Guinea-Bissau is a mangrove country. These unique coastal forests cover around 326,000 hectares (about 806,000 acres), or 9% of the national territory — the highest proportion in the world. They…
Tropical forest loss skyrocketed in 2024, with vast swaths of primary forest consumed by fire, according to new satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery…
JAKARTA — Researchers have called out the Indonesian government’s claim of having reduced deforestation by 90% over the past decade, pointing to cherry-picked data and a skewed baseline that paint…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s national human rights commission has found a slew of legal and rights violations in a government-backed project to establish large-scale plantations in the eastern region of Papua.…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has raised serious concerns over the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, saying it imposes a heavy administrative burden on smallholders while lacking clarity and…
In the Mexican port city of Acapulco, in southwestern Guerrero state, human activities have put so much pressure on the most important lagoons that the mangrove areas in this city…
NAIROBI, Kenya — Many African cities are now characterized by deafening traffic noises and suffocating gas emissions, and are becoming limitless concrete jungles as urbanization takes hold and human settlements…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, has filed a formal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing 47 companies of environmental destruction and corruption. The companies, which operate in…
Highly prized teak from Myanmar continues to be imported into Poland, despite EU sanctions on the Southeast Asian country’s state-run timber monopoly following the 2021 military coup and violent crackdown…
Across southeastern Liberia, oil palms grow wild in the forest. Known as “country palm,” the Elaeis guineensis tree is native to West Africa and treasured by local communities. “In the…
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 government is targeting protected forest areas as part of its plan to convert 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of forest into “food and energy estates,”…
JAKARTA — Illegal deforestation has reportedly surged to record levels in a wildlife reserve at the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island that’s known as the “orangutan capital of the…
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…
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.…
In a landmark ruling in May 2017, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirmed the Indigenous Ogiek’s status as ancestral owners of the Mau Forest in Kenya and…
Encompassing some 2,700 square kilometers, Mau Forest is considered the most important water catchment in western Kenya, providing water to millions of people. But recent satellite data reveal that Mau…
Mangrove forests still line most of Guinea-Bissau’s fringing shoreline along West Africa’s Atlantic coast, a protective green halo along the many bays and estuaries. Uniquely evolved for the interface between…
When created in 2006, the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area in the Brazilian Amazon was supposed to preserve the region’s rich biodiversity and nearby protected areas. Instead, the reserve…
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…
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…
Tucabaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve comprises more than 2,640 square kilometers (1,020 square miles) of semi-arid forest and tropical savannah in the heart of southern Bolivia’s Chiquitania region. However, this…
ANTONINA, Brazil — In the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, the small coastal town of Antonina gets abundant and high-quality water for its nearly 20,000 inhabitants from a nearby water…
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.…
JAKARTA — Excavators have begun clearing land in the Indonesian region of Papua in what’s been described as the largest deforestation undertaking in the world. A total of 2 million…
RIO PINDARÉ INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil – Under the emerald canopy of the Amazon rainforest, Janaína Guajajara peered into a murky pool of water barely larger than a bathtub. Along its…
GORONTALO, Indonesia — A palm oil industry body and a state-owned company are proposing a vast new palm oil plan encompassing around 1 million hectares (nearly 2.5 million acres) of…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is working on improving and synchronizing its forest and supply chain data to comply with increasingly strict sustainability standards and requirements in markets where it…
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 — 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…
In the middle of Colombia, where the country’s Eastern Plains and Andean ecoregions meet the Amazon Basin, a vast complex of parks, reserves and other protected areas safeguards ancient habitat…
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,…