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topic: Tropical Forests
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Rooting tree seed production in local knowledge boosts forest restoration outcomes (commentary)
- Integrating knowledge of Indigenous and local communities (IPLCs) into the process of seed propagation can strengthen forest restoration outcomes in Southeast Asia, and beyond.
- These communities’ familiarity with their local tree species, landscapes, and ecological rhythms makes them indispensable partners in restoration efforts, the authors of a new op-ed argue.
- “Engaging IPLCs in the critical processes of seed production is not just a matter of improving restoration success, but also empowerment and engendering ownership,” they write.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
‘Lost’ for 170 years, rare plant recorded in Sri Lanka
Researchers have found a population of an extremely rare plant species, last recorded in Sri Lanka in 1855, growing in a lowland forest fragment along the Sitawaka Ganga River. Documenting the finding in a recent study, researchers write that the plant, Indianthus virgatus, while officially listed as critically endangered in Sri Lanka, was presumed possibly […]
For 50 years, Philip Fearnside has calculated the costs of losing the Amazon
- Philip Fearnside has spent 50 years studying the practical limits of Amazon development, beginning with the agricultural settlements built along Brazil’s Trans-Amazonian Highway. His work repeatedly asked who benefits from projects and who bears their longer-term costs.
- He produced influential research on deforestation, forest carbon, tropical dams, and the wider effects of roads, often challenging official assumptions about emissions and economic viability. He later contributed to the IPCC’s work on climate change.
- Fearnside has paired research with public engagement, publishing in Portuguese, writing for Amazônia Real and Mongabay, speaking to journalists, and testifying on projects including the BR-319 highway. That role has also made him a target of hostility, including at a 2021 public hearing where his microphone was cut.
- Former students and colleagues credit him with generous, exacting mentorship and an unusual command of the scientific literature. At a recent tribute at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research, he rejected any suggestion of a farewell: he intends to keep working.
Community programs linked to lower forest loss in Indonesia’s Borneo during COVID-19
- As climate and economic shocks put pressure on tropical forests, a new study suggests support for rural communities could help protect forests while strengthening their ability to withstand crises.
- Forest loss in protected areas of West Kalimantan on the Indonesian part of Borneo fell during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a larger decline in villages receiving health and livelihood support, the study finds.
- The findings point to health care, alternative livelihoods and other social support as potential tools for easing pressure on forests and helping forest-dependent communities adapt to future economic and environmental shocks — although the study does not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship.
A Sumatran villager lost ground to the sea. So he planted mangroves
In a coastal village on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an oil palm and pineapple grower named Harisyah is fighting rapid coastal erosion. The region’s northern coastline, which sits on carbon-rich tropical peat soils, is losing ground to the sea at a rate of more than 6 meters (20 feet) annually. Researchers attribute the retreat […]
Nigeria can build the new coastal highway and also protect natural areas (commentary)
- To improve living conditions in Nigeria, new roads like the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway are needed.
- But these can and must be built in such a way that protects mangroves, swamps, and remnant forests, using knowledge and tools like environmental and social impact assessments.
- “The question is not whether Nigeria should develop. It is whether development will be intelligent enough to avoid destroying the natural infrastructure that already protects coastal communities,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Can REDD+ deliver for Philippines’ Iraya Mangyan?
- The Mindoro Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Programme combines Indigenous forest patrols, ancestral-domain support, carbon monitoring and livelihood projects to protect more than 40,000 hectares (nearly 99,000 acres) of Iraya Mangyan forest.
- Indigenous patrollers and local officials say the program has already strengthened monitoring and helped reduce timber poaching and small-scale mining, while surveys have documented hundreds of plant and animal species across the project area.
- Community nurseries and paid conservation roles are creating early livelihood opportunities, but many benefits remain limited and uneven while the project awaits verification, a finalized benefit-sharing agreement and carbon revenue expected no earlier than around 2029.
- Whether the program can deliver lasting benefits will depend on finalizing a transparent revenue-sharing agreement, sustaining patrols and livelihoods during the long wait for carbon income, and ensuring the Iraya retain a meaningful role in decisions over their forests.
Daniel Janzen and the long work of bringing back a forest
- Daniel Janzen’s scientific work helped reshape ecologists’ understanding of tropical forests, especially the relationships among plants, insects, pathogens, predators, and seeds.
- With Winnie Hallwachs and Costa Rican partners, he helped turn degraded ranchlands in Guanacaste into a protected, working landscape that now connects ecosystems from the Pacific coast to cloud forest and Caribbean rainforest.
- ACG’s parataxonomists, educators, field staff, directors, and neighboring communities have made the project durable through their day-to-day work, linking conservation to local employment, education, and scientific expertise.
- Janzen and Hallwachs’s more recent work on DNA barcoding and bioliteracy aims to help Costa Rica identify, study, and value the extraordinary diversity of life within its borders.
Hermit crabs and cockroaches emerge as unlikely seed dispersers on a Japanese island
In the humid, coastal forests of Japan’s Ishigaki Island, near Okinawa, a parasitic plant relies on some unusual allies to spread its seeds: land hermit crabs and cockroaches, according to a recent study. The plant, fungus root (Balanophora fungosa), is non-photosynthetic, meaning it lacks chlorophyll and can’t make its own food. Instead, it grows as […]
Why carbon markets alone won’t save Southeast Asia’s concessions forests
New research suggests a “massive and untapped” opportunity for conservation within commercial concessions in Southeast Asia, reports Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan. Using satellite data, researchers identified roughly 42 million hectares (104 million acres) of intact forest still standing inside logging, timber, rubber and oil palm concessions across Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar. The study suggests that […]
Among the sacred hills of Colombia’s Guainía
I had been struck by photographs of the Cerros de Mavicure rising above the forest and the Inírida River in eastern Colombia. The dark rock, exposed against an almost unbroken expanse of green, seemed unlike anywhere else I had visited in the Amazon. Last month, ahead of Mongabay Latam’s PUMA FEST in Bogotá, I finally […]
On fragile Sumatran peatland, a farmer fights to bring back lost mangroves
- A palm oil grower in an Indonesian village on Sumatra island, around 100 miles west of Singapore, has spent 15 years studying the role of mangroves in coastal ecosystems and pushing local action to restore coastal forests.
- Research shows this area of Sumatra’s northern coastline, which is separated from the Strait of Malacca by a narrow channel and the island of Bengkalis, is experiencing coastal abrasion of more than 6 meters per year, due primarily to mangrove loss.
- Indonesia pledged to restore around 600,000 hectares in five years by 2024, which researchers say was likely the world’s most ambitious reforestation initiative on record. However, only a small share of the planned planted area was successfully seeded.
Forest fires likely to continue to burn twice as much without ‘serious action’ on climate change
Elizabeth Goldman is a co-director of Global Nature Watch, previously known as Global Forest Watch, a database measuring forest loss that’s frequently cited in Mongabay reporting. She joins this week’s podcast to detail GNW’s updated 25-year analysis of global forest fire trends. The picture is stark: Forest fires burn twice as much forest today as […]
Key Amazon cases reach Brazil’s Supreme Court following Lula’s defeats in Congress
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court is set to decide cases that could reshape protections for the Amazon rainforest and Indigenous communities. These cases involve Indigenous land rights, environmental safeguards, and infrastructure projects. Congress approved measures that environmentalists say violate constitutional rights, but President Lula vetoed some. Lawmakers overrode these objections, sending disputes to […]
Mariano Cenamo, advocate for a sustainable Amazon bioeconomy, has died, aged 46
- Mariano Cenamo spent more than two decades trying to make standing forests economically competitive with cattle ranching and other activities driving Amazon deforestation, helping establish Idesam and later backing a new generation of sustainable businesses.
- His work evolved from early efforts on forest carbon and REDD+ to agroforestry, bioeconomy ventures, investment, and entrepreneurship, always centered on creating practical sources of income for people living in the Amazon.
- Drawing on Cenamo’s own writings and interviews, as well as Vanessa Adachi’s posthumous portrait in Reset, this obituary explores the ideas, motivations, and personal style behind one of the Amazon’s most influential environmental entrepreneurs.
- Cenamo died on July 10 after several years with cancer. He was 46.
Amazon deforestation alerts fall to lowest level since 2013, Brazilian data show
- INPE’s DETER system recorded 2,874 sq km of Amazon deforestation alerts from August 2025 through July 2026, down 36% from the previous year and 55.6% below the preceding 10-year average.
- The total is the lowest since 2013 when earlier DETER data are included. If the trend is confirmed by the higher-resolution PRODES system, Brazil could record its lowest official Amazon deforestation rate since monitoring began in 1988.
- The decline has coincided with stronger environmental enforcement under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Alerts also fell in the Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, and Pampa, with the Cerrado reaching a five-year low.
- Despite the decline in clear-cutting, the Amazon remains vulnerable to logging, drought, forest degradation, and fire, which can cause substantial ecological damage without immediately appearing in deforestation statistics.
Suriname moves to evict Mennonites and illegal Amazon settlers
- The government in Suriname has created a task force to crack down on land developers who illegally clear the Amazon Rainforest for agriculture and cattle ranching.
- Many areas under development are connected to Mennonites who migrated to the country from other parts of the region to help meet a domestic demand for food production.
- Conservationists warn that the group’s history of industrial-scale clearing and unauthorized ranching in other nations puts the rainforest at risk.
- Some Mennonites have received a deurwaardersexploot, a written notice delivered by a bailiff to appear in court, according to Suriname President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons.
On the frontlines of conservation in Sumatra: Rangers safeguard Batutegi forest
- In southern Sumatra, a small team of forest rangers is racing to protect Batutegi forest, an important watershed and refuge for endangered wildlife such as tigers and slow lorises.
- Batutegi faces persistent pressures from forest encroachment and the need to balance conservation with local livelihoods.
- Experts say protecting Batutegi will require sustained collaboration with local communities, alongside long-term conservation and forest management efforts.
Looming loss of Singapore’s Maju Forest to development raises many questions (commentary)
- A 23-hectare (57-acre) forest in the Singaporean neighborhood of Clementi that provides stress relief and community enjoyment for residents, plus habitat for urban biodiversity, has been proposed for development, sparking a public debate.
- Although Singapore has earned recognition for integrating nature into this, one of the world’s most densely populated urban environments, the proposal would convert most of it into public housing.
- A new op-ed argues that urban forests are essential public health infrastructure and that this debate reflects a challenge that cities increasingly face: How should we value mature ecosystems in an era of climate change, urbanization and rising health challenges?
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
New ‘conservation deed’ aims to protect tree kangaroos, forests, people in Papua New Guinea
- On June 30, 266 clan leaders across 41 villages in Papua New Guinea’s Torricelli Mountains signed a legally binding “conservation deed” that protects rainforest and its inhabitants and is the result of decades of work by the Tenkile Conservation Alliance.
- The deed shields the range’s exceptional biodiversity, including the critically endangered tenkile and weimang tree kangaroos, after a long-stalled effort to secure formal government protected-area status has left communities exposed to logging pressure.
- Conservation deeds have held up in court, with a 2025 National Court ruling citing one to restrict logging on clan lands in East New Britain.
- Built over two years through a free, prior and informed consent process, the Torricelli deed bans commercial logging and mining, as well as the hunting of threatened species, renews every five years and gives the alliance a model it now plans to extend to nearby areas under similar threat.
Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing, study says
- A new study has identified “massive and untapped” conservation potential within forestry and plantation concessions in Southeast Asia.
- Roughly 42 million hectares of forests remain standing inside logging, oil palm, timber and rubber plantation concessions across the region, the study says.
- The researchers examined what it would take to financially incentivize forest conservation inside these concessions, finding that using carbon markets alone would require carbon prices many times higher than current values.
- They point to the need for diversified sources of conservation funding to complement carbon markets, such as blended finance, green bonds and payment for ecosystems services, as well as more supportive governance frameworks that elevate the viability of conservation over development.
Cheap coffee is killing Vietnam’s priceless tropical forests (commentary)
- Vietnam’s coffee industry has a problem it can no longer sweep under the rug: its global success is built on a foundation of deforestation, biodiversity collapse, and human suffering, a new op-ed argues.
- Robusta coffee used in instant and supermarket blends has replaced an area of Vietnamese forest the size of Luxembourg, a new report finds, and wildlife like tigers, elephants, civets, sun bears, and saola have been squeezed into ever‑smaller fragments of habitat.
- But once consumers know the truth, they can demand better, the author writes: “They can choose brands that commit to traceability, agroforestry, and deforestation‑free supply chains. They can pressure problem companies that abuse people and planet.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Land records reveal how Mennonites are reshaping Belize’s forests
- Mennonites have become some of the most prolific land buyers in Belize, acquiring large properties and making bids faster than competitors. But who owns what land isn’t always clear.
- To better understand the land management process, a Mongabay investigation gained access to records in deforested and degraded areas in and around Mennonite communities throughout Belize.
- The documents show that the communities use trusts and churches to acquire and collectively manage land, allowing them to transfer property internally and tap collective resources to purchase more.
- At the same time, Belizeans living in and around Mennonite communities often occupy much smaller plots of land, surviving off subsistence crops or working at Mennonite-owned businesses.
Palm oil expansion reignites decade-old Indigenous land conflict in Indonesia
- Two palm oil companies have resumed clearing forest in a long-disputed Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo, more than a decade after international pressure halted operations.
- The Dayak Benuaq community of Muara Tae says the companies are clearing its ancestral land without its consent, while the companies maintain they legally acquired the land from a neighboring village.
- Community members say the renewed clearing is destroying regenerating forest and farms central to their livelihoods, despite years of advocacy, international recognition, and an unresolved complaint to the RSPO, the top certifier of sustainable palm oil.
- Advocates say the dispute exposes persistent weaknesses in Indonesia’s recognition of Indigenous land rights, allowing companies to rely on administrative boundaries that communities say override customary ownership.
Indonesia shows elevated fire hotspot activity in 2026 as super El Niño threat looms
- A new satellite fire-monitoring platform, FireWatch, had detected more than 96,000 hotspots across Indonesia as of July 27, 2026.
- The total exceeds that recorded at the same point in any previous year monitored by FireWatch, even though Indonesia has not yet reached the months when wildfires typically intensify.
- FireWatch estimates that approximately 103,000 hectares (255,000 acres) of land burned nationwide during the first half of 2026, raising concerns as forecasters warn that a strong El Niño could further increase fire risk.
How carbon markets can succeed & also serve Global South communities (commentary)
- The world’s forests provide essential ecosystem services, capture and store huge amounts of carbon dioxide, face enormous pressure, and need sustained economic incentives if they are to survive.
- So why has the voluntary carbon market consistently fallen short of its promise to support forest conservation and communities, a new op-ed asks.
- “The ecosystem services forests provide are worth something, and the people who live in and protect those forests must be the primary beneficiaries of that value. Anything short of that is not conservation but a new form of exploitation,” the author argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
For Brazil’s Xokleng people, saving a sacred tree means saving their culture
- The Zág Institute, an initiative of the Laklãnõ/Xokleng Indigenous people, is restoring the Brazilian pine on their traditional territory in the state of Santa Catarina.
- Sacred to the Indigenous people, the Brazilian pine is a critically endangered species; replanting it is seen as a way of strengthening their identity.
- Nearly 100,000 seedlings have been planted across 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres), in the process restoring water sources and degraded land.
- The reforestation project involves the whole community in planting the seedlings, which is done through collective efforts throughout the year and also by donating them to Indigenous families.
New bird species identified on remote Indonesian island
A songbird species previously thought to occur across two Indonesian islands has turned out to be two distinct species, according to a recent study. For more than 120 years, many scientists believed that Indonesia’s Babar Islands in eastern Banda Sea, and Tanimbar Islands, roughly 135 kilometers (84 miles) east of the Babar Islands, were both […]
Vietnam’s coffee boom fueled by decades of deforestation, report finds
Decades of unchecked deforestation for coffee production has devastated Vietnam’s Central Highland forests, according to a new investigation by the Berlin-headquartered watchdog group Coffee Watch. Vietnam is currently the world’s second largest coffee producer, supplying nearly 40% of the world’s exports of Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). The investigation, which analyzed satellite data and government records, […]
Renato Moraes de Jesus was a pioneer of Atlantic Forest restoration in Brazil
- Renato Moraes de Jesus helped transform the Vale Natural Reserve in Espírito Santo into a leading center for Atlantic Forest conservation, research, and restoration.
- Over more than three decades, he established scientific collections, laboratories, nurseries, and long-term research programs while protecting nearly 23,000 hectares of forest.
- He later helped design the restoration of Fazenda Bulcão and the technical program that became Instituto Terra.
- A practical forester and scientist, he developed methods, trained others, and documented his work so that forest restoration could continue without depending on him.
From rivers to mangroves, microplastics are contaminating the Amazon
- Recent studies show that microplastics are already present in a variety of Amazonian environments: Major rivers such as the Amazon, urban streams, floodplain areas and mangroves in the Amazon’s Mouth.
- In a single lake in eastern Manaus, researchers found microplastics in the intestines of half the jaraquis — the most consumed fish in Amazonas state
- The contamination is related to irregular waste disposal and lack of sewage collection and treatment, which allow household residues to flow directly into water bodies.
- This is the first story in a three-part special series on microplastics in the Amazon region; upcoming pieces will look into the effects of these particles on aquatic and terrestrial organisms.
Can harpy eagles attack humans? Amazon case rekindles scientific debate
- An attack by a harpy against a tourist in French Guiana has sparked a debate about interactions between humans and the world’s largest eagle.
- Field reports indicate that these episodes are uncommon and usually associated with defending prey, but they can result in serious injuries.
- Although rare, these cases expose a conservation dilemma: They may reinforce stigma against the species but also reveal real conflicts about which there is little public debate.
Fighting new oil blocks in the Congo Basin: Interview with activist Pascal Mirindi
- Pascal Mirindi is a Congolese environmental activist fighting oil exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- In 2022, as the Congolese government promoted new oil blocks in eastern DRC, Mirindi and his friends created a movement to raise community awareness of the dangers of fossil fuel exploitation.
- In late 2024, the Congolese government initiated a green corridor extending from the eastern to the western side of the country, aiming to establish the “largest protected tropical forest in the world,” yet a few months later, the country launched new oil blocks covering 60% of the country’s surface.
