The world’s rainforests are still being slashed and burned at a dizzying rate to make consumer products. But now there are signs of real political will, especially in Asia, to rein in the destruction.
There are a lot of trees on Earth. But there used to be many, many more.
Clara Rowe
James Whitmore, The Conversation and Eliza Berlage, The Conversation
There are more than three trillion trees worldwide, but that’s only half as many were around at the start of human civilisation according to new research.
At the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit, which concluded yesterday in Sydney, environment minister Greg Hunt announced A$6 million to combat illegal logging. While the funding builds on legislation to ensure…
Rainforest cleared for oil palm plantations in Borneo.
Wakx/Flickr
How do the products we buy affect the world’s rainforests? In the lead up to the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit held in Sydney this week, The Conversation is running a series on rainforest commodities…
How do the products we buy affect the world’s rainforests? In the lead up to the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit held in Sydney this week, The Conversation is running a series on rainforest commodities…
Where the rainforest meets the plantation: there are probably a lot more insects.
Ryan Woo for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
Palm oil plantations have an overall negative impact on biodiversity, according to research released this week. The study, published in Nature Communications, found palm oil plantations are home to fewer…
“The best thing you could do for the Amazon is to blow up all the roads.” These might sound like the words of an eco-terrorist, but it’s actually a direct quote from Professor Eneas Salati, a forest climatologist…
Not a new idea, as this map from 1885 shows, but no less controversial.
Meyers Konversationslexikons
The Nicaraguan government has granted a concession to a mysterious Chinese company owned by Jing Wang, a little-known Hong-Kong based businessman, to build an inter-oceanic canal. This would provide an…
The Amazon contains half of the world’s tropical rainforests.
CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture/Flickr
Drought in the Amazon increases the release of carbon into the atmosphere, according to research published today in Nature. The Amazon plays a key role in the Earth’s climate system, thanks to the extent…
With current concerns focusing, quite rightly, on controlling carbon emissions, it is easy to lose sight of the need for continued conservation efforts. In fact our recent study published in the Proceedings…
Yasuni’s frogs are unimpressed with your lack of conviction.
Geoff Gallice
When the Ecuadorian Congress this month voted overwhelmingly to allow drilling for oil underneath the Yasuni National Park, it signalled the failure of a novel conservation proposal unlike any the world…
This rare white lemuroid possum is just one of the species that will see dramatic effects of climate change.
Mike Trennery
Australia is already feeling the effects of climate change, with record-breaking temperatures not just over summer, but over the past 12 months as well. Research suggests that such events are many times…
Greg Hunt will face hurdles in his plan to stop rainforest logging, but there is much he could do now.
Rainforest Action Network
Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt’s ambition to broker a new global rainforest recovery plan reopens an important conversation about Australia’s role in tackling tropical deforestation. And it…
An aerial view of the Cononaco River in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with a huge emergent Ceiba tree in the foreground.
“Nothing would do more to rapidly decrease the risk of climate change than a major plan to protect global rainforests” – Opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt, media release, 30 August. Launching…
Road to nowhere: The human impact on rainforests is highly tangible.
Flickr/Rainforest Action Network
With the global population now well over seven billion there are few remaining parts of the world relatively untouched by human activity. We assess the current state and future prospects of five final…
Conservation Director, Wildlife Ecologist and Microbiologist at the African Conservation Foundation. Lecturer and board member at the Institute of Biodiversity and Non-Profit Studies, University of Buea
Honorary Fellow, Law School; Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sydney University, The University of Western Australia