The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a body that sets environmental standards for palm oil production, has passed a resolution to reconfirm that secondary and degraded forests can classified…
The rise of industrial deforestation and its implications for conservation. The image of rainforests being torn down by giant bulldozers, felled by chainsaw-wielding loggers, and torched by large-scale developers has…
More coverage: Rainforest loss slows A new global assessment of forest stocks by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows continuing loss of primary forests since 2005 despite gains…
As conservationists attempt to find the best way to re-establish forests in abandoned areas, a new study in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science compares the impacts on bess beetles…
One third of Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation originate from areas not officially defined as "forest" suggesting that efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) may fail…
An environmental audit of palm oil company, PT SMART, found that the company had not cut primary rainforest, yet had destroyed carbon-rich peatlands; however the audit analyzed only 40 percent…
Tropical forest degradation progresses in a series of "waves", with forests initially exploited for high value products like hardwoods and then eventually used for successively lower value goods like firewood…
A new study in Ecological Management & Restoration has found that reforesting rainforest captures more carbon than monoculture plantation and even mixed species plantations. The research tested three projects in…
Global production of illegal timber down by 22 percent from 2002. A new report by the Chatham House finds that illegal logging in tropical forest nation is primarily on the…
The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has released a resolution urging the UN to change its definition for 'forest', before the controversial definition undermines conservation efforts, biodiversity preservation,…
Radical, controversial, ahead-of-his-time, brilliant, or extremist: call Dr. Glen Barry, the head of Ecological Internet, what you will, but there is no question that his environmental advocacy group has achieved…
Activists from the Rainforest Action Network voice support for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme but say stronger policy measures are needed to control deforestation. In the 1980s and…
Protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon are proving highly effective in reducing forest loss in Earth's largest rainforest, reports a new study based on analysis of deforestation trends in and…
An interview with Martin von Hildebrand, founder at head of Gaia Amazonas. Indigenous groups in the Colombian Amazon have long suffered deprivations at the hands of outsiders. First came the…
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a global certifier of sustainably managed forest, has dropped another Indonesian company for the destruction of rainforests. Asia Paper Resources International Limited (APRIL), has had…
Global forest loss has diminished since the 1990s but still remains "alarmingly high", according to a preliminary version of a new assessment from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).…
Oil palm plantations support substantially less biodiversity than natural forests when it comes to ant species, reports new research published in Basic and Applied Ecology. Tom Fayle, a Cambridge University…
While one tropical forest policy group saw hopeful signs emerging in the most recent revision of the negotiating text on the reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism at…
Destruction of old-growth or primary forests looms large in discussions in Copenhagen over a scheme to compensate tropical countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Some environmental groups…
Rising demand for timber and agricultural products could work against a proposed initiative to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), warns a new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency…
Policy-makers designing a climate change mitigation mechanism that will reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) aren't doing enough to ensure that the scheme protects biodiversity outside carbon-dense ecosystems, argues…
Important safeguards to protect natural forests are still lacking in negotiating text on REDD, a proposed mechanism for mitigating climate change by paying developing countries to keep trees standing, reports…
The elimination of a key provision from the negotiating text for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries (REDD) mechanism could turn the proposed climate change mitigation…
With the world facing global warming and a biodiversity crisis, a new study in Conservation Biology shows that within 15 years logged forests—considered by many to be 'degraded'—can be managed…
Chainsaws, bulldozers, and fires are tools of rainforest destruction, but roads are enablers. Roads link markets to resources, enabling loggers, farmers, ranchers, miners, and land speculators to convert remote forests…
The weak definition of what constitutes forest under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) puts the effectiveness of a proposed mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and…
Old growth forests in the Amazon store nearly 10 billion tons of carbon in dead trees and branches, a total greater than global annual emissions from fossil fuel combustion, according…
Emissions from Amazon deforestation are growing as developers move deeper into old-growth forest areas where carbon density is higher, report scientists writing in Geophysical Research Letters. Analyzing deforestation data from…
Until now saving rainforests seemed like an impossible mission. But the world is now warming to the idea that a proposed solution to help address climate change could offer a…
Temperate forests trump rainforests when it comes to storing carbon, reports a new assessment of global forest carbon stocks published July 14th in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…