Multilateral environmental agreements like the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) call for collective leadership by national governments to address the global challenge of biodiversity loss. Their response options…
Biodiversity protection and restoration were key topics at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, and for good reason. Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference, which included a full Biodiversity Day this…
Organizations in the Malaysian state of Sabah have filed a complaint with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples about a once-secretive deal aimed at locking up…
Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah's attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state…
The idea of responsible investing isn’t new. It was born in the 1970s with religious groups that didn't want to see their money invested in sectors like weapons, liquor or…
The fate of a forest tract in Malaysia may have shifted dramatically in just the last few months. For three years, a group of conservation NGOs in Sabah, a Malaysian…
As the turn of the twentieth century loomed, a horrific drought swept through China. Nearly 700 kilometers of the Huang He, or Yellow River, the second longest in the country,…
There was a moment during the harvest season in 2012, after a devastating drought crushed the Midwest breadbasket, when it became apparent in the glance of an eye that Dave…
The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But…
How a sample payment for ecosystem services project works. Click to enlarge. Unlike cars, hamburgers, and computers, clean drinking water is a requirement for human survival. In a bid to…
The global carbon markets began quietly in the late 1980s as part of a voluntary effort to save rainforests, but these small, voluntary efforts were quickly eclipsed – and often…
REDD may still be at a standstill in Indonesia, but there is positive news coming out of the United Nations REDD Program. UN-REDD released its five-year strategic plan, and Nigeria…
Like many cities around the world, Denver gets its drinking water from rivers and reservoirs, which in turn get their water from forests. Many of those forests, however, are in…
Clean water doesn’t come cheap. Communities and businesses often rely on expensive water filtration infrastructure to ensure their clean water supplies. But communities around the world have been protecting upstream…
The tiny state of Cross River, Nigeria, has managed to preserve large swathes of endangered rainforest despite lucrative – and often intimidating – offers from loggers and other interests. It's…
Carbon trading promotes good behavior by creating a standardized currency representing a verifiable environmental benefit. Payments for watershed services do the same for cutbacks in water pollution, albeit on a…
Carbon finance can help rural Africans establish more sustainable ways of doing business, and several efforts are underway to build carbon exchanges that can help project developers identify prices and…
December Climate talks in Cancun highlighted the importance of maintaining healthy forests to protect the planet’s most vulnerable people from the consequences of future climate change. Haitians have been glimpsing…
A carbon conservation project in Kenya has become the first to win validation for REDD credits under the Voluntary Carbon Standard. The U.S.-based Wildlife Works said today the Voluntary Carbon…
The United States may not have capped its national greenhouse gas emissions, but the US state of California did cap its state emissions – and voters there seconded the state’s…
U.S. President Barack Obama told his now-famous salmon joke on Tuesday to illustrate the silliness of unnecessarily complex regulation, but the joke says more about the complexity of coastal ecosystems…
Cyberthieves who hacked the Czech carbon registry on Tuesday had intimate knowledge of different registries. They acted just days before a key security upgrade would have made the heist impossible,…
Leaders from around the world meeting in Nagoya, Japan for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to discuss solutions to stem the current mass extinction crisis may be in need…
Many credit Brazil’s 75-year old Forest Code with helping to slow destruction of the Amazon Rainforest, but an unlikely amalgamation of right-wing and left-wing politicians are trying to gut the…
