JAKARTA — Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres, about the size of Switzerland) of land nationwide that had been used for plantations, mining or other…
After years of uneven progress, deforestation in Indonesia is poised to accelerate, owing to widespread logging, expanding plantations and mining. In December, Indonesia’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, indicated the…
The wildcat gold mining boom that swept across the Amazon beginning in the 1970s left behind an environmental catastrophe of staggering proportions. At least 350,000 hectares (almost 865,000 acres) of…
Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns…
It was 27 December 2004. I was sitting at my computer in my office in Jakarta, Indonesia, my mind busy with plans for the New Year party I had organized…
After facing sustained pushback from environmental groups, Ghana revoked a 2022 law that had empowered the president to allow mining in the country’s forest reserves. In December, the Minister for…
MERANGIN, Indonesia — There wasn’t much Aris Adrianto felt he could do when the gold miners’ heavy vehicles broke into Bukit Gajah Berani, here in this remote pocket of Sumatra’s…
MITÚ, Colombia — Beneath the rising sun, people from nearby Indigenous communities navigate across the Vaupés River in traditional wooden canoes toward Mitú, a rapidly expanding town in the Colombian…
JAKARTA — Best known as the home of the world’s rarest great ape, the mountainous Batang Toru forest landscape on the island of Sumatra has become a test case for…
In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on…
MEXICO CITY — Throughout 2025, Latin America remained a battleground between efforts to conserve some of the world’s most valuable ecosystems and mounting pressure from organized crime and legal extractive…
Deep within the cloud forests of the San Martín region of Peru lie two places so high, cold and remote that they remained virtually unexplored for decades. In 2022, and…
JAKARTA — Indonesia closed 2025 facing an uncomfortable reality: climate disasters are escalating while policy direction has remained largely unchanged during President Prabowo Subianto’s first year in office, with the…
In 2018, researchers from Bat Conservation International, Cameroon's University of Maroua and the American Museum of Natural History entered abandoned mining tunnels in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains as part of an…
BANGKOK — 2025 saw global conservation plunged into chaos, with an estimated $500 million in funding from the United States government abruptly slashed after Donald Trump returned to office. The…
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
Colombia is the world's third-largest coffee producer and the main producer of Arabica coffee, which is known worldwide for its quality. The nation began developing commercial production in 1870, which…
This investigation was produced with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). Isabel Alarcón contributed reporting from Ecuador. BARCELONA — Covering more than 65 million hectares (160 million acres)…
As Belém's COP30 ended in compromise, political forces moved swiftly to accelerate destruction far from the global spotlight.
Trust in the criminal justice system varies among countries in the Pan Amazon, but in no country do citizens have an overall positive view of the police. In the Andean…
PADANG, Indonesia — At low tide along Padang's coastline, fishing boats sit idle, not because of rough seas, but because the water is clogged with timber. In late November, flash…
A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate…
JAKARTA — One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper companies has acknowledged to Mongabay a potential breach of its no-deforestation commitment in its supply chain, raising questions about the…
Between March and May 2025, at least eight children from the Achuar Indigenous community died of leptospirosis in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. The disease is preventable with access to safe…
Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell…
JAKARTA — Reeling from a cyclone that may have erased a chunk of its population, the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s rarest great ape population, now faces the prospect of losing…
Restoration in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is finding success on private lands, according to a newly published study. Researchers evaluated the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, a collaborative initiative launched in 2009…
JAKARTA — A major global forestry certification body is under scrutiny for endorsing one of Indonesia’s largest recent deforesters, raising concerns that consumers may be misled about the origins of…
News about the poaching and smuggling of threatened species often centers on products like tiger bone, rhino horn or pangolin scales. But much of the world’s illegally sourced wildlife products…
Brazil’s Ministério Público Federal has demonstrated how an ambitious corps of prosecutors can foster compliance with environmental laws. After charges are filed and indictments served, however, the forum for law…
Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, which span 28.2 million hectares (69.6 million acres), are among the most biodiverse in the world, hosting an estimated 5-8% of all species. The country also…
Indonesia’s government has been at pains to stress that the recent catastrophe in Sumatra was triggered by a rare meteorological event. Cyclone Senyar formed in the Malacca Strait, an area…
