Myanmar is a country of extremes. From tropical forests, mangroves and wetlands to frost-bitten alpine mountain slopes and jagged limestone karst outcrops, it’s home to tremendous botanical diversity. Orchids alone…
Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced what it describes as a sweeping, science-based effort to reassess environmental governance, zoning and corporate accountability in the wake of floods and landslides…
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…
In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on…
More than 145,000 African forest elephants roam the rainforests of Africa, according to a recent population assessment. Published in December by the African Elephant Specialist Group at the IUCN, the…
In Indigenous Asháninka belief, bees were once spirits in human form. Stories tell of a woman who enjoyed making masato, a traditional Amazonian fermented beverage. Every day, she would boil…
Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito…
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…
Deep within the cloud forests of the San Martín region of Peru lie two places so high, cold and remote that they remained virtually unexplored for decades. In 2022, and…
Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has…
In 2018, researchers from Bat Conservation International, Cameroon's University of Maroua and the American Museum of Natural History entered abandoned mining tunnels in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains as part of an…
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…
When it comes to capturing carbon, trees have always been our go-to. But a sinister switch is underway. A study published in the journal Nature reveals that moist tropical forests…
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…
A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate…
Dominique Bikaba’s family was once displaced from vibrant rainforests in the Congo Basin to make way for a sweeping national park. Today, a conservationist who also champions the protection of…
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…
JAKARTA — A major global forestry certification body is under scrutiny for endorsing one of Indonesia’s largest recent deforesters, raising concerns that consumers may be misled about the origins of…
Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, which span 28.2 million hectares (69.6 million acres), are among the most biodiverse in the world, hosting an estimated 5-8% of all species. The country also…
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…
JAKARTA — A Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s rarest great ape, has been discovered dead in mud and log debris in a village in northern Sumatra — a grim sign of…
MEXICO CITY — In its fiscal budget for 2026, passed in November, the Mexican government promised funds for renewable energy, protected areas and other environmental concerns. But much of what’s…
BOMBIA, Guinea — As day breaks over the green hills around the town of Bombia, the raucous cries of chimpanzees echo through the forests of the Kankouyah mountain range. Recently,…
Forest logging decreases during rainy seasons. Deforestation caused by mining might not be as seasonal as previously thought. One of the largest drivers of deforestation in Latin America is large-scale…
BELÉM, Brazil — Brazil promoted COP30 as both the “Indigenous COP” and the “Amazonian COP,” a summit that would finally center the peoples who have protected the rainforest for millennia.…
When U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly in late 2025 and dismissed climate change as a “con job”, the scientific community reacted with alarm. Months earlier,…
NYUNGWE NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda — It’s a cool morning in the montane rainforest of western Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park. Sunbeams stream down from the canopy, glowing in the mist. Birdsong…
Olegario Sánchez Pinto, 74, wakes up at 7 a.m. every day to complete all the tasks he must perform as a member of the Indigenous guard in the Colombian community…
