When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on…
“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it will finalize this month the revocation of hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines that it announced at the start of the…
JAKARTA — Pulpwood and palm oil companies were among the biggest contributors to the loss of a Manhattan-size area of forest in Indonesia’s Papua region in 2021, a new report…
JAKARTA — A plan to clear forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua for food crops will release as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Australia emits in an…
A photo of an odd-looking amphibian drew attention on Twitter last week, where it was described as a “smooth lil fella”, compared to a melted tootsie roll candy, and likened…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has opened itself up to litigation by unilaterally revoking hundreds of permits for logging concessions, plantations and mines, according to environmental law experts. The revocations…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it has no plans to reclassify oil palms as a forest crop rather than an agricultural one, following a controversial proposal made by the…
The ongoing drought in Paraguay, now moving into its third year, has put increasing pressure on conservation efforts throughout the country to support local communities and protect wildlife. Record-breaking heat…
Many Indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are struggling with hunger and malnutrition as increasing land invasions force them from ancestral forests that they once sustainably managed for crop cultivation. Residents…
In late 2021, the Mexican government made a controversial announcement that many of the country’s major infrastructure projects, most notably the Tren Maya project being built across the Yucatán Peninsula,…
JAKARTA — Deforestation for new oil palm plantations in Indonesia has decreased over the past decade, strengthening the case that palm oil doesn’t have to be associated with the destruction…
JAKARTA — Palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing a local district head for revoking their permits, the second such case filed since authorities last year rescinded…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of…
Update, 2/10/2022: The Indonesian government has now clarified that it will not seek to reclassify palm plantations as forests, read about it here. JAKARTA — Across large swaths of Indonesia, forests…
JAKARTA — A “social forestry” program administered by the Indonesian government to grant land rights to communities has not been effective in preventing deforestation, and in some cases has even…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s land and forest fires burned a greater area this year than in 2020, with most of the fires occurring in West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara,…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
Northern Guatemala is covered in more than 3,000 square miles of rainforest. Some parts of it have been burned down by cattle ranchers and drug traffickers. Other parts remain pristine,…
A group of supermarket chains that includes Sainsbury’s in the U.K. and Lidl in the Netherlands said this week that they will either reduce or outright halt sales of Brazilian…
JAKARTA — In 2019, fires raged through Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands, sparked by the deliberate burning of land for agriculture, and fanned by an El Niño system bringing drier-than-usual weather…
At least 12,500 tonnes of wood came from rainforest species considered threatened by the Brazilian Forestry Service (SFB).
France is taking new steps to ensure that products imported from Brazil aren’t contributing to deforestation in vulnerable forests and savannahs. The French government published a new risk analysis platform…
After she collected a set of camera traps from the ridgeline above Corcovado National Park, conservation biologist Eleanor Flatt said that scientists, staff, and tourists all huddled around her computer…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has rejected a bid by two palm oil companies to have their permits restored after they were scrapped by local authorities for a litany…
In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the…
BALI, Indonesia — Satellite imagery has detected deforestation in a gold mining concession in Indonesia that overlaps with the habitat of the most threatened great ape in the world. U.S.-based…
At the very southern tip of Colombia, Indigenous communities practice a sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and rotating crop structures within cycles of flooding periods. This has allowed…
BALI, Indonesia — Palm oil industry watchdogs are warning of a possible surge in deforestation across Indonesia, after the government ended a three-year freeze on issuing permits for new plantations.…