This is the fourth article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. The muddy cores that Ian Lawson and his colleagues…
This is the third article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. The logging concession moratorium signed in 2002 was supposed to shore…
This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…
This is the first article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The notion seemed straightforward: A massive swamp in the Congo Basin…
One of the most poisonous animals on earth, the golden dart frog carries enough toxins in its body to kill 10 people. If it enters the blood stream, the toxin…
A one-minute audio clip made the rounds on Venezuelan Twitter last year, in which a state official being interviewed on a radio show tells citizens that, because of ongoing national…
The European Union is considering an ambitious new proposal that would regulate imports of products linked to global forest loss. The law would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t…
Deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest surged 22% to the highest level since 2006, according to official data released today by the Brazilian government. Preliminary analysis of satellite data by Brazil's…
Indigenous stewardship of 960 million hectares of ancestral lands; along with rapid research and application of new methane removal technologies, could help curb global warming — if both approaches are fully backed by nations.
TLALPAN, Mexico — Mexico City is, by some counts, one of the largest cities in the world. Its 9 million citizens occupy 1,485 square kilometers (573 square miles) of sprawling…
The Glasgow Declaration on Forests pledges to end deforestation by 2030. But critics say there’s a catch: Will natural forests continue being cut, and land converted to plantations, causing CO2 emissions to rise and biodiversity to fall?
The heads of the world’s biggest oil companies denied accusations they misled the public on climate change, despite evidence of pending environmental damages and funding for climate denial campaigns presented…
WWF has come under fire at a U.S. congressional hearing over its funding of rangers who allegedly carried out rights abuses against Indigenous peoples and local communities in Africa and…
More than 200 Congolese and international NGOs have published an open letter calling for a government clampdown on “illegal activities” in protected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).…
Just a day ahead of U.S. congressional hearings on climate change with heads of the largest oil companies in the world, a scathing new report has found that Chevron oil…
Cattle ranching has been destroying the Rama-Kriol territory in southeast Nicaragua for decades. And while many researchers have called attention to the devastating forest loss taking place there, few have…
The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee has found that the Paraguayan government failed to regulate the use of harmful chemicals near an Indigenous community, resulting in severe health issues and…
Guatemala is getting ready to implement new regulatory programs for the cattle industry in hopes of slowing the rate of deforestation in some of the country’s most at-risk tropical forests.…
The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of…
Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…
There is a sacred hill in Nicaragua known as Kiwakumbaih, where the ancestors of the Indigenous Mayangna people would go to hold important annual events. To this day, it continues…
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…