topic: Conservation

topic: Conservation

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Nepal Indigenous leaders refile writ petition against hydropower project
- In 2024, Indigenous Bhote-Singsa people filed a writ petition against a hydropower project expressing concerns over what they say is a flawed EIA, forged signatures and community rights violations in Lungbasamba landscape, a biocultural heritage home to endangered flora and fauna.
- More than a year since the petition, leaders say the construction work has progressed in the absence of an interim order from the court to halt the construction, which has impacted their livelihoods, supported by farming, yak herding and trade in medicinal herbs.
- Demanding the project’s cancellation with an interim order to halt the ongoing construction activities, and to declare the EIA void, leaders filed another petition in November.
- Given the criticisms over the project and impacts outlined by the EIA report, the company says it still looks forward to the project, which is set to be completed in 2028.

Top-down projects, exotic trees, weak tenure: Congo Basin restoration misses the mark
- Despite a panoply of projects — from tree-planting drives to agroforestry schemes — a new study finds that much of what’s happening in the name of “forest restoration” in the Congo Basin may not be restoring forests at all, but largely focused on growing nonnative, commodity species.
- The research found nearly two-thirds of projects favored planting exotic species over native ones, primarily because they grow more quickly, require less care, and their seeds are easier to source.
- It also noted a lack of ecological monitoring, with few initiatives tracking tree survival rates, soil recovery or carbon storage, and most lasting less than five years — far too short to measure real ecological impact.
- Beyond agroforestry and fuelwood plantations, the study calls for approaches that promote natural regeneration, restore native biodiversity and reconnect fragmented habitats.

Sumatran flood disaster may have wiped out a key Tapanuli orangutan population, scientists fear
- As many as 35 critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans — 4% of the species’ total population — may have been wiped out in the catastrophic floods and landslides that struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra recently, scientists warn, after the discovery of a carcass.
- Satellite and field evidence show massive destruction of the western block of the Batang Toru ecosystem, with thousands of hectares of steep forest slopes destroyed — an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape.
- Conservationists have lost contact with monitored orangutans in the disaster zone, raising fears more individuals were killed or displaced as feeding areas and valleys were obliterated.
- The tragedy has renewed calls to safeguard the Batang Toru ecosystem by halting industrial projects and granting it stronger protection, as climate-driven disasters escalate across Sumatra.

The Amazon’s lakes are heating up at ‘alarming’ rate, research finds
Five out of 10 lakes in the central Amazon had daytime temperatures over 37° Celsius, (98.6° Fahrenheit) during the region’s 2023 extreme heat wave, a recent study found. One of the most well-known water bodies is Tefé Lake in Amazonas state, northern Brazil. In September and October 2023, 209 pink and grey river dolphins, roughly […]
African environment programs still try to fill funding gap since USAID freeze
- Close to a year after the suspension of USAID funding in Africa, the future of many environmental programs remains uncertain.
- Alternative funding is sought from the EU, World Bank and private sector initiatives, yet experts say a significant climate finance gap remains, especially as some of these sources curtail their funding as well.
- Africa receives just 3-4% of global climate finance, according to the African Development Bank Group; while the continent contributes just 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains especially vulnerable to climate disasters.

Global manta and devil ray deaths far exceed earlier estimates: Study
- A new global assessment estimates more than 259,000 manta and devil rays (genus Mobula) die in fisheries each year, far exceeding previous figures, with researchers warning that the true toll is likely higher due to major data gaps.
- Small-scale fisheries account for 87% of global mortality, with India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Peru responsible for most mobulid deaths .
- The study documents steep, long-term declines, including in Mozambique, the Philippines and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Yet many losses came to light only recently due to late adoption of monitoring and weak reporting.
- Researchers say the recent uplisting of all mobulid species to CITES Appendix I, which bans international commercial trade, is a key step, but note that national-level protections, improved data reporting, gear reforms, and better spatial management are needed to reduce mortality.

Africa’s wildlife has lost a third of its ‘ecological power,’ study says
- A recent study quantifies the impact of biodiversity loss on ecological functions by tracking energy flows within them. It found that declines in birds and small mammals have led to a significant erosion of ecological functions in sub-Saharan Africa.
- The study crunched data on nearly 3,000 bird and mammal species found in the region, which performed 23 key ecosystem functions, ranging from pollination to nutrient disposal.
- In the paper, the researchers group animals according to the ecological roles they play. By taking into account species present in an area, their abundance, body sizes, diets, and metabolic rates, they turn the animal’s food consumption into a measure of energy flow.
- The analysis found that the “ecological power” of wild mammals and birds weakened drastically, by about 60%, in areas converted to agricultural land; however, in well-managed protected areas, ecological functions are almost 90% intact.

As fish catches fall and seas rise, Douala’s residents join efforts to restore mangroves
- Cameroon’s coastal fisheries are in decline, leaving fishers with dwindling catches — a crisis linked directly to the depletion of the country’s mangroves, experts say, which are breeding grounds for fish.
- The expansion of urban settlements, conversion of coastal land for agriculture, and sand extraction drives mangrove loss in Cameroon; another key driver is the use of mangrove wood for smoking fish.
- The Cameroon government and NGOs have set themselves an ambitious goal of restoring 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of mangrove forests by 2050.
- A key strategy involves engaging local communities in the replanting process and providing alternative livelihoods, such as urban farming and beekeeping, to reduce dependence on mangrove wood.

‘My mother would not be happy with the state of the planet’: Interview with Wanjira Mathai
- Twenty years after Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize, her daughter Wanjira Mathai says the world has grown more fragmented even as environmental crises deepen — but insists there are bright spots Africa must seize on.
- Wanjira warns that her mother would be troubled by the pace of climate action and the growing dangers faced by environmental defenders, but she believes Africa’s youth, green industrialization, and renewable energy potential offer unprecedented hope.
- Speaking after a Nairobi event honoring her mother’s legacy, Wanjira reflects on the “power of one,” Africa’s leadership gaps and opportunities, and what it means to “bask in her mother’s light” while carving her own path.

Small cat conservationists hail Uganda’s new Echuya Forest National Park
- Uganda’s Echuya Forest Reserve will become a national park, alongside five other forest areas. That news is being heralded by small cat conservationists as a win for the threatened African golden cat (Caracal aurata) and other wildlife that dwell in the forest.
- African golden cats are forest dependent and considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN. They’re especially threatened by snaring across their range. It’s unknown exactly how Echuya’s population is faring, but camera-trapping efforts in 2015 required 90 days to record just one of these elusive cats.
- Data coming out of Uganda suggest that national parks can act as strongholds for the felid, raising hopes that Echuya’s population can recover and possibly thrive.
- Wildcat conservationists have also developed programs to build engagement and benefit communities near the new park, initiating goat and sheep “seed banks” as alternatives to bushmeat, setting up savings and loan associations to improve quality of life, and arranging community soccer matches to build goodwill.

Nepal’s cities must plan for resilience and inclusion for the future & nature (commentary)
- The current growth trajectory of Nepal’s cities appears to be unsustainable and unready for the increasing stresses of climate change, an environmental engineer writes.
- Unplanned expansion and the breakdown of the natural/urban interface are diminishing wildlife in this nation, and women suffer disproportionately from the impacts, with an increase in the time spent on water collection of up to 30%, for example.
- But, as this new op-ed argues, “If cities learn from each other, they will see transformed public open spaces, demonstrating how we can turn a climate liability into a community asset.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Mexico is inflating its climate spending by billions of dollars. Here’s how.
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office last year touting her climate science background, yet continues to neglect renewable energy and conservation while subsidizing state-owned oil company Pemex.
- Funds her government earmarked for climate change and a renewable energy transition are actually going to infrastructure, oil and gas, and other projects unrelated to the environment, a review of the 2026 budget shows.
- In one case, more than $40 million for a train line is counted twice but only spent once, misrepresenting how much money the government is dedicating to the environment.

Despite a growing planetary crisis, leaders find hope in community efforts
- This week in Nairobi, yet another report on the planet’s decline was released, at the seventh United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), amid dire alarms on everything from wetlands to pollution and climate disinformation.
- Yet cost-effective solutions exist, and leaders called for multilateral approaches that move toward a more circular economy.
- Grassroots leaders say they find hope in real-world examples of restoration and reform efforts led by community groups and in the growing evidence that, even in a destabilized world, communities, institutions and governments are laying the foundations of a livable future.

Corridors, not culls, offer solution to Southern Africa’s growing elephant population
- Elephant populations in Southern Africa are stable or growing, but the space available for them is not.
- Often, elephant populations are constrained, increasing their impact on the environment or surrounding communities, and triggering calls for controversial solutions, like culls or contraception.
- But studies in a region that hosts 50% of Africa’s remaining savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) show how the animals make use of wildlife corridors to move between protected areas and neighboring countries.
- Encouraging elephants to migrate can help relieve overpopulation in some areas, but any corridor invariably intersects with human communities, making it both vital ecological infrastructure and a social challenge.

Choosing coexistence over conflict: How some California ranchers are adapting to wolves
- California’s expanding gray wolf numbers — a conservation success for an endangered species — have worried ranchers in recent years as wolf-related livestock kills mount.
- Some ranchers are adapting to the changing landscape, using short-term nonlethal deterrents, some of which are funded by a state compensation program.
- A few ranchers are exploring long-term approaches, such as changing their ranching practices and training their cattle to keep them safe from wolves.
- While change is hard, ranchers acknowledge that learning to live with the new predator is the only way forward, and it pays to find ways to do so.

Chris Grinter has spent much of his life surrounded by insects
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Chris Grinter has spent much of his life surrounded by insects — though not in the way most people imagine. As senior collection manager of entomology at the California Academy of Sciences, he oversees one of the world’s […]
Wildlife and communities bear the cost as Simandou rail corridor advances across Guinea
- A 650-km (400-mi) railway corridor is being built that will link the iron ore mine in eastern Guinea to the country’s Atlantic port of Moribaya.
- Its route crosses forests that are home to some of the last populations of forest elephants and western chimpanzees in the country, with NGOs warning of disruptions and fragmentation of vital habitat, putting several species at risk of local extinction.
- Villagers along the route also complain that dust and pollution have impacted their livelihoods, and that compensation has been delayed or incomplete.
- Experts and civil society actors are calling for a strategic environmental study and better implementation of environmental and social management plans.

Unregulated tourism risks disrupting Timor-Leste’s whale migration
- 2025 has been a big whale tourism season in Timor-Leste; operators were fully booked during the peak season of September to December.
- But increasingly aggressive practices fueled by competition between tour operators could mean “another Sri Lanka,” where whales already stressed by climate-induced food scarcity are disappearing from the area.
- East Timorese are mostly excluded from the sector, which is controlled by expats and foreign tour operators raking in thousands from “bucket listers” and social media “influencers.”
- Whale tourism in Timor-Leste needs regulation, enforcement and legal compliance to ensure sustainable, inclusive growth, experts say.

Boom in burning waste for fuel could put human health and environment at risk
- Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) — conglomerated waste often composed of up to 50% plastic — is being burned globally in waste-to-energy incinerators, cement kilns, paper mills, and by other industries.
- Proponents say RDF reduces fossil fuel use and produces cleaner energy, while diverting waste from landfills.
- Critics say a lack of monitoring often hides RDF’s true environmental and human health footprint, and that when burned alongside fossil fuels, the technology can significantly worsen pollution. Health issues potentially connected to RDF contaminants range from cancer to hormone disruption.
- That’s a major concern as RDF ramps up, with countries in the Global South especially starting to use and dispose of waste in this way. Burning RDF and the incineration of plastic waste has been linked to greenhouse gas emissions and also extremely toxic pollutants such as dioxins.

UN honors five climate ‘Champions of the Earth’
The United Nations Environment Programme on Dec. 10 announced its five “2025 Champions of the Earth,” the U.N.’s highest environmental honor. Since 2005, UNEP’s Champions of the Earth has recognized individuals, groups and organizations who have contributed significantly toward transforming the environment for the better. The award celebrates four categories of contribution: policy leadership, inspiration […]
With a target on their bellies, can California’s sturgeon survive?
- California’s green sturgeon and white sturgeon face numerous threats from dams, harmful algal blooms and overfishing.
- White sturgeon are highly prized for their eggs, which are made into caviar.
- Their numbers have dropped so precipitously that they’re now being considered for protection under the California Endangered Species Act.
- The state banned commercial sturgeon fishing in 1954, but the amount of poaching and caviar trafficking is unknown, and there have been cases linked to criminal networks involved in other illegal activities.

UK, Dutch agencies pull funding from Total’s controversial Mozambique LNG project
U.K. and Dutch export credit agencies have withdrawn their financial commitments for French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies’ gas project in Mozambique, in an unprecedented move that marks the latest setback for the controversial project. UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government agency, and Netherlands-based Atradius, both of which provide companies with loans, guarantees and insurance […]
What would this scientist tell Trump? Interview with Robert Watson, former chair of the IPCC
- This week, the UN Environment Program launched the Global Environment Outlook 7 (GEO-7), a stark assessment that comes on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change as a “con job.”
- In this context, Mongabay interviewed GEO-7 co-chair Sir Robert Watson about what to tell a political leader who rejects the science.
- “The evidence is definitive,” says Watson, who argues that countries must rethink their economic and financial systems and that science must be heard in the rooms where power lies.

The last of the Vaquita Porpoise (cartoon)
With an estimated less than 10 individuals alive, the vaquita porpoise of the Gulf of California is on the brink of extinction. Entanglement in gill nets used for fishing totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez has been the prime threat to vaquitas, and while bans are already in place, the lack of enforcement leaves […]
New report warns of mounting planetary crises — and pathways to hope
A global U.N. report released Dec. 9 warns that the planet is on track for deeper climate shocks, accelerating biodiversity loss, worsening land degradation and deadly pollution — unless countries drastically transform how economies are powered, fed and governed. The 7th edition of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7), produced by 287 scientists from 82 countries, […]
Governments must prioritize nature protection, former US senator Russ Feingold says
Bill Gates recently claimed that protecting nature or improving human health is an either-or choice, but former national leaders like Russ Feingold, a retired U.S. senator, and Mary Robinson, former Irish president, disagree. As chair of the Global Steering Committee of the Campaign for Nature, a nonprofit organization uniting prominent politicians in support of nature […]
Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83
- Iain Douglas-Hamilton was a pioneering elephant researcher who spent nearly 60 years studying Africa’s elephants, beginning in Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park with the first scientific study of elephant behavior in the wild.
- A leading voice against the ivory trade, he helped drive the 1989 global ban after witnessing devastating population declines in the 1970s and 1980s.
- As founder of Save the Elephants, he advanced GPS tracking and new conservation strategies that transformed protection efforts across Africa.
- Also a mentor and advocate, Douglas-Hamilton is celebrated for his communication skills and unwavering belief that protecting elephants is a generational responsibility — a mission that continues through the people and systems he helped build.

Balancing evidence and empathy in an age of doubt
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. People often say that good journalism requires a 30,000-foot view. I’ve found the opposite to be true. The stories that move the world rarely start in boardrooms or at summits; they start with someone standing knee-deep in a […]
Death toll rises in Sumatra flood catastrophe as gov’t moves to protect Batang Toru forest
- The number confirmed killed following the most fatal flooding to hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra for decades increased to almost 1,000 on Dec. 9.
- On Dec. 6, Indonesia’s Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq suspended companies operating in the badly affected Batang Toru ecosystem, an old-growth Sumatran rainforest home to the Tapanauli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), the world’s most endangered species of ape.
- The chief executive of Mighty Earth praised the move, saying reducing deforestation was critical to avoiding a repeat of the disaster.
- In the week beginning Dec. 8, first responders in three provinces continued work in challenging terrain to recover the dead and rescue the injured two weeks after a rare cyclone, named Senyar, made landfall over Indonesia’s largest island.

A new ‘fairy lantern’ species is found at a Malaysian picnic site
In November 2023, naturalist Gim Siew Tan chanced upon an unusual plant with whitish-peach flowers growing near the buttress of a tree at a popular picnic site in Hulu Langat Forest Reserve in Selangor, Malaysia. Researchers subsequently collected and analyzed specimens of the plant and found that it was a new-to-science species of “fairy lantern” […]
New underwater acoustic camera identifies individual fish sounds, helping track threatened species
- More than 35,000 species of fish are believed to make sounds, but less than 3 percent of species have been recorded.
- A new audio and visual recording device allowed scientists to identify the most extensive collection of fish sounds ever documented under natural conditions.
- Labeling the unique sounds of fish will allow conservationists to better track the behaviors, locations, and populations of threatened fish species.

