Revealed: Why the UN is not climate neutral
The UN claims to be almost entirely climate neutral, yet that claim is based on buying millions of carbon offset credits that experts say do little to reduce greenhouse gas…
Peru signs $20-million debt-for-nature swap with focus on Amazon rainforest
Peru signed a deal last week that will redirect millions of dollars of international debt to environmental efforts in the Amazon rainforest, a move that could help it meet long-term…
Can agroforestry chocolate help save the world’s most endangered rainforest?
In Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), nearly every surface is encased with life: moss, ferns, epiphytes and orchids — a color wheel of green in three dimensions. Amid the green, chestnut-headed…
Hundreds of oil spill sites threaten Amazon Indigenous lands, protected areas
More than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) of pipelines run through the Amazon and along the coasts of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. These hundreds of pipelines transport millions of liters…
African Parks to rewild 2,000 rhinos from controversial breeding program
On Sept. 4, African Parks, a multinational nonprofit conservation organization, announced that it had purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding operation, and intended to rewild the more…
The struggle to deter mining operations in a little-known biodiversity sanctuary in Brazil
The unprotected southern portion of the Chapada Diamantina mountain range, in the state of Bahia, is in the crosshairs of mining operations, remaining vulnerable to land grabbing and deforestation. This place, known as Serra da Chapadinha, houses threatened species, water reservoirs and an endless supply of scenic beauty.
Court ruling spares Papua forest from further clearing for palm oil
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its…
Sundarbans tiger and prey numbers rise amid Bangladesh conservation efforts
In a heartening turn of events, the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, which spans the southwest border of Bangladesh, is seeing promising signs of recovery for the iconic Bengal…
Balancing elephant conservation and community needs: Q&A with award-winning ranger Fetiya Ousman
HARAR, Ethiopia — In the hilly terrain of Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, Fetiya Ousman, a female wildlife ranger, is leading her team on a patrol. Dressed in a jungle-green…
Indonesia awards biggest Indigenous forest claim yet to Bornean Dayaks
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized the rights of 15 Indigenous Dayak communities to forests on Borneo covering a combined area larger than Jakarta. The nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000…
In Mexico’s Holbox, a natural paradise suffers from its own popularity
HOLBOX, Mexico — The tour I’d arranged in Holbox wasn’t one of the usual packages. It isn’t advertised on social media or sold at the dozens of stalls along the…
In Panama, an Indigenous kingdom fights for its right to the forest
CHANGUINOLA, Panama — Long before the Naso peoples in the northern jungles of Panama won the fight for their land, before a king came from far away to lead them…
Wild mushroom harvest helps keep trees standing in Mozambique
Lomwé and Macua communities in Mozambique’s Zambezia province traditionally harvest wild mushrooms to eat alongside staples like cassava. Conservationists are working with hundreds of Indigenous women there to commercialize the…
A forest gave Cambodia’s captive elephants a new life. Now they’re paying it back
PU TROM, Cambodia — The quiet life that Sambo leads today seems as distant from her past plight as the searing-hot streets she once trod as a tourist attraction in…
Cambodia approves, then suspends, marble mine in Keo Seima REDD+ project
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
Brazilian Indigenous artists take the forest to the world
In recent years, several exhibitions held abroad have featured Indigenous people from Brazil and Latin America, giving unprecedented visibility to artists historically erased by gallery owners and museums.
It had to be a snake: New species from Peru named after Harrison Ford
Remember Indiana Jones’ famous line "Snakes! Why’d it have to be snakes?" in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark? That iconic moment has taken on a new twist…
Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A flurry of subdecrees released through the end of July and early August show that the Cambodian government has approved he addition of more than a…
REDD+ projects falling far short of claimed carbon cuts, study finds
A study has found that the vast majority of the carbon credits from a set of forest conservation projects on three continents aren’t “offsetting” the emissions of the companies and…
‘More research leads to more awareness’: Q&A with fishing cat expert Rama Mishra
KATHMANDU — Fishing cats are among the most elusive and understudied small cats in the world. They’re also among the most threatened, faced with habitat loss, conflict with humans, and…
New concession in Botum Sakor National Park handed to Cambodia’s Royal Group
PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government has awarded another large swath of Botum Sakor National Park to local conglomerate Royal Group, carving out yet more land from this ostensibly protected…
For Caatinga’s last jaguars and pumas, wind farms are the newest threat
Between March 2017 and January 2018, researchers tracked the movements of a female puma as it prowled around the Boqueirão da Onça protected area complex in the north of Brazil’s…
Elephants invade as habitat loss soars in Nigerian forest reserve
Where southeastern Nigeria abuts western Cameroon, dense rainforest still shelters iconic, threatened megafauna like critically endangered African forest elephants (Lloxodonta cyclotis) and Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli), as well…
Mexico announces 13 new protected areas, with more to come
MEXICO CITY — Officials this week announced the creation of 13 new protected areas across six states in Mexico, putting the country’s list of total federally protected areas at 200.…
Kordofan giraffes face local extinction in 15 years if poaching continues
If just two Kordofan giraffes are killed each year, the subspecies could be locally extinct in just 15 years within Cameroon's Bénoué National Park. This is according to a new…
Congo Basin’s elephants boost carbon capture, but need salt-licks to survive
The approach to the “village of elephants” in the Sangha Rainforest in the Central African Republic must be made in complete silence. Not even the faintest rustle of backpack on…
Can land titles save Madagascar’s embattled biodiversity and people?
AGNARAFALY and MENABE, Madagascar — For Soja and his family, who escaped starvation bred by drought, the December rain hammering their corrugated metal roof should be welcome. But rains are…
Can upcoming referendum in Ecuador stop oil drilling in Yasuní National Park?
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadorians have been given a chance to vote on whether or not they want oil drilling to continue in Yasuní National Park, deep in the northern Amazon…
World’s largest private rhino herd doesn’t have a buyer — or much of a future
On May 1 this year, an online auction for a controversial captive-breeding project that comes with one in eight of all southern white rhinos in the world ended in a…
Macron touts forest conservation while promoting gas project on PNG visit
“There is no Planet B,” French President Emmanuel Macron declared to an audience of officials and Indigenous landowners at a conservation event in Papua New Guinea on July 28. Macron's…
