Forests and Liberia News

Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…

MONROVIA, Liberia - Reaching the remote Garwin chiefdom in central Liberia isn’t an easy feat. Only about an hour and a half of the journey takes place on a paved…

In July, news leaked out that Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority (FDA) was considering a new regulation to allow timber logged from palm oil and other plantations to be sold abroad.…

iberians are anxiously awaiting the passage of the stalled Land Rights Act, which many land experts in Liberia say will help drastically curtail conflicts. Liberia has long been plagued by disputes…

Michelin Group, one of the world's three largest tire companies, has just adopted a zero deforestation policy for its rubber sourcing. The move is significant because rubber is a major…

An international delegation of leaders from indigenous and forest communities in Colombia, Indonesia, Liberia, and Peru are in London to call for action on human rights violations and land grabbing…

International financing for forest conservation in three key African forest countries — the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, and Liberia — has increased steadily since 2009, but each country…

In countries with weak governance, mismanagement of natural resources -- such as oil, forests, minerals and water -- can often fuel violent conflict. In fact, according to the United Nations…

The Norwegian government has extended its multi-billion dollar forest protection initiative. At the Paris climate convention on Friday, Norwegian Minister of Environment and Climate Tine Sundtoft said the country would…

Critics say funding for palm oil monitoring is "woefully inadequate."

ommunity members in Liberia were threatened with violence and urged to sign unfavorable land deals with palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) at the height of last year’s Ebola…

A Madagascar nightjar (Caprimulgus madagascariensis), which shares a genus with the endangered Itombwe nightjar (Caprimulgus prigoginei). Photo by Francesco Veronesi Many of the world's endangered animals live in only one…

Deforestation makes room for a new oil palm plantation in Riau, Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The rights of local and indigenous peoples aren’t being adequately protected in the…

Click charts to enlarge Loss of tropical forests accelerated roughly 60 percent during the 2000s, argues a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings contradict previous research…

Society for Conservation Biology warns that Africa could follow Southeast Asia in losing substantial amounts of its forest Africa’s people, forests and wildlife are in trouble if the mostly unbridled…

Map of REDDX countries. Only a small fraction of the $7.3 billion pledged under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program has actually been disbursed, find a new…

Report stresses the need to include communities in land management decisions to reduce conflict Throughout the tropics, staggering amounts of land have been designated for natural resource extraction—as much as…

West African country lost 4.4 percent of forests in 12 years, new incentives may help stymie future destruction Liberia is one of the last strongholds of intact forest in West…

Technique may offer effective, easy way to monitor hard-to-find animals Human pressures through tree clearing and poaching are reducing both forest and fauna in West Africa. In response to dwindling…

Crisis-racked nation gets help, hope from European benefactor In one of the many major announcements that have come out of the UN Climate Summit in New York this week, Norway…

New research shows African apes likely to be affected by palm oil, but there’s hope, says the author As palm oil producers increasingly look to Africa’s tropical forests as suitable…

Peatland forest clearance for palm oil. Excavators clear intact peatland forests and build drainage canals in an oil palm concession owned by PT Andalan Sukses Makmur, a subsidiary of Bumitama…

Over the past 25 years, West Africa's primates have been put at risk due to an escalating bushmeat trade compounded with forest loss from expanding human populations. In fact, many…

The year in rainforest news 2013 was full of major developments in efforts to understand and protect the world's tropical rainforests. The following is a review of some of the…

A fence keeps locals from their traditional lands in Liberia, where Sime Darby has planted a contested palm oil plantation. Photo courtesy of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Investing…

This article is available for a limited time on mongabay.com. It has also been published in a book by mongabay journalist, Jeremy Hance: Life is Good: Conservation in an Age…

Conservationists have captured the first ever footage (see video below) of the elusive pygmy hippo (Choeropsis liberiensis) in Liberia. The forest-dwelling, nocturnal species—weighing only a quarter of the size of…

The tiny West African nation of Liberia (about the size of the US state of Virginia) is the most recent country to work with the European Union (EU) on ending…

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf established a commission investigate a proposed forest carbon credit deal between the West African nation's Forest Development Authority (FDA) and UK-based Carbon Harvesting Corporation, reports…

A new project aims to increase transparency in the forestry sector, an area long plagued by corruption and mismanagement. The Forest Sector Transparency Report Card, launched by Global Witness, an…