‘It’s not safe to live here.’ Colombia is deadliest country for environmental defenders
PUERTO ASIS, Colombia (AP) — Jani Silva is a renowned environmental activist in Colombia’s Amazon, but she has been unable to live in her house for nearly a decade. She has lived under threat from armed groups who forced her out and require her to have a permanent security detail. Living with fear can come […]
Reforestation and wild pig decline spark surge in miniature deer in Singapore
- Once thought extinct in Singapore, a little-known species of miniature deer has reemerged in unprecedented numbers on a small island reserve in the Johor Strait.
- Researchers documented the greater mouse-deer thriving on Pulau Ubin at the highest population density recorded anywhere in the species’ range.
- The team put the surge down to increased availability of prime habitat following a decade of forest restoration, as well as reduced competition for food after the collapse of the island’s wild pig population due to African swine fever.
- Experts say the dramatic “ecological cascade” underscores the need for long-term, ecosystem-wide monitoring throughout Southeast Asia, particularly at sites impacted by sudden shifts triggered by disease.

Global leaders seek action on environment, despite divide
- The United Nations Environment Assembly takes place this week in Nairobi, at a time when wars, protectionist economic policies and global divisions are undermining nations’ ability to reach consensus on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution — issues that require collective action.
- UNEA president abdullah Bin Ali Al-Amri reminded delegates that despite the turbulence, multilateral cooperation remains the only credible pathway.
- Despite divisions between major powers, growing North-South mistrust and an emerging “America First” posture in Washington, UNEP executive director Inger Andersen insisted that environmental diplomacy still works when countries choose compromise over paralysis.

New financial tools boost traditional bioeconomy projects in the Amazon
- The Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Finance Coalition (BRB FC), an alliance of NGOs, funders and financial institutions, aims to mobilize $10 billion by 2030 to support Indigenous and traditional communities-led enterprises.
- By supporting these initiatives, BRB FC and other projects seek to help communities restore millions of hectares of degraded land in the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado savanna, the semiarid Caatinga, and the Atlantic Forest.
- Existing conventional financial systems often exclude grassroots initiatives due to rigid, centralized requirements that clash with local governance and realities.
- With the shift championed by BRB FC, proponents say low-bureaucracy funding models can effectively reach and empower forest-based communities while supporting the bioeconomy.

Across Latin America populist regimes challenge nature conservation goals
- Although in some cases politicians build campaigns on promises around environmental conservation and land rights, once in office, leaders shift direction towards favoring extractive industries and watering down nature protection.
- In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro dismantled the regulatory apparatus created to conserve biodiversity and recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples.
- In Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, administrations have promoted expanding the agricultural frontier and drilling in the Amazon, prioritizing economic growth over sustainability concerns and Indigenous rights.

South Africa withdraws abalone listing even as illegal trade threatens species
- Ahead of the recent CITES summit to hash out wildlife trade regulations, South Africa was expected to table a proposal that would have tightened the legal trade in South African abalone, a shellfish in high demand in East Asia.
- The proposal was aimed at protecting an endangered species that’s been severely depleted by a massive illegal trade driven largely by organized crime.
- However, the South African delegation withdrew the proposal at the last minute, amid ongoing tensions in the country between conservationists, abalone farmers and coastal communities dependent on income from the illegal trade.
- A recent report by wildlife trade NGO TRAFFIC calls for coordinated international action to curb the illegal trade, including a CITES listing.

Africa’s stakes in global UN environment talks in Nairobi
- The United Nations Environment Assembly meets in Nairobi Dec. 8-12, with governments, civil society, business and scientists seeking to inject fresh momentum into strengthening global governance to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
- For African nations — grappling with droughts, floods, toxic air pollution and environmental degradation — the talks will test whether the world can finally move from declarations to delivery, as ministers and civil society decry unfulfilled finance pledges, slow progress on biodiversity plans and a deadlock in plastic pollution negotiations.
- With emissions rising, biodiversity declining and pollution worsening, African leaders say the U.N. talks must deliver concrete, accountable outcomes — or risk leaving the continent to confront the triple planetary crisis largely on its own.

Botswana’s elephant hunting quota threatens to wipe out mature bulls: Report
The reintroduction of elephant trophy hunting in Botswana in 2019, following a five-year moratorium, is likely severely depleting the number of large, older bulls, according to a recent report. This has put the country’s elephant population at risk and induced behavioral changes in the mammals, researchers say. Since 2019, Botswana has permitted roughly 400 elephants […]
Warmer climate triggers pest infestations in Bangladesh, India tea estates
- A warmer climate triggers pest infestations across tropical tea estates in Bangladesh and India.
- Since traditional pesticides fail in pest control, the producers experience significant losses in terms of production as well as earning.
- Experts recommend comprehensive solutions with integrated pest management and improvement of soil health.

East African court dismisses controversial oil pipeline case in setback to communities
On Nov. 26, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) dismissed an appeal filed by four African NGOs, marking the end of a landmark case against the construction of a contentious oil pipeline. The case against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), expected to become the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world, […]
Cristina Gallardo, 39, a devoted guardian of Spain’s wild places, is lost to a fall
The cliffs above Cala de Moraia are steep and inaccessible. To most people, the terrain would signal danger rather than duty. But dangerous places often shelter life that needs defending. Rare plants cling to the cliff face, surviving only because most people cannot reach them. On November 25th, 2025, one person did. She was there […]
Lemurs are at risk. So are the people protecting them.
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Patricia Wright arrived in Madagascar nearly four decades ago to look for a lemur thought to be extinct. She found it, along with a new species, and then ran headlong into a broader reality: protecting wildlife would depend […]
Brazil fast-tracks paving controversial highway in Amazon with new licensing rule
Brazil’s Senate approved an environmental licensing bill that could expedite major infrastructure projects, including paving a highway that cuts through one of the most intact parts of the Amazon Rainforest in northwestern Brazil. The BR-319 highway runs through 885 kilometers (550 miles) of rainforest, connecting Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, with Rondônia state farther […]
Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction
- Plastic pollution is a growing problem in many reef ecosystems, and its effects are not well understood.
- Most previous research has focused exclusively on adult corals and their interactions with plastic particles, rather than larval stages of coral or the chemicals from plastic that leach into water.
- In a new study, researchers exposed coral larvae from two different species to four different plastic chemicals and found that they negatively impacted coral larvae settlement.

From COP30 to Sri Lanka, indigenous voices shape climate & food sovereignty
- Indigenous protests at the recently concluded COP30 echo global climate-justice demands, calling for territorial rights, forest protection and an end to extractive industries — themes strongly reflected in the discussions at the Nyéléni Global Forum on Food Sovereignty held this August in Sri Lanka.
- Sri Lanka’s third Nyéléni Forum brought together more than a thousand grassroots food producers and Indigenous communities, who warned that climate impacts in the country — from erratic rainfall to coastal disruption — are deepened by land-grabs, industrial agriculture and weak community rights.
- Nyéléni concluded with a collective call — the Kandy Declaration — which rejected market-driven climate solutions such as carbon offsets, instead promoting agroecology, community control of land and seeds and people-led governance as essential for climate resilience and food sovereignty.
- Links between Brazil’s Indigenous protests and Sri Lanka’s forum reveal a growing global movement, asserting that climate stability depends on protecting the rights, knowledge and territories of the communities that safeguard biodiversity and produce much of the world’s food.

For fossil fuel-dependent islands, ocean thermal energy offers a lifeline
- Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is gaining renewed attention as a reliable, 24/7 clean-energy option for tropical islands, with a pilot project in the Canary Islands showcasing its potential and building on small-scale tests in Japan and Hawai‘i.
- The technology uses the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water to evaporate a working fluid, drive a turbine and regenerate the cycle — offering massive theoretical potential to generate up to 3 terawatts globally.
- Seawater-based heating and cooling systems, including seawater heat pumps and seawater air-conditioning (SWAC), are already in use and could be scaled up rapidly to cut emissions when paired with renewables.
- Major barriers include cost, investor reluctance and environmental concerns, especially around deep-water discharge and ammonia use, prompting calls for large-scale demonstration projects to prove first prove their viability and safety.

To save jaguars from extinction, scientists in Brazil are trying IVF and cloning
- In Brazil’s state of Mato Grosso do Sul, the Reprocon research group, which specializes in assisted wildlife reproduction, has been investing in cloning methods and protocols for jaguars since 2023.
- Fragmented habitat has isolated jaguar populations, causing them to cross with members of the same gene pool. Today, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and cloning techniques have been improving the genetics of groups to avoid eventual extinction of the species because of inbreeding.
- Cloning is used together with other endangered wildlife conservation strategies like creating, expanding and connecting preserved habitat. Reprocon expects to transfer its first cloned embryos to female cats in 2026.

Philippine mangroves survived a typhoon, but now confront a human-made challenge
- A new study shows mangroves in Tacloban, the Philippine city hit hardest hit by Typhoon Haiyan in December 2013, have expanded beyond pre-storm levels.
- This recovery was driven by community-led reforestation efforts from 2015-2018, when residents planted 30,000 Rhizophora mangrove seedlings across 4 hectares (10 acres) of Cancabato Bay.
- Satellite image analysis and modeling reveal how the forest was destroyed by Haiyan and how it later withstood 2019’s Typhoon Phanfone.
- However, experts warn that the recovering mangroves may be threatened by an ongoing project to build a causeway across the bay, which could generate pollution and physical disturbances.

What was — and the uncertainty of what will be: Youth voices from COP30
- COP30 in Brazil drew youths from around the world who are experiencing climate change effects in different ways and working to mitigate the crisis in their communities.
- Mongabay spoke with young representatives from Gabon, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Germany and Brazil during the November conference in Belém.
- The youths found mixed results at COP30, with some progress made on the technical side, especially in transparency, adaptation metrics and certain aspects of loss and damage; while issues like phasing out fossil fuels, securing predictable climate finance and ensuring a just transition faced significant pushback.
- German Felix Finkbeiner, who, at 9 years old, created the organization Plant-for-the-Planet, noted, “When young voices come together at conferences like COP30, they inspire hope, innovation, and accountability, reminding the world that change is not only necessary but possible.”

The Indigenous women changing the course of their communities
- Indigenous women leaders play a key role as defenders of their territories, biodiversity and ancestral knowledge.
- From their communities, they lead environmental restoration, collective health care, political participation and economic autonomy.
- Three women leaders from Peru, Mexico and Colombia share their stories of resilience and leadership in territories beset by violence as well as social, economic and environmental challenges.
- They do it by caring for bees, water, and the lives of Amazonian peoples, not only for the present but for future generations.

An Empire of Nature: African Parks and Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest
- In 2020, South Africa-based NGO African Parks signed a 20-year deal to manage Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park, one of the largest montane rainforests in Africa.
- Nyungwe is one of 24 protected areas managed by African Parks in 13 countries.
- Founded by a Dutch industrialist, African Parks is a pioneer of the “public-private” conservation model in Africa.
- Mongabay visited Nyungwe to look at African Parks and its approach to conservation.

Turning adventure into data
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Gregg Treinish’s turning point came somewhere between mountain ranges and moral unease. Years of wandering through wilderness had left him restless. “I was spending years in the wilderness, doing long expeditions, and I began to feel selfish for […]
International Cheetah Day: Survival still at stake for the world’s fastest cat
Dec. 4 is International Cheetah Day. It was established in 2010 by the Cheetah Conservation Fund to raise awareness about the dwindling populations and shrinking habitats of the fastest land animal on Earth. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is one of the most endangered big cats in the world, with a severely fragmented population of around […]
Respecting uncontacted peoples can protect biodiversity and our humanity (commentary)
- Protecting regions inhabited by uncontacted Indigenous peoples is vital from both a human rights and environmental perspective; these territories represent some of the planet’s last intact ecosystems, and are also rich carbon sinks.
- But in recent years, these communities that choose to live in isolation have been seen and contacted more frequently by outsiders like illegal miners and loggers, and the results have at times been violent, with reports about these incidents going viral.
- “Some argue that isolation is no longer possible, that climate change, deforestation and economic pressure will make contact inevitable. I believe that argument is defeatist and ethically indefensible. It assumes that outsiders know what is best for these communities, repeating the same paternalism that has caused centuries of harm,” the writer of a new op-ed states.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘Silent epidemic of chemical pollution’ demands radical regulatory redo, say scientists
- An international team of 43 scientists has called for a “paradigm shift” in toxicology and chemical regulation globally after having found severe lapses in current regulatory systems for evaluating the safety of pesticides and plastics derived from petrochemical byproducts.
- The researchers note that the full commercial formulations of common petrochemical-based pesticides and plasticizers have never been subjected to long-term tests on mammals. Only the active ingredients declared by chemical companies have been assessed for human health risks, while other ingredients have not.
- The scientists found that synthesized pesticides and plasticizers contain petroleum-based waste and heavy metals such as arsenic that can make them “at least 1,000 times more toxic” than the active ingredients alone, posing chronic disease and health threats, especially to children — claims that the chemical industry denies.
- Researchers urge lowering the admissible daily intake, or toxicity threshold, for already approved chemical compounds; long-term testing on the full formulations of new pesticides and new plasticizers; and requiring all toxicological data and experimental protocols for approved commercial compounds be made public.

Scientists chart a new source, and length, for Africa’s famous Zambezi River
- Historically, the Zambezi River in Southern Africa was believed to begin its journey at a spring in northwestern Zambia.
- A new study suggests the river actually starts off in a shallow depression in Angola’s southern highlands, at the source of a river called the Lungwebungu, giving the Zambezi a new total length of 3,421 km (2,126 mi), or 342 km (213 mi) longer than previously thought.
- The Lungwebungu and several other Angolan rivers contribute about 70% of the water reaching Victoria Falls, making them critical to the long-term health of the Zambezi and the people and wildlife who depend on it.
- The study highlights the importance of protecting the Upper Zambezi Basin, where another recent study recorded significant forest loss over the past three decades.

African forest hornbills gain new protections from unsustainable trade
Negotiators discussing wildlife trade rules have agreed overwhelmingly to back a proposal that regulates the currently unrestricted trade in all seven species of African forest hornbills. Eight West and Central African countries had tabled the proposal at the ongoing summit of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, taking place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It calls for […]
Peregrine falcons retain trade protections, despite downlisting bid by Canada and US
The U.S. and Canada have failed in their bid to loosen restrictions on the international trade in peregrine falcons, with delegates to CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, voting against it at an summit underway in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The two countries had submitted a joint proposal to move peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) from CITES Appendix […]
Countries overwhelmingly support bid to bar Galápagos iguanas from international trade
Four species of iguanas from the Galápagos Islands have received the highest protection against international commercial trade at the ongoing summit of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The Galápagos land iguana (Conolophus subcristatus), Galápagos pink land iguana (C. marthae), Barrington land iguana (C. pallidus) and marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) are found […]
Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died
- After the death of her daughter Karen in 1991 and her dying wish to “do something good for sea turtles,” Jean Beasley committed herself to sea turtle conservation on Topsail Island, North Carolina.
- She founded the state’s first sea turtle rehabilitation center, beginning in a cramped 900-square-foot space and growing it into a respected 13,000-square-foot hospital and public education facility in Surf City.
- Beasley valued both direct action and education, believing that saving one turtle mattered but inspiring others—especially children—to care about the ocean could save many more.
- Her decades of work helped protect more than 3,000 nests and rehabilitate at least 1,600 turtles, while also motivating future conservationists and proving that a daughter’s dying wish could become a movement of hope.

Forest loss, fires and invasions soar in Nicaraguan wildlife refuge, watchdog warns
- The Rio San Juan Wildlife Refuge in southern Nicaragua is part of the best-preserved humid forest in Central America, but illegal invasions, deforestation and mining have destroyed nearly a third of this protected area in less than 10 years, according to an NGO.
- In a report, Fundación del Río alleges the invasions are encouraged by officials linked to the country’s ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, as well as people close to President Daniel Ortega and his wife.
- The report warns of an increase in the trafficking of mercury and cyanide, typically used in illegal gold mining, which it says endangers the rivers in the region.
- It also says the invasions are displacing the Indigenous Rama people and Afro-descendant Kriol people who have long helped preserved the wildlife refuge.

Saving critical winter habitat for monarch butterflies may depend on buy-in from their human neighbors
- Monarch butterflies are in decline largely because of habitat degradation, including in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the forested mountains of Central Mexico.
- Researchers looked at aerial and satellite photography of forest cover in the Reserve over 50 years, assessing the impact of the Reserve’s protective decrees on logging.
- They found that implementation of logging bans worked well when the local community was consulted and compensated, and poorly when done without their involvement.

