A survey has found populations of elephant, gorillas and chimpanzees in and around two national parks in southeastern Cameroon has remained relatively stable since 2016. Conservation officials have welcomed this…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian company responsible for the largest amount of deforestation, PT Mayawana Persada, has largely ceased clearing peatlands in the western part of Borneo. However, it has shifted…
A new study has concluded that the decline in Grauer’s gorillas in a sector of their main stronghold in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the result of the impacts…
Spanning nearly a tenth of the vast Congo Basin’s rainforest, the transboundary Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM) landscape is a nearly unbroken green canopy, stretching across Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and Gabon.…
Illegal mining inside the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to spread, satellite data show, driving environmental devastation. Deforestation stayed at a near-record high…
Oluwa Forest Reserve, located in southwestern Nigeria, contains some of the last large swaths of old growth — also called “primary” — forest in the region. These forests are home…
Gibbons are famed for their graceful agility high in the forest canopy. Swinging effortlessly from branch to branch, their bodies spilling through the trees, the small apes seem to defy…
Bonobos, human’s closest relatives, are classified as an endangered species. Groundbreaking research suggests their vulnerability might be even more severe than previously thought. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Current…
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Standing at an altitude of 1,945 meters (6,381 feet), Mount Bintumani is the highest peak of the Loma Mountains, which is the highest mountain range in Sierra…
JAKARTA — In Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, conservation groups and authorities have built canopy bridges that stitch back together primate habitat, including for orangutans, that were fragmented by roads over…
Orangutans have long captured the human imagination, their expressive eyes and human-like behaviors drawing parallels with our own species. Yet few individuals have had the opportunity to dive as deeply…
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…