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News articles on Rainforests

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Mongabay.com news articles on rainforests in blog format. Updated regularly.

40 percent of the Amazon could be grassland by 2050
(3/22/2006) Scientists today warned that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest could be lost by 2050 due to agricultural expansion unless strict measures are taken to protect the world's largest tropical forest.


Amazon rainforest grows fastest during dry season
(3/21/2006) New research out of the University of Arizona has found that the Amazon rainforest grows fastest during the dry season. The finding counters the convention in other ecosystems where peak plant growth generally occurs during the rainy season.


Jungle trekking in Malaysia's Taman Negara
(3/21/2006) Taman Negara is Malaysia's largest and best-known national park. Spanning 4343 square kilometers, the protected forest area is home to some of southeast Asia'apos;apos;s rarest creatures including tigers, the Malaysian tapir, forest elephants, and the Sumatran rhino. Scientists believe that these rainforests may be the oldest on Earth. Untouched by glaciers during recent ice ages, Taman Negara'apos;apos;s forests have remained largely the same for some 130 million years. This stability produces some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth: more than 350 species of birds, 14000 species of plants, and 210 species of mammals can be found in Taman Negara.


Brazil to flood Amazon rainforest for hydroelectric power
(3/17/2006) Brazil's plans to dam two rivers in the Amazon basin to generate power threaten a treasure trove of animals and plants in a region with one of the world'apos;apos;s richest arrays of wildlife, environmentalists say.


13 rare rhinos found in Borneo survey by WWF
(3/17/2006) World Wildlife Fund today released the results of a field survey from the island of Borneo which found that poaching has significantly reduced Borneo's population of Sumatran rhinos, but a small group continues to survive in the "Heart of Borneo," a region covered with vast tracts of rain forest.


Malaysia to phase out Borneo logging in parts of Sabah state
(3/16/2006) The Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo announced it will phase out logging in large parts of its remaining rainforests. Sabah, once home to some of the world's most biodiverse forests, was largely logged out during the 1980s and 1990s but some parts of the state still support wild populations of endangered orangutans. In recent years, the Malaysian government has set aside protected areas and sponsored reforestation projects in the state.


Harmless frogs gain protection by mimicking toxic species
(3/13/2006) When predators learn to avoid a highly toxic frog, they generalize, and this allows a harmless frog to mimic and be more abundant than a frog whose poison packs less punch, biologists at The University of Texas at Austin studying poison dart frogs in the Amazon have discovered.


Crazy jungle rodent is 11 million years old
(3/9/2006) The newly discovered species of rodent found in a marketplace in Central Laos turns out to not be so new after all. The Laotian rock rat, as the long-whiskered and stubby-legged rodent is now known, is a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years. It is a member of a family that, until now, was only known from the fossil record.


Camisea pipeline leaks in rainforest of Peru
(3/8/2006) The Camisea gas pipeline in the Peruvian Amazon has leaked for the fifth time in 18 months according to Reuters. Two people were injured and a small fire was ignited by the spill of 750 cubic meters of gas.


Papua New Guinea's forests under threat from corruption, illegal logging
(3/8/2006) Illegal logging is destroying large areas of rainforest in Papua New Guinea according to a report released last week by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.


Amazon to be logged sustainably says Brazil
(3/6/2006) Last week Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced a plan to allow sustainable logging across 3 percent of the Amazon rain forest. The law is aimed at undermining destructive illegal logging activities while generating revenue for forest management and protection, and income for rural Brazilians in the region who often must rely on subsistence agriculture or employment on ranches and plantations under sometimes slave-like conditions.


Malaria linked to Amazon deforestation
(2/2/2006) A pair studies in the Amazon rainforest suggest a link between deforestation and an increased risk of malaria. The first study, conducted in the Peruvian Amazon and published in January's issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, found that malaria epidemics in the region were correlated with deforestation. The later research, released in last week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that forest clearing around settlements in the Brazilian Amazon increases the short-term risk of malaria by creating areas of standing water in which mosquitoes can lay their eggs.


