KOH KONG, Cambodia — “[Officially], the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project was suspended for more than a year and then restarted/reinstated recently. But what I actually see here on the ground is…
Conservation projects across the world are reeling from the Trump administration’s abrupt decision to shut down USAID and freeze foreign aid, as groups large and small scramble to fill sudden…
As 2025 dawns, here is a look at some of the storylines that could shape the fate of tropical forests this year. More reading: The year in tropical rainforests: 2024…
It might not come as much of a surprise that Tony’s Chocolonely has expressed its support for the EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR). The Dutch chocolate maker is known…
The year 2024 saw significant developments in tropical rainforest conservation, deforestation, and degradation. While progress in some regions provided glimmers of hope, systemic challenges and emerging threats highlighted the fragility…
Over the course of his career, Peter Houlihan has hauled light traps across dense jungles to study insects, even climbing up trees to string them up in the canopy. Earlier…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — In early October, work began on power lines that will run about 300 kilometers, or 190 miles, and that conservationists have labeled “a death sentence” to…
Cleared or degraded tropical forests around the world covering a combined area larger than Saudi Arabia could regrow on its own, according to new research published Oct. 30 in the…
The task at hand was nothing short of grueling. In the depths of the Amazon Rainforest earlier this year, it was a mad scramble as six teams deployed cutting-edge technology…
José Rafael Lozada had systematically monitored forest plots for almost 25 years in the Caparo Forest Reserve, the last tropical rainforest of Venezuela’s western plains, when about 300 peasant families…
With an internationally backed project to protect core forest in Malaysia’s Sarawak state now quashed at the request of the state’s forest department, both NGOs and Sarawak forestry officials cite…
Joan Carling has made it her life’s mission to fight for the rights of her fellow Indigenous peoples. She has led anti-mining campaigns in the Philippines and faced death threats.…
At just six years old, Nemonte Nenquimo understood that there were two worlds. The first one was where her oko (a big house where she lived in the rainforest) existed.…
RUMPHI, Malawi — In the villages below Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi’s Rumphi district, coffee rules. It’s one of the most common bushes in the region, grown in back and…
For the Indigenous Vungu people living along the border of Gabon’s Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, the forest here has long been a source of traditional medicines. So when researchers set out…
An ambitious anti-deforestation law in the EU could be delayed for at least a year following pressure from foreign governments and producers, who said they were struggling to meet upcoming…
Across Africa, numerous ecosystems are under pressures degrading their ecological, economic and cultural value. The Niger Delta in the continent’s west and Mount Elgon in the east are two examples…
For two years, a volunteer organization in eastern Sierra Leone worked to encourage residents of Kenema district to plant trees and switch to more climate-resilient crops. Sierra Leone Environment Matter's…
Cutting-edge machine-learning models have created one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps yet of aboveground carbon density in the Amazon Rainforest, revealing where the forest is most intact and what…
LUBOK PUSAKA, Indonesia — Jaharuddin, 50, sits deep in thought in his living room in Lubok Pusaka village, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, smoking a cigarette and staring out the door.…
SIPAHUTAR, Indonesia — On the Indonesian island of Sumatra lives a man named Efron Simanjuntak. With a stern face and thick, graying mustache, he roams the forests near the village…
If long-term field research is like a marathon, then this was the 100-meter sprint. Over the course of 72 hours, participants scrambled to gather biodiversity data, analyze it, and generate…
One year since Ecuador citizens voted on Aug. 20, 2023, to halt all future oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, the government is nowhere near close to meeting its deadline.…
Growing coffee in a forest with other trees and plants—a system known as agroforestry—can be as productive as growing it in a monoculture field, but it’s much less harmful, according…
AMAZONAS, Brazil: Two researchers wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants to resist mosquitos, and high boots to block snake bites, gaze at a shattered tree. It lies on the ground garlanded…
This is the second article in our two-part series on Indigenous land rights and the Keo Seima REDD+ project. This series was co-written by a Cambodian journalist whose name is…
This is the first article in our two-part series on Indigenous land rights and the Keo Seima REDD+ project. This series was co-written by a Cambodian journalist whose name is…
In July 2023, botanist Andrea Bianchi was driving in the Nguru Mountains of eastern Tanzania when the broad pods on a tree growing in a maize field near the road…
Over the past three decades, camera traps have given us a rare, never-before-seen peek into animal lives. Used by conservation organizations, academic researchers and citizen science projects around the world,…
A global campaign to expand protected areas is underway, triggered by the adoption of the Kunming- Montreal Global Biodiversity pact in 2022. Described by backers as a “landmark deal for…
Scientists have warned that mining of the metals needed for the global clean energy transition could threaten Africa’s already beleaguered great apes unless strong conservation measures are implemented. Nearly 180,000…
In 2012, the description of a new monkey species from the Congo Basin with an unforgettable, humanlike countenance made global news. Now, a camera trap study reveals how the lesula…
