Forest Fires News

For the second year in a row, La Niña conditions have developed across the Pacific Ocean. A climate pattern that occurs every few years, La Niña heralds broadly cooler and…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a ruling declaring a palm oil company not responsible for fires in its concession, in a verdict that boils down to the company…

IKOM, Nigeria — When 57-year-old Linus Otu was a child, each dawn arrived with the chatter of monkeys and occasional belches of gorillas from the mountain that overlooks his small…

In August 2019, an unprecedented number of fires ripped through the Brazilian Amazon, sparking worldwide interest in reports of burning rainforest. In fact, the majority of blazes were on land…

JAKARTA — Activists are warning of “severe environmental and social risks” from plans by two of the world’s largest paper companies to significantly expand their operations in Indonesia. Both Asia…

Forest fires in Bolivia are showing no sign of abating, with blazes sweeping through ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest, Chaco scrubland, Chiquitanía savanna, and Pantanal wetland. With almost 1 million…

A first look at this year’s deforestation hotspots across the Amazon shows that Brazil, once again, has the grim distinction of being a leader in destruction. Massive areas of forest…

In a world wracked by wildfires, deadly storms, and the now too-familiar drumbeat of dire climate warnings, statistical descriptions of the future humanity faces can seem at once too sterile…

Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as jaguars,…

New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.

The fires that tore through South America’s Pantanal region in 2020, destroying 30% of its area, are still scorched in memory. And now, the world’s largest wetland that fans out…

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Sankuru province saw record-breaking fires in 2020 — 9500 square kilometers (3,700 square miles) of land burned. More than 1,500 km2 (580 mi2) of this…

Giant anteaters are native to the savannas of Central and South America. They forage in the open spaces of the mosaic of forests, grasslands and wetlands, and rest in the…

The fragility of Latin American forests has been demonstrated by a pioneering study published in the journal Science Advances, which reveals an alarming finding: half of the region's forests would…

The spread of fires in a Brazilian state that’s still mostly swathed in Amazon rainforest is raising alarms about risks to public health, compounding what’s already one of the worst…

The Brazilian state of Acre, nestled along the border with Peru and Bolivia in the Amazon, has been called “the place where the wind makes the curve,” a saying that,…

The great drought and megafires that the Amazon experienced in recent years caused the death of 2.5 billion trees and vines in the Lower Tapajós River Basin, one of the…

INPE released updated data on August 13. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon remained persistently high in July, but the country is nonetheless on track to experience the first year-over-year decline…

The Amazon fire season is gaining momentum, and this year could be worse than last. As of today, 267 major fires have been detected in the Amazon this year, burning…

GALICIA, Spain — The forest fire stopped just before arriving at Nieves Fernández Vidueira's farm, but it burned all day in the area surrounding Quintela do Pando in Galicia, northwestern…

A new “vulnerability index” for the world’s tropical rainforests will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests, in…

JAKARTA — Favorable weather conditions point to a less severe forest fire season in Indonesia this year, but the burning could still compound what is now the worst coronavirus situation…

The climate in the Amazon has been changing over the last few decades. The average temperature in the basin rose about 1º Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) between 1979 and 2018, with…

The Amazon has long done its part to balance the global carbon budget, but new evidence suggests the climate scales are tipping in the world’s largest rainforest.  Now, according to…

As the human population grows, so does our demand for food, and soy is one of the key crops meeting that demand. Found in far more than tofu, soy is…

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued on an upward trajectory in June, reports the country's national space research institute INPE. INPE's satellite-based forest monitoring system detected 1,062 square kilometers (410…

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Once widespread across Southeast Asia, from Java to southern China, green peafowl (Pavo muticus) have vanished from much of the region over the past few decades,…

HIYUNG, Indonesia — For the village cultivating Indonesia’s most pungent chili pepper, July is a time of prosperity — and potential ruin. That midsummer month is when hundreds of farmers…

So far this year, 24 major fires have burned in the Brazilian Amazon, covering an area of 7,167 hectares (17,710 acres). All of the fires were set on land previously…

Trees are a logical solution to climate change, but allowing or encouraging trees to spread into areas where they don’t typically grow, such as tundra and grasslands, can actually do…