Over recent years there have been high profile legal challenges, investigative articles in the media, and important reports on the relationship between conservationists and Indigenous peoples. In the latest of…
Using the customizable app ForestLink, traditional forest guardians (people living within and around the forest) can send near-real-time, geo-tagged alerts about illegal logging and mining activities to authorities and other…
There are only about 300 Cross River gorillas left in the world, making them the rarest subspecies of gorilla, or indeed any great ape. But in late June, a camera…
MBONJO, Cameroon — The first time Emmanuel Elong wrote a letter to Vincent Bolloré was in 2013. “The impact of the group that you are controlling on our lives is…
Between 1885 and 1908, Belgium’s King Leopold II exerted control over a vast area of Africa that would later become the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His rule was characterized…
In mid-December 2019, a team of veterinarians and caregivers looked on as a gorilla named Freedom quickly disappeared out of sight, the pounding of his feet on the forest floor…
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
KRIBI, Cameroon — Alarm flashed through Cameroon's conservation community in mid-September, when images of untidy rows of black polythene bags in a freshly bulldozed gash in the rainforest made the…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Katie Baker, a reporter for Buzzfeed News investigating allegations of human rights violations and other abuses committed against local indigenous…
It was the “next new frontier” for palm oil. A “mutually beneficial relationship” that would be a win-win for struggling nations in Africa and multinational producers running out of land…
The world’s largest known living frog species doesn’t build ordinary nests. It does a lot of heavy lifting, sometimes moving large stones and rocks weighing more than half its weight…
Earlier this year, the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health published its version of a sustainable diet that could feed the nearly 10 billion people expected to inhabit the…
Halcyon Agri Corp, the world’s largest rubber processor, is taking steps toward a more sustainable and transparent natural rubber supply chain following vocal public outcries from environmental NGOs last year.…
This week, Norway released the 2018 investment holdings of its massive government pension fund. Notably absent were four plantation companies previously listed in the portfolio: Olam International, Halcyon Agri Corp,…
DJOUM, Cameroon — “This right there used to be hell.” It’s early February 2019, deep in the tropical rainforest in southeastern Cameroon, the day after a night of heavy downpour.…
Africa’s Congo Basin is home to the second-largest rainforest on the planet. But according to a new study, this may soon not be the case. It finds that at current…
Nearly 70 years ago, Edwin Ujor of the Nigerian Forestry Service collected a specimen of a tree from a forest high up in the Bamenda highlands in Cameroon. The specimen…
Southern Cameroon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas of African rainforest. It’s also home to a massive area of deforestation destined for rubber cultivation – right across…
An industrial rubber plantation is currently developing land right on the edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. And it's getting closer, according to an analysis of satellite data released by…
A British government office has prosecuted a wood importer certified by the Forest Stewardship Council after it was found to have failed to ensure the legality of a shipment of…
Hornbills, vultures and eagles are being hunted for bushmeat in Cameroon in much greater numbers than previously thought, a new study has found. Previous research has shown that relatively few…
Researchers have identified a genetic analysis technique that pinpoints the harvest location of trees—a breakthrough that could help officials detect illegally traded timber. The multi-national research team tested the potential…
A warming climate and decreased humidity is threatening yields of plantains, a food staple that rural families in Cameroon and elsewhere in Central Africa bank on to pay for their…
A small but important group of Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimps – just one of four left in Cameroon – have gone missing. Conservationists blame a new road.
The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in December 2015, aims to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)…
At first glance Cameroon's western regions seem lush, but a closer look shows a land degraded by overgrazing, unsustainable cropping practices, deforestation of vegetation for firewood, and uncontrolled bush fires.…
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Two male chimps, Avi and Max, take turns inside an electric-fenced compound where eight Central chimpanzees are housed at the Mefou Primate Sanctuary not far from Cameroon’s…
Ekwoge Abwe’s fight drags on. As the manager of the Ebo Forest Research Centre (EFRP), he’s been part of a long running battle to set-up a national park conserving Cameroon’s…
Amphibians around the world are in a state of crisis. Over 40 percent are threatened with extinction. Chytrid fungus, a disease fatal to most amphibians, is decimating populations already threatened…
It's time to celebrate World Pangolin Day -- again. Today, February 18, is dedicated to the armor-clad mammals that resemble giant pine cones. Some might know them as scaly anteaters that eat, well…