- Mirindi spoke with Mongabay in June about his activism and the future of the DRC.
South Africa’s free-roaming cheetahs in steep decline, first national census finds
- The first thorough census of free-roaming cheetahs in South Africa finds less than 100 mature adult individuals, much less than previous estimates.
- The researchers confirmed cheetahs in less than half of what is currently defined as suitable habitat by the IUCN and called for the adjustment of habitat maps based on current field data.
- The biggest threats are habitat fragmentation due to development and infrastructure, and persecution by landowners who perceive cheetahs as threats to their livestock.
In India’s Western Ghats, sacred groves are better at growing future forests
- A study of “giant” trees in India’s Western Ghats finds that sacred groves, forest patches that communities protect, because they believe the trees belong to their gods, hold nearly twice the giant-tree species of nearby villages.
- The groves also grow far more young trees from large, bird-spread seeds, making them nurseries for the next forest.
- Researchers call giant trees “ecological catcher’s mitts” and say conservation should protect whole forests and the cultures around them, not just single animals.
- The groves are under pressure as simple forest shrines are replaced with concrete temples and young people leave villages, taking their knowledge with them.
Warming world could push Southeast Asia forests toward thermal limits, new study
- Countless forest-dwelling species depend on the cooler, moister and more stable conditions found in the understory, beneath leafy tree canopies.
- A new study from Southeast Asia finds the combined pressures of global warming and habitat degradation could send forest understory heat levels soaring within the next three decades, potentially exposing species to unprecedented levels of thermal stress.
- The findings can help prioritize conservation action on vulnerable landscapes, intact forests and heat-resilient areas that could become important refuges for forest species, the research team says.
- Experts say gaining a fuller picture of how forest-dwelling species will be affected by climate change will ultimately require further studies that consider additional factors, such as humidity, wind and ecosystem feedbacks.
How Brazil’s federal fiscal policy hinders Amazon Rainforest conservation (commentary)
- The three Brazilian states whose territory is mostly Amazon Rainforest — and carry the heaviest share of its conservation burden — are among the poorest and most fiscally dependent in the country.
- Amapá, Acre, and Amazonas operate on budgets so dependent on federal funding that they have almost no ability to act on their own, yet they are also precluded from developing their economies within their vast and federally protected swaths of forest.
- “It is a design flaw in Brazil’s fiscal constitution, and it is getting worse,” a new op-ed argues. “Brazil cannot credibly lead global climate diplomacy while its Amazonian states remain fiscally trapped.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Cutting back vines lets recovering forests grow faster, Borneo study shows
- A new study in Borneo finds that cutting lianas increases canopy height in regenerating logged forests three times faster than tree planting alone.
- Lianas are fast growing woody vines that are a key part of tropical forests, but can proliferate in logged or disturbed forest.
- Researchers around the world are exploring how removing or thinning lianas by cutting their stems influences forest regeneration.
- Using Light Imaging Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, the new study found that accelerated tree growth and lower tree mortality contributed to increased canopy height following liana cutting.
Illegal timber imports from Cambodia, Laos skirt Vietnam safeguards, report reveals
- A new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals persistent trafficking of illegal timber from Cambodia and Laos into Vietnam.
- The illegal cross-border trade fuels deforestation and undermines what the report describes as “significant progress” by Vietnam in recent years to clean up its timber supply chains.
- Multiple mechanisms perpetuate the illicit trade, including the falsification of paperwork, manipulation of harvesting quotas and economic land concessions, and the use of intermediary criminal networks to facilitate the trade, the report says.
- The report calls on Vietnam’s timber authorities to close regulatory gaps in its timber verification system and urges regional governments to improve levels of independent oversight.
New analysis breaks down 2025 Amazon deforestation, with good news and bad news
- Amazon Conservation’s Mapping of the Andes Amazon Project (MAAP) published its annual analysis of 2025 forest loss in the Amazon Rainforest, using the data developed by the University of Maryland’s GLAD Lab.
- Last year, there were 736,484 hectares (1,819,891 acres) of deforestation, largely from agriculture, mining, and roads and infrastructure. Nearly 132,000 hectares (326,179 acres) of it was illegal, occurring inside protected areas and Indigenous territories, the analysis found.
- Researchers said this year could be far worse than 2025 as the current El Niño continues to warm up the Pacific Ocean, creating heat waves and dry conditions that lead to more forest fires.
Pulp and paper giant APRIL’s supplier choices put FSC remedy process to the test
- APRIL’s decision to lower its deforestation cutoff date and source wood from two companies associated with extensive recent forest loss in Indonesia is drawing fresh scrutiny of its efforts to re-enter the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
- FSC told Mongabay it is reviewing APRIL’s updated sourcing policies and said it was “concerned” that such an analysis had become necessary.
- Environmental groups say accepting suppliers linked to extensive recent deforestation undermines the spirit of FSC’s remedy process, which is intended to encourage companies to repair past harms before regaining acceptance.
- APRIL says the changes align with evolving global standards and could help improve sustainability practices across Indonesia’s forestry sector, but critics warn the move risks eroding trust in both APRIL and FSC.
A few seconds with one of West Africa’s rarest birds
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. The white-necked picathartes is easy to miss. In Taï National Park, in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire, it nests beneath rocky overhangs, shaping mud cups against stone walls deep inside the forest. It may appear for only a few seconds, […]
Suriname will not be saved by soybeans (commentary)
- Suriname should be wary of promises that foreign agribusiness will modernize agriculture, create jobs, and bring broad prosperity, argues Mark Plotkin, ethnobotanist and President of The Amazon Conservation Team.
- Across tropical America, this model has too often proved a costly folly: forests are cleared, rivers are polluted, and local communities are left with fewer resources while wealth flows elsewhere.
- Rather than expanding export-oriented soy and cattle production, Suriname should strengthen food security, support local producers, protect rivers and forests, and seek the input of the communities most affected.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Pulp and paper giant APRIL adds major deforesters as suppliers after revising sustainability policy
- The changes include lowering its deforestation cutoff date to the end of 2020, which allows APRIL to source wood from two companies responsible for some of Indonesia’s largest recent forest losses.
- APRIL says the move aligns with global standards and helps address fibre shortages caused by permit revocations affecting 15% of its wood supply.
- But critics say the changes weaken a longstanding no-deforestation safeguard and have questioned why APRIL selected these two suppliers among Indonesia’s many fibre producers.
- APRIL says its new suppliers will undergo satellite monitoring, compartment-level traceability and annual independent audits, but critics say transparency concerns remain.
Climate-fueled landslides killed an estimated 58 Tapanuli orangutans, study finds
- The study found that landslides triggered by extreme rainfall in November 2025 likely killed about 7% of the estimated global population of Tapanuli orangutans.
- Researchers warned that without swift intervention, the species could face increasingly frequent climate-driven disasters in the future.
- The study only quantified direct mortality from landslides and did not account for deaths caused by canopy collapse outside mapped landslide areas, starvation, injuries or longer-term ecological consequences.
- In a statement to Mongabay, the forest ministry said it “appreciates and is taking into consideration” scientific studies on the Tapanuli orangutan, including research estimating the impacts of floods and landslides on the species.
Tony Parkes, the banker who replanted a rainforest
- Tony Parkes left a successful career in investment banking and devoted three decades to restoring the Big Scrub, the once-vast subtropical rainforest of northern New South Wales.
- After moving to the Northern Rivers, he and his wife, Rowena, planted tens of thousands of trees on their own land, turning private restoration into a public cause.
- As co-founder and longtime president of Big Scrub Rainforest Conservancy, he helped unite landholders, scientists, bush regenerators, donors and volunteers around a disciplined model of rainforest recovery.
- His work helped protect remnants, plant millions of trees, strengthen restoration science and make the recovery of the Big Scrub part of the region’s civic life.
Amazon deforestation alerts fall to lowest 12-month level since 2014, show Brazilian data
- INPE’s DETER alert system detected 370 square kilometers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in May, down from 960 square kilometers in May 2025.
- Over the past 12 months, DETER registered 3,182 square kilometers of deforestation, the lowest total for any 12-month period in the system’s record dating back to July 2014.
- Independent monitoring by Imazon shows a similar downward trend, reinforcing evidence that forest clearing has continued to decline.
- Scientists warn that a likely strong El Niño could still increase drought, fire and forest degradation risks, even if clear-cutting remains low.
Amazon deforestation declines as Brazil reduces forest loss nationwide
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon biome fell by 23.5% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to a new report from MapBiomas, a Brazil-based land-use mapping project. Reductions in deforestation were recorded across the board in all of Brazil’s biomes, culminating in a 21% nationwide decrease in forest loss. In total, nearly 985,000 hectares (2.4 million acres) […]
How an activist network built pressure without political power
- David Benac’s Rainforest Radicals traces how Rainforest Action Network grew from a small San Francisco-based activist group into an influential force in rainforest protection, Indigenous rights and corporate accountability.
- The book follows RAN’s early campaigns against Burger King, True Geothermal, the World Bank and Mitsubishi to show how the group linked distant forest destruction to everyday choices, public pressure and corporate reputation.
- Benac shows how RAN combined decentralized organizing, nonviolent direct action, media spectacle, boycotts and long-term support for local and Indigenous-led campaigns.
- The interview explores what RAN’s history can teach today’s environmental movements about leverage, persistence, outside solidarity and the challenges that come when a radical network begins to win.
Improved transport opens Mozambique’s forests to new pressures
- Between 2017 and 2022, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank financed road and railway upgrades along the Nacala Corridor in northern Mozambique.
- Environmentalists warned that the expansion of transport infrastructure would likely drive forest loss across the corridor.
- Figures for forest loss show accelerating deforestation in many parts of the corridor since completion of the transport upgrades in 2022.
- The AfDB said it took steps to mitigate environmental harm, but observers said implementation of measures to balance protection of ecosystems with this type of development in Mozambique is weak.
A blueprint for effective activism 10 years after defeating a dam in Borneo (analysis)
- Threatening to inundate hundreds of square kilometers of forest and displace thousands of people on the island of Borneo, the Baram Dam spurred a principled response from a coalition whose members endured threats and harassment while undertaking brave actions like maintaining a 26-month road blockade.
- Ten years since Indigenous and local communities united with civil society organizations across the world to send that proposal down to a historic defeat, two leaders of one NGO that was key to the victory reflect on what helped the campaign succeed.
- “While the Baram victory cannot be automatically replicated — since each river, each community, each political configuration is its own — the structure of the campaign’s Indigenous-led physical resistance, rigorous independent science, and international solidarity infrastructure that amplifies without supplanting local leadership has been reactivated in varying forms and sites of victory across the world,” they write.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Taiwan’s tallest tree found with help of citizen science
- Researchers have confirmed Taiwan’s tallest known tree: an 84.1-meter (276-foot) Taiwania fir they named “the Heaven Sword of the Da’an River.”
- A team called the “Taiwan tree seekers” found it after a decade-long search using airborne laser scans of the island’s forests.
- A group of 372 citizen scientists helped sort through the data, producing a map of 941 giant trees across Taiwan.
- The giant trees store huge amounts of carbon but face growing threats from drought, lifting clouds, stronger typhoons, and illegal logging.
How small actions can become planetary forces
- Nature’s Echo argues that feedback loops shape everything from the formation of stars and the spread of life to climate change, ecological recovery, and human behavior.
- Crowther is strongest when applying this framework to ecology, showing how forests, food webs, restoration, and resilience depend on the balance between reinforcing and stabilizing forces.
- The book moves from explanation to application, suggesting that restoration succeeds when nature recovery creates tangible benefits that people want to sustain.
It’s time to engage Mennonite communities in reducing deforestation across Latin America (analysis)
- Across 50 years and multiple countries, it’s clear that Mennonite colonies are systematic agents of deforestation in Latin America, yet they are seldom engaged by policymakers or NGOs seeking to reduce forest loss.
- In part this is due to the colonies’ closed nature but also because their habit of buying in frontier regions is effectively banned by law in Brazil — a nation which dominates the Amazon policy sphere — but a new analysis posits that engagement with these groups is necessary and potentially fruitful.
- “Mennonite pioneers have transformed the South American forest frontier with remarkable, and unfortunate, efficiency. The question now is whether the legal, regulatory, and civil society frameworks of the countries where they now reside can engage them as partners in a different kind of transformation,” the author argues.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Global sand demand is outpacing nature’s ability to replenish it, UN says
The global sand mining industry removes around 50 billion metric tons of material each year, outpacing the rate at which sand replenishes through the slow geological processes of weathering, reports Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan. According to a report by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the demand for sand is expected to grow by 45% by 2060 […]
Nature’s feedback loops can drive collapse. Thomas Crowther thinks they can also drive recovery
- Thomas Crowther’s Nature’s Echo argues that feedback loops shape everything from ecosystems and climate systems to human psychology and social change.
- Drawing on ecology, cosmology, and restoration science, the book reframes conservation as the cultivation of self-reinforcing systems rather than isolated interventions.
- Crowther suggests that optimism, behavior, and narrative are not peripheral to environmental outcomes, but part of the forces that influence them.
- In an interview with Mongabay’s founder and CEO, Crowther discusses how these ideas inform his thinking on restoration, regenerative movements, ecological resilience, and the role individuals play in larger systems of change.
IMF lending programs linked with deforestation should be rethought (commentary)
- The IMF provides financial assistance to countries to balance their books but recent research by the co-authors of a new commentary shows this support comes at an environmental cost: an increase in deforestation.
- The co-authors reveal countries experience 9.2% higher annual tree cover loss during years in which they are under such programs, which is an unnecessary cost; and thus, the IMF should consider how to fix this issue while it’s currently reviewing the design of its lending programs, they argue.
- As the IMF rethinks its lending approach, these groundbreaking new findings underscore the need to deepen understanding of the impacts of forest and biodiversity loss on economic systems, the co-authors write.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The Amazon’s path from crisis to durability
- Amazon biodiversity protection depends on more than keeping forests standing; a forest can remain on the map while losing ecological function, governance protections, enforcement capacity, or public support.
- Six connected gaps shape Amazon conservation: finance and forest economy, governance, enforcement, forest function, Indigenous rights, and narrative.
- Progress is possible. Brazil has reduced deforestation before, satellite alerts can strengthen enforcement, Indigenous land rights can protect forests, and better finance and monitoring can make protection more durable.
- The central challenge is making the systems around the forest pull in the same direction: finance that favors protection, governance that reduces impunity, enforcement with consequences, rights that hold on the ground, monitoring that reveals what tree cover hides, and stories that show where action is possible.
Has Ecuador started fracking? New oil project causes confusion and concern
- State-owned oil company Petroecuador announced a new project involving “hydraulic fracturing” in an oil block in the Ecuadorian Amazon, creating confusion about the level of risk posed to the environment.
- The announcement concerned oil in Block 57, also known as the Shushufindi Libertador block, located in Sucumbíos province, which is largely covered by Amazonian rainforest.
- Conservation groups said they want more transparency from the government as it attempts to boost sagging oil production numbers.
Luxury yacht maker Sunseeker pleads guilty to violating a US environmental law
Luxury yacht manufacturer Sunseeker has pleaded guilty to violating a U.S. environmental law by using illegally sourced teak from Myanmar on two of its yachts imported into the U.S. The U.K.-based Sunseeker International Limited, which describes itself as “the world’s leading brand for luxury motor yachts,” along with its U.S. subsidiary pleaded guilty on May […]
Brazil has protected much of the Amazon. It now has to pay for it.
- Brazil has built one of the world’s most important protected-area systems, but a new study finds that most federal protected areas remain underfunded, with the largest shortfalls in the Amazon.
- The funding gap reflects more than the size of Brazil’s conservation estate: remote Amazon reserves are costly to manage, politically less visible, and often receive far less support than protected areas near cities and institutions.
- Underfunding has practical consequences, limiting staff, patrols, fire response, monitoring, community engagement, and the ability of protected areas to prevent deforestation and other threats.
- Tourism, ARPA, the Amazon Fund, and rising federal environmental budgets can help, but Brazil needs stable, transparent, long-term financing that matches the recurring cost of turning legal protection into management.
Will my president save the Amazon? (commentary)
- Voters in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia will soon choose presidents whose policies could shape the future of roughly 82% of the Amazon rainforest.
- Environmental issues have been largely absent from recent presidential debates, even as droughts, floods, deforestation, illegal mining, and organized crime increasingly threaten public well-being and national economies.
- Protecting the Amazon should be treated as an economic, social, and public health priority, argues Peruvian American ecologist Enrique Ortiz, because the forest helps sustain water supplies, food production, energy systems, and climate stability across South America.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
New survey methods uncover new insights into Madagascar’s biodiversity
- LIFEPLAN tracks arthropods, fungi, mammals and birds simultaneously using identical methods repeated year-round across continents, generating one of the largest standardized biodiversity data sets ever assembled.
- A forthcoming study found that geographic distance is a key driver of endemism in Madagascar’s arthropods.
- Entomologists use LIFEPLAN data to identify new priority areas for insect conservation that are not represented in the current protected area network.
- Researchers say they hope LIFEPLAN methods can support long-term biodiversity monitoring in Madagascar’s protected areas in collaboration with different partners.
Communities say sacred groves are shrinking in India’s eastern ghats
Sacred groves in the Indian state of Odisha continue to be protected now, as they have for hundreds of years because of cultural and spiritual values associated with them, a recent study has found. However, the forests are decreasing in size, nearly all residents interviewed by researchers said. India is estimated to have roughly 100,000 […]
Smallholders are not the weak link in forest protection (commentary)
- Smallholders are often treated as risks in deforestation-free supply chains, writes Aida Greenbury, yet many are also among the people with the strongest reasons to keep forests standing.
- Greenbury argues that standards, traceability rules and buyer requirements can push costs onto farmers who lack the maps, documents, legal recognition and market access needed to comply.
- She says forest protection will work only if companies, donors, governments and NGOs make long-term commitments to smallholders, including support for land rights, incentives, better yields and trusted local institutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Tiremakers ready to roll with EUDR, but repeated delays frustrate industry
- Tire manufacturers, major consumers of natural rubber, say they’re ready for the implementation of the EU’s antideforestation regulation, or EUDR, and lament its repeated delays.
