Tropical Conservation Science News

JAKARTA — A newborn Javan rhino calf has been spotted in Indonesia, but the good news is tempered by questions over the species’ population trend and reports of an increase…

Protected areas are one of the oldest conservation tools in the box. Setting aside portions of land and water for conservation can offer species a chance of recovery while preserving…

Top tropical ecologists have spent two decades studying the impact of climate change on a single transect in the Peruvian Andes, an area unparalleled in its biodiversity. They find that every species studied there is struggling against warming temperatures.

Researchers analyzed never-before-used satellite data to calculate how much carbon is stored in protected areas worldwide.

JAKARTA — A group of researchers and citizen-scientists have described a new “semi-slug” species from the lowland rainforests of northern Borneo. The so-called snug, a snail whose external shell is…

JAKARTA — Every time a new Javan rhino calf is spotted, Indonesia’s environmental authorities issue an update of the precise population number for the near-extinct species. The rhino’s entire population…

JAKARTA — A new study has shown that farmers who aren’t traditionally perceived as having the most social and cultural power in their community can be more effective at convincing…

A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…

Warmer temperatures could significantly diminish the ability of tropical forests to siphon carbon from the atmosphere by intensifying dry seasons, according to a recent study. The tropics pack away an…

Brazilian scientist Antonio Donato Nobre has long been a student of the Amazon Rainforest. An agronomist with a master's degree in tropical biology and a Ph.D. in Earth science, Nobre…

A group of researchers have identified several new species of sunbirds, whose range spans from Africa in the west and Australia in the east, in the tropical Wakatobi Islands in…

Dutch biologist Erik Meijaard isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers. In the past 15 years, he’s published some 120 opinion pieces in Indonesian newspapers, many of them critical about the state…

The world’s largest bank of the partially decomposed plant matter known as peat in the tropics is even more extensive than initially thought, according to a new study. The peatlands…

Google and the World Resources Institute (WRI) this week announced the launch of a new mapping tool touted as providing an unprecedented level of detail about how land is being…

As hot and muggy as most tropical rainforests are, you only need to leave their florid confines and step onto a recently razed plot of land to feel an immediate…

Slice through a tree trunk, and you’ll find a series of rings that tell a story of how that tree grew over the course of its life. These rings are…

(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) The Sundaland bioregion spans Borneo, Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and a myriad of smaller surrounding islands. Sundaland hosts one of the largest tracts of primary…

Tropical forests across the world are hurting. Climate change is intensifying drought and wildfires worldwide, and deforestation continues to challenge conservation efforts to save intact forests. This means scientists need…

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Even as a boy, Budi Leksono knew the tamanu tree had many uses. The small, hard fruit of the tree, about the size of a pingpong ball,…

They may be labeled “degraded,” but forests that have been logged, or are otherwise no longer pristine due to human activity, can still provide immense value. According to new research…

This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay…

This is the fourth article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. The muddy cores that Ian Lawson and his colleagues…

This is the third article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. The logging concession moratorium signed in 2002 was supposed to shore…

This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…

This is the first article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The notion seemed straightforward: A massive swamp in the Congo Basin…

Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all…

On a cold and humid morning in March, two bird surveyors stood in the dim forests of Kenaboi State Park in Malaysia, straining their ears for birdsong. From where they…

For decades, scientists speculated that seagrass seeds served only as a backup to vegetative proliferation; they settled into the sand beneath their parent plants, ready to germinate if anything untoward…

Picking out the fluty whistle of a Sulawesi babbler (Pellorneum celebense) is easy. Spotting it is far more difficult: these shy and diminutive birds, endemic to the forests of the…

The climate in the Amazon has been changing over the last few decades. The average temperature in the basin rose about 1º Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) between 1979 and 2018, with…