topic: Conservation

topic: Conservation

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A new treaty comes into force to govern life on the high seas
- A new United Nations treaty governing biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction will enter into force on January 17th 2026, creating the first global framework to conserve life on the high seas.
- The agreement covers roughly 60% of the ocean and introduces mechanisms for marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments, benefit-sharing from marine genetic resources, and capacity building for poorer states.
- Long treated as a global commons with weak oversight, international waters have seen mounting pressure from overfishing, prospective seabed mining, and bioprospecting, with less than 1.5% currently protected.
- The treaty’s significance will depend less on its text than on whether governments use it to impose real limits on exploitation and translate shared commitments into enforceable action.

Colombia poised for another drop in deforestation in 2025, data show
- Deforestation in Colombia appears to have declined in 2025, with notable reductions in several departments like Meta, Caquetá and Guaviare.
- The main drivers of deforestation include the spread of cattle ranching and agriculture, as well as illicit crops like coca, the primary ingredient in cocaine.
- Officials attributed the declining trend to collaboration with Indigenous communities and environmental zoning in rural areas, as well as ecotourism and a program providing financial incentives for communities involved in forest conservation.

Hidden heroes: Australian tree bark microbes consume greenhouse & toxic gases
- A new study carried out in Australia finds that the bark of common tree species holds diverse microbial communities, with trillions of microbes living on every tree.
- The research determined that many of these microbial species specialize in metabolizing methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
- Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, while hydrogen and carbon monoxide are considered indirect greenhouse gases. Carbon monoxide and VOCs are also both hazardous to human health.
- The study found that tree bark microbes play a significant, previously unknown role in atmospheric gas cycling, potentially boosting estimations of the climate benefits offered by global forests. Learning which tree species boast the best microbes for curbing climate change and pollution could better inform reforestation strategies.

Mike Heusner, steward of Belize’s waters, has died, aged 86
For a small country, Belize has long carried an outsized reputation among people who care about water. Its flats and mangroves, its reef and river systems, have drawn anglers and naturalists who come for beauty but stay, if they are paying attention, for the fragile bargain that keeps such places alive. Tourism can finance protection. […]
Hopes and fears as Guinea exports iron ore from Simandou mines
- After decades of planning, the first shipment of iron ore from Guinea’s Simandou mines is on its way to China.
- The shipment marks the beginning of an era in which Guinea is expected to become one of the world’s leading producers of iron ore.
- Environmental advocates say that damage from the mines so far has gone largely unaddressed.

In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests stand on the frontline
- In the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s copper-cobalt belt, a region rich in critical minerals, villagers are turning to local community forest concessions (CFCLs) to prevent their eviction and conserve the remaining savanna forests in the face of mining expansion.
- This is an area where miners from the DRC, China, the U.S. and elsewhere are searching for the minerals powering the high-tech, weapons and clean energy industries.
- Community forest concessions offer communities land titles in perpetuity and have environmental management plans led by Indigenous and local communities with the support of environmental NGOs and donors.
- But these concessions are not a perfect solution against deforestation or the eviction of communities by mining, and also suffer from a lack of funding to support all their environmental efforts.

Ocean set ‘alarming’ new temperature record in 2025
- Ocean temperatures set a record high in 2025, according to a new study.
- The authors found that the heat content of the ocean increased by about 23 zettajoules between 2024 and 2025. That’s roughly the equivalent of 210 times humanity’s annual electricity generation.
- The ocean has warmed significantly in recent decades largely because it absorbs roughly 90% of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gases. That makes the ocean a key indicator of global warming.
- Warming ocean temperatures contribute to sea-level rise and to extreme weather events, which were frequent in 2025.

Nitrogen may turbocharge regrowth in young tropical forest trees
New research finds that tropical forests can grow significantly faster and sequester more climate-warming carbon dioxide when additional nitrogen is available in the soil. “With this information we can prioritise management and conservation practices to maximise forest regrowth,” Kelly Anderson, a research scientist at Missouri Botanical Garden in the U.S., told Mongabay by email. Anderson […]
Involuntary parks: Human conflict is creating unintended refuges for wildlife
- Involuntary parks — areas made largely untenable for human habitation due to environmental contamination, war, border disputes or other forms of conflict and violence — have often unintentionally benefited nature, with flora and fauna sometimes thriving in the absence of people.
- In some cases, these unanticipated refugia have been formalized as wildlife preserves. Hanford Reach National Monument in the U.S. state of Washington is one example. Though the land of this conserved area surrounds a Cold War site contaminated by chemical and radioactive waste, hundreds of species thrive there.
- The southern Kuril Islands — territory disputed by Russia and Japan — offer another example. Russia has set up preserves within the long-contested area, while Japan has declared a national park just outside it. But attempts at creating a permanent border peace park or resolving tensions have failed, and future conservation is uncertain.
- With the world now rocked by geopolitical conflict and by worsening environmental disasters (due to pollution, climate change and land-use change), nations need to assess how places that become unhealthy to humanity — turning them into involuntary parks — can be healed, and what role conservation can play in recovery.

Democratizing AI for conservation: Interview with Ai2’s Ted Schmitt and Patrick Beukema
- OlmoEarth is a platform that integrates multiple AI models to extract meaningful insights from environmental data.
- The platform, developed by nonprofit organization Allen Institute for AI, is trained on 10 terabytes’ worth of Earth observation data.
- The platform enables researchers as well as conservation organizations to analyze massive data sets by customizing AI models on the platform.

Small hippo, big dreams: Can Moo Deng, the viral pygmy hippo, save her species?
Social media loves a charismatic, cute, relatable animal. Personalities like Neil the elephant seal and Pesto the giant baby penguin have captivated millions online. And let’s not forget Moo Deng – the pugnacious baby pygmy hippo who exploded onto the scene in late 2024. Viral clips of her wreaking tiny havoc in Thailand’s Khao Kheow […]
After years of progress, Indonesia risks ‘tragedy’ of a deforestation spike
- Deforestation is accelerating, underscoring Indonesia’s reputation as a big greenhouse gas emitter and potentially inviting more scrutiny of its commodity exports.
- Gross deforestation in Indonesia in 2025 was on track to at least match 2024’s tally, which reflected the most extensive losses since 2019, Indonesia’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, told a parliamentary committee in December.
- Indonesia’s Merauke Food Estate project involves clearing at least 2 million hectares of forest, and worries are mounting that commodity exports may suffer if big markets like the EU force importers to prove they are not buying palm oil and other products that have resulted from clearing rainforest.
- A reacceleration in the rate of Indonesia’s deforestation risks is also drawing attention to the country’s spotty climate record: At No. 6, Indonesia ranks among the top greenhouse gas emitters after China, the U.S., India, the EU and Russia.

Three Andean condor chicks hatch in Colombia as species nears local extinction
Since July 2024, three Andean condor chicks have hatched at an artificial incubation program located near Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, contributor Christina Noriega reported for Mongabay. The artificial incubation program is run by the Jaime Duque Park Foundation, a Colombian conservation nonprofit that has worked since 2015 to counter the birds’ population decline. Globally, the […]
Ants need urgent protections from global trade, conservationists say
As the recent seizure of more than 5,000 endemic ants in Kenya reveals, ants have become part of a thriving global wildlife trade. Transnational traffickers are mopping up ants from the wild to sell them to hobbyists and collectors worldwide. In a recently published letter, conservationists are now calling for greater trade protections for all […]
North Atlantic right whale births increase
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Scientists monitoring North Atlantic right whales have recorded an increase in births this winter. Fifteen calves have been identified so far, an encouraging figure for a population that has struggled to sustain itself. There were an estimated 384 […]
Myanmar’s botanical data gaps risk its unique flora, collaborations could help, study says
- Home to snowcapped mountains, drought-prone savannas and tropical rainforests, Myanmar hosts tremendous botanical diversity among its richly varied habitats.
- There are 864 known plant species that are found only in the conflict-torn country, yet critical knowledge gaps remain.
- Researchers recently compiled what is known about Myanmar’s flora, identifying key research gaps and priority areas where conservation efforts for plants are most urgently needed.
- They urge collaborative and systematic action to fill in data gaps and protect floristically diverse areas and avoid irreversible species losses.

Mauritania’s fishmeal fever ends as government tightens regulation
- Until recently, Mauritania was a major fishmeal producer, home to the world’s second-highest number of processing plants, with the boom driven largely by lax regulations and the rapid issuance of permits between 2007 and 2021.
- By 2021, more than half of Mauritania’s total pelagic fish catches were being used for fishmeal.
- That same year, however, the government began introducing stricter regulations and strengthening enforcement of rules governing the sector.
- Only eight fishmeal plants in Mauritania remain active as of September 2025, according to Mongabay’s estimates, and fishmeal production has fallen by more than half since its peak in 2020.

Photos: Kew Gardens’ top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025
- Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, formally named 125 plants and 65 fungi in 2025, including a zombie fungus that parasitizes Brazilian spiders, a bloodstained orchid from Ecuador, and a fire-colored shrub named after a Studio Ghibli character.
- Up to three out of four undescribed plant species are already threatened with extinction, with at least one species described this year possibly already extinct in its native Cameroon habitat.
- An estimated 100,000 plant species and between 2 million and 3 million fungal species remain to be described and formally named by science.
- Many newly described species face immediate threats from habitat loss, illegal collection and climate change, highlighting the urgent need to protect areas before species disappear.

Cowboy boots made from pirarucu leather fund Amazon’s sustainable fishery
- Sustainable pirarucu fisheries in Brazil’s Amazonas are restoring once-depleted populations of this freshwater giant, thanks to community-led management systems and sales to brands overseas.
- Selling pirarucu skin to the fashion industry, especially for Texas-bound cowboy boots, is key to financing the fishery, helping maintain fair prices for fishers and cover part of the high costs of transport, storage and community monitoring.
- The system depends on heavy collective labor and constant protection against illegal fishing, with communities traveling long distances, patrolling lakes and facing armed threats — all while receiving limited recognition or policy support from authorities.

One year on, TGBS benchmark shows how to restore forests for biodiversity
- The Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS) is a certification scheme for forest restoration projects that show positive outcomes for biodiversity.
- Each assessment includes a field visit by experts from regional hubs, who have been trained in TGBS methodology.
- The regional hubs also offer ongoing mentoring to projects, to promote internationally recognized best practices in restoration.
- One year on, TGBS has certified six sites, and 15 regional hubs offer mentoring.

New species of burrowing snake described from coffee farm in India
A decade after tour guide Basil P. Das stumbled upon a small black-and-beige snake while working on his coffee farm in southern India, researchers have described it as a new-to-science species. They’ve named it Rhinophis siruvaniensis, the species name referring to the Siruvani Hills, the only place the snake is currently known from, according to […]
Conservation’s unfinished business
- A recent Nature paper argues that many persistent failures in conservation cannot be understood without examining how race, power, and historical exclusion continue to shape the field’s institutions and practices.
- The authors contend that conservation’s colonial origins still influence who holds decision-making authority, whose knowledge is valued, and who bears the social costs of environmental protection today.
- As governments pursue ambitious global targets to expand protected areas, the paper warns that conservation efforts risk repeating past injustices if Indigenous and local land rights are not recognized and upheld.
- To address these challenges, the authors propose a framework centered on rights, agency, accountability, and education, emphasizing that more equitable conservation is also more durable.

