GORONTALO, Indonesia — In a Chanel-print dress and wielding a machete, Ermi Mauke means business as she hikes past cashew and coffee seedlings she planted on the approach to Indonesia’s…
NUEVO MEXICO, Mexico — Standing in her cornfield in Chiapas state, surrounded by mountains and dry tropical forests, Maria Luisa Gordillo Mendoza looks concerned. “They said we were pigs for…
KAVRE, Nepal – Srijana Karki still remembers her childhood when she visited her grandfather's farm. "The green fields were dotted with various fruit trees and we would get to eat…
ANGAHUAN, Mexico — "Cuchita is the fourth-generation herb collector of our family," says Juana Bravo, 45, pointing to a photo of her niece. "Look here: she was picking medicinal plants…
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…
The seventh and final episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast series about New Guinea examines the growing galip nut industry and the many social, economic and environmental benefits this agricultural…
Smallholder farmers say agroforestry offers biodiversity and crop benefits, but lack of support from the Bolsonaro government is a key barrier to adopting restorative agricultural practices.
SINGAPORE — On a vast plateau atop Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan, China, nearly a mile above sea level, grows a forest of ancient tea trees. During summer, silvery cobwebs line…
Like many rural families in Central America, Martín García and his sons devoted part of every growing season to slashing and burning a new strip of their land, knowing that…
TALAMANCA, Costa Rica — “How do I say lemon in Bribri language?” ask Andy, 9, and his cousin Sergio, 11, of their grandmother, Marina López. They’re playing among cocoa trees…
JAKARTA — Intercropping, the practice of growing two or more crops in close proximity, could be one of the keys to mitigating the impact of oil palm plantations on forests…
MAKUENI, Kenya — A quarter of the world's 4.4 billion hectares (10.9 million acres) of cropland is degraded, often due to drying, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization…
About a quarter of the world’s land is degraded. A new farming system intercrops agave and mesquite, then ferments it into cheap fodder, promising restored semiarid croplands and a peasant farming revival.
When Americans hear the word chestnuts, they might conjure images of snowy, holiday evenings and roaring fires. But for most of the world, chestnuts are part of the daily diet.…
GALICIA, Spain — The forest fire stopped just before arriving at Nieves Fernández Vidueira's farm, but it burned all day in the area surrounding Quintela do Pando in Galicia, northwestern…
Agroforestry is the most beneficial agricultural technique from a climate and biodiversity perspective: growing food, fuel, fiber, medicines and more under the cover of, or adjacent to, woody perennials like…
From her porch on Village Acres Farm in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, Angela Brubaker can see the curved rows of trees in the new riparian buffer along Lost Creek. The tree tubes…
In May 2017, the NGO Mighty Earth revealed the destruction of government forest reserves in Côte d’Ivoire by cocoa cultivation: out of 234, only six were still relatively intact. Deforestation…
It all started with the monkeys. What began as a research effort to understand the black lion tamarin, one of the rarest of the New World monkeys, has blossomed into…
Drive along the backroads of the U.S. Midwest and you’ll see farm fields stretching for thousands of acres. The rolling hills are sliced into straight rows, filled with the same…
A recent investigation by Mongabay demonstrated that oil palm plantations in the Amazon do not appear to be ‘green’ as the Brazilian government terms them, but rather are associated with…
Today we’re taking a look at how agroforestry, an ancient indigenous technology that is increasingly being adopted by farmers around the world, can help solve many of the major environmental…
Two or three strokes, and it's gone: in less than five minutes, 10 years collapse. If it's some other palm tree native to the rainforest such as açaí (Euterpe oleracea), soon…
Gorongosa National Park has quite a history, from its inception 60 years ago to being battleground the subsequent Mozambique civil war, to its recent revitalization and engagement with the human…
It was late afternoon deep in the dry season in Fatikh, a village in the Sahel region of Senegal. Out on his farm, El Hadj Ndiaye, a distinguished gentleman in…
In the latter part of 2016, Ethan Steinberg and two of his friends planned a driving tour across the U.S. to interview farmers. Their goal was to solve a riddle…
MONTPELLIER, France — As the world warms due to climate change, winemakers are struggling to maintain the quality of their product. But in the home of wine, agroforestry researchers are…
LOS ASIENTOS, Panama — It was auction day in the town of Santiago, and ranchers from the region gathered to buy and sell cattle. A metallic clatter rang out from…
DESULO, Italy — In a late 1990s photo, a little girl with a ponytail and white apron poses at the corner of a cheese-making machine. Two decades later, with the…
Appalachia is home to some of the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world, and it has a deep history of harvesting species like American ginseng for personal use and…
