Forest Loss News

Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.

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…

“We couldn’t see the sun for a whole month because of the clouds of smoke. For an entire month, between October and November (2022), we didn’t see the sun,” said…

Vast quantities of timber from Myanmar continue to enter the United States despite sanctions on the country’s state-controlled timber monopoly, according to a new report from U.K.-based watchdog group the…

A recent study by the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute Sinchi in Colombia built several possible scenarios for the future of the Colombian Amazon by 2040. Experts who collected information during…

“The challenge in the Nkok SIZ is timber traceability. The SIZ must be kept free of illegally obtained timber,” says Marc Ona, executive secretary of the NGO Brainforest. The NGO…

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…

Jacobo, a Mennonite farmer who preferred only his fist name be used, had just begun to explain why he left Belize to settle in the Peruvian town of Tiruntá when…

Life goes at its own pace in the town of Chihuahua, where the modern mixes with Mennonite traditions. To one side, horse-drawn carts pull up at a plot of land…

In the first half of the 20th century, Mennonite communities fled Europe for South America and, over the intervening decades, established large colonies in Latin American countries such as Mexico,…

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — In the middle of the Paraguayan portion of the Upper Parana Atlantic Forest, a paved road leads to the Mbya Indigenous community of Pindo’i. Roads in the…

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.   SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “Us locals cannot source benefits from the forest…

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…

Warmer temperatures could significantly diminish the ability of tropical forests to siphon carbon from the atmosphere by intensifying dry seasons, according to a recent study. The tropics pack away an…

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…

As human activities have pushed many animal species to the margins of former habitats, some protected areas may not be located in the right places, especially as frequent extreme temperatures shrink their ranges further.

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…

Last July, as the Ukraine war raged, the EU barred all Russian woody biomass imports; even as South Korea took in Russia’s supply. Illicit woody biomass may also still be flowing to the EU from Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

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 Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.

An existing regulation designating the burning of forests to make energy as being renewable has been reversed in Australia. That decision seems unlikely to alter the EU’s heavy commitment to biomass burning.

Agriculture is gradually killing forests, and yet up to half of tropical forestland in Africa, Latin America and Asia cleared for agriculture remains idle, according to research published in the…

Policymakers could finalize revisions to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive by year end, even as forest activists offer new evidence denouncing wood pellets as an energy source, and calling for an end to subsidies.

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…

KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy…

A biomass industry insider tells Mongabay in exclusive interviews that Enviva, the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy, is disingenuous in its green, eco-friendly claims to the public and stockholders.

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 December 2004, the worst tsunami in recorded history devastated the region encircling the Indian Ocean, killing more than 200,000 people in 14 countries. One year later, researchers showed that…

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…