topic: Ecosystems

topic: Ecosystems

Social media activity version | Lean version

Venezuela’s shrimp farms push for sustainability against hardship and oil spills
- Venezuela’s aquaculture industry used to go unnoticed in a national economy revolving around the oil industry, but has gained prominence since 2019 despite revenue cuts and the economic crisis.
- Oil spills from disintegrating crude infrastructure compelled shrimp farms to move from an open system that took water from Lake Maracaibo and the Caribbean Sea, to a closed system that’s not only more profitable but also provides environmental benefits for communities and yields healthier shrimp.
- In 2023, farmed shrimp was Venezuela’s sixth-largest export by value; while the top export markets are in Europe, China has become the industry’s fastest-growing destination.
- While the industry has found ways to thrive amid adversity, it says it needs more help from the government, including on supplies of fuel and electricity, on research, and on nurturing a more secure and stable regulatory climate.

Bangladesh island’s switch from solar power to fossil fuels threatens birds
- The Bangladesh government recently converted off-grid Nijhum Dwip Island in the Bay of Bengal into an on-grid locality powered by fossil fuel-fired plants, posing a threat to the country’s second-largest mangrove forest.
- The island’s inhabitants had depended on individual solar-run power, and the government planned to install a mini solar grid for an uninterrupted power supply a few years back.
- Instead, the government has facilitated the construction of a 15 megawatt heavy-fuel-run power plant at Hatiya, the subdistrict headquarters of Nijhum Dwip, under the ‘100% Reliable and Sustainable Electrification Project,’ which seems to be a reverse transition from renewable to fossil fuel-based electrification.
- Nature conservationists believe that due to the connection to the national grid, human activities will increase around the forest and endanger the already cornered wildlife of the national park on the island.

Fishers, scientists restore mangroves on a Mexican isle wrecked by salt mining
- For decades, salt mining has deteriorated the wetlands and natural flood patterns of Isla del Carmen, part of Bahía de Loreto National Park in Mexico.
- Collaboration between two conservation organizations and a community of fishers on the mainland are working to restore the mangroves of Isla del Carmen by rehabilitating its hydrology and constructing “vegetation terraces” for the trees.
- The project also involves training and educating communities about the importance of conserving the ecosystem for the sake of wildlife, the local economy and protecting against the effects of climate change.

Saving Asia’s fishing cat means protecting threatened wetland habitat
- Fishing cats are uniquely adapted to life in wetlands, possessing a double-layered coat that serves as a water barrier and insulation, partially webbed feet, ears that plug when submerged, and a curious call reminiscent of a duck.
- Spread across Asia, this small wild cat species faces myriad threats, including habitat loss, hunting and retaliatory killings, road kill, and more. Considered vulnerable across its range, the felid is also elusive and underresearched, with many knowledge gaps about its distribution and ecology.
- Conservationists are working across its range to raise the profile of this wildcat, reduce threats and understand the species. Linking its protection to equally threatened wetlands is vital, they say. Initiatives such as the Fishing Cat Project in India have achieved success in making this cat the face of these habitats.
- Multiple conservation and research projects operate in Asia under the banner of the Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance, a cooperative model that provides funding lifelines and enables international collaboration to protect this small cat.

Malawi police arrest elephant poachers in Kasungu National Park
- Police and wildlife authorities in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park.
- Residents of villages just outside the park’s boundaries informed police about two men selling elephant meat, who were subsequently found in possession of 16.6 kg (36.6 lbs) of ivory.
- Kasungu forms part of a transfrontier conservation area that extends into Zambia, a previous poaching hotspot where authorities have spent the past five years strengthening enforcement in collaboration with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
- In July 2022, 263 elephants were translocated to Kasungu from Liwonde National Park in southern Malawi; communities have reported increased raids by elephants on farms and granaries since then, with four people killed by elephants between July and October.

‘Planting water, eating Caatinga & irrigating with the sun’: Interview with agroecologist Tião Alves
- In an interview with Mongabay, Brazilian agroecologist Tião Alves tells how he has been teaching thousands of rural workers to survive in the Caatinga biome, severely afflicted by drought, climate change and desertification.
- At the head of Serta, one of the most important agroecology schools in the Brazilian Northeast, he teaches low-cost technologies that ensure food security with a minimum of resources, both natural and financial.
- Currently, 13% of the Caatinga is already in the process of desertification, the result of a combination of deforestation, inadequate irrigation, extreme droughts and changes in the global climate.

Rising temperatures threaten the tiny animals responsible for groundwater quality
- A new study compared temperatures inside 12 caves around the world with their respective surfaces, showing that average annual temperatures in underground systems tend to mirror those of the surface, but with far less variation.
- The researchers also found that while some caves follow outdoor temperatures with little or no delay, others have temperatures that are very asynchronous with the surface, being at their warmest when the world outside is at its coldest, and vice versa.
- Scientists also detected the existence of daily thermal cycles in the deepest sections of some caves, suggesting that such cycles might mark the circadian rhythms of cave-adapted organisms.
- The results indicate that underground fauna — with many species ill-adapted to handle large temperature variations — might be at threat due to climate change, and that their extinction might risk the water quality of aquifers worldwide.

Huge new no-fishing zones give Antarctic marine predators and their prey a break
- The government of the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI), which operates as a British overseas territory, recently announced that it had established new no-fishing zones over 166,000 km² (64,100 mi²) of its existing marine protected area, and prohibited krill fishing in an additional 17,000 km² (6,600 mi²) of the MPA.
- These new no-fishing zones were established to protect krill-dependent marine wildlife, including baleen whales and penguins, while also considering the fisheries operating in the area, which target krill and other species.
- While conservationists initially pushed for further protections, they ultimately accepted the decision, with one calling it a “positive and good outcome.”
- However, Argentina, which claims the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands as part of its Tierra del Fuego province, has expressed its dissatisfaction with the SGSSI government’s decision.

How a wind farm on Brazil’s coast erased a fishing village from the map
- Environmental authorities approved what was then the largest wind farm in Brazil’s Ceará state in 2002 without assessing its socioenvironmental impact, including on the local fishing community and the ecosystem.
- The community resisted and ended up receiving unusual compensation that nonetheless failed to resolve the permanent problems and triggered internal conflicts.
- With support from a state university, the residents have fought against their erasure from the official records, but today are entitled to the use of a smaller territory than they had before, and have lost access to natural resources like lagoons.

Brazil risks losing the Pampa grassland to soy farms and sand patches
- Nearly a third of the Brazilian portion of South America’s Pampa grassland has been lost since 1985, largely to agricultural expansion and forestry plantations.
- This biome is often overlooked in comparison to the higher-profile Amazon, Pantanal and Cerrado landscapes, but has greater plant diversity than the others.
- The expansion of agriculture may also be exacerbating an age-old problem in the Pampa, which is the spread of barren, sandy patches of land.
- Efforts to reverse this process, known as arenization, often involve growing eucalyptus plantations, but experts say this commercial approach solves nothing.

