Research published yesterday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution finds that pressures from human activities and climate change caused the African continent to lose as much as 2.6 billion…
Conservationists recently awoke to the extraordinary value of the Cerrado - a biodiverse biome long outshone by the Amazon and a key carbon sink; but agribusiness is fast destroying it.
A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.
KERICHO, Kenya – Less than a decade ago, the hills of Tuiyobei village in Kenya’s Rift Valley were nearly bare, with few trees or shrubs beyond the coffee plantations that…
A plant without water will wither and, eventually, die. This is easy to observe in the browned leaves of a neglected houseplant, but what happens when an entire forest gets…
As the world heads toward more frequent and severe droughts, forests will increasingly suffer from water scarcity. In this scenario, finding ways to predict how trees will respond to water…
When Donald Trump pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), it dashed plans to increase beef exports to Japan. But trade deals like TTP, which don’t address climate change, remain a looming environmental threat, as does rising global beef consumption.
Tougou village in northern Burkina Faso has a challenging climate for farming. During the dry season, which lasts from November to May, the Harmattan blows — a dry, dusty wind…
ISIMICHINI, Kenya — In the 10 years Arthur Inzofu has been growing oil palm trees at his farm in Isimichini village in western Kenya, he has seen few benefits. But…
If Congress okays Trump’s USAID cuts, Kenyans worry the only wildlife forensics lab in East Africa will close and ranger jobs vanish, threatening the environment.
USAID has improved rural climate change resilience since 2013; now the U.S. may cut that lifeline, with dire results for Zimbabwe’s poorest.
Tropical rainforests have that name for a reason, occurring in high rainfall areas close to the equator with swirling mists shrouding their lofty heights and moist soil that squelches underfoot.…
New research has, for the first time, made use of very high resolution images of Earth’s drylands, revealing that they hold a much larger portion of the world’s forests than…
by 14 April 2017
Every morning, Abdu Hajy, 65, takes his canoe out into the murky waters of the Tana River Delta to fish. He’s been following the same routine, in his hometown of…
Life beneath the waters of the Amazon is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the world’s largest rainforest. All of the bright, primary…
In three short months during monsoon season, India historically receives 75 percent of their annual precipitation. Imagine awaiting this promised, bountiful rainfall and receiving 14 percent less than average. This…
A new study suggests that Colorado River flows have already declined due to rising global temperatures and are likely to experience further declines in the future. Colorado River flows were,…
The beauty of the saiga belies first impressions. It may be hard to look beyond the big nose — a bulbous schnozz that looks like a chunk of an elephant’s…
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin lies…
Once again, the planet set a record in 2016 for the warmest year yet since we started keeping track of global temperatures in 1880. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
Over the last several decades, the Northern Sub-Saharan African region has been hit by a number of severe droughts and the associated societal impacts, such as food shortages that result…
Wildfires in Peru have burned through an estimated 2,668 hectares (27 square kilometers) of protected habitat in northern Peru, according to a report released last week by Monitoring of the…
The expanse of tropical savanna in Brazil known as the Cerrado faces an uncertain future, as a decades-old trajectory toward more agriculture continues. But a recent report holds that with…
The two food production systems that support Bolivia — family farming and agribusiness — are being hit by the worst drought in the last quarter century and one of the…
ven with two grades to go before completing high school, Vincent Kiptum has already figured out how to deal with a problem troubling his village in Kenya’s Rift Valley: truancy…
yben Minyizeya’s homestead in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe resembles a dumpsite for disused tractors and other agricultural equipment. The broken and rusty machinery reminds him of the good old farming…
he Amazon rainforest is popularly known as the “the planet’s lungs” — absorbing and storing 100 billion tons of carbon and preventing it from entering the atmosphere. Maintaining that vast…
Conditions created by the strong El Niño event that warmed up Pacific waters in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon basin, that meant…
It's easy to be pessimistic about the state of the world's forests. Rates of forest loss remain persistently high, especially in the tropics and boreal regions. Drought, fragmentation, degradation via…
Scientists have warned that a controversial proposal to construct an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua is founded on incomplete knowledge of its environmental feasibility. In fact, many social and ecological processes…
