13,000 endemic plant species (meaning these plants grow nowhere else in the world).…
ANJOZOROBE ANGAVO, Madagascar — Requiring a turbulent two-hour car ride followed by a two-hour walk across paddy fields and mountains, access to the small group of beekeepers in the village…
Palm oil producers across several Latin American countries have been the subject of complaints about their environmental practices, an analysis of official records has found, but these complaints rarely result…
JAKARTA — A “social forestry” program administered by the Indonesian government to grant land rights to communities has not been effective in preventing deforestation, and in some cases has even…
Between rising deforestation in the Amazon, new financial and political commitments to reduce deforestation, and growing interest in “nature-based solutions” like conservation and reforestation, 2021 may prove to be a…
JAKARTA — Deforestation inside Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, declined in 2021 to its lowest level in seven years, following a surge in…
Combating illegal logging and deforestation in the tropical forests of southwest Myanmar helps preserve wildlife populations, but remains insufficient in the face of unsustainable local hunting pressures, a new study…
ORE, Nigeria — More than two decades ago, fate took Tajudeen Babalola to his lifelong ambition. The 52-year-old longed for a more serene life that offered hope for survival away…
The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Central America. It is also part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which extends from…
Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within…
