Forest restoration: from Stone Age to drone age
t the start of the rainy season thousands of people trudge across tropical landscapes lugging baskets full of tree saplings on their backs. These men and women are carrying the…
$1m for devising best way to map Indonesia’s peatlands
Want to make a million dollars? Find the most efficient way to map Indonesia’s peatlands. That’s the ticket to winning the Indonesian Peat Prize, announced by the cartographically challenged Southeast…
Team of 6: the leadership of Indonesia’s peatlands restoration agency is now in place
The leadership of Indonesia’s new peatlands restoration agency was rounded out on Friday, with the inauguration of five lieutenants to agency chief Nazir Foead. Hartono Prawiratmadja was named secretary. The…
Norway pledges $50m to fund Indonesia’s peat restoration
The government of Norway announced on Wednesday it would continue its environmental funding partnership with Indonesia, offering $50 million to support the archipelago’s newly created Peat Restoration Agency. “This is…
With haze threatening return, Indonesian forestry giant pushes peatlands restoration model
Last year some two million hectares of land in Indonesia went up in flames across Sumatra, Borneo, and the Western half of New Guinea. The conflagrations caused choking air pollution,…
Fighting climate change means protecting forests and wildlife
The Paris Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC has come and gone, and all but the most cynical would agree that the outcomes were on the positive side and…
Indonesia appoints conservationist to save country’s declining peatlands
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has appointed conservationist Nazir Foead to head up a newly-created peatland restoration agency, which aims to resurrect peatlands devastated by recent fires. The establishment of the…
After long battle, big swath of Sumatran rainforest wins protection
In what conservationists are hailing as a major breakthrough in efforts to protect Sumatra's fast-dwindling lowland rainforests, the Indonesian government on Wednesday finally approved an ecosystem restoration license for more…
Scientists urge U.S. to honor restoration commitment in Hawaii
The world's largest body of tropical scientists and conservationists is urging the U.S. government to honor a decades-old commitment to clean up a bombed out Hawaiian island. The Association for…
Biosphere conservation: monumental action is critical to avert global environmental crisis
Human-caused changes to our biosphere—the global total of the world's ecosystems—are now so great and alarmingly rapid that human lives and societies undoubtedly face epic challenges in the near future…
Over $8 billion invested in watersheds in 2011
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…
Featured video: restoring rivers in the Tongass Rainforest
A new video highlights recent efforts to restore rivers in the Tongass Forest, the world's largest intact temperate rainforest. Industrial logging in vital watersheds have hurt salmon populations and other…
Seagrass beds store 20 billion tons of carbon
Researchers say restoring seagrass beds would mitigate climate change. Mangroves above and seagrass below in Vohemar Bay, Madagascar. Photo: © Keith Ellenbogen/iLCP. Just below the ocean's surface lies a carbon…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
- Deforestation on the rise in Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Mennonite communities move in
- Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show
Oceans
- As oceans warm, temperate reef species edge closer to extinction, study shows
- Can we control marine invaders by eating them?
- Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth
- Fishy business of squid vessels needs stronger regulation, study says
Amazon Conservation
- Tropical forest regeneration offsets 26% of carbon emissions from deforestation
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
Land rights and extractives
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
Endangered Environmentalists
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Tunnel collapse at dam project in orangutan habitat claims yet another life
- Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- Indonesia’s grand EV plans hinge on a ‘green’ industrial park that likely isn’t
