A major cause of forest restoration project failures is lack of long-term monitoring. Now, satellites, lidar, drones and in-forest sensor networks are bringing detailed, long-term, real-time data to tree-planting initiatives.
Seed-sowing drones and the latest biotechnology could help restore degraded forests at an unprecedented scale — a high-tech nature-based climate solution already at work, and one that shows tremendous promise.
Complex computer models, aided by artificial intelligence and laboratory testing, can help select the right tree species for the right place, giving reforestation projects a stronger start and better chance of thriving.
Climate change has generated a rush in tree planting, with many hurried initiatives failing. But high-tech solutions — artificial intelligence, robotics, satellites and sensors — can help tree-planting projects succeed every step of the way.
Analysis of 40 years of climate temperature data shows a connection between Amazon tree loss and Tibetan snow decrease via a 20,000-kilometer oceanic and atmospheric pathway. West Antarctica is also impacted.
The multibillion-dollar global console gaming industry is linked to environmental harm throughout the life cycle of these wildly popular devices. But the industry is taking some steps to curb its excesses.
Human transgressions of the biodiversity, land-use, pollution and climate planetary boundaries are altering gut microbiomes across species, impacting human health and ecosystems. But there’s hope.
A recently published investigation finds U.S. chemical recycling facilities are making fuel and chemicals, but not new plastics, while generating air pollution and toxic waste. That ‘green tech’ could soon go global.
Technology-critical elements (TCEs) — vital for wind and solar power and electric cars — are contaminating land and water, impacting biodiversity and health. A circular economy may be the solution.
Smallholder farmers say agroforestry offers biodiversity and crop benefits, but lack of support from the Bolsonaro government is a key barrier to adopting restorative agricultural practices.
Modeling shows microplastics can be trapped in river sediments for up to 7 years posing unknown and unstudied risks to biodiversity and human health.
The largest and most accurate set of simulations done to date project dramatic crop productivity declines for low-latitude staples like corn in the next ten years and through 2100.
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
A 20-year analysis of satellite data shows significant temperature differences in agricultural lands in southern Amazonia, depending on farm size.
The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed more than 75% of all species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, triggered an ecological catastrophe that took the neotropical rainforests…
To stay within planetary boundary safe limits, we must protect soils by conserving global habitat and revamping industrial agribusiness — and do it fast.
Simple mathematical models suggest overshooting Paris climate accord emission targets for a short time won’t immediately trigger some environmental tipping points, allowing time to act.
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
In some of the wettest parts of the Amazon rainforest, dry air may increase plant photosynthesis rates — a response that contradicts the assumptions of many climate models, according to…
Integrating aquatic biodiversity into conservation planning could yield substantial benefits for freshwater species with minimal cost to terrestrial creatures, according to a study published in Science last month. Conservation areas…
337,427 square kilometers of Amazon forest were degraded between 1992 and 2014 ¬(mostly due to logging and understory fires), compared to 308,311 square kilometers completely cleared.
Just 6.5% of Earth’s best-quality and least-disturbed tropical forests are legally protected. Only 47% of remaining humid tropical forests globally have high ecological integrity.
Only one eighth of the 100 most influential timber and pulp companies have both a commitment to eliminating deforestation and an established system to monitor their progress.
By 2070, rising soil temperatures could cause germination failure in 20% of tropical plants, and reduced rates in more than 50%, with the potential to disrupt and alter tropical ecosystems.
Deforestation and climate change could convert Amazon rainforest to savanna by 2050. New infrastructure development would quicken process.
Intensifying cattle grazing on existing pasture could free up degraded land for new sugarcane plantations without need to clear Amazon forests and other native vegetation.
Nutrient limitations in the Amazon’s million-year-old soils may mean climate models are overestimating the size of the future carbon sink by 46-52 percent.
The largest study of ocelots ever reveals insights into habitat preferences and use. Brazilian Amazon ocelots prefer thick canopy cover, avoid humans.
Study finds pros and cons in a REDD+ carbon credit scheme in the Brazilian Amazon that rewards small-scale ecosystem service providers in local communities.
Claire has been working as a freelance science writer for over 6 years and her writing has appeared in New Scientist, BBC Future, Nature, Science, and The Scientist, among others. Her main interests are in ecology, conservation, animal behaviour and evolution, and she has written extensively for Mongabay about deforestation and land-use change in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado.
