The market for carbon credits generated from projects that reduce deforestation and forest degradation — a climate change mitigation approach known as REDD+ — dipped eight percent in 2012 according…
In 2008, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) surprised the conservation world when it selected Mark Tercek, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, as its new president and CEO. For people familiar…
A participatory forest management (PFM) program in Ethiopia has made good on forest preservation and expansion, according a recent article and video interview (below) from the Guardian. After 15 years,…
Rising agricultural profitability due to higher prices, improved crop productivity, and forest conservation itself could make it increasingly difficult for conservation programs tied to payments for ecosystem services to succeed,…
Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do…
There are two ways to look at Charting New Waters: State of Watershed Payments 2012 - the latest report released by Forest Trends on incentive-based water protection. One is that…
Giant kapok ('Big Tree') in Panama's rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples in Panama (COONAPIP) has announced it is withdrawing from the United Nation's…
Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. Getting local people to become invested in wildlife conservation is not always easy, especially in parts of the world where protected areas are seen as…
Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do…
Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do…
Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do…
Giant Panda. China's decision to open up collective forest for sale by individuals to outside interests will put 345,700 hectares or 15 percent of the giant panda’s remaining habitat at…
How a sample payment for ecosystem services project works. Click to enlarge. Unlike cars, hamburgers, and computers, clean drinking water is a requirement for human survival. In a bid to…
The problems of Good Derivatives begin with the title: the book does not discuss derivatives at length, nor is there a coherent thesis proposing that they are "good." Equally misleading…
One of the major concerns about the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degrdatation (REDD+) program is that it could prioritize conservation of high carbon ecosystems like peatlands over high biodiversity…
Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) with fly near its eye in an ox-bow lake in Yasuni National Park. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. The Yasuni-ITT Initiative has been called many things: controversial,…
Rainforest in the Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor REDD+ Project area. The Choco-Darien is the first community-owned REDD project in the world to have completed both VCS validation and verification. The project…
Giant ceiba tree in Panamanian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A dispute over the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) in Panama has pitted the United…
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,…
Amazon rainforest. Five large corporations have launched an effort to boost demand for carbon credits from "high quality" Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects in tropical countries. Insurance…
Sumatran elephant in South Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler The voluntary carbon offset market reached a three-year high in 2011, according to the State of the Voluntary Carbon…
Sawmill in Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year researchers took the first ever publicly-released video of an African golden cat (Profelis aurata) in a Gabon rainforest. This beautiful,…
Shifts in the carbon market, according to Forest Trends. Click image to enlarge Despite slow progress via the U.N. process and other intergovernmental bodies, national governments, municipalities, and the private…
The rural poor would substantially boost their income if the ecological services of the ecosystems they steward were valued and compensated by the rest of the world, claims a new…
Indonesia could have earned $5 billion in revenue and avoided 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions between 2000 and 2005 had a reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+)…
A possibly ground-breaking idea has been kept on life support after Ecuador revealed its Yasuni-ITT Initiative had raked in $116 million before the end of the year, breaking the $100…
Collared puffbird (Bucco capensis) in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. As the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on…
Amazon rainforest in Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. How to finance a means to reduce deforestation, which contributes emissions equivalent to the entire transport sector combined, has had some…
An aerial view of an Amazon tributary in Peru, one of the top countries for projects in the young forest carbon market. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Investors funneled $178…