In search of Bigfoot, scientists may uncover unknown biodiversity in Malaysia
(2/1/2006) Malaysian scientists are scouring the rainforests of Johor state in search of the legendary ape-man Bigfoot, supposedly sighted late last year. But they are more likely to encounter some less fantastic but unique creatures that dwell in these still unexplored ecosystems.


Mother nature encourages diversity in rainforest trees
(1/26/2006) Older forests have a greater diversity of trees than younger forests according to research published in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The study -- conducted by 33 ecologists from 12 countries -- found that nature encourages diversity by selecting for less common trees as the trees mature, indicating that diversity has ecological importance to tropical forests.


Parks, indian reserves slow Amazon deforestation
(1/25/2006) A new study shows that parks and indigenous reserves in the Amazon help slow deforestation.


Venezuela plans 5000-mile pipeline across Amazon rain forest
(1/25/2006) Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, announced a plan to build a massive gas pipeline that would carry natural gas from the oil rich state 5,000 miles south. Environmentalists fear that the project could damage the Amazon rain forest by polluting waterways and creating roads that would attract developers and poor farmers, while analysts question the wisdom and viability of the plan which may cost $20-50 billion depending on who makes the estimate.


Indigenous Amazonians Display Core Understanding Of Geometry
(1/23/2006) Researchers in France and at Harvard University have found that isolated indigenous peoples deep in the Amazon readily grasp basic concepts of geometry such as points, lines, parallelism and right angles, and can use distance, angle and other relationships in maps to locate hidden objects. The results suggest that geometry is a core set of intuitions present in all humans, regardless of their language or schooling.


Goodbye to West Africa's Rainforests
(1/22/2006) West Africa's once verdant and extensive rainforests are now a historical footnote. Gone to build ships and furniture, feed hungry mouths, and supply minerals and gems to the West, the band of tropical forests that once extended from Guinea to Cameroon are virtually gone. The loss of West Africa's rainforests have triggered a number of environmental problems that have contributed to social unrest and exacerbated poverty across the region.


Malaysia's deforestation rate increasing rapidly - 86% jump since 1990s
(12/28/2005) Malaysia's deforestation rate is accelerating faster than any other tropical country in the world according to data from the United Nations.


New resource documents Caribbean marine life of Bocas del Toro
(12/27/2005) Coral reefs, coastal rainforest, land-grab, industrial bananas and organic cacao, mangroves, tourist boom, eclectic cultural mix: A Caribbean Journal of Science special issue presents the first scientific overview of the marine environment in Bocas del Toro Province.


Brazilian Reporter Defends Amazon
(12/25/2005) Journalist Lucio Flavio Pinto's crusade against the destroyers of the Amazonian rain forest has earned him an International Press Freedom Award _ along with death threats and some 32 lawsuits aimed at keeping him silent.


Dangerous times on Brazil's Amazon frontier
(12/22/2005) Amazon land activist Deurival Santiago has the look of a hunted man. Activists like Santiago often protect peasant settlers in jungle areas where the government still has little control. That puts them in conflict with large-scale loggers, ranchers and land speculators pushing into an area of Para state known as the Terra do Meio, or Middle Land. It's the main battleground in the fight to slow destruction of the world's largest rain forest.


Bolivian rainforest certified to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
(12/20/2005) The Bolivian government, The Nature Conservancy and the Bolivian conservation organization Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza announced that the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project is the first conservation-based initiative in the world to be fully certified for reducing greenhouse gas emissions using internationally accepted standards.


Tsunami relief risks rainforest destruction
(12/19/2005) Today WWF warned that donor countries must include sustainably sourced building materials in their long-term aid packages to avoid a second ecological disaster stemming from deforestation. According to WWF, Indonesia's Aceh province will require at least 860,000 cubic meters of sawn timber for the construction of 200,000 homes over the next five years. The conservation organization says that only a small fraction of this additional demand can be met locally without resorting to illegal logging that would be damaging to Sumatra's biologically important rain forests.


Australia warns neighbors to stop illegal rainforest logging
(12/19/2005) Australia warned its neighbors to crack down on illegal logging in their rainforests or face trade restrictions according to an article in The Australian.