Norway pension fund breaks with U.K. conglomerate Jardines over endangered orangutan habitat
- Norway’s state pension fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has cut ties with Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the conglomerate’s gold mining activities in Indonesia could damage the only known habitat of the world’s most threatened great ape, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis).
- The fund joins 29 financiers that have excluded Jardines and/or its subsidiaries from financing due to climate and environmental concerns, according to data from the Financial Exclusions Tracker.
- The Tapanuli orangutan was only first described in 2017, and its estimated population numbers fewer than 800 that survive in a tiny tract of forest; 95% of the ape’s historical habitat has been lost to hunting, conflict killing and agriculture.
- The Martabe mining concession in northern Sumatra lies in the portion of the orangutan’s habitat, the Batang Toru forest, with the largest orangutan population, where the probability of the species’ long-term survival is highest; the fund worried that further expansion of the mine would increase threats to the ape.

Indonesian gold mine expanding in ‘wrong direction’ into orangutan habitat
- A gold mine in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan is expanding, prompting alarm from activists and conservationists.
- The Martabe mine on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, run by a company associated with the U.K.’s Jardine Matheson Holdings, already cleared 100 hectares (about 250 acres) of forest from 2016 to 2020, and looks set to clear another 100 hectares.
- Advocacy group Mighty Earth says the expansion will impact an area recently established to help protect the orangutan and other threatened species.
- Jardines says an independent forestry and sustainability assessment concluded that the long-term impact of the planned exploration and development work was minimal.

Project retraces Darwin’s voyage, educating young conservation leaders
- The DARWIN200 Project is retracing English naturalist Charles Darwin’s 19th-century voyage, stopping at 32 ports around the globe by 2025.
- The sailing ship’s crew is composed of 200 young people who work in environmental conservation around the world, taking turns aboard the vessel to learn about projects in the places where they moor.
- Mongabay visited the ship as it passed through Rio de Janeiro together with Sarah Darwin, Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter.

On Kaho’olawe, new technology could restore a sacred Hawaiian island
- The small Hawaiian island of Kaho‘olawe is a sacred site for Indigenous Hawaiians, who used it for navigational training, religious ceremonies, and fishing.
- But the island has faced decades of ecological destruction due to invasive plants and animals, erosion, and bombings as a test site by the U.S. military.
- A new conservation project has successfully tested a novel method using AI-equipped camera traps and an aerial drone to collect images of invasive cats, which have destroyed the island’s seabird populations, in dangerous and difficult-to-access parts of the island.
- But funding for the work on Kaho‘olawe remains scarce, and the drone project is now on hold as local organizations seek further funding to deal with the feral cats.

A highway project in Chile threatens one of the world’s longest-living tree species
- The Chilean government’s intention to build a final section of a highway through a national park has caused concern among scientists and environmentalists.
- In a letter published in the scientific journal Science, scientists warn that the road will destroy hundreds of the longest-living trees in the world.
- Scientists are also concerned that the road, which may allow large trucks, would impact numerous other endangered species in the park, including a rare canine and small wild cat.

UN award for Nepal’s tiger range restoration spurs euphoria amid challenges
- Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) initiative, aimed at restoring ecosystems and creating space for tigers, receives global recognition from the U.N. as one of seven World Restoration Flagships.
- Launched in 2004, the TAL initiative restored 66,800 hectares (165,000 acres) of forest and significantly increased the Bengal tiger population in the region.
- The U.N. recognition opens doors for technical and financial support to restore an additional 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) in both Nepal and India, but overcoming challenges like infrastructure expansion and human-wildlife conflict remains critical for long-term sustainability.

The new Arctic: Amid record heat, ecosystems morph and wildlife struggle
- Every species of animal and plant that lives or breeds in the Arctic is experiencing dramatic change. As the polar region warms, species endure extreme weather, shrinking and altered habitat, decreased food availability, and competition from invading southern species.
- A wide array of Arctic organisms that rely on sea ice to feed or breed during some or all of their life cycles are threatened by melt: Over the past 40 years, the Arctic Ocean has lost about 75% of its sea ice volume, as measured at the end of the summer melt season. This translates into a loss of sea ice extent and thickness by half on average.
- Researchers note that the rate of change is accelerating at sea and on land. While species can adapt over time, Arctic ecosystem alterations are too rapid for many animals to adapt, making it difficult to guess which species will prevail, which will perish, and where.
- The only thing that could limit future extinctions, researchers say, is to quickly stop burning fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

Amazon catfish must be protected by the Convention on Migratory Species COP-14 (commentary)
- The latest Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (also known as the Bonn Convention) meeting (COP-14) is taking place in Uzbekistan this month, and the government of Brazil has proposed protections for two catfish species with extraordinary migrations, the dorado and piramutaba (manitoa).
- The dorado’s migratory journey for instance spans a distance of 11,000+ kilometers round trip, from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon River, and along the way it connects multiple ecosystems and feeds local and Indigenous fishing communities, but is under increasing threat.
- “During COP-14, the dorado and piramutaba will take a prominent place thanks to the Brazilian Government’s proposal to include them in CMS Appendix II…It is essential that the governments at the meeting adopt Brazil’s proposal,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Where sea otters play, salt marshes stay, new study shows
- A new study has found that sea otters are helping to slow down salt marsh erosion in Elkhorn Slough in California by eating burrowing crabs.
- Drawing on a range of data sources, which included surveys and field experiments, the authors found that in places where sea otters were abundant, the erosion of the salt marsh slowed by as much as 80-90% over the course of the study.
- Salt marshes worldwide are disappearing due to climate change-driven factors such as rising sea levels and other human pressures.

Livelihoods at stake as Lake Victoria’s papyrus swamps come under pressure: Photos
- The papyrus swamps at the edges of Lake Victoria in East Africa have for generations provided a livelihood to communities living here.
- While some harvest reeds to make into mats, baskets, and handicrafts, others catch the plentiful fish that nurse in the shelter of the reedbeds.
- The swamps are also home to birds that have become specialized to live amidst the papyrus reeds in a narrow geographic range, while the reedbeds serve as filters taking up nutrients and retaining sediment — in the process also allowing carbon storage through the buildup of significant detritus and peat deposits.
- However, development pressure for new resorts and farmland is putting this ecosystem under threat, while the introduction of the Nile perch here in the 1950s has devastated native fish species.

