Primary Forests News

An area of Brazilian Amazon rainforest bigger than Ireland is at risk of losing its legal protection, according to new research. In an ironic twist, the trigger for this loss…

New findings indicate that at current deforestation rates, all of Haiti’s primary forest will be gone within the next two decades, leading to the loss of most of the country’s…

Africa’s Congo Basin is home to the second-largest rainforest on the planet. But according to a new study, this may soon not be the case. It finds that at current…

LIMA, Peru — A joint operation by law enforcement agencies in Peru managed to seize 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of cocaine from a plane intercepted in Bahuaja-Sonene National Park last…

The fires closing in on Erika Berenguer’s research site in Brazil’s eastern Amazon were unlike anything she had seen in years working in the forest. Smoke hung heavy the air.…

With around half the world’s forest cover cleared or otherwise degraded at some point in the recent past, the new forests that pop up to replace them – called secondary…

Knowing where deforestation is happening is critical for efforts aimed at stopping or slowing it. Major breakthroughs toward this goal have been made over the previous few years, with NGOs…

"Territories are like books: they can be in front of you, but if you do not read them you will never understand them," said Juan Carlos Clavijo about Tinigua National…

But for the rumble of frogs or the song of a bluethroat, Bialowieza Forest in Poland has become quiet again after two years of heavy machinery, chainsaws and falling trees.…

On May 17, 2018, the first eight orange-furred students arrived to begin their studies at a new orangutan forest school in the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Under…

Tropical forests are key defenders in the fight against climate change. They lock down around 25 percent of the world’s carbon in their canopies, trunks and soils, a function so…

Dotted by historic cities nestled in a patchwork countryside of fields and pasture, today’s Europe is at once urban and bucolic. But where sheep range over grassy knolls, bison used…

Droughts aren’t usually a problem for rainforests, which, as their name implies, are generally typified by lots of precipitation. But in the past few years, there’s been a noticeable drying…

The world's largest forests can help solve some of the biggest problems facing humanity, but only if we move to safeguard them, argue two experts in a New York Times…

An industrial rubber plantation is currently developing land right on the edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. And it's getting closer, according to an analysis of satellite data released by…

The Malaysian state of Sarawak is committing to the preservation of 80 percent of its land area as primary and secondary forest, according to an announcement by Sarawak Chief Minister…

Thousands of square kilometers of the world’s second-largest rainforest, the Congo Basin, sit on the verge of destruction, according to a new report released today by Earthsight, the London-based non-profit…

When it comes to habitat quality and ecosystem services, research has shown that natural landscapes do it best. A new study, published today in Nature, adds fodder to this argument,…

Deforestation in the tropics is caused by many different human activities that vary in intensity depending on location. In South America, industrial agriculture is the big driver of deforestation while…

A recent analysis of satellite images gives a glimpse into Peru’s widespread deforestation in 2017. The analysis, which was produced by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), found…

La Paya National Park sits on the edge of the Amazon rainforest along southern Colombia’s border with Ecuador and Peru. It comprises more than 4,200 square kilometers (1,620 square miles)…

New research demonstrates that sustainability certification through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil does cut down on deforestation in Indonesia’s palm oil industry. But the new study, published online Monday by…

Deforestation is rife in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, which lies deep in the western Amazon rainforest. A new investigation by Greenpeace reveals that as deforestation of protected areas has…

Lokolama barely registers on atlases and maps. The small Pygmy village, home to a few hundred people, lies deep in the Congo Basin rainforest 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of…

The Indonesian government is rushing to protect the newly described Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), a species already regarded as the most endangered great ape on the planet. The discovery that…

Yesterday, there were seven recognized great ape species in the world. Today there is an eighth, with the release of a study describing a new species of orangutan in Sumatra,…

When the last of the Russian troops pulled out of Estonia in 1994, for many their departure was bittersweet. While most Estonians were eager to join the Western world and…

A recent report by conservation NGO Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) is decrying what they say is Norwegian government complicity in funding a project they allege could result in the clearance…

Intact forests are among the few places on earth where native trees and animals can fulfill their ecological roles outside the influence of industrial humankind. Some interpret “intact” to mean…

Scientists and conservationists have long believed that the rapid loss of Southeast Asia’s old-growth, “primary” rainforests in recent decades would leave one of its most iconic inhabitants, the orangutan, with…