A shift from poverty-driven to industry-driven deforestation threatens the world's tropical forests but offers new opportunities for conservation, according to an article coauthored by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.

A new study by one of the world’s leading forestry research institutes warns that the new push to “reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation,” known by the acronym REDD, is imperiled by a routine failure to grasp the root causes of deforestation.

Much of the discussion at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, will focus on monitoring tropical deforestation and the critical role that remote sensing systems will play in the development of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) mechanisms – policies designed to compensate rainforest nations for avoiding deforestation.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says using more energy from wood could cut greenhouse gases and reduce poverty.

As world leaders prepare to discuss conservation-friendly carbon credits in Bali and a regional initiative threatens a new wave of deforestation in the South American tropics, new research from the University of East Anglia and Brazil's Goeldi Museum highlights once again the irreplaceable importance of primary rain forest.

Congo, The Democratic Republic of the — Back in April, at the World Bank's spring meeting, there was much talk about the plight of the Congo rainforest.

It was almost too good to be true. When the Brazilian government announced last week that deforestation rates in the Amazon had dropped for the third year running, it was certainly a cause for celebration.

For the first time, scientists have used satellite images to demonstrate a link between rapid city growth and rainfall patterns, as well as to assess compliance with an international treaty to protect wetlands.

In the mostly desert nation of Mali, environmentalists and government officials are concerned about the increasing amount of wood used, largely for cooking, in the capital, Bamako. If the trend is not reversed, the government predicts Mali will be consuming more than it can supply within the next three years, accelerating the advancement of the Sahara desert.

Orangutans are highly intelligent and are one of man's closest relatives. Found primarily in Indonesia, their name in English means "People of the Forest." Just a century ago, their numbers were plentiful, but deforestation, illegal hunting and natural disasters have left these large, red apes on the verge of extinction.

The global carbon cycle plays a vital role in climate change and is of intense importance to policy makers, but significant knowledge gaps remain in our understanding of it. Several scientists at the Envisat Symposium this week have highlighted research projects using ESA satellites to understand better this complex process.