Extinctions ‘already happening’ in Wales as report lists 3,000 at-risk species
Nearly 3,000 species in the country of Wales, in the U.K., are now found in just a handful of locations, according to a recent report. These species include hundreds of plants, fungi and mosses, as well as 25 bird, six mammal, five freshwater fish and one amphibian species. The report, produced by Natural Resources Wales […]
Loma Santa marks first Indigenous protected area in the Bolivian Amazon
- Establishing the first Indigenous protected area in the Bolivian Amazon took years and involved local communities, NGOs and the government.
- This natural reserve is home to five Indigenous peoples of the Bolivian Amazon, who act as the guardians of Loma Santa.
- Imperiled by illegal logging, communities hope new tools will make combating the exploitation of their natural resources more effective.
- The protected area emerged from the first Indigenous territorial autonomy in the Bolivian Amazon, where the communities have their own system of self-governance.

Predators in peril: Protected areas cover just a fraction of global carnivore ranges
- Globally, human impacts threaten the ranges of carnivores that depend on large swaths of natural land to survive.
- A new study found that a majority of the total, combined range of land-dwelling carnivores falls outside of land designated for habitat conservation.
- Researchers determined that Indigenous lands are particularly important for supporting carnivore ranges.

Brazil votes to allow most projects & farms to skip environmental licensing
Brazil’s lawmakers have voted, by an overwhelming majority, to weaken the nation’s environmental licensing system, overturning key protections that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had vetoed earlier this year. Congress first passed the law, commonly called the “devastation bill” across national media outlets, in July 2025 despite widespread protests. In September, President Lula […]
Peru’s Río Abiseo park yields new marsupial, hinting at more undiscovered species
- Brazilian researcher Silvia Pavan organized an expedition to a remote protected area in the Peruvian Amazon to search for a species of squirrel last observed 30 years ago.
- During the expedition, the team discovered a new species of mouse opossum, a type of marsupial, which they named Marmosa chachapoya.
- This new species is distinguished by its reddish-brown fur, yellow-grayish belly, and long, narrow face.
- The eastern Andes of Peru is notable for its high endemism, but remains largely understudied, researchers say.

In Ecuador’s Yasuní, cameras reveal the wild neighbors visitors rarely see
- The Kichwa Sani Isla community and the U.S. organization fStop Foundation are using high-resolution camera traps to document biodiversity around a community-run eco-lodge in Ecuador.
- Scientists trained community members to install, maintain and operate the cameras, including devices placed 40 meters (130 feet) up in the treetops.
- Since February 2025, the cameras have recorded at least six jaguars, suggesting an intact food chain and a healthy ecosystem.
- The Kichwa community has made ecotourism an effective tool for conservation through its Sani Lodge, helping curb pressures on the forest.

New ventures set out to tackle the plastic choking Bangladesh’s ECAs
- Bangladesh generates around 87,000 tons of single-use plastics annually, of which 96% are directly discarded as garbage.
- Due to lack of awareness, many people dump plastic waste at convenience, which congregate especially near rivers or lakes. Rainfall, wind and other factors lead the plastic waste to mix with water and sediment, causing harm to the ecosystems.
- In addition, managing the country’s 13 Ecologically Critical Areas (ECAs) is becoming more difficult due to the presence of the large amount of plastic waste.
- Considering the negative impacts, the NGO BRAC started a project to turn the single-use plastic waste into raw material for plastic products in one of the ECAs.

International Jaguar Day: A year of wins for the big cat
Every Nov. 29 is International Jaguar Day, created to raise awareness about threats the jaguar (Panthera onca) faces, including habitat loss and poaching. While the Amazon and Brazil’s Pantanal biomes are strongholds for the jaguar, hosting a high density of the animals, the species has lost most of its historic range, a reality that conservationists […]
Healthy oceans are a human right (commentary)
- In 2022, the United Nations affirmed the basic human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
- The idea is straightforward: people’s fundamental human rights to health, food, security and even life rely on a healthy environment.
- But we are still far from ensuring that these rights are protected for the coastal communities living with the consequences of ocean decline every day, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

SE Asia forest carbon projects sidelining social, biodiversity benefits, study finds
- Across Southeast Asia, forest carbon projects intended to offset greenhouse gas emissions are falling short on social justice safeguards, according to recent research.
- The study identifies weak governance, land tenure conflicts, corruption and fragmented policies as contributing to the shortcomings.
- Well-managed forest carbon initiatives have an important role to play in global efforts to reduce emissions, the researchers say, but they must center the rights of traditional custodians of forests.
- Against the backdrop of global democratic backsliding, experts urge greater scrutiny of project accountability to uphold social and environmental standards within the carbon sector.

Indigenous knowledge and science join forces to save the choro mussel in Chile
- In southern Chile’s Huellelhue River estuary, three Mapuche Huilliche communities are leading efforts to restore the natural beds of the choro mussel through a participatory governance model that brings together ancestral knowledge, science and education.
- Intensive harvesting during the 1990s led to the collapse of this mollusk, disrupting local ecosystems and the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- After confirming the mussel’s critical state, a total harvesting ban was declared in 2019; the communities formally requested that the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture extend it to 2026.
- Thanks to the ban, the mussel population is now showing clear signs of recovery, while Indigenous communities and experts implement a sustainable management plan and a laboratory-based repopulation program.

In Kenya, Maasai private landowners come together to protect wildlife corridors
- The Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya is entirely owned and managed by Maasai people and covers 2,400 hectares of land to protect biodiversity and secure land rights.
- Maasai herders lease their private lands to the conservancy, and in return, they cannot sell the land to anyone other than another member of the conservancy for conservation purposes, nor can they put up fences.
- The conservancy’s land strategy arose after outsiders purchased land in the county, fencing it off and blocking open grazing areas for wildlife and livestock to roam.
- Conservationists say the conservancy’s model has seen success but caution that it will continue working if Maasai landowners feel like they will continue receiving benefits from the land strategy and are included in decision-making.

The valuable peatlands of Peru’s Pastaza River Fan: one of the world’s largest carbon reservoirs
- In Peru’s Datem del Marañón province, local communities are combining ancestral knowledge with scientific expertise to protect the peatlands that thrive in this part of the Amazon.
- Peatlands cover only 3% of Earth’s surface, yet can store up to five times more carbon dioxide per hectare than other tropical ecosystems.
- Although research on Peru’s peatlands remains limited, their importance lies in both their role in mitigating climate change and their socioeconomic value for local communities.
- The area that’s the focus of scientists’ research and local communities’ conservation work is part of the Pastaza River Fan, Peru’s largest wetland and the third-deepest peatland in the world.

Small grants can empower the next generation of conservationists
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Paul Barnes, who leads the Zoological Society of London’s EDGE of Existence program, has spent the past few years listening to the frustrations of early-career conservationists. The stories are rarely about fieldwork itself. They’re about making rent, juggling […]
Amazon’s stingless bee propolis shows potent healing power, studies show
- Researchers in Brazil identified anti-inflammatory properties of a cream made with the propolis of Amazon stingless bees, with results similar to commercial healing ointments.
- Stingless bees (meliponines) are the primary pollinators for the açaí berry, making their conservation crucial for both the Amazon ecosystem and a billion-dollar global industry.
- For one Amazon family, swapping cattle ranching for beekeeping and cosmetics is a real-world example of a bioeconomy that experts say offers a powerful alternative to deforestation.

The long life of a Galápagos tortoise
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. She moved slowly, as if time were something best savored. Visitors leaned over railings or knelt at the edge of her enclosure as she stretched her neck toward a leaf of romaine. Children noted she was older than […]
Changing weather patterns threaten time-tested houses in Nepal village
- Residents of Thini village in Nepal’s Trans-Himalayan Mustang region are struggling to maintain their ancestral mudbrick houses as heavier, more frequent rain and snow are causing roof leaks and weakening the mud-stone walls.
- Some residents have built concrete houses to avoid climate-related damage, but these structures are costly and ill-suited to the region’s cold winters compared to traditional mud homes.
- Researchers link the housing challenges to changes in precipitation, including heavier snowfall, intense rainfall and “rain bombs,” which traditional flat-roofed mud houses aren’t designed to withstand.

First state-authorized killings mark escalation in California’s management of wolves
- California’s wildlife department killed four gray wolves in the Sierra Valley in late October, in a dramatic escalation of tactics to address growing predation of cattle by the canids and despite protection under state and federal endangered species laws.
- The department says the wolves killed at least 88 cattle in Sierra and Plumas counties and continued to target livestock despite months of nonlethal deterrents deployed to drive them away.
- The state employed lethal action despite its compensation program, which pays ranchers for cattle killed by wolves, and additional federal subsidies paid to the livestock industry at large.
- The state wildlife agency confirmed a new pack –– the Grizzly pack–– earlier this week with two adults and a pup. Though the state’s wolf population remains small and vulnerable, ranchers are increasingly concerned about livestock deaths.

New riverside lake in Nepal wins hearts, but faces government opposition
- The Bagmati Lake (Bharat Taal), constructed recently in Nepal’s southern Sarlahi district, attracts Nepali and Indian tourists with recreational activities, generating revenue, employment and cross-border tourism.
- The lake, which may have helped improve groundwater levels, soil moisture and crop yields in surrounding areas, has provided habitat for migratory birds.
- However, the fate of the lake hangs in the balance as the country’s anti-corruption court looks into alleged corruption and the lack of environmental compliance during its construction.

As agroforestry declines in Indonesia’s Flores, a traditional ecological lexicon fades with it
- In Indonesia’s Flores highlands, the Manggarai people once practiced diverse agroforestry that blended farming with forest care — traditions carried in hundreds of specialized words for crops, tools and rituals.
- A new study recorded 253 of these agroforestry terms now at risk of disappearing as monoculture farming, tourism and forest loss reshape Manggarai’s landscapes and livelihoods.
- From 2002 to 2024, Manggarai lost about 71 hectares (175 acres) of humid primary forest, mostly cleared for monoculture plantations that disrupt traditional agroforestry systems.
- Researchers say reviving the fading lexicon — through schools, community exchanges and policy support — can help restore Indigenous knowledge crucial for biodiversity, food security and climate resilience.

Indigenous guardians protecting the Amazon Trapeze continue to face challenges
- Defending the Amazon Rainforest is something that Indigenous communities have been doing for centuries, and the practice has gained renewed interest with the “Indigenous guard” program that launched two decades ago in Colombia.
- According to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), there are around 1,200 guards across the three Indigenous councils in the Amazon Trapeze region, Colombia’s tri-border area with Peru and Brazil.
- However, the lack of income for the guardians in particular, and of economic opportunities for communities here in general, have driven many Indigenous people, including some guards, to get involved in illicit activities such as coca cultivation in Peru or drug trafficking.
- To continue protecting the environment, Indigenous guards are calling for greater government support and say they hope to receive fair compensation for the work they do.

Afro-descendant territories slash deforestation, lock in carbon, study shows
- New research documents the positive impacts that Afro-descendant populations have had on tropical ecosystems in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname.
- The study found that deforestation rates are between 29% and 55% lower in Afro-descendant lands than in protected areas.
- This is the first scientific study to employ statistical, geographical and historical data to assess the contribution of Afro-descendant communities in conservation.
- According to the researchers, Afro-descendant populations and their good practices are at risk due to a lack of legal recognition, invisibility of their contributions, and extractive activities in their territories.

Behind Sri Lanka’s ‘fish rain’ lies a web of migrations now blocked by rising dams
- Sri Lanka recently reported a “fish rain,” where fish were found far from water bodies after heavy rains; but rather than falling from the sky, experts say these were amphibious fish that “walked” overland after the rains, making a rare but real phenomenon appear mysterious.
- Events like this highlight the subtle yet vital migrations that many freshwater species undertake — from overland movements by climbing perch and snakeheads, to upstream monsoon breeding runs by small fishes, to the epic sea-to-river-to-sea journeys of eels navigating rocks, dams and reservoirs.
- Such migrations are ecological lifelines, linking wetlands, rivers and coastlines, enriching ecosystems (as with salmon), and ensuring the survival and reproduction of a wide range of freshwater species.
- But in Sri Lanka, a growing network of dams, mini-hydro barriers and irrigation weirs is fragmenting rivers and blocking these ancient routes; despite fish ladders being proposed by dam developers, they’re rarely built, leaving many species unable to complete migrations essential for their survival.

How religious beliefs may help protect Mentawai’s forests
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the Mentawai Islands rise from the Indian Ocean in a patchwork of forests and rivers where macaques, gibbons and hornbills thrive. Among the Indigenous Mentawai, an ancient cosmology called Arat Sabulungan […]
New agreement aims to streamline Amazon Rainforest protection efforts
- A new agreement announced at the COP30 climate talks in Brazil intends to unify countries and institutions from around the world to monitor and protect the Amazon Rainforest.
- The Mamirauá Declaration aims to develop a streamlined framework that will unify various long-term efforts to streamline data gathering and analysis.
- The agreement focuses on the active participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in monitoring; it also calls for more capacity building in countries in the Amazon Basin.

What was achieved for Indigenous peoples at COP30?
- The two-week COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, saw the largest global participation of Indigenous leaders in the conference’s history.
- With the adoption of measures like the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, a $1.8 billion funding pledge, and the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), the summit resulted in historic commitments to secure land tenure rights for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant people.
- Yet despite these advances, sources say frustrations grew as negotiators failed to establish pathways for rapid climate finance for adaptation, loss and damage, or to create road maps for reversing deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels.
- While some pledges appear ambitious, Indigenous delegates say effective implementation of the pledges will depend on government transparency and accountable use of funds.

What’s at stake for the environment in Honduras’ presidential election?
- Honduras will hold elections Nov. 30 for president and all 128 seats in Congress.
- The winners will hold office for the next four years, shaping the country’s environmental policies at a time when its many forests and ocean ecosystems are rapidly disappearing.
- Leading candidates include Rixi Moncada of the progressive LIBRE party, Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal party and Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura of the conservative National party.

45 more shark species up for CITES protections; tight vote expected
- Twenty-nine houndsharks and 16 gulper sharks are up for listing on CITES Appendix II at the wildlife trade regulator’s summit in Uzbekistan this week.
- Conservationists expect the vote to be close, with critics saying “lookalike” species shouldn’t face trade restrictions. Proponents argue it’s necessary given the lack of knowledge among customs officials.
- Houndsharks are widely consumed for their meat in Europe and Australia, while gulpers are hunted for their liver oil.

Fossil fuel failure eclipses Africa’s wins at COP30
- African negotiators secured significant gains on just transition, including recognition of clean cooking and energy poverty, marking the first time these priorities entered the formal United Nations climate negotiations.
- Adaptation finance advanced but remains insufficient, with wealthy nations pledging to triple support only by 2035, despite Africa’s urgent needs and widespread concern over loan-heavy climate finance.
- Forest conservation gained new momentum, with broad backing for a global deforestation roadmap and fresh funding initiatives like Brazil’s Tropical Forever Forest Fund (TFFF) and the Canopy Trust targeting Amazon and Congo Basin conservation.
- Failure to agree on a fossil fuel phaseout puts Africa at heightened risk, with scientists warning that if carbon emissions continue to rise unabated, they could fuel more extreme events like droughts and floods, destabilize food systems, and displace people.

Bird diversity drops in human-dominated habitats, Nepal study suggests
- Areas dominated by humans are home to fewer species, with similar ecosystem function and proximity in the evolutionary family tree, a recent study in Nepal’s southern plains suggests.
- Human activities act like a filter, letting only certain birds survive. Even natural areas show signs of such filtering when logging and hunting remove sensitive species, leaving behind only closely related groups of birds that are resilient and adaptable.
- A mosaic landscape provides more “homes” and more ecological roles for birds, helping them survive even amid human disturbances.

Brazil nut hauling effort gets easier with zip lines and ‘Amazon Waze’
- Researchers are developing solutions to help Brazil nut collectors in the Amazon Rainforest reduce the physical toll of the trade.
- These include zip lines to haul heavy sacks across difficult terrain, and ergonomic baskets to reduce back strain while picking up the nut pods.
- These new technologies could encourage Indigenous youths to continue the practice, a crucial step for sustaining local communities who keep the Amazon standing.
- These advances are part of Brazil’s national push for a bioeconomy, a model designed to generate economic growth and social inclusion while protecting the rainforest.

How community custody empowered Ecuador’s crab catchers and revived its mangroves
- Under agreements for sustainable use and protection, Ecuador’s environment ministry has granted concessions for 98,000 hectares (about 242,000 acres) of mangrove forests to artisanal fishers in the Gulf of Guayaquil.
- The fishers can catch crabs to sell, but are committed to the protection of this valuable ecosystem, imposing closed seasons twice a year and refraining from catching female and juvenile crabs.
- The concessions represent 62% of the total area of mangrove forests in Ecuador, of which 80% are located in the Gulf of Guayaquil.
- This system has allowed for the conservation of mangroves for 26 years and has been shown to be effective in protecting this type of forest, which is capable of retaining up to five times more carbon than other tropical forests.