- Natural rubber supply chains are notoriously complex, with 85% of natural rubber coming from 6 million smallholders, and the rubber passing through numerous intermediaries before being turned into tires.
- Ensuring EUDR compliance throughout natural rubber supply chains remains challenging; European tire industry representatives also point to ongoing problems with the information system and due diligence requirements in downstream supply chains.
- The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber, made up of industry, civil society and producers, promotes sustainability within the natural rubber supply chain and supports smallholders.
New study explores how reforestation could help Java’s leopards survive
- A new study finds that strategically restoring degraded forests could help reconnect fragmented habitat for the endangered Javan leopard, giving the species more room to move across densely populated Java.
- Researchers created the first islandwide model of habitat connectivity for the species, showing how targeted reforestation could help offset some of the barriers created by roads, railways and urban development.
- Conservationists say isolated leopard populations face increasing risks from habitat loss, human conflict, disease and inbreeding, with only an estimated 320 Javan leopards remaining in the wild.
- Experts caution that the model still needs to be tested with real-world tracking data, but say reconnecting forests will be essential for the long-term survival of Java’s last apex predator.
New Jaguar Rivers Initiative aims to reconnect South America’s fragmented ecosystems
- Four major conservation groups have joined forces to establish the Jaguar Rivers Initiative across South America’s Paraná River Basin.
- Its goal is to protect the big cat and other threatened species, rewild native wildlife, and protect land throughout the basin, a biodiversity hotspot shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.
- Many rivers form the borders between the four countries, and by collaborating on protections, the initiative seeks to reconnect fragmented habitat, using rivers and riparian forests to rebuild wildlife corridors.
- By 2030, the initiative plans to protect at least 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of land in these countries, preserving approximately 34 million metric tons of carbon at risk of being released through deforestation, fire and land-use change.
Paraguay expanded a reserve in the Gran Chaco. Why is deforestation still rising there?
- Approximately 2.78 million hectares (6.87 million acres) were added to Paraguay’s Chaco Biosphere Reserve in 2011, yet the area continues to be one of the country’s worst hit by forest loss.
- Regulations are only selectively enforced by the government, if not entirely ignored, critics say.
- Property owners often exceed how much native vegetation they can legally clear on their land to make room for cattle pasture and agriculture.
- As the forest shrinks, Indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode living in that part of the reserve have struggled to maintain voluntary isolation; they rely on the forest for food, shelter and medicine, and don’t have immunity to many outside diseases.
Forests, fires and fragile gains: Interview with WRI’s Elizabeth Goldman
- According to Global Forest Watch data released by the World Resources Institute (WRI) on April 29, tropical primary forest loss declined by 36% in 2025 compared to the previous year.
- While GFW’s data show that more than 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical forest was cut down, this still represents the steepest single-year decline in two decades and offers a rare moment of optimism after consecutive years of forest destruction and record-breaking wildfires.
- Much of the improvement stems from Brazil, where renewed political will and enforcement under President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva played a decisive role.
- But while the decline suggests that protective policies and favorable weather can slow the destruction of the world’s forests, GFW’s Elizabeth Goldman warns that the progress is fragile.
Conservationists fear fires could erase years of orangutan habitat recovery
- Fires have burned part of a restoration site being prepared for orangutan habitat in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, raising fears that another severe fire season could undo years of recovery work.
- The restoration project, led by the government, Yayasan IAR Indonesia and local communities, has replanted about 300 hectares (740 acres) with 150,000 trees to help keep critically endangered orangutans out of nearby farms.
- Conservationists say the fires, likely sparked by nearby land clearing for oil palm, spread rapidly through dry peat and scrub vegetation, despite the area still being in the rainy season.
- With severe El Niño conditions forecast later this year, conservation groups warn they lack sufficient resources to fully prepare for another major fire season like the devastating 2015 crisis.
In Mozambique, four isolated mountains yield four new chameleon species
Scientists have identified four new-to-science species of chameleons inhabiting four distinct, isolated mountains in northern Mozambique. These mountains — Namuli, Inago, Chiperone, and Ribáuè —are granite inselbergs rising sharply from the arid savanna. They act as “sky islands” or ecological oases that have allowed unique species to evolve in isolation for millions of years. The […]
Climate change could erase most South American cloud forests, study warns
- Climate change could eliminate up to 91% of South America’s cloud forests by 2070 under a high-emissions scenario; even the most optimistic projections show significant losses.
- Because cloud forests capture moisture from fog and release it into streams, their disappearance threatens the drinking water supply of an estimated 16 million people who live downstream.
- Only about one-third of South America’s cloud forests fall within protected areas, and those protections cannot shield the forests if the climate itself becomes too warm and dry to support them.
- Scientists say cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the most essential step, alongside stronger protections and financial incentives for landowners to conserve and restore forests in areas projected to remain climatically suitable.
Study finds microplastics in tadpoles in the Amazon for the first time
Researchers have recorded microplastics in frog tadpoles and their pond habitats in the wild in the Amazon for the first time, according to a new study. This confirms widespread microplastic contamination in the Amazon Rainforest, the researchers say. Previous studies from the region have found microplastic contamination in fish, invertebrates, soil and water samples. […]
Australia’s declining tree health is a slow-burning crisis (commentary)
- Unlike destructive bushfires, tree health is often treated as a niche or technical issue, but its implications pose equally important questions about ecological resilience and public health, a new op-ed argues.
- Threats to Australian tree species are multiplying like an invisible bushfire via a proliferation of introduced insects and pathogens, the authors suggest, ahead of his country’s first national forum on the topic later this month, Safeguarding Australia’s Tree Health, in Brisbane.
- “We recognize bushfires as a national crisis because their impacts are visible and immediate, but some ecological crises arrive more quietly. If we fail to notice them early, the damage can become harder to reverse for forests, for biodiversity, and for the communities that depend on them,” they write.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Can listening to a forest reveal whether it is ecologically healthy?
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Researchers have been using sound to study ecosystems for years. A study from ETH Zürich uses it to examine Costa Rica’s payment for ecosystem services program, reports Mongabay’s Abhishyant Kidangoor. Giacomo Delgado, a doctoral researcher, compares the method […]
In Guatemala, new AI technology will be ‘listening’ for illegal deforestation
- A new project in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve will install bioacoustics devices that can “listen” for illegal activity, using AI models trained to identify chainsaws, gunshots and other sounds associated with environmental crime.
- The project is part of the $100 million AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge, run by the Bezos Earth Fund for innovative uses of artificial intelligence for tackling biodiversity loss, climate change and food insecurity.
- The devices will be installed in parts of the reserve threatened by cattle ranching and illegal human settlements, accounting for thousands of hectares of annual forest loss in recent years.
- If successful, bioacoustics technology could be combined with camera traps, drone monitoring, satellite data and human observation to create a more efficient and data-driven conservation strategy, members of the project said.
Florida ‘Sloth World’ shuts down amid dozens of captive sloth deaths
A startup known as “Sloth World” brought some 69 sloths to Orlando, Florida, with plans to charge $49 to let visitors see them up close. However, 52 sloths are believed to have died in conditions a former employee described to Mongabay as “heartbreaking,” ultimately forcing Sloth World to shut down, with plans to file for […]
A “good year” for forests changes less than it seems
- Tropical primary forest loss saw a significant drop in 2025, but the decline likely represents a temporary reprieve driven by favorable weather rather than a fundamental shift in the root causes of deforestation.
- The reduction was largely due to a decrease in fire-related losses following the extreme droughts of 2024, highlighting how forest health is increasingly dictated by climate variability and rainfall extremes.
- While policy-driven successes in Brazil and Indonesia offer a blueprint for enforcement, these gains remain fragile and vulnerable to shifting political dynamics and weakening governance.
- The resilience of recent progress faces an imminent test in 2026, as forecasts for a returning El Niño threaten to bring back the dry conditions that historically trigger catastrophic forest loss.
Tropical forest loss falls in 2025, but world still off track on deforestation goals
- Tropical primary forest loss fell sharply in 2025, down 36% from 2024, but the decline may reflect fewer fires rather than sustained progress.
- Despite the drop, the world still lost an area of tropical primary forest larger than Switzerland last year, leaving countries far off track from their 2030 goal of ending deforestation.
- Smaller forest-rich countries are losing remaining forests fastest, while major forest nations like Brazil show gains linked to stronger enforcement.
- Climate-driven fires, weak governance and commodity pressures continue to drive forest loss, making recent gains fragile and uncertain.
Deforestation is surging in Indonesia
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Indonesia’s forests, long held up as a case of tentative progress, are again under pressure. New analysis shows deforestation rose sharply in 2025, reversing several years of decline and returning to levels not seen in nearly a decade, […]
Linking habitats strengthens wildlife microbiomes, helps fight disease: Study
- It has long been known that when terrestrial and aquatic habitats, vital at various times during a species’ life cycle, become disconnected due to human activities (a process known as habitat split), the impacted species can become more vulnerable to disease and see major population declines.
- A new study pinpoints one mechanism contributing to such losses. Researchers analyzed habitat split impacts on the skin microbiomes of frog species in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and detected microbial changes that increased frog susceptibility to the chytrid pathogen, which is devastating amphibians globally.
- The scientists stress that their findings could likely apply elsewhere and to many species (such as birds, fish and mammals), which need varied habitats during their life cycles in order to maintain a diverse microbiome that enhances disease defenses.
- The researchers say their findings underline the need for conservation projects that protect and connect key habitats, such as forests and streams that are utilized at various life cycle stages, in order to better protect a multitude of species, not only at the macro scale, but also species at the micro scale.
Why forest conservation is also public health
- A new study from Madagascar provides the first complete mitochondrial genomes for two endemic tuft-tailed rats, offering a clearer baseline for identifying and tracking native rodent species.
- Fieldwork found these native rodents only in intact forest, while degraded areas were dominated by invasive black rats, suggesting a shift in community composition linked to habitat change.
- Understanding which rodent species are present, where they live, and how their populations change is critical not just for biodiversity, but for identifying how pathogen dynamics may shift across landscapes.
- The research illustrates how improved ecological monitoring can connect conservation and public health, supporting the view that protecting ecosystems and managing disease risk are closely linked.
Vaupés River contamination identified near rapidly expanding Amazonian town
- Indigenous people who live downstream from a rapidly expanding Amazonian town on the banks of the Vaupés River told Mongabay the river is contaminated by sewage and has made people sick.
- To verify this, Mongabay obtained water quality studies from the Corporation for Sustainable Development of the Northern and Eastern Amazon, which confirmed that sewage contamination and organic load are above safe limits and may impact public health and the quality of the aquatic ecosystem.
- Traditionally, the Macaquiño community downstream considers the Vaupés River to be a living being with whom they coexist and depend on it for bathing, fishing and human consumption.
- Public authorities in Mitú said the contamination stems in part from the municipality’s poorly constructed wastewater treatment plant, which was built on a flood zone and therefore frequently collapses, dumping untreated sewage into the river.
To tackle trafficking in gibbons, experts probe what drives demand
- As gibbon trafficking reaches record highs, conservationists say reducing demand is critical to tackling the illegal trade.
- But motivations for wanting to buy a gibbon vary widely between buyer communities, which means the solutions must be tailored accordingly, experts say.
- Surveys of people who voluntarily surrendered gibbons to a sanctuary in Malaysia found that most cited as motivation a love of animals or desire for their children to have an animal to play with.
- In India, by contrast, a sanctuary manager says gibbons are coveted as status symbols, and most arrive at the center via confiscation rather than voluntary submission.
Studying the world’s largest gathering of forest elephants with sound and field observation
- At Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic—one of the few places where forest elephants gather in large numbers—researchers can observe behaviors that are otherwise difficult to document in dense rainforest.
- Ivonne Kienast leads long-term research combining direct observation with acoustic monitoring, building a detailed record of elephant behavior, social structure, and change over time.
- Her work highlights how sustained presence, local collaboration, and incremental data collection shape understanding of both elephants and the broader forest system they inhabit.
- Kienast spoke with Rhett Ayers Butler, Mongabay founder and CEO, and David Akana, director of Mongabay Africa, over two weeks of conversations in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo during March 2026. Her responses have been edited and consolidated.
10 forces that could reshape the future of the world’s forests
- A new horizon scan identifies ten emerging forces—spanning politics, finance and technology—that are likely to shape forests over the next decade, increasing uncertainty for ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
- Traditional funding for conservation is weakening as public aid declines, while new mechanisms—from carbon markets to direct financing for Indigenous and local communities—are expanding unevenly.
- Advances in remote sensing, AI and connectivity are improving monitoring and accountability, but are also enabling illegal activities and accelerating pressures in some regions.
- Growing demand for critical minerals, shifting trade rules and tighter political control over civil society are reshaping forest governance, fragmenting authority and redistributing risks and benefits.
The Amazon’s silent crime crisis (commentary)
- The Amazon is approaching a critical tipping point, where deforestation, degradation, fire, and climate change together risk pushing large areas toward irreversible ecological collapse.
- A growing nexus between organized crime and environmental crime is accelerating forest loss, distorting economies, and undermining governance across the basin.
- Addressing the crisis requires more than conservation alone: stronger enforcement, institutional reform, and investment in a sustainable socio-bioeconomy are essential, argue Carlos Nobre, Robert Muggah and Ilona Szabo.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Indonesia braces for possible ‘Godzilla El Niño’ as fire season escalates early
- The 2026 fire season in Indonesia is already showing early signs of escalation, as burned areas reached 32,637 hectares by February, 20 times higher than the same period in 2025.
- Some global forecasts suggest this year’s predicted El Niño could become one of the strongest in at least a decade, raising the risk of prolonged drought and widespread fires, although significant uncertainty remains over how intense it will ultimately be.
- Fire monitoring by the watchdog Pantau Gambut show that many hotspots are in oil palm and timber concession areas, which the group says suggests that legal permits alone do not guarantee fire-safe land management and highlights gaps in oversight and enforcement.
Conservation efforts help an endangered dipterocarp spread roots in Bangladesh
- Conservation of the endangered boilam tree (Anisoptera scaphula) — Bangladesh’s tallest tree species — has reached a milestone after a 34-year-old man planted saplings across all the districts of the country.
- A Bangladeshi forestry professor’s dedicated work offers fresh hope for science-based conservation of the rare species.
- With no established conservation approach in Southeast Asia, where the species is also endangered, the Bangladeshi model could serve as a replicable solution.
Can nature outcompete war in Eastern Congo?
- In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, pressure on Virunga National Park reflects deeper economic and governance dynamics, where conservation competes with immediate livelihood needs tied to charcoal production and agriculture.
- Emmanuel de Merode frames environmental decline as a consequence of how people earn a living, arguing that protecting biodiversity requires addressing energy access, jobs, and local economic systems.
- Virunga has developed an integrated model built around renewable energy, small business development, financial access, and localized security, aimed at shifting incentives away from conflict-linked and extractive activities.
- The proposed Green Corridor extends this approach across a national scale, testing whether a viable economic system can be built that depends on maintaining forests rather than clearing them, despite ongoing conflict and political constraints.
Colombia’s main river redraws the map of little-known night monkeys
- A new study looks at genetic evidence to suggest that Colombia’s Magdalena River, and not the Andean massif, may be the true boundary separating two near-identical species of nocturnal primates.
- Night monkeys from the genus Aotus, the only nocturnal primates in the Americas, have remained largely invisible to both the public and the scientific community, says the study’s main author.
- Experts in the field say this discovery could fundamentally reshape national conservation maps and protection strategies for night monkeys.
Venezuela’s new mining law could spell disaster for the Amazon, critics warn
- Venezuela passed a law to update the country’s mining regulations and attract international investment in gold, silver, coltan and other minerals.
- While some environmental protections are included in the bill, critics say they’re not rigorous enough to stop the deforestation or human rights abuses already happening in the Venezuelan Amazon.
- The law describes a commitment to “ecological mining development” that critics call a dangerous attempt at greenwashing.
Giant otters, river sentinels, now listed as threatened migratory species
- The giant otter was added to the list of animals needing protection under the UN Convention on Migratory Species, paving the way for international conservation actions.
- Studies reveal that their population decreased by 50% over the past 25 years as their habitat disappears and fragments and growing pollution fouls rivers.
- The new listing should promote cooperation between countries to protect the species as well as Amazon and Pantanal aquatic ecosystems, which are the otter’s strongholds.
From Virunga to Kinshasa, the DRC embarks on a bold conservation gamble
- More than a year ago, Democratic Republic of Congo President Félix Tshisekedi announced the Green Corridor, a conservation initiative that may stretch across the country, create 500,000 jobs, conserve over 540,000 km2 (208,500 mi2) of land, and improve infrastructure along the Congo River.
- According to people familiar with early discussions, the concept grew in part from Virunga National Park’s efforts to tackle an illegal war economy in North Kivu province and to try delivering alternative benefits to surrounding communities, including energy, agriculture and livelihoods.
- With uncertainty lingering over the conflict in eastern Congo, the government is now seeking to adapt elements of the Virunga conservation-and-development approach to a much larger landscape.
- While praised by some, observers, conservation groups and advocacy organizations caution that significant questions remain, particularly around the management of existing concessions — including agriculture, logging, oil and hydrocarbon blocks — as well as the protection of communities’ rights.
How quickly do tropical forests recover? Faster than expected, but slower than it seems
- Tropical forests can regrow within decades, with species abundance and diversity recovering quickly, but full ecological recovery—especially the return of original species composition—takes much longer.
- Many mobile species such as birds, bats, and bees persist or return early, helping drive regeneration by dispersing seeds and pollinating plants, while slower-moving or long-lived species lag behind.
- Forests may regain high numbers of species relatively fast, but the specific mix of old-growth species takes decades or longer to reassemble, meaning a regrown forest is not the same as the one that was lost.
- Recovery depends on time, prior land use, and proximity to intact habitat, suggesting that protecting and allowing secondary forests to regenerate can be a practical and cost-effective path for restoring biodiversity.
Mennonites from Belize spark deforestation fears with new settlement plans in Suriname
- Mennonite families in Belize could pay millions to settle on around 24,000 hectares (59,300 acres) in Para, Suriname, a district with around 90% forest cover.
- Community leaders from Shipyard and Indian Creek, Belize, have taken multiple trips to Suriname to analyze soil quality and learn about the country’s farming regulations. Members from Spanish Lookout, another Mennonite community, have also started looking into a Suriname relocation.
