The Gran Chaco, South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon, has been steadily replaced by croplands and cattle ranches for decades. Now, the semiarid lowland faces a new threat: the…
Mark Wishnie felt pleased when he heard the news: Joe Biden announced his support of a $50 million debt investment for the timber farmland project he heads at Latin America’s…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
Degraded by human activity, mountain forests across the tropical Andes are having a hard time bouncing back. But while scientists have long analyzed what drives their decline, they have largely…
On 27 March 2021, the natural sounds of the teak and bamboo forests of eastern Myanmar — calling birds, croaking frogs and barking deer — were drowned out by a…
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…
JAKARTA — When Indonesia embarked on its Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s, it cleared vast swaths of forest for farmland, mostly in the peatlands of Borneo — only to…
More than 7% of all mountain forests have been destroyed during the past two decades, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. Using high-resolution satellite data…
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…
With the slogan “Invest in Klabin and build a sustainable future” and a long list of awards for its commitment to preserving the environment, Brazilian pulp and paper manufacturer Klabin…
Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts covering a total of 2,700 hectares (6,670 acres) were recorded around Ouesso, the administrative seat of Sangha province, in…
“I come here to find gold. First we cut down the trees, then we burn them. Then we start digging the soil to open the pit,” says a young man…
Newly described bat from Mozambique mountain under threat, researchers say A forest that harbors Mozambique’s most recently identified species of mammal could disappear within the next two years as small-scale…
Subsistence communities, those who live off the forest and lead largely sustainable lifestyles, can actually become drivers of forest loss and degradation under certain circumstances, according to a new study.…
JAKARTA — The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, two of the world’s largest palm oil producers, have intensified their criticisms against European Union trade policies, which they deem to be…
BATAM, Indonesia — “There’s no more fish,” says Abdul Ganip, holding up a mostly empty flask containing a few prawns. “It's a quiet catch.” For decades, the 57-year-old has lived…
JAKARTA — New palm oil regulations being adopted by the European Union and the U.K. could put even more pressure on independent small farmers in Indonesia who are already struggling…
The protected swathes of primary Amazon Rainforest in the Paru State Forest in the north of Brazil became the fifth-most deforested conservation unit in October, official data show. Illegal land-grabbing…
A group of researchers from more than a dozen countries are calling for worldwide peatland protection and restoration. In a signed statement released Dec. 1, more than 40 scientists say…
At the recently concluded COP27 climate summit in Egypt, 14 major agricultural commodity companies, including Cargill, ADM and JBS, released a plan to end deforestation associated with the production of…
PHNOM PENH — Eight people, including two Cambodian Forestry Administration officials, have been charged by U.S. federal prosecutors for their alleged involvement in an international monkey smuggling ring. One of…
Myanmar harbors some of the most extensive tracts of old-growth forest in mainland Southeast Asia. These forested landscapes represent many of the region’s last refuges of rare and threatened species,…
It’s a stunning landscape with a prophetic name: Lisima lya mwono, or “the source of life” as it’s known in the language of the local Luchaze people. But that’s not…
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…
Activists have accused an association of banks claiming to adhere to principles safeguarding people and the environment of “greenwashing.” Two signatories of the Equator Principles are currently advising East African…
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…
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.
Critics say that “the white rhinos of old-growth forests” in British Columbia are rapidly being felled by timber companies, even as the provincial government largely postpones its 2020 pledge to protect the remaining ancient forests.
Industrial mining wiped out nearly 2,000 square kilometers, or 770 square miles, of forests in Indonesia between 2000 and 2019. The country is one of four worldwide where direct tropical…
