BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the…
JAKARTA — Indonesian officials say the country’s deforestation rate continued to decline for the third year running, hitting a historical low in 2021-2022. But claims of an improving trend are…
This story is the first article of a three-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the link between Cambodia's garment factories and illegal logging. Read Part Two and Part Three. KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia…
Formed in 1938 on a swath of primary forest nearly four times the size of Paris, Nigeria’s Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve is home to a diverse array of wildlife. These include…
JAKARTA — Singapore-based pulp and paper giant Royal Golden Eagle is linked to deforestation in Indonesia despite having a no-deforestation policy since 2015, an investigative report says. RGE is one…
In western Mexico, a forest was cleared in a couple of days. It was the early morning of a spring day in 2020. A dozen workers arrived in two trucks…
Looking from above, the Nuevo Progreso Mennonite camp is a patch of brown hues that spreads irregularly on a green carpet. You can only see uniform crops that seem to…
Satellite images give us a dimension of forest cover loss. From one year to the next, and sometimes in just a few weeks, a forest can be wiped off the…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke hundreds of logging, plantation and mining permits across the country is marred with irregularities including companies continuing to operate or engage in…
In the Yucatec Maya language, Balam-Kú means “jaguar temple.” That’s the name of the biggest state reserve in Campeche, in southern Mexico. Part of the Maya rainforest, this area is…
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…