- The move is being facilitated by Braganza Marketing Group, run by Ruud Souverein, a Dutch national living in Suriname who was involved in a previously failed government program to bring Mennonites from Bolivia in 2023.
- Environmental groups have expressed concern about Mennonites’ tendencies to expand into forested areas, circumvent environmental regulations, and settle on land without proper titles.
Indigenous & community leaders say, ‘secure forest financing with us, not for us’ (commentary)
- With the expansion of government forest protection programs like REDD+ in recent years, Indigenous communities are increasingly asking if these initiatives boost their autonomy and benefits, or repeat old patterns of exclusion.
- These programs’ success will increasingly depend on the full participation of their peoples in the process that determines how benefits and revenues from these transactions are shared, three Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders write in a new op-ed.
- “We believe the path forward is clear: climate policy must be built with communities, not for them,” they say.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
A Congo Basin-led bioeconomy could boost Central Africa’s green transition (analysis)
- As the global economy shifts toward greener, more sustainable models, the Congo Basin has a unique opportunity to position itself within this landscape by building a resilient bioeconomy that prioritizes local value creation while preserving critical ecosystems.
- Despite its rich natural endowments, this region often faces a paradox: while conservation protects, extraction exploits, and agreements frequently stall.
- “Promoting innovative approaches to biodiversity value creation directly supports efforts to enhance innovation and competitiveness, while emphasizing the need for durable, inclusive systems that capture long-term value for local communities,” a new analysis argues.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
A unique clearing in Central Africa draws elephants from the dense forests
- Dzanga Bai is an exceptional forest clearing where hundreds of elusive forest elephants gather, offering scientists and visitors opportunities to observe their behavior, social interactions and family dynamics in the open.
- Mineral-rich soil and shallow pools draw elephants and other wildlife like bongos and forest buffalo, making the clearing a unique ecological hotspot and a valuable site for long-term research on a little-understood species.
- Dzanga Bai is a growing tourism spot for the Central African Republic, but growth remains limited by difficult access, infrastructure constraints and perceptions of insecurity.
Green and gray: Mangroves and dikes show potential in protecting shorelines together
- A recent paper modeled how restoring mangroves in front of water-controlling infrastructure like dikes might create a hybrid coastal defense system in the face of global sea level rise.
- The model found that this combination, put in place today, could reduce the annual damage from storms and flooding by $800 million, and that 140,000 fewer people would be impacted by these events every year.
- They also found that these numbers would increase over time with the impacts of climate change.
- The researchers also evaluated where these projects would be most cost-effective, finding that the benefits disproportionately help lower-income areas, particularly in Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Africa.
Working together, Indigenous peoples & researchers describe new Amazonian palm
- Although used for centuries by the Cacua Indigenous people in Colombia, the táam palm was, until recently, unknown to science. During fieldwork in the village of Wacará, two botanists were offered to eat a fruit they had never seen before, so they set out to discover what species it was.
- With help from the Indigenous community, they were able to find the palm and collect samples in line with the Cacua people’s approach to conserving the plant.
- Lab tests showed that táam was a palm species previously unknown to science that researchers named Attalea taam. After the discovery, the botanists returned to the community and started a participatory process to study the palm’s ecology and distribution.
- Several members of the Cacua community co-authored the scientific paper describing the new species. By relying on Indigenous knowledge and mapping, the researchers say they have obtained better results than through using just a Western scientific approach.
An invasive guava is muscling out Madagascar’s forests — and lemurs are helping
- The island of Madagascar is a hotspot for animal and plant biodiversity, but since the 1950s it has suffered high rates of deforestation.
- Once damaged, these forests are susceptible to takeover by a nonnative plant invader, the strawberry guava tree originally from Brazil.
- The guavas produce delicious fruit that the lemurs relish and whose seeds the lemurs themselves help to spread.
- Conservationists say forest restoration, critical to the survival of lemurs, needs to take into account the pernicious effects that strawberry guavas have on the ecology of forests — both those that are still intact, and those that are being restored.
Brazilian settlers turn to reforestation in ambitious land recovery plan
- Driven by the work of several generations of land reform settlers, an initiative has already planted 10 million trees across 6,000 hectares in the Pontal do Paranapanema region of western São Paulo; the goal is to reach 75,000 hectares by 2041, an area roughly the size of New York City.
- By reconnecting Atlantic Forest fragments and creating ecological corridors, the project has helped bring wildlife back: 174 bird species and 29 mammal species have been recorded in reforested areas, and in 2024, a jaguar was sighted for the first time.
- The effort has also delivered local economic benefits: Rural startups, community nurseries and agroforestry coffee plantations have been established to support the program, all providing additional income for settler families.
Palm oil clearing advances in Bornean orangutan habitat despite red flags
- A palm oil firm has cleared more than 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) of forest inside a UNESCO biosphere reserve in Indonesian Borneo, threatening areas identified as orangutan habitat.
- The concession overlaps with a wildlife corridor linking two national parks, raising concerns over habitat fragmentation and increased human-orangutan conflict.
- Authorities have acknowledged the presence of the habitat inside the company’s concession, but proposed voluntary conservation measures rather than halting clearing, drawing criticism from environmental groups.
- The case highlights broader issues of weak enforcement, disputed land rights with Indigenous communities, and supply-chain loopholes that continue to allow deforestation-linked palm oil into global markets.
In Laos, ancestral spirits are helping save one of the world’s rarest crocodiles
- A decade-long conservation program built around local culture is restoring a globally significant population of a critically endangered crocodile species to the Xe Champhone wetlands of central Laos.
- Of the world’s 27 crocodilian species, the Siamese crocodile is among just four classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 1,000 thought to survive on Earth.
- This month, 56 crocodiles were released back to the Xe Champhone wetlands and the program has released 294 individuals since it began in 2013.
- The locals’ spiritual connection to crocodiles, upheld for generations in a landscape stripped of most large wildlife, may be the single most important reason this species still exists here.
Indonesia court orders release of withheld impact studies on new capital
- Indonesia mining industry watchdog Jatam has won a case at the country’s Supreme Court requiring the government to disclose environmental impact assessments pertaining to two utility water projects at the country’s new capital city site.
- In 2019, then-president Joko Widodo announced he would move the capital of the world’s fourth-most-populous country from Jakarta to Nusantara, a new site surrounded by forests and Indigenous communities on the east coast of Borneo.
- At issue are the Sepaku Semoi Dam and Sepaku River intake, two infrastructure projects at Nusantara that have impacted local Indigenous populations, Jatam said.
- The NGO called the ruling a victory for transparency, but criticized efforts to withhold documents and pointed to a 2008 law as well as Indonesia’s Constitution requiring public access to information.
Facebook shuts Indonesia groups after Mongabay and Bellingcat report illegal wildlife trade
- Facebook parent company Meta has closed nine groups on the social network after reporters from Mongabay and Bellingcat found evidence of illegal wildlife trade being conducted openly on the platform in Indonesia.
- In one Facebook group, reporters last year found an advertisement for a rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros), a protected species.
- “Bad actors constantly evolve their tactics to avoid enforcement, which is why we partner with groups like the World Wildlife Fund and invest in tools and technology to detect and remove violating content,” Meta said in a statement.
Indonesia plan to rezone elephant reserve for carbon trading and tourism sparks backlash
- Indonesia plans to rezone large parts of Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra for carbon trading and luxury tourism to raise conservation funds.
- Critics warn the move could fragment core habitat and harm critically endangered species like Sumatran elephants, tigers and rhinos.
- Experts say carbon projects and reforestation could reduce elephant food sources and worsen human-wildlife conflict.
- Concerns are mounting over transparency, governance and whether revenues will truly support conservation and local communities.
Toucans reintroduced 50 years ago disperse seeds of endangered trees in Brazil
More than 50 years ago, the ariel toucan was reintroduced to Tijuca National Park, the world’s largest urban forest, located in Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. Now, a new study finds that the bird, which became locally extinct in the 1960s, has almost entirely settled back into its original role in the ecosystem, serving […]
At dusk in Kenya’s caves, scientists study the hidden lives of bats
- David Wechuli and other researchers are studying bats living in cave systems in Kenya, to better understand how they interact with their environment and how human activities affect bat habitat.
- Research shows that many bat species are highly sensitive to disturbances, sometimes abandoning their roosts, with damaging consequences.
- Wechuli works for Bat Conservation International, which has helped communities develop guidelines to protect caves hosting bat colonies from disturbance.
How a community defended its ancestral forest from logging
- In northeastern Gabon, the community of Massaha used participatory mapping to document ancestral villages, sacred sites and traditional land use inside a rainforest slated for industrial logging.
- Their biocultural map revealed a long history of occupation that colonial records and modern conservation maps had largely overlooked.
- The evidence helped the community argue for protection of their forest, prompting government intervention that halted logging and opened discussions about formal conservation.
- The case highlights how local knowledge and community-led mapping can complement global conservation data and reshape how forests are understood and protected.
Costa Rica’s head start may mask tougher EUDR road ahead
- The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), passed in 2023, will require that traders in several agricultural commodities, including coffee, prove that their products don’t contribute to deforestation.
- To prepare, Costa Rica developed a pilot program with the country’s largest coffee growers’ cooperative, and started shipping deforestation-free coffee to Europe in March 2024.
- Costa Rica has since provided the tools developed for this pilot to the entire coffee sector, with the aim of all coffee shipped from the country being certified deforestation-free.
- However, Costa Rica’s long-standing sustainability standards gave it a head start on meeting the new regulations, experts say, warning that other countries with lower standards and fewer resources may find it difficult to quickly emulate its success.
Forest advocates accuse EU energy firm of Dutch biomass certification fraud
- The sustainability certification of forest biomass produced to generate industrial-scale energy has long been controversial and called into question.
- Wood pellet companies argue their product is sustainable and doesn’t cause deforestation, while governments claim biomass burning results in climate-neutral emissions, which is why they offer subsides to energy companies burning sustainability certified forest biomass.
- However, forest advocates and scientists have provided significant evidence that forest biomass production contributes to deforestation, is not sustainable and that burning wood generates more carbon emissions per unit of energy than coal.
- In an unprecedented move, Dutch law enforcement is considering a criminal investigation into RWE, one of the Netherlands’ largest energy providers, after a Dutch forest advocate alleged that the firm dodges biomass certification rules, using wood pellets imported from Malaysia sourced not from sawmill waste, but allegedly from whole trees.
Works on planned luxury resort on Pemba island go ahead despite concerns
- A 4 meter high perimeter wall was built alongside a village bordering Ngezi Forest Reserve as construction to a luxury resort estate has started on Zanzibar’s Pemba island.
- A dirt road cutting through the protected forest has been widened to facilitate the transport of goods.
- Researchers warn that no environmental planning has been done and that animal and plant species could go extinct if the development goes ahead.
Sumatra officials stress environment checks continue in wake of deadly cyclone
- More than three months after flash flooding caused by the landfall of Cyclone Senyar over Sumatra killed more than 1,000 people in three provinces, officials continue to face pressure to review companies operating in forests and watersheds.
- In West Sumatra province, environmental officials point to sanctions issued against quarries operating near Mount Sariak, a short distance to the north of Padang, the provincial capital.
- However, West Sumatra is a mountainous province larger than Switzerland, with many extractive areas operating in forests that can take inspectors at least a day to reach from the provincial capital.
- At least 267 people were killed in West Sumatra, with 70 people still missing at the time of writing, after Cyclone Senyar struck on Nov. 26 and 27.
Ecuador’s new ecological corridor connects Andes and Amazon ecosystems
- This month, officials in Ecuador announced a 2,159-square-kilometer (833-square mile) biodiversity corridor, connecting Llanganates National Park with Yasuní Biosphere Reserve.
- The Llanganates–Yasuní Connectivity Corridor is unique because it allows “altitudinal connectivity” between the high-elevation Andes mountains and the low-elevation Amazon Rainforest.
- Experts say some species could start to move between the ecosystems in response to climate change and habitat loss.
Study maps tree-planting risks and rewards for climate and biodiversity
- Afforestation and reforestation (AR) have emerged as key climate change mitigation strategies.
- Forestation can be a benefit for biodiversity, but poorly planned projects can do more harm than good.
- A recent study offers a new way of gauging the potential of AR to achieve both carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, across different biomes.
- The study finds that some biomes have higher potential than others for AR, but considerable variation exists within biomes. The researchers caution that careful planning is needed.
The Cerrado is threatened but crucial for Brazil’s biodiversity & water security (commentary)
- The Cerrado is a massive and biodiverse ecodomain that also plays an important role in carbon storage and water cycling, making it a crucial asset for Brazil.
- Yet more than 55% of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been lost since the 1970s, and less than 3% is under full protection, far below what is needed to maintain biodiversity and ecological processes.
- Biodiversity loss advances silently, with species disappearing before they are even formally described by science, as several co-authors of a new review article explain.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Restoration of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest may hinge on market for native plants
- Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is one of the richest biomes on the planet, hosting around 5% of Earth’s vertebrate species, but deforestation has decimated the region, with less than a quarter of original forests still standing.
- Reforestation efforts provide varying environmental, economic and societal values, also known as bioeconomics.
- New research weighs the economic potential of native plants to bolster the bioeconomics of reforestation projects, supporting conservation efforts and supporting small landowners and Indigenous communities.
Climate or biodiversity? Global study maps out forestation’s dilemma
- A new study maps areas designated for potential carbon dioxide removal projects, such as planting forests or bioenergy crops, that might conflict with biodiversity hotspots.
- Such climate strategies could harm species if they change existing ecosystems or use too much land.
- The study points to the importance of more careful site selection for these projects.
- The authors of the study also note the importance of reducing humanity’s CO2 emissions, rather than relying solely on removing CO2 from the atmosphere later on.
Beetle known for ravaging mango trees now killing baobabs, study finds
- Researchers say baobabs face a potential new threat from the mango stem borer, a beetle long known to devastate other trees.
- The warning comes from research in Oman, where scientists found the pest had killed six baobabs and severely infested a dozen more in a small valley population.
- Authorities there are fighting the infestation with pesticides, light traps and manual removal of larvae from the trees.
- Scientists note that similar infestations have not yet been recorded in other countries where baobabs grow.
Cameroon’s decade of conflict leaves apes and conservationists in peril
- Dozens of protected areas in Cameroon’s anglophone regions, including parks that are home to great apes and other threatened species, have been swept up in a decade-long armed conflict between government forces and separatist militias.
- The ongoing conflict has blocked conservationists’ access to forests, and exposed conservationists, local civilians and the region’s wildlife to violence.
- Displaced people have turned to farming and hunting in forests in order to survive, while militias also hunt and camp in the forest.
- Conservationists have explored new strategies to keep their work alive, including working with local citizen scientists, but say the task of rebuilding organizations in the midst of a humanitarian crisis is huge.
Birds are changing — and Indigenous memory is the longest record we have
- A global study drawing on Indigenous and local knowledge across three continents finds that bird communities have shifted toward smaller-bodied species over the past 80 years, suggesting a substantial loss of larger birds even in places with little formal monitoring.
- Traditional ecological knowledge, built through daily interaction with landscapes over generations, can reveal long-term environmental changes that scientific datasets — often only decades deep — fail to capture.
- Because larger species tend to be more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and environmental stress, a shift toward smaller birds may signal deeper ecological restructuring rather than a simple decline in numbers.
- Integrating lived experience with scientific methods offers a fuller picture of environmental change, highlighting that some of the earliest warnings come from people who depend most directly on the natural world.
Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains & farmer incomes (analysis)
- Since the 1970s, Brazil has cleared a large amount of Amazon Rainforest, and the consequences extend beyond biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and social disruption, because the forest generates its own weather.
- Continued deforestation could push the system past a tipping point where the Amazon can no longer sustain its rainfall regime, threatening the continent’s productive capacity and the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.
- The economic opportunity that can change this is agroforestry systems that reforest areas to produce global commodities that can also comply with Brazil’s Forest Code, which requires private properties in the Amazonian region to maintain native vegetation on 80% of their landholdings.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Indigenous communities oppose Papua forest rezoning for palm oil
- Indigenous communities in Indonesian Papua have filed an administrative objection against forestry ministry decrees that reclassify more than a million acres as nonforest land, clearing the way for oil palm development under the government’s food estate program.
- The rezoning last September was carried out without the communities’ knowledge or consent, and the affected areas include swaths of forest that they have proposed as customary forests.
- The communities only learned of the decision months later, after NGOs obtained the decree. If the ministry fails to respond to their objection, they plan to sue in the State Administrative Court.
- The expansion aligns with the government’s drive to boost food and biofuel production, but Indigenous rights advocates warn the plan could cost communities their forests, livelihoods and cultural ties to the land.
After logging bans, Australia turns to “forest thinning”. Does it reduce fire risk?
- As native forest logging ends in parts of Australia, governments and industry are turning to large-scale forest thinning as a tool to reduce bushfire risk, prompting a new debate over how best to protect communities in a warming climate.
- Research shows thinning can lower fire severity under some conditions, especially when paired with prescribed burning, but its effectiveness often diminishes during extreme fire weather — the very conditions driving the most destructive fires.
- Scientists warn that removing trees can alter forest structure, dry fuels, release stored carbon, and eliminate critical wildlife habitat, meaning the ecological and climate costs may be substantial in high-conservation forests.
- The controversy reflects deeper tensions over land use, public safety, and economic transition, with critics arguing that large-scale thinning risks becoming logging by another name while supporters see it as a necessary adaptation to escalating fire danger.
The cost of compliance with the EUDR will limit its impact on reducing deforestation (commentary)
- Many links in agri-commodity supply chains have very narrow profit margins, making them particularly sensitive to additional costs.
- The costs of implementing “zero deforestation” agri-commodity supply chain commitments requiring physical segregation are likely to cause positively engaged companies to avoid commodities grown in regions with active deforestation, leaving companies with no deforestation commitments in their place.
- Contrary to dominant beliefs in adding controls and costs, systemically linking markets and public policy in producer regions enables cheaper, more price-competitive and thus more effective forest-climate strategies; jurisdictional REDD+ is poised to provide such a bridge, argue Bjørn Rask Thomsen, Europe Director at Earth Innovation Institute and former food industry CEO and Daniel Nepstad, Executive Director and President at Earth Innovation Institute in this op-ed.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Sumatra province plan to permit ‘community’ mines alarms civil society
- The devolved government in West Sumatra province, which is home to 5.8 million people on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, intends to present new zoning plans to the central government that could regulate currently illegal mines operated by small groups of people.
