Teeming with tropical rainforest, the Amazon Basin is a vital defense against global warming. Yet deforestation combined with extreme weather are behind the region's worst drought in fifty years. Forest clearance to make…
For Carolina Pinto and Paulina Rodriguez, the story of the Osa Peninsula embodies one of hope. The diverse rainforest ecosystem in Costa Rica, home to plants and animals seen nowhere…
In 2023, Mongabay launched the fourth season of its serial podcast, “Mongabay Explores,” highlighting the Congo Basin. The six-part series takes a close look at the second-largest rainforest in the…
JAKARTA — Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was a rare breed of Indonesian bureaucrat: a visionary policy leader with a love for nature, someone who for decades built bridges between environmentalists and Indigenous…
“Our wildest dreams never included what we are doing now,” says conservationist Paul Rosolie in a new podcast interview with Mongabay. What began as a grassroots initiative of his and…
Positive changes President Lula’s speeches at the Climate Conventions 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai contained positive signs for Amazonia and for mitigating climate change. Brazil had the…
Brazil has proposed a new mechanism for conserving the world's tropical rainforests. During a panel at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva and Finance Minister…
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…
Verra, the world’s largest certifier of carbon credits, has released an update for calculating the climate benefits of the REDD forest conservation projects it certifies. The U.S.-based nonprofit said the…
According to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined by 22% for the year ending July 31, 2023. Mongabay’s CEO and…
To all of those who are concerned about climate change and have decided that forest carbon credits are bad, I have a question for you. Have you ever looked closely…
Ely Marlina’s 2-year-old child began to cough as the wildfires enveloped Indonesia’s Ketapang district in the summer of 2019. The little one soon fell ill with an acute respiratory tract…
A new report reveals that deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022, dimming the prospects of ending forest loss by 2030. The spike indicates rates are trending “in the wrong…
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…
A handful of pioneering Amazonian chocolatiers are promoting keeping the rainforest standing by taking advantage of two forest products: cacao and cupuaçu.
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.
“It's not going in the right direction yet,” Pierre Friedlingstein tells Mongabay of the effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals; a member of the IPCC and a climate professor, he says he’s mildly optimistic about the trend in global emissions.
When it comes to the trajectory of Amazon deforestation, “we’re in a bad spot,” according to ecologist and conservation biologist Tim Killeen. With 30 years of experience living and working…
SERAM ISLAND, Indonesia — Zainudin Kelsaba traversed across the eastern Seram highland and stopped at an ancient outcrop grown over by trees and scrub. “The mountain is our home,” Zainudin…
According to a 2020 study, private philanthropy, at that time, dedicated to Amazon forest conservation amounted to about $100 million a year. That is about one ten thousandth of estimated…
DISANGA, Tanzania — Michele Menegon creeps stealthily through short grass before pouncing. Gently, the scientist holds up his prize: an unnamed species of forest agama. He shows the reptile to…
More than 10% of carbon emissions will likely result from cutting trees, including natural forests, to make wood products over coming decades if action isn’t taken. Plantation forests if made more efficient could provide for a lot of timber needs, scientists find.
On this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast, Terese Hart, a researcher with the ICCN (the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature); Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, a wildlife veterinarian and founder…
The Congo Basin contains the world’s second-largest rainforest at a staggering 178 million hectares (just under 440 million acres). It is also one of the biggest carbon sinks on the…
‘New world’ in Angola’s relic forests threatened by fires: scientists NAMBA MOUNTAINS, Angola — Remote pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angola’s Namba Mountains will be lost if nothing is…
MEDAN, Indonesia — An investigation into the violent death of an orangutan in northern Sumatra in January has shone a light on the persistent problem of human-wildlife conflict and illegal…
Pedro Brancalion is used to the roar of chainsaws. For years, he’s heard loggers tearing down rainforest giants in the Brazilian Amazon, and listened as ancient trees were toppled and…
There were some hopeful developments for tropical rainforest conservation in 2022, including declines in the deforestation rate in Indonesia and the Brazilian Amazon, new high-level policy commitments supporting forest protection,…
JAKARTA — “Remarkably lax” and “laissez-faire” law enforcement efforts by conservation authorities in Indonesia have allowed the killing, capture and trade of scores of orangutans to persist, according to a…
Congo Basin impact of new FSC rule will depend on governance YAOUNDÉ — Until recently, forestry companies that had cleared natural forests for plantations since the Forest Stewardship Council was…