Mongabay series: Global Forests

The fires that tore through South America’s Pantanal region in 2020, destroying 30% of its area, are still scorched in memory. And now, the world’s largest wetland that fans out…

When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, and national governments responded with lockdowns of varying degrees, conservationists warned it would lead to a surge in illegal logging in tropical countries. They…

In 2019, Norway committed to pay $150 million to Gabon to protect its forests under the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). After independent verification of the country's deforestation rates in…

BOGOTÁ — The year 2021 marks 30 years since Colombia adopted its current Constitution. Considered the Magna Carta of the laws of the nation, it was established in 1991 by…

PETÉN, Guatemala — Once or twice a year, a jaguar visits Uaxactun at night. It slinks under the great stone pyramids built by the ancient Mayans and past the moonlit…

In 2006, the world's leading hummingbird photographer, Luis Mazariegos, visited La Mesenia, an isolated village in Colombia’s western Andes. He had no idea that besides taking a picture of the…

Camera trap surveys in Virachey National Park in northeast Cambodia have recorded the country’s first sightings of a critically endangered deer, the large-antlered muntjac (Muntiacus vuquangensis). The species, also known…

HO CHI MINH CITY — Camera traps placed in a remote nature reserve in central Vietnam recently captured images of rare muntjac deer, in addition to a number of other…

As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fighting off attacks and threats by…

Rudi Putra is well-known in Indonesia’s conservation world. Born in 1977 in Aceh Tamiang district, in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, Rudi has been working on preserving…

Legal mining in Colombia is a significant driver of deforestation, contributing to the destruction of 121,819 hectares (301,021 acres) of forest from 2001 to 2018. During that time, deforestation from…

MINDANAO, Philippines — Rising 2,064 meters, or nearly 6,800 feet, above sea level, Mount Busa is the tallest peak in the Philippines’ Sarangani province and home to one of the…

No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…

This Sunday is International Day of Forests as established by the U.N. in 2012. In recognition, here's an update on some of the topics from Mongabay's "Rainforests: 11 things to…

It happened the way it so often does in Colombia: the government announced a new official appointment and outrage ensued. As the year 2020 drew to a close, the minister…

Impunity still reigns when it comes to the murders of human rights defenders around the world, according to the Front Line Defenders organization, in its global analysis of 2020. The…

France has rolled out a new initiative to fight deforestation and promote sustainable development. Under the initiative, announced in Ecuador in early December 2020, the South American country will be…

For our first episode of 2021, we’re taking the opportunity to look at some of the most important trends and issues that will be affecting rainforest conservation over the next…

Bogotá — As the world became fixated on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the situation for environmental defenders across the globe has only become more precarious. In 2019, 212 environmental…

2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay's year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what's in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch.…

Flor Angela Martinez is a mother, campesino and entrepreneur. Based in the Colombian Amazon, her company has become renowned for its sustainable timber harvesting practices. But before she made the…

In a small, sprightly basement office in the neighborhood of Chapinero in Bogotá, navigating the winds of political dysphoria and generalized uncertainty that have characterized the year the world over,…

Home to more than 60% of the Amazon rainforest, the largest tropical forest in the world, Brazil is beyond rich in biodiversity and life. The country is also rife with…

“This is a country that has a forestry vocation,” says José Miguel Orozco, professor of forest governance and policy at Bogotá’s Francisco José de Caldas District University. High-altitude Andean forests,…

Liberia’s Nimba county lies about an eight-hour drive north of the capital, Monrovia. In the dry season, the road leading into the far-flung region kicks up swirling clouds of red…

There’s a saying in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that refers to “Article 15,” a nonexistent paragraph of the country’s constitution during the Mobutu Sese Seko dictatorship in the…

Flor de María Paraná, 47, describes the bleakest moment of her life as the one that made her the leader she is today. "It was the day that everything changed,"…

Nazareth Cabrera is like a 'manicuera' they say, a sacred drink of the Indigenous Uitoto people that is obtained from the sweet yucca or fareka. Everything that is bitter, she…

María Clemencia Herrera Nemerayema did not get a diploma when she finished primary school at the Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús boarding school in the municipality of La Chorrera, in…

When Celso Silva Junior, a Ph.D. candidate at the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE), stepped back from his recently completed map of Brazil’s secondary forests, he was surprised by…