Courage & calm despite attacks: Q&A with Colombian activist Yuly Velásquez
- For years, Colombia’s largest oil refinery, owned by the national oil company Ecopetrol, has discharged oil and toxic waste into water bodies, impacting fish and the livelihoods of fishers.
- Yuly Velásquez, a local fisher and president of an environmental organization, has spent years documenting water contamination and corruption linked to the refinery, and she faces consistent threats and attacks.
- According to a 2022 report by the NGO Global Witness, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental and land defenders, with 60 murders that year.
- In this interview with Mongabay, she discusses the threats environmental defenders face in Colombia and what helps her stay resilient in the face of attacks.

Illegal gold mining threatens Indus River water and biodiversity in Pakistan (commentary)
- The Indus River in Pakistan is being extensively disturbed by unregulated mining of the river’s bed (‘placer mining’) for gold.
- Numerous operations employing an estimated 1,200 heavy machines dig daily into the riverbed and dump buckets of sediment and rocks into screening devices, destroying habitat and muddying the water flowing downstream.
- “It is crucial to the development for the region’s economy and environmental preservation efforts to regulate placer gold blocks along the Indus River,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Salmon and other migratory fish play crucial role in delivering nutrients
- Pacific salmon can play a key role in transporting nutrients from marine to freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems.
- In the past, Pacific salmon and other anadromous fish that spawn in freshwater and spend part of their life in the ocean likely played a much larger role in global nutrient cycles, scientists find.
- But today, many populations of Pacific salmon and other anadromous fish are under pressure from habitat loss, overfishing, climate change, dams and other pressures that have greatly reduced their numbers, weight and ability to migrate freely.
- Population declines could further curtail their role in global nutrient transport in future, with increasing consequences, especially for nutrient-poor ecosystems that have relied in the past on migratory fish for significant nutrient additions.

In Brazil’s Caatinga, adapted agroforests are producing food from dry lands
- In northeastern Brazil, the model known as Agrocaatinga has proven to be the most productive and effective in increasing food security for families, generating income and preserving native vegetation.
- Previously degraded lands now produce around 50 types of food, thanks to the combination of an agroforestry system with rainwater harvesting techniques.
- Agrocaatingas emerged from the commercial demand for wild passion fruit, a native fruit that today yields up to $600 per harvest for families — four times the local per capita monthly income.

Long-term wildlife impacts at Chornobyl, Fukushima may yield ‘a new ecology’
- The world’s worst nuclear power plant accidents to date, at Chornobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and Fukushima, Japan in 2011, and the human exclusion zones created around them have given scientists a unique opportunity to study the effects on wildlife of radiation and of reduced pressure from people.
- Chornobyl disaster findings regarding the impacts on exclusion zone organisms vary: Some point to a resurgence of the studied wildlife in the absence of humans, while others indicate radiation negatively impacting certain animal populations.
- Fukushima radiation impacts are statistically harder to detect. But scientists have made similar observation to Chornobyl: Some, but not all, species appear to thrive from reduced human pressure.
- Radioactive contamination moves in ecosystem-specific ways, depending on factors such as water flow. A combination of radioactive contamination and reduced human activity in nuclear exclusion zones may be giving rise to “a new ecology,” with nature overall neither suffering nor thriving, simply different in the impacted areas.

New dams in Cambodia pit ‘green’ hydropower against REDD+ project
- The recent approval of two hydropower dams in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains could undermine a REDD+ carbon project in the area.
- The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project relies on keeping the forests in this region standing — a goal researchers say is “completely incompatible” with the forest clearing and flooding necessitated by the new dams.
- The lack of transparency inherent in both the carbon market and the Cambodian government means that the fate of the Cardamoms remains unclear for now.

Bird-friendly maple syrup boosts Vermont forest diversity & resilience
- A relatively new program in Vermont is helping both maple syrup-producing farms and their customers to improve forest habitat preferred by a diversity of bird species.
- Launched in 2014, the Bird-Friendly Maple Project furnishes a logo to qualifying farms for use on their products, if they can demonstrate that the forests where they tap sugar maple trees contain a diversity of trees and shrubs, which improves the woodlands’ structure and foraging and nesting opportunities for birds.
- Creating a biologically diverse farm is a major tenet of the sustainable agriculture technique of agroecology, because it leads to greater resilience and health of the farm, its farmers and its wildlife.
- Maple syrup operations included in the program cover 7,284 hectares (18,000 acres) of forests via 90 participating farms as the program is now being replicated in New York, Massachusetts and Maine.

‘Immense body of knowledge’ at stake in Cambodia’s Prey Lang as deforestation soars
- Researchers have launched a new book that catalogs hundreds of plant species from Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that have known medicinal uses.
- The book draws on the knowledge of Indigenous communities who have found a use for these plants over the course of generations, and whose livelihoods and cultures are closely intertwined with the fate of these species.
- The book also serves to highlight the imperiled situation of Prey Lang and its native species as deforestation by politically linked timber-trafficking networks continues to destroy vast swaths of this ostensibly protected area.
- “If the current trends of deforestation continue,” the authors warn, “an immense body of knowledge about nature will be lost, reducing the resilience and adaptability of future generations.”

Wild by nature: Ecological restoration brings humanity and biodiversity together
- Ecological restoration is “an attempt to design nature with non-human collaborators” in response to the biodiversity crisis.
- The very idea that nature is something outside of society often hampers practical solutions, and is an impediment to restoring ecosystems, Laura Martin, associate professor of environmental studies at Williams College, argues in this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- In this podcast conversation, co-host Rachel Donald speaks with Martin about the shift in mindset required to tackle biodiversity loss that centers on a restorative approach that’s human-inclusive and mobilizes public participation rather than exclusion.

Colombian Amazon park rangers face violence, threats by illegal armed groups
- In the last five years, at least 15 threats have been reported against the park rangers who guard the protected areas of the Colombian Amazon. Other issues include the transfer of personnel due to violence, the burning and looting of five control checkpoints and several deaths between 2008 and 2011.
- By overlapping data from the organization Indepaz about the presence of illegal armed groups and the locations of protected areas in the Colombian Amazon, it was determined that these groups are present in 35 of the 39 municipalities that include protected areas. In some cases, FARC dissidents ordered park rangers to leave and declared them “military objectives.”
- In four Amazonian protected areas, almost 2.5 tons of cocaine were seized between 2017 and 2022, after the signing of the peace agreement.

A community-led strategy to save Brazil’s dry forests from desertification
- In northern Bahia state, 35 communities have come together to conserve and recover close to 100,000 acres of Caatinga dry forest in northeastern Brazil.
- With the Recaatingamento project, families learn to preserve native vegetation, control the overpopulation of goats, and invest in sustainable sources of income, such as gathering wild fruits.
- Affected by recurrent droughts, the Caatinga is one of the regions most susceptible to climate change in the world; it’s also Brazil’s third-most deforested biome, which contributes to accelerating desertification — 13% of the soil there is already sterile.

Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- With an economy largely underpinned by irrigated crops like rice, water is a crucial resource in Thailand. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the country, sustainable water management is an increasing challenge.
- Nature-based solutions that incorporate the natural processes of the country’s abundant rivers, floodplains and watershed forests are beginning to be trialed via various projects at large and small scales.
- A new report assesses the efficacy of two nature-based approaches to water management in Thailand, which represent a step away from the country’s typically top-down, hard-engineering approach and present several benefits to the environment and communities.
- However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise around the concept, design and implementation of nature-based approaches are barriers to their widespread implementation.

Amazonian expedition searches out rare ‘fish from the clouds’
- Researchers carried out a massive survey in the Brazilian Amazon for so-called annual rivulids, a family of fish whose eggs survive in a hibernation state during drought and then hatch when it rains — a phenomenon that’s earned them the name “fish from the clouds.”
- There are 200 species of annual rivulids in Brazil, nearly half of which are at risk of extinction; their fragile ecosystems — ponds, swamps and marshes — are highly vulnerable to infrastructure works like highways, ports and hydroelectric dams.
- Little studied in the Amazon, these species are subjected to stress brought on by human occupation; three new endemic species discovered during the expedition live in the Belo Monte hydropower dam’s area of influence.
- The survival of annual rivulids could be guaranteed by environmental licensing laws, but proposed legislation currently in the Senate could weaken those guidelines.

Keeping herbivores at bay helps in early stages of restoration, studies show
- Excluding herbivores from restoration areas may lead to an increase in both vegetation abundance and plant diversity, according to a new analysis.
- The global-scale analysis, which reviewed hundreds of studies, found that herbivores tend to be more common in areas undergoing restoration and can slow down vegetation recovery.
- While native herbivores play a crucial role in healthy ecosystems, researchers argue it may be beneficial to keep them from entering heavily degraded areas in the early stages of restoration.
- The impact of herbivores on restoration varies, and project managers should consider timing and local conditions when deciding whether to exclude, tolerate, or introduce herbivores.

Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- Restoring degraded forests to boost biodiversity, store carbon and reconnect fragmented habitats is a burgeoning area of tropical forest conservation.
- But uncertainty remains around the long-term impacts of various restoration approaches on forest biodiversity and functioning, with experts suggesting, for instance, that overly focusing on biomass accumulation for climate mitigation can come at the expense of species diversity.
- A new study in Malaysian Borneo has found that actively restoring logged forest plots with a diversity of native timber species, coupled with management of competitive vegetation, actually boosted adult tree diversity after nearly two decades compared to plots left to regenerate naturally.
- While the results add to a growing body of evidence that active restoration can lead to biodiversity gains, the authors caution that restoration approaches must be conducted in ecologically sensitive ways to avoid unintended outcomes.

The tricky business of commercializing invasive plants to death
- To control the spread of invasive plants, some have offered a different solution: harvest and sell the invaders into extinction.
- But as some initiatives show, making and selling artisanal products from invasive species can come with social, economic and ecological challenges.
- Instead, some conservationists and researchers say that invasive plants may need to be removed at large scales for industries like biofuel, and not just to make artisanal products.
- While some researchers worry this could incentivize keeping invasive plants around, advocates of commercialization contend that for some species, large-scale economic use might be the only way to control their spread.

How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
- Decades of deforestation to make way for oil palm monoculture have transformed the Kinabatangan River floodplain in east Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, dividing wildlife populations and confining many of the region’s most iconic species to small fragments of forest that cling on along the river.
- Local communities and conservation initiatives are working together to restore and reconnect pockets of remaining habitat along the river to preserve the vital wildlife corridor, but restoration in the unpredictable and often-waterlogged floodplain is notoriously difficult.
- One such initiative, Regrow Borneo, is facing the challenge by leveraging the expertise of scientists and local knowledge of community members who have been planting forests along the Kinabatangan for decades.
- They say that by focusing their approach on a model that benefits both people and wildlife, they hope their program inspires others to shift away from simply planting numbers of trees toward restoring forests where they’re most needed, including in areas that present challenging conditions.

Study shows dire outlook for amphibians: 40% threatened with extinction
- A global survey of 8,000 amphibian species by the IUCN reveals that 40% of them are at some risk of extinction: 2,873 species in total.
- Brazil is the country with the greatest amphibian diversity in the world, home to around 1,200 species, and according to the new study, 189 are threatened, most of them endemic.
- Deforestation and lethal fungi had already been noted as causes of the decline, but now biologists are highlighting the role of the climate crisis: High temperatures and low humidity affect the amphibians’ breathing, which is partly done through the skin.
- Amphibians are important bioindicators of ecosystem health, as well as being crucial for pest control and medicine.

New platform offers toolkit for companies to prove their eco claims
- As governments around the world consider new regulations that would require corporations to track their impacts on biodiversity, a new platform called NatureHelm provides companies and individual landowners with a tool to track indicators of ecosystem health.
- The tool analyzes various databases and scientific papers to find relevant local biodiversity targets and automatically pulls in data from remote tools, such as camera traps, to track them.
- NatureHelm also provides consulting to help companies choose the best tools to track biodiversity targets, and produces annual reports that allow companies to show how different metrics change over time and in response to conservation actions.

As U.S. insurers stop covering prescribed burns, states and communities step up
- Prescribed fires are a positive land management method, but when the flames occasionally escape control, the resulting damage to land and private property also hurts this conservation tool’s reputation.
- U.S. insurance companies are thus charging increasingly unaffordable premiums for coverage of this activity or are dropping the service altogether in the wake of some particularly large recent accidents.
- As a result, many small conservation groups and private businesses are getting out of the habit of using fire to improve grassland health, boost wildlife habitat, and decrease likelihood of catastrophic wildfires.
- California is bridging this gap with a new state program that insures the activity, while prescribed fire associations, where residents and firefighters cooperate to carry out burns on private land, are increasingly popping up in communities.

Forest elephants are the ‘glue’ holding Congo rainforests together
- African forest elephants play a vital role in shaping the environment and composition of the Congo Basin rainforest, including the giant carbon-sequestering trees it is noted for.
- Without them, the Congo rainforest would lose carbon stocks and biodiversity, and the composition of the forest itself would change.
- Yet the full ecological value of this charismatic species — and the ecosystem impacts if it is lost — are not fully understood, so increased funding for study and conservation is needed, experts say.
- On this final episode of the Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin podcast season, Andrew Davies, assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and Fiona “Boo” Maisels, a conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, detail the unique value of forest elephants, what still remains unknown, and why urgent protection is needed.

