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…
Greenpeace Africa is spearheading calls to investigate the vice president and environment minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ève Bazaiba, over her alleged involvement in a series of illegal…
How do you develop your economy and provide services in a sustainable manner? That’s a central theme of the U.N. climate summit underway in Glasgow, and in few places is…
IKOM, Nigeria — When 57-year-old Linus Otu was a child, each dawn arrived with the chatter of monkeys and occasional belches of gorillas from the mountain that overlooks his small…
As the annual meeting of the world's most recognizable ethical wood certifier, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), kicked off on Oct. 25, environmental NGOs accused the body of failing to…
Protected forests, such as those in national parks, are unlikely to be cut down when surrounded by intact forests. Conversely, when a protected forest’s neighboring lands are degraded, it’s likely…
Last month, nine organizations collectively announced a $5 billion pledge toward biodiversity conservation efforts worldwide. Most of the participants are philanthropic foundations, but one signatory is Rainforest Trust, a conservation…
When a towering African zebrawood tree falls in the forest, it certainly makes a sound. During a survey of the Ebo forest from August 2020 to March 2021, Eric Nana…
Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected by…
REDD+ is an idea that has launched a thousand projects. It’s essentially a way to monetize forests’ ability to store carbon and put that money in the hands of communities…
One of the world’s smallest and rarest chameleon species has been rediscovered in Malawi, living on the edge of extinction in just a few, scant patches of rainforest. “They are…
A new “vulnerability index” for the world’s tropical rainforests will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests, in…
In 2019, Norway committed to pay $150 million to Gabon to protect its forests under the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). After independent verification of the country's deforestation rates in…
Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is renowned for its biodiversity, including Grauer's gorilla — an endemic subspecies — and around 350 bird species. The area…
New research indicates that the global population of Grauer’s gorillas may be almost twice as high as previously estimated, leading to renewed optimism among conservationists about the future of the…
A total of 33 teams spanning 16 countries from Brazil to India have been chosen to advance to the next stage of a five-year, $10 million competition aimed at preserving…
Virunga National Park’s forests are some the most biodiverse in Africa and among the last bastions of mountain gorillas, okapis, Ruwenzori duikers and many other endangered species. Guarded by some…
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and…
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) contains the bulk of Africa’s humid rainforest. But forests that were once dense, impenetrable and continuous are increasingly fractured by deforestation. New satellite…
Tropical forests around the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate, even in 2020 when the global economy slowed dramatically during the pandemic. A new report released this week…
There’s a tree-planting frenzy everywhere you look. In August 2019, the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India announced that more than a million Indians had planted 220 million trees…
A forestry company in Gabon has built new roads to log a forest in the northeastern province of Ogooué-Ivindo. Villagers had applied to the government last August to reclassify this…
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
Well-known investment funds in the U.S., Europe and South Africa are financing a set of oil palm plantations that have been at the center of more than a century of…
For decades, Indonesia has been blighted by some of the highest levels of deforestation on earth. It also provides more than half the world’s palm oil. The two things are directly related. Palm…
Deforestation is so rampant throughout Madagascar, an island far larger than California, that it’s easy to forget the impact of tree clearance in any one specific area of the country…
That forests are good for the environment is a no-brainer. What isn’t as clear-cut: how do newly planted woodlands affect water availability? New research from Madagascar has drawn up some…
"If a tree lives 500 years, it carries the carbon assimilated and stocked for the last 500 years,” says Giuliano Locosselli, a researcher at the University of São Paulo (USP)…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — To the detriment of the forests surrounding his village, Safidiharinjaka Emmanuel Tolojanahary knew only traditional farming methods. Like most residents of his village, located in eastern Madagascar,…
Traditional wood stoves in developing countries are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions and rely on a steady supply of wood, often causing habitat destruction. Around Kibale National Park,…