Mapping News

Global Forest Watch enables you to monitor tree cover and forest change for your region of interest in a free online platform.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released a new map intended to call attention to the potential benefits of conservationists and governments working together with Indigenous…

The prospects for greater international collaboration in the effort to prevent another Southeast Asian haze crisis hit a bump in the road this week, with Jakarta taking umbrage at Singapore’s threat…

Inspiration: 10 novel ways to use drones for conservation

n the war on opaque management of Southeast Asia’s natural resources, reformers gained ground on Tuesday, when Indonesia’s land minister affirmed the right of oil palm companies to publish their…

Through your big black helmet, you witness the massive bodies of redwoods rise before you from the emerald undergrowth like an ancient congregation. A cool breeze breathes by, rustling the…

Smog from forest fires and hotspots continued to threaten air quality in parts of Indonesia's Sumatra on Friday as local authorities waited for the mid-April rainy season to arrive. The…

Deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, with peaks that soar over 18,000 feet over the Colombian coast, the Kogi people live on roughly six million isolated from…

On March 10, Indonesian activists won a major battle in the war for transparency over natural resources when their Supreme Court ordered the coal-happy Kutai Kartanegara district government to hand…

Cross River gorillas benefit from reduced threat and strengthened law enforcement thanks in part to mobile data collection, management and analysis with CyberTracker monitoring.

n the summer of 2013, as Indonesian fires enveloped the region in a toxic haze, public ire settled on plantation firms as prime culprits in the disaster. Burning land to…

Want to make a million dollars? Find the most efficient way to map Indonesia’s peatlands. That’s the ticket to winning the Indonesian Peat Prize, announced by the cartographically challenged Southeast…

As human development encroaches into the world's forests, conservation organizations and governments are looking for effective ways to track deforestation. A couple years ago an online platform called Global Forest Watch…

The Indonesian government’s sustainable palm oil certification program announced the findings of a joint study with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil on Wednesday that details how the two systems…

Global Forest Watch Climate tracks carbon loss as the world attempts to halve deforestation-related emissions and fend off climate catastrophe.

By mapping such community lands, LandMark aims to “make clear that these lands are not vacant, idle or available to outsiders,” according to a statement by the World Resources Institute…

One night in June 2013, the rev of a car engine caught the ear of Markus Ilun, an indigenous leader in the remote Indonesian village of Punan Adiu. He was…

Researchers have fitted tiny geolocator tag backpacks on prothonotary warblers to learn their migration routes and create effective warbler conservation plans.

With political pressure mounting on plantation companies, including threats of fines and legal action by the Indonesian and Singaporean governments and boycotts in consumer countries, palm oil and timber giants…

Aerial view of flowering canopy trees in the Amazon. New research has found significant chemical differences between tree species that occupy just slightly different habitats. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.…

Global Forest Watch, a young online forest monitoring and alert system, provides free, near real-time data on deforestation and tree-cover loss around the world. It allows users to create customized…

  Rainforest in Kinabatangan, Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.   Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts have developed vegetation height maps for the entire tropics at…

A logging road transects Peruvian rainforest (this is not an image of one of the newly detected roads). Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Roads spread out like multi-fingered tendrils, eating…

A remnant tree looms over the landscape in southwestern Tocantins state. Photo credit: Brendan Borrell Farmers in north-central Brazil, where the savanna meets the Amazon rainforest, are clearing land at…

WRI flood map for Indonesia 20.7 million people are affected by river flooding each year, and the number is expected to more than double by 2030 as population growth, urban…

Local and indigenous communities play an important role managing and protecting forests. Research published in 2014 by World Resources Institute and the Rights and Resources Initiative concluded that community-managed forests…

This is the second in a two-part series about advances in mapping technology and how they're being used to keep a closer eye on the world's forests. Read the first…

This is the first in a two-part series about advances in mapping technology and how they're being used to keep a closer eye on the world's forests. Read the second…

Researchers map out poorly understood dry tropical forests in Southeast Asia; technique may help protect wildlife living within Trees of the family Dipterocarpaceae dominate the forests of Southeast Asia. These…

Screenshot of the mapping function of the Sustainable Palm Oil Transparency Toolkit, powered by ESRI. Click image to enlarge. A new initiative ranks the world's 25 largest publicly listed palm…