As Sri Lanka continues new elephant drive, scientists warn against creating new conflicts
- In Sri Lanka’s southern district of Hambantota, authorities have launched a large-scale elephant drive, mobilizing wildlife officers, armed forces and villagers to push herds from villages into what is known as the Managed Elephant Reserve (MER).
- Conservationists warn the Hambantota operation could mirror past failed drives, such as the 2006 drive in the south and the 2024 operation in north-central Sri Lanka that left elephant herds stranded.
- Experts urge a shift from elephant drives to implementing coexistence strategies, including habitat management and community-based fencing, as outlined in Sri Lanka’s national action plan to mitigate human-elephant conflict.
- Despite having reliable data on Asian elephant behavior and HEC, local scientists lament Sri Lanka is not adopting a scientific approach to find solutions to HEC while repeating past mistakes.

Island-confined reptiles face high extinction risk, but low research interest
Reptile species found only on islands are significantly more vulnerable to extinction than their mainland counterparts, yet remain vastly overlooked by researchers, according to a recent study. “Reptiles, partly due to their ability to endure long periods without food or water, are particularly effective island colonizers,” Ricardo Rocha, study co-author and an associate professor at […]
The roughed-up roughy fish (cartoon)
The orange roughy may be among the oldest living deep-sea fish in the world, with a lifespan of up to 250 years. But bottom trawling practices in Australia and New Zealand might have already decimated their slow-breeding populations beyond recovery.
Are wolves scared of us?
The “big bad wolf,” as portrayed in popular culture, still has a healthy fear of humans, a new study reveals. As wolves return to parts of their historical ranges in Europe and North America, there’s growing concern that the predators are becoming less fearful of people. But a recent study from Poland shows that wolves […]
Botanists decode secret life of rare plants to ensure reintroduction success
- Working with South African daisies, Colombian magnolias and Philippine coffee trees, botanists the world over are discovering the secrets to bringing extremely rare and threatened plants back from the brink of extinction. Reintroductions are often the only way to build back thriving populations, but scientists face numerous hurdles.
- A major barrier is lack of botanical knowledge about rare species, making it hard to produce sufficient viable seeds, determine triggers for germination, and identify suitable seedling habitat. If seeds aren’t available from rare plants, botanists must use cuttings to propagate plants.
- Newly established plant populations often need help in the face of numerous threats. Climate change, for example, can not only create harsh new growing conditions but also fuels the spread of plant pests. Young plants frequently need to be protected from human activities like poaching, intentional burning or land-use change.
- While it can take decades for reintroduced plants to grow into sustainable, self-replenishing populations, project funding is often limited to three years or less, especially in the Global South. Experts say they hope funding will increase as recognition grows that ecosystem restoration requires plant diversity, including rare species.

It’s ‘whack-a-mole’: Alarming rise in pet trade fuels wildlife trafficking into California
- California has become a wildlife trafficking hotspot in the U.S., with a notable spike in live animals smuggled across the southern border to be sold as pets, from monkeys and exotic birds to venomous snakes.
- The state has three high-traffic border crossings with Mexico and millions of tons of cargo shipped through some of the nation’s busiest airports and seaports. With limited staff, resource-strapped agencies face serious challenges in policing the illegal import of protected plants and animals into California.
- Poachers also target California’s native plants and reptiles, threatening local species. Meanwhile, some imported animals get loose and become invasive species that destroy ecosystems or may carry diseases, creating public health risks.
- As traffickers exploit new technologies and follow market demand for different animals, enforcement officials struggle to control the influx of illegally traded species.

Already disappearing, Southeast Asia’s striped rabbits now caught in global pet trade
- Rare, elusive and little-known to science, two species of striped rabbits are endemic to Southeast Asia: Sumatran striped rabbits from Indonesia and endangered Annamite striped rabbits from the Vietnam-Laos border region.
- Both species are threatened by habitat loss and illegal snaring, despite having protected status in their range countries.
- In recent months, authorities have seized at least 10 live rabbits smuggled from Thailand on commercial flights to India, highlighting the first known instance of these rabbits being trafficked internationally for the pet trade.
- Conservationists say this trend is alarming, given that the two species are on the brink of extinction. They urge range countries to add the two species to CITES Appendix III, the international wildlife trade convention, and to work with Thai authorities to establish a conservation breeding program with the seized rabbits.

In Indonesia’s courts, truth can be a lonely witness
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For more than two decades, professors Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture have stood where science meets power, testifying against companies accused of torching forests and draining peatlands. Their measurements of ash […]
Norway’s multibillion-dollar bet on forests: An interview with Minister Eriksen
- Two major forest finance initiatives announced at COP30 — the Brazil-led Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF), backed by $6.7 billion, and the newly launched Canopy Trust — signal renewed global attention on the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Canopy Trust, formally launched Nov. 17, relies on blended public–private finance and has already raised $93 million, with a goal of mobilizing $1 billion by 2030 to support sustainable enterprises and early-stage, high-impact forest projects in the Congo Basin.
- Norway, the largest contributor to both the TFFF and Canopy Trust, sees the new fund as complementary to existing mechanisms like CAFI — rewarding low deforestation and strengthening sustainable production. One of its key functions is to de-risk investments in local small and medium-sized enterprises, which might otherwise find it hard to attract private investors.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Norway’s Minister of Climate and Environment Andreas Bjelland Eriksen said the ultimate test will be whether these mechanisms finally deliver what communities demand: direct access to finance, local ownership and tangible economic benefits on the ground.

Conservation can emphasize human well-being to navigate its current funding crisis (commentary)
- Cuts in funding, weakening support from governments, and disinformation are all driving a current crisis for conservation.
- But these challenges need not hold conservation programs back, the authors of a new op-ed with decades of experience at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other development programs argue, and suggest three strategies that can work.
- “Leaning into the human well-being outcomes of conservation can also shift the pervasive and harmful view that conserving nature is primarily an environmental undertaking rather than a cornerstone of sustainable development,” they write.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Why are Amazonian trees getting ‘fatter’?
- A new study has found that the trunks of trees in the Amazon have become thicker in recent decades — an unexpected sign of the rainforest’s resilience in response to record-high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- Nearly 100 scientists involved in the study have stated that old-growth forests in the Amazon are sequestering more carbon than they did 30 years ago, contradicting predictions of immediate collapse due to climate change.
- But the warning still stands: Despite the trees’ capacity to adapt, scientists fear that the extreme droughts and advancing deforestation could invert the rainforest’s balance and threaten its vital role in global climate regulation.

Abrolhos: A South Atlantic marine treasure in need of protection
- Located off the coast of the Brazilian states of Bahia and Espírito Santo, the vast Abrolhos Seascape is home to some of the South Atlantic Ocean’s richest marine biodiversity. Here, more than 500 species inhabit coral reefs, mangrove forests and islands. Brazil’s largest humpback whale breeding ground also occurs within the seascape.
- Yet little legislation has been created to protect this region, leaving it at risk of predatory fishing and deep-sea mining: Less than 2% of the South Atlantic’s largest coral reef, which occupies 46,000 square kilometers within the wider Abrolhos Seascape, is fully protected.
- A recent study identified critical areas and vulnerable ecosystems within Abrolhos Seascape that the authors say need urgent conservation action; these include rhodolith beds — clusters of limestone rock that are crucial for climate security and marine species reproduction.

Protecting pangolins IRL, not just on paper: Interview with conservationist Kumar Paudel
- Pangolins, the scaly anteaters that are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world, face a host of challenges throughout their range, including South Asia.
- The IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group is working on a global action plan to conserve the species, with different subgroups working on regional plans.
- After the plans are in place, the challenge will be to secure real-world funding to advance conservation efforts, says researcher Kumar Paudel, who leads the South Asia subgroup.

‘Forever chemical’ contamination could undermine sea otters’ fragile recovery in Canada
- Sea otters living along the coastline of Canada’s British Columbia province are exposed — and absorb — forever chemicals, a new study shows.
- Each of the 11 sea otters tested carried residues PFAS chemicals, with concentrations higher for those living near dense human populations or shipping lanes.
- The Canadian government released an assessment earlier this year recommending that PFAS be classed as toxic and is moving toward adopting tighter rules for these chemicals. Environmentalists support the initiative.

In Thailand, a cheap bottle crate hack gives tree saplings a fighting chance
- A recent study in Thailand finds that raising native tree seedlings inside repurposed bottle crates improves performance compared to standard methods in community-run nurseries.
- Saplings grown in bottle crates had better root formation and superior growth when planted out in a deforested site, thanks to better air circulation for the roots.
- Crating the saplings also saved on labor costs, which more than offset the cost of purchasing the crates.
- Adoption of the new method could improve the quality of saplings grown in community nurseries, a benefit for reforestation projects where sapling survival is key to success.

Why don’t forest protectors get paid? asks Suriname’s president
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At the U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP30, in Brazil, Suriname is taking a large step into the spotlight, reports Mongabay’s Max Radwin. With about 93% forest cover and a status as one of only three nations to boast […]
A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon
The first time Virgilio Viana saw the Amazon up close, he was a 16-year-old with a backpack, two school friends and very little sense of what he was walking into. They arrived by land, drifting along dirt roads that had more potholes than surface, then continued by riverboat as the forest thickened around them. Something […]
Inside California’s race to document its insects: A conversation with Chris Grinter
- Christopher C. Grinter, Senior Collection Manager of Entomology at the California Academy of Sciences, discussed his work documenting California’s insect diversity through the California All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI).
- He described how DNA barcoding and voucher specimens together form a lasting record of life, helping scientists track species and environmental change across the state.
- Grinter reflected on both the urgency of discovery amid biodiversity loss and the promise of new technologies and collaborations that make large-scale insect research possible.
- He spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in October 2025.

For sharks on the brink of extinction, CITES Appendix II isn’t protective enough (commentary)
- Listing shark species under CITES Appendix II, which allows for well-monitored sustainable trade, has helped to save some sharks from extinction. But some species are so threatened that they need to be listed on Appendix I, which bans all trade.
- New research has revealed that many fins belonging to sharks protected by Appendix II are still being sold in large numbers in Hong Kong, one of the biggest markets, supporting the need for action on Appendix I listings for some species at the CITES COP20 meeting that commences next week in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.
- “Governments meeting at COP20 in Uzbekistan should follow the science, support these proposals, and help save these sharks and rays from the brink of extinction. It’s the only way to give these species a fighting chance at survival,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Study finds important Nassau grouper spawning site in Belize near collapse
- The Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus), a large-bodied top predator, was once the most abundant and commercially important fish in the Caribbean.
- Each winter, the groupers gather en masse at special places to breed, but many of these so-called fish spawning aggregation sites have been dwindling or succumbing entirely to overfishing.
- A new study looked at an important spawning site at Northeast Point on Glover’s Reef Atoll in Belize and found that the number of Nassau groupers attending the annual gathering declined by 85% over the past two decades and is now “on a trajectory towards local extirpation.”
- It attributes the decline to the government’s limited capacity to enforce regulations aimed at protecting the groupers from fishing at the remote site.

The land deal threatening a vital piece of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest
- A 30,019-hectare (74,178-acre) forest in Santa Cruz, Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to Bom Futuro, a Brazilian agriculture company with plans to clear the land, documents reviewed by Mongabay suggest.
- The forest is being sold by a local affiliate of Dutch wood flooring producer INPA, which has helped sustainably manage the area since the mid-2000s.
- Conservationists say the plot is an important part of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest, which acts as a transition between the Amazon Rainforest and the Gran Chaco and Cerrado savannas.

Soot: The super-pollutant choking a burning Earth, in photos
Burning fossil fuels and forests releases the well-known greenhouse gases that drive anthropogenic climate change. That burning also produces soot, a fine black particle that harms health and accelerates warming. A new photo series highlights the often overlooked consequence of burning. Award-winning photojournalist Victor Moriyama, in partnership with the Clean Air Fund and Climate Visuals, […]
With COP30, Indigenous Brazilians strive for new resources to protect nature
- Less than 1% of global climate funding reaches Indigenous peoples and traditional groups, despite their leading roles in environmental conservation, particularly in the Amazon, according to reports.
- In addition to a lack of access to conventional financing options, many traditional initiatives remain isolated by bureaucratic hurdles and struggle to adapt typical funding requirements to their communal dynamics.
- In response to these challenges, several Indigenous and traditional-led funds are seeking solutions. Across Brazil, organizations are working to align financial procedures with the reality of local communities, aiming to ensure the autonomy of their representatives.
- As Brazil hosts the COP30 climate summit, leaders of these Indigenous funds see the event as a window of opportunity to draw the world’s attention and seek new routes for proper investment.

Mongabay founder Rhett Butler wins Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Prize
Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler has been announced a winner of this year’s Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. The annual prize is awarded to “outstanding leaders whose work is courageous, innovative, impactful, rooted in universal values, and global in perspective,” the organizers said in a press release. The prize was established by the Sweden-based […]
‘The perfect ingredients’: WRI Africa deputy director shares vision for the continent’s energy transition
- Rebekah Shirley, the deputy director for Africa at the World Resources Institute (WRI), says that increasing energy access for Africans, 600 million of whom lack basic access to electricity, requires thinking about entire economies.
- In a conversation with Mongabay, Shirley notes that technological advances, especially for renewable energy, are no longer the hurdle they once were.
- Instead, bringing energy access to households, community services and industry will result from investment in manufacturing, commerce and industry that will support the expansion of universal household energy access, Shirley says.
- Mongabay spoke with Shirley in the lead-up to the 2025 U.N. climate conference, COP30, in Belém, Brazil.

Lethal dose of plastic for seabirds and marine animals ‘much smaller than expected’
- A new study looking at the impacts of plastic ingestion by seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals found that relatively small amounts of consumed plastic can be deadly.
- The research analyzed the necropsy results for more than 10,000 animals and quantified the amount of plastic that could prove deadly as well as the types of plastic with the biggest impact, which included synthetic rubber, soft plastics (such as plastic bags and wrappers) and discarded plastic fishing gear.
- Overall, one in five of the deceased animals had consumed plastic (affecting 50% of all studied sea turtles, 35% of seabirds and 12% of marine mammals); nearly half of the species studied were considered threatened or near threatened on the IUCN Red List.
- The researchers didn’t consider other health impacts of plastic, such as chemical exposure and entanglement, which led the lead author to conclude the study likely underestimates the “existential threat that plastic pollution poses to ocean wildlife.”

Mongabay journalist Malavika Vyawahare honored with SEAL Award
Mongabay contributing editor Malavika Vyawahare has been awarded a 2025 SEAL environmental journalism award, which recognizes reporters covering the complexities of the environment and climate. “This award is a huge encouragement for me, as a journalist and as an exhausted toddler mom,” Vyawahare said. “It is also a recognition of the kind of work Mongabay […]
Indigenous Dayak resist new southern Borneo national park amid global protection deficit
- Indigenous peoples and student protesters staged several demonstrations in Indonesian Borneo in August in a bid to pressure local authorities to cancel plans for a 119,779-hectare (295,980-acre) national park in the Meratus mountain range.
- Meratus Mountains National Park would be the first national park in South Kalimantan province, and the 58th in Indonesia.
- The draft plans will absorb almost two dozen villages impacting several thousand families, many of whom fear displacement given the lack of formal state recognition of Indigenous communities.
- Local civil society organizations say the public protests reflect a lack of consultation with affected communities, a pattern established by many governments as countries rush to protect 30% of the world’s land and marine areas by 2030.

How Indonesian communities rescued the Bali starling from the brink of extinction
One of the world’s rarest birds has rebounded from near extinction after Indigenous communities on the Indonesian island of Bali committed to protect it under traditional laws, Mongabay contributor Heather Physioc reported. The Bali starling (Leucopsar rothschildi) is a songbird with striking white plumage and a cobalt-blue face. In 2001, just six birds were known […]
Pioneering primatologist in Madagascar shares decades of conservation wisdom
Patricia Wright, a pioneering primatologist who established the Centre ValBio research station in Madagascar, began her work there in 1986. As the person who first described the golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus) to Western science, her contributions led to the creation of Ranomafana National Park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She joins the Mongabay […]
Scientists slam Canada-US proposal to lower trade protections for peregrine falcons
- Peregrine falcons, the world’s fastest and most widespread raptors, recovered spectacularly after pesticides that nearly drove them to extinction were banned and captive-bred birds were rewilded, making the effort a remarkable conservation success story.
- Although the species is no longer endangered, international commercial trade in this bird, coveted by falconers, is banned for wild-caught specimens and highly regulated for captive-bred ones. Canada and the U.S. propose loosening those restrictions, a proposal that will be voted on at the upcoming meeting of CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty.
- Some raptor scientists have concerns. The Canada-U.S. downlisting proposal includes population estimates of just a few subspecies; many others are understudied. Some populations have declined in recent years and illegal trade continues.
- Until there are safeguards against unsustainable trade and accurate assessments for all subspecies, conservationists say lowering protections could undo the efforts that have brought this bird back from the brink.