Twin infant mountain gorillas born in DRC
The birth of twin mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is raising hopes for the survival of one of the world’s most threatened great apes. “For me, it is a huge sign of hope and a great way to start the new year,” Katie Fawcett, science director with the DRC-based Gorilla Rehabilitation […]
AI-centered conservation efforts can only be ethical if Indigenous people help lead them (commentary)
- How can the world ensure that emerging technologies, including AI, will truly benefit the planet and the people who protect it, a new op-ed asks.
- At COP30, attendees claimed that AI has enormous potential to effectively advance environmental data science to address some of our biggest challenges, but experts urge caution and inclusion.
- “Western science should look to Indigenous experts to guide the development of ethical AI tools for conservation in ways that assert their own goals, priorities and cautions,” the authors argue.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Soy giants drop Amazon no-deforestation pledge as subsidies come under threat
The world’s largest buyers of Brazilian soy have announced a plan to exit from a landmark antideforestation agreement, the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The voluntary agreement between soy agribusinesses and industry associations prevented most soy linked to deforestation from entering global supply chains for nearly two decades. The decision was communicated on Dec. 25, just before […]
Helping Cape Town’s toads cross the road: Interview with Andrew Turner
- Endangered western leopard toads have lost habitat to urban development in Cape Town, and crossing roads during breeding season adds another danger: getting “squished.”
- Mongabay interviewed Andrew Turner, scientific manager for CapeNature, who discussed underpasses to help the toads safely reach their destinations: ponds for mating and laying eggs.
- Citizen science offers a useful data source, as volunteers record and photograph the toads they help cross the road; “It’s hard for scientists and researchers to be everywhere, but citizenry is everywhere,” Turner says.

Madhav Gadgil, advocate of democratic conservation, has died at 83
- Madhav Gadgil argued that conservation was not a technical problem but a political one, centered on who decides how land and resources are used, and on what evidence.
- Trained as a scientist but shaped by fieldwork, he rejected elite, top-down conservation models in favor of approaches that treated local communities as part of ecosystems rather than obstacles to be managed.
- He became nationally prominent after chairing the 2011 Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, which proposed strict safeguards and a democratic, bottom-up decision-making process that governments largely resisted.
- Until the end of his life, he remained a sharp critic of development that ignored law, ecology, and consent, insisting that democracy, not convenience, should guide environmental decisions.

Environmental crime prevention is moving into the diplomatic mainstream (commentary)
- Environmental crime used to be treated as a niche concern for park rangers, customs officers and a handful of conservation lawyers to tackle, but not anymore if recent intergovernmental initiatives are any indication.
- From the UNFCCC to UNTOC and governments like Brazil and Norway, to agencies like Interpol, a new international consensus on tackling environmental crime like illegal deforestation, mining and wildlife trafficking is forming.
- “Governments can allow environmental crime to remain a para-diplomatic side issue, or they can lock it into the core of crime, climate and biodiversity agreements, with concrete timelines, enforcement tools and financing. If they choose the latter, the emerging coalitions around UNTOC and COP30 could become the backbone of a global effort to dismantle nature-crime economies,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Ghana repeals legislation that opened forest reserves to mining
- The Ghanaian government repealed Legislative Instrument 2462, which had empowered the president to allow mining in forest reserves previously closed to the extractive activity, including globally significant biodiversity areas.
- An act of Parliament enacted in December effected the change, with green groups describing it as a major victory for forest protection and environmental governance.
- Some experts cautioned that Ghana’s forests continue to face serious threats, stressing that concrete reforms in forestry governance must accompany the revocation.

Methane chasers: Hunting a climate-changing gas seeping from Earth’s seafloor
- Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that can pack more than 25 times the global warming punch of carbon dioxide, and atmospheric methane emissions have been growing significantly since 2007. So it’s vital that humanity knows how and where methane emissions are coming from, including the world’s oceans.
- Scientists first raised the alarm over methane releases from shallow waters in the Arctic Ocean between 2008 and 2010. But recently, they were surprised to discover new releases in shallow waters off Antarctica. Researchers continue spotting additional seafloor seeps there and elsewhere, as methane bubbles escape seafloor sediments.
- In shallow waters, methane bubbles that break the ocean’s surface add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, but to learn how much climate risk these bubbles pose, scientists first have to find them. The hunt for methane bubbles requires everything from underwater microphones and sonar maps to scuba divers and submersibles.
- Methane seeps are more than a potential climate change threat. They also form the basis of unique chemosynthetic ecosystems that influence the deep sea and may hold clues about the origin of life. Finding and studying those seeps present fascinating challenges, requiring ingenuity and creative thinking by researchers.

Marine protected areas expanded in 2025, but still far from 30% goal
In December 2022, nearly 200 nations committed to protecting 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030. As of 2025, about 9.6% of the world’s oceans are now covered by marine protected areas, according to the latest global tracking data by the World Database on Protected Areas. This marks a 1.2% increase in 2025, up […]
Chimpanzees and gorillas among most traded African primates, report finds
- A new report finds thousands of African primates, including chimpanzees and gorillas, are being traded both legally and illegally.
- Most of the legal trade in great apes is for scientific and zoo purposes, but the report raises some concerns on the legality of recent trade instances for zoos.
- Chimpanzees topped the list of the most illegally traded African primates, as the exotic pet trade drives the demand for juveniles and infants.

Indonesia’s illegal gold boom leaves a toxic legacy of mercury pollution
- A nearly 70% rise in global gold prices has accelerated illegal gold mining across Indonesia, including in Bukit Gajah Berani, a forest buffer next to Kerinci Seblat National Park, threatening critical tiger habitat and protected forests nationwide.
- Despite decades of evidence and Indonesia’s commitments under the Minamata Convention, illegal gold mining remains the country’s largest source of mercury emissions, contaminating rivers, fish, crops and communities, with documented health impacts ranging from toxic exposure to malaria spikes.
- While Indonesia has strong regulations on paper, including a pledge to eliminate mercury use in illegal mining by 2025, enforcement is weak, agencies operate in silos, illegal cinnabar mining continues, and attempts to formalize “community mining” have largely failed in practice.
- Illegal mining has destroyed forests, farmland and waterways, reducing rice production, worsening floods, and eroding traditional forest-based livelihoods, leaving communities with polluted landscapes and long-term ecological and economic costs as criminal networks adapt faster than regulators.

An inventory of life in California
- California is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, yet much of its life—especially insects and fungi—remains undocumented, even in a state rich in scientific institutions.
- The California All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI) is working to build a verifiable, statewide record of life, combining fieldwork, DNA analysis, and museum collections.
- By focusing on evidence that can be revisited and tested over time, the effort provides a baseline for understanding ecological change rather than prescribing solutions.
- Mongabay’s reporting follows how this foundational work underpins later decisions about protection, restoration, and management—showing why counting still matters.

An endangered menu (cartoon)
Amidst the ongoing battle for survival against logging and hunting, Madagascar’s lemurs face a new and unprecedented threat — the demand for lemur meat among the country’s urban elite, falsely believed to have health benefits.
Urban sprawl and illegal mining reshape a fragile Amazon frontier
- Ever since Mitú was first established as a settlement in 1935, it has rapidly transformed into an expanding urban town in one of Colombia’s most isolated departments.
- The Amazonian forests, rivers and Indigenous communities who surround Mitú are impacted by urbanization, the overexploitation of natural resources, cattle ranching, illegal mining and timber extraction which have caused deforestation, soil degradation and water pollution.
- Researchers say the construction of a highway from Mitú to Monfort has attracted settlers who cleared land around the road to expand the urban center and develop agricultural production and cattle ranching.
- Mongabay found 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of tree cover loss in Mitú since 2014.

Amazon entrepreneur spreads seeds of growth with recycled paper
- In the Brazilian city of Altamira, a small business transforms recycled paper into seed-embedded sheets that grow into flowers, herbs and even local plants, merging creativity and sustainability.
- Founder Alessandra Moreira turned personal adversity into purpose, building a backyard business that inspires sustainable entrepreneurship.
- Experts say initiatives like Ecoplante embody the future of the Amazon’s bioeconomy, where innovation, inclusion and forest conservation can grow hand in hand.

Cultural changes shift an Indigenous community’s relationship with the Amazon forest
- In the southeastern Colombian department of Vaupés, members of the Indigenous Macaquiño community have maintained a healthy territory through rituals and prayers that govern the use of natural resources and their deep respect for the spirits that guard sacred sites.
- A series of cultural transformations that began with the arrival of rubber tappers, missionaries and other non-Indigenous outsiders since the 19th century has led to a decline in many spiritual and cultural traditions, undermining the area’s sacred sites and the communities’ relationship with their territory.
- More recent changes, such as government education policies and laws that hand more power to Indigenous peoples to manage their territories, have also impacted the generational transfer of spiritual and cultural knowledge.
- Members Mongabay spoke to said they welcome some of the changes that have come with these cultural transformations, such as the opportunity to obtain a formal education and return with knowledge that can complement their Indigenous knowledge.

Massive Amazon conservation program pledges to put communities first
- The Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) is a massive conservation program that has helped reduce deforestation across 120 conservation areas in the Brazilian Amazon and avoided 104 million metric tons of CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2020.
- A new phase of the program, called ARPA Comunidades, will now focus on supporting the communities who live in and protect the forest, by helping them increase their revenue through the bioeconomy or sale of sustainable forest products.
- Backed by a $120 million donor fund, ARPA Comunidades aims to increase protections across 60 sustainable-use reserves in the Brazilian Amazon spanning an area nearly the size of the U.K., directly impacting 130,000 people and helping raise 100,000 out of poverty.

Azores must respect its exceptional network of marine protected areas (commentary)
- Just over a year ago, the Azores created the largest network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the North Atlantic, becoming a beacon of hope and a global leader in ocean conservation.
- Then, in early 2025, a proposal to allow tuna fishing in “no-take” areas there was submitted to the Regional Assembly; this is currently under discussion and could come to a vote this week or next week.
- “Such a retreat from ocean protection would not only be a local tragedy but also a disheartening contribution to the global backpedaling on environmental political will,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Poaching down but threats remain for forest elephants, recent population assessment finds
- The first authoritative population assessment for African forest elephants estimates there are more than 145,000 individuals.
- Researchers say new survey techniques relying on sampling DNA from elephant dung provide the most accurate estimate of a species that’s difficult to count in its rainforest habitat.
- Central Africa remains the species’ stronghold, home to nearly 96% of forest elephants, with densely forested Gabon hosting 95,000 individuals.
- Conservationists say the findings can help inform the design of targeted conservation actions and national plans for forest elephants.

The climate fight may not be won in the Amazon, but it can be lost there
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. After five decades studying the plants and peoples of the Amazon, Mark Plotkin, an ethnobotanist and co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team, is still asked whether the rainforest’s glass is half-full or half-empty. His answer is unchanged. “By […]
Snowy owl, striped hyena, sharks among migratory species proposed for greater protections
Countries under the international treaty to protect migratory animals have proposed increasing protections for 42 species. These include numerous seabirds, the snowy owl, several sharks, the striped hyena, and some cheetah populations. The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) aims to protect species ranging from butterflies and fish to birds […]
Biologist kidnapped in Mexico
In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that yield information slowly. It also means accepting risk as a condition of knowledge. Field research unfolds in places where the state is often distant and authority […]
What Craig’s long life reveals about elephant conservation
- The death of Craig, a widely known super tusker from Amboseli, drew attention not just because of his fame, but because he lived long enough to die of natural causes in a period when elephants with tusks like his are rarely spared.
- Craig’s life reflected decades of sustained protection in Kenya, where anti-poaching efforts and community stewardship have allowed some elephant populations to stabilize or grow after catastrophic losses in the late 20th century.
- His passing is also a reminder of what has been lost: Africa’s elephant population fell from about 1.3 million in 1979 to roughly 400,000 today, with forest elephants in particular still in steep decline.
- There are signs of cautious progress, including slowing demand for ivory and stronger legal protections, but continued habitat loss means that survival, even for the most protected elephants, remains uncertain.

