The Critically Endangered pygmy sloth. Photo by: Bryson Voirin. There may be more pygmy sloths than believed, according to a new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy. Scientists originally estimated…
CAO lasers easily penetrate forest canopies to reveal minute variations in ground elevation associated with soils. This images shows a ground elevation map in dense tropical forest of western Amazon.…
An interview with George Angehr Photograph of newly built Biomuseo biodiversity museum in Panama City, Panama. Photo by: Fernando Aldo, September, 2014. Biomuseo, designed by internationally renowned architect, Frank Gehry,…
Click charts to enlarge Loss of tropical forests accelerated roughly 60 percent during the 2000s, argues a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings contradict previous research…
An ocelot in Colombia. Photo by: Brodie Ferguson. By comparing camera trapping findings with genetic samples taken from feces, biologists have determined that the density of ocelots on Barro Colorado…
The holotype specimen, which scientists used as the basis to describe a new species of poison dart frog: Andinobates geminisae. Photo by: Cesar Jaramillo, STRI. It was a surprising discovery…
Leaves are vital trees organs that support many important functions. A recent study published in PNAS found that each tree species in tropical rainforests possesses distinctive bacterial communities – called…
Between the Forest and the Sea: Passing Down Traditions Part I of this series: Life & Climate Change in Guna Yala Part II of this series: The Yarsuisuit Collective In…
Part I of this series: Life & Climate Change in Guna Yala Part III of this series: Passing Down Traditions The indigenous Guna of Panama are at the forefront of…
Part II of this series: The Yarsuisuit Collective Part III of this series: Passing Down Traditions The island-dwelling Guna people of Panama are one of the most sovereign indigenous communities…
Balancing the old world and the new, the Kuna people keep their heritage intact Jesús Smith is sitting at his old wooden desk facing the entrance to his house. He's…
Panama's efforts to gain funding for standing forests roiled by indigenous opposition There isn’t a word or phrase in the Kuna language for "carbon trading,” and much less for something…
Global warming may be spurring liana growth, hindering forest carbon storage in Central America A worrying trend has emerged in tropical forests: lianas, woody long-stemmed vines, are increasingly displacing trees,…
Soon, hard rains will hit the steep hillsides of the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, sluicing soil into the rivers and out to the sea. Centuries of slash and burn agriculture…
Close-up on GloF-DAS map data for Southeast Asia. Forest disturbance in Malaysia, Bolivia, Panama, and Ecuador surged during the first quarter of 2014, according to NASA data. NASA's Quarterly Indicator…
Mongabay.org, the non-profit arm of environmental science web site Mongabay.com, has selected winners of three environmental reporting prizes under its Special Reporting Initiatives (SRI) program. The three prizes, which were…
Rainforest in Panama. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A new short film, entitled La Trocha, highlights the plight of the Wounaan people in Panama, who are fighting for legal rights…
Carbon counters trying to keep tabs on the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere may have missed an important factor for their estimates: fungus. It turns out that…
Secondary forests, which are areas that were previously cleared of old-growth cover, now comprise the majority of the forested areas in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. A heavily debated…
Scientists discover clear temporal patterns between the ocelot and its agouti prey. The early bird might get the worm, but, as scientists have discovered, the bird is also quite likely…
The year in rainforest news 2013 was full of major developments in efforts to understand and protect the world's tropical rainforests. The following is a review of some of the…
Mongabay announces its first annual top contributor prizes for 2013. Mongabay's internship program has benefited from the hard work and great environmental reporting of more than 30 writing interns since…
Nitrogen is colorless, odorless and tasteless, but all life on earth depends on it. Without it, our bodies cannot synthesize the nucleic acids that make up our DNA, or the…
After this story was published, Dallas World Aquarium (DWA) complained that its side of the story had not been fairly represented, that elements of our reporting contained inaccuracies and made…
In 2010 the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) pledged to set aside 17 percent of the world's land as protected areas in addition to protecting 60 percent of the world's…
The U.N.'s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (UN-REDD) program may be faltering in Panama due to its failure to build capacity for indigenous people who should play a central…
Researchers working in Panama have produced the most accurate carbon map for an entire country. Using satellite imagery and extremely high-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data from airplane-based sensors,…
Small climate shifts having unexpectedly large changes in tropical rainforests Slight rises in temperatures are triggering rainforest trees to produce more flowers, reports a new study published in the journal…
An Interview with Cacique Betanio Chiquidama, National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of Panama This week in Lombok, Indonesia, the Policy Board of the United Nations climate change program known as…