Trade in marine fish for aquariums includes threatened species, lacks oversight: Study
- A new study of major U.S.-based online retailers of marine fish bound for aquariums found that nearly 90% of traded species are sourced exclusively from the wild, including a number of threatened species, and that the trade is poorly tracked.
- The study raises concerns about the ecological impact of the trade on marine ecosystems, including around coral reefs, in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where the fish are caught.
- Experts called for more work to develop sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in coastal communities in the Global South, and for building consumer awareness and establishing eco-certification schemes.

Construction of TotalEnergies pipeline cuts through coral reefs in Mozambique
- A Dutch company dredged through a highly sensitive coral area for TotalEnergies’ liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique, satellite imagery and vessel traffic data confirm.
- The French oil and gas company declared force majeure after insurgents attacked the facility in 2021, but some work on the project continued.
- Environmental groups warn that the environmental impact assessments for TotalEnergies’ project and three others in the same waters are inadequate.

Study maps whale shark stranding hotspots in Indonesia, highlights conservation needs
- A new study has identified whale shark stranding hotspots in Indonesia and linked them to seasonal ocean conditions, offering scientists a clearer picture of when and where risks are highest.
- The researchers found that most strandings involved juveniles and often occurred during upwelling seasons; they highlighted that human pressures such as fishing gear, ship traffic and pollution may further increase the danger.
- The study calls for stronger rescue networks, better community training, and international cooperation to improve survival rates and protect these migratory animals across the region.

Scientists & nuns unite to save Mexico’s rare achoque salamanders
For the last 20 years, Dominican nuns in a Mexican monastery have cared for the largest known captive population of the critically endangered achoque salamander. Now scientists from Chester Zoo in the U.K. are collaborating with the sisters and Mexican conservationists to test a microchipping method that they hope will help them monitor the species’ […]
In Mexico, world’s smallest turtle faces big threats from trafficking, habitat loss
- The Vallarta mud turtle, the world’s smallest turtle, lives only in temporary lagoons in the Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta, which poses a huge challenge for its conservation.
- By the time scientists had determined they were a distinct species, just 1,000 turtles remained; since then, their number has dropped to 300.
- A key driver of this decline is the illegal pet trade, with an estimated 200 turtles smuggled to China this year alone, according to experts.
- Even though the turtle is listed as critically endangered, Mexican authorities have been slow to implement measures to protect it or its habitat, which is being lost to tourism developments.

Top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin’s COP30 reflections on Amazon conservation (analysis)
- The global battle to mitigate climate change cannot be won in the Amazon, but it can certainly be lost there, writes top ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin in a new analysis for Mongabay. Though he’s well-known for investigating traditional uses of plants in the region, he’s also a keen observer of and advocate for Indigenous communities and conservation there.
- Compared to the 1970s, he writes, the Amazon enjoys far greater formal protection, understanding and attention, while advances in technology and ethnobotany have revealed new insights into tropical biodiversity, and Indigenous communities — long the guardians and stewards of this ecosystem — are increasingly recognized as central partners in conservation, and their shamans employ hallucinogens like biological scalpels to diagnose, treat and sometimes cure ailments, a technology that is increasingly and ever more widely appreciated.
- “The challenge now is to ensure that the forces of protection outpace the forces of destruction, which, of course, is one of the ultimate goals of the COP30 meeting in Belém,” he writes.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

A slowdown, not salvation: what new extinction data reveal about the state of life on Earth
- Extinction rates appear to have slowed since their peak in the early 1900s, suggesting not a reprieve for nature but a shift in how and where losses occur. Much of the damage was concentrated on islands, where invasive species drove many native plants and animals to extinction.
- The study challenges the assumption that past extinction patterns predict future ones, highlighting major data gaps—especially for invertebrates—and warning that today’s threats stem mainly from habitat loss and climate change on continents.
- Conservation efforts have shown that targeted actions, such as invasive species removal and habitat restoration, can be highly effective, though success remains uneven and far smaller than the scale of global biodiversity loss.
- Even as outright extinctions slow, ecosystems continue to unravel through declining abundance, lost ecological knowledge, and homogenization of species—signs that life’s diversity is eroding in subtler but equally serious ways.

Pakistan declares its third marine protected area, but has a long way to go
- In September, Pakistan declared its third marine protected area, around Miani Hor Lagoon on the country’s central coast.
- The biodiversity-rich lagoon hosts a lush mangrove forest, numerous bird species and threatened marine mammals.
- Conservationists welcomed the new marine protected area as a baby step toward meeting the country’s so-called 30×30 commitment to protect 30% of its land and sea by 2030. However, the new addition puts Pakistan’s total protected marine area at just 0.23% of its marine and coastal jurisdiction.
- The scope of protections for the new protected area remains to be determined. Local people expressed concern that restrictions could upend the livelihoods of the local community, which depends on the lagoon and mangroves and already lacks basic necessities.

France’s largest rewilding project takes root in the Dauphiné Alps
- The nonprofit Rewilding Europe announced its 11th project this summer in the Dauphiné Alps, a forested mountain range in southeastern France where wild horses, bison and lynx thrived more than 200 years ago.
- Rewilding is a restoration concept that works toward wildlife comeback to a landscape with minimal other human intervention.
- The project is focused on fostering an environment where wild horses, alpine ibex, roe deer, vultures, Eurasian lynx and wolves can build healthy populations.
- The biggest challenges include working with private landowners and convincing locals that predators, such as wolves, can be beneficial.

Are Belize’s fisheries policies delivering?
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Belize has built an enviable brand as a small country taking on a big problem: how to keep the sea alive while sustaining the people who depend on it. The story sells well. A 2021 debt-for-nature “blue bond” […]
As fires flare in Brazil’s Cerrado, heat-resistant seeds offer restoration lifeline
- Research from Brazil shows that tree species adapted to extreme heat may be key to reforesting areas affected by fires.
- The ongoing research focuses on plants native to the Cerrado savanna, a biome where fire is a natural mechanism for vegetation regeneration and seeds can germinate after the land is burned.
- The findings have practical implications for the Cerrado, which is the most burning-prone biome in Brazil, with the risk of fire exacerbated by agriculture.
- Proponents say restoration strategies that include heat-resistant species can minimize the impacts and prepare the restoration site for other species to take root.

New population of the world’s rarest great ape discovered
A new population of the endangered Tapanuli orangutan has been discovered! Until now, we only knew of a population of around 800 individuals living in the Batang Toru forest in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. But a new group has been found — in a peat swamp about 32 km (20 mi) away. In October last […]
AI data center revolution sucks up world’s energy, water, materials
- Data centers are springing up across tropical Latin America, Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Africa. But these facilities are often unlike those of the recent past. Today’s advanced data centers are built to provide artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity by Big Tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
- As large AI data centers proliferate, they are competing for water, energy and materials with already stressed tropical communities. National governments frequently welcome Big Tech and AI, offering tax breaks and other incentives to build AI complexes, while often not taking community needs into consideration.
- Aware that fossil fuels and renewables by themselves likely can’t handle the astronomical energy demands posed by AI mega-data centers, Internet companies are reactivating the once moribund nuclear industry, despite intractable problems with radioactive waste disposal.
- Voices in the Global South say that AI computing (whose producers remain principally in the Global North) is evolving as a new form of extractive colonialism. Some Indigenous people say it is time to question limitless technological innovation with its heavy environmental and social costs.

Massive turtle bust in Mexico reveals ‘Wild West’ of wildlife trafficking
- A sting by Mexican authorities in September uncovered more than 2,300 live, wild-caught freshwater turtles and other valuable wildlife products. Three men were arrested and charged with wildlife crimes.
- Vallarta mud turtles, the world’s smallest and the most imperiled in the Western Hemisphere, were among the eight species seized by authorities. All are in high demand as pets, and were headed for the U.S. and Asia.
- Smuggled under horrific conditions, nearly half of the turtles seized in this raid died; the rest are being cared for at Guadalajara Zoo.
- This operation highlights rampant turtle smuggling in Mexico, home to the second-most turtle species on the planet. Conservationists urge officials to tighten law enforcement and intelligence gathering to combat trafficking that threatens the survival of the country’s wildlife.

Newly described ‘lucifer’ bee found visiting critically endangered plant in Australia
In 2019, researcher Kit Prendergast was surveying the insects visiting an incredibly rare plant in the Bremer Ranges of Western Australia when a bee grabbed her attention. Prendergast and her colleague dug deeper and found that the native bee, now named Megachile lucifer, is a new-to-science species, according to a recent study. The species name […]
From rock music to rainforests: Akhyari Hananto’s unlikely path to impact
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Before dawn breaks over Surabaya, Indonesia’s “City of Heroes,” Akhyari Hananto is already at work. After morning prayers, he opens Google Analytics to watch the night’s reading patterns unfold — what stories drew attention, which headlines resonated, and […]
Small grants are key to a successful next generation of conservationists (commentary)
- Large numbers of early-career conservationists and fledgling organizations are poised to implement solutions to the biodiversity crisis, but the prevailing funding logic isn’t adapting fast enough to support them.
- Small grants can make a huge difference in this moment, as they are fast, flexible and comprehensible to people on the ground doing local conservation work, especially when unhinged from onerous restrictions and reporting requirements.
- “We must support the next generation of conservation leaders to ensure they have viable career paths that do not come at the expense of burnout,” a new op-ed argues. “Small grants must step forward, not as charity, but as infrastructure for resilience.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cacao rush fuels conflict and deforestation in southeastern Liberia
Soaring cacao prices over the last three years are fueling deforestation and conflict in Grand Gedeh county of Liberia, in West Africa, Mongabay staff writer Ashoka Mukpo reported. Satellite imagery by Global Forest Watch indicates that forest loss in and around Grand Gedeh, which borders the neighboring nation of Côte d’Ivoire in southeastern Liberia, has […]
Strategic ignorance, climate change and Amazonia (commentary)
- With the support of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, essentially all of Brazil’s government outside of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is promoting actions that push us toward tipping points, both for the Amazon Rainforest and the global climate.
- Crossing any of these tipping points would result in global warming escaping from human control, with devastating consequences for Brazil that include mass mortalities.
- The question of whether Brazil’s leaders understand the consequences of their actions is relevant to how they will be judged by history, but the climatic consequences follow automatically, regardless of how these actions may be judged, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

What’s at stake for the environment in Chile’s upcoming election?
- Chileans will go to the polls on Nov. 16 to vote for a new president, 23 Senate seats and all 155 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies.
- The elections could be a deciding factor in how the country addresses a number of ongoing environmental issues.
- Candidates range from the left-wing Jeannette Jara to conservatives José Antonio Kast, Johannes Kaiser and Evelyn Matthei.
- Whoever wins will have to address the clean energy transition, ongoing land disputes with Indigenous groups, and a controversial mining sector that has clashed with local communities.

Letters to the Future
In this series, Letters to the Future, the 2025 cohort of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows share their views on environmental journalism, conservation and the future for their generation, amid multiple planetary crises. Each commentary is a personal reflection, based on individual fellows’ experiences in their home communities and the insights gained through […]
The secret to building a global newsroom? Lead with impact, says Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler
- Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler launched Mongabay in 1999 with the idea to “to make knowledge accessible and free, and to show that credible reporting could be a form of conservation in itself.”
- In this interview with Butler, he shares how he sees receiving notable awards in 2025, including being named a Forbes Sustainability Leader and receiving the Henry Shaw Medal, as reflections of team rather than individual merit.
- For Butler, impact is Mongabay’s true metric of success, as it can make a difference in “how people think, decide, and act.”
- Butler says the next 25 years of Mongabay will focus on strengthening impact and empowering the next generations of leaders in environmental journalism.

TotalEnergies moves to restart Mozambique LNG project despite security, eco concerns
Four years after suspending operations at a liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique’s Afungi Peninsula following insurgent attacks in the nearby village of Palma, French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies and its partners have decided to lift their force majeure, local media reported. The company communicated the decision to the Mozambican government on Oct. 24. […]
Photos: Drones help First Nations track down cold-water havens for salmon amid warming
- Indigenous fisheries association and river guardians, representing several Mi’kmaq nations in eastern Canada, have launched a drone-based thermal-mapping campaign to locate and protect cold-water refuges vital for threatened Atlantic salmon.
- Warming temperatures are pushing the Atlantic salmon beyond their ideal thermal tolerance, compounding existing pressures on the species, such as overfishing.
- Warming waters and declining river flows during droughts are impacting both the fisheries and the cultural lifeblood of Mi’kmaq society.
- Indigenous river guardians hope the project will pre-emptively shield cool-water habitats before key spawning and migration corridors become unviable.

Protecting Vietnam’s vast caves may have sparked a wildlife comeback
- Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park in Vietnam is billed as a successful example of sustainable tourism, with efforts to conserve the area’s unique caves and wildlife.
- The park’s management has implemented measures to limit tourism’s impact, such as restricting visitor numbers and offering guided tours, which has helped curb illegal hunting and logging.
- Local communities have benefited from tourism, with many former hunters and loggers now working as guides and porters, and wildlife populations are showing signs of recovery.
- The success of conservation efforts in the park has led to plans to expand protection to the Laotian side of the border, creating a transboundary UNESCO World Heritage Site.

‘Africa can become a green leader’: Interview with Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa
- Although Africa contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it suffers the worst consequences of climate change and still receives only around 2% of global renewable energy investments.
- Mohamed Adow from the think tank Power Shift Africa tells Mongabay that delegates at the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, must deliver a “just transition framework” that prioritizes African needs, expands access to clean energy, and strengthens green industrialization across the continent.
- Adow says he envisions an Africa that harnesses its transition minerals and renewable potential for its own prosperity — leading the global energy transition instead of powering other countries’ economies.
- In 2025, African countries experienced escalating climate disasters, including deadly floods and severe droughts, while facing cuts in U.S. aid funding.

Donors renew $1.8 billion pledge for Indigenous land rights
The governments of four countries, along with several philanthropies and donors, have renewed a $1.8 billion pledge over the next five years to help recognize, manage and protect Indigenous and other traditional community land. The Forest and Land Tenure Pledge, first made in Glasgow at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, provided $1.86 billion in […]
Governments commit to recognizing 160 million hectares of Indigenous land
The governments of nine tropical countries recently made a joint pledge to recognize 160 million hectares, or 395 million acres, of Indigenous and other traditional lands by 2030, according to a Nov. 7 announcement at the World Leaders Summit, an event hosted ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil. The Intergovernmental Land Tenure […]
Peru Indigenous patrols see success & struggles in combating illegal miners
- In 2024, the Wampís Indigenous nation formed the territorial monitoring group Charip to combat the expansion of illegal gold mining, loggers and other invaders in their territory in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Charip combines traditional knowledge with monitoring technology but lacks the financial resources to expand its control posts and cover more ground.
- Members of the group are unpaid, which has led to a decline in the number of available guards.

Iguanas on Mexico’s Clarion Island likely native, not introduced by people: Study
Researchers have long speculated that humans introduced spiny-tailed iguanas to Mexico’s remote Clarion Island about 50 years ago. However, a recent study suggests the Clarion iguanas are likely native to the island, arriving long before human colonization of the Americas. Clarion Island is the westernmost and oldest of a small group of islands in Mexico’s […]
New directory helps donors navigate the complex world of global reforestation
- The Global Reforestation Organization Directory provides standardized information on more than 125 major tree-planting organizations, making it easier for donors to compare groups and find the ones that match their priorities.
- Researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz evaluated groups across four categories: permanence, ecological, social and financial, each backed by scientific literature on best practices.
- Much of the evaluation relies on the organization’s self-reporting through surveys or website statements and, while researchers acknowledge this limitation, they say it still provides a valuable framework and a starting point for donors.
- The directory doesn’t rank organizations but rather shows what organizations publicly share about following scientific best practices, avoiding common mistakes and monitoring their results.

‘Our zeal is unwavering’: 3 environmental defenders share trials, tribulations, hopes
- Environmental defenders face various challenges depending on their context, whether in Colombia, Uganda or the Philippines.
- Since 2012, more than 2,100 defenders have fallen victim to violence, according to Global Witness. This includes activists in these three countries.
- Mongabay spoke with three defenders from these nations at the 2024 Climate Change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. They were there to raise their voices on issues around just transition to energy, equity, inclusion and that the global climate policies work for them.
- Despite serious threats to their lives, these defenders remain steadfast in their commitment to their cause. They are determined to continue their work, believing their mission is worth the risks they face.

