The Chiew Larn reservoir in southern Thailand looks like it’s been part of the landscape for millennia. Ancient limestone karst cliffs rise from its waters, and emerald-hued forested islands dot…
Rodents gnawing on oil palm crops can be a costly business. One study estimated that they can reduce yields by as much as 10%. Among the means used to tackle…
Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil on Earth, found in things like soaps, shampoo, ice cream and instant noodles. To satiate demand, rampant clearing of primary forests…
In the 1970s, there were around 20,000 critically endangered western chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. But by 2008, when the most recent census was carried out, there were only around 5,500…
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is off to the fastest start for the first half of any year since 2008 according to government data published today. Deforestation alert data from…
JAKARTA — A new analysis warns of the potential for forest fires in Indonesia that could spread smoke to neighboring countries as this year’s dry season sets in, following two…
THUNG NUI, Thailand — Firdaw Manjeed says she’s glad to be back to school for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Here in Thailand’s southernmost province, Satun, on…
A growing number of companies are committing to net-zero emission goals in an effort to lower their carbon footprint and prevent climate change. But they’ll likely fall short if their…
Less than a decade since conservation actions helped pull the hyacinth macaw out of Brazil’s endangered species list, the iconic cobalt-blue bird is back in the red, driven there by…
From the Scarlet Macaw to the glass frog, Peru is a land of tropical splendors. At least half the country is blanketed by Amazon rainforest. It is one of the…
To convert around 80% of the Brazilian Amazon into environmental conservation areas would cost Brazil just over half of what the European Union spends to maintain all of its own…
The Kerinci Seblat landscape, a highly biodiverse rainforest in western Sumatra, is one of the Indonesian island’s crown jewels. Anchored by the 14,000-square-kilometer (5,405-square-mile) Kerinci Seblat National Park, its mountainous…
JENNINGS MOUNTAIN, St. Vincent and the Grenadines — The destruction was terrible, but the silence was even worse. Yvette Pereira had just walked up the road to the farm she…
Reforestation initiatives are more popular than ever, with thousands of projects across the globe led by private companies, nonprofits, institutions, governments and communities. So how can an investor or donor…
CUARIRENDA, Bolivia — In October 2020, residents of a Mennonite colony began clearing a road through the forest in the Cordillera province of the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz. By…
“Many people have died on this railroad, killed by the trains,” says Deusimar de Oliveira Santos, a resident of the community of Auzilândia in Brazil’s Maranhão state, echoing a common…
JAKARTA — Activists have welcomed the Indonesian government’s announcement to carry out a nationwide audit of all palm oil companies operating here, in response to a shortage of cooking oil…
In northern Indonesia dwells a shy and overlooked species: the Talaud bear cuscus. Critically endangered and found on only a few small islands, the marsupial faces a decline due to…
News articles and opinion pieces have popped up in the pages of different Costa Rican newspapers over the past several years, warning of the imminent collapse of Corcovado National Park,…
Tropical deforestation is a cost our planet pays every day for the food we eat. The palm oil in our ice cream, the steak on our tables, and the soy…
When plant systematist Elliot Gardner first began collecting samples of a fruit-bearing tree in Malaysian Borneo, he thought he was looking at just one species. Western taxonomists had long considered…
Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia’s Papua province have recommended the revocation of licenses for 35 out of the 54 oil palm concessions operating there. The move follows an evaluation of…
JAKARTA — For decades, oil palm farmers in Indonesia have drained — and destroyed — tropical peatlands on the basis that the crop doesn’t grow well in the boggy soil.…
Mahogany is everything you would want in a tree: tall and majestic, with leaves up to half a meter wide that cast cooling shade on the forest floor below. It…
ISANGI, Congo — In a secluded corner of the Congo, machetes in hand, scientists make their way through the Yangambi Man and Biosphere Reserve, using shallow streams as natural paths…
Industrial logging, rubber, oil palm, then coal. The snowballing effects of these extractive industries have divided local communities and destroyed livelihoods in parts of Indonesian Borneo, a new study finds.…
A new guide published in May is helping companies make smarter decisions about purchasing tropical forest credits, a strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, slowing deforestation and mitigating climate change.…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Reportedly home to 3% of the planet's mammal species and one of the highest levels of lowland plant diversity known to science, Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park…
“The closer one gets to the tropics, the greater the variety of structures, graceful forms and color combinations.” Such were the words of German naturalist, geographer and explorer Alexander von…
