global forests

With the bankruptcy of the world’s biggest wood pellet maker, Enviva and the forestry industry are reaching out to the Biden Administration for subsidies that could offer it a lifeline, but environmentalists are pushing back.

A new fund, announced Oct. 30, plans to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous organizations in Bolivia’s Madidi Landscape. It has so far attracted $650,000 in initial support from the Bezos Earth Fund, and more funding from several other sources is now being explored. “We want these funds to help us move […]

As countries around the world begin to either propose or enforce zero-deforestation regulations, companies are coming under growing pressure to prove that their products are free of deforestation. But this is often a far from straightforward process. Take palm oil, for instance. Its journey from plantations, most likely in Indonesia or Malaysia, to store shelves […]

BELLINGEN, Australia — A coastal breeze can be felt through the rustling eucalyptus leaves of blackbutt, ironbark and tallowwood trees in the old-growth native forest now known as Newry on the coast of the state of New South Wales, in present-day Australia. A faint, melodic creaking sound is audible from a twisted grey gum tree […]

PREY LANG, Cambodia — Cambodia has among the worst rates of forest loss of any nation, and Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is a quintessential case. The protected area has long faced relentless devastation in near-total obscurity, with many observers saying that Prey Lang’s status as a sanctuary exists only on paper. In this episode of […]

STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A fresh incursion into Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary has added new evidence to mounting allegations of timber laundering by Think Biotech, which exists on paper as a reforestation company producing sustainable wood. Satellite imagery showed that between April 6 and 9, a fresh path had been crudely cut into Prey Lang […]

MUKU, Papua New Guinea — Fidelis Nick’s eyes lock onto the police vehicle as it passes through his village in northwestern Papua New Guinea. A few people wave greetings as it passes by, but Nick isn’t one of them. He watches as a truck from the construction company working on a new road here in […]

An experiment in Malaysian Borneo found that the more species of tree seedlings planted in a previously logged plot, the more the result later resembles an old-growth forest, with greater biomass and forest complexity.

While PFAS impacts on human health are well known, scientists are also finding severe impacts on wildlife, including hawksbill turtles, American alligators, Arctic kittiwakes, hooded seals, striped bass, bottlenose dolphins and other species.

MINDANAO, Philippines — For environmental groups in the Philippines, 2021 went out with a big blow: on Dec. 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reversed a 4-year-old ban on open-pit metal mining. The order, issued by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, a retired military general, overturned a prohibition on open-pit mining for copper, […]