What Central Park’s Squirrel Census says about conservation tech: Interview with Okala’s Robin Whytock
- At the end of New York Climate Week this year, ecologist Robin Whytock spent a few hours in Central Park counting squirrels.
- His mission was to prove how scalable tech solutions could help make biodiversity monitoring easier and more efficient.
- Whytock, who runs AI-powered nature monitoring platform Okala, said that while data-gathering tools have become easily accessible, analyzing massive amounts of biodiversity data still remains a challenge.

Gibbon trafficking pushes rehabilitation centers to the max in North Sumatra
- Famed for their free-flow swinging through the forest canopy, gibbons are being relentlessly shot, stolen and incarcerated to supply an escalating illegal pet trade that targets babies in particular.
- Experts point to misleading social media content and a surge in private zoo collections as fueling the trade. Hundreds of the small apes have been confiscated by authorities across South and Southeast Asia in the past decade, with India and the UAE emerging as primary destinations.
- Gibbon rehabilitation centers, mostly operated by NGOs struggling for funding, are buckling under the numbers of animals in need of rescue and care.
- The trade imposes overwhelming suffering on the trafficked animals and immense wastage among the complex social groups gibbons live in, driving already threatened species ever closer to extinction.

Cautious win for Indigenous groups in Malaysia as palm oil firm pauses forest clearing
- Indigenous Penan and Kenyah residents in Malaysian Borneo have filed a lawsuit and a complaint with Malaysia’s sustainable palm oil certifier, accusing palm oil company Urun Plantations of clearing natural forest within its concession along the Belaga River in violation of its lease and sustainability certification.
- Urun Plantations agreed in late October to pause development activities after a palm oil mill suspended buying palm fruit from the plantation.
- Satellite imagery and NGO field evidence indicate ongoing deforestation since 2023, while the company says it is only replanting previously developed land and denies breaching certification rules.
- The company maintains the project has local support, with the dispute underscoring growing tensions in Malaysia’s Sarawak state over palm oil expansion into remaining forests and Indigenous territories.

Turning outdoor exploration into environmental discovery: Gregg Treinish and the rise of Adventure Scientists
- Gregg Treinish, founder of Adventure Scientists, has built a global network of trained volunteers who collect high-quality environmental data for researchers, agencies, and conservationists. His organization bridges the worlds of outdoor adventure and scientific rigor.
- From microplastics and illegal timber to biodiversity mapping, Adventure Scientists’ projects have filled crucial data gaps and influenced policy, research, and corporate practices around the world.
- In California, Treinish’s team is partnering with the California All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI) to help catalog the state’s immense diversity through thousands of insect and soil eDNA samples collected by volunteers.
- Treinish spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in October 2025 about scaling trust-based citizen science, the value of human observation in nature, and why adventure remains a powerful gateway to environmental action.

Radioactive rhinos (cartoon)
South Africa’s rhinos now have an unlikely superpower: radioactivity! Scientists working on the Rhisotope Project inject the horns of live rhinos with a radioactive isotope. This is harmless to the rhinos, but makes smuggled horns easy to detect during customs inspections with the hope of deterring rhinoceros poaching.
Sierra Leone communities sign carbon agreement based on carbon justice principles
- Hundreds of communities in Sierra Leone’s Bonthe district have signed a benefit-sharing carbon agreement with the Africa Conservation Initiative targeting the protection of mangroves in the Sherbro River Estuary.
- The agreement is based on “carbon justice principles” aimed at making carbon projects fairer for communities, such as a 40-50% gross revenue share; free, prior and informed consent, including transparency of financial information and buyers; and community-led stewardship of the mangroves.
- If implemented correctly, the agreement could address “deep-rooted issues of fairness,” experts say.

Coal-dependent South Africa struggles to make just energy transition real
- Communities in South Africa’s coal-mining towns say there’s little sign of a clean energy transition on the ground, where they complain of persistent pollution and violence toward activists.
- A metalworkers’ union leader who sits on South Africa’s climate commission says the transition is racing forward, outpacing new jobs promised to mine workers.
- A mine operator says coal is a critical element in producing renewable energy infrastructure.

The price of gold: In Venezuela, mining threatens Indigenous Pemón
- Across southern Venezuela, Indigenous communities have been drawn into mining for gold as their traditional way of life has been disturbed and they lack other economic opportunities.
- Armed groups and a push for extractives have turned the Imataca Forest Reserve in the state of Bolivar into a mining hotspot, sources tell Mongabay, boosting deforestation and river pollution and destroying the livelihoods of Indigenous Pemón families.
- In Canaima National Park, the collapse of tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed communities into mining. Many operations in the park are run by Pemón, who own rafts, employ local workers and partner with external financiers providing machinery and fuel in exchange for a share of the gold.
- In theory, Venezuela legally guarantees land rights for Indigenous people and requires consultation on extractive projects, but communities denounce a lack of consultation, with both legal and illegal mining encroaching on their territories.

Chilean pulp giant Arauco’s history of pollution trails it to Brazil biodiversity site
- Chile-based Arauco has begun building a pulp and paper mill in a Brazilian region that’s been prioritized for conservation.
- The project overlaps with the Três Lagoas biodiversity conservation area, where it could potentially contaminate rivers, dry up groundwater, increase wildlife roadkill, and transform this region of Cerrado savanna into a “green desert” of eucalyptus monocultures.
- While Arauco has promised to implement monitoring and mitigation measures for the environmental impacts of its new project, its track record in Chile is rife with cases of pollution and environmental violations.

To fix the climate, simply empower Indigenous people (commentary)
- While nations search for complex climate solutions at this year’s COP30 climate meeting in Belém, a simple yet powerful answer is just waiting in the wings: empowering the world’s most powerful protectors of forests and nature – Indigenous people – and we must let them point the way, a new op-ed argues.
- Ending fossil fuel use and transforming global food systems are essential but expensive and take time, but nations like Indonesia can score an immediate climate win by enacting its long debated Indigenous Peoples Bill, for example.
- “Humanity seeks an answer, but the answer has always been here,” the Sira Declaration states. “The answer is us.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘Not good’: Ocean losing its greenness, threatening food webs
- The ocean is losing its greenness, a new study has found: Global chlorophyll concentration, a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, declined over the past two decades, especially in coastal areas.
- Phytoplankton are the base of the marine food web, supporting fisheries and broader ecosystems, so their decline could have far-reaching implications, experts say.
- The phytoplankton decline could hurt coastal communities that live off the sea, and affect the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink, the authors say.

What does the just energy transition mean for Africa?
- Around 600 million Africans lack even basic access to electricity.
- The challenges this deficit poses have led to a call for a “just” energy transition that brings access to energy from renewable sources without imposing undue costs on individuals, communities and countries.
- The rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are largely the result of fossil fuel burning in industrialized countries, and yet countries in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South are often on the frontlines of the impacts of climate change, including unbearable heat, droughts and flooding.
- The debate about how to facilitate a “just” transition includes questions around the continued use of fossil fuels, nations’ sovereignty, and mobilizing funding to finance the necessary changes.

Rise in Chinese off-grid coal plants in Indonesia belies pledge to end fossil fuel support
- Chinese president Xi Jinping has pledged to end the country’s financing of overseas coal projects — but a surge in Chinese-backed coal-fired power plants to supply electricity to nickel mining and processing undermines that pledge.
- Chinese investment has been flowing into Indonesia’s metal mining and smelting sector in a bid to supply raw materials to electric vehicle battery makers amid a transition to the zero-emission vehicles.
- By the end of the decade, about 44% of processed nickel for use in batteries and also for stainless steel will come from Indonesia.

Healing life on Earth begins with healing our bonds: Voices from the land (commentary)
- When Indigenous activists in Samoa talk about healing the planet, what they are really talking about is healing the vā, the space between things and the invisible thread between people, land, ocean, ancestors and future generations, says Brianna Fruean, member of the Council of Elders for the Pacific Climate Warriors, or 350 Pacific.
- Fruean says many Indigenous knowledge systems, from the Pacific to the Amazon, already hold the principles of balance, reciprocity and care that our world needs.
- “We cannot solve this crisis with the same mindset that caused it,” she says in this opinion piece. “The path forward is not only paved with innovation, but with a return to watering and feeding our relationships.”
- This commentary is part of the Voices from the Land series, a compilation of Indigenous-led opinion pieces. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

A blueprint for communicating about the Amazon rainforest (commentary)
- Rhett Ayers Butler contributed a section on communicating about the Amazon to the Amazonia in Danger report, a multilingual collection of 22 essays by 55 authors organized by COICA, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin.
- His piece suggests that stories of crisis could evolve from despair to agency by pairing truth with tangible examples of progress—verified, replicable actions that show systems can still respond and that hope, grounded in evidence, can be a form of endurance.
- He emphasizes that credibility depends on who delivers the message as much as what is said, calling for communications infrastructure that centers local voices, prioritizes trust, adapts messages to specific audiences, and measures success by lasting outcomes rather than fleeting attention.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)
- Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute and of the Green Bridge Facility, argues that keeping global warming below 1.5 °C requires action on three simultaneous fronts: phasing out fossil fuels, ending deforestation, and scaling up natural carbon capture in forests and oceans.
- She contends that energy decarbonization alone is insufficient; protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves is essential for both emissions reduction and resilience, and must be backed by transparent finance and accountability.
- With COP30 approaching in Belém, her piece calls for an integrated, finance-backed plan that ties together clean-energy expansion, a time-bound zero-deforestation roadmap, and rigorous safeguards for community-led nature-based solutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Why Sweden’s forest policy matters to the world (commentary)
- Sweden is one of the world’s largest exporters of forest-based products: paper, timber, cardboard and biofuels travel across the globe, ending up in your packaging, your books, in your home.
- A recent government proposal encourages fertilization with nitrogen to speed up tree growth, which may work in the short term but eventually fails and is leached into waterways, altering ecosystems and being released back into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases.
- “If a country with some of the world’s largest intact boreal forests chooses to double down on short-term extraction, it will not only undermine the EU’s climate goals — it will send a dangerous signal to other forest nations, from Canada to Brazil, that soil and biodiversity can be sacrificed in the name of so-called green growth,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cautious optimism greets new global forest fund at COP30
At the COP30 Leaders’ Summit in Belém, host country Brazil formally introduced the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). It’s an endowment-style mechanism designed to pay countries and forest stewards to keep tropical forests standing. TFFF has drawn goodwill and cautious optimism from leaders and NGOs. TFFF has received more than $5.5 billion in initial pledges; architects of […]
Asian golden cat range expands, but declines continue amid rising threats
- The Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is a medium-sized cat species that was once abundant across Asia, ranging from India to China. Today its population is undergoing a significant decline.
- That’s resulted in it now being declared a threatened species as its habitat is lost or fragmented, and indiscriminate snaring removes it from forests, particularly in Southeast Asia.
- Targeted research, conservation and funding are rare for this species, resulting in significant knowledge gaps about its basic ecology and threats. That uncertainty is causing some conservationists to say it could warrant endangered status.
- It’s hoped that increasing threat levels imperiling the Asian golden cat will spur donor funding, giving researchers the tools to shine a light on the needs of this lesser-known felid. Nepal has so far led the way in conservation efforts.

Europe’s under-pressure bats face ‘astonishing’ threat: Ambush by rats
Researchers have captured video of an unexpected predator at two bat hibernation sites in northern Germany: invasive brown rats that lie in wait to intercept the bats mid-flight. Invasive rodents are known predators of native animals on islands, including bats. However, this is likely the first time invasive brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) have been recorded […]
Indigenous delegates prepare for COP30 with focus on justice, land and finance
- The 2025 U.N. climate conference, COP30, will run from Nov. 10-21 in Belém, Brazil, and is expected to host the largest participation of Indigenous peoples in the conference series’ history, with more than 3,000 Indigenous delegates registered.
- Mongabay spoke with some of the delegates from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific about their expectations for the conference and their objectives.
- They’re calling for recognition of Indigenous lands as a climate solution, a just energy transition, protection for forest defenders, and financial pledges that ensure at least 20% of forest conservation funds be directed to Indigenous and local communities.
- COP30 is expected to launch initiatives such as the Belém Action Mechanism for a just transition and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. In the lead up to the conference, governments and donors also announced major commitments to recognize customary lands and provide funding support land rights.

UNESCO biosphere listing raises hope, questions for Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain
- UNESCO has declared the floodplain around Malaysian Borneo’s Kinabatangan River a biosphere reserve, linking the Heart of Borneo to the Lower Kinabatangan–Segama Wetlands.
- Conservationists warn that the landscape remains heavily fragmented by oil palm plantations and faces persistent threats from pollution and weak land governance.
- They argue that lasting change will require land reform, corporate accountability and stronger coordination between Sabah’s forestry and wildlife authorities.

Expedition charts Cook Islands seafloor, amid scrutiny over mining motives
- Between Oct. 1 and 21, a U.S government-funded vessel, the E/V Nautilus, conducted an expedition in the Cook Islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), following an agreement between the U.S. and the Cook Islands to “advance scientific research and the responsible development of seabed mineral resources.”
- During the 21-day expedition, the E/V Nautilus mapped more than 14,000 square kilometers (5,400 square miles) of the Cook Islands’ seafloor while also documenting deep-sea biodiversity.
- Environmental activists protested the expedition, arguing it would help accelerate deep-sea mining in the Cook Islands. The crew of the E/V Nautilus, however, rejects the accusation.
- The Cook Islands government has issued three deep-sea mining exploration licenses, which will expire in 2027. One company operating in the Cook Islands has said it hopes to apply for an exploitation license in 2027.

Vietnam’s protected areas fall short of safeguarding most bats, study finds
- Bats play crucial roles in biodiverse ecosystems the world over, yet they’re often overlooked in conservation planning.
- New research from Vietnam indicates the existing network of protected areas fails to adequately safeguard the small flying mammals, risking continued population declines.
- The study identifies priority areas where Vietnam’s efforts to expand its protected area network would most benefit bats in the central highlands, the western central coast and the northwest regions.
- Experts say a lot could be achieved for bats in Southeast Asia by ending the illegal wildlife trade, particularly the “frivolous” international ornamental bat trade.

In Honduras, local communities miss out on benefits of large-scale renewables
- About 1.4 million Hondurans still lack access to electricity, energy demand is increasing and climate change is intensifying, while the country continues to rely on fossil fuels. Yet, in southern Honduras, large-scale renewable energy projects have sparked sharp criticism from local communities.
- Community members complain of unbearable heat, water scarcity and deforestation. They say they feel the impacts of large renewable energy projects, but not the benefits, noting that they still lack access to the electricity grid and face some of the highest electricity prices in the region.
- Community leaders who resist renewable energy projects report being threatened. Experts, activists and community members say better protection for community leaders is urgently needed.
- Despite Honduras’s need for an energy transition, the government and companies involved in these projects have failed to secure community support. Instead, locals call for a “just transition” that ensures affordable energy.

Journalism is failing to report on environmental leaders’ fights (commentary)
- Environmental leaders in Latin America are facing out-of-control violence and deaths, with little accountability.
- Journalism is failing environmental leaders by focusing on statistics instead of their stories.
- Journalists must immerse themselves in the field, along with environmental leaders, to expose their fights and struggles.
- This commentary is part of Our Letters to the Future, a series produced by the Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as their final fellowship project. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Congo Basin communities bear the costs of industrial expansion
Governments and investors are seeking minerals, timber and oil in the Congo Basin to fuel the global economy and the green transition. However, communities that have lived in the world’s second-largest rainforest for generations are paying the highest price for extraction, according to a new report published ahead of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change […]
Witch Hunt: Virulent fungal disease attacks South America’s cassava crop
- Witches’ Broom, a devastating fungal disease, has spread for the first time from Southeast Asia to Latin America, arriving in French Guiana in 2023 and has now infiltrated northern Brazil.
- Cassava is a vital crop for food security in South America and Africa, and a critical cash crop in Southeast Asia, where the fungal disease is spreading rapidly. More than 500 million people worldwide rely on cassava for their dietary needs.
- The pathogen has already caused massive cassava losses in Southeast Asia, with infection rates in some fields near 90%, and now it threatens food security in Latin America. Climate change is helping the fungus thrive and spread, as wetter conditions create an ideal environment for infection.
- Brazil has launched emergency measures, including funding research and farmer training, but scientists warn that without swift containment, cassava production across the tropics could face severe declines.

Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon
- Renata Piazzon, CEO of the Instituto Arapyaú, is one of Brazil’s leading voices for aligning conservation with economic development, arguing that protecting forests and improving livelihoods must go hand in hand.
- Under her leadership, Arapyaú has helped catalyze initiatives like MapBiomas and the Forest People Connection, which link data, finance, and connectivity to reduce deforestation and strengthen Amazonian communities.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30, Piazzon envisions the country shifting from negotiation to implementation—demonstrating global leadership through regenerative agriculture, forest restoration, and a low-carbon economy.
- Piazzon spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in November 2025.

