For the Indigenous Vungu people living along the border of Gabon’s Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, the forest here has long been a source of traditional medicines. So when researchers set out…
PHUKET, Thailand — The air is thick and sticky in the forest surrounding the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project center. Thanaphat Payakkaporn, head of the project, bends down to pick up the…
For more than 15 years, an international team of researchers intermittently followed five groups of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the jungles of Uganda and Tanzania. With cameras in…
In April 2024, above-average rainfall caused Kenya’s Ewaso Nyiro River to burst its banks, flooding the area and wreaking havoc for residents, including more than two dozen rescued chimpanzees at…
Wild chimpanzees actively seek out plants with medicinal properties to treat themselves for specific ailments,a new study has found. While most animals consume foods with medicinal properties as part of…
JAKARTA — Self-medicating in animals has been reported before, but scientists noted something particularly special when they observed a wild orangutan in Sumatra treating a wound on its face with…
Chimpanzees, like humans, can use a variety of tools to perform tasks such as getting food from hard-to-reach places. Now, a study published in PLOS Biology has found that, also…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s largest deforesting company has continued to clear peatland despite an order by the government for the firm to stop clearing rainforests. The company in question is pulpwood…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out what it calls a “biodiversity management master plan” amid mounting criticism of the environmental and social threats posed by the construction of…
In eastern Sierra Leone, straddling the border of Liberia, lies Gola Rainforest National Park, one of the last remaining intact tracts of the tropical Upper Guinean forests in West Africa.…
Anthropologist Maud Mouginot recalls an encounter with bonobos early one morning in 2019 deep in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo that helped revise her impression of them…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is experiencing a resurgence in forest clearance due to the expansion of pulpwood and oil palm plantations, reversing years of declining deforestation associated with these two industries.…
The Cao-vit gibbon is one of the most critically endangered apes in the world, with its entire population living in a single patch of protected forest on the border between…
JAKARTA — Deforestation for oil palm plantations continues unabated at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, likely driven by new processing mills that in turn may ultimately…
JAKARTA — The Norwegian state pension fund has cut ties with U.K. conglomerate Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the group’s gold mining activity in Indonesia could damage the…
JAKARTA — Activists and scientists have condemned a British conglomerate’s decision to resume gold exploration in Indonesia's Batang Toru forest, saying it threatens the world's most endangered great ape, the…
Being silly and indulging in humor may sound easy, but our brains need to do a lot of heavy lifting to pull it off. Landing a joke requires recognizing what’s…
PURSAT, Cambodia — On the outskirts of the western Cambodian city of Pursat, some 180 kilometers, or 110 miles, north of Phnom Penh, tourists and travelers stream out of minivans…
It’s a man’s world when it comes to ape societies — at least, that’s been the prevailing assumption for years. But some recent research is shaking up how we think…
The morning song of gibbons, with its accelerating, bubbling crescendo, is arguably one of the most enthralling sounds of the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. For many, it’s a sound…
YELWA, Nigeria — Nightfall at the Ngel Nyaki Forest Reserve field station is clad in the whispers, chirps and trills of insect song. Flames from the burning wood in the…
JAKARTA — A conservation task force trying to help an Indonesian mine operator minimize its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s most threatened great ape, says it was the…
Western hoolock gibbons (Hoolock hoolock), native to the forests of northeastern India, western Myanmar, and eastern Bangladesh, are among the world's most threatened primates, listed as endangered on the IUCN…
In December, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced that it was set to spend $6.2 billion on mining the rich, high-grade iron ore deposits of eastern Guinea’s Simandou Mountains, with…
Louise hadn’t seen Loretta in at least 26 years. But when a photo of her sister flashed before her, she seemed drawn to the image. This recognition of a family…
A three-year project supporting alternative livelihoods has shown success in changing the behavior of hunters living on the northern edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. Participants signed on to reciprocal…
Situated in western Nigeria, some 70 kilometers (113 miles) east of Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos, Oluwa Forest Reserve is facing severe pressure from smallholder farmers and big plantations. On…
Only about 100,000 Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) remain, less than half of their original numbers. People are killing the iconic orange apes at rates that could lead to their extinction…
It started with monkey poop. A few years ago we analyzed the feces of wild baboons, chimpanzees, red-tailed monkeys, and red colobus in Uganda and found unexpectedly high levels of…
JAKARTA — A palm oil company in Indonesia has finally started paying off a $23 million fine for burning an important Sumatran orangutan habitat more than a decade ago, highlighting…
Gibbons are celebrated in some of the most significant folk tales in Myanmar. The telling and retelling of stories portraying the lithe and charismatic primates as forest spirits emblematic of…
Tourists from around the world pay top dollar for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hobnob with gorilla families in Uganda’s montane forests. Part of the rationale for the steep prices is…