Camera traps in China capture first-ever footage of Amur tigress with five cubs
Camera traps installed in the world’s largest tiger reserve, in China, have captured footage of an Amur tigress and her five cubs for the first time. Recorded in November 2025, the footage from Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park shows an adult tigress ambling along a dirt road, and four young cubs tootling behind […]
5 unexpected animal behaviors we learned about in 2025
Every year, researchers and people out in nature capture some aspect of animal behavior that’s unusual or unexpected in some way, changing how we understand the natural world. Here are five such examples that Mongabay reported on in 2025: Massive fish aggregation seen climbing waterfalls in Brazil For the first time, scientists observed a “massive […]
From Chipko to Nyeri: The enduring logic of the tree hug
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. When Truphena Muthoni stepped up to a royal palm in Nyeri and wrapped her arms around its trunk, few expected her to stay there for three days. Even fewer thought the gesture would spark a national conversation. Muthoni […]
Guatemala’s eco defenders reel from surge in killings and persecution
- In 2023, there were four recorded killings of environmental defenders in connection to their work; in 2024, this figure shot up to at least 20, according to advocacy group Global Witness.
- An ongoing political crisis, persistent criminalization, and the spread of organized crime have all fed the rise in violence against Indigenous and campesino communities and defenders.
- This is happening despite a change of government, led by President Bernardo Arévalo, whose movement was backed by Indigenous communities.
- Land grabbing, mass arrest warrants and judicial persecution are increasingly common, together with the use of force, say human rights defenders and activists.

The conservation ledger: What we lost and what we gained in 2025
- 2025 was a year shaped by both loss and persistence, marked by species formally declared extinct, hundreds of organisms newly described, and uneven conservation outcomes across forests, reefs, and the open ocean.
- The year showed that extinction and discovery are rarely moments, but slow processes driven by delay, uncertainty, and institutional choices—often recognizing loss long after it occurs and naming life only as threats close in.
- 2025 also revealed the human cost of environmental protection, through the lives of scientists, rangers, Indigenous leaders, and advocates whose endurance, rather than visibility, sustained ecosystems under pressure.
- Rhett Ayers Butler, founder and CEO of Mongabay, concludes that what was lost was not only species but time—and that what remains is proof the future is still shaped by policy, financing, enforcement, and whether protection is built to last.

Emma Johnston, a marine ecologist with institutional reach, has died at 52
- Emma Johnston, who died at 52 in December 2025, moved between marine science and university leadership, arguing that evidence matters only if it can be understood and acted upon beyond the laboratory.
- Trained as a marine ecologist, she built influential research programs on human impacts in coastal ecosystems and became a prominent public advocate for science in an era of misinformation and political noise.
- Her career expanded into national leadership roles, including president of Science & Technology Australia and senior research posts at UNSW and the University of Sydney, before she became vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne in 2025.
- Though her tenure as vice-chancellor was brief, she pressed a strategy centered on resilience and education, leaving Australian science without a leader who could connect data, institutions, and public life with unusual clarity.

Deep-sea ‘hotels’ reveal 20 new species hiding in Pacific Ocean twilight zone near Guam
- Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences retrieved 13 underwater monitoring structures from the deep reefs off the Pacific island of Guam, which have been gathering data there at depths up to 100 meters (330 feet).
- The devices, called ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures), yielded 2,000 specimens, including 100 species never before recorded in the region and at least 20 species new to science.
- Temperature sensors on the ARMS revealed that ocean warming is occurring even in the twilight zone.
- The Guam expedition marks the start of a two-year effort to retrieve 76 ARMS from deep Pacific reefs to help protect these ecosystems from fishing, pollution and climate change.

Mercury, dredges and crime: Illegal mining ravages Peru’s Nanay River
- Mongabay Latam flew over the basins of the Nanay and Napo rivers, in Peru’s Loreto region, and confirmed mining activity in this part of the Peruvian Amazon.
- Environmental prosecutors say that there may be even more boats and mining machinery hidden in the ravines of both rivers.
- During the flyover, authorities confirmed the use of not only dredges, but also of mining explosives, which they say destroy the riverbanks.
- Almost 15,140 liters (4,000 gallons) of fuel have been confiscated from illegal mining networks around the Nanay River in the last two years, but authorities’ efforts seem insufficient.

How are California’s birds faring amid ever more frequent wildfires?
- Long-term research in California shows that many bird populations increase after wildfires and can remain more abundant in burned areas for decades, especially following moderate fires.
- Although some bird species are adapted to fire and benefit from low to moderately severe blazes, megafires in California are becoming more frequent.
- Megafires, scientists say, are unlikely to benefit most bird species and harm those that depend on old-growth forests.
- Wildfire smoke poses a serious threat to birds’ health, with evidence linking heavy exposure to particulate matter in smoke to reduced activity, weight loss and, possibly, increased mortality.

Investor Dick Bradshaw took a long view of conservation
- Conservation philanthropy often rewards urgency.
- Dick Bradshaw took a longer view, funding research, fellowships, and land protection with an emphasis on permanence rather than campaigns.
- His support helped steady conservation science in Canada by investing in people and institutions built to last.
- Bradshaw died in December 2025.

Latin America in 2025: Conservation promises collide with crime and extraction
- Organized crime, the expansion of extractive industries and climate extremes intensified environmental pressures across Latin America in 2025, driving deforestation, biodiversity loss and growing risks to local communities.
- Even as Latin America championed environmental protection internationally, wide gaps persisted in domestic enforcement of environmental regulations and prevention of environmental crimes.
- Country trajectories diverged sharply, with Colombia showing relative international policy leadership, while Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador saw marked environmental deterioration amid political instability and extractivist pushback.
- Looking toward 2026, experts warn that elections, fiscal constraints and security priorities could further erode environmental governance in Latin America.

Fish deformities expose ‘collapse’ of Xingu River’s pulse after construction of Belo Monte Dam
- Independent monitoring has found a high prevalence of deformities in fish in the Volta Grande do Xingu area of the Brazilian Amazon, following the construction of the massive Belo Monte dam.
- Potential factors could include changes in the river’s flood pulse, water pollution, higher water temperatures, and food scarcity, all linked to the reduced flow in this section of the Xingu since the dam began operating in 2016.
- Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing the dam’s impact, alongside independent researchers, and at the recent COP30 climate summit warned of “ecosystem collapse.”
- Both scientists and affected communities say the prescribed rate at which the dam operator is releasing water into the river is far too low to simulate its natural cycle, leaving the region’s flooded forests dry and exacerbating the effects of drought.

Road to recovery: Five stories of species staging a comeback
Amid accelerating biodiversity loss and shrinking ecological spaces, it’s easy to lose hope. But every year, there are stories of optimism: of species that are making a comeback after being nearly wiped out. Here are five such species whose recovery Mongabay reported on in 2025: Cape vulture The Cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres), southern Africa’s largest vulture […]
Mongabay’s investigative reporting won top environmental journalism awards in 2025
In 2025, Mongabay’s investigative journalism earned international honors for stories exposing environmental crime, corruption, and abuse of both people and the environment. Mongabay journalists uncovered hidden public health risks, schemes to take advantage of Indigenous groups, and took personal risk traveling to underreported regions on nature’s frontlines. Mongabay’s Karla Mendes won first place in the […]
Cyclone-ravaged Sri Lanka set to apply for ‘loss and damage’ funding
- In the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah’s devastating impact, Sri Lanka plans to apply for payment from the U.N.’s newly implemented loss and damage fund, designed specifically to help climate-vulnerable developing countries cope with severe, unavoidable climate change impacts.
- Ditwah, a tropical cyclone that caused direct damage estimated at $4.1 billion, equivalent to about 4% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, hit infrastructure and livelihoods, while intangible losses such as impacts on social systems and ecosystem services remain harder to quantify.
- Accessing the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) will require rigorous climate attribution and institutional capacity, experts say, noting that Sri Lanka must scientifically demonstrate the extent of losses directly attributable to climate change and strengthen governance, legal frameworks and coordination to secure the funding.
- The FRLD remains under-resourced, with an initial allocation of $250 million, far below the tens to hundreds of billions needed annually, prompting calls for quicker, direct funding mechanisms to support urgent rebuilding and climate resilience.

Indonesia closes 2025 with rising disasters and stalled environmental reform
- Deadly floods and landslides in Sumatra in late 2025 underscored how deforestation, weak spatial planning and extractive development have increased Indonesia’s vulnerability to extreme weather — problems scientists and activists say the government has largely failed to confront.
- Forest loss surged nationwide in 2025, with Sumatra overtaking Borneo as the main deforestation hotspot, while large areas of forest in Papua were redesignated for food estates, agriculture and biofuel projects, raising concerns over carbon emissions and biodiversity loss.
- Despite international pledges to phase out coal, national energy plans continued to lock in coal, gas and biomass co-firing for decades, while palm oil expansion and mining — including in sensitive areas like Raja Ampat — remained central to development strategy, often prompting action only after public pressure.
- Civil society groups increasingly turned to lawsuits amid shrinking space for dissent, rising criminalization of Indigenous communities and activists, and growing militarization of land-use projects — trends campaigners warn are weakening democratic safeguards and environmental protections alike.

A small preserve leads a big effort to save native plants in the Bahamas
- The Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve is a 12-hectare (30-acre) estate on Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas, dedicated to conserving and educating people about the island-nation’s native plants.
- Since 2009, resident botanist Ethan Freid has led a local restoration effort prioritizing native plants of the Bahamas’ subtropical dry forest ecosystem.
- The Levy preserve also offers a summer internship for university students interested in environmental science and biology, which teaches them about native plant taxonomy — filling a generational knowledge gap.
- Though small in scale, the project provides a haven for the Bahamas’ native plants; has a herbarium of plant specimens for research; and manages an online digital database of Caribbean plant species.

Rare bats at risk as iron ore mine advances in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains
- Guinea’s government is assessing the potential impacts of a mining project in the Nimba Mountains, in a biodiversity hotspot that has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site while being threatened by mining.
- U.S. mining company Ivanhoe Atlantic recently submitted an environmental impact assessment for an iron ore mine at a site that is the only known home of two unique bat species, as well as critically endangered chimpanzees and threatened toads and frogs.
- Conservationists say open-pit mining in this ecologically sensitive region could spell extinction for Lamotte’s roundleaf bat and the orange-furred Nimba Mountain bat if their forest habitat is disturbed for mine infrastructure.

Ditches on peatland oil palm plantations are an overlooked source of methane: Study
- Ditches that drain peatlands for agriculture are significant but often-overlooked sources of greenhouse gases, including methane, according to a recent study.
- Methane doesn’t last as long as CO2 in the atmosphere, but it is many times more potent in warming the climate.
- The researchers analyzed emissions from ditches on two oil palm plantations in Malaysian Borneo and found that the ditches play an outsize role in the overall carbon emissions from converted peatlands.
- Their findings underscore the need to account for emissions from these ditches to better understand the implications of draining peatlands.

Andy Mahler, advocate for public forests in America
- Forest conservation in the eastern United States often depended on persistence rather than decisive victories, shaped by slow regulatory processes and fragmented governance that rewarded those willing to keep showing up after attention faded.
- Out of this context grew a form of grassroots activism grounded in local knowledge and personal trust, skeptical of hierarchy and resistant to the idea that extractive outcomes were inevitable or natural.
- Andy Mahler embodied that approach through decades of work protecting public forests, most notably as a central figure in Heartwood, a decentralized network built on sustained relationships rather than efficiency or scale.
- He favored patient, place-based engagement over professionalized advocacy, believing that lasting protection came from continued involvement and shared responsibility rather than fixed outcomes or abstract measures.

New species of jewel-babbler from Papua New Guinea may be endangered
Within a forested limestone landscape of Papua New Guinea lives a shy, striking bird that’s new to science. This bird is also incredibly rare and may already be endangered, according to a recent study. Researchers have photographed fewer than 10 individuals of the newly described hooded jewel-babbler (Ptilorrhoa urrissia) in about 10 years of monitoring […]
Mongabay’s multimedia reporting wins international journalism prizes in 2025
In 2025, Mongabay’s team of multimedia journalists won international journalism prizes for audio, visual and digital storytelling. The content they produced range from an immersive audio series exploring bioacoustics, to a visually rich investigation into organized crime, and a video on reviving Indigenous culture. Mongabay strives to meet people where they are and make high-quality […]
Most Watched Video Stories of 2025
- This year, we told stories that show how people and communities are taking action for wildlife, ecosystems and climate.
- We experimented with new formats and series, from Wild Targets to Conservation Entangled, making both long and short videos more engaging than ever.
- Through global collaborations, including with the Associated Press and our first grant with One World Media, we expanded the reach and impact of our storytelling.

