In the Amazon, beetles and flowering trees have developed a tight bond. Hundreds of beetle species thrive off of and pollinate blossoms, helping to maintain some of the highest biodiversity on Earth.
A vast plume of Saharan dust blankets Havana, Cuba, June 24, 2020.
Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images
From June through October, it’s not unusual for huge Saharan dust plumes to blow across the Atlantic. They can darken skies but also bring calmer weather and electric sunsets. Here’s how they form.
A Brazilian soldier puts out fires.
AP Photo/Leo Correa
Destruction of rainforests through wildfires or deforestation may harm human health. As these forests disappear, we may be losing precious medicinal plants that hold treatments for various diseases.
It’s crucial to know the relationship between biodiversity and carbon storage to assess whether carbon-focused conservation will also protect the most biodiverse forests.
A tiny Choerophryne frog from the Foja Mountains in New Guinea. This one is a calling male.
Tim Laman
Paul Oliver, Australian National University and Mike Lee, Flinders University
Tiny frogs that have spread across New Guinea’s isolated mountains could face an uncertain future if a warming climate pushes them higher up the peaks.
As Brazil struggles through a political and economic crisis, its soybean farmers are thriving. Their growing clout could trigger new deforestation and undercut the nation’s climate change pledges.
The Wet Tropics is Australia’s second-biggest earner of nature tourism dollars.
wettropics/gov.au
New data have revealed a disturbing trend in forest loss: the hearts of the world’s forests are disappearing. To stop them bleeding out, we’ll have to say ‘no’ to some developments.
Drought and deforestation have proved to be a volatile combination in Indonesia.
David Gilbert/Greenpeace
While Indonesia has taken steps to address the worst forest fires in living memory, a new palm oil alliance with Malaysia threatens to take a giant leap back.
Forests are vital to life on earth.
Forest image from www.shutterstock.com
What we think we know, don’t know and things that might surprise us about climate change and the environment.
Research by James Cook University was rapidly translated into policy that is helping to preserve Queensland’s regions against the effects of climate change.
Nathan Siemers/Flickr
It’s no exaggeration to say the tropics drive our planet’s carbon cycle – the constant transfer of carbon back and forth, on a global scale, between living things and the environment. Understanding the…
Rainforests in trouble in Indonesian Borneo.
Bill Laurance
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…
At the recent UN Climate Summit governments, business and NGOs vowed to stop deforestation by 2030.
Rainforest Action Network/Flickr
At the recent UN Climate Summit in New York there was little in the way of new climate policy announcements, but 27 countries did sign a new forest agreement — the New York Declaration on Forests. Some…