In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, challenges the conventional wisdom that a paperless workplace is more environmentally friendly than one is using paper. The views…
Executive Summary : Given globalization and rising demands for energy and raw natural resources, extractive industries and their investors deepen the search to the last reaches of the planet for…
Kenneth MacDicken and Francesco Tubiello work at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Old-growth rainforest in Malaysian…
Chukotkan dancers. Subsistence hunting will be increasingly difficult for the Inuit who depend on marine mammals in the Arctic to provide them with food and materials for clothing. Photo by:…
Darwin’s Worms, Our Worry Earthworms. Image courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service 1st November 1837 was a disappointing day at the Geological Society of London. The men (and…
Male orangutan tranquilized for a health check up in Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler By and large, Indonesia is a peaceful country. In fact, on the United Nations Office…
Jeff Horowitz is the Founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners and a co-producer of “Years of Living Dangerously” a Showtime climate change documentary series. Actor/Conservationist Harrison Ford doing a bit of…
Filming for Eaten Alive. The capture of a 19 foot 200-plus pound anaconda was a great experience for us, and she was the first anaconda to ever ingest a radio…
Michael Painter directs the Conservation and the Quality of Human Life Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Village near Nam Et-Phou…
Recent deforestation for palm oil production within Aceh's Leuser Ecosystem. Taken in May 2014 by Rhett A. Butler In the run-up to the tenth anniversary of the devastating 2004 tsunami,…
Reforestation project using native tree species in Borneo. Indonesia’s new government has ambitious reforestation plans. President Joko Widodo’s election campaign included a commitment to reforest 2 million hectares of degraded…
About one year ago today, I was pretty down. It was Thanksgiving night, and the Forest Heroes campaign, which I chair, had been running a big global campaign to persuade…
Scott Poynton is the head of The Forest Trust, an international non-profit that works on addressing environmental challenges. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. From what I’m…
Alex Diment is participating in the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia. He presented a talk based on this blog below about how the consumer in New York…
Purko tribesmen in Kenya's Loita Hills, an area where conservation efforts have at times been in conflict with local communities. Photo by Rhett Butler In September 2014, events took place…
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Community leader in Aceh, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Butler. A few weeks ago, a remote aboriginal community in western…
Editor's Note: The following is a response from a group of scientists' — including 6 members of the National Academy, 3 IPCC Lead Authors, and 1 IPCC Co-Chair — to…
All photo by Marc Ancrenaz and Ade Rachmat As our boat sailed towards the forest-clad island, I had no idea what surprise awaited me... A few months ago I was…
Island off West Java. Photo by Rhett Butler Indonesia’s middle and upper classes are becoming increasingly interested and supportive of environmental conservation. Still, they have some way to go to…
New forest clearing for an oil palm plantation in Sumatra. Photo taken in May 2014 by Rhett Butler. How to best use Indonesia’s land resources? This is one of the…
This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra satellite on Feb. 28, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined…
Hornbills are killed in Indonesia for the traditional Chinese medicine market. Tropical rainforests are the most species-rich ecosystems in the world. Each square kilometer has hundreds of tree species, birds…
Borneo orangutan. Environmentalists and conservation people, including myself, are a whining lot. It’s our professional affliction to complain about everything that is wrong about the world’s environments and the conservation…
A study on deforestation in Cambodia has found that forests are better protected when local communities are given the responsibility to manage them locally. Cambodia has one of the highest…
The 28 percent increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon over last year that was reported this week is bad news, but it is not surprising. It is bad news…
