Unknown orange butterfly in Sumatra. Scientists believe we are in the midst of a defaunation crisis, which is impacting animals, and ecological services, the world over. Photo by: Rhett A.…
Green under siege: world's biodiversity hotspots 85 percent impacted With only 3.5 percent intact vegetation left in the Atlantic Forest, it is the world's most imperiled biodiversity hotspot. This is…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Douglas Sheil The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda hosts nearly half of the world's remaining mountain gorillas. Photo courtesy of Douglas Sheil.…
Scientists need to start speaking out on overpopulation Suburb development in Colorado Springs, Colorado U.S. The population of the U.S. is currently growing at around 0.7 percent annually. Photo by:…
A technology that uses discarded mobile phones to create a real-time alert system against logging and poaching will soon be deployed in the endangered rainforests of Central Africa. Rainforest Connection…
In past decade, Brazil has done the carbon equivalent of taking every car off America's roads for three years Brazil's success in reducing deforestation in the world's largest rainforest has…
By all standards the Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) program is gargantuan: the network includes over 90 parks, covers 51 million hectares, and comprises 15 percent of Brazil's Amazon. Three…
An area of rainforest APP has pledged to protect in Riau Province, on the island of Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), Indonesia's largest pulp…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Carlos Souza Jr. Aerial view of grazing cattle in newly-cleared Amazon in Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the Brazilian Amazon,…
The world is warming rapidly due to greenhouse gas emissions, threatening everything from our food supply to our ecosystems, but the solution may be surprisingly cheap, according to the third…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Phillip Fearnside Pasture meets gallery forest in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. How much is a forest really worth?…
Flying over the endless forest of the West Amazon, while searching for short-eared dogs. From so high up it was possible to see just how much forest there really is,…
Massive offshore wind turbine arrays would reduce hurricane wind speeds and storm surge, reports a study published this week in Nature Climate Change. And while the size (tens of thousands…
Also see our Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2013. The discovery of a new tapir species is number seven in our first ever Top 10 List of Happy Environmental Stories.…
In a world where extinctions are almost commonplace and global warming barely raises an eyebrow, very few of us can return to find the places we grew up in unsullied…
In Redeeming REDD: Policies, Incentives and Social Feasibility for Avoided Deforestation, anthropologist Michael Brown relays a constructive critique of the contemporary aims, standards and modalities for mitigating climate change by…
Even ten years ago it would have been impossible to imagine: clear-as-day footage of a jaguar plodding through the impenetrable Amazon, or a bicolored-spined porcupine balancing on a branch, or…
The fate of the most biodiverse rainforest on Earth has been decided: it will be drilled for oil. On Thursday Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he has abandoned a plan…
Often misunderstood, REDD+ forest carbon offsets are a “must have” for any realistic climate-change mitigation strategy. Californians are known as innovation leaders, and once again, we are on the verge…
Environmentalist and journalist, George Mobiot, makes a passionate new plea for the controversial idea of rewilding parts of Europe in his new book Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers…
Five years after being elected president and six months after winning a second term, President Obama today gave his first speech devoted solely to climate change and announced several executive…
As agriculture continues to expand at the expense of forests in the tropics, humanity struggles to meet environmental protection goals. Despite global efforts towards sustainable agriculture and some progress towards…
The 2013 Zoos and Aquariums: Committing to Conservation (ZACC) conference runs from July 8th—July 12th in Des Moines, Iowa, hosted by the Blank Park Zoo. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com…
A new consensus statement by 520 scientists from around the world warns that global environmental harm is putting at risk the happiness and well-being of this and future generations. "Based…
China has unveiled details of its first pilot carbon-trading program, which will begin next month in the southern city of Shenzhen. The trading scheme will cover 638 companies responsible for…
"Rural dwellers are not passive respondents to external conservation agents but are active proponents and executers of their own conservation initiatives."—Noga Shanee, Projects Director for Neotropical Primate Conservation (NPC), in…
The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But…
Researchers have taken a step closer to using atmospheric carbon dioxide as a biofuel, potentially helping mitigate climate change while at the same time meeting rising energy demand, according to…
According to a controversial theory, forests—such as this one in Borneo—drive winds bringing rain from the coasts to continental interiors. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. It took over two-and-a-half-years for…
Scientists and experts are increasingly concerned that we are entering an age of ecological collapse with untold impacts for future generations. In Daniel Rirdan's new book, The Blueprint, he outlines…