Forest Fragmentation News

SABAH, Malaysia — Although it’s early in the day, the sun is already beating down fiercely as we step off the boat onto the muddy banks of the Kinabatangan River…

KATHMANDU — Until recently, Nepali movies tended to have lead characters who were extraordinary people who stood out from regular folks and were largely detached from their day-to-day lives. But…

Humans have transformed the planet to a staggering extent. Studies estimate that, as a species, we’ve modified at least three-quarters of the Earth’s land surface. Over time, vibrant mosaics of…

Flitting through the forest foliage, darting between branches and flawlessly negotiating their way around gargantuan tree trunks, bats have evolved exquisite adaptations to their forest homes. Although inaudible to human…

KATHMANDU — The spring season in the Northern Hemisphere is a critical time for red pandas, particularly in Nepal. This is the period when these furry, tree-dwelling animals spend a…

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…

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.

Protected areas are important for saving tropical forests and biodiversity, but for them to be effective, local communities living around the reserves need to have access to non-agricultural jobs, a…

Since 1960, the world has lost an area of forest larger than the island of Borneo, according to a recent study. That net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square…

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…

KATHMANDU — Throughout much of their range, Asian elephants are regarded as incarnations of the Hindu god Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity of wisdom. But in Nepal, as in neighboring India…

The Chiew Larn reservoir in southern Thailand looks like it’s been part of the landscape for millennia. Ancient limestone karst cliffs rise from its waters, and emerald-hued forested islands dot…

Even the greatest, most mobile predators aren’t immune to the shrinking of South America’s forests. The endangered black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori), one of the largest raptors on the continent, has…

The Tongass National Forest in the U.S. state of Alaska is a special place for conservation biologist Dominick DellaSala, even after decades of traveling the world to study temperate rainforests.…

KATHMANDU — Nepal's government has recently adopted guidelines to make infrastructure such as roads, dams and railway lines wildlife-friendly, following pressure from conservationists and NGOs. But not all wildlife have…

Trees and soils keep a lot of carbon trapped in the forest, pulling it from the atmosphere, where it can do more harm than good. In fact, roughly 30% of…

In early February, wildlife rangers in the remote northern forests of West Africa’s Republic of Benin became some of the most recent victims of the Sahel’s long-running Islamist insurgency when…

The Amazon lost millions of hectares of primary forest in 2021, mostly as the result of cattle ranching and other agricultural activities, a new report reveals. Amazon Conservation’s Monitoring of…

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.

For several weeks in 2015, the sound of chainsaws cutting down trees was incessant in the Angangueo municipality in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When a group of people tried…

When scientists described the Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa) as a species new to science in 2020, it was already staring extinction in the face. Fewer than 260 of the fluffy…

On Dec. 9, the Ugandan parliament passed a bill allowing the controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) to proceed. Construction can now begin according to the agreement signed between…

HUMBANG HASUNDUTAN, Indonesia — Indonesia has an enormous variety of plants with medicinal properties, and traditional herbal medicines such as jamu are still widely used by both urban and rural…

U.S. timber companies imported nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, circumventing sanctions and channeling millions of dollars in revenue to the country’s junta, according to a…

ANJOZOROBE ANGAVO, Madagascar — Requiring a turbulent two-hour car ride followed by a two-hour walk across paddy fields and mountains, access to the small group of beekeepers in the village…

Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within…

Myanmar’s rainforests, home to the endangered Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar), are some of the most biodiverse in the…

Suzano’s vast eucalyptus plantations may soon be counted toward Brazil’s reforestation and CO2 emission reduction goals. But critics say tree farms can’t equal rainforests for carbon storage or biodiversity.

The flooding of land for hydroelectric dams has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris) and one in two hundred jaguars (Panthera onca), according to the findings…

When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation. But a new study warns that other natural…