Elizabeth Erasito, custodian of Fiji’s parks and places
- Conservation in small island states is portrayed as a political and administrative challenge shaped by limited land, scarce resources, and external pressures, where development choices often carry irreversible consequences.
- In Fiji, protected areas were expected to deliver conservation, public access, cultural continuity, and economic value at once, while facing storms, fires, invasive species, and illegal extraction with limited capacity.
- Elizabeth Erasito’s career at the National Trust of Fiji centered on making protection work in practice, managing a modest but significant network of parks and heritage sites with an emphasis on monitoring and enforcement rather than expansion.
- She argued that parks should remain accessible and grounded in everyday life, and that short-term development gains rarely justified long-term damage, valuing steady institutional endurance over visible triumphs.

Fishing ‘modernization’ leaves Tanzania’s small-scale crews struggling to stay afloat
- Tanzania’s boat modernization program aims to empower small-scale fishers with affordable, government-distributed vessels, but has instead left many struggling with unreliable vessels and unsustainable loans.
- In Kilwa district, fishers say the boats they received were poorly equipped, costly to operate and prone to mechanical failure, forcing them to rent missing gear and spend more on fuel.
- Mounting repayment pressure is driving some fishers toward illegal or risky fishing practices, undermining the project’s goal of promoting sustainability.
- Experts warn that poor consultation, mismatched designs and a lack of community input threaten to turn Tanzania’s fisheries modernization plan into a long-term burden rather than a solution.

Southeast Asia’s 2025 marked by fatal floods, fossil fuel expansion and renewed mining boom
- 2025 has been a year of global upheaval, and Southeast Asia was no exception, with massive disruption caused by changes in U.S. policy and the intensifying effects of climate change.
- The region is poised at a crossroads, with plans to transition away from fossil fuels progressing unevenly, while at the same time a mining boom feeding the global energy transition threatens ecosystems and human health.
- On the positive side, deforestation appears to be slowing in much of the region, new species continue to be described by science, and grassroots efforts yield conservation wins.

Top 10 Indigenous news stories that marked 2025
- Lack of progress on direct funding for Indigenous land rights, poor representation at climate talks, and intensifying mining pressure were central issues that affected Indigenous peoples in 2025 covered by Mongabay.
- Our investigations revealed how communities were persuaded to sign over land rights for shady carbon deals, and how a high-profile operation to clear out illegal miners from Amazonian territories has barely made a dent.
- We also covered more hopeful stories, highlighting the communities putting forward their own solutions, including women forest guardians in the Amazon, and micro-hydro development in mountainous Philippine villages unreached by the grid.
- To end the year, here are Mongabay’s top 10 stories on Indigenous communities that marked 2025.

Photos: Top new species from 2025
- Scientists described several new species this past year, including a tiny marsupial, a Himalayan bat, an ancient tree, a giant manta ray, a bright blue butterfly and a fairy lantern, to name a few.
- Experts estimate that fewer than 20% of Earth’s species have been documented by Western science, with potentially millions more unknown and unnamed.
- Although such species may be new to science, many are already known to — and used by — local and Indigenous peoples, who often have given them traditional names.
- Many new species are assessed as threatened with extinction as soon as they are found, highlighting the urgent need for conservation efforts.

In California’s redwoods, scientists rebuild lost ecosystems high up in the canopy
- Roughly 95% of California’s old-growth redwood forests have been logged at least once, leaving mostly young trees and making the overall ecosystem less diverse.
- Fern mats — spongy masses of leather-leaf ferns and decomposed plant matter that build up high in the canopy — are an important part of that system, providing critical habitat for plants and animals in California’s redwood forests.
- Now, a pilot project is trying to restore fern mats to the canopies of particularly robust redwood trees.
- Scientists are finding that manually planting fern mats is also an effective buffer in a warming climate: they mitigate forest temperatures for salmon, birds and a host of other animals.

George Teariki-Mataki Mateariki, the Birdman of Atiu, has died, aged 67
- In small island states, conservation often hinges on daily vigilance rather than formal institutions, where routine tasks like watching harbors and checking traps determine whether endemic species survive invasive threats. Such work is repetitive, underfunded, and easily overlooked, yet decisive.
- In the Cook Islands, late-20th-century bird recoveries paired outside science with local enforcement, showing that plans mattered only insofar as they were sustained on the ground at airstrips, wharves, and forest edges.
- George Teariki-Mataki Mateariki, known as Birdman George, embodied this approach by monitoring birds, trapping predators, and responding quickly to changes, helping establish Atiu as a refuge for the critically endangered kakerori and later the Rimatara lorikeet.
- Through guiding visitors, sharing practical knowledge, and maintaining constant vigilance, he treated conservation as prevention rather than rescue, asking not for admiration but for attention, and making extinction less likely through persistence rather than spectacle.

SE Asia’s smallholders struggling to meet EUDR: Interview with RECOFTC’s Martin Greijmans
- The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is set to take effect at the end of 2026, after EU lawmakers voted to postpone its implementation for a second year.
- The legislation aims to reduce commodity-driven deforestation and illegal trade in forest products by enabling companies importing into the EU to trace entire supply chains.
- Experts say the increased oversight is a vital step to reduce the footprint of EU consumption on forests, but caution that many smallholders across Southeast Asia need more support to prepare for compliance, especially on land documentation and geolocation data.
- Without appropriate technical, financial and governance support, observers warn, the new rules could sideline smallholders or push them into less regulated markets, deepening already existing inequities.

Fights against development projects marks 2025 for Nepal’s Indigenous people
- From protests to court rulings, for Nepal’s Indigenous peoples and local communities, 2025 was marked by activism and struggles to secure their forests, land and territories from infrastructure projects.
- As threats from hydropower, cable cars and mining projects increased, communities lost touch with their forest, lands and sacred connection with nature, which impacted biodiversity conservation.
- However, communities pushed legal action against these projects that operated without FPIC, community consultation, environmental regulation and safeguards.

From ‘extinct’ to growing, a rare snail returns to the wild in Australia
Rarely do species presumed extinct reappear with renewed hope for a better future. But researchers in Australia not only discovered a wild population of Campbell’s keeled glass-snail on Australia’s Norfolk Island in 2020 — they’ve now bred the snail in captivity and recently released more than 300 individuals back into the wild, where they’re multiplying. […]
How Mongabay’s journalism made an impact in 2025
The guiding star at Mongabay isn’t pageviews or clicks; it’s meaningful impact. As 2025 draws to a close, we look back at some of the ways Mongabay’s journalism made a difference this year. Empowering Indigenous and local communities A Mongabay Latam investigation found 67 illegal airstrips were cut into the Peruvian Amazon to transport drugs, […]
On Indonesia’s longest river, a Borneo community passes crucial public health milestone
- Sekadau is the largest settlement in a district of the same name on Indonesia’s longest river, the Kapuas River in Borneo.
- Historically, Sekadau has recorded higher rates of acute illness that local authorities suggested may be attributable to the widespread practice of open defecation in the river, a public health menace that exacts a range of costs from economic productivity to child stunting.
- This year, the district of Sekadau announced it had eliminated open defecation from all 94 villages in the district of 211,559 people, thanks in part to a campaign to build affordable toilets.
- Data collected by local authorities showed instances of ill health have declined swiftly over the last decade.

Beyond human loss, floods from Cyclone Ditwah devastate Sri Lanka’s wildlife
- Cyclone Ditwah caused extensive flooding across several protected areas in Sri Lanka in late November and early December, resulting in mass deaths of deer and other wildlife that perished largely unreported.
- Wildlife officers rescued several stranded elephant calves separated from their herds, including around five still dependent on milk, with fears that more may have perished.
- Floodwaters destroyed roughly 860 kilometers (534 miles) of electric fencing, about one-sixth of the national total, raising the risk of human-elephant conflict in affected regions.
- Floods also drove venomous snakes into residential areas, prompting wildlife officers and volunteers to carry out urgent rescue operations.

A ‘national pride’ highway meets Indigenous resistance in ancient Nepali settlements
- Nepal’s Indigenous Newa communities in Khokana and Bungamati are resisting the Kathmandu–Terai Fast Track expressway, which would cut through their ancestral lands, threatening livelihoods, settlements and cultural identity rooted in centuries-old traditions.
- The government promotes the highway as a “national pride” project to boost connectivity and economic growth, but locals say it was pushed forward without meaningful consultation and dismisses Indigenous rights and heritage.
- Resistance is fueled not only by the highway but by fears that it will trigger a cascade of additional infrastructure projects, including an outer ring road, Bagmati Corridor road expansion, transmission lines, a railway line, and a planned satellite city.
- Community members stress their fight is not about compensation but survival, arguing that money cannot replace their land, culture and civilization, and warning that the expressway would permanently erase their Indigenous way of life.

Clark Lungren and the case for compromise in conservation
- Clark Lungren spent most of his life in Burkina Faso, where he worked on conservation not as an external intervention but as a local, becoming a naturalized citizen and embedding himself in village life. His authority came less from formal credentials than from long familiarity with people and place.
- He was best known for his role in the recovery of the Nazinga area, where wildlife rebounded after communities were granted controlled hunting rights in exchange for protection. The arrangement, initially dismissed by many experts, proved durable.
- Lungren argued consistently that conservation would only last if it aligned with local governance and incentives, a view reflected in community-managed hunting zones and buffer areas around protected lands. He favored workable compromises over strict orthodoxy.
- Active well into his seventies, he continued training, research, and advocacy through a demonstration farm near Ouagadougou. The systems he helped build persisted in a region where many conservation efforts were short-lived.

Joann Andrews, a patient force behind Yucatán’s protected landscapes
- Joann Andrews helped professionalize conservation on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, treating it less as romance than as practical work: building institutions, securing funding, and negotiating the political and social realities of protecting land. She died on December 22, 2025, in Mérida at 96.
- After arriving in Yucatán in 1964 and losing her husband to cancer in 1971, she chose to remain in Mexico with six children, a decision that tied her future to the region’s environmental fate. Her background in political science, international economics, and a decade in the U.S. diplomatic service shaped a style that was disciplined and unsentimental.
- She began with logistics for archaeological research but became a serious orchid student, contributing to early documentation of Yucatán’s orchid diversity and publishing on the subject; an orchid species, Lophiaris andrewsiae, was named in her honor. Her scientific curiosity later broadened into full-time environmental work.
- In 1987 she co-founded Pronatura Península de Yucatán, which became a leading conservation organization in the region, and she helped launch the Toh Bird Festival to broaden support for nature protection. She emphasized youth engagement and warned that conservation would always require persuading people and managing development pressure, not just celebrating nature.

Sri Lanka looks to build disaster-resilient housing after devastating cyclone
- More than 1,200 landslides were recorded in two provinces in Sri Lanka following Cyclone Ditwah in late November, resulting in crisis evacuations to safeguard vulnerable populations.
- Most of the disaster-impacted people continue to live in high-risk regions due to the lack of alternative housing.
- The country’s mandated institution for landslide risk management, the National Building and Research Organisation (NBRO), says it’s working on the first national building code to establish minimum standards for the design, construction and maintenance of hazard-resilient housing.
- Following the significant loss of lives and homes in the recent disaster, the NBRO is also introducing specific types of housing models suitable for flat and sloped terrains.

