Ecosystem Restoration News

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.

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…

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…

This year's Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) General Assembly in Bali on 9th-14th October marked the most significant change in direction for the certification scheme in the last 20 years. One…

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…

Giant tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) have trundled across the Galápagos Islands for perhaps 3 million years. Over that time, they’ve evolved to survive with little food or water in the islands’…

BANDUNG, Indonesia — In a valley downstream from the source of the Citarum River, retired army general Doni Monardo approaches a magnolia tree planted in 2018 by President Joko Widodo…

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…

LIWONDE NATIONAL PARK, Malawi — Early one July morning, a helicopter with wildlife officials on board flies above the forests of Malawi's Liwonde National Park in search of elephants. Within…

Just weeks after visiting a patch of Malaysian rainforest, Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler learned it had been logged for wood chips to supply a paper plant. A teenager at…

BANYUMAS/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A muddy flood polluting a river on the Indonesian island of Java earlier this year depleted its fish stock, raising calls for restoration and restocking efforts in…

Earth’s vast underwater kelp forests are a vital source of food, pharmaceuticals, and more, while storing huge amounts of carbon. These undersea forests are also at risk, but researchers are working to restore them.