JAKARTA — Top officials from Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s biggest palm oil producers, will meet European Union policymakers in Brussels amid a diplomatic standoff over a new deforestation rule…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
SANTA ELENA DE UAIRÉN, Venezuela — Flying over a dense jungle in southern Venezuela, the sea of trees below is suddenly replaced by large patches of bare soil, tree stumps…
A major oil spill earlier this month in the Ecuadorian Amazon has sparked criticism of cleanup efforts and the lack of transparency from the government regarding the spill’s environmental impact.…
A recent chemical spill in a protected reserve in northern Nicaragua is raising concerns about the contamination of several river ecosystems and the public health fallout for thousands of Indigenous…
Degraded by human activity, mountain forests across the tropical Andes are having a hard time bouncing back. But while scientists have long analyzed what drives their decline, they have largely…
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has made strides in developing its plantation industry, catapulting the country into the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Its sprawling plantations produce more than half of…
JAKARTA — As the European Union is set to adopt a landmark regulation that prohibits companies from trading commodities from deforested areas and illegal sources, the proposed law continues to…
MEXICO CITY — As climate change continues to choke off rainfall, many parts of the Amazon are facing a higher probability of dying off from drought than previously thought. A…
Officials are struggling to keep up with an increasing wave of deforestation in one of Guatemala’s largest protected areas, where squatters are clearing the rainforest to make room for settlements,…
MEXICO CITY — A major reform approved by congress last week is supposed to limit harmful practices by the mining industry and improve protections for the environment and Indigenous peoples.…
Brazil’s Cerrado may not be a household name like the neighboring Amazon Rainforest, but this vast savanna biome is even more threatened and fragmented. A new study now shows there’s…
JAKARTA — When Indonesia embarked on its Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s, it cleared vast swaths of forest for farmland, mostly in the peatlands of Borneo — only to…
Mining is one of the top drivers of deforestation globally, with huge swaths of forest being cleared for excavation pits, access roads and workers’ settlements. Yet details about mining’s environmental…
The European Union is one step closer to adopting landmark regulations that hold companies accountable for ensuring their products don’t contribute to deforestation. A new law, passed with an overwhelming…
JAKARTA — When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With…
Around 15 million people across the globe are working at artisanal and small-scale gold mining sites, nearly a third of them women and children. Instead of operating advanced equipment supplied…
More than 7% of all mountain forests have been destroyed during the past two decades, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. Using high-resolution satellite data…
SANTA ELENA DE UAIRÉN, Venezuela — Standing at the brink of a man-made canyon, Jhonny Pereira, a Brazilian-born mining boss, looks down at a dozen gold miners as they plough…
In 2021, Gabon’s space research agency, AGEOS, concluded that the country’s capital, Libreville, had lost nearly 70 hectares (170 acres) of mangroves in three years. That’s an area about a…
A carbon credit program in a prominent national park in Peru appears to have failed at preventing significant deforestation, raising questions about whether officials in charge of the program inflated…
With the slogan “Invest in Klabin and build a sustainable future” and a long list of awards for its commitment to preserving the environment, Brazilian pulp and paper manufacturer Klabin…
MEXICO CITY — The sudden, unexpected construction of a hotel in the middle of a protected reserve in southern Mexico has surprised residents and left many conservationists scrambling to figure…
Paraguay is considering opening up mining and natural gas drilling in one of its national parks in the Gran Chaco, despite widespread outcry that development could compromise the fragile savannah…
JAKARTA — Deforestation associated with oil palm cultivation has declined in recent years in Indonesia, but in a biodiversity haven at the northern tip of Sumatra, the forest is being…
A wave of violence against Indigenous people in Nicaragua this month has drawn international outcry over the government’s lack of action against land invaders committing human rights violations and destroying…
Under the searing rays of the afternoon sun, Rodolfo Assis Magalhães and his team silently scour the fields that border the forest. Their target, the charismatic Brazilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes…
Bolivia’s failure to combat illegal gold mining generated a heated national debate last year. Numerous news sites published investigations into deforestation, pollution and corruption tied to the mining industry, while…
JAKARTA — Two major palm oil companies recently exited a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection, bringing the total number of firms quitting the framework since 2000 to…