To keep track of salmon migrations in real time, First Nations turn to AI
- Partnering with First Nations, a new interdisciplinary study proposes harnessing artificial intelligence and computer-based detection to count and produce real-time data about salmon numbers.
- Monitoring their population when they return to the rivers and creeks is crucial to keep tabs on the health of the population and sustainably manage the stock, but the current manual process is laborious, time-consuming and often error-prone.
- Fisheries experts say the use of real-time population data can help them make timely informed decisions about salmon management, prevent overfishing of stocks, and give a chance for the dwindling salmon to bounce back to healthy levels.
- First Nations say the automated monitoring tool also helps them assert their land rights and steward fisheries resources in their territories.

A mobile solution for Kenyan pastoralists’ livestock is a plus for wildlife, too
- The use of mobile bomas, or corrals, to keep livestock safe from predators has shown a wide range of benefits for both pastoral communities and wildlife in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
- The bomas reduce the risk of disease and predation among livestock, while allowing for the regeneration of degraded grazing land, which in turn draws in more wild herbivores to the area.
- The increased wildlife presence has led to a rise in wildlife tourism, valued at $7.5 million annually in the 2,400-hectare (6,000-acre) Enonkishu Conservancy.
- Observers warn of potential downsides, however, including food insecurity as community members abandon farming in favor of more lucrative tourism work, and a rise in human-wildlife conflict as the area’s wildlife population grows.

Amid record melting, countries fail again to protect Antarctic waters
- The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the intergovernmental body charged with protecting marine life and managing fisheries in the Southern Ocean, met from Oct. 16-27 in Hobart, Australia, with 26 member countries and the European Union participating.
- For the seventh year in a row, the CCAMLR declined to establish new marine protected areas (MPAs) around Antarctica, despite having committed to creating “a representative network of MPAs” in 2009.
- Scientists, conservationists and some governments have been pushing for greater protections, concerned that the melting ice in Antarctica has reached alarming levels, jeopardizing some key populations of penguins, krill, whales, seals and other marine animals.
- The stalemate came even as a new threat to wildlife emerged in the region: the discovery last week that a virulent form of avian flu had reached Antarctic bird colonies.

South Africa’s penguins heading toward extinction; will no-fishing zones help?
- With just 10,000 breeding pairs left, the endangered African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) could be extinct in the wild by 2035 if the current rate of population decline continues.
- To protect the bird’s food supply and slow its population collapse, South Africa is throwing a protective no-fishing cordon around its main breeding colonies for a period of 10 years.
- But the devil is in the details, and conservationists say the cordons are too small to ensure the penguins get enough fish.
- Negotiations over whether to adjust the cordons are continuing in advance of an early 2024 deadline.

Brazil’s Indigenous communities turn to native beekeeping to recover nature
- Indigenous territories located in different Brazilian biomes — the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest — are hosting beekeeping projects aimed at both generating an income and restoring local ecosystems.
- The community projects show how these efforts, associated with agroecological food production, can improve quality of life, especially in the face of climate change impacts.
- The movement began four years ago with a crowdfunding campaign to establish beekeeping in the Amazon, and today includes 53 traditional communities involved in native beekeeping across the country.

Gone before we know them? Kew’s ‘State of the World’s Plants and Fungi’ report warns of extinctions
- The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report assesses our current knowledge of plants and fungal diversity, the threats they face and how to protect them.
- The report warns that many plant and fungal species, 45% of documented flowering plants and half of all analyzed fungi risk extinction (though less than 0.4% of identified fungi have been assessed for extinction to date).
- The report identified 32 plant diversity darkspots, places where plants are highly endemic but severely under-documented, including Colombia, New Guinea and China South-Central.
- Report authors argue that priority conservation areas should consider distinctiveness in plants or “phylogenetic diversity” and found that these hotspots of phylogenetic diversity differ from the traditional biodiversity hotspots approach.

Restoring degraded forests may be key for climate, study says
- Scientists have found that focusing on restoring degraded forests, which cover more than 1.5 billion hectares (3.7 billion acres) globally, can enhance forest carbon stocks more efficiently than replanting in deforested areas, with natural regrowth being a cost-effective method.
- In Central America’s “Five Great Forests,” there’s a goal to restore 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) by 2030. The study identified 9.8 million hectares (24.2 billion acres) as top restoration priorities, with 91% being degraded forests.
- Restoring just 5% of these priority zones was calculated to potentially sequester 113 million tons of CO2, equivalent to taking more than 20 million cars off the road for a year.
- The research emphasizes the importance of involving local communities in restoration planning and suggests that current forest management practices, like those in the timber industry, need to adapt for more sustainable outcomes.

99% of Caatinga biome could lose plant species due to climate change: Study
- An unprecedented study analyzed 420,000 occurrence records for 3,060 Caatinga plant species and concluded that 99% of the plant communities there are expected to lose species by 2060.
- Even though the species in the biome are theoretically adapted to extreme climates, researchers found that the Caatinga is much more vulnerable to climate changes than previously believed.
- Protecting the more sensitive areas and restoring landscape vegetation connectivity is crucial for the resilience of Caatinga ecosystems; the biome is one of Brazil’s least protected, as less than 9% of its area lies within Conservation Units.

World owes it to Tanzania to keep Eastern Arc forests standing, study shows
- Tanzania’s Eastern Arc’s evergreen forests provide carbon sequestration that the world benefits, yet it’s local communities alone who shoulder the costs of keeping the forests standing.
- The authors of a new study recommend that international investments in conservation within the Eastern Arc worth $2 billion need to be made over the next 20 years.
- Without this, the authors say, the mountains’ forests and their extraordinary levels of biodiversity will be lost or degraded as local communities convert them to agricultural land or harvest timber from them.

Frogs in the pot: Two in five amphibian species at risk amid climate crisis
- The extinction risk for more than 8,000 amphibian species has significantly increased in the past 18 years, primarily due to climate change impacts, with two in five amphibians now threatened, a new study shows.
- Amphibians are particularly vulnerable because of their permeable skin and specific habitat needs; diseases like the chytrid fungus further threaten their survival.
- Salamanders are the most at risk, with a lethal fungus in Europe posing a significant threat, especially to the diverse salamander population in North America.
- The study emphasizes the importance of global conservation efforts, with habitat protection showing positive results for some species, and highlights the broader context of the ongoing global biodiversity crisis.

Forest restoration can fare better with human helping hand, study shows
- A two-decade-old experiment in the tropical rainforest of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, is beginning to reveal that human-assisted restoration of logged forests can increase the speed of an ecosystem’s recovery.
- The researchers also found that planting a diverse suite of seedlings, instead of only one species, led in just one decade to greater biomass and forest complexity.
- The study provides more weight to the argument that greater forest species diversity in general — and specifically for restorations — delivers more ecosystem services, possibly including carbon sequestration.
- However, there is the possibility that the particular life cycle of the type of trees used in this study — hardwood tropical species from the Dipterocarpaceae family, chiefly found in Southeast Asia — could have especially enhanced diversity in this case.

