JAKARTA — Most peatlands in Indonesia that need protection are currently not protected, a new study has found. It identifies 5.65 million hectares (13.96 million acres) of peatlands — an…
JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…
Reliant on its fisheries, Japan has long known the importance of maintaining healthy forest watersheds so as to protect coastal fisheries. It’s a lesson other nations could benefit from as the global environmental crisis worsens.
As a field biologist, Keith Perchemlides has often watched flames dance around tiny ponds that mark the remains of a vast wetland that once covered a large part of southwestern…
For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…
As bison, lynx and other wildlife return to European forests, conservationists debate whether biodiversity-enhancing reintroductions add to carbon storage and ecosystem resilience against climate change.
BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA — A clearing for the ramp to a new toll road in the Indonesian Bornean city of Balikpapan gapes open on the side of a paved highway as big…
Brasília National Forest is a Paris-sized oasis of green surrounded on three sides by concrete satellite cities that serve Brazil’s capital city. Extensive trails and expanses of forest make it…
When it comes to climate solutions, your first thought may not be the wildebeest. But in the Serengeti, these buffalo-looking antelopes are the key to carbon capture. Wildebeest eat large…
In 2007, an NGO began linking up forest fragments in Brazil’s most at-risk biome. Today, Saving Nature has forest corridor projects underway on three continents. Part three of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
In 2002, a couple vacationing in Costa Rica, stunned by deforestation there, bought land and regrew a transitional cloud forest — a grassroots model worth emulating: Part two of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
In South Los Angeles — right in the heart of the 10-million-person metro area — sits a sprawling 1,000-acre zone from another era: It’s the Inglewood Oil Field, a rolling scrubland…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Lithan, 68, grew up eating fish caught from the rivers and freshwater swamps near his village in Ogan Ilir district, near the southern tip of the island…
SEPAKU/BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — In 1977, when Darna was about 8 years old, her family moved from Indonesia’s central island of Java to Borneo, its largest. They were among the tens…
CACHOEIRAS DE MACACU, Brazil — Gesturing across the still, green water reflecting the backdrop of forest-clad mountains, Nicholas Locke told of the time when this flourishing wetland was once a…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A ruined mining site rests at the heart of the village of Akak I, nestled on the outskirts of Cameroon's capital Yaoundé. This quarry site is no…
Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, but our current approaches to global conservation are clearly not working. A good example of this is…
Temperate peatlands sequester tremendous amounts of carbon, but many have experienced extensive harm. Now, as climate change worsens, land managers are urgently moving to restore these vital ecosystems.
“A lot of people talk about conservation in terms of theory, in terms of simply what is shown in books; but it’s another thing to experience a place and to…
New research suggests travel between increasingly separated terrestrial and aquatic habitats may impact tropical amphibian microbiomes and immunity, leading to more disease, though more research is needed.
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…
EAST TANJUNG JABUNG, Indonesia — Ambo Angke trudged through the cemetery knowing he had been right to worry. A high tide surge had inundated the resting place here on 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…
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 — 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…
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.