Rainforest Deforestation News

On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has made strides in developing its plantation industry, catapulting the country into the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Its sprawling plantations produce more than half of…

JAKARTA — As the European Union is set to adopt a landmark regulation that prohibits companies from trading commodities from deforested areas and illegal sources, the proposed law continues to…

Officials are struggling to keep up with an increasing wave of deforestation in one of Guatemala’s largest protected areas, where squatters are clearing the rainforest to make room for settlements,…

Neves has studied human occupation of the Amazon for 30 years and found evidence of rice, manioc and palm tree cultivation dating back thousands of years.

State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

In an interview with Mongabay, Alessandra discusses what the prize means to her, the policy changes in Brazil, and the current crisis in the Munduruku territory.

Engineers and realtors from southern Pará take advantage of their knowledge to abet land grabbers.

JAKARTA — The rampant deforestation for monoculture plantation and logging in western Indonesian Borneo has exacerbated the extinction risks of three plant species endemic to the island’s riparian lowland rainforests,…

When asked if he had a message for the world, Júnior Hekurari Yanomami was emphatic: “Don’t buy Brazilian gold.” Júnior, 36, from the Surucucu community on Brazil’s largest and most…

Mining is one of the top drivers of deforestation globally, with huge swaths of forest being cleared for excavation pits, access roads and workers’ settlements. Yet details about mining’s environmental…

The European Union is one step closer to adopting landmark regulations that hold companies accountable for ensuring their products don’t contribute to deforestation. A new law, passed with an overwhelming…

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — With boundless ocean views to one side and urban sprawl to the other, the Sugarloaf has long been one of Rio de Janeiro’s most iconic…

In 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan was identified as a new species of great ape — and immediately became the most endangered great ape on the planet, with a total population…

JAKARTA — When the Indonesian government announced its food estate program in 2020, it envisioned the establishment of large-scale agricultural plantations across the country. These plantations of crops like rice,…

SANTA ELENA DE UAIRÉN, Venezuela — Standing at the brink of a man-made canyon, Jhonny Pereira, a Brazilian-born mining boss, looks down at a dozen gold miners as they plough…

After four years of environmental destruction, Brazil has reached a crossroads that will determine the fate of its biomes and its role in the global climate crisis. In its first…

JAKARTA — The Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the main advocacy group for Indigenous communities in Indonesia, has won a 2023 Skoll Award for Social Innovation. Since its…

A carbon credit program in a prominent national park in Peru appears to have failed at preventing significant deforestation, raising questions about whether officials in charge of the program inflated…

MEXICO CITY — The sudden, unexpected construction of a hotel in the middle of a protected reserve in southern Mexico has surprised residents and left many conservationists scrambling to figure…

A Mongabay investigation into land-grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon has led to the suspension of the sustainability certificate of the country's second top palm oil exporter, as shown in email correspondence…

The dry season of 2015 was a devastating one for Indonesia, with around 100,000 fires engulfing thousands of hectares of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands on the islands of Sumatra,…

A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…

A wave of violence against Indigenous people in Nicaragua this month has drawn international outcry over the government’s lack of action against land invaders committing human rights violations and destroying…

In 2015, researchers in Brazil started a project to address a tricky challenge: Reducing exposure to mercury contamination in the region of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the…

Scientists and activists have tirelessly campaigned for the protection of forests to mitigate rising global temperatures and preserve humanity’s future. For some local Amazonian communities, who depend on logging, mining…

Colombia and Ecuador are implementing a new joint alert system along their shared border in an effort to increase protections for Indigenous communities suffering violent attacks from organized crime groups.…

Analysis of 40 years of climate temperature data shows a connection between Amazon tree loss and Tibetan snow decrease via a 20,000-kilometer oceanic and atmospheric pathway. West Antarctica is also impacted.

JAKARTA — Two major palm oil companies recently exited a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection, bringing the total number of firms quitting the framework since 2000 to…

Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts covering a total of 2,700 hectares (6,670 acres) were recorded around Ouesso, the administrative seat of Sangha province, in…