No fewer than 1.6 billion people — nearly a quarter of the world’s population — depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forests are also critical to maintaining biodiversity, mitigating climate change and enabling key ecosystem functions that regulate the biosphere. And yet about 45 per cent of the world’s forests have already been cleared. Here are some hard numbers to ponder that tell us how and why we should stop.

Wild Asia is a young, Malaysia-based organisation helping to lead the charge for nature conservation and ‘green’ business practices in Southeast Asia. Established in 2003, it is a social enterprise sensitive to the connections between natural areas and communities reliant upon them. Fundamental to its growth has been the equally sociable building of partnerships with…

The Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria has announced the release of landmark universal sustainable tourism criteria, a new global framework intended as a guide to the practice of sustainable tourism. The criteria focus on best practices in four fundamental areas: maximizing social and economic benefits to local communities reducing negative impacts on cultural heritage…