From rat-ridden to reserve, Redonda is an island restoration role model
- In 2016, conservationists began restoring the island of Redonda, part of Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean, by removing invasive rats and goats.
- Shortly after removing these invasive species, vegetation on the island sprang back to life, and seabirds and other wildlife recolonized the island.
- In September 2023, the government of Antigua and Barbuda announced it had established the Redonda Ecosystem Reserve, covering nearly 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of land and sea.
- Experts say they hope Redonda’s restoration and successive protection will be used as a model for similar projects across the Caribbean.

NASA satellites reveal restoration power of beavers
- A new partnership between NASA and researchers is measuring the impact of beavers reintroduced to landscapes in Idaho.
- Beavers are one of the world’s most powerful ecosystem engineers, building new habitats by slowing water flow and reducing flooding, while also boosting biodiversity.
- Beavers are all the more important in an age of rapid climate change, as they produce wetter and more resilient habitats, even in the face of wildfires.
- “NASA is interested in how satellite Earth observations can be used for natural resource management,” a member of the space agency’s Ecological Conservation Program tells Mongabay.

In the clash over Dutch farming, Europe’s future arrives
- Despite months of protests by farmers and an electoral rebuke, the Dutch government has pressed ahead with an attempt to make its farming system more ecologically sustainable.
- But there are deep divisions in the Netherlands over how extensive any reforms should be, and clashes over the role that new technologies should play in them.
- This summer, talks over a potential consensus position between the Dutch government and the national farmers’ union collapsed in failure.
- The clash between the continent’s green movement and its agricultural industry is building steam, with the EU’s flagship conservation law barely squeaking through parliament in June.

In the Netherlands, pitchforks fly for an empire of cows
- In response to a court ruling, the Dutch government announced in 2022 that it would aim to halve emissions of nitrogen from livestock like cows, pigs, and chickens.
- The announcement enraged farmers in the country and sparked a massive protest movement that upended Dutch politics.
- For years, farmers in the Netherlands were encouraged to produce more milk, eggs, and cheese to meet Dutch export targets.
- The sudden u-turn and subsequent backlash gave rise to a new political party in the Netherlands, the Farmers-Citizens Movement, which swept provincial elections in March.

How manure blew up the Netherlands
- The Netherlands is one of the smallest countries in Europe, but also one of its biggest food producers and exporters, thanks to a wildly successful intensive agriculture sector.
- With the highest density of livestock in Europe, the Netherlands has been in the throes of a years-long crisis over nitrogen emissions from manure, which ecologists say are destroying the country’s ecosystems.
- When the Dutch government announced plans to buy out farms close to nature reserves and cut the country’s livestock herd by as much as one-third, farmers revolted, staging massive demonstrations and destabilizing politics in the Netherlands.
- The “nitrogen crisis” has become a flash point in Dutch society, raising difficult questions over how to reform unsustainable food systems and offering a preview of what’s to come for other countries as well.

In Mexico’s Holbox, a natural paradise suffers from its own popularity
- The island of Holbox is part of the protected nature reserve of Yum Balam, whose lagoons, mangroves and dunes are home to threatened species such as manatees, whale sharks, turtles and horseshoe crabs.
- National and international investors have converted the white sand beaches into a tourism hotspot, with the island experiencing an unchecked construction boom in recent years, driven and protected by politicians and a legal vacuum.
- Infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the tourism development; garbage, noise and sewage have turned into environmental problems, angering locals and tourists alike, and threatening local fauna and flora.
- Scientists and activists are trying to stop the destruction but are largely ignored by both the local press and the government.

What would it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest?
- The Congo Basin holds the world’s second-largest rainforest — the majority of which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — playing a vital role in carbon storage and ecological services that millions of people and species rely upon.
- However, the DRC is a nation with the second-highest rate of tropical deforestation behind Brazil. Meanwhile, Gabon says it has acted to protect its forests but hasn’t reaped the promised rewards.
- International commitments to protect the Congo Rainforest are historically meager compared with what experts say is actually needed, and many of these commitments go unfulfilled.
- On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, we speak with experts about what’s needed to overcome hurdles to financing forest protection to benefit conservation, climate and communities: Paolo Cerutti, senior scientist and DRC unit head at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-ICRAF); Chadrack Kafuti at Ghent University; Wahida Patwa Patwa-Shah, senior regional technical specialist, UNDP Climate Hub; and Lee White, minister of water, forests, the sea and environment in Gabon.

Conservationists work to restore last remnant of a once-great Ugandan forest
- Earlier this year, conservation group Nature Uganda launched a forest restoration project aimed at restoring degraded areas and reducing illegal harvesting of forest products in Mabira Central Forest Reserve.
- A remnant of a much larger forest ecosystem, Mabira is home to 300 bird species, 23 reptile species, and 360 different species of plants.
- A community forest management scheme has successfully engaged nearby communities in self-regulating use of forest resources, but delays in renewing the scheme threaten that progress.
- “When we enter these agreements,” says one community leader, “we promote the sense of ownership so that we can share the roles of making the forest available and managing it sustainably.”

Communities not the true threat to Mabira Forest: Q&A with Ugandan conservationist Achilles Byaruhanga
- Mabira is a surviving fragment of lowland forest that’s now an important refuge for a diverse range of animals and plants in central Uganda.
- The NGO Nature Uganda, led by Achilles Byaruhanga, is working with communities and government agencies to preserve and restore degraded sections of the forest reserve.
- Having seen off a government plan to clear a third of the forest to grow sugarcane, Byaruhanga says community use of Mabira is not necessarily a threat.
- By supporting alternative income activities that replace commercial harvesting of firewood and other forest products for sale in nearby Kampala, and helping local communities reduce their own demand for wood, Byaruhanga says the forest can be preserved.

Oil and gas exploration threatens Bolivian Chaco water supply
- Aguaragüe National Park is suffering from environmental damage caused by hydrocarbon exploration, the activities of which have been carried out for more than a century. In 2017, a study conducted by the Bolivian government and the European Union identified five high-risk environmental liabilities for the population, for which there is still no official information regarding remedial measures.
- There are at least 60 oil wells in this protected natural area, most of which are not closed, according to Jorge Campanini, a researcher at the Bolivian Documentation and Information Center (CEDIB).
- Per information from the Ministry of the Environment and Water, there are seven environmental liabilities and 94 oil wells in seven protected areas in Bolivia. No information was provided on the situation in the rest of the country.