Ability to capture large prey may be origin of army ants' cooperative behavior
(12/16/2005) Animal behaviorist Sean O'Donnell was having an afternoon cup of coffee when a giant earthworm exploded out of the leaf litter covering the jungle floor in an Ecuadorean nature preserve. The worm, later measured at nearly 16 inches long, was pursued by a column of hundreds of raiding army ants that quickly paralyzed or killed it.


Some Amazon rainforest trees are over 1000 years old finds study
(12/13/2005) Trees in the Amazon rainforest are older than originally believed according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team of American and Brazilian researchers using radiocarbon dating methods to study tree growth in the world's largest tropical rainforest found that up to half of all trees greater than 10 centimeters in diameter are more than 300 years old. Some of the trees are 750 to 1,000 years old says Susan Trumbore, a professor of Earth system science at University of California at Irvine and one of the authors of the study.


UN agrees to "rainforest conservation for emissions" deal
(12/11/2005) Friday, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Montreal, the U.N. agreed to a proposal that allows developing nations to receive financial compensation from industrialized countries for agreeing to preserve their rainforests. Environmentalists hope the deal -- set forth by ten developing countries led by Papua New Guinea -- will give developing nations a financial reason to get more involved in climate talks while safeguarding globally important ecosystems.


Amazon drought continues, worst on record
(12/11/2005) The worst drought ever recorded in the Amazon continues according to an update from The New York Times. The drought has turned rivers into grassy mud flats, killed tens of millions of fish, stranded hundreds of communities, and brought disease and economic despair to the region.


Brazilian accused of nun's murder says death not contract killing
(12/10/2005) The confessed killer of a 73-year-old American nun who defended the poor in Brazil's Amazon rain forest told a court on Friday he shot her in self-defense, not in a contract killing.


China moves into Peruvian rainforest in search of oil
(12/8/2005) Peru signed an $83 million contract with China National Petroleum Corporation allowing the Chinese firm to explore for oil in the country's southeastern rainforests, arguably the most biodiverse place on earth.


Amazon deforestation slows in Brazil for 2005
(12/5/2005) Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell 37% for the 2004-2004 year according to Brazilian government figures released today. Between July 2004 and August 2005, 7,298 square miles of rainforest (18,900 square kilometers) -- an area almost half the size of Switzerland -- were destroyed. Last year the figure was 10,088 square miles (26,129 sq km kilometers) and since 1978 some 206,250 square miles (534,200 sq km) of forest has been lost.


Amazon rainforest biodiversity due to biology not climate change says study
(12/5/2005) The biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest results from biological factors, not climate change as widely thought, says new research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Scientists have long argued that the species richness of tropical forests could be due to climate change-induced fragmentation, known as the "forest refuge: theory, and other external factors that caused geographic isolation. Now, researchers from University College London say that biological influences play a greater role in driving species evolution.


Congo rainforest - 600,000 sq km slated for logging
(12/5/2005) The World Bank will meet Thursday to decide whether it will fund large-scale logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo's rainforests. The country, home to the second largest rainforest in the world after Brazil, is emerging from years of civil strife which resulted in the deaths of some 3.8 million people from violence and disease.


Mysterious carnivore found in Borneo rain forest
(12/5/2005) WWF researchers may have discovered a new, mysterious carnivore species in the dense, central forests of Borneo.


Study uncovers how thousands of tree species coexist in rain forest
(11/30/2005) A group of scientists have a developed a new theory to explain why the biodiversity of tropical rain forests is so high and how species are assembled in an ecological community. According to their research presented in Nature, the answer can be found in 'neutral theory' whereby community membership is determined by just five fundamental processes. The scientists say that species will regulate themselves to make room for each other if they follow the 'membership rules.' The new theory undermines the conventional 'niche theory' which has been traditionally used to explain community assemblages.


Rainforests worth $1.1 trillion for carbon alone in Coalition nations
(11/29/2005) If a coalition of developing countries has its way, there could soon be new forests sprouting up in tropical regions. The group of ten countries, led by Papua New Guinea, has proposed that wealthy countries pay them to preserve their rainforests. The Coalition for Rainforest Nations argues that all countries should pay for the benefits -- from carbon sequestration to watershed protection -- that tropical rainforests provide.


