CHIANG MAI, Thailand — As the military regime entrenches itself in Myanmar following its Feb. 1 coup and forceful crackdown on protesters, activists are calling on companies that operate in…
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…
Big cats require big home ranges. In February 2016, a young male Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) walked from Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in western Thailand to Kayin state…
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.
This year, six environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in a virtual ceremony. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” this award is given annually to grassroots environmental…
Captured in the wild in 1973, in the country then known as Burma, Thaung Sein Win has been ridden by various mahouts over the years, dragging thousands of freshly felled…
On May 15, authorities in the northeastern province of Si Sa Ket in Thailand arrested two Cambodians and six Thai workers for illegally removing a large Siamese rosewood tree from…
Investigators have uncovered a scheme by European timber traders to evade E.U. laws by supplying Myanmar teak to the continent’s marine sector, including for decking on superyachts. The investigation by…
Campaigners in the Tanintharyi region of southern Myanmar have urged international donors to support community conservation efforts, rather than what they see as a top-down approach that excludes indigenous groups.…
The Bukit Tigapuluh landscape in Indonesia has been sliced and diced by roads, opening its forests to threats from the outside. As forest vanishes in the region, so too does…
The Naga tribes inhabit the hills in the northwestern corner of Myanmar and northeast India. They had long been isolated from outside culture, dwelling in independent village republics. This protected…
The world has lost 178 million hectares (439 million acres) of forest cover over the past 20 years, which the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) equated to as “about…
Earlier this month, Myanmar’s Information Ministry announced that the country’s Forest Department had seized nearly 850 tons of illegal timber between March 30 and April 5. Teak and other hardwoods…
PUTA-O, Myanmar — In late 2018, following a series of demonstrations and confrontations, indigenous communities primarily from the Rawang ethnic minority expelled the Myanmar Forest Department and its international partner,…
Dutch authorities carried out raids in six locations in the Netherlands seizing teak, widely used in luxury yachts, this month. The wood, originating from Myanmar, arrived in the Czech Republic…
The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time,…
Indonesia and Malaysia have long occupied the spotlight for oil palm plantations and their adverse consequences, including deforestation, habitat loss, climate change, and struggles with indigenous and local people. But…
Sanu Kaji Shrestha was wandering along a Cypriot coastline 10 years ago, enjoying some downtime from a workshop he was leading on green energy technology, when he decided to collect…
Slowly but surely, thinking and talking about gender equality has become normal in much of modern life, from the actor Benedict Cumberbatch demanding equal pay for his female co-stars, to…
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh — Where a year ago there were only the desolate remains of a forest scythed from hills to house hundreds of thousands in the world's largest refugee camp,…
TANINTHARYI, Myanmar — Most of the waterways surrounding the islands of the Mergui archipelago in the Andaman Sea are lined with mangroves, and the one leading into the island of…
IRRAWADDY DELTA, Myanmar — Just as dawn was breaking on a balmy morning this past January, U Khin Win left his home with a pair of black rubber boots and…
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…
RANONG, Thailand — Beyond a metal gate in Ranong, a port town in southern Thailand, a warehouse is filled nearly wall to wall and floor to ceiling with bags of…
A secretive timber kingpin who died last year has been unmasked as the shadowy figure at the center of a vast network that illegally sources teak, deliberately misgrades it to…
Last month, indigenous Karen communities, the Salween Peace Park Committee, and the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) officially launched the Salween Peace Park in the Mutraw District of…
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is sounding the alarm over what it calls a “shadowy agreement” made by the Myanmar government to allow the logging and export of 5,000…
In Myanmar, more than 5,000 elephants have been put to work in the logging industry over the past century, accounting for one of the world’s largest captive elephant populations. They…
Myanmar’s Timber Merchants Association is crying foul over what they say are the devastating impacts from a one-year logging ban and new, restrictive government policies. Soe Win, secretary of the…