In the chain of species extinctions, AI can predict the next link to break
- Scientists at Flinders University in Australia have developed a machine-learning model that predicts which species are at risk of extinction if another species is removed from an ecosystem or an invasive one is introduced.
- Trained on data on how species interact with each other, the model could serve to alert conservation managers on which vulnerable species to focus on, the developers say.
- They tested the model successfully in Australia’s Simpson Desert, where it accurately predicted which species invasive foxes and cats preyed on.
- However, the shortage of data on species interactions, along with the possible biases that arise, are gaps that still need to be filled in the model.

From debt to diversity: A journey of rewilding, carbon capture and hope
- Rewilding has transformed an English estate from a debt-ridden, conventional farm to a profitable haven of biodiversity.
- A study also shows that the rewilded farmland at Knepp absorbs more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, providing hope for climate change mitigation and soil restoration.
- The U.K. is transitioning to a new environmental land management framework offering incentives for practices that restore soil health and biodiversity, but private investment is still needed to bridge the funding gap.
- Nature restoration investment mechanisms to attract private investment are being developed using Knepp data and government funding.

Machine learning helps researchers identify underground fungal networks
- Researchers are using remote-sensing technology and machine-learning algorithms to map and predict the presence of mycorrhizal fungi in ecosystems around the world.
- The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) is an initiative that aims to map the distribution of fungal networks to spread awareness and advocate for their protection.
- Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plants, serving as a vital interface for transferring water and nutrients from the soil while also storing massive amounts of carbon underground.
- SPUN is also working to provide financial and technical support to researchers and local communities to help them map fungal networks in their home countries.

Drought cycles erode tropics’ ability to absorb CO₂, study finds
- A recent study finds that tropical carbon sinks have become increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity since 1960, and are consequently less able to absorb carbon dioxide.
- These findings suggest that tropical ecosystems are less resilient to climate change than previously thought.
- While the study doesn’t necessarily make projections for the future, the findings suggest that an acceleration of climate change, which is very likely to bring more drought, could further limit the ability of tropical ecosystems to absorb carbon dioxide, which, in turn, would worsen climate change.

Scientists: Fishing boats compete with whales and penguins for Antarctic krill
- Scientists and campaigners recently documented huge krill fishing vessels plowing through pods of whales feeding in Antarctic waters, a permitted practice they say deprives the whales of food.
- As Antarctic waters warm due to climate change, krill numbers are declining, stressing wildlife that rely on the small crustaceans at the bottom of the food chain.
- The intergovernmental body in charge of regulating the krill fishery, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), has taken specific steps to protect penguins and seals but not whales.
- At the same time, CCAMLR has stalled on the establishment of new marine protected areas and the adoption of new conservation measures. A special meeting to advance protected areas concluded June 23 with no progress.

Sharks deserve our appreciation and protection (commentary)
- Shark Awareness Day is celebrated on July 14 every year: though widely feared and sometimes vilified, sharks actually play a key role in ocean health and are rarely a threat to humans.
- “We must all take action to protect sharks, and raising awareness and educating others about the importance of sharks is a great spot to start,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Timber harvests to meet global wood demand will bring soaring emissions: Study
- At a time when the world desperately needs to reduce its carbon emissions, global timber harvests to meet soaring demand for wood products — including paper and biomass for energy — could produce more than 10% of total global carbon emissions over coming decades, a new groundbreaking study finds.
- Global wood consumption could grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, creating a demand for timber that would result in a “clear-cut equivalent” in area roughly the size of the continental U.S., adding 3.5 to 4.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually for years to come.
- The study scientists warn that flawed national climate policies and faulty carbon accounting are failing to accurately forecast these potential carbon emissions resulting from the cutting of natural forests.
- The researchers point out that less natural forests need to be cut to meet the rising global demand for wood products. That demand could partially be met by increasing wood production in already existing plantation forests.

S. Africa to purge bird-eating mice from key albatross breeding island
- Non-native house mice arrived on Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean two centuries ago, when the island was a stopping-off point for sealing ships.
- Their population has exploded recently, as temperatures warm and summers lengthen. With more mouths to feed, they’ve gutted their main food source — insects — and are now feeding on seabird chicks and adults.
- While mouse attacks on seabirds remain low and their impact on nesting or breeding success isn’t known yet, conservationists nevertheless see them as a serious and growing threat.
- Now the South African government is planning a rodent eradication program for mid-2025 that will be the largest of its kind on a sub-Antarctic island.

Tested by COVID and war, an Indigenous conservation system in Ethiopia prevails
- For more than 400 years, communities in the Guassa grasslands of Ethiopia’s central highlands have practiced a sustainable system for managing the area’s natural resources.
- The system’s robustness was severely tested from 2020 with the one-two punch of COVID-19 and the Tigray war, but held strong.
- Threats to the grassland persist, however, from a growing population and road projects, which the community hopes to address through ecotourism initiatives as an alternative source of income.
- The Guassa Community Conservation Area is home to rare plant and wildlife species such as gelada baboons, Ethiopian wolves, and the versatile guassa grass that’s a central part of community life.

Air pollution sensors found to store crucial biodiversity data
- A team of scientists have discovered that two air quality monitoring stations in the U.K. also collected DNA samples that could benefit biodiversity monitoring.
- Scientists analyzed DNA samples trapped in the two air pollution sensors and identified 180 taxa of mammals, plants, birds and invertebrates.
- The findings signal the presence of a trove of biodiversity data hidden in air pollution sensors around the world.
- The sampling and analysis of airborne DNA is a relatively new methodology to survey biodiversity; experts say further studies are required to determine its wider applications.

Volunteers, First Nations work to bring back a disappearing oak prairie
- The rain-shadow regions of North America’s Pacific Northwest, stretching from British Columbia to Oregon, are home to a unique carbon-rich oak-prairie ecosystem dominated by Garry oaks and several species of grasses and shrubs, including endemic plants.
- The ecosystem also holds a special significance in the way of life for the Indigenous peoples in the region, who have stewarded it for millennia and depended on it for food.
- In the past few centuries, however, rapid urbanization, agricultural expansion, development along the coast and proliferation of invasive plants have destroyed more than 95% of the ecosystem, pushing it toward near-extinction.
- Communities, partnering with different national and regional agencies, First Nations and nonprofits, are working to restore and preserve the remnants using various strategies, many of which have borne fruit.

