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By Jack Hewson. Originally published by Forests News. Most people want to do the right thing in life. But sometimes doing what’s right can be costly or inconvenient. So additional incentives are needed to encourage good behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the palm oil industry. Producing palm oil sustainably requires producers to, […]

Bill Laurance, James Cook University Conservationists and environmental scientists are used to bad news. So when there’s some really good news, it’s important to hear that as well. While the battle is far from over, there has been a series of breakthroughs in the long-running battle to protect the imperilled Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra, […]

By Louis Wertz (EcoAgriculture Partners). Originally published by EcoAgriculture Partners. Integrated planning for sustainable development gets more complicated as you move toward population centers, but it also gets more critical. Last year at the 12th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Degradation, I heard a number of examples, especially during a […]

By Tefera Mengistu Woldie, Ababu Anage and Ivo Mulder. Originally published by the UN-REDD Programme. A year has passed since an inception workshop was held in Addis Ababa to economically value Ethiopia’s forests. Now a validation workshop has ushered in the final phase of the initiative. The full studies are expected to be launched in June at […]

By Katie Barry. Originally published by PLOS Ecology Community. Man-made climate change and large-scale alteration of the landscape are affecting the planet and the ecosystem services upon which humans depend.  These alterations include loss of forests that were once large carbon sinks, loss of pollination services provided by bees, loss of ecosystem resilience in the face […]

Jack Payne, University of Florida Your parents were wrong: money does grow on trees. Cities routinely rake up tens of millions of dollars from their urban forests annually in ways that are not always obvious. Leafy canopies lower summer air conditioning bills, but more shade also means less blade to maintain thousands of acres of […]