The first rice harvest in Kaliki Village, part of a mega-farm project in South Papua, Indonesia, in March.

The Indonesian government is fast-tracking a massive agricultural project that is turning 7 million acres of tropical forest into rice and sugarcane farms. Critics say it is the world’s largest deforestation project and would upend the lives of thousands of Indigenous people.

By Fred Pearce

  • FILM CONTEST WINNER

    In the Yucatan, the High Cost of a Boom in Factory Hog Farms

    In “Slaughter-land” — the First-Place Winner of the 2025 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — two Latin American filmmakers document how hundreds of mega-farms that contain tens of thousands of pigs are trampling Indigenous rights and befouling the air and water in the Yucatan.

  • INTERVIEW

    In the Transition to Renewable Energy, China Is at a Crossroads

    For the first time, wind and solar are beginning to displace coal power in China, causing emissions to drop. Analyst Lauri Myllyvirta explores the challenges ahead for policymakers, who must now choose between propping up coal or doubling down on the shift to clean energy.

    By Jeremy Deaton

  • E360 Film Contest

    In India, a Young Poacher Evolves into a Committed Conservationist

    In “Chasing Birds” — Second-Place Winner of the 2025 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — filmmaker Salma Sultana Barbhuiya explores how Rustom Basumatary, who came of age during a time of violent conflict in the Indian state of Assam, found identity and purpose in nature.

E360 Film Contest

The Amazon Rainforest Approaches a Point of No Return

In “Amazon Tipping Point” — Third-Place Winner of the 2025 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — Brazilian filmmakers capture striking images of clear-cutting and explore how human activity is so damaging the world’s largest rainforest that it will not be able to recover.

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A Baltic cod caught off the coast of northern Germany.

Biodiversity

Shrinking Cod: How Humans Are Impacting the Evolution of Species

Biologists once thought that humans did little to affect the course of evolution in the short term. But a recent study of cod in the Baltic Sea reveals how overfishing and selective harvest of the largest fish has caused genetic changes that favor slower growth and smaller size.

By Jim Robbins

  • Cities

    ‘Sponge City’: Copenhagen Adapts to a Wetter Future

    Climate change is bringing ever more precipitation and rising seas to low-lying Denmark. In response to troubling predictions, Copenhagen is enacting an ambitious plan to build hundreds of nature-based and engineered projects to soak up, store, and redistribute floods.

    By Paul Hockenos

  • INTERVIEW

    On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past

    For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent's forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist Lori Daniels talks about the long history of Indigenous burning and why the practice must be restored to protect against catastrophic fires.

    By Nicola Jones

  • Solutions

    Paying the People: Liberia’s Novel Plan to Save Its Forests

    Plagued by illegal logging and corruption, Liberia has been losing its forests at an alarming rate. But its new strategy to make direct payments to communities that agree to prohibit cutting and protect their trees is seen as a potential model for other developing nations.

    By Fred Pearce

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