Founded in 1984, we first began working to protect forests in the mid-1990s, through advocating a global forests convention. By the late 1990s it became clear a more direct approach was needed to curb tropical deforestation, we changed tack and began documenting illegal logging in a vital Indonesia orangutan habitat
The work of our Forests team is about far more than trees and the protection of the Earth’s precious remaining forests – it also keeps a sharp watch on the issue of forest conversion for cash crops, especially palm oil, and on related human rights issues such as corruption, governance and land rights
When EIA was created in 1984, its founders had a clear vision to create a nimble organisation which could pioneer a new, powerful campaigning approach based on field investigations to obtain documented evidence of crimes against nature, which could be used for positive change
Today is the UN International Day of Forests and we’d like to share with you a success story, a success for EIA’s investigators in the forests of Papua but especially, in the long run, a huge win for an indigenous people in gaining control of their ancestral lands
Last September, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) listed the entire genus of Dalbergia – more commonly known as rosewoods or redwoods – on its Appendix II, granting the species significantly higher protection through limiting trade
The beginning of any New Year should be filled with hope and expectation but 2017 is barely weeks old and already several multi-tonne seizures of pangolin scales in Africa and the end markets in Asia has injected a dash of forlorn reality