- The small-scale gold mining sector is responsible for lasting environmental damage to both environment and public health, owing in large part to the use of mercury, a banned heavy metal and neurotoxin, to separate gold particles from ores retrieved from valley sides and river basins.
- It remains unclear how the government would treat the use of mercury, which is the subject of international agreement under the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
- The international price of gold has surged by more than 70% since the beginning of last year as central banks and investors buy precious metals to mitigate political uncertainty and high inflation. This has led to a surge in illegal gold mining in forests from the Amazon to Indonesia.
Indonesia faces scrutiny over permit revocations following deadly floods and landslides
- The Indonesian government is facing new scrutiny of its revocation of 28 forestry, plantation and mining permits following Cyclone Senyar, which triggered landslides and flash floods that killed around 1,200 people.
- An analysis by the NGO Auriga Nusantara found that some of the permits cited in the announcement had already been revoked years earlier, while others had expired before the floods occurred.
- The discrepancies add to growing confusion over which companies are actually linked to the November 2025 floods and landslides and what will happen to former concession areas now slated for transfer to state-owned enterprises under the sovereign wealth fund Danantara.
The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain
- Tropical forests actively generate rainfall by releasing moisture into the atmosphere, with each square meter producing hundreds of liters of rain annually across surrounding regions. Clearing even small portions can measurably reduce precipitation, especially during dry seasons.
- Much of the rain that falls far inland originates from forests through long-distance moisture transport known as “flying rivers,” meaning farms, cities, and reservoirs may depend on ecosystems located hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.
- Reduced rainfall from deforestation can undermine agriculture, river flows, and hydropower, revealing forests as a form of natural water infrastructure that supports food production, energy systems, and economic stability.
- By assigning a monetary value to forest-generated rainfall, researchers estimate the service in the Amazon alone is worth on the order of tens of billions of dollars annually, underscoring that forest loss threatens not only biodiversity and carbon storage but regional climate systems themselves.
In Ecuador’s Chocó, roads shape the fate of the rainforest
- The Chocó rainforest in northwestern Ecuador has experienced some of the worst deforestation in the world, with only around 3% tree cover remaining in the western lowlands.
- A lot of the deforestation can be traced to an influx of loggers in the 1990s and the many roads and trails that they created in the process, which are now being used by new settlers.
- In an effort to save a part of the Chocó, the Jocotoco Conservation Foundation has been building a reserve by buying up parcels of land, one at a time. Its Canandé Reserve has grown to roughly 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) but still faces pressure from roads and trails built by expanding communities.
- Residents respect the need to conserve the forest but also express a desire to improve connectivity, with the ability to travel within the area and to nearby cities.
Banks must step in before the Amazon Soy Moratorium collapses (commentary)
- Finance is often portrayed as distant from environmental destruction, but in reality, it sits at the center: banks and investors decide which business models survive and which harms they will tolerate.
- Right now, a successful agreement called the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which has helped protect millions of hectares of forest by stopping major traders from buying soy grown on Amazon land deforested after 2008, is on the brink of collapse due to industry pressure — but banks can play a role in ensuring these traders stay in the pact and don’t let it unravel.
- “Financial institutions should make continued access to capital conditional on compliance with the moratorium’s core principles: no deforestation after 2008, full traceability, and zero tolerance for forest destruction in the Amazon biome,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Amazon deforestation on pace to be the lowest on record, says Brazil
- Near-real-time satellite alerts show Amazon deforestation in Brazil continuing to decline into early 2026, with clearing from August through January falling to its lowest level for that period since 2014.
- Over the previous 12 months, detected forest loss also dropped to a 2014 low, reinforcing a broader downward trend that is corroborated by official annual data and independent monitoring. Clearing in the neighboring Cerrado savanna has also fallen
- Environment Minister Marina Silva attributed the decline to strengthened enforcement and municipal cooperation, saying Brazil could record the lowest Amazon deforestation rate since record-keeping began in 1988 if current efforts continue.
- While the data is positive for conservation advocates, short-term satellite data can fluctuate seasonally, and long-term outcomes will depend on economic pressures, infrastructure expansion, and climate-driven risks such as drought and fire.
Scientists can’t agree on where the world’s forests are
- A global comparison of ten satellite-based forest datasets found striking disagreement about where forests are located, with only about a quarter of mapped forest area recognized by all sources. Differences in definitions, resolution, and methodology mean that estimates of forest extent vary widely depending on the map used.
- The inconsistencies are greatest in dry forests and fragmented landscapes, where sparse tree cover makes classification difficult. Even small technical choices—such as canopy thresholds or sensor type—can determine whether an area counts as forest at all.
- These discrepancies translate into large differences in real-world indicators. Estimates of forest carbon in Kenya, forest-proximate poverty in India, and habitat loss in Brazil varied dramatically across datasets, with potential implications for funding, policy, and conservation priorities.
- Because forest maps underpin climate targets, biodiversity planning, and development decisions, the authors urge treating estimates as ranges rather than precise figures and testing results across multiple datasets. Greater standardization and transparency, they argue, will be essential for credible monitoring of global environmental goals.
Indonesia says intervention in notorious Sumatran national park part of new ‘model’
- Tesso Nilo National Park was established in 2004 and expanded in 2009 in Sumatra’s Riau province, but has since lost more than three-quarters of its old-growth forest, largely to smallholder oil palm farms, according to remote-sensing platform Global Forest Watch.
- Last year, officials working under a new nationwide forestry task force began work to relocate hundreds of farming families living inside the park, in a radical attempt to regain control of a protected area that’s been almost entirely destroyed.
- The government is framing the Tesso Nilo policy around efforts to save Domang, one of the critically endangered Sumatran elephant calves living within the national park.
- The intervention in Tesso Nilo sparked some low-intensity violence last year, including destruction of a shelter in the forest used by national park staff as a base for fieldwork, prompting a surge in military presence to bolster security as the operation proceeds.
Forests don’t just store carbon. They keep people alive, scientists say
- Forests influence climate not only by storing carbon but by cooling the air, moderating extreme temperatures, and regulating water flows in ways that directly affect human well-being, concludes an academic review published this week in the journal Science.
- These effects are strongest at the local level: intact forests can make surrounding areas markedly cooler, stabilize rainfall, and create microclimates that support agriculture, health, and daily life.
- When forests are cleared, those protections can disappear quickly, often producing hotter, drier conditions and exposing large populations to increased heat stress and associated health risks.
- The greatest climate benefits occur where forests are native, underscoring that protecting and restoring natural ecosystems can be as important for adaptation to climate change as for reducing emissions, argues the paper.
Thousands of peat fires flare across Indonesia despite rainy season
- More than 5,000 fire hotspots were detected across Indonesia’s peatlands in January, according to an independent watchdog — an alarming spike despite peak rainy season conditions and recent severe flooding in parts of Sumatra and Borneo.
- About a third of the hotspots were inside company concessions, mostly oil palm, reinforcing long-standing evidence that drained and degraded peatlands are highly flammable even after short dry spells, with fire risk now shaped more by hydrology than by calendar seasons.
- Provinces such as West Kalimantan and Aceh were hardest hit, with fires producing thick haze in cities like Pontianak and contributing to respiratory illness, underscoring how degraded peat amplifies both flood and fire risks.
- After a presidentially appointed peat restoration agency was allowed to lapse in 2024, watchdogs say fragmented oversight, weak monitoring and uncertainty over responsibility have created setbacks in peat protection, raising concerns ahead of potential future El Niño conditions.
Brazil gov’t builds map to help exporters comply with EU anti-deforestation rule
- Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, created a new technology to generate deforestation data in polygons of a half-hectare threshold for the first time, following the European Union’s new regulation on deforestation-free products, or EUDR.
- When it comes into effect at the end of 2026 (delayed for the second year in a row), the EUDR will require suppliers to provide geolocalized data and other documentation to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from areas illegally deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
- December is the start of the Amazon rainy season, which poses challenges to track deforestation due to the high incidence of clouds; to tackle this, INPE created the Brazil Data Cube, which captures all remote sensing images of a period and radar to get cloud-free images for that month.
- The map was built per request of the agriculture ministry, which made it available for rural producers in late December 2025 through a platform aimed at integrating information from public and private databases to generate compliance reports to be used by exporters.
Another controversial land deal in Suriname threatens the Amazon Rainforest
- Critics in Suriname are speaking out against plans to develop 113,465 hectares (280,378 acres) of rainforest for industrial agriculture in the district of Nickerie.
- The plans come from a 2024 public-private partnership between the agriculture ministry and Suriname Green Energy Agriculture N.V., a private company working in agriculture and bioenergy.
- The partnership was inherited from the previous government and allegedly went forward without environmental permits, causing frustration and confusion across several regulatory agencies.
- If the entire 113,465-hectare block is cleared, Suriname could lose its negative carbon emission status and fail to qualify for certain carbon credit programs, experts said.
Brazil’s Atlantic Forest Indigenous lands show strong restoration gains
- A recent study comparing different land tenure regimes in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest found that Indigenous lands and agrarian-reform settlements have greater restoration gains than private properties — by 189 hectares on average.
- Concurrently, the study also found Indigenous lands and agrarian-reform settlements had 21 hectares and roughly 4.5 hectares more restoration reversals than private properties, respectively.
- Farming and agroecological land use practices may be among the reasons for higher restoration reversals, the authors suggested, while strong restoration gains are influenced by different governance structures and Indigenous cosmologies centered around relational connection to forest species.
- Indigenous advocates say communities need strong policies, sustained funding and land demarcation to establish environmental preservation areas and continue forest restoration.
Bolivia Indigenous communities, local gov’ts help protect nearly 1 million hectares
- Bolivia has created four new protected areas covering 907,244 hectares (2.2 million acres) of Amazon lowlands and Andean highlands, creating corridors intended to improve wildlife migration and maintain forest-based economies for local families.
- Because the creation of nationally protected areas has slowed in Bolivia in recent years, conservation groups have looked to departmental and local governments for help protecting the rainforest.
- The new protected areas help strengthen wildlife corridors between larger national parks.
Mines, dams move in as protection slips in a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Since 2020, at least five companies have been granted mining concessions in land designated as a community protected area adjoining Cambodia’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Satellite analysis and on-the-ground reporting reveal that marble extraction has been underway since 2021, with companies piling up and shipping out thousands of blocks of marble, leaving behind cleared forests and water-filled pits.
- Government officials and mining companies did not respond to interview requests, but local residents and community chiefs say they have not been consulted, or been given adequate compensation, as quarries tore through land in the community zone.
- Lumphat sanctuary is also under pressure from industrial agriculture and a planned hydropower development.
Successful campaign proves Ghana’s forests are worth more than gold (commentary)
- An unprecedented campaign recently pushed Ghana’s government to repeal legislation allowing mining in forest reserves.
- Originally passed in 2022, the regulations had opened up nearly 90% of Ghana’s forest reserves to mining, but the campaign spurred nationwide protests, petitions, a strike and a prayer walk on the streets of Accra.
- “Together, we rallied behind the idea that our forests are more important to us than gold. But as momentous as repealing the legislation is, it’s only a staging post in a longer journey to end the devastation that mining is inflicting in Ghana,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
What the forest reveals from above
Aerial photography invites a level of uncertainty. The ground offers clues but rarely the full picture. Once the view lifts, certain patterns begin to register: peat-dark water cutting through forest, the abrupt change from canopy to cleared land, the geometry of river bends, or mountains rising in the distance. At times, the colors can be […]
The fair costs for forest rehabilitation in Indonesia (commentary)
- Aida Greenbury, a sustainability leader and forestry expert, argues that Indonesia’s plan to spend US$9.2 billion in public funds to rehabilitate degraded forests lacks transparency and risks placing the financial burden on taxpayers rather than those most responsible for deforestation.
- She points to consistent evidence showing that large corporations in sectors such as palm oil, timber, pulp and paper, and mining are the primary drivers of forest loss, raising questions about why national and regional budgets should pay for restoring landscapes damaged by private industry.
- Greenbury calls for clearer disclosure, stronger accountability mechanisms, and a public–private financing model that requires companies linked to deforestation to bear most of the restoration costs, while ensuring reforms are grounded in credible data and community consent.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
‘Blew us away’: Researchers find nitrogen boost spurs faster tropical forest growth
- A new study in Panama finds that nitrogen availability limits forest growth in the early stages of regeneration.
- Nitrogen addition to newly cleared land and 10-year-old forests substantially boosted regeneration, though adding nutrients to older forests did not have the same effect
- The study also found that phosphorus availability did not limit forest growth at any stage of forest maturity.
- The researchers recommend ensuring nitrogen-fixing species are included during reforestation.
Worries grow for Sulawesi farmers as nickel mining company plans expansion
- PT Vale Indonesia, which runs the longest-operating nickel mining concession in Indonesia, is looking to expand its operations amid an explosion of global demand for nickel used in electric vehicle batteries.
- The company’s concession encompasses local farmlands and forestlands rich in plant and animal life found only in Sulawesi.
- Farmers worry the company’s expansion plans will mean the annexation and destruction of their forest and farms.
Indonesia fast-tracks final permit for Papua rice megaproject without Indigenous consent
- Indigenous rights activists in Indonesia’s Papua region are condemning the government’s rapid approval of a massive rice plantation, arguing the government fast-tracked a key land permit without proper consultation or consent from Indigenous landowners.
- The activists say the process ignored Indigenous communities’ free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and reflects a broader pattern under the food estate program that sidelines Indigenous rights and environmental safeguards in the name of national food security.
- Critics warn of widespread deforestation, land dispossession and social conflict, echoing past failures of similar schemes elsewhere in Indonesia.
- The government claims that procedures were followed, but Indigenous representatives and civil society groups say consultations were minimal, protests were ignored and the project amounts to forced land appropriation.
Five detained over alleged hunting in Javan leopard habitat
- Indonesian authorities have detained five people following allegations of illegal hunting inside West Java’s Gunung Sanggabuana conservation forest.
- The case drew national attention after camera trap footage revealed an injured Javan leopard and suspected armed hunters operating in the protected area.
- Conservationists say the incident exposes deeper weaknesses in wildlife protection and raises urgent questions about how Indonesia safeguards its last remaining big cats.
Brazil sets out its strategy for nature
Brazil is the world’s most biodiverse country, and the title is not closely contested in absolute numbers: between 10% and 15% of all known species live within its borders. The country contains nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest and supplies about a tenth of the world’s food. That combination of ecological wealth and economic […]
Many Amazon climate disasters are missing from official records, study finds
More than 12,500 extreme climate events were registered in the Amazon biome between 2013 and 2023, according to a recent study. But many more events were never recorded, as some Amazonian countries provided no or limited information, Gonzalo Ortuño López reported for Mongabay Latam. The study aggregated available national data but found that the national […]
Francis Hallé, the botanist who took a raft into the rainforest canopy
- The richest part of a tropical rainforest is often the hardest to study: the canopy, where much of its biodiversity lives beyond reach from the ground. Francis Hallé helped change that by finding ways to observe the treetops without cutting them down.
- A French botanist, biologist, and illustrator, he became known for the “canopy raft,” a platform set onto the crowns of trees by a balloon. It turned the upper forest from a place described in theory into one examined up close.
- Hallé was an expert in tropical forest ecology and “the architecture of trees,” a way of identifying trees by how they grow and branch. He paired field science with drawing and plain speech, and he was unsparing about the forces driving deforestation.
- In his later years he pursued a long-term plan to restore a “primeval forest” in Western Europe, left to evolve with minimal human interference over centuries. It was, in his view, a test of whether societies could think beyond the political moment.
Indonesia revokes forest and mine permits over role in deadly Sumatra landslides
- Indonesia has revoked the permits of 28 companies after a post–Cyclone Senyar audit found environmental violations that authorities say worsened deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra in late 2025, which killed about 1,200 people.
- The revoked permits cover about 1 million hectares of forests and include major players such as pulpwood producer PT Toba Pulp Lestari, marking a shift toward framing permit enforcement as post-disaster accountability.
- Two high-profile projects in the Batang Toru ecosystem were hit: a nearly completed hydropower plant and the Martabe gold mine, both long criticized for operating in landslide-prone terrain that’s the only habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
- Environmental groups have welcomed the revocations, but warn the move is incomplete, calling for transparency, ecosystem restoration, protection against permit transfers to new operators, and broader action to halt deforestation in vulnerable watersheds.
How US intervention could deepen Venezuela’s environmental crisis
- Following the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. has expressed interest in the country’s oil and minerals. But the current landscape means that a rushed investment could be disastrous for the environment, critics warn.
- Venezuela has an estimated 300 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, the largest in the world. But decaying infrastructure and corruption make investment almost impossible, with a high risk of spills inside sensitive ecosystems.
- The country also has massive mineral deposits, many of them in the rainforest and on Indigenous territory. The mines are largely controlled by criminal groups, making U.S. involvement there extremely complicated, critics said.
Too many African plants fall into the IUCN’s ‘not evaluated’ trap (commentary)
- Of the approximately 350,000 vascular plant species in the world, only about 18% have been assessed by the IUCN Red List, and the situation is starker still if one looks at just tropical African species.
- Further, IUCN’s “not evaluated” category simply means a species has not yet been assessed against Red List criteria, and in practice, African conservationists often meet a more confusing reality: Many species are not on the global Red List at all but are still informally talked about as if they are NE.
- “Here’s a constructive way forward via “Red List + Reality” decision rules…A stronger system could combine global assessments with local intelligence,” a new commentary suggests.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Indonesia sues 6 companies over alleged links to deadly floods & landslides
- Indonesia’s environment ministry is seeking 4.8 trillion rupiah ($284 million) in environmental damages from six companies it has linked to deadly floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Senyar in November.
- Following the disasters, the ministry launched an investigation into dozens of companies in the region; the findings determined six companies were responsible for alleged damage to watersheds in North Sumatra.
- The areas affected include Batang Toru, an ecologically fragile ecosystem home to the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s rarest great ape.
