Will Sierra del Divisor soon become Peru’s newest national park?
This article is the second in a two-part series on Sierra del Divisor, a proposed national park in one of the most remote corners of the Peruvian Amazon that is…
Satellites spot deforestation in almost-approved Peruvian national park
This article is the first in a two-part series on Sierra del Divisor, a proposed national park in one of the most remote corners of the Peruvian Amazon that is…
Endangered parakeet finds new hope in reserve expansion
The El Dorado Nature Reserve sits within the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range on the northern coast of Colombia. First designated in 2006, the reserve now protects 2,250…
Fires rage in Indonesian park illegally trashed for palm oil
Fire burning in Tesso Nilo. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Dozens of fires are raging across Indonesia's Tesso Nilo National Park National Park, a protected area that has lost more…
Millions of dollars pumped into oil palm development in Tanzania
A partnership with foreign investors aims to scale up the East African nation’s production of palm oil, but details on its implementation and possible consequences remain scarce. Plans for a…
‘Chaos’ in Congo’s logging sector
Dysfunction plagues DRC’s logging industry, say conservation and watchdog groups, but the government and timber companies want to grow the sector. Little of the timber from the Democratic Republic of…
Palm oil plantations used to ‘reforest’ parts of Brazil despite being wildlife deserts
This red-breasted blackbird (Sturnella militaris) is one of the relatively few bird species that is found in oil palm plantations. Photo by Alexander Lees. It may not surprise you to…
Big reserve expansion gives tigers a boost in India
A wild Bengal tiger in India. Photo by Morgan Erickson-Davis. A hundred years ago, there were thirteen times as many tigers in the world as there are today, ranging from…
Satellite-based forest mapping platform hits its stride
Global Forest Watch, a young online forest monitoring and alert system, provides free, near real-time data on deforestation and tree-cover loss around the world. It allows users to create customized…
New reserve in Peru will protect nearly a million acres of pristine forest
Forest near Iquitos, close to where the new reserve is. Photo by Morgan Erickson-Davis. A tract of Peruvian rainforest bigger than California's Yosemite National Park is officially more protected, with…
Controversy emerges over alleged deforestation policy breach by APRIL supplier
Less than three weeks after APRIL unveiled a sustainability policy that is supposed to protect natural forests, an environmental group is alleging that one of the Indonesian forestry giant's subsidiaries…
As mangroves disappear at ‘an alarming rate,’ conservationists urge more protection
This article is the second in a two-part series on mangrove conservation. Read the first part here. Red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) in Panama. Photo by Rhett Butler. In December 2014,…
Sri Lanka becomes first country to completely protect mangroves
This article is the first in a two-part series on mangrove conservation. Read the second part here. Mangrove forest in Cuero-Salado, Honduras. Photo by Rhett Butler. In a press conference…
Invasive predators, deforestation driving Tasmanian parrot over the edge
Young swift parrots (Lathamus discolour). Photo courtesy of Dejan Stojanovic. In the forests of Tasmania lives the swift parrot (Lathamus discolour), a highly threatened bird that breeds nowhere else in…
First-of-its-kind mapping technique sheds new light on tropical forests
Rainforest in Kinabatangan, Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts have developed vegetation height maps for the entire tropics at…
Proposed border checkpoint and road threaten critical Cambodian forest and wildlife
Forest in Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. Photo by Dtfman. A proposed border checkpoint at Kbal Damrei, on Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, together with a new road leading up to it, may…
New bird uncovered in South American conflict region, researchers urge protection
On the border of Colombia and Venezuela lies a mountain range called Serranía de Perijá in which a small brown songbird is going about its day entirely unaware of what…
China unveils plans for huge railway in South America
Fragments of cerrado forest in Brazil's Mato Grosso state. The proposed railroad route goes through some of the last standing intact forest in the state. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.…
Primary rainforest cleared for massive palm oil plantations in Peru
Two palm oil plantations have recently been established in Peru, supplanting primary forest. Satellite imagery analysis shows extent of the massive development, which is led by a group of companies…
High pressure: is U.S. policy deterring illegal wood imports?
A stump is all that remains of an illegally felled tree in the rainforest of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Recent findings indicate amendments made to the Lacey Act in 2008 may…
China’s investment in Latin America taking toll on the environment, setting the stage for conflict
Cleared Cerrado in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler China has been investing heavily in Latin America’s natural resources and crude oil. Recently, the country even pledged to…
What’s the current deforestation rate in the Amazon rainforest?
PLEASE NOTE: Please see this page for the latest numbers Current deforestation rate: alerts are up over this time last year Nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest is located in…
Satellite images show deforestation on fringes of UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cameroon
With more than 3,000 hectares cleared so far and more to come, Greenpeace and other organizations call for detailed land-use strategy in Cameroon In its push to become a middle-income…
New mapping project uncovers road networks in Peru’s primary forests
A logging road transects Peruvian rainforest (this is not an image of one of the newly detected roads). Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Roads spread out like multi-fingered tendrils, eating…
Satellite data shows how deforestation is impacting our weather and our food
Inside Central American rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Thanks to the world’s voracious appetite for crops like coffee, palm oil, rice, rubber, soy and tea, large-scale agriculture is one…
World’s critical habitats lost Connecticut-size area of forest in a decade
A Madagascar nightjar (Caprimulgus madagascariensis), which shares a genus with the endangered Itombwe nightjar (Caprimulgus prigoginei). Photo by Francesco Veronesi Many of the world's endangered animals live in only one…
Researchers find treasure trove of unique, threatened animals in Philippine forest
Reaching 1,450 meters (4,750 feet) above the surrounding sea, Cleopatra's Needle is one of Palawan's tallest mountain peaks. Photo by Jonah van Beijnen. Palawan, an island-province of the Philippines near…
Using freely available tools to monitor forest cover in critical chimpanzee habitat
Think of it as trying to help the long-lost cousins who never left your home town. Researchers and friends at the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) are doing just that for…
Orangutan rescued amid sea of palm oil
A large male Sumatran orangutan is released, some 50 kilometers from where he was rescued in the Leuser Ecosystem. Photo: Paul Hilton for OIC. Conservationists rescued another orangutan stranded in…
Brazilian Amazon nears deforestation threshold past which wildlife may crash, says study
Clearing of Brazilian Amazon rainforest for soy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. A study on the impact of forest loss on biodiversity, recently published in the journal Conservation Biology, shows…