The term “field station” has an air of mystery, conjuring images of some tropical or icy outpost where scientists go to “do science.” And while it’s true that scientific research…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Emergency workers and community firefighters battled isolated fires in Sumatra’s Riau province in late February as the onset of the region’s first dry season of 2024 sparked…
The agro-industrial farms of Mato Grosso are among the most efficient on the planet; they benefit from abundant rainfall and a long rainy season, which allows them to plant and…
When researchers arrived in Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province to document one of the most threatened animals on the planet, the brown-headed spider monkey, their initial plan was to simply carry out…
The creation of protected areas and Indigenous reserves offers the best hope for conserving the biodiversity of the Amazon; however, the management of the human modified landscapes will determine whether…
Conflicts between communities and government plans to protect vast swaths of land in line with international conservation policies, such as the “30 by 30” goal of preserving 30% of the…
Conservationists have expressed alarm over the surprise discovery that a Singapore-based company has started construction of a wind farm inside the Philippines' Masungi Georeserve. The Masungi Karst Conservation Area (MKCA),…
45.6 million hectares of old-growth and mature forest on U.S. federal lands store huge amounts of carbon, but less than a quarter is safe from logging; Two hundred scientists have asked President Biden to fully protect them now.
Undesignated public land One of the objectives of the ZEE process was to assist the nations of the Pan Amazon to allocate their public lands among different constituencies and stakeholder…
The cattle ranching industry in Brazil is deforesting one of the country’s largest ecosystems without proper authorization, often with the financial backing of major international banks. Some of the country’s…
After winning a historic lawsuit late last year, a traditional Afro-Brazilian community has finally obtained legal recognition of its land located in São Paulo’s Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park, a…
Ecuador The territorial planning framework in Ecuador is known as the Plan de Desarrollo y Ordenamiento Territorial (PDOT). It is one component in an ambitious effort to articulate a Plan…
A new species of giant anaconda has been found in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador, scientists announced. The snake, named the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayima), is genetically distinct from…
Rewilding advocate Eoghan Daltun was unsatisfied with life in Dublin, so he sold his property and bought a farm on the Beara Peninsula of southwestern Ireland. His plan was simple:…
“We did it!” Doka Nason shouted as he stared at the screen of a camera trap in Papua New Guinea. He and his team had just captured a long-sought image:…
For 12 years, primatologist Nadine Ruppert and her colleagues have had one recurring task on their calendar: tagging along with a group of southern pig-tailed macaques in Segari, Peninsular Malaysia,…
Russia's dictator Vladimir Putin has seemingly just had jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny assassinated. Navalny incarnated the best chance for democracy and human rights in Russia. He was a beacon…
The morning song of gibbons, with its accelerating, bubbling crescendo, is arguably one of the most enthralling sounds of the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. For many, it’s a sound…
YELWA, Nigeria — Nightfall at the Ngel Nyaki Forest Reserve field station is clad in the whispers, chirps and trills of insect song. Flames from the burning wood in the…
Teeming with tropical rainforest, the Amazon Basin is a vital defense against global warming. Yet deforestation combined with extreme weather are behind the region's worst drought in fifty years. Forest clearance to make…
Land-use maps and their explicit recommendations are most relevant on pioneer landscapes that are in the flux of change. Recommendations can provide sound information and support an expanding agricultural production…
Regulating land tenure is not the only power available to the state for influencing how people use land. Land-use planning and land-use zoning are two closely related mechanisms that Pan…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — As the Indonesian government embarks on a massive push to reforest the area around the country’s new capital city in Borneo, it is turning to the…
Following a litany of conferences and calls that stress the urgency to address climate change, there’s growing interest and investments in nature to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Protecting and…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Vegetation lurches over a concrete wall that runs alongside a quiet road in the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. Behind the wall, and the rusty…
A new road connecting eight Indigenous Waorani communities to urban centers in Ecuador’s Pastaza province aims to improve access to the interior of the Amazon and reduce transportation costs. But…
The reconstruction of Brazil’s BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway (Figure 1) and its associated hidden projects are not yet a fait accompli, but the danger has reached a critical moment. In…
When Chilean President Gabriel Boric instructed the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) to complete the final section of a highway connecting the southern cities of La Unión and Corral in…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities, academics and companies are working together to build a miniature tropical rainforest they hope will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation program in Indonesia’s new…
In January 2020, Luis Carlos Galeano was traveling with his family through the Claro River Basin in Colombia’s mountainous Antioquia department when his wife, Viviana Aguirre, pointed out a tree…