When it comes to climate solutions, your first thought may not be the wildebeest. But in the Serengeti, these buffalo-looking antelopes are the key to carbon capture. Wildebeest eat large…
A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…
Viewed from above, tropical rainforests look like a blanket of trees, branches extending skyward and leaves fanning out in all directions. But in addition to the trees, up to 40%…
Just weeks after visiting a patch of Malaysian rainforest, Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler learned it had been logged for wood chips to supply a paper plant. A teenager at…
As it sets, the sun lights up the waters of Lake Catemaco before disappearing behind the shoulder of a rainforest-covered volcano in Mexico’s Los Tuxtlas region. The waterfront is filled…
Reforestation initiatives are more popular than ever, with thousands of projects across the globe led by private companies, nonprofits, institutions, governments and communities. So how can an investor or donor…
Red-footed tortoises are so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that they’re considered to be locally extinct. But now, the species is plodding its way toward a…
For conservationists working to save the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a key challenge has been maintaining recovered areas that lie inside private properties. Yet for recovery efforts to be successful,…
Birds, bats, elephants, apes, rodents and many other animal species spread plant seeds throughout the world. But as those animal populations diminish, so do the plants that rely on wildlife to shift their range, especially as climate change worsens.
In the past decade, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made a comeback in Central and Eastern Europe. Hunters had killed the last known bison in the region nearly a…
SHOUF BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Lebanon — Late afternoon light falls across Talal Riman’s weathered face as he stands under the ancient cedars he’s tended for almost three decades in Lebanon’s Shouf…
Panama is embracing a host of forest restoration and reforestation solutions aimed at meeting its Paris climate agreement carbon reduction goals, including agroforestry and incentivizing the planting of teak plantations.
The “Black Summer” bushfires burned an area the size of the U.K. in Australia in 2019-20, forcing foresters to reconsider the meaning of forest resilience and how best to restore forests as climate change and drought intensify.
For several weeks in 2015, the sound of chainsaws cutting down trees was incessant in the Angangueo municipality in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When a group of people tried…
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.
One of the major announcements from the United Nations climate summit in Scotland last month, known as COP26, was the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use, along with the…
When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation. But a new study warns that other natural…
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…
NAKURU COUNTY, Kenya — For Joseph Lesingo, a member of the Indigenous Ogiek community, observing the regeneration of previously degraded sections of the Mau Forest has been one of the…
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…
As vitally important climate talks continue in Glasgow, Scotland, environmental science journalist and author Fred Pearce urges policymakers to empower local communities in creating nature-based-solutions.
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?
In May, the U.K. Forestry Commission announced a grant program designed to encourage the creation of new English woodlands as a means of mitigating climate change, boosting biodiversity, and reducing…
We are in a moment of heightened attention and momentum around reforestation and forest restoration. In particular, tree planting is in vogue, bolstered by pop celebrity billionaires and large initiatives…
We see disposable masks everywhere these days. Littered on the street and sidewalks, hanging out of garbage cans, floating through the neighborhood on a windy day. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous face…
Plant more trees! This message has been one of the cornerstones of the European response to worsening climate change. A new study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that if Europe…
With all of the environmental problems in the world, it can be easy to forget that there are also many solutions. Across the globe, people are working to restore nature,…
SCOTLAND - “To restore the landscape we need cathedral thinking,” says Thomas Macdonell gazing up at a stand of ancient pines within Glen Feshie, Scotland, where he has worked as…
Indonesia has more mangrove forests than anywhere else on Earth. The country's 17,500 islands house around 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) of mangrove, or one-fifth of the world's remaining…