Colombia poised for another drop in deforestation in 2025, data show
- Deforestation in Colombia appears to have declined in 2025, with notable reductions in several departments like Meta, Caquetá and Guaviare.
- The main drivers of deforestation include the spread of cattle ranching and agriculture, as well as illicit crops like coca, the primary ingredient in cocaine.
- Officials attributed the declining trend to collaboration with Indigenous communities and environmental zoning in rural areas, as well as ecotourism and a program providing financial incentives for communities involved in forest conservation.
Hopes and fears as Guinea exports iron ore from Simandou mines
- After decades of planning, the first shipment of iron ore from Guinea’s Simandou mines is on its way to China.
- The shipment marks the beginning of an era in which Guinea is expected to become one of the world’s leading producers of iron ore.
- Environmental advocates say that damage from the mines so far has gone largely unaddressed.
Nitrogen may turbocharge regrowth in young tropical forest trees
New research finds that tropical forests can grow significantly faster and sequester more climate-warming carbon dioxide when additional nitrogen is available in the soil. “With this information we can prioritise management and conservation practices to maximise forest regrowth,” Kelly Anderson, a research scientist at Missouri Botanical Garden in the U.S., told Mongabay by email. Anderson […]
Indonesia says 4 million hectares of plantation, mining lands reclaimed in crackdown
- The Indonesian government says it has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares of land used for plantations, mining and other activities inside officially designated forest areas.
- This is part of a sweeping crackdown on illegal activities in forest areas, carried out by a year-old task force formed by President Prabowo Subianto.
- Land seizures have exceeded the initial target by 400%, officials say, and the scale of the enforcement raises questions about how many oil palm plantations in the country are actually illegal.
- The task force has recovered about 2.3 trillion rupiah (about $136 million) in administrative fines, collected from 20 oil palm companies and one nickel mining company; it remains unclear what the money will be used for — and what will happen to the seized plantations and mines.
After years of progress, Indonesia risks ‘tragedy’ of a deforestation spike
- Deforestation is accelerating, underscoring Indonesia’s reputation as a big greenhouse gas emitter and potentially inviting more scrutiny of its commodity exports.
- Gross deforestation in Indonesia in 2025 was on track to at least match 2024’s tally, which reflected the most extensive losses since 2019, Indonesia’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, told a parliamentary committee in December.
- Indonesia’s Merauke Food Estate project involves clearing at least 2 million hectares of forest, and worries are mounting that commodity exports may suffer if big markets like the EU force importers to prove they are not buying palm oil and other products that have resulted from clearing rainforest.
- A reacceleration in the rate of Indonesia’s deforestation risks is also drawing attention to the country’s spotty climate record: At No. 6, Indonesia ranks among the top greenhouse gas emitters after China, the U.S., India, the EU and Russia.
Photos: Kew Gardens’ top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025
- Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, formally named 125 plants and 65 fungi in 2025, including a zombie fungus that parasitizes Brazilian spiders, a bloodstained orchid from Ecuador, and a fire-colored shrub named after a Studio Ghibli character.
- Up to three out of four undescribed plant species are already threatened with extinction, with at least one species described this year possibly already extinct in its native Cameroon habitat.
- An estimated 100,000 plant species and between 2 million and 3 million fungal species remain to be described and formally named by science.
- Many newly described species face immediate threats from habitat loss, illegal collection and climate change, highlighting the urgent need to protect areas before species disappear.
Chimpanzees and gorillas among most traded African primates, report finds
- A new report finds thousands of African primates, including chimpanzees and gorillas, are being traded both legally and illegally.
- Most of the legal trade in great apes is for scientific and zoo purposes, but the report raises some concerns on the legality of recent trade instances for zoos.
- Chimpanzees topped the list of the most illegally traded African primates, as the exotic pet trade drives the demand for juveniles and infants.
Indonesia’s illegal gold boom leaves a toxic legacy of mercury pollution
- A nearly 70% rise in global gold prices has accelerated illegal gold mining across Indonesia, including in Bukit Gajah Berani, a forest buffer next to Kerinci Seblat National Park, threatening critical tiger habitat and protected forests nationwide.
- Despite decades of evidence and Indonesia’s commitments under the Minamata Convention, illegal gold mining remains the country’s largest source of mercury emissions, contaminating rivers, fish, crops and communities, with documented health impacts ranging from toxic exposure to malaria spikes.
- While Indonesia has strong regulations on paper, including a pledge to eliminate mercury use in illegal mining by 2025, enforcement is weak, agencies operate in silos, illegal cinnabar mining continues, and attempts to formalize “community mining” have largely failed in practice.
- Illegal mining has destroyed forests, farmland and waterways, reducing rice production, worsening floods, and eroding traditional forest-based livelihoods, leaving communities with polluted landscapes and long-term ecological and economic costs as criminal networks adapt faster than regulators.
Indonesia launches sweeping environmental audits after Sumatra flood disaster
- After Cyclone Senyar killed more than 1,100 people across Sumatra, the Indonesian government has acknowledged that deforestation and land-use changes — not extreme weather alone — amplified the scale of floods and landslides.
- In a significant shift, authorities are now explicitly linking disaster impacts to development decisions and corporate activity, signaling that permits will not shield companies from accountability.
- The government has launched a three-track response: rapid disaster impact assessments, reviews of provincial zoning plans, and environmental audits of more than 100 companies across extractive and infrastructure sectors.
- Civil society groups have cautiously welcomed the move, but note that meaningful reform will depend on whether Jakarta is willing to revise permissive zoning plans that legally enable large-scale forest conversion.
Urban sprawl and illegal mining reshape a fragile Amazon frontier
- Ever since Mitú was first established as a settlement in 1935, it has rapidly transformed into an expanding urban town in one of Colombia’s most isolated departments.
- The Amazonian forests, rivers and Indigenous communities who surround Mitú are impacted by urbanization, the overexploitation of natural resources, cattle ranching, illegal mining and timber extraction which have caused deforestation, soil degradation and water pollution.
- Researchers say the construction of a highway from Mitú to Monfort has attracted settlers who cleared land around the road to expand the urban center and develop agricultural production and cattle ranching.
- Mongabay found 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of tree cover loss in Mitú since 2014.
After Cyclone Senyar, Indonesia probes whether development amplified scale of disaster
- Cyclone Senyar triggered catastrophic floods and landslides in northern Sumatra in late 2025, but scientists and activists say decades of deforestation and landscape alteration in upland watersheds largely determined the scale of the destruction.
- The heavily hit Batang Toru landscape, home to the world’s only Tapanuli orangutan population, has become a national test case after the government ordered eight mining, energy and plantation companies to halt operations pending rare watershed-wide environmental audits.
- Investigations have raised concerns that forest clearing by a pulpwood producer, a hydropower project and a gold mine on steep terrain may have destabilized slopes and worsened runoff during extreme rainfall.
- Experts warn that once forest cover is lost in fragile tropical watersheds, disaster risks can persist for decades, making effective law enforcement — rather than weather alone — decisive for Batang Toru’s future.
Massive Amazon conservation program pledges to put communities first
- The Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) is a massive conservation program that has helped reduce deforestation across 120 conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon and avoided 104 million metric tons of CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2020.
- A new phase of the program, called ARPA Comunidades, will now focus on supporting the communities who live in and protect the forest, by helping them increase their revenue through the bioeconomy or sale of sustainable forest products.
- Backed by a $120 million donor fund, ARPA Comunidades aims to increase protections across 60 sustainable-use reserves in the Brazilian Amazon spanning an area nearly the size of the U.K., directly impacting 130,000 people and helping raise 100,000 out of poverty.
Poaching down but threats remain for forest elephants, recent population assessment finds
- The first authoritative population assessment for African forest elephants estimates there are more than 145,000 individuals.
- Researchers say new survey techniques relying on sampling DNA from elephant dung provide the most accurate estimate of a species that’s difficult to count in its rainforest habitat.
- Central Africa remains the species’ stronghold, home to nearly 96% of forest elephants, with densely forested Gabon hosting 95,000 individuals.
- Conservationists say the findings can help inform the design of targeted conservation actions and national plans for forest elephants.
From Chipko to Nyeri: The enduring logic of the tree hug
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. When Truphena Muthoni stepped up to a royal palm in Nyeri and wrapped her arms around its trunk, few expected her to stay there for three days. Even fewer thought the gesture would spark a national conversation. Muthoni […]
Deforestation climbs in Central America’s largest biosphere reserve
- Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve has lost more than a third of its primary forest cover since the turn of the century.
- 2024 marked the biggest year of deforestation, with 10% of Bosawás cleared in just one year.
- Cattle ranching is among the top causes of forest loss, with outsiders encroaching into Bosawás to clear forest for pasture.
- Indigenous advocates and residents say the loss of forest is threatening their way of life, and that they have faced violence due to encroachment.
Latin America in 2025: Conservation promises collide with crime and extraction
- Organized crime, the expansion of extractive industries and climate extremes intensified environmental pressures across Latin America in 2025, driving deforestation, biodiversity loss and growing risks to local communities.
- Even as Latin America championed environmental protection internationally, wide gaps persisted in domestic enforcement of environmental regulations and prevention of environmental crimes.
- Country trajectories diverged sharply, with Colombia showing relative international policy leadership, while Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador saw marked environmental deterioration amid political instability and extractivist pushback.
- Looking toward 2026, experts warn that elections, fiscal constraints and security priorities could further erode environmental governance in Latin America.
Indonesia closes 2025 with rising disasters and stalled environmental reform
- Deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra in late 2025 underscored how deforestation, weak spatial planning and extractive development have increased Indonesia’s vulnerability to extreme weather — problems scientists and activists say the government has largely failed to confront.
- Forest loss surged nationwide in 2025, with Sumatra overtaking Borneo as the main deforestation hotspot, while large areas of forest in Papua were redesignated for food estates, agriculture and biofuel projects, raising concerns over carbon emissions and biodiversity loss.
- Despite international pledges to phase out coal, national energy plans continued to lock in coal, gas and biomass co-firing for decades, while palm oil expansion and mining — including in sensitive areas like Raja Ampat — remained central to development strategy, often prompting action only after public pressure.
- Civil society groups increasingly turned to lawsuits amid shrinking space for dissent, rising criminalization of Indigenous communities and activists, and growing militarization of land-use projects — trends campaigners warn are weakening democratic safeguards and environmental protections alike.
Satellite data show forest loss persists in Brazilian Amazon’s most deforested reserve
- Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area was established to protect a swath of the Amazon Rainforest from the cattle industry.
- However, satellite data show the reserve has lost around 50% of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006.
- The data show forest loss peaked in 2024, and continued into 2025.
- Research indicates rates of deforestation are higher in Triunfo do Xingu than in the unprotected areas around it.
Rare bats at risk as iron ore mine advances in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains
- Guinea’s government is assessing the potential impacts of a mining project in the Nimba Mountains, in a biodiversity hotspot that has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site while being threatened by mining.
- U.S. mining company Ivanhoe Atlantic recently submitted an environmental impact assessment for an iron ore mine at a site that is the only known home of two unique bat species, as well as critically endangered chimpanzees and threatened toads and frogs.
- Conservationists say open-pit mining in this ecologically sensitive region could spell extinction for Lamotte’s roundleaf bat and the orange-furred Nimba Mountain bat if their forest habitat is disturbed for mine infrastructure.
Ditches on peatland oil palm plantations are an overlooked source of methane: Study
- Ditches that drain peatlands for agriculture are significant but often-overlooked sources of greenhouse gases, including methane, according to a recent study.
- Methane doesn’t last as long as CO2 in the atmosphere, but it is many times more potent in warming the climate.
- The researchers analyzed emissions from ditches on two oil palm plantations in Malaysian Borneo and found that the ditches play an outsize role in the overall carbon emissions from converted peatlands.
- Their findings underscore the need to account for emissions from these ditches to better understand the implications of draining peatlands.
Southeast Asia’s 2025 marked by fatal floods, fossil fuel expansion and renewed mining boom
- 2025 has been a year of global upheaval, and Southeast Asia was no exception, with massive disruption caused by changes in U.S. policy and the intensifying effects of climate change.
- The region is poised at a crossroads, with plans to transition away from fossil fuels progressing unevenly, while at the same time a mining boom feeding the global energy transition threatens ecosystems and human health.
- On the positive side, deforestation appears to be slowing in much of the region, new species continue to be described by science, and grassroots efforts yield conservation wins.
Photos: Top new species from 2025
- Scientists described several new species this past year, including a tiny marsupial, a Himalayan bat, an ancient tree, a giant manta ray, a bright blue butterfly and a fairy lantern, to name a few.
- Experts estimate that fewer than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science, with potentially millions more unknown and unnamed.
- Although such species may be new to science, many are already known to — and used by — local and Indigenous peoples, who often have given them traditional names.
- Many new species are assessed as threatened with extinction as soon as they are found, highlighting the urgent need for conservation efforts.
15 forces that could reshape conservation in the next 10 years
- A recent horizon scan led by William J. Sutherland shifts conservation thinking away from visible damage toward emerging developments that could shape biodiversity outcomes over the next decade, even if they have not yet hardened into crises.
- The fifteen issues identified span technology, climate, biology, and finance, with a particular emphasis on computational advances that could expand monitoring and modeling while also narrowing what can later be revisited or challenged.
- Alongside technological change, the scan highlights physical, institutional, and biophysical pressures, from drone-related plastic pollution and new forest finance mechanisms to drying soils, darkening oceans, and abrupt shifts in the Southern Ocean.
- The authors also situate these risks against two background constraints already underway—eroding environmental data systems and tightening conservation finance—and, looking back ten years, argue that the value of horizon scanning lies less in prediction than in improving preparedness before change becomes costly.
The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2025, with attention to how policy, markets, and climate stress increasingly interact rather than operate in isolation.
- Across major forest regions, deforestation slowed in some places but degradation, fire, conflict, and legacy damage continued to erode forest health, often in ways that standard metrics fail to capture.
- Global responses remained uneven: conservation finance shifted toward fiscal and market-based tools, climate diplomacy deferred hard decisions, and enforcement outcomes depended heavily on institutional capacity and credibility rather than formal commitments alone.
- Taken together, the year showed that forest outcomes now hinge less on single interventions than on whether governments and institutions can sustain continuity—of funding, governance, science, and oversight—under mounting environmental and political strain.
Conservation wins in 2025 that pushed us closer to the 30×30 goal
The “30 by 30” biodiversity target to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030 is fast approaching — and the world is far off the pace needed for success: Less than 10% of oceans and just 17.6% of land and inland waters enjoy some sort of protection. Still, 2025 saw some […]
Environmentalist hugs tree for 72 hours for Kenya’s native forests
A Kenyan environmentalist hugged a palm tree for 72 straight hours in Nyeri county to draw attention to the rapid loss of the country’s native forests, many of which face extinction. Truphena Muthoni’s feat, reported by Mongabay contributing editor Lynet Otieno, is in the process of being considered for a new Guinness World Record. It […]
Agroforestry grows in popularity among central Colombia’s coffee farmers (analysis)
- As the world’s third-largest coffee producer and a nation that has been growing the popular Arabica variety since 1870, there’s not much that Colombia doesn’t know about growing the crop.
- In some areas of the country, though, growing coffee via diverse agroforestry systems is now gaining popularity, thanks to its sustainability and benefits for local biodiversity.
- However, a new analysis also shares that in some areas, there still exists a low level of technical understanding among small-scale growers as to how to grow coffee well while reducing pests and diseases with agroecological methods.
- This post is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Tropical forests in Australia are emitting more carbon than they capture: Study
- A newly published study reveals that moist tropical forests in Australia are now a net carbon emitter, making this the first documented case of tropical forest woody biomass making the flip from sink to source.
- Researchers analyzed nearly five decades of data and found that around the year 2000, these forests stopped absorbing more carbon than they emitted and went into a reversal.
- They identified tree deaths as the core problem, showing that these doubled compared to earlier decades, with new growth unable to keep pace.
- Climate change and cyclones are to blame, as rainforest species evolved for warm, wet conditions, but are now facing temperature extremes and extended droughts that damage their tissues and stunt growth.
Taboo against harming strangler fig spirits protects forests in Indonesian Borneo
- The Iban community in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, says it believes large strangler fig trees are inhabited by dangerous spirits, leading community members to protect these trees from harm wherever they occur.
- When clearing land for farming, the community protects the fig tree as well as islands of vegetation around the tree, which together account for 1-2% of their farmland dedicated to protecting the strangler figs.
- Research published in Biotropica found that strangler figs are equally or more abundant in the community’s farmland compared with old-growth, with 25 species identified across the landscape.
- These protected fig trees and surrounding vegetation serve as crucial refuges and stepping stones for wildlife, demonstrating how traditional spiritual beliefs can have measurable biodiversity benefits that could be replicated elsewhere.
Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès wins top anti-corruption reporting award
Journalist Glòria Pallarès won the Anti-Corruption Excellence (ACE) Award for her investigation into corrupt forest finance schemes published in collaboration with Mongabay. The award ceremony was held in Doha, Qatar, on Dec. 16. The investigation, published in January 2024, exposed a scheme in which companies registered in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were using false claims […]
A flood of logs post-Cyclone Senyar leaves Padang fishers out of work
- Flash floods in late November swept timber and mud from upstream forests into coastal waters around Padang, blocking access to the sea and cutting off the livelihoods of hundreds of fishers.
- Fishers say massive floating logs have damaged boats and halted daily incomes, forcing many families to rely on credit to meet basic needs.
- Marine scientists warn that suspended sediment and decaying timber threaten coastal ecosystems by blocking sunlight, disrupting food chains and degrading water quality.
- Environmental groups link the disaster to illegal logging and weak forest governance upstream, calling for stronger law enforcement, national disaster status and urgent government action.
Protected areas in Africa are vital but local perceptions vary (commentary)
- Protected areas are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious.
- A recent study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in collaboration with Middlebury College examined perceptions of these areas among thousands of local residents living near five forested regions of Central Africa and Madagascar.
- “Conservation practice needs to take seriously how the people living near protected areas perceive those areas, and what benefits and harms they associate with them, in their full unevenness and complexity,” the authors of a new op-ed say.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Researchers find concerning gaps in global maps used for EUDR compliance
- Most companies importing certain products into the EU must comply with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products (EUDR), which will go into application on Dec. 30, 2026.
