The Nature Conservancy is hosting Nov. 5 and Nov. 9 Washington, D.C. forums on strategies for reducing forest emissions while benefiting people who live in the world’s forests. Read today’s post to learn more and register to attend or watch via webcast.

In her 7th post from the front lines of Amazon deforestation, Rane Cortez witnesses a landmark moment for São Felix when indigenous groups join together with government agencies to achieve zero illegal deforestation.

In the final post of a four-part series, forest carbon scientist Bronson Griscom and a team from The Nature Conservancy go deep into the Amazon frontier and find a remnant of healthy rainforest with an abundant array of plant and animal life. View the videos and come along on the adventure!

In her 6th post from the frontlines of Amazon deforestation, Rane Cortez meets Wilton Batista, president of the Rancher’s Union in São Felix, to get the rancher’s perspective about stopping illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

In her 5th post from the frontlines of Amazon deforestation, Rane Cortez meets the indigenous Kayapo people that came to São Felix to dance and share their culture, perspectives and the impacts of climate change.

In her 4th post from the frontlines of Amazon deforestation, Rane Cortez interviews the Environmental Secretary of São Felix do Xingu, a northern Brazilian municipality about the size of Austria, where work is underway to slow the illegal burning and clearing of forests.

When I think about chocolate, in addition to thinking about brownies, I think about saving rainforests and fighting carbon pollution. This week I sat down to talk with leaders of a local agricultural cooperative in São Felix do Xingu, here in the Brazilian Amazon, that helps its members plant cacao – the fruit that eventually becomes the delicious treat we all crave.

The Nature Conservancy’s Rane Cortez blogs about her visit to the Amazon frontier town of São Felix do Xingu. Over the next eight weeks she will share her perspectives about how accelerated economic growth and the need for environmental conservation are meeting in one of the most dynamic parts of the Amazon.

The Nature Conservancy’s Rane Cortez blogs about her visit to the Amazon frontier town of São Felix do Xingu. Over the next eight weeks she will share her perspectives about how accelerated economic growth and the need for environmental conservation are meeting in one of the most dynamic parts of the Amazon.

REDD+ is a critical piece of the climate-change puzzle, and this forest solution also has the potential to be transformative in benefiting communities, ecosystems, and biodiversity.

A mountain stream’s gurgling and the soft voice of Kao Sisompou, a village forester from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, reverberated off the 300-year-old stone walls of the San Jose ruins. I was seated in the middle of a long nave in what had once been a majestic Spanish church in Antigua, Guatemala, and I reflected on the juxtaposition of setting and the speech’s subject. In a church that had been saved from destruction, I was party to a discussion of the world’s disappearing forests, which are in bad need of rescue.

Forests have come to stand as a near-universal symbol for nature and the environmental movement.

But in the environmental context, green really means one thing: forests. Forests have come to stand as a near-universal symbol for nature and the environmental movement. They even speak to the increasing percentage of the global population that lives in cities, who are far more dependent on forests than they perhaps realize.

This connection — between people and forests — underpins the second Asia Pacific Forestry Week that took place from Nov. 7-11 in Beijing (and is also the theme of the 2011 UN-declared International Year of Forests).

Students in Richmond, Virginia get jazzed about the rain forest and do something about it!

Third graders at a Richmond, Virginia elementary school got inspired and, as you can see in this Nature Conservancy video, enthusiastically went to work to “adopt” five acres of rainforest.

In the short video at the top of this post, I provide a brief introduction to REDD+. Pay attention because there’s a quiz at the end! So tune in, and test your knowledge of this complex, but exciting, new idea. And, leave a comment on what you thought about the video below.

The Nature Conservancy, is involved in a very exciting agreement between the Indonesian and U.S. governments and WWF to inject significant additional investments into forest conservation efforts on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.

Will Brazil’s deforestation rate rise this year with uncertainty over forest laws?

Working for healthy tropical forests from still-chilly Norway.