Scientists call for stronger action to save Indonesia’s vanishing seagrass meadows
- Marine experts at the Indonesian Seagrass Symposium in Bali warned that seagrass ecosystems — vital for carbon storage, biodiversity and coastal protection — remain largely overlooked in national policy and conservation efforts.
- Seagrass coverage in Indonesia has fallen from around 30,000 km2 in 1994 to about 8,000 km2 today, with losses driven by pollution, mining, coastal development and sedimentation that reduces water clarity and habitat quality.
- Indonesia holds some of the world’s most extensive remaining seagrass meadows, estimated to store more than 30 million metric tons of CO2, making their protection crucial for both national and global climate goals.
- Scientists and conservation leaders urged stronger data collection, funding and institutional capacity to support restoration, monitoring and community participation, positioning Indonesia as a potential leader in seagrass conservation.

Wildlife charities a third of the way to buying key UK nature refuge
A conservation alliance in the U.K. has raised nearly one-third of the 30 million pounds ($39 million) it needs to buy land in northeastern England to turn into a refuge for wildlife and local communities. The land, known as the Rothbury Estate, is roughly the size of the Greek capital of Athens, at 3,839 hectares […]
Ethanol plant spills harmful wastewater into Philippine marine reserve
A chemical spill from an ethanol distillery has put one of the Philippines’ largest marine protected areas at risk. A wall retaining the wastewater pond of an ethanol distillery plant collapsed on Oct. 24, causing about 255,000 cubic meters (67 million gallons) of wastewater to flow into Bais Bay in the central Philippines, according to […]
‘A big no’: Opposition grows to proposed mine in Malawi’s newest UNESCO site
- Malawi’s Mount Mulanje is a biodiversity hotspot, a sacred cultural site, and provides critical resources for the more than 1 million people who live in the surrounding districts.
- In July, Mount Mulanje Cultural Landscape was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- In August, senior traditional chiefs held a press conference affirming their support for the UNESCO listing.
- Local leaders and conservationists fear proposed mining projects would threaten the mountain’s natural heritage, and negatively impact tourism and jeopardize gains in sustainable development.

Report identifies 10 emerging tech solutions to enhance planetary health
- A recent report underlines 10 emerging technologies offering potential to accelerate climate action, restore ecosystems, and drive sustainable innovation within safe planetary boundaries. These technologies include AI-supported Earth observation, automated food waste upcycling, green concrete and more.
- Innovative AI improvements in Earth observations (EO) can better identify and track human-caused environmental impacts and offer improved early warning alerts for planetary boundary overshoot. Such systems use AI-powered analytics to synthesize satellite, drone and ground-based data for near-real-time results.
- Artificial intelligence and automation can also work in tandem to manage citywide food waste programs, ensuring that food scraps are diverted from landfills or incineration, decreasing carbon emissions and reducing waste.
- Another tech solution is green concrete which could not only reduce emissions from traditional cement production, but when incorporated into infrastructure construction, can offer a permanent storage place for captured CO2.

Youth, hope & the role of environmental journalism in building a better future (commentary)
- In September, Y. Eva Tan Fellow Fernanda Biasoli was invited to speak during Journalism Week at São Paulo State University (UNESP); here, she shares some of the messages she conveyed about environmental journalism, youth and hope as the planet faces crisis.
- “Think, for example, of a river basin,” she writes. “Each spring, stream, creek and river comes together to form a large territory that allows life to flourish. For me, environmental journalism can be seen as one of these streams: a fundamental part of a large democratic ecosystem.”
- Now, more than ever, Biasoli says, the world must unite to inspire and create new ideas — and to keep alive the connection with nature and respect for all beings that inhabit this planet.
- This commentary is part of Our Letters to the Future, a series produced by the Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as their final fellowship project. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Suriname’s plan to capitalize on carbon: Q&A with President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons
- Suriname’s first female president, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, sat down with Mongabay to discuss her goals for the U.N. Climate Change Conference taking place next week in neighboring Brazil.
- She’s been a vocal proponent of climate financing for countries meeting their emission targets and conserving the rainforest.
- At the same time, Geerlings-Simons is grappling with Suriname’s deep-seated mining industry, which often skirts regulations and destroys natural ecosystems with mercury and cyanide.
- Geerlings-Simons said she recognizes the importance of extractive industries for funding the country’s infrastructure, law enforcement and the agencies that provide environmental oversight.

Indigenous communities protect Colombia’s uncontacted peoples
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For more than a decade, two Indigenous communities deep in Colombia’s Amazon have been safeguarding those who wish to remain unseen, reports contributor Pilar Puentes for Mongabay. The residents of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and the neighboring […]
New arrangements should preserve Nairobi’s much-loved Karura Forest
- In Kenya, an uproar briefly followed the August announcement that the beloved Karura Forest north of Nairobi would no longer be jointly managed by local citizens’ group Friends of Karura Forest and the Kenya Forest Service; the decision has since been reversed.
- The 15-year partnership has restored several indigenous plant species to the Karura Forest, which is also a haven for wildlife such as jackals, bush pigs and small antelopes.
- Previously, the area was threatened by land-grabbers and illegal logging; today, the initiative employs more than 35 staff, who work on forest restoration, security and infrastructure maintenance while some 300 local community members supply thousands of tree seedlings each month for reforestation.

Critical minerals drive legalization of mining on Amazon Indigenous lands
- Brazilian lawmakers are advancing controversial bills to legalize mining on Indigenous lands, where hundreds of mining bids have already been filed, as the nation positions itself as a key supplier for the energy transition.
- The proposed expansion of mining would intensify deforestation and mercury pollution, bringing violence to Indigenous communities and threatening the Amazon, reports show.
- The move raises concerns among Indigenous organizations and experts, who warn that the bills are unconstitutional and may be taken without properly consulting traditional communities.

Chaos on Cambodia’s Coast
Along Cambodia’s rapidly transforming coastline, illegal trawling, elite-backed development, and weak enforcement are driving marine ecosystems and fishing communities to the brink. This 2024 series investigates the institutional breakdown behind the country’s marine crisis, from ineffective patrols in protected areas to billion-dollar land deals displacing small-scale fishers. It examines the competing interests reshaping Cambodia’s coast, […]
Despite new land title, Bolivia’s Indigenous Tacana II still face invaders
- After a process lasting more than two decades, the Bolivian government has granted the Indigenous Tacana II people a formal title to their ancestral territory, encompassing more than 272,000 hectares of land.
- While this recognition grants them full ownership and legal security, leaders and researchers say it is not enough to protect them from the country’s political insecurity, the lack of enforcement of environmental regulations and invasions by illegal actors.
- The Tacana people have reported land encroachments and the illegal opening of roads, which impact the transit zone for uncontacted Indigenous peoples.
- ● Experts on Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) told Mongabay that the title may provide a territorial barrier for the isolated people, but specific territorial protection measures are still required to guarantee their full protection.

Beyond deforestation: redesigning how we protect and value tropical forests (analysis)
- Following his earlier essay tracing possible futures for the world’s forests, Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler turns from diagnosis to design—asking what concrete interventions could still avert collapse. This piece explores how governance, finance, and stewardship might evolve in a second act for tropical forests.
- The essay argues that lasting protection depends structural reform: securing Indigenous land rights, treating governance as infrastructure, and creating steady finance that outlasts election cycles and aid projects.
- Butler also examines overlooked levers—from restoring degraded lands and valuing forests’ local cooling effects to rethinking “bioeconomies” and building regional cooperation across borders. Each points toward a shift from reactive conservation to deliberate, sustained design.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. From a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, the vast volcanic basin at the heart of Sumatra, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang looks down on what he calls both a blessing and a warning, reports Sri Wahyuni for Mongabay. Once the first […]
What might lie ahead for tropical forests (analysis)
- Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler offers a thought experiment—tracing today’s trajectories a little further forward to imagine where they might lead. What follows are scenarios, some improbable, others already taking shape.
- The essay envisions a world where deforestation gives way to disorder: weakened governance, runaway fires, and ecological feedback loops eroding forests from within even without the swing of an axe. It explores how technology and biology—AI-driven agriculture, gene-edited trees, and microbial interventions—could either accelerate destruction or redefine restoration, depending on who controls them.
- Across these imagined futures, one pattern recurs: forests thinning, recovering, and thinning again, as human ambition, migration, and climate instability test whether nature will be given the time and space to heal.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The price of a monkey
The long-tailed macaque has lost a battle for its survival — but won one for scientific integrity, reports Mongabay’s Gerald Flynn. In early October, the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, reaffirmed the species’ endangered status, rejecting an appeal by the U.S. National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR). The lobby group had argued that the […]
Belize’s blue reputation vs. reef reality: Marine conservation wins, and what’s missing (commentary)
- For over a year, journalists from Mongabay and Mongabay Latam have been digging into issues related to the Mesoamerican Reef, the Western Hemisphere’s largest barrier reef system, which runs from Mexico’s Yucatán through Belize and Guatemala to Honduras.
- As part of that effort, which involves exploring both problems and solutions, Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler spoke to experts and reviewed many reports, scientific papers, and stories.
- With its early leadership and significant funding, Belize has emerged as a linchpin in Mesoamerican Reef conservation and fisheries management. This summary brings together what various experts have said—highlighting gaps, issues, and actionable recommendations as they relate to Belize.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Six new tube-nosed bats described from the Philippines
Researchers have recently described six new-to-science species of tube-nosed bats from the Philippines, named after their unique nostrils that protrude from the snout. All the specimens were collected from either primary or secondary forests, currently threatened by mining and shifting agriculture, the authors write in a new study. “These bats are notoriously elusive, so the […]
Scientists map Italy’s entire coast to guide seagrass and marine recovery
- Posidonia oceanica is a Mediterranean seagrass whose meadows act as a carbon sink, a coastal protector and a nursery for marine life.
- This ecosystem is under severe threat from human activities, including illegal trawling, pollution and boat anchoring, resulting in significant degradation and loss of biodiversity.
- Italy is employing sophisticated sensors to create an unprecedentedly detailed and comprehensive map of its entire coastline, including its Posidonia meadows, in an effort to improve management and conservation of its marine habitats.
- While large-scale mapping provides the blueprint, targeted protection and restoration efforts demonstrate that it’s possible to reverse the damage and bring life back to the sea.

Stronger arctic cyclones speed up polar melting, impacting global weather
Powerful winds are ripping through the Arctic, breaking up critical sea ice that once acted as a shield against disturbance from wind and waves. Scientists warn the loss of sea ice is speeding up the region’s ecological collapse and could disrupt weather patterns far beyond the Arctic, contributor Sean Mowbray reported for Mongabay. In the […]
Heading into COP, Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate is falling. What about fires?
- Brazil’s official data show deforestation in the Amazon fell 11% in the 12 months to July 2025, with independent monitoring by Imazon confirming a similar trend—evidence that policies under President Lula da Silva are reversing the sharp rise seen during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- Even as land clearing slows, fires and forest degradation have become major drivers of loss. Exceptional drought in 2024, record heat, and the spread of roads and logging left large areas of the forest dry and flammable, causing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest loss—roughly 60% from fire.
- Burned areas have dropped by 45% over the past year, suggesting some recovery, yet scientists warn the Amazon is entering a more fragile state shaped by climate extremes and the lingering effects of past destruction.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, attention will center on sustaining recent gains and advancing initiatives like the proposed $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility, even as new roads, gold mining, and policy uncertainty—such as the wavering soy moratorium—continue to threaten progress.

In Rio’s largest favela, used oil becomes soap and social change
- In the heart of Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha favela, the largest in Brazil, a chance discovery led a resident creating a project to turn improperly discarded cooking oil into sustainable soaps and cleaning products.
- Founded in 2020, the Óleo no Ponto initiative acquainted favela residents with environmental stewardship by creating eco-friendly detergents such as soap bars and dishwashing paste.
- In addition to preventing used oil from being dumped into water and clogging sewage pipes, the project empowers vulnerable women from Rocinha, who have found new sources of income by producing and selling detergents under the Sabão do Morro (Favela Soap) brand.

On first International Day of the Deep Seabed, we seek stewardship and consensus (commentary)
- “I could not be more delighted to celebrate this inaugural International Day of the Deep Seabed,” writes the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in a new op-ed at Mongabay.
- On Nov. 1, 2025, she notes that the world will for the first time mark a day that celebrates the great biodiversity of the planet’s mysterious deep seabed and its potential role in the future of humanity’s progress, while reiterating that consensus-building among member states and nongovernmental actors remains critical to ensure its stewardship.
- “Together, by delivering on our commitments under the Law of the Sea, we can ensure that this last great frontier remains a source of wonder, discovery, opportunity and shared benefit for all humankind,” she argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

UK fish stocks in trouble as catch limits exceed scientific advice: Report
Nearly half of the United Kingdom’s most commercially valuable fish populations are either overexploited, critically low or both, according to a new report warning that the government continues to set catch limits above scientific advice. The report, “Deep Decline,” by conservation nonprofit Oceana UK, found that 17 of 105 U.K. fish stocks are both overfished […]
Landmark conviction exposes Sri Lanka’s deep-rooted illegal elephant trade
- A Sri Lankan court imposed one of the toughest penalties on a wildlife crime in September when the Colombo High Court sentenced a notorious elephant trafficker to 15 years in prison and slapped a fine of 20.6 million rupees (nearly $70,000) for the illegal possession of a wild-caught elephant.
- The case, which spanned more than a decade, uncovered how wild elephant calves were laundered into private ownership through forged documents with the aid of corrupt officials, exposing deep flaws in the country’s wildlife registry system.
- In 2015, a total of 39 elephants suspected of having been illegally captured were taken into custody by the Department of Wildlife Conservation, though 15 were later returned to their previous owners, sparking public outrage.
- Conservationists hail the ruling as a landmark victory against wildlife trafficking but warn against rampant corruption and the need to address the demand for captive elephants in cultural and religious processions that continue to threaten Sri Lanka’s wild herds.

Why facts alone won’t save the planet
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. When I think about what makes someone care about the natural world, it rarely begins with statistics or graphs. It begins with a moment. For me, it was an encounter I had at age 12 with frogs in […]
Ousted Nepal gov’t cleared easier path for controversial cable cars, documents show
- Nepal’s ousted KP Sharma Oli administration secretly granted national priority status to six commercial cable car projects, allowing easier forest clearance and land acquisition in protected areas.
- Lawyers and conservationists call the move illegal and contemptuous of court, as it bypassed pending Supreme Court cases and lacked proper environmental and community review, despite prior rulings invalidating infrastructure inside protected zones.
- The Annapurna Sikles cable car and other projects threaten biodiversity hotspots and Indigenous lands; critics highlight flawed environmental impact assessments, risks to ecosystems and lack of consultation with local and Indigenous communities.
- The interim government claims to be unaware of the decision, while experts urge its reversal, warning that the new rule shields developers from accountability and endangers Nepal’s conservation gains across.

California’s grand insect census
- Austin Baker and his team at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are leading an ambitious effort to DNA-barcode every insect species in California as part of the statewide CalATBI initiative to “discover it all, protect it forever.”
- The project combines traditional specimen collection with modern genetic sequencing to build a comprehensive biodiversity library, revealing surprising hotspots of insect life—from foggy coasts to the species-rich Mojave Desert.
- By creating a genetic baseline of California’s insect diversity, the team hopes to track future ecological change, inform conservation priorities, and preserve the record of countless species that might otherwise vanish unnoticed.
- Baker was interviewed by Mongabay’s Rhett Ayers Butler in October 2025.

Australia celebrates ‘humpback comeback,’ but a main food source is under threat
News of Australia’s “humpback comeback” is making waves globally. Numbers of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) on the nation’s east coast have rebounded to an estimated 50,000 from a historic low of just a few hundred before commercial whaling was outlawed in the 1970s. And wildlife scientist and whale expert Vanessa Pirotta joins the podcast to […]
Belém faces its social and natural demons as host to COP30
- Deforestation and the city’s historic shift from rivers to roads led to a massive influx of people into low-lying baixadas, where 57% of residents lack services, such as sewage, and are highly prone to flooding.
- The lack of trees in one of the Amazon’s most revered cities, especially in poor neighborhoods, contributes to projections that Belém will face 222 days of extreme heat by 2050.
- Experts argue that the infrastructure projects being implemented don’t offer sustainable solutions, reflecting a long-term failure to address Belém’s water and sewage crises.

Gold mining impacts persist after DRC shuts down company operations: Video
In a new short video, Mongabay visits the Dimonika Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO site in southwestern Republic of Congo. The government shut down a Chinese company’s gold mining operation in November 2024, but mining pollution and its impacts on local communities persist. Photojournalist Berdy Pambou talked with local artisanal gold miners who accuse the Chinese […]
Senegal’s great green wall progress falters amid unfulfilled pledges: Study
- A recent study has examined the progress to realize Africa’s Great Green Wall initiative in Senegal, which is often hailed as the model for this continent-wide project.
- The study finds Senegal has achieved encouraging social and economic results — but far less success on the ecological front.
- The study’s authors, echoing complaints from African officials, say that far less money has actually reached implementing countries and organizations than has been announced at global forums.

