The Blakiston fish owl (Bubo Blakistoni) is the world’s largest – and one of the rarest – owl species, with an impressive 6 foot (2 meter) wingspan. The giant owl,…
Large trees store store up to half the above-ground biomass in tropical forests, reiterating their importance in buffering against climate change, finds a study published in Global Ecology and Biogeography.…
Conversion of primary rainforests for industrial agriculture in Costa Rica slows despite population increase and growing exports. Costa Rica's ban on clearing of "mature" forests appears to be effective in…
Almost 200,000 hectares of Tasmania's old growth forest have been world heritage listed, bringing hope that a three-decade fight between environmentalists, politicians and loggers is over. The World Heritage Committee…
In order to meet the European Union's goal of 20% renewables by 2020, some European utility companies are moving away from coal and replacing it with wood pellet fuel. The…
For many animal families, diversity and abundance rises as one moves away from human-impacted landscapes, like agricultural areas, into untouched places, such as primary rainforests. However, a new study in…
Activists dress as avatars to protest the destruction of Prey Lang forest. Photo courtesy of Prey Lang: It's Our Forest Too. Four economic land concessions have been cancelled in Cambodia's…
This has become Watt's most popular and widely viewed photo to date. It was taken on a foggy February day in a haunting clearcut near the Avatar Grove. It has…
Logging in Gabon, Central Africa. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Industrial logging in primary tropical forests that is both sustainable and profitable is impossible, argues a new study in Bioscience,…
This is an expanded version of an article, titled A Desperate Effort to Save the Rainforest of Borneo, that appeared last month on Yale e360. Rainforest in Sabah. All photo…
Destroyed old-growth forest with piles of timber on land leased by IKEA/Swedwood in Russian Karelia. Photo © Robert Svensson, Protect the Forest 2011. A new campaign is targeting IKEA, the…
Tongass temperate rainforest. Photo of Southeast Alaska, courtesy of BigStock. Alaskan fishermen and tour operators visited Washington D.C. last week to urge the federal government to shift the focus from…
Old-growth tree in Tongass temperate rainforest. Such trees may be as old as 800 years. Photo by: John Schoen. Up to 17 percent of the tallest old-growth trees in the…
Over 13 percent of old growth forests in Pacific Northwest lost to logging in just over a decade, the vast majority on non-federal lands. NASA map shows forest cover in…
Three environmental groups have submitted a letter to British Columbia Premier, Christy Clark, to ask the government to speed up the process of implementing the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, which…
Already on the decline, demise of giant trees may be hastened by global warming. Already on the decline worldwide, big trees face a dire future due to habitat fragmentation, selective…
Tropical countries may face a risk of 'peak timber' as continued logging of rainforests exceeds the capacity of forests to regenerate timber stocks and substantially increases the risk of outright…
A possible new species of frog: Hypsiboas sp. (nickname "cowboy frog") has white fringes along the legs and a spur on the heel. The frog was discovered low on a…
One of the world's top 25 most endangered primates: the roloway monkey (Cercopithecus diana roloway) photographed in the Munich Zoo. Saved from being converted into a vast palm oil plantation…
Bare hills: aerial view of deforestation and soil erosion in Madagascar. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In terms of biodiversity, the hugely imperiled forests of Madagascar may be among the…
Newly-discovered video has brought the extinct imperial woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) back to life—at least for a few seconds. Once the world's largest woodpecker (even bigger than the ivory-billed woodpecker, which…
Brown-headed parrot (Poicephalus cryptoxanthus) fledgling in tree cavity in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Aged, living trees are essential for over 1,000 birds and mammals that depend on such trees…
A new survey recorded 125 birds in Papua New Guinea's Waria Valley, of which an astounding 43 percent were endemic to the island. The survey, published in mongabay.com's open-access journal…
Primary rainforests are top conservation priority Old growth rainforests should be a top conservation priority when it comes to protecting wildlife, reports a new comprehensive assessment published in the journal…
Cambodian villagers dressed as 'avatars' to protest the destruction of their forest. Photo courtesy of: Prey Lang Network. Two hundred Cambodians rallied in Phnom Penh last week to protest the…
Two separate protests against logging companies by local communities have turned violent in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), leaving at least one dead. According to Greenpeace, one of the…
Industrial interests are threatening to undermine Norway's billion dollar partnership with Indonesia, potentially turning the forest conservation deal into a scheme that subsidizes conversion of rainforests and peatlands for oil…
As more nations adopt better laws and policies to save and restore forests at home, they may, in fact, be outsourcing deforestation to other parts of the world, according to…
A group of scientists have called upon the governments of Indonesia and Norway to recognize the conservation value of logged-over and "degraded" forests under their partnership on reducing emissions from…
The Rhino and Forest Fund (RFF) has partnered with the Forestry Department of Sabah in northern Borneo to launch a long-term reforestation project to aid Malaysia's threatened species with particular…