Tucked into Brazil’s Amazon forest, along the Maici River where recently contacted Pirahã people live, journalists observed a dramatic uptick in forest loss. According to data from Global Forest Watch,…
JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists have condemned the Indonesian government’s decision to grant 328,000 hectares (810,505 acres) of cultivation rights for a massive rice plantation project in Papua, warning that…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has revoked the permits of 28 companies over environmental violations that authorities say exacerbated the deadly floods and landslides that struck the island of Sumatra…
When U.S. forces entered Venezuela earlier this month and removed President Nicolás Maduro, officials framed the intervention as a strategic economic opportunity. President Donald Trump repeatedly pointed to the country’s…
JAKARTA — In the wake of the deadly floods and landslides that struck Indonesia in late 2025, the nation’s environment ministry has sued six companies, seeking 4.8 trillion rupiah ($284…
Deforestation in Colombia appears to have declined in 2025, with notable reductions in several departments that have historically struggled with forest loss. An estimated 36,280 hectares (89,650 acres) of forest…
After years of uneven progress, deforestation in Indonesia is poised to accelerate, owing to widespread logging, expanding plantations and mining. In December, Indonesia’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, indicated the…
MERANGIN, Indonesia — There wasn’t much Aris Adrianto felt he could do when the gold miners’ heavy vehicles broke into Bukit Gajah Berani, here in this remote pocket of Sumatra’s…
MITÚ, Colombia — Beneath the rising sun, people from nearby Indigenous communities navigate across the Vaupés River in traditional wooden canoes toward Mitú, a rapidly expanding town in the Colombian…
JAKARTA — Best known as the home of the world’s rarest great ape, the mountainous Batang Toru forest landscape on the island of Sumatra has become a test case for…
On a small airplane, José Manuyama, a professor, frowns and shakes his head with anguish while thousands of feet below, five dredges operated by illegal miners excavate the Nanay River…
BANGKOK — 2025 saw global conservation plunged into chaos, with an estimated $500 million in funding from the United States government abruptly slashed after Donald Trump returned to office. The…
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
PADANG, Indonesia — At low tide along Padang's coastline, fishing boats sit idle, not because of rough seas, but because the water is clogged with timber. In late November, flash…
JAKARTA — Reeling from a cyclone that may have erased a chunk of its population, the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s rarest great ape population, now faces the prospect of losing…
Restoration in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is finding success on private lands, according to a newly published study. Researchers evaluated the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, a collaborative initiative launched in 2009…
Indonesia’s government has been at pains to stress that the recent catastrophe in Sumatra was triggered by a rare meteorological event. Cyclone Senyar formed in the Malacca Strait, an area…
BELÉM, Brazil — A new analysis warns that the world is overlooking a major source of future emissions hidden beneath tropical forests — and that Brazil’s newly launched Tropical Forest Forever…
The first time Virgilio Viana saw the Amazon up close, he was a 16-year-old with a backpack, two school friends and very little sense of what he was walking into.…
PARAMARIBO, Suriname — With the U.N. Climate Change Conference coming up next week, Suriname finds itself at the center of a global debate about how to reduce carbon emissions and…
Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, it seemed worth attempting a thought experiment: to trace today’s trajectories a little further forward and imagine…
As the world’s attention turns toward COP30 in Belém next month, the story of Brazil’s Amazon is shifting—though not quite in a straightforward way. According to the government’s satellite-based monitoring…
The world’s forests tell two stories at once. Even as chainsaws advance, new trees are rising in their wake. More than 11 million hectares of tropical moist forest—an area roughly…
A rush to plant cacao in southeastern Liberia is destroying large tracts of rainforest. According to satellite data as well as interviews with local environmental advocates and government officials, the…
BANGKOK — The Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined area of tree cover of nearly a million hectares in 2024, or an area almost…
Experts often warn about the “tipping point” for the Amazon, a scenario in which the rainforest collapses into a drier, less biodiverse savanna ecosystem. But the term “tipping point” is…
JAKARTA — Norway’s $1.6 trillion state pension fund has dropped French miner Eramet from its investment portfolio over its role in a vast Indonesian nickel mine accused of destroying rainforest…
JAKARTA — Global calls are mounting for RV companies in the U.S. to change their policies following new revelations that some of America’s best-selling RVs are built with plywood from…
For decades the world’s largest rainforest has been getting drier. A new study published in Nature Communications disentangles how much of this shift can be blamed on humanity’s warming of…
Over the last several years, the Colombian government has taken steps to end oil and gas drilling in the Amazon. It pledged to stop issuing new exploration licenses and signed…
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Balam Kú Biosphere Reserve has been invaded over the past year by people trying to establish a permanent settlement, and officials are racing to remove them…
JAKARTA — Some of the world’s biggest consumer brands are banding together to tackle deforestation in one of Earth’s richest biodiversity hotspots in Indonesia. The companies, including Nestlé, PepsiCo and…
