Primary Forests News

SAHN, Sierra Leone — The day they came, Margaret Fascia was in her forest garden of cocoa trees, pineapple plants, palms, ferns and cassavas. Like most days of the week,…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  This post details the analysis we carried out to estimate the revenues generated by the Korindo Group from harvesting timber as it…

MBONJO, Cameroon — The first time Emmanuel Elong wrote a letter to Vincent Bolloré was in 2013. “The impact of the group that you are controlling on our lives is…

Between 1885 and 1908, Belgium’s King Leopold II exerted control over a vast area of Africa that would later become the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His rule was characterized…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Part 1: ‘Maybe they didn’t expect us to find it’ In April 2019, an Indonesian delegate stepped onto the stage at a…

In a corner of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, a handful of clandestine roads neatly slice the dense jungle canopy into rectangles. From the sky, an entourage of bulldozers can be…

In September 2019, the noon sky over a part of Jambi province in Indonesian Sumatra turned crimson. Fires had been raging through Indonesia for the past few months, and certain…

Last year the world lost some 119,000 square kilometers (45,946 square miles) of tree cover – an area the size of Nicaragua – according to satellite data collated by the…

Between the cacao fields of northwest Madagascar and the vanilla of the northeast, a chain of rainforests bob along the highland interior. Tsaratanana Reserve, home to the country’s highest peak,…

On a wet August afternoon in 2015, Jorjo Tana Tara, 48, a member of the indigenous Nyishi community and an anti-logging activist, discovered illegal loggers and poachers at a large…

In mid-October, 1991, a wildfire swept across the hillsides of northern Oakland, California, killing 25 people and injuring 150 more. By the time it was under control, around 1,500 acres…

A thick, acrid scent of smoke marks the last summer season in Australia, which has become known as the “black summer.” Between June 2019 and March 2020, a series of…

In late February, conservationist Kheng Khou tried to enter Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which he routinely patrols with other members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and…

IJARE, Nigeria — The silver blade slides through the log laid over a metal bed beneath the sawmill machine. When the careful routine ends, one of the two operators pulls…

Dr. Kinari Webb believes this because she has witnessed it — up close: Amid this global pandemic, the health of the planet is intricately connected to public health around the…

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s highest coastal mountain range, is an isolated massif in northern Colombia. Due to its unique geography, the steep mountain slopes ascend through…

IKPAKO, Nigeria — Dark stumps of half-charred trees, dry cassava stems and dead tree trunks cover a large   swath of land on the way to Ikpako, a small farming enclave…

In the small community of Boca de Chajul just over the Guatemalan border in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Rafael Lombera recounts how he has seen large expanses of Lacandon…

Colombia is the world’s second-most biodiverse country after Brazil. Central Colombia’s Macarena region, in particular, is important for biodiversity as it serves as a transition zone between three major biomes:…

The landscape spanning the border region of the eastern Australian states of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland is ecologically rich and diverse, and home to ancient rainforest. However, despite…

PORTO JOFRE, Brazil - Only fragile wisps of freshly-sprouted grass dotted the charred plot of farmland in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands. Standing amid the ash and burnt vegetation, Eledilson Nunes de…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. In late 2013, during a hearing convened by the local legislature of Indonesia’s Maluku province, a…

An illegal armed group connected to land grabbers killed four members of the indigenous Mayangna people, left two injured and burned 16 houses in northern Nicaragua on Jan. 29, according…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. When the politician in charge of Indonesia’s Aru Islands signed permits for a vast sugar plantation,…

A degraded secondary forest in Brazil stores carbon at only twice the rate of primary forest, compared to up to 11 times elsewhere; scientists could be overestimating Amazon carbon storage capacity.

SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia — “The day after tomorrow, a cargo of 8,000 board feet of timber must be shipped. As there is little water, they are waiting…

Jaime Luis Arias grew up on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. An isolated coastal pyramid-shaped massif in northern Colombia, the Sierra Nevada is one of…

This story is a journalistic collaboration between Revista Vistazo and Mongabay Latam.   Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then…

The damage only became clear once the rain stopped and the clouds parted over Altamira National Forest in northern Brazil. Instead of dense jungle, large patches of bare land now…

Residents of the community of París de Leán in Honduras say they have been dealing with dirty water for a decade. To demonstrate this, Concepción Aguilera dips a dish into…