Climate Change News & Successes | The Nature Conservancy

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Learn about our most recent successes, developments and news on climate change and global warming.

Village children display freshly caught fish at the Long Laay village on the banks of the Sagah River in the Bornean forest of the Berau district, East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia. The Nature Conservancy is working with partners and villagers in the Bornean forests of the Berau district for reduced-impact logging. Surprisingly simple changes to how a company logs a forest can yield more intact forests, cleaner water, healthier and happier local villagers, and, on a global scale, more trees sequestering carbon and fighting climate change. © Bridget Besaw

Together with our conservation partners, The Nature Conservancy is developing practical and cost-effective nature-based solutions around the world to help people slow the rate of climate change and deal with its unavoidable impacts.

Calling on our six decades of experience protecting nature, we use sound science and rigorous standards to test strategies and launch projects that can guide sound policy. We work to keep carbon out of the atmosphere by protecting, managing and restoring forests, and to keep nature, and the people who depend on it, healthy.

Learn more about our most recent successes, developments and news on climate change.

Features

Orlando Harvey © Students of the World

Helping Nature Help Us All

Nature – and the people it helps protect – are the stars of these films. Click below to hear their stories and check out the videos.

Qatar skyline. © Flickr user Joi (used under Creative Commons License)

Conference of the Parties on Climate Change

Learn more about this year's UN Climate "Conference of the Parties" (COP18) in Doha, Qatar.

Landscape view of the Child's Meadow property, 1,440 acres of protected working ranch and nearly pristine mountain meadows that are home to the headwaters for Deer Creek and a variety of wildlife, located near the southern entrance of Lassen Volcanic National Park, northern California. © Ian Shive

Our Forest Carbon Projects: Get the Facts

Forest destruction produces as much as 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions — more than from all the planes, trains and automobiles on Earth.

Carbon monitoring in forest one of the land use types that WAC (ICRAF (now World Agroforestry Centre or WAC) carbon measurement project) is using to determine the carbon load of the entire Berau District. This carbon monitoring project is the “ground-truthing” portion of the REDD project. The object of the carbon measurement project is to determine the carbon load of the 17 different land use types (teak plantation, palm oil and forest – all photographed, also coffee, cocoa, forest concessions (logged), industry forests (planted), etc…). Using GIS they select locations in Berau to represent the different land use types. They then select the site and by throwing a stick locate one corner of the 200 meter transect. After setting it up with a rope, they locate random areas around the transect and using 20 cm transect squares they determine the “wet” weight of the top 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm and 20-30 cm. They weigh the samples, then put them in a bag to take back to the lab. At the lab, they dry the material and weigh the “dry” weight. They will use the carbon load data, together with GPS data of land use types throughout the Berau District to determine the carbon load of the District and the changes over time. This data will be used by the Conservancy and partners in developing the REDD approach in the Berau District. © Bridget Besaw

Success Hinges on Including Forests and Indigenous People

The Conservancy ensures that local communities must be engaged in decision-making around our forest carbon projects so local people can benefit.

An aerial view showing deforestation for cattle ranching at São Félix do Xingu, a municipality in the Brazilian Amazon that has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the country. Understanding that conversion to agriculture and cattle ranching is the greatest threat to the Amazon rainforest, the Conservancy works in strategic municipalities of the Brazilian Amazon – such as São Félix do Xingu – to implement strategies to control deforestation and promote the responsible production of soy and beef among farmers and ranchers. São Félix is also one of the focal areas for the Conservancy’s work on demonstrating how REDD programs can work on the ground. © Haroldo Palo Jr.

Stopping Deforestation on Amazonian Frontier

Transforming a Brazilian municipality from a lawless hotspot of deforestation into a leader in Amazon conservation.

oung workers take a break from sorting coffee berries on a private farm in Finca Los Tarrales, a nature reserve outside San Lucas Toliman in the Guatemalan highlands. © Susan Ellis

Take a Global View of Climate Change

Writing in Politico, Nature Conservancy CEO teams up with his counterpart for Oxfam America to call for global solutions to climate change.

The nut-like seed of the Paraná pine is edible for humans and wildlife alike, in the Araucária Forest region of Parana, Brazil. The reserve is part of the Conservancy's Araucária Forest Integrated Program on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. Habitat: Temperate forest. Ecoregion: Brazilian araucaria. © Zig Koch

Project Certified for Fighting Climate Change

A project in one of the world’s most threatened forests is proving that conservation is not only good for biodiversity, it's also good for the climate.

Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris) in Nebraska grassland. © Chris Helzer

New Analysis Projects State-by-State Temperature Increases

What will temperatures be like in your state in 100 years? If current trends continue, chances are they’ll be much hotter than they are today — especially if you live in the American Midwest.

Planet Change

How is your planet changing? How can we save nature and solve climate change? How can you make a difference? Visit our blog, Planet Change.