When restoring or replanting vegetation in degraded ecosystems, it may be tempting to let nature run its course, and allow native herbivores to claim their fair share. Yet a new…
Tropical forests the world over are in trouble. Vast swaths have been razed to the ground, lost forever, and studies indicate that at least 10% of those that remain standing…
SABAH, Malaysia — Although it’s early in the day, the sun is already beating down fiercely as we step off the boat onto the muddy banks of the Kinabatangan River…
KINGSTON — “All of this was mangroves,” says marine scientist Mona Webber, pointing toward a line of ghostly gray boulders separating the road from the sea. We’re standing on the…
On the first day of a 2021 prescribed fire in south-central Oregon, all went to plan as firefighters slowly burned areas in Fremont-Winema National Forest. They created a deliberate mosaic…
JAKARTA — A palm oil company in Indonesia has finally started paying off a $23 million fine for burning an important Sumatran orangutan habitat more than a decade ago, highlighting…
ENONKISHU, Kenya — Bernard Leshinga, a Maasai pastoralist from southern Kenya, likes an easy day running his herding business. But until recently, Leshinga hadn’t figured out how to help his…
Fire, illegal logging and invasive species have claimed 20% of the forests on the southwestern slopes of Mount Kenya in the last 20 years. The 700 members of the Chehe…
JAKARTA — A decade after Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest paper producers, launched its landmark no-deforestation policy, the company continues to clear forests to feed…
WEST SUMBAWA, Indonesia — More than a decade ago, Amiruddin would climb aboard a small fishing boat under the cover of night armed with around 10 bombs. Amir, as he…
NOVA XAVANTINA, Brazil — This past July, 15 Indigenous women made the thousand-mile journey from their home of Rolim de Moura, in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Rondônia, east to…
Ana Rosa de Lima is a Brazilian materials engineer living in Germany. She had no idea that a 2019 crowdfunding campaign for a beekeeping project in the Indigenous Kayapó village…
A new global analysis focuses on the climate benefits of restoring degraded forest areas instead of replanting trees in deforested areas. Researchers mapped forests worldwide to find areas that could…
The Amazon Rainforest — together with other forests around the globe — lies at the center of concern over climate changes inside Brazil and worldwide. Yet little is studied and…
This report was produced with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. MOKOLO, Cameroon — The sun is already beating down this morning, a…
Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns tells stories that shed light on the complexities and nuances of the United States’ cultural tapestry. This time, Burns has turned his lens on a symbol…
An experiment in Malaysian Borneo found that the more species of tree seedlings planted in a previously logged plot, the more the result later resembles an old-growth forest, with greater biomass and forest complexity.
CONCEPCION, Philippines — The skies were overcast but intense heat from the sun permeated the salty air one June afternoon on Bagongon, a central Philippines island. As the tide receded,…
If humans went extinct tomorrow, who would rule the world? Beavers. Well, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. These tree-felling, water-slowing, wetland-creating rodent engineers have a massive impact wherever they…
Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands…
This Mongabay Explains episode is part of a four-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the latest technological solutions to support reforestation. Read Part One, Part Two , Part Three and Part Four. “Plant…
Conservationists are working to restore Uganda’s threatened Mabira Central Forest Reserve, a refuge for hundreds of species of birds, mammals and plants in the center of the country. In April,…
Conservation groups in Uganda are working to protect Mabira Central Forest Reserve, a 30,000-hectare (74,000-acre) forest in the center of the country, close to Lake Victoria. Mabira is a surviving…
It’s the sort of June day that British summers should be made of, but rarely are. Pink flower-flecked brambles proliferate in knurled mounds, scattered across 3,500 sun-soaked acres of West…
Mangroves’ capacity to store carbon — up to five times more than upland tropical forests — makes them a powerful natural solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate…
The southern fringes of the Sahara are dynamic. As rainfall varies, land patches on the edge chop and change between green and arid brown. Human activities, like overgrazing, deforestation or…
SABAH, Malaysia — Inside a former oil palm plantation, the palms appear to be sinking into a sea of greenery, their fronds meeting with spindly saplings that forge upward. In…
Efforts to green the planet are in full swing, promising everything from mitigating climate change to stalling land degradation. But how well do these actually work? Often, they sprout up…
A major cause of forest restoration project failures is lack of long-term monitoring. Now, satellites, lidar, drones and in-forest sensor networks are bringing detailed, long-term, real-time data to tree-planting initiatives.
Seed-sowing drones and the latest biotechnology could help restore degraded forests at an unprecedented scale — a high-tech nature-based climate solution already at work, and one that shows tremendous promise.
