KILIFI, Kenya — An incident in Kelly Roberts Banda’s childhood set him on the path of climate advocacy. Although Banda did not realize it at the time, what appeared then…
At the start of last month’s UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, UN Environmental Programme Executive Director, Inger Andersen, made the memorable statement, “we are at war with nature” and…
When Takushi Sato left Japan for Belém, Brazil, in 1971, he never imagined what he would go through. By 2000, as the manager of a timber company that shipped Brazilian…
The village of Khariakandi in is a typical farming community. Is lush green environment also makes it an ideal habitat for different types of birds. As a result, like in…
At his inauguration on Jan. 1 as Brazil’s new president, Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated a promise to reach zero deforestation and to recover degraded land. He’d already made the…
Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented,…
JAKARTA — How do you supercharge vegetation growth for a reforestation project? Bring in the microorganisms. That’s the finding from a new study, which shows that incorporating a microbial community…
HONG KONG — Thousands of grayish, oval-shaped oysters pepper the mudflats of far northern Hong Kong, clustering together on fragments of rock lining the shoreline or clamping onto abandoned concrete…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Intensive efforts in recent years to prevent fires in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s perennial epicenter of forest and land fires, will be put to the test…
The answer is, it depends. A multitude of conditions must be analyzed, and forests properly managed long-term, if they’re to curb climate change-intensified flooding, landslides, and even stand up to a tsunami.
Planting trees may seem like a simple, unifying endeavor to restore ecosystems and meet climate goals. But once the saplings are in the ground and event photos posted online, forest…
JAKARTA — Fully protecting Indonesia’s remaining peatlands and mangroves is the key to achieving the government’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade — and…
At the recent G20 summit in Bali, Indonesian President Joko Widodo brought world leaders to the Ngurah Rai Grand Forest Park, a former fish-farming site being converted into a conservation…
JAKARTA — Commitments by palm oil producers in Southeast Asia not to deforest, clear peatlands, or use exploitative practices have helped the industry significantly reduce tropical forest loss. But many…
In a nation besieged by poverty, deforestation, cholera, lawlessness and climate change, a Haitian conservation coalition joins with communities to reforest and protect one of the nation’s last best biodiversity hotspots.
Plants on the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic evolved for many centuries in isolation, only to be devastated when human colonizers arrived. Today, rare native tree and shrub species are being restored here.
In October 2020, a set of maps appeared in the pages of Nature apparently proposing a straightforward solution to the twin crises of global biodiversity loss and climate change. Splashed…
The ear-piercing call of the screaming piha, a bird (Lipaugus vociferans) known locally as the cricrió, welcomes all who visit Carajás National Forest in the Brazilian Amazon state of Pará.…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have slammed a rule change by the Forest Stewardship Council that will allow some loggers who couldn’t qualify over the past 30 years to now be…
At the heart of Brazil’s “arc of deforestation,” the São Nicolau Farm has become a demonstration reforestation project, designing and refining tropical reforestation techniques on 2,000 hectares of degraded pastureland.
In April 2009, ocean explorer Enric Sala and a team of marine biologists dove into the waters around the southern Line Islands, an uninhabited archipelago in the central Pacific that…
ANDRAMASINA, Madagascar — It’s transplanting season in Andramasina’s rice fields. The town is just 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Madagascar’s bustling capital, Antananarivo, but it takes two and a…
JAKARTA/NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — The Indonesian government’s strategy to minimize the marine impacts of building a new capital city on the island of Borneo is severely lacking, researchers and…
Hollow eye sockets glared at me from the dark tropical leaf litter. Not expecting to be watched from below, I rested on my haunches, searching with the image recognition software…
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — For 20 years, Redansyah has awakened every day at 5 a.m. to plant trees here in the Pesalat forest area of Central Kalimantan province. The Indigenous…
KATHMANDU — As the monsoon draws to a close in Nepal, workers are putting the finishing touches on a dam designed to breathe life back into a sacred river that’s…
Healthy coral reefs, with their brightly colored corals and bustling schools of fish, are easy to spot underwater. New research into the marine soundscapes of reefs in the Sangkarang Archipelago…
BODO, Nigeria — Christian Kpandei is a man of many memories. Still, the vital incidents of his life, like the death of his childhood hero, environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, grow…
Tony Rinaudo is an Australian agronomist who was given the Right Livelihood Award in 2018 for demonstrating how drylands can be re-greened on a large scale at minimal cost, making…
Aziil Anwar, a prolific planter of mangroves on coral damaged by blast fishing in Indonesia’s West Sulawesi province, rallying many children to his cause, died in hospital on May 6.…