At his inauguration on Jan. 1 as Brazil’s new president, Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated a promise to reach zero deforestation and to recover degraded land. He’d already made the…
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.
JAKARTA — The European Union has finalized a law that will ban the trade of commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation. On Dec. 6, the European Council, Parliament and Commission struck…
SANTA ROSILLO DE YANAYACU, Peru — Swaths of recently deforested land and images of guns spray-painted on trees greeted the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu patrol when they visited a portion…
In a nation besieged by poverty, deforestation, cholera, lawlessness and climate change, a Haitian conservation coalition joins with communities to reforest and protect one of the nation’s last best biodiversity hotspots.
The world’s healthiest tropical forests are located in protected Indigenous areas (PIAs), according to a new study. “After accounting for location biases […], protected-Indigenous areas had the highest protective effect…
One year ago, leaders of more than 140 countries came together at the U.N.-backed climate talks, known as COP26, promising to halt deforestation by 2030. A new assessment shows that…
JAKARTA — Norway has agreed to pay Indonesia $56 million in a climate agreement between the two countries, as Indonesia has succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissions by preserving its…
Trees and plants along the banks of waterways are more than picturesque. They serve as a line of defense, absorbing pollutants and keeping harmful runoff out of rivers and streams.…
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…
Even before a definitive license was issued by the Brazilian main environmental agency, paving works had already begun on the so-called Middle Section of the BR-319, the highway that connects the Amazonian cities of Porto Velho and Manaus.
JAKARTA — Indonesia has signed a new climate deal with Norway that will see the Nordic country pay the Southeast Asian one to keep its forests standing. The deal comes…
PHNOM TAMAO, Cambodia — Prime Minister Hun Sen has stepped in to cancel all development projects slated for the Phnom Tamao forest, near the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, following…
Since March, bulldozers have opened around 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, of dirt road running north from the village of Kopongo in Cameroon across a forestry concession and into the…
The state of Mato Grosso has approved a bill that allows extensive ranching and tourism in protected areas of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. The move comes just…
DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the early hours of July 19, a herd of wild elephants came down from the hills to a crop field located in Rangunia, in Bangladesh’s Chattogram…
The deaths of journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira in June this year exposed an interlocking web of crime involving drug trafficking, money laundering, and illegal fishing…
In the Indonesian village of Kun-kun, where illegal loggers once cut mangroves for timber, a new livelihood has come to the fore: crab fishing. “Without the mangroves, the crabs cannot…
JAKARTA — A part of the only forest on Earth where rhinos, tigers, orangutans and elephants coexist is seeing a resumption of deforestation for an oil palm concession. Indonesian company…
THUNG NUI, Thailand — Firdaw Manjeed says she’s glad to be back to school for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Here in Thailand’s southernmost province, Satun, on…
The screechy, chirruping notes of Lilian’s lovebirds are the dominant music in the air on a sunny June afternoon in an expanse of mopane forest deep in Malawi's Liwonde National…
The rainforest is dense with sound. Like musicians in an orchestra, each animal plays a part, occupying its own “acoustic niche” in both frequency and time. But repeated fires are…
KAMALCHHORI, Bangladesh — Anupam Chakma, 60, has lived in the hilly village of Kamalchhori in Bangladesh all his life. When his grandfather and his contemporaries arrived in the region many…
JAKARTA — Tropical forest loss remained consistently high in 2021 with no sign of slowing down, despite commitments by companies and governments to curb deforestation, according to new data from…
KINANDU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A small group of residents from Kinandu village, 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of Lubumbashi, head into the miombo wooded savanna, decimated by…
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…
JAKARTA — Pulpwood and palm oil companies were among the biggest contributors to the loss of a Manhattan-size area of forest in Indonesia’s Papua region in 2021, a new report…
An agreement for the rights to the natural capital covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) in Malaysian Borneo for the next 100 years “in its present form is legally…
Forest degradation due to environmental causes (such as drought) and human causes (such as fragmentation) released three times as much carbon as deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2010 and 2019, say researchers.
Less than 16% of the world’s coastal regions remain intact, while other parts are severely degraded by human activities, according to a new study. With coastal regions supporting a rich…