Mexico adopts protections for Atlantic sharks
Mexico recently adopted national regulations protecting several threatened shark species in the Atlantic from being caught or retained as bycatch. Shark conservationists welcome the protections but say they are long overdue, coming years after the country’s commitments to a multilateral fishery regulator. Mexican fisheries catch a significant number of various shark species in the Atlantic […]
Bangladesh to reintroduce captive elephants to the wild
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Bangladesh has embarked on an ambitious plan to end the centuries-old practice of keeping elephants in captivity. The government has begun retrieving privately owned elephants and aims to rehabilitate them in the wild. The initiative follows a 2024 […]
Climate change is wreaking havoc on World Cultural Heritage sites, study finds
- A recent study shows that 80% of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites are facing climate stress, with wood and stone constructions susceptible to a range of threats from extreme heat, humidity, aridity and other climatic factors.
- Researchers also found there is no single pathway toward mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions that will uniformly protect these sites.
- In addition, the team found a Global North-South divide in heritage conservation, as Global South nations do not have the same resources to preserve their cultural sites; preservation will take collective efforts.
- This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

Most Cambodia & Laos tree cover loss in 2024 happened inside protected areas
More than half of Cambodia and Laos’ tree cover loss in 2024 was recorded inside protected areas, Mongabay’s Gerald Flynn reports. The findings were a result of Mongabay’s analysis of satellite data published by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery laboratory at the University of Maryland, in partnership with Global Forest Watch. In Cambodia, 56% of the nation’s […]
California learns from its beaver reintroductions
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Tásmam Koyóm, a high Sierra meadow in California, U.S. returned to the Mountain Maidu people in 2019, is once again wet where once it had been dry. Rivulets now snake through hip-high grasses and willow thickets, feeding a […]
Report urges full protection of world’s 196 uncontacted Indigenous peoples
- A comprehensive global report on uncontacted Indigenous peoples, published Oct. 27 by Survival International, estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Asia and the Pacific region.
- About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon — especially in Brazil, home to 124 groups. Survival International says that, unless governments and private companies act, half of the groups could be wiped out within 10 years.
- Nine out of 10 of these Indigenous groups face the threat of unsolicited contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups.
- After contact, Indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International says that, if these peoples are to survive, they must be fully protected, requiring serious noncontact commitments by governments, companies and missionaries.

‘A very successful story’: An Egypt tribe welcomes tourists & protects its coast
- Al-Qula’an is an “eco-village” in the Wadi El Gemal protected area in Egypt that environmentalists say is an example of how eco-tourism, along with traditional knowledge and practices, can help protect sensitive ecosystems.
- The mangroves of Al-Qula’an provide nursery grounds for marine species, and the coastal habitats serve as nesting sites for endangered sea turtles.
- The village has transformed from a subsistence fishing community to a low-impact eco-tourism destination while upholding principles of the Ababda tribe, like the importance of preserving mangroves.

Heart checkup for anteaters
Technology has evolved enough to identify animals, understand their habitats and track their movements. But understanding how environmental factors are physiologically causing stress to animals is still a challenge. Scientists at the Smithsonian are now deploying tiny cardiac monitors to study how 27 species, including anteaters in Brazil, are affected by changes in the environment. […]
Radioactive leak in Banten exposes workers to danger & reveals regulatory failures
- A radioactive contamination scandal in Banten, Indonesia, has left local workers like Sakinah and Roni jobless and exposed to health risks after Cesium-137 was traced to factories in the Modern Cikande Industrial Estate.
- Government investigations revealed widespread contamination across 22 companies, prompting cleanup operations and health checks for more than 1,500 residents living near the exposure zone.
- Authorities have struggled to find secure storage for the contaminated materials while admitting regulatory lapses that allowed radioactive scrap metal to enter the country unchecked.
- Experts and environmental groups are now urging tighter import controls, improved radioactive waste management and stronger coordination among ministries to prevent another silent disaster.

Dom Phillips & Bruno Pereira ‘would be killed again,’ Indigenous leader says
- Three years after the killings of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, threats remain in the Javari Valley, in the Brazilian Amazon, despite government efforts to halt violence in the region, prominent Indigenous leader Beto Marubo said.
- “The factors that caused the killings remain the same: drug trafficking and the increase in invasions of Indigenous lands,” Marubo told Mongabay in an interview in São Paulo.
- Phillips and Pereira were killed while the British journalist was investigating illegal fishing in the region for his book; Marubo was one of the contributors who helped to finish the book, launched in May in the U.S., Brazil and the U.K.
- Aware of the importance of the book, Marubo made a commitment to help promote the book. to elevate the voice of those who lost their lives defending the Amazon: “Despite all these deaths — not only Dom and Bruno, but also Chico Mendes, Dorothy Stang and so many others who die for the protection of the environment — they are forgotten, they are relegated; they are just numbers, just records in our history.”

International Gibbon Day: Spotlighting the overlooked, underprotected ‘lesser apes’
Gibbons, commonly called lesser apes, aren’t as well-known as some of their great ape cousins like chimpanzees or gorillas. But the lives of these highly arboreal primates are no less fascinating. They reside in the canopy of the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia, living in small family groups, each patrolling its own territory, […]
Nickel mining damage near UNESCO site stirs outrage in southern Philippines
- A recent survey by the Davao Oriental provincial government engineering office revealed that a strip mine operating in the province had scraped bare about 200 hectares of forestland.
- After the survey, the provincial governor said the province would order the Pujada nickel mine to cease operations.
- The mine is within 10 kilometers of two protected areas: the Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; and the Pujada Bay, a nationally protected seascape.

Arctic seals edge closer to extinction as sea ice vanishes
- Three Arctic seal species have been moved up to higher threat categories on the IUCN Red List, with one now endangered and two now near threatened.
- Global warming is melting away the sea ice they need for breeding, resting and feeding, which has led to widespread breeding failures among ice-dependent seals.
- Loss of sea ice is also opening the region to more human activity, including shipping and oil exploration, bringing added disturbance, noise and pollution.
- The IUCN warns a similar pattern is emerging in the Antarctic. It says urgent global emissions cuts, along with stronger local protections such as reducing bycatch and pollution, are needed to prevent further declines.

AI system eavesdrops on elephants to prevent deadly encounters in India
- Engineer-turned-conservationist Seema Lokhandwala has developed an AI-powered device that listens for elephant vocalizations and plays sounds like tiger roars or buzzing bees to drive herds away from villages near India’s Kaziranga National Park.
- Early field trials show the device is about 80% accurate in detecting elephants and 100% effective in deterring them, gaining support from local communities and forest officials despite limited funding.
- Lokhandwala and other experts stress that while technology can help mitigate human-elephant conflict, true coexistence requires addressing the root causes of conflict — habitat loss, land use and unsustainable development — and restoring respect for elephants among local communities.
- India’s Assam state, where Kaziranga is located, is a hotspot for human-elephant conflict, with expanding farms, infrastructure and climate-driven food shortages pushing elephants into villages, causing hundreds of human and elephant deaths over the past two decades.

After a hiatus, an endemic plant bursts into life in Sri Lanka’s central hills
- Sri Lanka’s highlands burst into violet, pink and white carpets as endemic Strobilanthes shrubs, locally known as nelu, begin to bloom in a synchronized manner, set seed and die, creating a breathtaking but fleeting display.
- The mass flowering overwhelms seed predators and attracts pollinators, boosting survival and reproduction — a rare evolutionary adaptation in the island’s montane ecosystem.
- Thousands of visitors flock to Horton Plains in the Central Highlands during the flowering season, raising risks of trampling, soil compaction, litter and disturbance to wildlife.
- Invasive plants such as mistflower (Ageratina riparia) and blue stars (Aristea ecklonii) could colonize areas left vacant after the bloom, potentially affecting future nelu cycles.

Global conservation body takes first step to protect ocean’s twilight zone
- Delegates at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi voted to adopt a motion urging precautionary measures to protect the ocean’s mesopelagic zone.
- The nonbinding motion calls for prospective activities such as fishing in the mesopelagic zone, deep-sea mining and geoengineering to be guided by the best available science and approached with caution.
- Both conservationists and industry representatives expressed support for the motion, highlighting the mesopelagic zone’s ecological importance and potential as a sustainable resource.

An Indigenous women-led revolution fights fires in Brazil’s Cerrado
- Brazil’s Cerrado savanna has experienced its worst fire season on record, but a tiny Indigenous territory here has for four years now kept the flames at bay.
- The volunteer brigade made up largely of Bakairi Indigenous women has been instrumental in preventing major fires from devastating the Santana Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso state.
- The initiative was born after fires in 2018 destroyed part of the territory and left the community vulnerable as a result of the authorities’ delay in providing help.
- While the Cerrado faces record devastation and public policies remain weak, the Bakairi experience points to a possible path forward that other Indigenous territories in the state also hope to emulate.

International Snow Leopard Day: Conservation and coexistence in India and Nepal
They’re known as the “ghost of the mountains,” so it makes sense that snow leopards can be extremely difficult to spot. Yet, these majestic, thick-furred cats, living in the high mountains of Asia, are also disappearing from much of their range due to declines in prey, retaliatory killing for livestock predation, the illegal wildlife trade, […]
Christmas Island shrew officially declared extinct: IUCN
The Christmas Island shrew, a tiny mammal once found only on the Australian island of the same name, has been declared officially extinct. It’s at least the fourth small mammal species to be wiped out from the island since the introduction of invasive species there a century ago. The Christmas Island shrew (Crocidura trichura) was […]
Forest sanctuaries and spiritual balance in the Karen highlands of Thailand
- One of Thailand’s largest Indigenous groups, Karen Pgaz K’Nyau culture is deeply rooted in animist beliefs that emphasize the importance of living in balance with nature.
- Their approach to land management incorporates sacred and community forests and traditional small-scale farming, where rituals, prayers and customary regulations govern the use of natural resources.
- However, the pressures of modernization and exclusionary conservation policies undermine their capacity to continue their spiritual practices on ancestral land, threatening cultural identity, food security and ecosystem integrity in many highland villages.

Forest Declaration Assessment reveals a forest paradox
- Tropical forests are regenerating across millions of hectares, with Latin America and Asia showing dramatic gains—but this apparent recovery conceals a deeper contradiction: deforestation remains stubbornly high.
- The world continues to clear about 8 million hectares of forest each year, far off the path to meet the 2030 zero-deforestation pledge, as fires, drought, and agriculture erase progress almost as quickly as it appears.
- Primary forests, rich in carbon and biodiversity, are disappearing fastest, driven mainly by agriculture; current funding for forest protection is dwarfed by subsidies for industrial farming.
- Natural regrowth offers hope—young secondary forests sequester carbon efficiently—but without halting new clearings, these green shoots risk becoming temporary pauses in an ongoing cycle of loss.

Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
- For generations, the Pakayaku community in Ecuador’s Amazon has successfully kept unsustainable mining, logging and oil extraction activities out of forests while preserving their cultural traditions and ecological knowledge.
- Mongabay visited the community to see their guardian program, made up of 45 women warriors who constantly patrol 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of rainforest to detect incursions — which few have been allowed to witness firsthand.
- The community created a “plan of life” map that details their vision, identity and economic alternatives to extraction.
- Leaders worry Ecuador’s concentration on courting international investment in sectors like mining and natural gas could threaten the forests.

Zanzibar must act to conserve its natural & cultural heritage for the future (commentary)
- The popular Tanzanian archipelago of Zanzibar is further expanding its already extensive tourism footprint to outlying islands like Pemba without considering the environment, a new op-ed argues.
- Major conservation problems include demolition of small islands for resort construction, destruction of nearly a quarter of Pemba Island’s flagship protected area to build an “eco-resort,” and plans to develop the ecologically important islet of Misali.
- “Now is the time for Zanzibar’s government to reexamine past and future investment decisions to ensure they respect Zanzibar’s natural heritage and conserve it for future generations,” the author writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Why is protecting this Honduran lagoon so dangerous?
LAGUNA DE LOS MICOS, Honduras — Tension swirls around the Laguna de los Micos in northern Honduras, which is a critical marine ecosystem surrounded by mangroves and serving as a home and nursery for many species of coral reef fish. The communities living around the lagoon have voluntarily agreed to suspend fishing for two months […]
Radar study shows when offshore turbines pose greatest risks to migrating birds
- A new study looks at bird migration patterns over open ocean in an attempt to assess how much risk offshore wind turbines and other marine infrastructure might pose to them.
- The authors used radar data from U.S. coastal weather stations to find that hundreds of millions of birds migrate over tight windows of time in the spring and fall while flying at slightly lower elevations on average than over land.
- This puts a proportion of them at risk of being killed by wind turbines, but that risk could be mitigated with dynamic management that accounts for their patterns, according to the study.
- The Trump administration, in office since January, says it doesn’t support offshore wind development, but the research has long-term implications and could be used more immediately for mitigating the impact of offshore oil and gas projects.

Primatology goes high tech — from bioacoustics to drones & AI
- From thermal cameras to deep learning AI, researchers are reinventing how they study primates in the wild.
- What began with Jane Goodall’s observational notes has evolved into artificial intelligence that identifies chimpanzees and decodes their social lives.
- A custom-built “dronequi” with a thermal and a high-definition camera is helping scientists spot Brazil’s elusive and endangered muriquis from above the trees.
- Hidden microphones across Borneo’s rainforests capture haunting gibbon duets, revealing clues about hybridization and habitat loss.

Booming sea otters and fading shellfish spark values clash in Alaska
- In Alaska, a state brimming with iconic wildlife — from grizzly bears to king salmon, humpback whales to harbor seals — the charismatic, densely coated sea otter stands out as perhaps the state’s most hotly debated, controversial species.
- Sea otters were nearly hunted into extinction a century ago for their luxurious pelts. But they have been surging in population in the Gulf of Alaska, bringing both benefits to nearshore ecosystems and drawbacks to the shellfish economy (due to the otters’ voracious caloric needs).
- Described by commercial shellfish harvesters and Native Alaskans as pillagers of clams and crabs, sea otters are seen by many marine biologists as having positive impacts on kelp forests — important for biodiversity and carbon storage. Scientists stress that shellfish declines are complex, with sea otters being just one among multiple causes.
- Native Alaskans are the only people given free rein to hunt sea otters. But long-standing federal regulations stipulating who qualifies as Native Alaskan make it illegal for most to manage their own waters. Tribes are fighting for regulatory changes that would enable them to hunt and help balance booming sea otter populations.

Rescued African gray parrots return to DRC forests
- In early October, 50 African gray parrots were released into the wild by the Lukuru Foundation, after having been rescued from poachers and undergoing rehabilitation for a year at a refuge run by the foundation.
- The foundation’s two parrot rehabilitation centers have been joined by a third one, at Kisangani Zoo, in April, which has already received 112 African grays.
- As the DRC begins enforcing a July ban on the trade in African grays, authorities will need to raise awareness in communities, dismantle well-established trading networks, and ensure released birds aren’t recaptured, conservationists say.

Ghost nets entangling turtles, marine life in Sri Lanka’s waters
In Sri Lankan waters, there’s a growing problem of ghost nets that are entangling sea turtles, fish, dolphins and seabirds, reports contributor Malaka Rodrigo for Mongabay. “Ghost nets” are fishing gear that have either been abandoned, lost or discarded into the sea. As these drift with the ocean currents, they continue to trap marine animals […]
Rare dugong calf sighting in Alor spotlights seagrass & marine mammal conservation
- A rare sighting of a dugong calf in Alor, Indonesia, has renewed focus on the health of the region’s seagrass ecosystem and the species’ fragile future.
- Conservationists say the presence of multiple dugongs indicates a thriving habitat, but threats from tourism, habitat loss and limited population data remain pressing concerns.
- Authorities and experts are pushing for stronger monitoring and coordinated conservation strategies under a forthcoming national action plan.

Negro River study finds genetic damage in fish after oil spill
- Scientists assessed harmful effects on Amazonian fish after a barge capsized in 2013 with approximately 60,000 liters of petroleum asphalt cement in Manaus.
- Although the concentration of the contaminant decreased with rising water levels, the fish continued to exhibit effects of exposure three months after the accident, including DNA damage and neurotoxicity.
- The Negro River’s waters are rich in dissolved organic matter, which may increase the toxicity of the chemical compound.
- This research adds to other studies that attest to the harmful effects of oil on vertebrates, aquatic insects and plants in the Amazon, given the pressure for greater exploration in the region.

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