Tropical Forests News

It was a banner moment at COP26, one of the climate summit’s headline achievements. On stage, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat with President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic…

Many words and billions in funding were pledged at last year’s ‘Nature COP’ in Glasgow, resulting in a global commitment to stop deforestation by 2030. However, the challenge of how…

SATKHIRA, Bangladesh — Over the past three decades, Moyna Rani Mondol, who lives right on the coast in Bangladesh's southwestern district of Satkhira, has lost her home around 10 times…

JAKARTA — Fires in areas of carbon-intense peatland forest on the island of Sumatra appear to have been set in and around oil palm plantation concessions and could signal the…

Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.

BASOKO, Congo — In Yaliwasa, northern DRC, logs from 200-year-old hardwood trees lie rotting deep into the world’s second largest rainforest. They were cut in a hurry to be exported…

The Amazonian giant leaf frog, or kambô (Phyllomedusa bicolor) has bulging eyes and bright green skin. It’s perhaps best known for its skin secretion, a mucous substance with medicinal properties…

On a breezeless, sunbaked beach in Borneo, one of the biggest challenges paleobotanist Peter Wilf faced in his team’s hunt for plant fossils was getting used to a new set…

A new analysis of satellite data of the Amazon published in late May provides the most detailed analysis yet of year-to-year deforestation in the region, revealing exactly where and why…

For conservationists working to save the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a key challenge has been maintaining recovered areas that lie inside private properties. Yet for recovery efforts to be successful,…

Bangladesh is set to implement a total ban on entry into the Sundarbans mangrove forest for three months starting June. This will apply not only to tourists but also the…

Packed into a thatched-roof meeting hall in the village of Urucurituba, deep in the Brazilian Amazon, hundreds of Mura Indigenous people mulled over whether to allow a massive potash mine…

Antibody tests conducted on domestic cats and wild cats in Malaysian Borneo indicate that oil palm plantations may act as transmission sites for viruses, according to a new study. The…

MUARA JAMBI, Indonesia — In a wood-plank house on the banks of the Batang Hari River, a dukun, or traditional healer, named Siti Hawa, 62, handles a grass-like plant topped…

On an island in the estuary known as Lagoa dos Patos, in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state, an old lady kept a treasure in her fridge. For years, it…

Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…

The butiá landscapes of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state are exotic, even by the standards of tropical forests. The palm trees that make up these forests, from the genus…

Pressure from investors and conservationists has forced Home Depot to reevaluate how it does business, following findings that some of the plywood it sells may be coming from mega diverse…

PALAWAN, Philippines — On a dreary April day, agroforestry worker Jimmy Tablason frowns in the sweltering heat as he trudges through the ruins of forests protected for decades by his…

For over 20 years the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center (PTWRC), run by the Cambodian Forestry Administration and supported by the international NGOs Wildlife Alliance and Free the Bears (covered by…

The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.

KAMALCHHORI, Bangladesh — Anupam Chakma, 60, has lived in the hilly village of Kamalchhori in Bangladesh all his life. When his grandfather and his contemporaries arrived in the region many…

Trade in endangered species online is an increasingly popular avenue for traders and traffickers. A recent review, published in the journal Oryx, highlights a related trend: lesser-known species that have…

In 1835, a rebellion broke out in the Lower Amazon region, in what was then the state of Grão-Pará, Brazil. The vast majority of the population was composed of Afro-Brazilians,…

Last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo approved the auctioning off of 16 oil blocks, at least nine of which are in the fragile peatland ecosystem of the Cuvette Centrale.…

Satellites have detected forest clearing within Triunfo do Xingu this year, an area that’s supposed to be a legally protected swath of Amazon rainforest in Brazil’s northern state of Pará.…

Protected areas and lands managed by Indigenous and traditional communities have been bulwarks of forest preservation and restoration in the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, a new study shows. It…

Daniel Kabichi’s telephone has been ringing a lot lately. As head of law enforcement operations within Malawi’s Department of Forestry, he represents the country’s latest strategy to fight deforestation and…

Malaysia is the second-largest palm oil producer in the world, behind only Indonesia. In 2020 alone, Malaysia was responsible for more than a quarter of global palm oil production. But…

For this bonus episode of the Mongabay Explores Podcast, we speak with Mongabay senior staff writer for Indonesia Basten Gokkon about the significance of the recent birth of a Sumatran…