Jay M. Savage, witness to disappearing frogs and builder of tropical science
- In the late 1980s, Jay M. Savage was among the first to recognize that amphibian declines in protected cloud forests were not isolated anomalies but part of a broader, global pattern that defied familiar explanations.
- His long career combined meticulous field science with institutional foresight, including foundational work in Central American herpetology and a central role in building the Organization for Tropical Studies as a durable base for tropical research and training.
- Savage treated institution-building and mentorship as integral to science itself, quietly supporting generations of students while insisting on continuity, rigor, and collaboration over spectacle or quick results.
- He approached extinction not as tragedy alone but as evidence with consequences, attentive to what disappears as much as what remains, and to the slow signals detected by those who return often enough to notice absence.

Year-end ‘good news’ as flat-headed cats reappear in Thailand after 29-year absence
- Camera traps in Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary picked up 13 flat-headed cat records in 2024 and 16 more earlier this year.
- The last confirmed sighting of the species in Thailand was in 1995; across its range, which includes Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra, about 2,500 flat-headed cats are thought to survive.
- Elusive, nocturnal and semiaquatic, flat-headed cats are notoriously difficult to study, but conservationists say they hope their rediscovery in Thailand will galvanize interest in the species.
- Conservationists also call for increased protection of the peat swamp forest where the population has been found, noting the risk of trafficking that might accompany the announcement of the rediscovery.

Kristina Gjerde, defender of the deep ocean, has died
- Much of the global ocean lies beyond national borders, where governance long lagged behind industrial expansion and responsibility thinned with distance from shore.
- Kristina Maria Gjerde helped reframe that problem as one of law and institutions, combining science, legal craft, and persistence to make protection of the high seas politically workable.
- Over two decades, she built and sustained coalitions that turned scattered warnings about deep-sea damage into a binding international framework.
- That effort culminated in the 2023 High Seas Treaty, an agreement whose force lies less in sudden ambition than in the accumulation of careful, patient work.

The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
- This analysis explores key storylines, examining the political, environmental, and economic dynamics shaping tropical rainforests in 2025, with attention to how policy, markets, and climate stress increasingly interact rather than operate in isolation.
- Across major forest regions, deforestation slowed in some places but degradation, fire, conflict, and legacy damage continued to erode forest health, often in ways that standard metrics fail to capture.
- Global responses remained uneven: conservation finance shifted toward fiscal and market-based tools, climate diplomacy deferred hard decisions, and enforcement outcomes depended heavily on institutional capacity and credibility rather than formal commitments alone.
- Taken together, the year showed that forest outcomes now hinge less on single interventions than on whether governments and institutions can sustain continuity—of funding, governance, science, and oversight—under mounting environmental and political strain.

Declared extinct in 2025: A look back at some of the species we lost
Some species officially bid us farewell this year. They may have long been gone, but following more recent assessments, they’re now formally categorized as extinct on the IUCN Red List, considered the global authority on species’ conservation status. We may never see another individual of these species ever again. Or will we? Slender-billed curlew This […]
‘The bargain of the century’: An economist’s vision for expanding clean energy access in Africa
- The recent U.N. climate conference (COP30) in Brazil resulted in the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) to bring about a just energy transition that embraces renewable energy and expands access to power.
- But details on how the transition will be accomplished remain elusive.
- Economist Fadhel Kaboub contends that the transition should not reinforce existing inequalities in Africa and other parts of the Global South.
- Kaboub sees an opportunity in the energy transition to remedy those power imbalances, which he calls “the bargain of the century.”

Stuart Brooks, peat protector, has died
- Stuart Brooks was part of a small group of conservationists who helped shift peatlands from the margins of environmental policy to a recognized priority for climate, biodiversity, and land management. His influence came through persistence rather than spectacle.
- Trained as a geographer, he built practical expertise in peatland ecology early in his career and helped consolidate it into guidance that became standard for restoration work in the UK and beyond.
- In senior roles at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the John Muir Trust, and the National Trust for Scotland, he worked to align conservation practice with public policy, often arguing for approaches that respected natural processes over intervention.
- As a founder and chair of the IUCN UK Peatland Program, he translated specialist knowledge into institutions, strategies, and protections that continue to shape peatland restoration at national and international levels.

Conservation wins in 2025 that pushed us closer to the 30×30 goal
The “30 by 30” biodiversity target to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030 is fast approaching — and the world is far off the pace needed for success: Less than 10% of oceans and just 17.6% of land and inland waters enjoy some sort of protection. Still, 2025 saw some […]
10 notable books on conservation and the environment published in 2025
- As challenging as 2025 has been for conservation and environmental issues, the dogged struggle to address the crises we face remains a central focus for scientists, activists and communities around the globe.
- Their stories hold the promise of a brighter future in the years to come.
- The list below features a sample of important literature on conservation and the environment published this year.
- Inclusion in this list does not imply Mongabay’s endorsement of a book’s content; the views in the books are those of the authors and not necessarily of Mongabay.

France’s largest rewilding project
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. He has spent much of his life in the shadow of the Dauphiné Alps in southeastern France, where limestone cliffs catch the morning light and the silhouettes of horned ibex move across the ridgelines. To Fabien Quétier, who […]
Environmentalist hugs tree for 72 hours for Kenya’s native forests
A Kenyan environmentalist hugged a palm tree for 72 straight hours in Nyeri county to draw attention to the rapid loss of the country’s native forests, many of which face extinction. Truphena Muthoni’s feat, reported by Mongabay contributing editor Lynet Otieno, is in the process of being considered for a new Guinness World Record. It […]
Top ocean news stories of 2025 (commentary)
- Marking the midway point in the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, 2025 was a key year for the ocean.
- The past 12 months brought landslide multilateral wins for ocean policy, unprecedented ocean financial commitments, and increasing momentum to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.
- Here, marine scientists, policy experts and a communications expert lay out the key ocean stories from the past year.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Cyclone Ditwah exposes climate risks to nature-based tourism in Sri Lanka
- In late November, Cyclone Ditwah triggered landslides and flooding across Sri Lanka’s biodiversity-rich hill country, disrupting nature-based tourism during the peak travel season.
- UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the Knuckles Conservation Forest, Horton Plains and Peak Wilderness, faced trail closures, access restrictions and infrastructure damage.
- Popular destinations faced cancellations and closures, hitting local families who depend on tourism for their livelihoods, though they remain hopeful of a swift recovery.
- Experts warn that reopening of these sites should not be unnecessarily rushed, emphasizing safety, environmental protection and long-term sustainability to preserve both livelihoods and biodiversity.

New pitcher plant found in the Philippines may already be critically endangered
Researchers have described a new-to-science species of carnivorous plant that’s known from only three locations on the Philippines’ Palawan Island. The newly described pitcher plant, which grows on very difficult-to-access vertical limestone walls, may already be critically endangered given its extremely restricted range and tiny population, the researchers say in a recent study. Nepenthes is […]
Cape Town’s new plan for baboons: Fence, capture and possibly euthanize
Authorities in Cape Town, South Africa, have released an updated baboon action plan aimed at reducing conflict between people and baboons, which regularly enter urban areas in search of food. The plan, which includes euthanasia of some baboons, has drawn criticism from animal welfare groups. The plan says the population of chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) […]
2025: A year of consequence for Mongabay’s journalism
- In a year marked by public fatigue, political polarization, and pressure on democratic institutions and press freedom, Mongabay operated in an information environment where attention was scarce but decisions with lasting consequences were still being made, often quietly and locally.
- 2025 also brought significant loss, including the deaths of East Africa editor Ochieng Ogodo and Advisory Council member Jane Goodall, alongside many other environmental defenders; Mongabay honored these lives through dozens of tributes aimed at making their work visible and carrying it forward through solutions-focused reporting.
- Mongabay published more than 7,300 stories across eight languages, expanded into Swahili and Bengali, reached an expected 110 million unique visitors, grew its team to 130 people, and earned international recognition that reinforced the credibility and practical value of its journalism.
- Across regions, Mongabay’s reporting directly shaped policy, enforcement, markets, and science—from hunting bans and mining reforms to financial blacklisting and new conservation priorities—and the organization enters 2026 focused on deepening impact through fellowships, expanded coverage, multilingual short news, and the launch of its Story Transformer tool.

How ‘Adventure Scientists’ provide pioneering data for conservation
Gregg Treinish didn’t start out as an outdoor enthusiast, but found solace and purpose in nature during his youth. After years of enjoying the outdoors, he was left feeling a need to give something back to the world. He found fulfillment by using his passion for outdoor adventures to gather critical data that researchers need […]
Huge ‘blue carbon’ offsetting project takes root in the mangroves of Sierra Leone
- In October, a wholly owned subsidiary of West Africa Blue, a Mauritius-based company, signed a “blue carbon” offsetting deal with the 124 communities on the island of Sherbro in Sierre Leone.
- The agreement will reward the communities financially for conserving and restoring their mangroves, which act as a carbon sink.
- The funds will be generated by selling offsets on the voluntary carbon credit market, with revenues shared between West Africa Blue, the communities and the government of Sierra Leone.
- Though carbon offsetting projects have been subject to criticism in the past, community members on Sherbro say they’re optimistic about the improvements to their livelihoods that the project could bring.

As Cyclone Ditwah battered land, Sri Lanka’s oceans absorbed a silent shock
- Following the tropical Cyclone Ditwah, unusual sea-foam appeared along parts of Sri Lanka’s northern coast, a natural phenomenon caused by storm-driven turbulence and organic compounds released by plankton, not marine pollution, scientists say.
- Extreme rainfall from Ditwah released an extraordinary volume of freshwater into the ocean, and researchers estimate that nearly 10% of Sri Lanka’s average annual rainfall was received in a single day and rapidly drained to sea through the island’s river network.
- Flood-driven sediments and sudden changes in salinity may stress coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, but Sri Lanka lacks systematic sediment monitoring at river mouths, leaving scientists with limited data on downstream impacts.
- The floods also swept plastics, debris and nutrients into coastal waters, potentially intensifying plankton blooms and fish aggregations while increasing the risk of algal blooms, oxygen depletion and long-term marine pollution.

Tropical forests in Australia are emitting more carbon than they capture: Study
- A newly published study reveals that moist tropical forests in Australia are now a net carbon emitter, making this the first documented case of tropical forest woody biomass making the flip from sink to source.
- Researchers analyzed nearly five decades of data and found that around the year 2000, these forests stopped absorbing more carbon than they emitted and went into a reversal.
- They identified tree deaths as the core problem, showing that these doubled compared to earlier decades, with new growth unable to keep pace.
- Climate change and cyclones are to blame, as rainforest species evolved for warm, wet conditions, but are now facing temperature extremes and extended droughts that damage their tissues and stunt growth.

Photos: Tourism ambitions clash with local livelihoods on Indonesia’s Lombok Island
- Residents of Tanjung Aan Beach on the Indonesian island of Lombok say they were evicted with little notice or compensation as the Mandalika tourism project advances, leaving many without livelihoods or alternatives.
- The government-controlled developer has defended its process, citing compensation paid in a different land zone, but locals say support didn’t reach the coastal community now being cleared.
- Perspectives diverge sharply: locals describe loss, fear and declining income, while some foreigners and investors argue the development is legal, overdue and ultimately beneficial.
- Younger Lombok residents highlight deeper systemic issues — weak regulation, rising costs and limited opportunities — saying tourism growth increasingly serves visitors, not locals.

Mongabay shark meat investigation wins national journalism award in Brazil
- A Mongabay investigation that revealed Brazilian state-run institutions bulk-buying shark meat for public schools, hospitals and prisons won second place in the ARI/Banrisul Journalism Award, one of Brazil’s most prestigious journalism prizes.
- In collaboration with the Pulitzer Center, Mongabay revealed how authorities had issued 1,012 public tenders since 2004 for the procurement of more than 5,400 metric tons of shark meat, raising environmental and public health concerns.
- In a statement, the Rio Grande do Sul Press Association (ARI) said the award “recognized the talents” in professional and university categories amid a record number of entries, up 40% from the 2024 edition.
- Following the revelations, the investigation sparked several impacts, from a call for a public hearing in Brazil’s lower house of Congress, a citation in a lawsuit to ban shark meat from federal procurements, to an industry debate questioning the harms of shark meat consumption.

