Tropical forests provide global climate regulation ecosystem services and their clearing is a significant source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resultant radiative forcing of climate change. However, consensus on pan-tropical forest carbon dynamics is lacking. The researchers present a new estimate that employs recommended good practices to quantify gross tropical forest aboveground carbon (AGC) loss from 2000 to 2012 through the integration of Landsat-derived tree canopy cover, height, intactness and forest cover loss and GLAS-lidar derived forest biomass.

Researchers are racing to determine whether forests will continue to act as a brake on climate change by soaking up more carbon.

Mega hydropower projects in tropical forests pose a major emergent threat to terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Despite the unprecedented number of existing, under-construction and planned hydroelectric dams in lowland tropical forests, long-term effects on biodiversity have yet to be evaluated.

On March 9th and 10th, 2015, an independent panel met for two days at Florida International University’s College of Law to discuss the likely environmental impacts associated with the proposed inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua.

In December of last year, the Nicaraguan government began work on the much-debated interoceanic canal. The proposed project would divide Nicaragua’s biodiverse rainforests, coastal reefs, and the iconic Lake Nicaragua.

In a year when targets on forest loss and restoration are likely to be set nationally and at the UN level, this study by WWF-UK and Climate Advisers quantifies the ambition of commitments currently stated by forest countries to slow and reverse their forest loss – individually and collectively.

Protected public lands are insufficient to halt the loss of global biodiversity. However, most commercial landowners need incentives to engage in conservation.

The Planting Empowerment project is restoring deforested land for future generations

The vast tropical forests of Amazonia account for almost one-fifth of the world's terrestrial vegetation carbon stock

Despite a large increase in the area of selectively logged tropical forest worldwide, the carbon stored in deadwood across a tropical forest degradation gradient at the landscape scale remains poorly documented. Many carbon stock studies have either focused exclusively on live standing biomass or have been carried out in primary forests that are unaffected by logging, despite the fact that coarse woody debris (deadwood with ≥10 cm diameter) can contain significant portions of a forest's carbon stock.

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