- Satellite and other remote-sensing maps can guide both companies trying to comply with the regulation and government agencies verifying levels of deforestation risk attached to imports.
- But a recent review paper suggests that most of the available maps struggle to meet all of the requirements of the EUDR and could over- or underestimate the risk of deforestation for certain products.
- A key issue is the maps’ ability to differentiate forest from systems that look similar, such as agroforestry, commonly practiced by smallholder farmers producing cocoa, coffee and rubber.
Photo tourism threatens rare galaxy frog population in India’s Western Ghats
- A population of rare galaxy frogs disappeared from India’s Western Ghats after photographers overturned logs, trampled vegetation and handled animals improperly, a new study reports.
- Researchers suggest managing photography tourism with measures such as restricting animal capture and handling, limiting the use of high-intensity lights, avoiding habitat disturbance, training licensed guides in ethical practices and imposing penalties for violations.
- The Western Ghats, an ancient mountain range running parallel to India’s western coast, harbors exceptional biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth.
- Galaxy frogs are the only member of their genus on the evolutionary tree of life, making them one of the world’s most unique threatened species.
Tapanuli orangutan, devastated by cyclone, now faces habitat loss under zoning plans
- A proposed zoning overhaul in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province could strip legal protections from nearly a third of the Batang Toru ecosystem, threatening the last remaining habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
- The proposal came just before a powerful cyclone triggered floods and landslides that may have killed or displaced dozens of Tapanuli orangutans and severely damaged thousands of hectares of forest.
- The changes would weaken scrutiny of mining and plantation projects, including a planned expansion of a nearby gold mine, by removing the area’s “provincial strategic” designation.
- Conservationists say rolling back protections now would be a “nail in the coffin” for the species, calling for emergency protections and expanded conservation measures to prevent population collapse.
New study points to private land as key to Atlantic Forest recovery
- A new study shows that restored private lands in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest achieved up to 20% more forest cover than unrestored neighboring private lands.
- With 75% of the Atlantic Forest in private hands and a 6.2-million-hectare (15.3-million-acre) deficit of native vegetation, according to the law, private landowners are key to recovery.
- Over the past decade, forest gains and losses in the Atlantic Forest have essentially stagnated; but last year, half of all deforestation hit mature forests over 40 years old, threatening biodiversity and carbon stocks.
Navigating the complex world of reforestation efforts
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Reforestation has become a feel-good global rallying cry. From corporations touting “net zero” targets to philanthropies seeking visible impact, planting trees has become shorthand for planetary repair. Yet behind the glossy photos of saplings and smiling farmers lies […]
Green labeler PEFC under fire for certifying Indonesian firm clearing orangutan habitat
- Sustainable forestry certifier PEFC is under fire for its endorsement of Indonesian plantation firm IFP despite it being a major recent deforester, with tens of thousands of hectares cleared in orangutan habitat and ongoing forest loss documented into 2024.
- Earthsight and other NGOs say the certification exploits loopholes, including PEFC’s “partial certification” model that lets companies exclude recently cleared areas while still selling certified timber.
- Deforestation-linked timber may have entered global supply chains, with mills processing IFP-linked wood exporting large volumes to the EU ahead of the bloc’s new deforestation regulation.
- Critics say PEFC’s weak safeguards and Indonesia’s IFCC certification system enable greenwashing, and call for IFP’s certification to be revoked and rules tightened to bar any company or corporate group involved in post-2010 forest clearing.
New technologies offer hope in fight to save the world’s imperiled rosewoods
- Rosewood accounts for nearly a third of the value of illegal wildlife trade seizures worldwide, and illegal harvesting of the trees has continued in spite of efforts to regulate its trade and harvest.
- Researchers say that new and existing technologies such as AI-equipped drones could help detect the illegal logging of rosewood trees inside inaccessible and remote forests, allowing forest officials to intervene in real time.
- AI could also help predict the risk of future rosewood logging activities, helping forest officials focus their monitoring efforts.
- In addition, the nonprofit TRAFFIC is currently testing AI-based image recognition tools for species identification, while other scientists are working on techniques that identify rosewood species based on DNA samples.
In the Amazon, lack of transparency and corruption undermine the environment
- Corruption among judicial authorities has been chronically undermining law enforcement across countries in the Amazon.
- Omission, also known as “wilful blindness,” is what has allowed the application of discretionary power that allows charges not to be brought despite existing evidence.
- As a result of these procedural flaws, environmental offenses often go unpunished. Thus, those who appropriate land, engage in illegal deforestation, or steal timber are rarely prosecuted.
Malaysian companies dominate PNG forest-clearance permits: report
- A recent report examining land-conversion permits issued by the Papua New Guinea government found that 65 of 67 such licenses are controlled by Malaysian-linked companies.
- The stated purpose of these permits — Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs) — is for creation of sustainable jobs via agribusiness and other development projects, but critics contend the licenses have been used to facilitate large-scale logging and timber exports.
- After repeated allegations of misuse of the permits, PNG’s government imposed a moratorium on new FCAs in 2023, but exports continue from existing projects.
- The 65 licenses examined by the report cover 1.68 million hectares (4.1 million acres) of rainforests, about 88% of which are categorized as ‘undisturbed forest.’
Sumatra’s ‘natural’ disaster wasn’t natural: How deforestation turned a rare cyclone catastrophic
- Cyclone Senyar was an unusually rare event for Sumatra, but the scale of destruction cannot be explained by weather alone. Decades of deforestation, mining, plantations, and peat drainage left watersheds unable to absorb intense rainfall, turning extreme weather into a mass-casualty disaster.
- Forest loss and land conversion have systematically weakened Sumatra’s natural defenses. The island has lost millions of hectares of forest since 2001, increasing runoff, destabilizing slopes, and amplifying floods and landslides when heavy rain hits.
- Peatland drainage has created a hidden, compounding flood risk. Canals dug for plantations dry and compact peat soils, causing land subsidence and transforming once water-retentive landscapes into low-lying areas prone to chronic inland and coastal flooding.
- Rising exposure, not just rising hazards, is driving future risk. Urban expansion into floodplains and degraded catchments means that even rare storms now endanger more people and infrastructure, locking much of Sumatra into a cycle of disaster unless land-use governance changes.
Top-down projects, exotic trees, weak tenure: Congo Basin restoration misses the mark
- Despite a panoply of projects — from tree-planting drives to agroforestry schemes — a new study finds that much of what’s happening in the name of “forest restoration” in the Congo Basin may not be restoring forests at all, but largely focused on growing nonnative, commodity species.
- The research found nearly two-thirds of projects favored planting exotic species over native ones, primarily because they grow more quickly, require less care, and their seeds are easier to source.
- It also noted a lack of ecological monitoring, with few initiatives tracking tree survival rates, soil recovery or carbon storage, and most lasting less than five years — far too short to measure real ecological impact.
- Beyond agroforestry and fuelwood plantations, the study calls for approaches that promote natural regeneration, restore native biodiversity and reconnect fragmented habitats.
Sumatran flood disaster may have wiped out a key Tapanuli orangutan population, scientists fear
- As many as 35 critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans — 4% of the species’ total population — may have been wiped out in the catastrophic floods and landslides that struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra recently, scientists warn, after the discovery of a carcass.
- Satellite and field evidence show massive destruction of the western block of the Batang Toru ecosystem, with thousands of hectares of steep forest slopes destroyed — an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape.
- Conservationists have lost contact with monitored orangutans in the disaster zone, raising fears more individuals were killed or displaced as feeding areas and valleys were obliterated.
- The tragedy has renewed calls to safeguard the Batang Toru ecosystem by halting industrial projects and granting it stronger protection, as climate-driven disasters escalate across Sumatra.
Mexico is inflating its climate spending by billions of dollars. Here’s how.
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office last year touting her climate science background, yet continues to neglect renewable energy and conservation while subsidizing state-owned oil company Pemex.
- Funds her government earmarked for climate change and a renewable energy transition are actually going to infrastructure, oil and gas, and other projects unrelated to the environment, a review of the 2026 budget shows.
- In one case, more than $40 million for a train line is counted twice but only spent once, misrepresenting how much money the government is dedicating to the environment.
Wildlife and communities bear the cost as Simandou rail corridor advances across Guinea
- A 650-km (400-mi) railway corridor is being built that will link the iron ore mine in eastern Guinea to the country’s Atlantic port of Moribaya.
- Its route crosses forests that are home to some of the last populations of forest elephants and western chimpanzees in the country, with NGOs warning of disruptions and fragmentation of vital habitat, putting several species at risk of local extinction.
- Villagers along the route also complain that dust and pollution have impacted their livelihoods, and that compensation has been delayed or incomplete.
- Experts and civil society actors are calling for a strategic environmental study and better implementation of environmental and social management plans.
Real-time deforestation alerts get an AI boost to identify the causes
- A new alert system developed by online deforestation-tracking platform Global Forest Watch tells users what’s causing the deforestation.
- The new alert system deploys AI models to classify deforestation alerts based on what’s causing them, from agriculture (large- and small-scale), to mining and wildfires.
- While the data currently focus on the Amazon Rainforest, Congo Basin and Indonesia — home to most of the world’s tropical rainforests — the team plans to expand to other forests as well as non-forest ecosystems.
UN honors five climate ‘Champions of the Earth’
The United Nations Environment Programme on Dec. 10 announced its five “2025 Champions of the Earth,” the U.N.’s highest environmental honor. Since 2005, UNEP’s Champions of the Earth has recognized individuals, groups and organizations who have contributed significantly toward transforming the environment for the better. The award celebrates four categories of contribution: policy leadership, inspiration […]
Hope, solidarity & disappointment: A familiar mix for Indigenous delegates at COP30
- COP30, held in Brazil, was promoted as both the “Amazonian COP” and the “Indigenous COP,” where more than 900 Indigenous representatives from around the world formally took part in the negotiations.
- While Brazil announced the demarcation of new Indigenous territories and 11 signatories issued a joint commitment to strengthen land tenure for Indigenous peoples, wider frustrations overshadowed these measures.
- Indigenous delegates described a familiar pattern: They were invited into the venue but not into the center of decision-making; that divide was visible in the Global Mutirão, the main COP30 outcome, in which Indigenous peoples appear in the preamble but are absent from the operative paragraphs — the part of the text that directs how countries must act and report.
Death toll rises in Sumatra flood catastrophe as gov’t moves to protect Batang Toru forest
- The number confirmed killed following the most fatal flooding to hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra for decades increased to almost 1,000 on Dec. 9.
- On Dec. 6, Indonesia’s Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq suspended companies operating in the badly affected Batang Toru ecosystem, an old-growth Sumatran rainforest home to the Tapanauli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), the world’s most endangered species of ape.
- The chief executive of Mighty Earth praised the move, saying reducing deforestation was critical to avoiding a repeat of the disaster.
- In the week beginning Dec. 8, first responders in three provinces continued work in challenging terrain to recover the dead and rescue the injured two weeks after a rare cyclone, named Senyar, made landfall over Indonesia’s largest island.
A new ‘fairy lantern’ species is found at a Malaysian picnic site
In November 2023, naturalist Gim Siew Tan chanced upon an unusual plant with whitish-peach flowers growing near the buttress of a tree at a popular picnic site in Hulu Langat Forest Reserve in Selangor, Malaysia. Researchers subsequently collected and analyzed specimens of the plant and found that it was a new-to-science species of “fairy lantern” […]
East African court dismisses controversial oil pipeline case in setback to communities
On Nov. 26, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) dismissed an appeal filed by four African NGOs, marking the end of a landmark case against the construction of a contentious oil pipeline. The case against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), expected to become the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world, […]
Lemurs are at risk. So are the people protecting them.
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Patricia Wright arrived in Madagascar nearly four decades ago to look for a lemur thought to be extinct. She found it, along with a new species, and then ran headlong into a broader reality: protecting wildlife would depend […]
Brazil fast-tracks paving controversial highway in Amazon with new licensing rule
Brazil’s Senate approved an environmental licensing bill that could expedite major infrastructure projects, including paving a highway that cuts through one of the most intact parts of the Amazon Rainforest in northwestern Brazil. The BR-319 highway runs through 885 kilometers (550 miles) of rainforest, connecting Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, with Rondônia state farther […]
Philippine mangroves survived a typhoon, but now confront a human-made challenge
- A new study shows mangroves in Tacloban, the Philippine city hit hardest hit by Typhoon Haiyan in December 2013, have expanded beyond pre-storm levels.
- This recovery was driven by community-led reforestation efforts from 2015-2018, when residents planted 30,000 Rhizophora mangrove seedlings across 4 hectares (10 acres) of Cancabato Bay.
- Satellite image analysis and modeling reveal how the forest was destroyed by Haiyan and how it later withstood 2019’s Typhoon Phanfone.
- However, experts warn that the recovering mangroves may be threatened by an ongoing project to build a causeway across the bay, which could generate pollution and physical disturbances.
Scientists push for greater climate role for Latin America’s overlooked ecosystems
- Tropical forests are rightly regarded as important carbon sinks and crucial in the fight against climate change, but other tropical ecosystems have largely gone overlooked despite their carbon -sequestration potential.
- Peatlands, mangroves, coastal freshwater wetlands and seagrass meadows are just some of the ecosystems that have a potentially huge capacity to capture and store carbon, but don’t feature prominently enough — or at all — in the national climate plans of Latin American countries.
- Peatland soils can store between three and five times more carbon dioxide than other tropical ecosystems, with similar figures for mangroves and coastal freshwater wetlands.
- Seagrass meadows cover just 0.1% of the ocean floor, but can store up to 18% of global oceanic carbon.
SE Asia forest carbon projects sidelining social, biodiversity benefits, study finds
- Across Southeast Asia, forest carbon projects intended to offset greenhouse gas emissions are falling short on social justice safeguards, according to recent research.
- The study identifies weak governance, land tenure conflicts, corruption and fragmented policies as contributing to the shortcomings.
- Well-managed forest carbon initiatives have an important role to play in global efforts to reduce emissions, the researchers say, but they must center the rights of traditional custodians of forests.
- Against the backdrop of global democratic backsliding, experts urge greater scrutiny of project accountability to uphold social and environmental standards within the carbon sector.
What’s at stake for the environment in Honduras’ presidential election?
- Honduras will hold elections Nov. 30 for president and all 128 seats in Congress.
- The winners will hold office for the next four years, shaping the country’s environmental policies at a time when its many forests and ocean ecosystems are rapidly disappearing.
- Leading candidates include Rixi Moncada of the progressive LIBRE party, Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal party and Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura of the conservative National party.
DRC hit by record deforestation in 2024, satellite data show
- In 2024, the DRC experienced an uptick in primary forest loss, with 590,000 hectares of forest lost, according to satellite data visualized on Global Forest Watch.
- Subsistence agriculture continues to be the main driver of forest loss, with recent research finding artisanal mining in the eastern DRC results in more forest loss than researchers previously thought.
- Wildfire emerged as a growing concern in the DRC in 2024, and data suggest fire activity may have have intensified further in 2025.
- Escalating conflict and insecurity in the eastern DRC also put increasing pressure on forest resources.
Saving forests won’t be enough if fossil fuels beneath them are still extracted, experts warn
- A new analysis finds that tropical forests in 68 countries sit atop fossil fuel deposits that, if extracted, would emit 317 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases — more than the remaining 1.5°C (2.7°F) carbon budget — revealing a major blind spot in global climate policy.
- Because Brazil’s proposed Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) focuses only on stopping deforestation, researchers warn it risks missing far larger emissions from potential oil, gas and coal extraction under protected forests.
- India, China and Indonesia hold the largest fossil reserves beneath forests, with Indonesia facing acute trade-offs as most of its coal lies under forest areas where mining threatens biodiversity and Indigenous communities, including rhino habitats in Borneo.
- Experts say that compensating countries for leaving fossil fuels unextracted — through mechanisms like debt swaps or climate finance — could unlock massive climate benefits, but fossil fuel phaseout remains excluded from TFFF negotiations despite growing calls to include it.
Botanists decode secret life of rare plants to ensure reintroduction success
- Working with South African daisies, Colombian magnolias and Philippine coffee trees, botanists the world over are discovering the secrets to bringing extremely rare and threatened plants back from the brink of extinction. Reintroductions are often the only way to build back thriving populations, but scientists face numerous hurdles.
- A major barrier is lack of botanical knowledge about rare species, making it hard to produce sufficient viable seeds, determine triggers for germination, and identify suitable seedling habitat. If seeds aren’t available from rare plants, botanists must use cuttings to propagate plants.
- Newly established plant populations often need help in the face of numerous threats. Climate change, for example, can not only create harsh new growing conditions but also fuels the spread of plant pests. Young plants frequently need to be protected from human activities like poaching, intentional burning or land-use change.
- While it can take decades for reintroduced plants to grow into sustainable, self-replenishing populations, project funding is often limited to three years or less, especially in the Global South. Experts say they hope funding will increase as recognition grows that ecosystem restoration requires plant diversity, including rare species.
Already disappearing, Southeast Asia’s striped rabbits now caught in global pet trade
- Rare, elusive and little-known to science, two species of striped rabbits are endemic to Southeast Asia: Sumatran striped rabbits from Indonesia and endangered Annamite striped rabbits from the Vietnam-Laos border region.
- Both species are threatened by habitat loss and illegal snaring, despite having protected status in their range countries.
- In recent months, authorities have seized at least 10 live rabbits smuggled from Thailand on commercial flights to India, highlighting the first known instance of these rabbits being trafficked internationally for the pet trade.
- Conservationists say this trend is alarming, given that the two species are on the brink of extinction. They urge range countries to add the two species to CITES Appendix III, the international wildlife trade convention, and to work with Thai authorities to establish a conservation breeding program with the seized rabbits.
Mongabay Latam wins the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism
- Mongabay Latam has won the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Global Shining Light Award for its investigation into illegal airstrips in the Amazon rainforest.
- Working with its partner Earth Genome, Mongabay Latam combined AI, drone footage, and interviews with more than 60 local sources to uncover a network of drug-trafficking airstrips in Peru. The reporting also documented links to violence and assassinations targeting Indigenous leaders and communities.
- The year-long investigation sparked national and international media coverage, caught the attention of lawmakers and authorities, and equipped Indigenous leaders with evidence to advocate for greater protections.
