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.
The Caribbean island is currently being convulsed by a wave of civil unrest and gang violence, immediately triggered by soaring gas prices. But a dire environmental crisis underlays and feeds Haiti’s socioeconomic and political disorder.
Mining of sand to feed the red-hot demand from Bangladesh’s construction industry has fueled an illegal industry that overshadows the legal one and that’s destroying ecosystems and exacerbating river erosion.…
At 49, Hamid Ali has moved house at least eight times in his life. The reason each time has been the same: the erosion of the char lands, or river…
When workers dig through the earth at the San Andres mine in western Honduras, one of the country’s largest mining operations, they sometimes find something mixed in that wasn’t there…
China has spent the last two decades quietly establishing an economic foothold in Latin America, a region that has traditionally relied on Western investment. It’s become the top trade partner…
A new study shows that two-fifths of coral reefs globally are seriously threatened by sediment runoff — the transportation of accumulated material from land to sea, often with harmful pollutants…
On one of the first dry, hot days of summer, Rachel Langley walks past farmhouses and tractors, heading for the edge of the Colne Estuary in Essex, U.K. She’s on…
A healthy coral reef system is like a well-managed city. Each resident fish has a job in maintaining the reef: some nibble away at seaweed threatening to smother the coral,…
In the old seaside resort of Atafona on the coast of Rio de Janeiro, the Atlantic Ocean has been destroying streets, houses and businesses for more than 50 years, claiming at least 500 buildings.
The threshold beyond which the world’s mangrove forests can survive could be reached within the next 30 years if sea levels continue to rise at their current pace and greenhouse…
New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally. Researchers with WWF,…
The Isha Foundation, a spiritual organization headquartered in south India, is taking on the cause of revitalizing India’s imperiled rivers. With government and public support, it says it has successfully…
New research finds that rising sea levels due to climate change will put dozens of World Heritage Sites in the Mediterranean region at increased risk of flooding and erosion —…
KERALA, India — Sixty-five-year-old Maria sits at the doorstep of her demolished house. The only thing that remains is a wall attached to the door. Every morning, she comes “home”…
In 1998, severe flooding caused by heavy rains and exacerbated by deforestation killed more than 4,000 people in southern China. To reduce the chances of such an event happening again,…
A new study drastically upends conventional wisdom about when plants colonized land, pushing back the date about 80 million years to around half a billion years ago. The new date…
KAMPOT, Cambodia — As the Trapeang Sangke estuary opens up into the Gulf of Thailand, the dense green mangroves that line its edges taper off in stages, from thick, full-grown…
AMPANG, Malaysia – Taman Rimba Ampang was once a peaceful retreat from the bustle of Malaysia’s capital, a place where Kuala Lumpur’s residents could paddle in the shallow waters of…
Based on a poll conducted last year by the Baltimore, Maryland-based Vegetarian Resource Group, an estimated eight million adults in the United States identify as vegetarian. That’s 3.3 percent of…
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - When Guyana’s Mangrove Restoration Project began a few years ago, things didn’t get off to the best of starts. “At my site at Cove and John here [on…
Text by Jacopo Pasotti, photos by Elisabetta Zavoli MANGUNHARJO, Indonesia – A mangrove forest once surrounded this village on Java’s northern coast. That was before the woods were clear-cut to…
On a cloudless September morning in the Central Javan hamlet of Pandansari, the coastal air drips with mist and the clamor of cawing seagulls. Forty-five-year-old Mashadi, who like many Indonesians…
This is the final installment of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the first, second and third installments. "I think…
Runoff from Hurricane Isabel floods the Potomac River at Great Falls, Va., carrying sediment eroded from farm fields upstream. Photo by: Paul Bierman. Experts have long linked deforestation and intensive…
Landslides along the Salween River due to recent road construction near Daxingdi, Yunnan Province, China. Photo by Roy Sidle. Mountain roads in rural Southeast Asia are providing market access for…
Rainforest in the Panama Canal Zone. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. As demonstrated by growing enthusiasm for conserving forests and the rise of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation…
China's response to large-scale erosion with reforestation is paying off according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). The 10-year program, known as Sloping…
Rainforest leaves in Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. To read last year's Earth Day article: World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day. There is no…