New miniature bright-orange toadlet found in southern Brazil and named after Lula
In a small stretch of the Atlantic Forest in southern Brazil lives a bright-orange species of frog that’s new to science, researchers report in a recent study. The miniature amphibian measures just over a centimeter long, less than half an inch, or the length of an average fingernail. The team has named the toadlet Brachycephalus […]
Neddy Mulimo treated ranger welfare as conservation
- Neddy Mulimo argued that ranger welfare was not charity but strategy, insisting that effective conservation depends on whether rangers have water, shelter, training, and institutional backing to make sound decisions under pressure.
- His own path into conservation began far from the bush, shaped by education, mentorship, and early encounters with risk, including a near-fatal buffalo attack that nearly drove him out of the profession.
- Over four decades, he rose from driver and educator to anti-poaching leader and mentor, helping build specialist units while remaining focused on the people doing the work, until his death in April 2025 after a battle with cancer.

Grassroots forest protection succeeds where planting drives fail in Nepal
- Cases from Nepal suggest that degraded land can regenerate naturally when locals enforce rules such as banning open livestock grazing, restricting access, fining illegal logging and organizing patrols, without the need for costly tree-planting drives.
- Native species return within a few years after the land is protected, showing that fertile soil, existing seed banks and wildlife presence can restore forests naturally.
- Researchers and community leaders say Nepal should prioritize long-term, community-led forest protection and natural regeneration, which are more effective, sustainable and lower-cost than coordinated tree planting.

Taboo against harming strangler fig spirits protects forests in Indonesian Borneo
- The Iban community in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, says it believes large strangler fig trees are inhabited by dangerous spirits, leading community members to protect these trees from harm wherever they occur.
- When clearing land for farming, the community protects the fig tree as well as islands of vegetation around the tree, which together account for 1-2% of their farmland dedicated to protecting the strangler figs.
- Research published in Biotropica found that strangler figs are equally or more abundant in the community’s farmland compared with old-growth, with 25 species identified across the landscape.
- These protected fig trees and surrounding vegetation serve as crucial refuges and stepping stones for wildlife, demonstrating how traditional spiritual beliefs can have measurable biodiversity benefits that could be replicated elsewhere.

The rise of CC35 and the business behind its climate deals
- The executive secretary of CC35, a climate network of capital cities in the Americas, used annual climate summits and other events to advance private interests in carbon credit businesses, a Mongabay investigation has found.
- His plan included persuading a provincial government in Argentina to sign a multimillion-dollar carbon contract with an associate facing fraud allegations in a parallel carbon business. According to a recent Mongabay investigation, the associate had pressured Indigenous communities in Brazil and Bolivia to sign abusive carbon deals, conceding rights for an area larger than Ireland.
- The head of CC35, Argentinian Sebastián Navarro, also failed to fulfill CC35’s commitment to cover all costs associated with Ecuador’s pavilion at COP28, after making false claims to the government and creating debts for the country.

Daniel Ole Sambu, who helped lions and people coexist, died at age 51
In the rangelands beneath Kilimanjaro, coexistence between people and wildlife has never been a simple matter. Livestock wander into the paths of lions. Farmers lose cattle they can scarcely afford to lose. Retaliation follows, and with it the slow unraveling of ecosystems that depend on predators to stay whole. Local conservation groups have long understood […]
BRICS+ offers Indigenous & local communities ways to advance environmental and social goals (analysis)
- As the world grapples with climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity, Indigenous and local communities remain at the forefront of conservation, yet are often sidelined in terms of global environmental governance.
- However, as the geopolitical landscape shifts, new opportunities are emerging for these communities to assert their influence: one alternative is the BRICS+ alliance, a coalition of 10 nations that has increasingly positioned itself as a counterbalance to Western-dominated global governance structures.
- BRICS+ “offers unique opportunities for reimagining Indigenous inclusion through their emphasis on multipolarity, South-South cooperation, and alternative development paradigms that could, if strategically leveraged, provide space for Indigenous voices to shape governance from within,” and therefore bring environmental and social goals forward, a new analysis argues.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Project sees long-term success restoring forests in the high Andes: Study
- The Polylepis forests of Peru are some of the highest high-altitude forests in the world, playing an essential role in the water cycle.
- Over the past few decades, various restoration projects have worked to restore Polylepis forests across their former range.
- In 2022, researchers revisited a restoration project in Aquia, Peru, to understand what factors contributed to its success. The study concludes that stakeholder participation and formal conservation agreements helped the project succeed.
- Over the past four years, initiatives by ECOAN and Accion Andina have built on previous success.

Century-old corals reveal the Pacific Northwest is acidifying faster than expected
- When compared with historical samples, corals show that the Salish Sea and California Current System are acidifying faster than anticipated because of greenhouse gas emissions. Models indicate that at this rate, carbon dioxide levels in the oceans will continue rising faster than concentrations in the atmosphere.
- Increasingly acidic seas pose growing risks to sensitive marine life, from clams and oysters to any organism with a spine, as well as economically important fisheries and the communities that depend on them.
- British marine ecologist Stephen Widdicombe calls the threat existential. Our continued failure to cut emissions can only lead to “a world where uncontrolled climate change including ocean acidification leaves us with an ocean that is less productive, less diverse and less able to provide humans with the wealth of services that we currently all benefit from,” he said.

Sámi reindeer herders protest EU-backed graphite mine, fearing lost grazing ground
- Sweden has approved the EU-backed Nunasvaara South graphite mine by Australia-based battery anode and graphite company Talga Group on land Sámi reindeer herders use for winter grazing.
- The mining company told Mongabay it has designed the mine area to limit the impact on nature and it plans to shut down operations for six months of the year to allow reindeer to graze on their winter grounds.
- But Sámi residents, who depend on herding, told Mongabay they fear their reindeer will be displaced because their winter grazing grounds will be destroyed, and they criticize the company’s environmental safeguards.
- They also said the mine’s inclusion as a strategic project under the EU Critical Raw Minerals Act has allowed it to be fast-tracked without essential environmental safeguards and that the company has made little attempt to meaningfully communicate with affected communities.

Ethiopian youth groups restore Rift valley lake & livelihoods
- Youth groups are restoring the ecosystem in and around Ethiopia’s Abijata-Shalla National Park, once covered with acacia woodlands but stripped bare in recent years as water has been lost to irrigation and a soda-ash factory.
- Spanning 887 square kilometers, the park is a vital refuge for biodiversity, hosting migratory birds and a range of species, making it one of the region’s most important wildlife strongholds.
- Wetlands International staff have trained local youth and community members in sustainable land management, teaching them how to identify and correct unsustainable practices such as overgrazing, deforestation and farming on steep slopes.
- The work relies heavily on consultations with local communities, ensuring solutions align with community needs.

Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès wins top anti-corruption reporting award
Journalist Glòria Pallarès won the Anti-Corruption Excellence (ACE) Award for her investigation into corrupt forest finance schemes published in collaboration with Mongabay. The award ceremony was held in Doha, Qatar, on Dec. 16. The investigation, published in January 2024, exposed a scheme in which companies registered in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were using false claims […]
The first amphibian to halt a hydroelectric dam now takes on the climate crisis
- Known in Brazil as the admirable little red-bellied toad, the rare Melanophryniscus admirabilis is endemic to a stretch of the Forqueta River in Rio Grande do Sul state. It made history in 2014 when it halted the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would have destroyed its only habitat.
- After the 2024 floods, researchers returned to the area to assess the impacts of the state’s biggest climate catastrophe on its environment.
- With just over a thousand individuals in the wild, the species is listed as “critically endangered”; in addition to climate change, the little toad suffers from the advance of monocultures and the threat of wildlife trafficking.

In the Amazon, law enforcement against environmental crime remains controversial
- In general terms, the reputation of police forces throughout Latin America lacks legitimacy and public trust. In the case of environmental conflicts, the issue takes on overtones of violence and corruption in areas where the state’s presence is scarce.
- In Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, it is almost tacitly understood that the police are, for the most part, colluding with organized crime. Meanwhile, in Brazil, their role as a shock force is excessive and, in rural areas, they may associate with private security forces to carry out evictions.
- The Catholic Church began monitoring these types of conflicts in the early 1990s, and since then, disputes have caused the deaths of 773 people.

Bethany “Bee” Smith, researcher who documented a megamouth shark alive, died in a diving accident, aged 24
- Bethany “Bee” Smith was part of a generation of scientists who worked in the field while also explaining their work publicly, narrowing the distance between research and spectacle without denying the risks that came with it.
- Trained as a marine biologist, she spent years studying sharks, working with fishing communities and researchers, and focusing on conservation problems where trust and policy mattered as much as data.
- After years of preparation and failed attempts, she achieved a rare feat: documenting a live megamouth shark, one of the least understood large animals on Earth, in work focused on evidence rather than thrill.
- She died at 24 during a freediving accident in Indonesia while working on a shark conservation project, after reaching a goal that had occupied years of careful effort and preparation.

In Nepal, the world’s smallest otter continues to elude researchers
- The Asian small-clawed otter was rediscovered in Nepal in 2024 after 185 years. Since then, however, it’s gone dark again, with no more confirmed sightings.
- Identifying the animal remains challenging due to its small size, dietary overlap with other carnivores, and resemblance to common species such as the crab-eating mongoose.
- Funding and logistical constraints impede targeted surveys, as conservation priorities in Nepal focus mainly on larger, charismatic species such as tigers and rhinos.
- Despite this, conservationists are already planning measures to reduce potential threats to the animal by including it into the national otter conservation action plan.

Environmental defenders & conservationists who died in 2025
- Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler writes short obituaries—over 70 in 2025—for people who devoted their lives to protecting the natural world, returning to this work consistently alongside my his responsibilities.
- The individuals he writes about are less defined by titles than by posture—standing between living systems and the forces eroding them, often for decades, largely unseen, and at real personal cost.
- These pieces aim neither to lionize nor to despair, but to clarify—showing how protection happens through sustained, imperfect choices made by ordinary people who kept showing up.

Jeff Foott, chronicler of ice, rock, and change, has died, aged 80
- Jeff Foott belonged to a generation of outdoorsmen who moved easily between climbing, science, rescue work, and seasonal labor, guided less by career ambition than by close attention to the natural world. His ethic was shaped early, long before environmental concern became institutionalized.
- Trained as a marine biologist, he turned to photography and film as a way to show how wildlife lived and what was at risk, producing more than 40 films and widely published images for outlets such as National Geographic, the BBC, and PBS.
- His visual work favored clarity and restraint over spectacle, whether documenting sea otters, alpine ice, or red rock landscapes increasingly altered by a warming climate. He remained attentive to environmental change without turning his work into overt argument.
- In his own words, what mattered to him was not climbing but whether people would know that some tried to act on concern for climate, democracy, and the things held in common. He let photographs carry the burden of persuasion.

Statewide survey aims to put California’s fungi on the conservation map
- A state-funded survey has sampled and collected fungi species from across California, identifying hundreds of new-to-science species.
- It’s part of a statewide effort to protect biodiversity, which has yielded thousands of specimens and is the first of its kind in North America.
- Fungi are often neglected compared to the attention given to plants and animals, yet they play an important role in maintaining ecological health by supporting plant growth and storing carbon.
- Understanding fungi’s role in nature has implications for conservation and for forest restoration as wildfires grow larger and more frequent. Other researchers in California are working on putting fungi to use cleaning up polluted areas.

A flood of logs post-Cyclone Senyar leaves Padang fishers out of work
- Flash floods in late November swept timber and mud from upstream forests into coastal waters around Padang, blocking access to the sea and cutting off the livelihoods of hundreds of fishers.
- Fishers say massive floating logs have damaged boats and halted daily incomes, forcing many families to rely on credit to meet basic needs.
- Marine scientists warn that suspended sediment and decaying timber threaten coastal ecosystems by blocking sunlight, disrupting food chains and degrading water quality.
- Environmental groups link the disaster to illegal logging and weak forest governance upstream, calling for stronger law enforcement, national disaster status and urgent government action.

