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Mongabay Features

An interview with anthropologist Alison Richard

The island nation of Madagascar is celebrated for its extraordinary biodiversity, characterized by remarkably high rates of endemicism; approximately 90% of its wildlife is unique to the island, making it an unique and irreplaceable treasure trove of biological richness. This includes a myriad of distinctive species, such as lemurs, chameleons, and a diverse range of […]

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Mongabay Features

Key rainforest issues to monitor in 2024

Last week, Mongabay published a recap of the major trends in the world’s tropical rainforests for 2023. Here’s a glimpse into some of the key issues to monitor in 2024. Brazil The deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon has declined significantly during President Lula’s first year of his third term, following the reinstatement of various rainforest protection programs. […]

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Mongabay Features

Danilo Villafañe (1974-2023): A Guardian’s Farewell

In the emerald shadows of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a profound loss echoes through the mountains. Danilo Villafañe, an Arhuaco Indigenous leader of unwavering conviction, passed away on Christmas Day, aged 49, in a selfless act of heroism. Villafañe drowned while trying to rescue two young women from the waters where the Palomino […]

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Mongabay Features

A review of tropical rainforest news in 2023

While the data is still preliminary, it appears that deforestation declined across the tropics as a whole in 2023 due to developments in the Amazon, which has more than half the world’s remaining primary tropical forests. Sharp decline in Amazon deforestation An analysis published in December by the MAAP initiative revealed a significant decrease in deforestation. […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with author Sonja Swift

Wolves, with their widespread distribution from North America to Eurasia, are ecologically vital as keystone species, playing a critical role in maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems by regulating prey populations. Their influence extends to increasing biodiversity and reshaping landscapes, thus fostering more robust and diverse natural environments. Culturally, wolves hold a unique place […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Jocotoco’s Martin Schaefer

In July, I visited Narupa Reserve, a protected area established and run by the Jocotoco Foundation. While I had only two days, I was very impressed with the quality of the forest, the abundance of birds, and the stunning scenery. In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Monica P. Medina of WCS

In June, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Monica P. Medina as its new President and CEO. Medina is the first woman to take the helm at WCS and brings with her a wealth of experience from numerous esteemed roles across a variety of institutions, including key leadership positions in three presidential administrations. It’s easy to get […]

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Mongabay Features

An interview with Jeff Morgan

Last December, delegates from nearly 200 governments adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. This agreement aims to conserve 30 percent of the earth by 2030 – a goal colloquially known as “30×30”. But it’s one thing to set aside areas for conservation and another to […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Dax Dasilva

In 2021, Canadian technology entrepreneur and activist Dax Dasilva launched “Age of Union” with a $40 million donation to support high impact conservation projects. Operating on the conviction that conservation has the potential to make major contributions toward addressing both climate change and the extinction crisis during this critical decade, Dasilva quickly committed all the […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Kelvin Chiu

Among the planetary challenges we face, biodiversity loss often takes a back seat to climate change. However, interest in “nature-based solutions” is rising as more people recognize the opportunities presented by protecting and restoring natural ecosystems. For example, restoring a degraded tract of mangroves can sequester vast amounts of carbon while simultaneously buffering against storm […]

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Mongabay Features

Rainforests year in review, 2022

There were some hopeful developments for tropical rainforest conservation in 2022, including declines in the deforestation rate in Indonesia and the Brazilian Amazon, new high-level policy commitments supporting forest protection, and expanding recognition of the importance of forests for human well-being. But the outlook for tropical forests nonetheless remains tenuous, with the impacts of climate […]

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Mongabay Features

Coverage in Singapore’s Straits Times

The Straits Times, a major newspaper in Singapore, published a story about the Heinz Award on October 17, 2022. The story, titled Founder of environmental news site Mongabay wins major US green award, was written by David Fogarty, the paper’s Climate Change Editor. I spoke with Fogarty in September, ahead of a visit to Singapore […]

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Mongabay Features

Photos from Harapan, Sumatra

In October 2022, I briefly visited the Harapan ecosystem restoration project in Jambi and South Sumatra on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Below are a few images from the visit. Highlights from Flickr. Some video clips.

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Mongabay Features

Tropical Conservation Science paper examines relationship between deforestation and economic indicators in the Brazilian Amazon

Deforestation proponents in Brazil routinely argue that cutting down the Amazon is an effective way to alleviate poverty. For example, the Bolsonaro administration’s official statement to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference asserted that “where there is a lot of forest there is also a lot of poverty,” implying that forest cover is inversely […]

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Mongabay Features

An interview with BirdLife’s Patricia Zurita

Next month BirdLife International, a global partnership of 115 organizations working to protect birds and their habitats, will mark its 100th anniversary by holding the BirdLife World Congress in London. The event will bring together scientists, conservationists, and other stakeholders from around the world. BirdLife has a lot to celebrate on its 100th birthday. It counts […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Ken Wilson

The concept of “biocultural diversity” has gained wider prominence in recent decades as academics, institutions, and practitioners have expanded cross-disciplinary work at the intersection of human culture and biological diversity. Within the conservation realm, this trend has helped raise the profile of issues like Indigenous rights and traditional knowledge, especially since the mid-2010s as many […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin

As a best-selling author, the co-founder of the award-winning Amazon Conservation Team, and an acclaimed public speaker, Mark Plotkin is one of the world’s most prominent rainforest ethnobotanists and conservationists. Plotkin has worked closely with Indigenous communities–including traditional healers or shamans–since the 1980s, first as an academic, then as a member of a large conservation […]

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Mongabay Features

What’s the outlook for tropical rainforests in 2022?

Between rising deforestation in the Amazon, new financial and political commitments to reduce deforestation, and growing interest in “nature-based solutions” like conservation and reforestation, 2021 may prove to be a fateful year for the world’s tropical rainforests. Take a look at The year in rainforests 2021, published last week, if you’d like to catch up on some […]

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Mongabay Features

What happened to rainforests in 2021?

2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. The following is a brief look at some of the major rainforest storylines from 2021. Tropical deforestation persists at a high level Despite speculation […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Nonette Royo

Research published in recent years has shown that Indigenous territories have experienced substantially lower rates of forest loss than non-Indigenous lands. Given that Indigenous territories account for at least 36% of the world’s “intact forests” and Indigenous Peoples and local communities (ILPC) live in or manage about half of the planet’s lands, these areas play […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Daniel Katz

In 1986 a 24-year-old from Ohio named Daniel Katz set out to save tropical rainforests by creating a way for consumers to directly support more eco-conscious approaches to producing products from forests. With four others, he co-founded the Rainforest Alliance to develop a global certification standard for forest products and crops, which he hoped would create a […]

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Mongabay Features

Glasgow Declaration: Where is forest loss declining?

On Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, pledging to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation” by 2030. The declaration, which was accompanied by some $19.2 billion in related funding commitments, was endorsed outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process and […]

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Mongabay Features

Are forest declarations effective?

On November 2, 2021 at the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference (#COP26), 127 countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use which commits them to eliminate forest loss by 2030 as part of their collective efforts to combat climate change. The declaration, which was accompanied by some $19.2 billion in related funding commitments, came seven years […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Cristián Samper

Between the global pandemic, the accelerating impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and the conservation sector’s reckoning with its colonial past, 2020 and 2021 have been a tumultuous time for efforts to conserve the planet. As an organization that has extensive field operations in about 60 countries and runs a network of zoos and […]

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Mongabay Features

Interview with Kai Carter

For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. The argument is straightforward: to be successful, the field must be interdisciplinary and inclusive to address the myriad issues that impact a range of stakeholders. For example, protecting an area is rarely as simple […]