Scientists and companies are looking to a small section of the textile market to address the clothing industry’s threats to climate and ecosystems. Cellulose fabrics are fibers extracted from plants,…
INDRAGIRI HILIR, Indonesia — Customary leaders Patih Majuan, Datuk Manti and Datuk Mangku approach their scared forest with hands clasped in prayer. Other residents of the village of Talang Durian…
“I had never seen these colored types of corn until I was 22 years old,” says Jerá Poty Mirim. “I’d only seen Tupi corn, the yellow kind you find in…
On an island in the estuary known as Lagoa dos Patos, in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state, an old lady kept a treasure in her fridge. For years, it…
Alto Jequitinhonha in northeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state is where three of the country’s biomes meet: the Cerrado savanna, the Atlantic rainforest, and the Caatinga scrubland. It’s also home to…
Two decades ago, the inhabitants of four communities in the northern Mexican state of Durango put together a proposal: to make sustainable forest management a means of living. Over the…
KINANDU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A small group of residents from Kinandu village, 19 kilometers (11 miles) west of Lubumbashi, head into the miombo wooded savanna, decimated by…
Cecilia Rivas remembers Tukupu as a place to live freely. The dwellings of the Indigenous Kariña community, spread out under the shade of the trees in the Imataca Forest Reserve,…
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is rich and not afraid to show it. In July, the world's second-richest person blasted out to space in his own spaceship. Come 2022, he looks…
In 1986 a 24-year-old from Ohio named Daniel Katz set out to save tropical rainforests by creating a way for consumers to directly support more eco-conscious approaches to producing products…
A study analyzed 56 extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon to assess how climate change will affect 18 of the main plant species collected from the rainforest.
Home to a third of the planet’s tropical forests, Brazil accounts for only 0.17% of the world’s main forest-friendly exports, new research has found. Significantly smaller nations — both in…
The smart money is on the Amazon forest. Agroforestry can replace cattle, generate new wealth, create jobs and develop new economic zones that insulate pristine forest from deforestation risk. Investors…
HUE, Vietnam — In October and November of 2020, a relentless barrage of nine typhoons and tropical storms slammed into Vietnam, setting off record floods and countless landslides. Nearly 200…
The acoustic guitar industry has made a few eco-friendly leaps in recent years, mainly in terms of manufacturing materials. For example, companies like Martin Guitar and Gibson are now using…
With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand…
Since Lucely Pio was a little girl, she has been collecting medicinal plants in the Cerrado, Brazil’s tropical savanna. At 5, she walked through the grasslands and forests of the…
In 2019, XPRIZE Rainforest opened its doors and challenged the world to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies by offering a $10 million prize for the best one. The consequent mobilization will extend…
“We consider the witches’ broom not a plague, but rather a ‘holy’ broom,” says Rubens de Jesus. “Thanks to it, we are on the land today.” That’s not a sentiment…
In the midst of political chaos fomented by a Feb. 1 military coup of the government in Myanmar, the country's forestry sector is seeking legitimization from the international community. A…
AKLAN, Philippines — In December 1989, Elizabeth Ramos, now 63, heard from a neighbor that a mangrove reforestation project was underway near her home in the province of Aklan in…
As Colombia searches for a way forward after a half-century of war, the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) could have a significant role to play. Called the food of the gods,…
MINDANAO, Philippines — For centuries, a giant Philippine rosewood tree has stood as an iconic landmark along a stretch of the Pan-Philippine Highway that runs outside the rustic southern town…
Between the departments of Boyacá and Santander in Colombia is one of the last remnants of tropical rainforest of the Middle Magdalena Valley. The Serranía de Las Quinchas is so…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — On July 23, after several months of anticipation within Vietnam’s conservation community, the government released a new directive on managing the wildlife trade in…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Conservation organizations in Vietnam sent a letter to the Prime Minister last week asking for an update on planned measures to curtail the trade…
The images are stark. Smogless skies over Los Angeles. A drop in air pollution over northern Italy that’s so sharp it can be seen from space. Emissions from vehicles in…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — As the coronavirus pandemic continues its deadly onslaught around the world, the Vietnamese government has moved to ban the wildlife trade. Amid scientific theories…
Forestry companies that manage huge areas of rainforest in the tropics have failed to commit themselves to policies of “zero deforestation,” according to an analysis of their environmental policies by…
IRRAWADDY DELTA, Myanmar — For many in Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis was a wake-up call. When it made landfall in May 2008, it devastated the Irrawaddy Delta, a rural and low-lying…
