Forests

MEXICO CITY — Canada has become a major force in Latin America. It’s spent the last 30 years beefing up its portfolio with investments in mining, oil and natural gas. It’s established free trade agreements and foreign investment protections with dozens of countries, and is in the process of negotiating more. As a result, the […]

JAKARTA — Despite various commitments from global brands and the government to protect Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, development of new palm oil plantations and drainage of carbon-rich peatlands continue in the ecosystem, a new investigation finds. At the same time, deforestation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, a […]

An expedition team has found a rare Brazilian tree that botanists thought might be extinct after nearly two centuries without a confirmed sighting. The Pernambuco holly tree (Ilex sapiiformis), which can grow to a height of 12 meters (nearly 40 feet), was found again in March in northeast Brazil by a team led by ecologist […]

Peru signed a deal last week that will redirect millions of dollars of international debt to environmental efforts in the Amazon rainforest, a move that could help it meet long-term conservation goals and reduce pressure from creditors. The South American country struck a $20 million debt-for-nature swap agreement with the U.S. that transfers debt payments […]

In Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), nearly every surface is encased with life: moss, ferns,  epiphytes and orchids — a color wheel of green in three dimensions. Amid the green, chestnut-headed oropendola nests hang like woven teardrops from towering trees, troops of howler monkeys shout their boundaries and hummingbirds dive-bomb from branch to blossom. JCR protects […]

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its Sept. 9 ruling, the Jakarta State Administrative Court rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies that are part of the Tanah Merah mega plantation project, […]

Global food giant Cargill has been tied to the destruction of thousands of hectares of dry tropical forest, which were cleared in eastern Bolivia to make room for soy production. The food distributor purchased soy from farms in the Santa Cruz department where more than 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of the Chiquitano forest have been […]

South America has suffered through an intense and often record-breaking heatwave this year. Chile saw temperatures surpass 35°C (95°F) in August despite it being winter. In Bolivia it was 45°C (113°F). And in Brazil it was over 38°C (100.4°F). Climate change and El Niño are the main forces behind the heat. The spiking temperatures across […]

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized the rights of 15 Indigenous Dayak communities to forests on Borneo covering a combined area larger than Jakarta. The nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) is the largest cluster of customary forests ever recognized by the state. “This recognition of 15 ancestral forests in Gunung Mas district, Central Kalimantan […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top two producers of palm oil, have set up a joint task force with the European Union to address their differences over a new law making it harder for the ubiquitous commodity to enter the EU. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for about 85% […]