Europe’s forests are growing, but tropical areas are losing tree cover at a massive scale due to EU demand for imported products. Here’s how to redress the imbalance.
Aerial view of the new highway cutting through lowland forest in Papua Province.
Ulet Ifansasti/Greenpeace
David Gaveau, International Union for the Conservation of Nature et Douglas Sheil, Wageningen University
Many are concerned that the highway is being built to benefit powerful commercial interests and not Indigenous people and will accelerate forest loss as seen in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
A stand of red mangroves in the calm, calcium-rich, fresh waters of the San Pedro Mártir River, Tabasco, Mexico.
Ben Meissner
Mangroves grow in saltwater along tropical coastlines, but scientists have found them along a river in Mexico’s Yucatan, more than 100 miles from the sea. Climate change explains their shift.
Ethiopians take part in a national mass tree-planting drive.
Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Ian Dawson, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF); Lars Gradual, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) et Ramni Jamnadass, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
Paying attention to tree seed to enhance forest landscape restoration: new resources for Africa are available.
Jungle near the Palenque ruins, Chiapas, Mexico.
Lawrence Murray/Flickr
About 60% of Mexico’s forests are managed by local communities. A scholar who has studied the forests for 30 years explains how this system protects the forests and the people who oversee them.
Shorea smithiana, a rainforest tree vulnerable to habitat loss. Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysia.
David Bartholomew
Xiaoming Xu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign et Atul Jain, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A new study provides a detailed way to calculate the climate impact of food production, which could lead to more sustainable farming policies and methods.
We are logging more than can be sustained by tropical forests.
Plinio Sist
Observations collected since the 1980s in the Amazon, Central Africa and Southeast Asia show we are not giving tropical forests enough time to recover after logging.
Mountain forests are significant carbon stores.
Heibe/Pixabay
Sacred trees are a cornerstone of our national identity. They transcend simple economics and sit at the centre of the sacred — sentinels in ceremony, birthing and burials.
Elizabeth Lewis, Newcastle University; Edouard Davin, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich et Ronny Meier, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Mass tree planting could affect precipitation patterns.
A farmer walks past cocoa pods growing on a tree on a cocoa farm in Ivory Coast.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana produce almost two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, and face high rates of deforestation. But the cocoa industry could make changes to become more sustainable.
Oil palm fruit in North Aceh, Indonesia.
Fachrul Reza / Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Palm oil is responsible for widespread deforestation and labor abuses, but it’s also cheap and incredibly useful. That’s why many advocates call for reforming the industry, not replacing it.
Coprophanaeus lancifer, a large seed-disperser dung beetle in the Amazon.
Hannah Griffiths