- The award was presented today at the 14th Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC25) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In Thailand, a cheap bottle crate hack gives tree saplings a fighting chance
- A recent study in Thailand finds that raising native tree seedlings inside repurposed bottle crates improves performance compared to standard methods in community-run nurseries.
- Saplings grown in bottle crates had better root formation and superior growth when planted out in a deforested site, thanks to better air circulation for the roots.
- Crating the saplings also saved on labor costs, which more than offset the cost of purchasing the crates.
- Adoption of the new method could improve the quality of saplings grown in community nurseries, a benefit for reforestation projects where sapling survival is key to success.
Why don’t forest protectors get paid? asks Suriname’s president
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At the U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP30, in Brazil, Suriname is taking a large step into the spotlight, reports Mongabay’s Max Radwin. With about 93% forest cover and a status as one of only three nations to boast […]
A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon
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. They arrived by land, drifting along dirt roads that had more potholes than surface, then continued by riverboat as the forest thickened around them. Something […]
The land deal threatening a vital piece of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest
- A 30,019-hectare (74,178-acre) forest in Santa Cruz, Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to Bom Futuro, a Brazilian agriculture company with plans to clear the land, documents reviewed by Mongabay suggest.
- The forest is being sold by a local affiliate of Dutch wood flooring producer INPA, which has helped sustainably manage the area since the mid-2000s.
- Conservationists say the plot is an important part of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest, which acts as a transition between the Amazon Rainforest and the Gran Chaco and Cerrado savannas.
Indigenous Dayak resist new southern Borneo national park amid global protection deficit
- Indigenous peoples and student protesters staged several demonstrations in Indonesian Borneo in August in a bid to pressure local authorities to cancel plans for a 119,779-hectare (295,980-acre) national park in the Meratus mountain range.
- Meratus Mountains National Park would be the first national park in South Kalimantan province, and the 58th in Indonesia.
- The draft plans will absorb almost two dozen villages impacting several thousand families, many of whom fear displacement given the lack of formal state recognition of Indigenous communities.
- Local civil society organizations say the public protests reflect a lack of consultation with affected communities, a pattern established by many governments as countries rush to protect 30% of the world’s land and marine areas by 2030.
Indonesia labeled ‘Fossil of the Day’ for echoing industry talking points at COP30
- Indonesia has been publicly rebuked at COP30 with a “Fossil of the Day” award after civil society groups accused its delegation of echoing fossil fuel and carbon industry lobbyists during negotiations on Article 6.4, the U.N.’s new carbon market mechanism.
- Observers say Indonesia’s position closely mirrors the talking points in an industry-backed letter calling for weaker safeguards under Article 6.4 — a move critics warn could undermine the integrity of global carbon markets and benefit groups with financial stakes in nature-based carbon projects.
- Indonesia denies being influenced by lobbyists, even though at least 46 representatives from fossil fuel and heavy-industry companies are accredited under its delegation — raising broader concerns about corporate access to negotiations amid a COP already flooded with a record proportion of fossil fuel lobbyists.
- Experts warn Indonesia’s push to loosen Article 6.4 rules risks weakening international oversight, aligning the mechanism with the far less transparent Article 6.2, and potentially undermining both Indonesia’s climate credibility and the robustness of the Paris Agreement’s carbon market safeguards.
Top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin’s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)
- The global battle to mitigate climate change cannot be won in the Amazon, but it can certainly be lost there, writes top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin in a new analysis for Mongabay. Though he’s well-known for investigating traditional uses of plants in the region, he’s also a keen observer of and advocate for Indigenous communities and conservation there.
- Compared to the 1970s, he writes, the Amazon enjoys far greater formal protection, understanding and attention, while advances in technology and ethnobotany have revealed new insights into tropical biodiversity, and Indigenous communities — long the guardians and stewards of this ecosystem — are increasingly recognized as central partners in conservation, and their shamans employ hallucinogens like biological scalpels to diagnose, treat and sometimes cure ailments, a technology that is increasingly and ever more widely appreciated.
- “The challenge now is to ensure that the forces of protection outpace the forces of destruction, which, of course, is one of the ultimate goals of the COP30 meeting in Belém,” he writes.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Rare parrots return to Atlantic Forest fragment after decades of silence
- Twenty red-browed amazons were released in January 2025 in a forest reserve in Alagoas, Brazil, where only four wild individuals remained after the species was driven to near-extinction by illegal trade and deforestation.
- The ARCA project aims to restore ecological processes in the Atlantic Rainforest, which today covers just 3% of its historical range in Alagoas — the result, in part, of the loss of seed-dispersing animals.
- The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Alagoas shifted from reactive to preventive environmental protection in 2017, facilitating partnerships between scientists and private land owners to create a network of private reserves covering more than 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres).
- Between 2010 and 2020, Brazil’s Atlantic Forest lost an area the size of Washington, D.C., in mature trees each year, despite federal protection laws.
Strategic ignorance, climate change and Amazonia (commentary)
- With the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, essentially all of Brazil’s government outside of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is promoting actions that push us toward tipping points, both for the Amazon Rainforest and the global climate.
- Crossing any of these tipping points would result in global warming escaping from human control, with devastating consequences for Brazil that include mass mortalities.
- The question of whether Brazil’s leaders understand the consequences of their actions is relevant to how they will be judged by history, but the climatic consequences follow automatically, regardless of how these actions may be judged, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
New directory helps donors navigate the complex world of global reforestation
- The Global Reforestation Organization Directory provides standardized information on more than 125 major tree-planting organizations, making it easier for donors to compare groups and find the ones that match their priorities.
- Researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz evaluated groups across four categories: permanence, ecological, social and financial, each backed by scientific literature on best practices.
- Much of the evaluation relies on the organization’s self-reporting through surveys or website statements and, while researchers acknowledge this limitation, they say it still provides a valuable framework and a starting point for donors.
- The directory doesn’t rank organizations but rather shows what organizations publicly share about following scientific best practices, avoiding common mistakes and monitoring their results.
Cautious win for Indigenous groups in Malaysia as palm oil firm pauses forest clearing
- Indigenous Penan and Kenyah residents in Malaysian Borneo have filed a lawsuit and a complaint with Malaysia’s sustainable palm oil certifier, accusing palm oil company Urun Plantations of clearing natural forest within its concession along the Belaga River in violation of its lease and sustainability certification.
- Urun Plantations agreed in late October to pause development activities after a palm oil mill suspended buying palm fruit from the plantation.
- Satellite imagery and NGO field evidence indicate ongoing deforestation since 2023, while the company says it is only replanting previously developed land and denies breaching certification rules.
- The company maintains the project has local support, with the dispute underscoring growing tensions in Malaysia’s Sarawak state over palm oil expansion into remaining forests and Indigenous territories.
How a ‘green gold rush’ in the Amazon led to dubious carbon deals on Indigenous lands
- A Mongabay investigation has found that companies without the financial or technical expertise signed deals with Indigenous communities in Brazil and Bolivia, covering millions of hectares of forest, for carbon and biodiversity credits.
- Many of the communities involved say they were rushed into signing, never had the chance to give consent, and didn’t understand what they were signing up to or even who with.
- Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency has warned of legal insecurity and lack of standards in carbon credit initiatives, and an inquiry is underway — even as the businessmen involved target more than 1.7 million hectares in the tri-border area between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.
- Two and a half years since the deals were made, Brazil’s Public Ministry has called for them to be annulled, following Mongabay’s repeated requests to the ministry for updates.
A blueprint for communicating about the Amazon rainforest (commentary)
- Rhett Ayers Butler contributed a section on communicating about the Amazon to the Amazonia in Danger report, a multilingual collection of 22 essays by 55 authors organized by COICA, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin.
- His piece suggests that stories of crisis could evolve from despair to agency by pairing truth with tangible examples of progress—verified, replicable actions that show systems can still respond and that hope, grounded in evidence, can be a form of endurance.
- He emphasizes that credibility depends on who delivers the message as much as what is said, calling for communications infrastructure that centers local voices, prioritizes trust, adapts messages to specific audiences, and measures success by lasting outcomes rather than fleeting attention.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)
- Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute and of the Green Bridge Facility, argues that keeping global warming below 1.5 °C requires action on three simultaneous fronts: phasing out fossil fuels, ending deforestation, and scaling up natural carbon capture in forests and oceans.
- She contends that energy decarbonization alone is insufficient; protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves is essential for both emissions reduction and resilience, and must be backed by transparent finance and accountability.
- With COP30 approaching in Belém, her piece calls for an integrated, finance-backed plan that ties together clean-energy expansion, a time-bound zero-deforestation roadmap, and rigorous safeguards for community-led nature-based solutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
COP30 tropical forest fund may drive debt and deforestation, groups warn
A new global fund meant to reward tropical countries for protecting forests could instead drive deforestation and deepen debt in the developing world, civil society groups warn. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), launched Nov. 6 in Belém, Brazil, ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, aims to raise $125 billion and promises to pay […]
New pledge, old problems as Indonesia’s latest Indigenous forest promise draws skepticism
- Indonesia has pledged to recognize 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of Indigenous and customary forests by 2029, a move the government says will curb deforestation and advance Indigenous rights.
- Advocates call the pledge another empty promise, citing years of stalled reforms, including a long-delayed Indigenous Rights Bill and a slow, bureaucratic process that has recognized less than 2% of mapped customary forests.
- Rights groups say state-backed development continues to drive land grabs and forest loss, with a quarter of Indigenous territories overlapping extractive concessions and widespread conflicts linked to the government’s strategic national projects (PSN).
- Critics urge the government to enact legal reforms and recognize Indigenous land beyond the 1.4-million-hectare target, warning that without real action, the pledge will be symbolic rather than transformative.
UNESCO biosphere listing raises hope, questions for Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain
- UNESCO has declared the floodplain around Malaysian Borneo’s Kinabatangan River a biosphere reserve, linking the Heart of Borneo to the Lower Kinabatangan–Segama Wetlands.
- Conservationists warn that the landscape remains heavily fragmented by oil palm plantations and faces persistent threats from pollution and weak land governance.
- They argue that lasting change will require land reform, corporate accountability and stronger coordination between Sabah’s forestry and wildlife authorities.
Climate finance must reach Indigenous communities at COP30 & beyond (commentary)
- Indigenous and local communities protect 36% of the world’s intact tropical forests, yet receive less than 1% of international climate finance — a contradiction that threatens global climate goals and leaves the most effective forest guardians without the resources they need.
- As the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon draws near, pressure is mounting to get funding directly into the hands of Indigenous and local community organizations who are the frontline defenders of the world’s rainforests.
- “As billions of dollars in climate finance will be discussed or even decided upon at COP30 in Brazil, the priority must be to get resources directly to Indigenous and local communities who have safeguarded forests for generations,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon
- Renata Piazzon, CEO of the Instituto Arapyaú, is one of Brazil’s leading voices for aligning conservation with economic development, arguing that protecting forests and improving livelihoods must go hand in hand.
- Under her leadership, Arapyaú has helped catalyze initiatives like MapBiomas and the Forest People Connection, which link data, finance, and connectivity to reduce deforestation and strengthen Amazonian communities.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30, Piazzon envisions the country shifting from negotiation to implementation—demonstrating global leadership through regenerative agriculture, forest restoration, and a low-carbon economy.
- Piazzon spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in November 2025.
‘A big no’: Opposition grows to proposed mine in Malawi’s newest UNESCO site
- Malawi’s Mount Mulanje is a biodiversity hotspot, a sacred cultural site, and provides critical resources for the more than 1 million people who live in the surrounding districts.
- In July, Mount Mulanje Cultural Landscape was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- In August, senior traditional chiefs held a press conference affirming their support for the UNESCO listing.
- Local leaders and conservationists fear proposed mining projects would threaten the mountain’s natural heritage, and negatively impact tourism and jeopardize gains in sustainable development.
Suriname’s plan to capitalize on carbon: Q&A with President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons
- Suriname’s first female president, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, sat down with Mongabay to discuss her goals for the U.N. Climate Change Conference taking place next week in neighboring Brazil.
- She’s been a vocal proponent of climate financing for countries meeting their emission targets and conserving the rainforest.
- At the same time, Geerlings-Simons is grappling with Suriname’s deep-seated mining industry, which often skirts regulations and destroys natural ecosystems with mercury and cyanide.
- Geerlings-Simons said she recognizes the importance of extractive industries for funding the country’s infrastructure, law enforcement and the agencies that provide environmental oversight.
Indonesia pledges energy transition — but the country’s new NDC says otherwise
- Indonesia’s newly submitted second nationally determined contribution (SNDC), in accordance with the Paris Agreement, contains emission-reduction targets widely seen as insufficient to meet the goal of limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius.
- This contrasts with President Prabowo Subianto’s pledges to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2035 and to phase out coal within 15 years, raising hopes that Indonesia could embark on a genuine energy transition.
- Under the SNDC’s high-growth scenario of 8% annual economic growth, Indonesia’s emissions are projected to be roughly 30% higher in 2035 than in 2019; in contrast, a 1.5°C-compatible pathway would require a 21% reduction.
- Critics say this suggests deep climate action is still seen as incompatible with rapid economic growth.
As Ghana ships first ‘gold standard’ timber to EU, questions about FLEGT’s future remain (commentary)
- Ghana is the first country in Africa to be awarded a Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) license, which is seen as the “gold standard” in the sustainable timber trade.
- The fate of many of Africa’s surviving forests could depend on its success, highlighted by an official meeting in Brussels this week that will mark the first shipment of timber from Ghana to the EU under the program — but a new op-ed wonders if it will it be the last.
- “If Ghana’s FLEGT license turns out to be the last, it would snatch defeat from the jaws of a famous victory. But there is also hope that Ghana’s groundbreaking system of timber traceability could help spur similar systems in other countries,” the author argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Beyond deforestation: redesigning how we protect and value tropical forests (analysis)
- Following his earlier essay tracing possible futures for the world’s forests, Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler turns from diagnosis to design—asking what concrete interventions could still avert collapse. This piece explores how governance, finance, and stewardship might evolve in a second act for tropical forests.
- The essay argues that lasting protection depends structural reform: securing Indigenous land rights, treating governance as infrastructure, and creating steady finance that outlasts election cycles and aid projects.
- Butler also examines overlooked levers—from restoring degraded lands and valuing forests’ local cooling effects to rethinking “bioeconomies” and building regional cooperation across borders. Each points toward a shift from reactive conservation to deliberate, sustained design.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
What might lie ahead for tropical forests (analysis)
- Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler offers a thought experiment—tracing today’s trajectories a little further forward to imagine where they might lead. What follows are scenarios, some improbable, others already taking shape.
- The essay envisions a world where deforestation gives way to disorder: weakened governance, runaway fires, and ecological feedback loops eroding forests from within even without the swing of an axe. It explores how technology and biology—AI-driven agriculture, gene-edited trees, and microbial interventions—could either accelerate destruction or redefine restoration, depending on who controls them.
- Across these imagined futures, one pattern recurs: forests thinning, recovering, and thinning again, as human ambition, migration, and climate instability test whether nature will be given the time and space to heal.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Heading into COP, Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate is falling. What about fires?
- Brazil’s official data show deforestation in the Amazon fell 11% in the 12 months to July 2025, with independent monitoring by Imazon confirming a similar trend—evidence that policies under President Lula da Silva are reversing the sharp rise seen during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- Even as land clearing slows, fires and forest degradation have become major drivers of loss. Exceptional drought in 2024, record heat, and the spread of roads and logging left large areas of the forest dry and flammable, causing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest loss—roughly 60% from fire.
- Burned areas have dropped by 45% over the past year, suggesting some recovery, yet scientists warn the Amazon is entering a more fragile state shaped by climate extremes and the lingering effects of past destruction.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, attention will center on sustaining recent gains and advancing initiatives like the proposed $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility, even as new roads, gold mining, and policy uncertainty—such as the wavering soy moratorium—continue to threaten progress.
Landmark conviction exposes Sri Lanka’s deep-rooted illegal elephant trade
- A Sri Lankan court imposed one of the toughest penalties on a wildlife crime in September when the Colombo High Court sentenced a notorious elephant trafficker to 15 years in prison and slapped a fine of 20.6 million rupees (nearly $70,000) for the illegal possession of a wild-caught elephant.
- The case, which spanned more than a decade, uncovered how wild elephant calves were laundered into private ownership through forged documents with the aid of corrupt officials, exposing deep flaws in the country’s wildlife registry system.
- In 2015, a total of 39 elephants suspected of having been illegally captured were taken into custody by the Department of Wildlife Conservation, though 15 were later returned to their previous owners, sparking public outrage.
- Conservationists hail the ruling as a landmark victory against wildlife trafficking but warn against rampant corruption and the need to address the demand for captive elephants in cultural and religious processions that continue to threaten Sri Lanka’s wild herds.
International Gibbon Day: Spotlighting the overlooked, underprotected ‘lesser apes’
Gibbons, commonly called lesser apes, aren’t as well-known as some of their great ape cousins like chimpanzees or gorillas. But the lives of these highly arboreal primates are no less fascinating. They reside in the canopy of the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia, living in small family groups, each patrolling its own territory, […]
Forest Declaration Assessment reveals a forest paradox
- Tropical forests are regenerating across millions of hectares, with Latin America and Asia showing dramatic gains—but this apparent recovery conceals a deeper contradiction: deforestation remains stubbornly high.
- The world continues to clear about 8 million hectares of forest each year, far off the path to meet the 2030 zero-deforestation pledge, as fires, drought, and agriculture erase progress almost as quickly as it appears.
- Primary forests, rich in carbon and biodiversity, are disappearing fastest, driven mainly by agriculture; current funding for forest protection is dwarfed by subsidies for industrial farming.
- Natural regrowth offers hope—young secondary forests sequester carbon efficiently—but without halting new clearings, these green shoots risk becoming temporary pauses in an ongoing cycle of loss.
Deforestation and disease spread as Nicaragua ignores illegal cattle ranching
- Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry.
- The practice has led to a spike in cases of New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax), a parasitic fly that feeds on warm-blooded animals
- A new investigation by conservation group Re:wild found that years of industry reforms still haven’t prevented cattle ranchers from deforesting protected areas and Indigenous territories.
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