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…
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have seized 2 metric tons of ivory in the city of Lubumbashi, a hub for ivory trafficking. The May 14 seizure is one…
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…
JAKARTA — Tropical forest loss remained consistently high in 2021 with no sign of slowing down, despite commitments by companies and governments to curb deforestation, according to new data from…
MAKOKOU, Gabon — In August 2020, the Massaha community in northeastern Gabon made a formal request to the government to declassify a logging concession allocated to a Chinese company, Transport…
Early February 1989. A blue helicopter, partly tinted in green and white, emerged from the clouds of Kanyang, in Nigeria's Cross River state. Gabriel Osanja, then 22, stood among the…
Established in 1936 and situated just 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the sprawling megacity of Lagos, Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve has long been a sanctuary for Nigeria’s diverse and dwindling wildlife.…
Lazarus Nwobegai, who holds a government permit to harvest timber around Mount Cameroon National Park, knows perfectly well it's illegal to hunt the chimpanzees and other threatened primates that live…
“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at…
Perched in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the borders of Uganda and South Sudan, Okapi Wildlife Reserve quietly encompasses some 14,000 square kilometers (5,405 square miles) of rainforest…
In 2021, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s biggest province, Tshopo, lost 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of intact forests to fires. Researchers based in the provincial capital, Kisangani, suspect the record-breaking…
Vast quantities of tropical hardwood from deforestation hotspots around the world continue to enter Vietnam, in spite of new regulations to clean up supply chains. In 2018, the country signed…
In Gribe, a village located in southeastern Cameroon, the Indigenous Baka of Dimgba are one of dozens of hunter-gatherer groups of the Congo basin diversifying their food sources to maintain…
A chief from the Bakanga clan of Batwa living within view of Mount Kahuzi was asked in the 1970s to help delineate a boundary using surveyor’s chains. He agreed, not…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This month we’re meeting an African viverrid: the African civet. The African…
According to communications consultant Meindert Brouwer, author of Central African Forests Forever, there are still opportunities to save the Central African — or Congo Basin — rainforest. Brouwer's 216-page, 17-chapter…
ORE, Nigeria — More than two decades ago, fate took Tajudeen Babalola to his lifelong ambition. The 52-year-old longed for a more serene life that offered hope for survival away…
In 2021, Mongabay’s investigative journalism set out to hold powerful figures accountable for deforestation and pollution, and the mistreatment of vulnerable communities trying to protect local ecosystems. Using data-driven analysis…
2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity…
For the Congo Basin, 2021 proved to be an up-and-down year. Funding commitments totaling in the billions of dollars were announced that would help forested countries preserve some of the…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay…
This is the fourth article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. The muddy cores that Ian Lawson and his colleagues…
Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth's land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction by 2030, according to a…
This is the third article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. The logging concession moratorium signed in 2002 was supposed to shore…
This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…
On Nov. 2, a group of 12 donors, including the European Commission, United Kingdom, United States and the Bezos Earth Fund, collectively pledged at least $1.5 billion in financing toward…
This is the first article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The notion seemed straightforward: A massive swamp in the Congo Basin…