Sustainable Development News

Reaching the village of Wae Rebo on Indonesia’s Flores Island requires a seven-hour drive down rugged jungle roads from the port town of Labuan Bajo. At the edge of the…

GEORGE TOWN, Malaysia — Muddy carpets and soaked furniture lay in moldering piles on the streets of this state capital. It was Sunday morning, Oct. 29, 2017. Eight days earlier,…

Local and indigenous communities seem to hold the key to protecting both forests and the massive amounts of carbon that they contain — and on which we all depend. But…

Spring Energy is the just the sort of homegrown, super successful, keenly entrepreneurial company that developing nations across the world crave. Based in a tidy three-story building not far from…

KUCHING, Malaysia —  As governments in Southeast Asia target economic growth through infrastructure development, China, the world’s second-largest economy, has emerged as a ready funder for some of the most…

Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) of trees made headlines several years ago when 5 million hectares of Niger were found to have re-greened via the practice. FMNR is the encouragement of regeneration…

It’s time to slow the pace of the wave of road, dam and railroad building sweeping over the globe, says Bill Laurance, a tropical ecologist at James Cook University in…

This commentary is a response to "Palm oil certification? No silver bullet, but essential for sustainability," an op-ed Mongabay published on May 25, 2018. Changing Markets Foundation’s recent report "The…

WASHINGTON, D.C. - At the Global Landscapes Forum’s third investment case symposium, held at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, top investors, business leaders,…

Khanh Nguy Thi is an environmental pioneer in Vietnam. She has led her NGO, the Hanoi-based Green Innovation and Development Centre, or GreenID, to the forefront of policy discussions surrounding…

Even as scientists introduced the world to a new species of orangutan in 2017 — one of only seven non-human great apes alive today — they were already working to…

Scientists say burning woody biomass is not carbon neutral, yet the United Nations IPCC appears to be ignoring its own guidelines, so substantial emissions aren’t getting counted. But nature knows.

The $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative promises new ports, roads, railways, dams and an energy grid reaching from China across Asia to Africa, but at what environmental cost?

GUALCINCE, Honduras — The Lenca call it a sacrificial stone, where their indigenous  ancestors went to make offerings to deities. A triangle of rock with different circles inscribed on its surface,…

As secret negotiations progress and Donald Trump threatens to walk away from NAFTA, trade experts ask how to make the agreement better for people and planet.

PITEKELE, Sri Lanka — Visitors to the Sinharaja Man and Biosphere Reserve, Sri Lanka’s largest remaining primary rainforest, could easily miss the fact that adjoining the forest’s entrance is the old…

Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that's found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it's also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live…

ZACATECOLUCA, El Salvador — The waist-high trees in Jose Francisco Merino Umaña’s field have sprouted branches and lush green leaves, but their modest size doesn’t convey the full value they…

Ahead of a housing development in Panama, an assessor tasked with figuring out how the plans might affect local forests reported that about a dozen species of birds lived in…

In the Trump era, the Oglalla of South Dakota are setting up solar companies and alternative energy schools to train their people for a New Economy, leaping past enslavement to fossil fuels.