Rethinking how we talk about conservation—and why it matters
- Feedback from across the conservation sector suggests a shift in how the movement talks about itself—from crisis-heavy messaging toward agency and evidence—because constant alarm fatigues audiences while stories of progress keep them engaged.
- Respondents to date have emphasized that scalable, durable conservation efforts share core traits: genuine local leadership, transparency about what works (and what doesn’t), visible community benefits, and diversified funding that strengthens resilience.
- Practitioners highlighted the importance of aligning human well-being with environmental outcomes, with models like Health in Harmony showing how rights, livelihoods, and conservation can reinforce one another when communities define their own priorities.
- This piece builds on a conversation Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler had last week at the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders (EWCL) conference in Washington, D.C.

Protected areas in Africa are vital but local perceptions vary (commentary)
- Protected areas are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious.
- A recent study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in collaboration with Middlebury College examined perceptions of these areas among thousands of local residents living near five forested regions of Central Africa and Madagascar.
- “Conservation practice needs to take seriously how the people living near protected areas perceive those areas, and what benefits and harms they associate with them, in their full unevenness and complexity,” the authors of a new op-ed say.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Researchers find concerning gaps in global maps used for EUDR compliance
- Most companies importing certain products into the EU must comply with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products (EUDR), which will go into application on Dec. 30, 2026.
- Satellite and other remote-sensing maps can guide both companies trying to comply with the regulation and government agencies verifying levels of deforestation risk attached to imports.
- But a recent review paper suggests that most of the available maps struggle to meet all of the requirements of the EUDR and could over- or underestimate the risk of deforestation for certain products.
- A key issue is the maps’ ability to differentiate forest from systems that look similar, such as agroforestry, commonly practiced by smallholder farmers producing cocoa, coffee and rubber.

Zombie urchins & the Blob: California sea otters face new threats & ecosystem shifts
- Southern sea otters living along California’s coast are struggling in warmer seas, with new threats and changing food sources. They, like the other two sea otter subspecies, are classified as endangered.
- Human disturbance, especially in Monterey Bay, is limiting the otters’ ability to forage, impacting mother and pup survival. Meanwhile, sharks are expanding their range as waters warm, with increasing attacks on otters.
- Following a mass die-off of the purple sea urchin’s predators — sunflower and ochre sea stars — the urchins decimated kelp forests, which are important sea otter habitat. Mussels then proliferated, replacing urchins in the otter’s diet, and invasive green crabs are now also on the menu.
- Otter numbers seem to be dropping, but a definitive census has not been conducted since 2019. A new population estimate based on data and statistical modeling is due to be released soon.

Fishing cats need hotspot-based conservation in Bangladesh, research shows
- Fishing cats in Bangladesh are facing near-extinction as they struggle to adapt to living alongside humans in Bangladesh.
- Wildlife experts recommend hotspot-based, short-term conservation strategies to immediately halt killings of the small carnivores.
- They also urge long-term solutions, as the interim measures are insufficient.

EU votes to delay EUDR antideforestation law for second year in a row
The European Parliament voted on Dec. 17 to delay a key antideforestation regulation that was adopted in 2023 and originally supposed to be implemented at the end of 2024. The implementation was delayed a year to December 2025, and now the EU has voted to delay it yet again by another year. The European Union […]
Tanzania’s tree-climbing hyraxes have adapted to life without trees
Despite their name, tree hyraxes — small, furry, nocturnal African mammals — don’t always live in trees. In Tanzania’s Pare mountains, near the border with Kenya, they’ve adapted to life on steep rocky outcrops as forests disappeared over the centuries, a recent study has found. Eastern tree hyraxes (Dendrohyrax validus) are known to inhabit the […]
All new roads lead to increased deforestation in Ecuador’s Indigenous territory
- Between 2022 and 2025 at least 62 kilometers (39 miles) of roads were opened in Achuar territory in southern Ecuador, several without environmental permits or technical studies.
- Global Forest Watch documented the loss of thousands of hectares of primary forest. Community monitoring found that a lack of control on the part of the authorities has facilitated illegal logging.
- The arrival of illegal loggers led to confrontations between communities, which resulted in two murders of Indigenous people.
- The area is one of the poorest in the country with few basic services: Some communities complain about the lack of roads, but others are concerned about their social and environmental impacts.

How Southern African farmers & elephants can both adapt to coexist
- In Southern Africa, people live alongside elephants, but not always peacefully.
- The growing reports of human-elephant conflict have triggered calls for elephant culls in some countries, like Zimbabwe.
- But conservation groups are working hard to promote coexistence, using technology that can warn farmers about approaching elephants or link farmers to more lucrative markets to offset the cost of living with one of Africa’s most charismatic mammals.
- In all of this, adaptation is the key: Farmers are adapting the way they farm, while elephants are learning to move at night and stick to specific routes through populated areas to avoid conflict.

Tsunami veteran rescue elephants mobilized for Indonesia cyclone disaster relief
- The number of people killed by flash floods after Cyclone Senyar made landfall over Sumatra on Nov. 26 increased to 1,059 on Dec. 18. In Pidie Jaya district, on the north coast of the semi-autonomous region of Aceh, officials assigned a team of four rescue elephants, veterans of the recovery operation after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in Aceh.
- The Aceh conservation agency said the elephants were uniquely able to help remove fields of logs carried down valleys by the worst flash floods to hit the region in years, with the scale of debris fields impassable to heavy machinery.
- “They are trained and experienced elephants,” the head of Aceh’s conservation agency told Mongabay, while emphasizing that officials went to great lengths to ensure the Sumatran animals’ welfare.
- At least one Sumatran elephant was presumed killed in flash floods caused by Cyclone Senyar, after residents in a village neighboring the rescue elephants’ workplace discovered the animal’s body Nov. 29.

Tech alone won’t stop poaching, but it’s changing how rangers work
- New conservation technologies are being developed and deployed worldwide to counter increasingly sophisticated poachers.
- A new alliance between two of the biggest open-source conservation technology platforms combines real-time data collection and long-term data analysis, with proven success.
- Free, open-source tools can help remove barriers to adoption of conservation technology, particularly in the Global South.

Congo’s communities are creating a 1-million-hectare biodiversity corridor
- The NGO Strong Roots Congo is securing lands for communities and wildlife to create a 1-million-hectare (2.5-million-acre) corridor that spans the space between Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Itombwe Nature Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The effort requires multiple communities to register their customary lands as community forestry concessions under an environmental management plan, which, piece by piece, form the sweeping corridor.
- To date, Strong Roots has secured 23 community forest concessions in the area, covering nearly 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land.
- The corridor aims to rectify a historical wrong in the creation of Kahuzi-Biega National Park, which displaced many families, by engaging communities in conservation. Advocates say the project has had a positive impact so far despite challenges, but persistent armed conflict in the eastern DRC is slowing progress.

As storms surge & the sea rises, Belgium builds dunes for protection
- Belgium is trialing “dune-by-dike” systems as a nature-based defense against storm surges and sea-level rise, using engineered sand dunes in front of existing dikes to create a double buffer along vulnerable stretches of coast.
- There are four dune-by-dike pilot sites in Belgium, including a 750-meter site in Raversijde, a neighborhood in the coastal city of Ostend, which Mongabay visited in late November.
- The Raversijde dune-by-dike project was established in 2021 with grids of vegetation that collected sand as the wind blew, helping build up the dunes.
- While experts said they believe dune-by-dike systems could protect large portions of the Belgian coast, they said building and maintaining the dunes relies on dredging sand from the sea to replenish adjacent beaches.

When abandoned conservation projects are counted as progress, what are we protecting? (commentary)
- An issue that receives little attention from conservationists and funders is the quiet abandonment of conservation projects after their high-profile launches.
- New evidence suggests that over one-third of conservation initiatives are abandoned within a few years of launch; if these eventual failures are not reported, they tend to be assumed to remain active.
- “Conservation must be reframed as a long-term commitment. Until the community confronts the uncomfortable truth that starting new projects holds no value unless existing ones are sustained, billions of dollars will continue to be spent on initiatives that provide the illusion of progress while nature continues its decline,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

New study splits giraffe experts on future wild captures for zoos
- Hybridization of captive giraffes in North American zoos may impact conservation, given the recent scientific consensus that giraffes are four distinct species, not a single species as previously thought.
- The study recommends international collaboration in future breeding programs, in which giraffes would be captured from the wild in Africa and moved to North American zoos to essentially start a captive-breeding program of genetically pure individuals.
- But giraffe conservationists say the study’s recommendations would be detrimental to wild conservation, arguing that capturing giraffes for zoos would deplete wild populations.

Tapanuli orangutan, devastated by cyclone, now faces habitat loss under zoning plans
- A proposed zoning overhaul in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province could strip legal protections from nearly a third of the Batang Toru ecosystem, threatening the last remaining habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
- The proposal came just before a powerful cyclone triggered floods and landslides that may have killed or displaced dozens of Tapanuli orangutans and severely damaged thousands of hectares of forest.
- The changes would weaken scrutiny of mining and plantation projects, including a planned expansion of a nearby gold mine, by removing the area’s “provincial strategic” designation.
- Conservationists say rolling back protections now would be a “nail in the coffin” for the species, calling for emergency protections and expanded conservation measures to prevent population collapse.

Tiny Caribbean island brings hope for critically endangered iguana
Over the past decade, Prickly Pear East, a small, privately owned island in the Caribbean, has become a beacon of hope for a critically endangered lizard. The islet, near the main island of Anguilla, a British territory, is one of just five locations where the lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima) is breeding and thriving, protected […]
‘Neither appropriate nor fair’: Ecuador ordered to pay oil giant Chevron $220m
Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador’s Amazon have condemned an international arbitration ruling that ordered Ecuador to pay more than $220 million to U.S. oil giant Chevron. The sum is to compensate the company for alleged denial of justice in a trial that found Chevron, operating through its predecessor Texaco, guilty of widespread environmental damage […]
The lab-in-a-backpack busting illegal shark fins: Interview with Diego Cardeñosa
- Diego Cardeñosa chose lab-based DNA research over fieldwork during his Ph.D. on sharks, betting it could deliver greater conservation impact despite being less glamorous.
- He developed a portable, rapid DNA test — like the kits used during the COVID-19 pandemic — that allows inspectors to identify shark species from fins on the spot, solving a key bottleneck that let illegal shipments slip through.
- The tool has evolved from identifying a handful of protected species to distinguishing among more than 80 sharks and rays in a single test.
- Now deployed across multiple countries, the relatively low-cost kit is expanding through grant support, with plans to adapt the technology to other trafficked wildlife beyond sharks.

Costa Rica’s ‘shocking’ wildlife crisis: Nation must move to prevent animal electrocution (commentary)
- Costa Rica is renowned for its comprehensive laws that safeguard forest cover and wildlife, protecting its status as a biodiversity hotspot that attracts millions of tourists every year.
- Yet wildlife rescue centers persistently point out that the level of care that authorities have promised has not yet been fully realized on multiple issues, including the issue of increasing electrocution deaths of sloths, kinkajous, monkeys and other animals traversing exposed electricity transmission lines after their forests have been cut.
- Many of these NGOs recently came together to form a coalition to bring awareness to the fact that most of the nation’s electrical infrastructure is installed aerially and without insulation, laying deadly traps for all arboreal animals.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Earth’s freshwater fish face harsh new climate challenges, researchers warn
- Climate change is rapidly altering freshwater ecosystems — raising temperatures, altering flood pulses and oxygen levels — and driving complex, region-specific changes in how fish grow, migrate and survive.
- Long-term U.S. data show sharp declines in cold-water fish as streams and lakes warm, while warm-water species gain only slightly. Some cold-adapted species are now disappearing as deep waters cease being a cold refuge.
- From Africa to the Arctic, impacts are emerging, including stronger lake stratification, declining fisheries and rivers turning orange as thawing permafrost releases toxic metals. Declining freshwater fisheries increasingly put food security at risk, especially affecting diets and health in traditional and Indigenous communities.
- Scientists say management and conservation techniques rooted in past conditions no longer work. New approaches must anticipate shifting baselines as climate change rapidly accelerates.

