Monocultures News

May is about to end. There are no trees that provide shade to reduce the heat that exceeds 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). José Jesús Pérez Castro walks along…

“Thanks to the oil palm, I have money in my pocket.” He boasts it without modesty. He says his 11 planted hectares (27 acres), with 145 plants in each, give…

In western Mexico, a forest was cleared in a couple of days. It was the early morning of a spring day in 2020. A dozen workers arrived in two trucks…

Satellite images give us a dimension of forest cover loss. From one year to the next, and sometimes in just a few weeks, a forest can be wiped off the…

KATHMANDU — As the crowing of a rooster signals the break of dawn in Taplejung in eastern Nepal, two men grab their slingshots and head out to work. They know…

The answer is, it depends. A multitude of conditions must be analyzed, and forests properly managed long-term, if they’re to curb climate change-intensified flooding, landslides, and even stand up to a tsunami.

NAVIRAÍ, Brazil — The red earth is dusty and cracked, parched from weeks without rain. Fields planted with neat rows of corn stretch for miles across this part of Mato…

Bangladesh is home to more than 130 different rice varieties, but a lack of economic incentives means farmers here grow only a handful of the higher-yielding types. This has given…

Industrial logging, rubber, oil palm, then coal. The snowballing effects of these extractive industries have divided local communities and destroyed livelihoods in parts of Indonesian Borneo, a new study finds.…

IZTARU, Costa Rica — “This simple wooden beehive is 20 years old. It was the first little bee house I ever made. I call it a relic; it’s sacred to…

Palm oil producers across several Latin American countries have been the subject of complaints about their environmental practices, an analysis of official records has found, but these complaints rarely result…

Suzano’s vast eucalyptus plantations may soon be counted toward Brazil’s reforestation and CO2 emission reduction goals. But critics say tree farms can’t equal rainforests for carbon storage or biodiversity.

As vitally important climate talks continue in Glasgow, Scotland, environmental science journalist and author Fred Pearce urges policymakers to empower local communities in creating nature-based-solutions.

It's as if a professional cleaner has been let loose in the rainforest. The whistles of birds and croaks of frogs have been vacuumed up, the messy understory cleared away.…

This report is a partnership between Mongabay Latam, Rutas del Conflicto and La Liga Contra el Silencio. In Colombia’s Meta department, a stretch of several miles of reddish, arable land…

Monitoring the ongoing deforestation of the Cerrado, the vast savanna scrubland that abuts the Amazon in Brazil, has become increasingly essential in recent decades. This biome, the most biodiverse savanna…

On Sept. 8, a court ruling shook up an old land conflict in Cotegipe, in the Brazilian Cerrado grasslands. That was when the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Bahia state…

In an episode of the Netflix dystopian sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” artificial bees have been deployed to pollinate the world’s plants after a massive pollinator extinction. A great idea, until…

The continued use of wood-derived biomass could result in a potential 30% increase in worldwide forest cover — more than a billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) — by the year…

As development in Thailand is increasing, so is deforestation. Acres of forests are cleared for contract farming, habitats are torn down to make room for new factories, and soil is…

In 1998, severe flooding caused by heavy rains and exacerbated by deforestation killed more than 4,000 people in southern China. To reduce the chances of such an event happening again,…

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – If the street Pedro Arnado was looking down was on the Philippine government’s roadmap for future palm oil development, critics say it would be one highly…

SALCEDO, Ecuador - The southeastern wedge of Ecuador’s Cotopaxi province is filled with rich agricultural land. It sprawls in small divided plots of greens and ambers across the region’s hills,…

BAGOCBOC, Philippines – Morning hasn’t broken, but the town’s resident fighting cocks are already awake, their crows rising and falling to different decibel levels, the locations moving like lightning bugs…

CORREGO GRANDE, Brazil - The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is the most threatened biome in Brazil and has been subjected to the harsh consequences of human development. But despite having lost…

CALI, Colombia – Colombia’s Pacific coast state of Valle del Cauca, home to at least 80 percent of the country’s booming sugar cane industry, continues to rebound after excessive and…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – In Ethiopia’s ever-expanding capital of Addis Ababa, the massive afromontane forest coverage on the city's outskirts could be under threat from the increasing urban population, which…

CORREGO GRANDE RESERVE, Brazil - Brazil’s southeast coastal state of Espírito Santo is rapidly heading toward desertification. In just a few decades, the region has gone from being one of…

On the surface, the Republic of Congo appears to be making strides toward both conservation and economic development. But the process of becoming an emerging economy is not without its…

Nothing about the 292,000 hectares of acacia plantations established on the Kampar Peninsula – one of Southeast Asia's largest peat domes – can be considered sustainable, says a recent report commissioned…