Developing countries: pay us to save rainforests
(11/27/2005) At this week's United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal a coalition of tropical developing countries plans to propose that wealthy countries pay them to preserve their rainforests. The group of 10 countries, led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, will argue that they should be compensated for the services rainforests provide the rest of the world.


Exploring freshwater fish habitats in the rainforest of Peru
(11/26/2005) This fall the editor of mongabay.com, a leading environmental science and tropical freshwater fish information site, traveled to the Peruvian Amazon and examined habitats for freshwater fish. As a result of this effort, two new biotope descriptions have been posted on the site. The descriptions include underwater photographs for those interested in replicating the natural conditions of these habitats.


Goldman Sachs first investment bank to adopt comprehensive environmental policy
(11/22/2005) The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) today issued a release commending Goldman Sachs for becoming the first global investment bank to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy. The policy acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change and calls for urgent action by public policy makers and federal regulators to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Pictures from Peru
(11/14/2005) Mongabay.com, a leading rainforest information web site, has launched a new section featuring photographs from Peru. More than 1900 photos from Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, and the Amazon have been added to the site.


FAO deforestation stats are bogus
(11/14/2005) The Rainforest Foundation today claimed that new figures released today by the United Nations on the 'state of the world's forests' are misleading, inaccurate and understate the real extent of deforestation and damage to forests globally.


Vampires kill 23 in Brazil, deforestation blamed
(11/7/2005) Rabid vampire bats killed 23 people and attacked more than 1,000 Brazilian officials confirmed last week. The bats have been displaced from their normal rain forest environment by worsening deforestation in the region. In an attempt to slow deaths, health agencies have treated 1,350 people with anti-rabies medication in the past two months.


Logging can have low impact on Amazon rainforest says FAO
(11/5/2005) The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has issued a response to a study that found selective logging in the Amazon is highly destructive. The research, conducted by scientists from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, was published in Science last month. FAO argues that selective logging is not necessarily destructive and can be done with low impact on the remaining forests, if the proper techniques are applied.


Rainforest conservation worth the cost shows new study
(11/2/2005) The economic benefits of protecting a rainforest reserve outweigh the costs of preserving it, says University of Alberta research--the first of its kind to have conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the conservation of species diversity. "The traditional moral and aesthetic arguments have been made about why we should conserve the biodiversity in rainforests, but little has been done that looks at whether it makes pure economic sense to do so," said Dr. Robin Naidoo, who did his PhD at the U of A in biological sciences and rural economy. "We provide some good evidence from a strict economic side, that yes, it does."


Logging impact worse than thought in the Amazon
(11/1/2005) Research released earlier this month in Science found that Brazil's Amazon rain forest is being degraded twice as fast as deforestation figures suggest. Selective logging, where only one or two valuable tree species are harvested from an area, is driving the forest degradation. The findings have important implications for "sustainable harvesting" schemes that have been promoted as ecologically-sound alternatives to traditional harvesting techniques.


Hunting ban threatens Congo forest dwellers
(10/31/2005) A blanket ban on hunting in the Republic of Congo has made life even more difficult for the Baka community, an indigenous hunter-gatherer group living in the rain forests near the timber-concession areas in the north of the country.


Biopiracy fears hampering research in Brazilian Amazon
(10/30/2005) Somewhere in the Amazon there may be flora and fauna that hold the key to curing diseases ranging from cancer to multiple sclerosis. That, at any rate, is the dream. But the reality is that the search for the next miracle drugs is being hampered by a deep Brazilian suspicion of "biopiracy."


Congo's Kabila calls for rainforest protection
(10/30/2005) The world's second largest rainforest stands a greater chance of being protected after Congo's president finally backed a largely ignored ban on new logging, conservation group Greenpeace said on Friday.


Pre-Columbian Amazon supported millions of people
(10/18/2005) Controversial evidence uncovered over the past decade suggests that the Amazon rainforest was once home to large sedentary populations of people. Besides the well-known empires of the Inca and their predecessors, the Huari, millions of people once lived in the forests and shaped the environment to suit their own needs.



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