More than 80 percent of agricultural expansion in the tropics between 1980 and 2000 came at the expense of forests, reports research published last week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The st...

The number of threatened vultures in Cambodia is on the rise according to a new survey by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other members of the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project.

A sweep of restaurants in Vietnam's Lam Dong Province turned up hundreds of pounds of illegal wildlife products, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

21 percent of African freshwater plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, according to a five year assessment of 5,167 freshwater species by 200 scientists.

The China Timber and Wood Products Circulation Association (CTWPCA) is seeking to establish a body to help importers navigate new environmental regulations in the United States and Europe that restrict trade in illegally logged timber, reports the In...

Burger King announced it would no longer source palm oil from Sinar Mas, an Indonesian conglomerate, after an independent audit showed one of the company's subsidiaries had destroyed rainforests and carbon-dense peatlands in Borneo and Sumatra, accor...

Although the mining consortium, United Khmer Group, has been drawing up plans to build a massive titanium mine in a Cambodian protected forest for three years, the development did not become public knowledge until rural villagers came face-to-face wi...

Morgan Stanley, CIMB Securities, and Credit Suisse will underwrite the initial public offering of PT Borneo Lumbung Energi (Borneo Energy), a company that owns Asmin Koalindo Tuhup, a mining company that operates in Central Kalimantan in Indonesia Bo...

The number of fire hotspots has surged in the Bolivian and Brazilian parts of the Amazon, reveals data and imagery from NASA.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is down significantly since last year, according to preliminary estimates released by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and Imazon, a Brazil-based NGO that tracks forest loss and degradation a...

It's safe to say that the humble camera trap has revolutionized wildlife conservation. This simple contraption—an automated digital camera that takes a flash photo whenever an animal triggers an infrared sensor—has allowed scientists to collect...

Scientists have discovered a new species of chameleon in a small block of rainforest in Madagascar.

Although the last few months have been some of the warmest worldwide on record, including 17 countries reaching or breaking all-time highs, temperatures have not been above average everywhere. Cold air from Antarctica has brought chilling temperature...

If you take a teaspoon and dip it into the ocean what will you have? Some drops of lifeless water? Only a few decades ago this is what scientists would have said, however, the development of increasingly powerful microscopes have shown us a world lon...

The decision last week by the Brazilian government to move forward on the $17 billion Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu river will set in motion a plan to build more than 100 dams across the Amazon basin, potentially turning tributaries of the world's larg...

When people are hungry for an uncertain income, they will destroy everything. When people become poor due to a poor decision they were excluded from making, who should be responsible for that? Development is seen as the answer to poverty. However, ma...

Rapid expansion of oil palm plantations across Southeast Asia have run roughshod over customary tenure systems, resulting in exploitation of local communities, conflict, and outright human rights abuses, reports a new assessment of the palm oil secto...

The European Union's renewable fuels target is driving land grabs in Africa that threaten the environment and local communities, claims a new report from Friends of the Earth (FOE).

In the late 1970s, the fate of the Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra) in France was very gloomy. By just looking at the otter's range map, one could see that most of the country was left with vast regions devoid of a species that was once found in every re...

A notorious reptile smuggler has been busted at Malaysia Kuala Lumpur International Airport after his luggage was found to contain 98 snakes and a turtle, reports the Malaysian Star.

To je obtížná otázka,kterou se už dlouhodobě snaží vyřešit ochránci přírody. WCS (Wildlife Conversation society)přišlo s novým plánem jak ochránit na světě nejvíce ohrožené gorily (Cross River gorilla) před pytláky.Místním...

The number of fires burning in Brazil more than doubled since last year, sparking a Twitter sensation, with more than 120,000 users tweeting messages with the hashtag '#chegadequeimadas' about the fires in a 48 hour window.

Cargill will engage one of its major palm oil suppliers after an independent audit confirmed that the Indonesian company has been destroying rainforests and peatlands in Borneo to establish oil palm plantations.

Norway's Climate and Forests Initiative, which has set aside billions of dollars for efforts to reduce deforestation, should work with the country's Ministry of Finance to divest the Government Pension Fund from companies that destroy forests, says t...

