More than 2,000 illegal mining sites in the Amazon, a wetland in Chile threatened by a highway extension, and a possible new monkey species in Peru were among the top…
In the heart of the driest desert in the world, a company currently sanctioned for half a dozen environmental infractions continues to mine reserves of one of the most coveted…
Researchers have described a new species of giant salamander that has remained shrouded in mystery for several decades. Known from swamps in Alabama and Florida in the southern United States,…
More than one-fifth of current greenhouse gas emissions in the United States could be kept out of the atmosphere and stored in the land, according to new research. A study…
Exotic pets that grow to be big adults and are inexpensive to buy are more likely to end up in the wild, according to a recent study. “It is difficult…
The iconic Loktak Lake in the Indian state of Manipur is famous for its unique floating islands made of mats of soil, plants and organic matter at various stages of decomposition,…
Zhang Lin spends much of his time with his right eye glued to a spotting scope, scanning the tidal flats of Rudong and other coastal regions of the Yellow Sea…
Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that's found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it's also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live…
Imagine you needed to map the spread of an invasive plant species in a tropical forest. Hyperspectral imaging and LiDAR are great at identifying vegetation, but have their limitations and…
A country’s citizens aren’t the only ones to benefit from living in a place that’s run well. In a new study, a team of scientists reports that the most important…
One of the world's rarest birds — the tiny spoon-billed sandpiper — could soon lose a critical habitat to land reclamation projects, warns a new report by Greenpeace. Every year, the…
JAKARTA – A subsidiary of Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper firm is seeking to overturn a government decision to nix the company’s plans to operate on peatlands. PT Riau Andalan…
Across the swath of vertebrate lifeforms that inhabit Earth, scientists have a pretty good idea about where most of the known land mammals, birds and amphibians live. That makes identifying…
(Read the first article in the series, "The palm oil fiefdom.") Indonesia, a nation of thousands of islands draped across the equator, is in the grips of a social and…
JAKARTA -- Indonesia, a country known for its annual forest and peat fires, is overhauling its peatland management policies, an effort triggered by the great fires of 2015. 2015 was…
JAKARTA -- Fire season has returned to Indonesia, marking the first real test of President Joko Widodo’s efforts to prevent a repeat of the 2015 haze crisis. Land and forest…
JAKARTA -- A new palm oil bill is the latest battleground in the fight over how to regulate Indonesia’s plantation sector in the wake of the 2015 fire and haze…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia and JAKARTA -- One of the largest drainage canals ever dug through Indonesia’s peat swamps is being blocked in Kalimantan, the archipelago country’s portion of Borneo island, part…
MEDAN, Indonesia — A key stopover site for migratory shorebirds in western Indonesia is imperilled as the area’s mangrove forests are exponentially developed for human land use, according to research…
USULUTAN PROVINCE, El Salvador – “Without the mangroves, we couldn’t live here,” says José Antonio Hernández. “We wouldn’t have any water.” He is standing on a rare dry patch of…
The West Kalimantan governor wants to exempt timber firms in the Indonesian province from a national ban on peatland drainage, drawing the ire of green groups who say such a…
SUKAU, Malaysia – At first blush, the muddy waters of the Kinabatangan River in northern Borneo seem to laze through a hodge-podge of sleepy fishing and farming villages. The river…
Citizens of Indonesia and the world today can feel the impact of two centuries of unsustainable exploitation of nature. But few have associated problems like climate change, mass extinction and…
A South African court ruling this month put the brakes on the approval of a coal station in the northern Limpopo province, marking a victory for environmental justice organization Earthlife…
International and Indonesian NGOs are calling on the country’s largest paper company to stop using drained peat swamps for industrial agriculture. The practice, which relies on drying out the waterlogged…
In the wake of last year’s devastating forest fires, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration forbid agribusinesses from replanting the desiccated peatlands that had gone up in flames during the disaster.…
A crucial new government regulation on peatland management in Indonesia is spurring debate over whether the country is going far enough to prevent a repeat of last year’s disastrous forest…
You know a bird has a PR problem when an ornithologist refers to it as “a prodigy of ugliness.” That was written in the 19th century, when the Greater Adjutant…
KACHIN STATE, Myanmar - At Indawgyi Lake in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, morning shorebirds flutter lazily above the water hyacinths, fishermen take long siestas after noon and, at night, fireflies float about in…
The father of a little girl who died during Indonesia’s 2015 fire and haze crisis testified on Thursday as part of a legal challenge to the police’s closing of cases…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — The road from this inland provincial capital in southern Borneo to the delta city of Banjarmasin is littered with degraded forests and peat swamps, hallmarks of a…
Try to get your head around this one. There is this beautiful natural forest area in West Kalimantan, called Sungai Putri, which roughly translates as the River of the Princess.…