Orangutans rescued undergo re-training to return to the wild
NORTH SUMATRA, Indonesia — Welcome to jungle school, where orphaned orangutans are learning the basics for survival that they will need for life in the wild. At the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) in North Sumatra, vets and biologists are rehabilitating orangutans who have been confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade. Once they have mastered the […]
Mining controversies: The hidden toll of green energy
- Recent research shows that mining for minerals needed in the green energy transition takes an extensive toll on forests, soils, water, wildlife habitat and communities.
- Projections indicate that demand for energy transition minerals is expected to increase sixfold between 2020 and 2040; the rush to approve mining licenses in response to the growing demand only heightens the potential risks of conflict and social injustice.
- An analysis finds that the production of construction materials, such as concrete, has a significantly higher impact than the direct extraction of transition minerals themselves.

Rio Doce communities still live with toxic water, 10 years after Mariana disaster
- Ever since the Fundão tailings dam burst in 2015, people living in the traditional communities of Degredo and Povoação — which are quilombos, or traditional communities founded by escaped enslaved people during the colonial period — have been living with contaminated water, lost income and fishing limitations.
- The communities are reporting health problems, an inability to grow crops and psychological impacts related to the mud from mining tailings that contaminated the mouth of the Rio Doce.
- A new reparations agreement has been made but a definitive solution for water supply and environmental recuperation remains uncertain.

Rapid urbanization, habitat loss are forcing the snakes out in Dhaka
- The government and private agencies in Bangladesh have rescued at least 351 snakes from various densely populated areas in and around Dhaka city this year. Of the rescued snakes, 319 were venomous.
- A study shows that Bangladesh is home to 89 snake species. Though many of these are non-venomous, a fear of snakebites is widespread among the common people.
- Experts say that excessive and unplanned urbanization is playing a major role in exposing snakes to humans, as the species is losing its habitat due to reduced wetlands and open lands, among other reasons.

In Peru, community-led camera trapping boosts conservation and ecotourism
- Community members in Alto Mayo, Peru, are protecting 4,000 hectares (nearly 10,000 acres) of unique wetland forest by combining sustainable ecotourism, scientific research and participatory management of the territory.
- In the Tingana Conservation Concession, visitors explore the flooded forests by canoe and learn about sustainable agriculture and local species, while contributing revenue to the community’s economy.
- Since 2023, community members have installed eight camera traps to monitor biodiversity and strengthen surveillance against encroachers.
- The cameras have captured species like jaguarundis, margays, neotropical otters and razor-billed curassows, providing valuable scientific information that has been integrated into local environmental education programs.

Pacific fisheries summit gives a boost to albacore & seabirds
- The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), a multilateral body that sets fishing rules for an area that covers nearly 20% of the planet, held its annual meeting Dec. 1-5 in Manila, the Philippines.
- The parties adopted a harvest strategy for South Pacific albacore (Thunnus alalunga) that will set near-automatic catch limits based on scientific advice, considered a best practice in fisheries management. Conservationists celebrated the move.
- The parties also adopted a measure that aims to keep seabirds from drowning on industrial fishing lines.
- They didn’t adopt any new rules on the ship-to-ship transfer of fish and other goods at sea, a practice known as transshipment that’s been linked to illegal fishing and other illicit activity.

New study points to private land as key to Atlantic Forest recovery
- A new study shows that restored private lands in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest achieved up to 20% more forest cover than unrestored neighboring private lands.
- With 75% of the Atlantic Forest in private hands and a 6.2-million-hectare (15.3-million-acre) deficit of native vegetation, according to the law, private landowners are key to recovery.
- Over the past decade, forest gains and losses in the Atlantic Forest have essentially stagnated; but last year, half of all deforestation hit mature forests over 40 years old, threatening biodiversity and carbon stocks.

Philippines’ newest marine protected area ‘sets inspiring example’ (commentary)
- Nestled in the heart of the Coral Triangle, one of the most biodiverse marine regions on the planet, Panaon Island is a jewel of the Philippines’ natural heritage.
- Despite its biodiversity, Panaon Island faces growing threats, so a broad coalition of community leaders, environmental advocates and government agencies have rallied to designate the waters surrounding it as a new marine protected area (MPA).
- But safeguarding marine habitats requires more than designations and new maps. “Marine protected areas need proper funding, active monitoring and strong enforcement to prevent illegal activities from undermining conservation,” a new op-ed says.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Hope for tigers grows as Thailand safeguards a key link in their habitat
- Tiger conservation in Thailand is a rare success story, bucking the trend of regional declines of the Indochinese subspecies across Southeast Asia.
- Thailand’s Western Forest Complex is at the core of the country’s success, with its tiger population growing from about 40 in 2007 to more than 140 today.
- Conservation nonprofits are working to protect a network of corridors that will help usher younger tigers into the southern part of the complex, chiefly through the Si Sawat Corridor, a designated non-hunting area.
- Scientists have recently discovered tigers reproducing in the southern WEFCOM for the first time.

A Thin Green Line: The 2,000-strong ranger force of African Parks
- Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda is policed by 93 armed rangers and around 100 community eco-rangers.
- Both are employed by African Parks, a South Africa-based NGO that commands 2,119 rangers in total across the 24 protected areas in 13 countries it manages — the largest standing ranger force in Africa.
- In some of these protected areas, African Parks rangers have been accused of human rights abuses or been caught in the crossfire of violent conflicts.
- This year, the group announced it would convene a panel of African legal experts to review its human rights record and design a grievance process for victims of abuse.

South Africa considers site near African penguin colony for third nuclear power plant
South African state electricity company Eskom is reevaluating two sites to host the country’s third nuclear power plant, having previously dismissed both for an earlier facility. The two potential sites are Thyspunt, on the Eastern Cape coast, and Bantamsklip, near Dyer Island in the Western Cape, home to a significant, but declining colony of critically […]
Indonesia’s 1st Javan rhino translocation ends in death, in conservation setback
- Indonesia’s first effort to translocate a Javan rhino ended in loss when Musofa died days after his move to a protected facility in Ujung Kulon National Park.
- Officials said a necropsy found long-standing health problems linked to severe parasitic infection, though questions remain about the sudden decline linked to the relocation.
- Conservationists say the setback should not stop efforts to save the species, which faces serious risks from low numbers and limited genetic diversity.

‘Internet of Animals,’ a unified wildlife tracker, set to resume after hiatus
- A global project that tracks wildlife via satellites has resumed operations after a hiatus of three years.
- Project ICARUS, which aims to create the “internet of animals,” capitalizes on advances in wireless tracking technology to monitor individual animals.
- The trackers record data that will help scientists track the movements, migrations and behaviors of animals in different parts of the world.
- The system also enables scientists and conservationists to understand how animals are interacting with one another and with their respective ecosystems.

Seafloor survey in Cambodia finds simple anti-trawling blocks help seagrass recover
- A recent study provides the first large-scale map of Cambodia’s coastal habitats and reports early seagrass recovery near anti-trawling structures in the Kep Marine Fisheries Management Area.
- Surveys across 62,146 hectares (153,566 acres) show a 39% loss of seagrass cover in Kampot province over the past decade.
- The study doesn’t examine potential impacts from the planned $1.7 billion Funan Techo Canal, which is set to meet the sea about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) away from the Kep Marine Fisheries Management Area.

From Kalimantan’s haze to Jakarta’s grit: A journalist’s journey
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Indonesia’s environmental challenges can feel overwhelming when taken as a whole. A country said to contain more than 17,000 islands, it holds the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest and a resource economy that has reshaped much of that landscape. […]
Noisy traffic is making Galápagos’ yellow warblers angry
A recent study found that birds that live closer to roads display more aggression than birds of the same species that live farther away from noisy vehicles, Mongabay’s Spoorthy Raman reported. Researchers looked at the behavioral differences of male Galápagos yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia aureola) on two islands of the Galápagos, an Ecuadorian archipelago in […]
Collapses of Amazon riverbanks threaten communities and shipping routes
- Extreme droughts, human interventions and growing boat traffic are contributing to riverbank collapses that endanger riverside communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Four public river ports in Amazonas state have been damaged by riverbank collapses in the past decade, prompting concerns about the safety of Amazon port infrastructure.
- Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry is investigating alleged failures to prevent collapses at regional ports that connect riverside communities and provide access to essential services.

New technologies offer hope in fight to save the world’s imperiled rosewoods
- Rosewood accounts for nearly a third of the value of illegal wildlife trade seizures worldwide, and illegal harvesting of the trees has continued in spite of efforts to regulate its trade and harvest.
- Researchers say that new and existing technologies such as AI-equipped drones could help detect the illegal logging of rosewood trees inside inaccessible and remote forests, allowing forest officials to intervene in real time.
- AI could also help predict the risk of future rosewood logging activities, helping forest officials focus their monitoring efforts.
- In addition, the nonprofit TRAFFIC is currently testing AI-based image recognition tools for species identification, while other scientists are working on techniques that identify rosewood species based on DNA samples.

Cyclone Ditwah takes heavy toll on Sri Lanka’s biodiversity-rich Central Highlands
- Sri Lanka’s ecologically significant Central Highlands suffered severe but still largely undocumented ecological damage following the recent Cyclone Ditwah, which devasted unique yet highly vulnerable ecosystems harboring the country’s richest biodiversity and highest endemism.
- Early reports indicate major landslides in the UNESCO-listed Knuckles Mountain Range that led to canopy trees uprooted, forest layers buried and streams clogged with sediment, with inaccessibility delaying a comprehensive assessment.
- Illegal construction and poorly planned development in ecologically sensitive zones have intensified disaster’s impacts on the Indian Ocean island.
- Conservationists urge Sri Lanka to adopt a science-led post-disaster biodiversity assessment mechanism and climate-resilient land use planning, warning that invasive species, unstable slopes and damaged ecosystems pose long-term ecological and economic risks to this highly significant region.

Malaysian companies dominate PNG forest-clearance permits: report
- A recent report examining land-conversion permits issued by the Papua New Guinea government found that 65 of 67 such licenses are controlled by Malaysian-linked companies.
- The stated purpose of these permits — Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs) — is for creation of sustainable jobs via agribusiness and other development projects, but critics contend the licenses have been used to facilitate large-scale logging and timber exports.
- After repeated allegations of misuse of the permits, PNG’s government imposed a moratorium on new FCAs in 2023, but exports continue from existing projects.
- The 65 licenses examined by the report cover 1.68 million hectares (4.1 million acres) of rainforests, about 88% of which are categorized as ‘undisturbed forest.’

The vanishing pharmacy: How climate change is reshaping traditional medicine
- Climate change is threatening medicinal plants globally, with rising temperatures, shifting rainfall and habitat loss causing species to lose suitable habitats and face extinction, jeopardizing health care for the 80% of the world’s population that relies on traditional medicine.
- Environmental stress from extreme weather is altering the chemical composition of medicinal plants, changing their therapeutic properties and making traditional remedies less predictable or effective.
- The loss of these plants means losing not only potential sources for pharmaceutical development (more than 70% of modern drugs derive from natural compounds) but also millennia of Indigenous and traditional knowledge, cultural practices and spiritual connections to healing.
- Communities worldwide are fighting back through conservation efforts including creating medicinal plant gardens, developing alternative species lists, training new healers, documenting traditional knowledge and combining agroforestry with forest restoration to protect their health care systems.

Nepal Indigenous leaders refile writ petition against hydropower project
- In 2024, Indigenous Bhote-Lhomi 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.

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