Near the western fringe of the Brazilian Amazon, the emerald canopy blankets hundreds of thousands of hectares. Tucked into the vast Guajará-Mirim State Park, savanna forest stretches for miles before…
The world has long monitored global deforestation, but tracking ecosystem restoration is a more subtle, challenging process, needing metrics for long-term success, carbon storage, biodiversity and local economy benefits.
After forests are logged, felled trees are typically sent to sawmills, where they’re processed into boards, or lumber. It’s in this processed form that wood typically enters the international commodity…
Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth's land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction by 2030, according to a…
Since the 1950s, the rich tropical forests of the Greater Mekong region have been steadily depleted by the world’s growing appetite for timber. Did you know that if all the…
Ambitious targets by Asian countries to restore tens of millions of hectares of degraded land by 2030 could be foiled by one fundamental problem: a lack of good-quality and genetically…
PENYARINGAN, Indonesia — Stretching across Bali’s southwest coast and up into the mountainous hinterland is Jembrana, one of the least populated of the Indonesian island’s nine administrative districts. Its name…
A project originally aimed to fuel agribusiness in one of the most heavily deforested parts of the Brazilian Amazon is now being touted by the government as a “green” and…
SAN IGNACIO DE VELASCO, Bolivia — On Feb. 12, 2021, Bolivian conservationists joyfully celebrated the creation of the Bajo Paraguá Municipal Protected Area. Located in the municipality of San Ignacio…
BALI, Indonesia — Concerns over a major highway project in Bali are mounting, with a new study revealing how the road would affect the island’s signature farmlands. The idea of…
Did you know that illegal logging can be five times as lucrative as selling the world’s most well-known soda? In 2020, the Coca-Cola company reported $33 billion in revenue. The…
This article is part of a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay Latam and El Deber, a Bolivian news source. On Feb. 15, three days after the creation of Bajo Paraguá…
There was no good news to be found in the forest and wildlife inventory for Côte d'Ivoire published earlier this year. But the Ivorien Ministry of Water and Forests (MINEF)…
JAKARTA — Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, owes a substantial slice of that output to criminal deforestation, according to a new report showing that a fifth of…
Brazilian gold exporter BP Trading accounted for 10% of the country’s exports of the precious metal in 2019 and 2020, having purchased it from companies prosecuted for buying illegal gold.
The E.U. continues to struggle with the irony of a commitment to conserving forests, while also burning forest biomass and ignoring the carbon emissions that causes — all in order to achieve a mandate to end burning oil, gas and coal.
The Glasgow climate summit is failing to address the danger of burning forests to make energy — a practice classified as carbon neutral, though science shows that its emissions exceed that of coal per unit of energy produced.
International forest and climate experts have released a “playbook” for ecosystem restoration with a set of 10 principles that they say, if followed, could be a game-changer. The Political Ecology…
More than 100 scientists have issued a letter urging U.S. President Biden and Congress to remove provisions promoting logging, forest biomass and fossil fuels from the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and reconciliation (Build Back Better) bills.
JAKARTA — Indonesian officials have backtracked on the country’s pledge at the COP26 climate summit to end deforestation by 2030, calling it unfair and inappropriate to demand that it stop…
TRINCHEIRA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — Deep in the Trincheira reserve, our motor boat winds through a maze of streams, or igarapés, sliding past dense submerged rainforest. It halts on the…
It is a commendable goal to end and reverse deforestation within a decade, one which if met would protect both people and the planet, but this is a crisis now.…
The Glasgow Declaration on Forests pledges to end deforestation by 2030. But critics say there’s a catch: Will natural forests continue being cut, and land converted to plantations, causing CO2 emissions to rise and biodiversity to fall?
The U.N. climate summit now underway in Glasgow, Scotland needs to empower Indigenous peoples to protect the Amazon forest, which in turn stores carbon and helps prevent disastrous climate change.
Public hearings are underway on the proposed reconstruction of BR-319, a highway which will pierce the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, despite vast potential environmental harm, and a failure to consult Indigenous groups.
MOMBASA, Kenya — The stands of mangrove on the shore are pocked with charred clearings. Along Tudor Creek, facing the southern Kenyan port city of Mombasa, producers of chang'aa, a…
The loss of forest in an island province in Papua New Guinea (PNG) surged in August, according to satellite data. The target of these forays is likely timber, at least…
JAKARTA — Conservation groups are calling on the Asian Development Bank to tighten its scrutiny of a road project it plans to fund in Indonesian Borneo that may pose risks…
RIO DE JANEIRO – Horto, a secluded neighborhood in the south of Rio de Janeiro with a view of the famed Christ the Redeemer statue, is enveloped by forest. Tropical…
New research has tracked biomass industry carbon emissions, finding that U.S. wood pellet production, transatlantic shipping, and U.K. and E.U. pellet burning, plus a loss of stored forest carbon, combine in substantial unreported emissions.