A two-month old tiger cub was found drugged and concealed among stuffed-tiger toys in a woman's luggage at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Sunday, reports TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Cargill has not suspended its relationship with a palm oil company recently exposed for misleading investors and buyers on its environmental transgressions, reports the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an activist group campaigning against environmen...

The United States Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) voted on Wednesday to seek a final review of a $900m loan for a controversial 3,960 MW coal-fired power plant in India, reports Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based environmental group.

One of the world's smallest frogs has been discovered living inside carnivorous plants in Borneo, reports Conservation International, a conservation group that is jointly supporting a campaign with IUCN to search for some of the world's 'lost amphibi...

Allegations of government corruption and corporate kick-backs are swirling around a planned 300 MW Chinese coal plant in the Malaysian state of Sabah. While the plan to build the coal plant in Lahad Datu Bay has come up against strong and unrelenting...

One third of Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation originate from areas not officially defined as 'forest' suggesting that efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) may fail unless they account for carbo...

A forest conservation project backed by Shell, Gazprom Market and Trading and the Clinton Foundation on the island of Borneo has won approval under a carbon accounting standard, reports Reuters.

A controversial plan to construct a bauxite mine on indigenous lands in the Indian state of Orissa has been canceled by the country's environment ministry. The scheme had been opposed by a wide range of human rights and environmental groups, which li...

$27.9 billion in "fast-start" funding has so far been pledged by industrialized countries to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change, according to a new climate finance tracking tool released by the World Resources Institute (W...

The Norwegian Government's pension fund sold all its 16 million shares of Samling Global, a Malaysian timber company, after concluding the firm had committed 'serious transgessions' in logging outside of concession areas and destroying protected rain...

It's not so complicated, but it's much easier said than done. I'm referring to the restoration of a species to a habitat that has been transformed over time in the absence of keystone grazing species like bison which served essentially as landscape a...

Norway has agreed to transfer an initial $30 million to Indonesia under its $1 billion REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) partnership with the Southeast Asian country.

Lion populations across Uganda's park system have declined 40 percent in less than a decade, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a result of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, repo...

New satellite data shows that human actions are wiping out mangrove forests even faster than previous bleak estimates. Conducted by the US Geological Survey and NASA, the researchers found that mangroves comprise 12.3 percent less area than previousl...

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has found that the global average temperature of July 2010 was nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.55 degrees Celsius) higher than average temperatures from July1951-1980. In fact, this July was tied for...

Sinar Mas, an Indonesian conglomerate whose holdings include Asia Pulp and Paper, a paper products brand, and PT Smart, a palm oil producer, was sharply rebuked Wednesday over a recent report where it claimed not to have engaged in destruction of for...

Although developers and government often tout dams as environmentally-friendly energy sources, this is not always the case. Dams impact river flows, changing ecosystems indefinitely; they may flood large areas forcing people and wildlife to move; and...

Is it a hairy goat roaming the plains? An antelope with some genetic mix-up? At this point no one knows. This strange creature was photographed in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. Apart of the Serengeti plains, the Masai Mara covers 1,500 square...

Rising over 2,500 meters from Kenya's northern desert, the Mathews Range is a sky island: isolated mountain forests surrounded by valleys. Long cut off from other forests, 'sky islands' such as this often contain unique species and ecosystems. Suppor...

Researchers have linked another extinction to human beings: this time of a massive prehistoric horned turtle. Prehistoric turtles in the Meiolania genus were thought to have vanished some 50,000 years ago. However, scientists have found a new species...

One hundred Kihansi Spray Toads have been flown to their native Tanzania after a close brush with extinction, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

In the Indian state of Orissa a drama more wild than James Cameron's imagination has been playing out. An indigenous people, the Dongria Kondh, have spent years protesting the plans of British-based mining giant Vedanta Resources to build a 125-billi...

At least four children died after rabid vampire bats attacked Awajun indigenous communities in a remote part of Peru, reports the BBC.

A large-scale bleaching event due to high ocean temperatures appears to be underway off the coast of Sumatra, an Indonesian island, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Industrial logging concessions on islands off the coast of Sumatra threaten to undermine a sustainable community industry that may hold to key to protecting Indonesia's carbon-dense, but increasingly endangered peatlands.