PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Sometime after 10 a.m. on Friday, April 21, sweat poured down the face of veteran environmental activist San Mala as he crawled through the forest undergrowth,…
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…
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
JAKARTA — The rampant deforestation for monoculture plantation and logging in western Indonesian Borneo has exacerbated the extinction risks of three plant species endemic to the island’s riparian lowland rainforests,…
BRUSSELS — Indonesia's timber industry is known for having the only legality system in the world that's robust enough to be recognized by the European Union. And now, the country…
The last logging period granted by the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation (GTANW) ended on May 30, 2022, yet timber has continued to be indiscriminately extracted in the…
JAKARTA — Habitat for up to a quarter of the known population of Bornean orangutans will disappear across the island of Borneo under predicted patterns of deforestation over the next…
A recorder is fastened to a tree, its microphone pointed downward. It captures a fusion of sound: the high-pitched buzz of cicadas, bird calls, and also the rumbling of a…
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.
A thick, acrid scent of smoke marks the last summer season in Australia, which has become known as the “black summer.” Between June 2019 and March 2020, a series of…
Scientists know from a bevy of studies that the inclusion of indigenous peoples and local communities is critical to holding deforestation at bay across the tropics, even as a tide…
JAKARTA — A provisional moratorium on issuing forest-clearing permits for plantations and logging is expected to be made permanent, Indonesian officials have announced. The moratorium prohibits the conversion of primary…
In early 2018, the Africa branch of Rougier announced its bankruptcy. Founded in 1923, Rougier is one of the oldest and largest timber companies in Africa, present in five Congo…
Selective logging has long been considered the lesser evil compared to clear-cutting when it comes to habitat preservation. But a new study adds to a growing chorus of concern that…
JAKARTA — The rate of deforestation in selective-logging concessions in parts of Indonesia has unexpectedly overtaken those of pulpwood and oil palm concessions, a new study shows. A study by…
JAKARTA — An environmental watchdog has accused a palm oil company in Indonesia of failing to extend a sustainable forestry pledge to a timber concession that it also operates. In…
JAKARTA — The world lost nearly 150,000 orangutans from the island of Borneo in the past 16 years due to habitat loss and killing, and is on track to lose…
Tigers and orangutans are the well-known faces of the palm oil crisis. But the enigmatic clouded leopard is equally threatened and almost unknown in comparison. Conservationists are looking at ways…
Efforts to protect wildlife often focus on keeping forests and the habitat they represent from being cut down. But research published in the journal Nature last year suggested that forest…
Reduced-impact logging doesn’t need to be a death knell for a region’s big animals, according to a new study in Biotropica — but only if hunting is well-regulated. Employing camera…
GUA MUSANG, Malaysia – In their fight for the rights of peninsular Malaysia’s native people, the Orang Asli, an alliance of women are making waves in the country's highly conservative…
A study published in the journal Science Advances this month found that, between 2000 and 2013, the global area of intact forest landscape declined by 7.2 percent, a reduction of…
In late January and early March, a huge fire ripped through the forests of the Republic of Congo. Satellite data show it totaled more than 15,000 hectares (150 square kilometers),…
. Up to 64 percent of above-ground biomass in selectively logged forests may consist of dead wood left over from logging damage, argues a paper published this week in Environmental…
Logging in Gabon. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Selective logging is causing long-term changes to tropical forests in Africa by facilitating the growth of weeds and vines, which reduces plant…
Persistence is the key factor in the two most common human stressors on tropical wildlife. In Malaysian Borneo, hunting continually diminishes wildlife populations, whereas the negative impacts from selective logging…
