Recent data confirm that 2022 is on pace to match 2021’s rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: the founder and CEO of Mongabay, Rhett A. Butler, is a sought-after commentator on…
Scientists warn that the Amazon is hurtling toward a tipping point, beyond which it would begin to transition from lush tropical forest into a dry, degraded savanna, unable to support…
The world’s largest rainforest makes its own weather. Up to half of all the rainfall in the Amazon comes from the forest itself, as moisture is recycled from the trees…
Nestled in a valley between two volcanoes, Donald Varela-Soto heard something unfamiliar. For six months, he searched for the source of a shrill frog call along the edge of a…
Money for conservation is limited, and deciding how to prioritize spending raises questions not only about where to channel resources but also when and in what order. In a newly…
National protests overwhelmed Ecuador in June, with Indigenous groups mobilizing in nearly every province of the country and President Guillermo Lasso announcing a state of emergency that restricted travel and…
Malaysian timber giant Samling has removed logging equipment from a long-disputed area in Sarawak state’s Upper Baram Forest Area, in what the Penan Indigenous community is calling a win for…
The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…
As it sets, the sun lights up the waters of Lake Catemaco before disappearing behind the shoulder of a rainforest-covered volcano in Mexico’s Los Tuxtlas region. The waterfront is filled…
A new multi-million-dollar conservation initiative in Colombia aims to create numerous new protected areas and biological corridors across the country, bringing it closer to meeting long-term climate change prevention goals.…
The Kerinci Seblat landscape, a highly biodiverse rainforest in western Sumatra, is one of the Indonesian island’s crown jewels. Anchored by the 14,000-square-kilometer (5,405-square-mile) Kerinci Seblat National Park, its mountainous…
Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…
Iluka Alain was a bit surprised when the two men turned up on a motorcycle in December 2021 in Bofekalasumba, the village where he’s chief in the northwestern Democratic Republic…
ISANGI, Congo — In a secluded corner of the Congo, machetes in hand, scientists make their way through the Yangambi Man and Biosphere Reserve, using shallow streams as natural paths…
A new guide published in May is helping companies make smarter decisions about purchasing tropical forest credits, a strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, slowing deforestation and mitigating climate change.…
Thirty years ago, Brazil issued a decree officially recognizing the ancestral land of the Yanomami people as an Indigenous territory. The new designation made the area, located deep in the…
Google and the World Resources Institute (WRI) this week announced the launch of a new mapping tool touted as providing an unprecedented level of detail about how land is being…
During what scientists have named the “Sixth Mass Extinction” (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs), conservationists are racing against the clock to carry out critical monitoring as quickly as…
The Tongass National Forest in the U.S. state of Alaska is a special place for conservation biologist Dominick DellaSala, even after decades of traveling the world to study temperate rainforests.…
It was a banner moment at COP26, one of the climate summit’s headline achievements. On stage, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat with President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic…
BASOKO, Congo — In Yaliwasa, northern DRC, logs from 200-year-old hardwood trees lie rotting deep into the world’s second largest rainforest. They were cut in a hurry to be exported…
The Jair Bolsonaro presidency in Brazil has been marked by loosening regulations and budget cuts for environmental agencies, leading to soaring rates of Amazon destruction since he took office in…
On a breezeless, sunbaked beach in Borneo, one of the biggest challenges paleobotanist Peter Wilf faced in his team’s hunt for plant fossils was getting used to a new set…
Pressure from investors and conservationists has forced Home Depot to reevaluate how it does business, following findings that some of the plywood it sells may be coming from mega diverse…
In the world’s largest rainforest, wildlife crawls, hops, flies and prowls through every nook and cranny. Most animals are adept at hiding from humans, though, so finding them can be…
Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo approved the auctioning off of 16 oil blocks, at least nine of which are in the fragile peatland ecosystem of the Cuvette Centrale.…
Our footsteps intermingled with the sounds of rain dripping through the canopy as my eyes examined the surrounding green vegetation, which was usually so vibrant, but was now subdued as…
The Ambatovy nickel mine located in a biodiversity-rich Madagascar rainforest made up for the forest lost due to its operation, a recent study in Nature Sustainability concluded. The mine operators…
Birds, bats, elephants, apes, rodents and many other animal species spread plant seeds throughout the world. But as those animal populations diminish, so do the plants that rely on wildlife to shift their range, especially as climate change worsens.
An international team of scientists studying the distribution and threats facing some of South and Southeast Asia’s most economically important tree species has confirmed that current environmental protections fail to…
