This story is part of a Mongabay series on female environmental defenders in the Amazon. Read about the lives and work of Soraida Chindoy, Maydany Salcedo, and Alis Ramírez. It…
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Every weekend between January 2022 and December 2023, members of the nongovernmental organization Ferme Don de Dieu (FDD) planted trees on farmland in Yolo…
INTAG VALLEY, Ecuador — In Ecuador's lush tropical Andes, Silvia Vetancourt multitasks, her hands maneuvering crochet needles with swift precision as she navigates the rocky path to the old town…
We are now in a make-or break-moment for the landmark law to halt imported global deforestation into the European Union. Global forest defenders watch with bated breath as in the…
IKEA is under scrutiny over its wood sourcing practices after two reports linked the furniture giant to destructive logging in some of Europe's last ancient forests. The recent investigations, conducted…
The appointment of a logging executive with ties to former president and war criminal Charles Taylor has drawn fierce criticism by local environmental groups.
A recent report has revealed a spike in deforestation in the buffer zone of one of the world’s best-protected areas, Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. Between 2001 and 2023, 19,978 hectares…
After the first flower bloomed on the Earth, flowering plants evolved a staggering diversity and now make up about 90% of all plant life. Charles Darwin called this rapid domination…
CANCÚN, Mexico — The Mexican government finally opened its huge, controversial train project last December, connecting Cancún and Tulum with the rest of the Yucatán Peninsula. And yet, despite all…
DHAKA — Police in Bangladesh have arrested one person and are looking for nine others suspected of killing a forest officer after he caught them illegally excavating soil in a…
JAKARTA — Civil society advocates representing more than 2,000 customary communities in Indonesia have initiated last-ditch legal challenges over parliament’s failure to pass an Indigenous rights bill during the 10-year…
Monarch butterflies are returning to gardens across the United States, but a few months ago, I stood in a mountain forest in Mexico where the monarchs spend the winter. They…
The Philippines’ southern region of Mindanao has a history of war and armed conflict going back more than 400 years. The contemporary conflict’s origin in this region of 26.3 million…
Forest clearing detected by Brazil's deforestation alert system fell to the lowest level in nearly five years, according to data released last week by the country's space agency, INPE. INPE's…
In eastern Sierra Leone, straddling the border of Liberia, lies Gola Rainforest National Park, one of the last remaining intact tracts of the tropical Upper Guinean forests in West Africa.…
BLANTYRE — Police and wildlife department officials in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park in the country’s west. In July 2022,…
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
Few researchers have ever seen this elusive wildcat and it is known primarily from a few camera trap photos. Which raises the question: How do you conserve an endangered species about which we know almost nothing?
With more than 70% of the country blanketed by tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a megadiverse country home to more than 5% of the world’s biodiversity, including charismatic…
The food we eat causes one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, as forests are cleared at an ever-growing rate to make way for new cattle pastures, soy fields, cocoa…
Anthropologist Maud Mouginot recalls an encounter with bonobos early one morning in 2019 deep in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo that helped revise her impression of them…
PORTEIRINHA, Minas Gerais — Beneath the shade of the umbu tree, Maria Neves tells Maria José that ripe umbu fruit is like a woman on the brink of giving birth:…
Environmental crime slows climate action, deters investment in nature-based solutions, and undermines the green transition. Around the world, land grabbing, illegal deforestation, illicit mining, poaching and a rash of other crimes are…
New research has linked prenatal exposure to deforestation in Cambodia to child stunting and anemia among women. This link between human well-being and forest loss illustrates how the latter can…
Developers have rolled out the first ever interactive online tool to track all funding for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples’ forest stewardship and land tenure. The Path to…
Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four…
LÂM ĐỒNG, Vietnam — In 1991, Trần Văn Ry migrated from his home in northern Vietnam to Lâm Đồng in the country’s Central Highlands. Along with hundreds of other migrants,…
The cattle ranching industry in Brazil is one of the largest in the world, but it could see huge financial losses if it doesn’t adapt to climate change and increasingly…
Floodplains are extraordinarily productive because they are the interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are remarkably diverse because they integrate a mosaic of lakes, marshes, palm swamps and inundated…