Compared to other tropical countries, Indonesia has made strong progress in reducing deforestation in recent years. The Indonesian government released its official deforestation numbers in May 2018, showing that the rate of forest loss has been declining from 2015 to 2018. The data reported deforestation of 440,000 hectares in 2018, slightly lower than the 2017 […]

In a small village in Riau, Indonesia, community leaders have detected a fire. According to active fires alerts on Global Forest Watch (GFW) Fires, there is one burning on a nearby peatland. With the current wind patterns, the village could soon be shrouded in a thick, toxic smog. But the alert has given the community […]

By Nancy Harris, Susan Minnemeyer, Nigel Sizer, Sarah Alix Mann and Octavia Payne New analysis reveals even more troubling news about Indonesia’s fires crisis. Emissions from this year’s fires have reached 1.62 billion metric tons of CO2—bumping Indonesia from the sixth-largest emitter in the world up to the fourth-largest in  just six weeks. The analysis […]

By Susan Minnemeyer The land and forest fires burning across Indonesia spiked to historic highs this month, causing a thick haze of toxic smoke that enveloped cities across Indonesia and neighboring countries. Officials across the region have pledged to investigate the perpetrators of these fires and hold those responsible accountable. A new campaign from Tomnod and WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform allows […]

By James Anderson Hundreds of fires have sprung to life in Alaska’s forests and grasslands this week, according to Alaskan authorities and confirmed by satellite-based data on Global Forest Watch. Stories in the Washington Post, Mashable, and elsewhere have reported on the blazes, which have followed a record month of hot temperatures and low snowpack […]