Tropical rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Governors from 13 states have pledged to reduce deforestation 80 percent by 2020 provided rich companies step forward with adequate levels of financial…
Carbon map for the region of Pasco, Peru. From Asner et al (2014). Peru’s landmass has just been mapped like never before, revealing important insights about the country's forests that…
Tropical grassland biomes often defined, mismanaged as forests Trees absorb CO2 and trap carbon molecules, and countless are lost as forests are felled around the world. So why not plant…
Indonesia now has the highest deforestation rate in the world, topping even Brazil which has more than five times the natural forest cover. Background photo: rainforest in Sumatra. Despite a…
Deforestation often shunted to highlands Carbon-centric conservation programs, such as REDD+ (Reduce CO2 Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), seek to lower greenhouse gas emissions by preventing forest loss through protection…
Global Forest Watch map showing forest loss in and around Tajung Puting and the Rimba Raya project area. Just over a year ago, the Indonesian government officially approved the country's…
Global carbon emissions from human activities. Eliminating deforestation, peatlands and forest degradation, and forest fires in the tropics could reduce global carbon emissions by two billion tons a year, or…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Amy Duchelle Brazil nut producer in Pando, Bolivia. Photo by: Amy Duchelle. A scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)…
Rainforest in Costa Rica. Efforts to slow destruction of tropical forests seem to be paying off in a number of countries, argues a new report published by the Union of…
In past decade, Brazil has done the carbon equivalent of taking every car off America's roads for three years Brazil's success in reducing deforestation in the world's largest rainforest has…
Rainforest in Sumatra. Photos by Rhett Butler The U.S. government will put financial support behind an initiative that offers finance for emissions-reducing forest conservation projects. In an announcement made during…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q & A with Dr. Neil David Burgess Rural scene in Tanzania. Photo by: Nika Levikov. After years of discovering new species and setting up…
Selective logging in Brazil. Photo by Luke Parry. Selective logging and small sub-canopy fires are degrading vast areas of rainforest across the Brazilian Amazon, contributing to largely hidden carbon emissions,…
The Democratic Republic of Congo is seeking a billion dollars for a plan to protect up to 9 million hectares of rainforests, reports the Financial Times. In a presentation given…
Livestock in the Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Letting forests regrow naturally on grazing lands in the tropics offers substantial climate and biodiversity at a low cost, reports a…
Rainforest logging in Borneo Carbon emissions from selective logging operations in tropical rainforests are roughly a sixth of those from outright forest clearing, finds a new study that evaluated 13…
Papuan man in Indonesian New Guinea. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. A UN program to reduce global carbon emissions may be putting indigenous communities at risk, jeopardizing local land rights…
Deforestation for palm oil in Malaysia Indigenous and forest-dependent peoples from Asia, Africa and Latin America have called for increased recognition of customary land rights in order to curb deforestation…
Cumulative deforestation and population growth. Courtesy of UNREDD Investing $30 billion a year in forest conservation — less than seven percent of the $480 billion spent annually on fossil fuels…
This is part of a series of articles on market transformation in the pulp and paper and palm oil sectors in Indonesia. Drainage canal that forms the boundary between the…
Rainforest in Sumatra, Indonesia. West Sumatra has officially joined Indonesia's effort to cut forest loss as a pilot province under the country's REDD+ program. The agreement, announced today, means that…
A new online tool, dubbed ForestDefender, aims to help indigenous people understand and implement their rights in regard to forests. The database, developed by the Center for International Environmental Law…
Rainforest near Makira in Madagascar. Technology giant Microsoft has bought the first carbon credits generated under a rainforest conservation project in Madagascar, reports Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which organized and…
Corridors passing through the densest VCS between protected areas. a–d, Central Africa (a), western Africa (b), southeast Asia (c) and the Guiana Shield (d). Corridors are shown in white, protected…
Advocates for reduced impact logging in tropical forests often make a case that better forest management cuts carbon emissions relative to traditional forms of timber harvesting. While the argument for…
Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Corey Bradshaw Primary peat forest in Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Much of Dr. Corey Bradshaw's work has a singular aim: to…
Deforestation in Riau Province, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. An ambitious plan to save the world's tropical forests by valuing them for the carbon the store may fail to…
Much of what we know about patterns of biodiversity has come from extensive fieldwork, with expert researchers sampling and identifying species in a process that takes thousands of man-hours. But…
The year in rainforest news 2013 was full of major developments in efforts to understand and protect the world's tropical rainforests. The following is a review of some of the…
Peat forest in Borneo. All photos by Rhett A. Butler. Indonesia has selected the first chief of its new REDD+ agency: Heru Prasetyo, an administrator and former private sector management…
