Banking on the capacity of global forests to continue storing huge amounts of carbon could put the Paris Agreement climate targets out of reach and incur huge economic costs. That’s…
Edward Faison, an ecologist at the Highstead Foundation, stood quietly in a patch of forest that stretched for miles in all directions. Above him, the needles from white pine trees…
The koala was officially declared endangered in the Australian state of New South Wales in February 2022. A year later, the Labor Party promised to create a 315,000-hectare (778,000-acre) Great…
Can a tropical forest mend itself? After trees are cut down and wildlife flees, do microbes on the dank, leafy floor and woody giants with epiphyte-laden crowns come back; do…
LUBUMBASHI — When night falls in the Batwa village of Lukwangulo, only the local chief’s house is illuminated. In this village in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deforestation is once again rising after several years of decline, with 2024 marking the highest rate since 2021. The data also show that the vast majority of…
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…
LANGKAT, Indonesia — Syafi’i has spent three decades picking up the crabs scurrying along the coast here in Langkat district on Sumatra Island’s northeastern coast, a reliable trade that provided…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Supreme Court has concluded hearings in a petition filed against controversial measures to open up protected areas to development. A ruling in the case, dubbed as one…
The United Nations’ framework for reducing emissions by protecting forests in less-industrialized countries, known as REDD+, isn’t doing enough to prioritize Indigenous peoples in the Amazon. That’s the finding from…
This is the second part of a Mongabay series investigating Cambodia's illicit timber trade. Read Part One. Several Cambodian journalists helped to report this investigation, but have requested not to…
Every Sunday, Hermindo Vies wakes up early and travels by river from his village, Asunción de Quiquibey, in Bolivia’s Beni department, to the nearest major town to sell his produce.…
When Júlio de Castro began beekeeping in 1986, he never imagined he and his family would one day own the 500 hives they maintain today, producing up to 10 metric…
PHNOM PENH — In a rare move to combat forest crimes, Cambodian Environment Minister Eang Sophalleth on Sept. 2 banned all forest clearance at the site of a dam project in…
APAMPRAMA, Ghana — Since 2017, the Ghanaian government has aggressively pursued small-scale miners operating in forest reserves across the country, blaming them for the destruction of the country’s forests. But…
In 2022, the West African nation of Ghana lost 18,000 hectares, or 44,500 acres, of forests — an area the size of 30,000 football fields. But instead of strengthening restrictions,…
Every day, decisions are made worldwide that generate substantial profits but cause severe environmental harm. This degradation affects everyone, including the decision-makers themselves. Business is not immune to externalities: climate…
Gold was central to the colonization of the Mato Grosso state area. The state’s current capital city, Cuiabá, was founded by bandeirantes, settlers in Portuguese Brazil from São Paulo, who…
Gold mining has been a feature of the Andean Amazon since pre-Colombian times and, along with silver, it was the cornerstone of the economy in the colonial and republican periods.…
This is the second of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part One. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — “Fifteen years ago, this whole village was…
This is the first of a two-part Mongabay series about hydropower dams in the Cardamom Mountains. Read Part Two. PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to establish 2 million hectares, or nearly 5 million acres, of sugarcane plantations in the eastern region of Papua, home to the last great…
Police in northwestern Tanzania have arrested four villagers in Hanang District, after they criticized a controversial oil pipeline being built through the area, in what activists say is just the…
JAKARTA — A campaign calling for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ customary forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has gone viral, with the campaign’s poster shared nearly 3 million…
If funders want to protect the planet’s forests, they should stop focusing on market-based solutions like carbon trading, according to a report released May 29 by the Rainforest Foundation UK,…
The Pan Amazon is a significant source of several key industrial commodities. Global markets are not overly dependent on the region; nonetheless, production from Amazonian mines is not insignificant. Development…
BELITUNG ISLAND, Indonesia — Nasidi paddled gently past a row of the eponymous rasau trees that line the riverbanks here in Tebet Rasau village, where a decade ago people would…
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism…
PHNOM PENH — New data published by the University of Maryland on April 4 and available through satellite monitoring platform Global Forest Watch show continued forest loss across Cambodia last…
JAKARTA — The tropics continue to lose primary forest at an alarming rate, with an area of tree cover half the size of Panama disappearing in 2023, new data from…
MANILA — The Chocolate Hills of Bohol Island in the central Philippines are a sprawling geological wonder, shaped by nature millions of years ago. Given their recognition as a UNESCO…
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Vegetation lurches over a concrete wall that runs alongside a quiet road in the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. Behind the wall, and the rusty…
