New research shows that without healthy forest corridors that allow animals to find new habitat, primates native to the Amazon basin will suffer as the impacts of climate change worsen.…
Losing undisturbed tropical forests is more devastating for the planet than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Science Advances. “Our results revealed that continued destruction of…
ANJA COMMUNITY RESERVE, Madagascar — When the Anja Community Reserve opened in 2001 the organizers of this bite-size protected area along the highway knew they’d need to come up with…
What I remember most from that summer, ten years ago, are the juxtapositions: bumpy dirt roads and freshly paved highways, expansive cattle ranches and squatters waiting for land rights, dense…
Forests don’t have it easy. Even when they escape being cleared for farmland, pastures, or cities, many of them are battered by a variety of other human pressures. Damage to…
Researchers in the U.K. are calling for stronger criteria to ensure that high-quality forested areas remain intact, even if they run through oil palm plantations. The key, they say, is…
This is the fourth article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. BATU PUTEH, Malaysia — They call it the…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — The planned construction of a bridge and private port in southern Sumatra threatens to damage one of the last remaining habitats of the island’s critically endangered elephants.…
This is the second article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One. TELOK SERABANG, Malaysia — At the westernmost tip of Borneo sits a dense…
Jaguars, sloths, owls, vipers, spider monkeys — all of these live within the vast western Amazon, a region that boasts an incredible diversity of life. Roughly 20 percent of the…
On today’s episode, we talk with zoologist Rebecca Cliffe about why the popular perception of sloths as lazy creatures is completely unwarranted — and why debunking myths like this about…
Recent research suggests that designating small fragments of old-growth temperate forests as protected areas is not sufficient to halt loss of bird diversity, and that better monitoring and management of…
Recent research finds that Amazonian trees in fragmented forest landscapes remain especially vulnerable to windstorms for several years after being impacted by fire — and that, in particular, larger trees…
Illegal gold mining is on the verge of wiping out an iconic wetland forest in the heart of Madagascar’s flagship national park, according to a new paper. Forest loss due…
Federal litigators warn of “imminent genocide” for the Karipuna people, while at least 14 indigenous reserves have been threatened or invaded. Bolsonaro government slow to act, say critics.
JAKARTA — Road projects throughout Indonesian Borneo threaten to fragment a third of the forest habitat currently accessible to the island’s wildlife, according to a new study. Completion of ongoing…
Its cement wings spanning over 20 feet, the effigy of the Philippine eagle was sculpted in Davao City’s People’s Park to commemorate the country’s national bird and celebrate a time…
Very few tropical forests around the world enjoy uninterrupted contiguity. Most are divided into uneven, small fragments, cut off from each other, their boundaries marked by roads or farms. But as…
On this episode we welcome the godfather of biodiversity, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, to discuss some of the most important environmental issues we’re currently facing and why he believes the next…
According to a recent report, mining companies currently have claims on 11 percent of all intact rainforests left in the world, meaning 590,000 square kilometers (227,800 square miles) of pristine…
PUNO REGION, Peru – “Life isn’t tranquil here anymore. Not long ago, my neighbor came running, frightened. [She said] a group of drug traffickers came to her house, put a…
Lemurs in Madagascar have been under pressure from deforestation, poaching, drought and other challenges for years. Now, in the much-visited Berenty Reserve near the island’s southern tip, one species faces…
Rising human populations and widespread industrial agriculture have hemmed one of the least-understood cats on the planet into ever-smaller patches of forest on the island of Borneo, a recent study…
Brazil's Atlantic Forest is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. However, over the last 500 years its extension has been dramatically decreasing, and today it occupies roughly 15 percent of…
Carving up rainforests to make room for farming, ranching and other uses induces a host of changes into the ecosystem, many of which scientists are only just beginning to understand.…
Conservationists recently awoke to the extraordinary value of the Cerrado - a biodiverse biome long outshone by the Amazon and a key carbon sink; but agribusiness is fast destroying it.
Most environmentalists expect more deforestation in the Amazon and elsewhere due to last week’s high court ruling upholding the constitutionality of much of the 2012 New Forest Code.
How effective is environmental restoration? On today’s episode, we seek answers to that question through the lens of a much needed new project at the University of Cambridge collecting restoration…
A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.
When it comes to habitat quality and ecosystem services, research has shown that natural landscapes do it best. A new study, published today in Nature, adds fodder to this argument,…