Kaisa Kosonen, a political advisor on climate action for Greenpeace in Germany is prepping for the mid-year United Nations climate conference in Bonn, running May 8-18. But she pauses to…
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s extensive forests seem like a bright spot in an otherwise-troubled country. With forests covering an area larger than Colombia, DRC has managed to sidestep the…
Forests hold extraordinary potential to check climate change, if they’re kept standing and allowed to siphon off planet-warming carbon. But sorting out how big that role can be – and…
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) The Tapajós River Basin…
JAKARTA – Ahead of the recent UN climate summit in the Moroccan capital of Marrakesh, Indonesia shifted the burden for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions from its energy sector to…
YANGON - Myanmar’s forests are rich. They are rich in variety, in natural resources, and in wildlife. But they are also rich in danger. “Myanmar’s forests are more in crisis…
United Nations treaty aimed at preventing illegal fishing will enter into force this Sunday, June 5, with 29 countries and the European Union as parties to it. Illegal, unreported, and…
BONN, Germany – Finding a workable compromise that allows a long-lived UN program to both reduce carbon emissions while also protecting the lives and lands of indigenous and impoverished people…
f you go more than 200 miles off the coast anywhere on Earth, you end up in the high seas, the largely ungoverned portion of the ocean that covers 43…
ndigenous peoples in Brazil are at risk from an alarming uptick in violence as well as from natural-resource development projects that threaten their existence. That's what United Nations Special Rapporteur…
ambodian authorities released a leader of the Chong indigenous group from prison on March 3. Ven Vorn, imprisoned since October, was convicted of harvesting forest products without authorization and sentenced…
overnments have been establishing enormous marine protected areas (MPAs) spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers where fishing is restricted. And the United Nations last June began work developing an…
The Norwegian government has extended its multi-billion dollar forest protection initiative. At the Paris climate convention on Friday, Norwegian Minister of Environment and Climate Tine Sundtoft said the country would…
Just a week after Shell scrapped its artic drilling plans, the climate has another reason to celebrate. Following the recent flood of national climate change commitments, or Intended Nationally Determined…
Editor's note: the upcoming COP21 is expected to be the most important meeting for a very long time for both forests and climate, potentially establishing a framework for taking action to address…
The United Nations today announced 21 winners of the 2015 Equator Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes community-led environmental initiatives. The winners, selected from a pool of 1,461 nominations across…
The high seas are often called the Wild West of the ocean. These vast oceanic tracts begin 200 miles from shore and fall under no nation's jurisdiction. And while there…
A rainforest in Borneo. Photo credit: Rhett Butler. Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have produced a draft agreement on the technical provisions of a plan to reduce…
Water filter chamber at a Palyja treatment plant in Jakarta. Photo: ANTARA/Dhoni Setiawan With the tide of privatized water in Indonesia as close to turning since the dictator Suharto was…
Kenneth MacDicken and Francesco Tubiello work at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Old-growth rainforest in Malaysian…
Purko tribesmen in Kenya's Loita Hills, an area where conservation efforts have at times been in conflict with local communities. Photo by Rhett Butler In September 2014, events took place…
Oil palm plantation and natural forest in Costa Rica. All photos by Rhett Butler. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has signed an agreement with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm…
Coquerel's Sifaka (Propithecus coquereli) in Madagascar. Photos by Rhett Butler. On the heels of a report showing that the world is far behind on targets to halve habitat loss, cut…
Global distribution of forest cover, circa-1990. Click image to enlarge Researchers have created a global map of the world's forests in the year 1990, enabling accurate comparisons between past and…
Cleared timber plantation and peat forest in Indonesia. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Dozens of companies, non-profit organizations, and governments pledged to work together to halve forest loss by 2020…
DiCaprio: not enough for individuals to make changes, governments and industry must do so as well Actor, environmental activist, and recently named UN Messenger of Peace, Leonardo DiCaprio, spoke today…
Indigenous boy paddles in the Colombian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Since 2008, governments have invested $1.64 billion in funds to kick-start REDD+, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and…
Scientists say both rich and developing countries must recognize primary forests as a conservation priority. Primary rainforest in Imbak Canyon in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The forest is…
Tropical rainforest. Photos by Rhett Butler. Since 2008 Norway has been the single largest foreign donor to tropical forest conservation, putting more than 10 billion Norwegian Krone, or $1.6 billion,…
Bottom trawling is a practice used by commercial fisheries around the world in which a large, heavy net is dragged along the ocean floor to scoop up everything in its…