A powerful U.S. political family is behind a copper mine in the Colombian rainforest
- Two members of the Sununu family, a powerful U.S. Republican Party dynasty, are among the directors or shareholders of Libero Copper, a copper mine promoted in the Colombian Amazon. John H. Sununu, a powerful former governor of New Hampshire and former White House chief of staff to George Bush Sr. is one of its ultimate beneficial owners. His son Michael Sununu sits on the mining company’s board of directors.
- The government sees the mine as strategic to the clean energy transition by providing copper used in electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines. However, Libero’s two Sununus are known in the U.S. as skeptics of the scientific consensus that climate change is man-made, raising questions now that they are at the helm of a ‘green energy’ mining project in the midst of such a fragile and strategic biome as the Amazon rainforest.
- In order for Libero Copper’s project to become a reality, the company says it requires not only an exploitation license and an environmental permit from the Colombian government, but also that authorities lift the protected area status of part of the deposit. The reason is that one-fifth of the copper that the mining company seeks to extract is buried under a protected natural area known as a nationally protected forest reserve.
- The prospect of this mine is a cause of concern for the Indigenous communities in its area of influence, especially the Inga reservation of Condagua to the north and Kamentsá Biya of Sibundoy to the west, who fear disruption of critical waterways and the destruction of their territory.

China’s Qinghai-Tibet ecosystem legislation is a landmark, but for whom? (commentary)
- The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Act is China’s first legislative vision for the environmental protection of the Tibetan plateau and its surroundings, covering an area larger than western Europe.
- Hailed as a legislative landmark by state-sponsored media, its effects could ripple far beyond China’s borders, with likely effects on international rivers such as the Brahmaputra, Indus, Mekong, Irrawaddy and Salween, which flow from the Tibetan plateau.
- In a new commentary, a conservation biologist concerned about the QTP ecosystem explains how its 63 articles cover a nearly panoramic selection of topics, making the act a good starting point for understanding the major environmental issues of the region.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
- A group of locals have since 2013 tried to clean up the trash pooling in Lake Sipin in the Sumatran province of Jambi.
- Their efforts have received national attention, with their leader, Leni Haini, awarded the country’s highest environmental award in 2022 by the government.
- Indonesia has announced a plan to restore 15 lakes (Sipin isn’t included) across the country by 2024, citing their high degree of degradation, chiefly sedimentation, which has resulted in their rapid shrinking and a decline in the biodiversity they host.
- These lakes are crucial in supporting the livelihoods of millions of Indonesians, serving as a source of freshwater, a form of flood control, and a site for fish-farming and tourism.

Woodpeckers for fire recovery? A new online tool tells you how
- An online tool maps and predicts the presence of black-backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) in newly burned forests in California.
- The tool aims to aid fire managers in incorporating the protection of these birds into their efforts to revive burned forests.
- Black-backed woodpeckers thrive in the diverse ecosystem left behind by wildfires, but fire suppression efforts and salvage logging often disturb their habitats.
- Through the case study of black-backed woodpeckers, the tool aims to illustrate how wildlife conservation and pyrodiversity (the variation in which fires burn landscapes) should be incorporated into fire management efforts around the world.

Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
- Old-growth forest in Central Cardamom Mountains National Park is being cleared to make way for the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, but the environmental impacts remain opaque.
- NGOs and the Ministry of Environment provide minimal oversight to prevent illegal loggers from exploiting the project site, and former loggers detailed how bribes facilitate the illicit timber trade.
- Prison officials maintained that the timber is used in a skills development program, but former inmates alleged that officials have been exploiting prison labor to craft luxury furniture.

Don’t destroy Earth on the way to Mars (commentary)
- SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s drive for humanity to become a “multi-planetary species” comes with great irony if this very activity accelerates degradation of the Earth.
- Last month’s “rapid unscheduled disassembly” of a SpaceX rocket rained debris and possibly other toxics on a rich estuary adjacent to the launch pad on the Gulf of Mexico.
- “We cannot destroy our most special places on Earth in our heady rush to Mars,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Fewer migratory birds stopping at key Bangladesh wetland amid human disturbances
- Numbers of most species of migratory waterbirds in Bangladesh’s Tanguar Haor wetland, a key stopping point, have fallen over the past 15 years, a new study shows.
- The cause of the decline isn’t fully known yet, researchers say, but it’s clear that human activity has impacted the wetland, with 40% of the basin’s original area converted to farmland and settlements in just 30 years.
- The study recommends prioritizing conservation at two of the permanent waterbodies, or beels, in the Tanguar Haor complex, citing the high abundance and diversity of the birds that stop there.
- Tanguar Haor is the second Ramsar site in Bangladesh, after the Sundarbans mangrove forest, and accounted for nearly half of the more than 1.2 million waterbirds recorded in the country between 2008 and 2015.

Spamming streams with hatchery salmon can disrupt ecosystems, study finds
- In a new study, researchers found that releasing hatchery-bred native masu salmon into freshwater streams in Hokkaido, Japan, destabilized the local ecosystems.
- Overall, the study found that the total number of fish, and number of different species, both declined in the long term due to greater competition for resources like food and preferred feeding spots.
- Masu salmon populations also did not increase in the long term, the research found.
- With hatchery releases increasing in many areas — and for many species — the findings add to the ongoing debate over their wider effects on wild fish populations.

Hawaiian communities restore Indigenous conservation, from mountains to sea
- In Hawai’i, an Indigenous stewardship and conservation system known as ahupua’a is slowly being revived on a mountain-to-sea scale in partnership with U.S. government agencies.
- Three Indigenous communities that have successfully reintroduced the ahupua’a system are seeing some conservation successes, such as a 310% increase in the biomass of surgeonfish and an increase in the Bluespine unicornfish (Naso unicornis) population.
- The inclusion of Indigenous Hawaiian conservation, social and spiritual values, like Aloha kekahi i kekahi, have been key to building these conservation areas and forming better working relations with the government.

Colombia: Scientists explore remote seamounts to protect hammerhead sharks
- Since 2000, the Malpelo and Other Marine Ecosystems Foundation has conducted 40 expeditions on and around Malpelo Island, a rocky outpost about 500 kilometers (310 miles) off Colombia’s Pacific coast.
- These expeditions have allowed the foundation to gather information about the area’s population of scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) and to discover this critically endangered species’ breeding areas.
- They’ve also influenced the expansion of the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary and UNESCO’s declaration of it as a World Heritage Site.
- Malpelo Foundation researchers hope their new expeditions to the area’s seamounts, which form a vital corridor for migratory species, will inform the ongoing fight against illegal fishing that threatens the hammerheads and other marine fauna.

Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- For hundreds of years, the island nation of Japan has seen various examples of efforts to conserve its coastal ecosystems, vital to its fisheries.
- An 1897 law created protection forests to conserve a variety of ecosystem services. “Fish forests,” one type of protection forest, conserve watershed woodlands and offer benefits to coastal fisheries, including shade, soil erosion reduction, and the provision of nutrients.
- Beginning in the late 1980s, fishers across Japan started planting trees in coastal watersheds that feed into their fishing grounds, helping launch the nation’s environmental movement. Although the fishers felt from experience that healthy forests contribute to healthy seas, science for many years offered little evidence.
- New research using environmental DNA metabarcoding analysis confirms that greater forest cover in Japan’s watersheds contributes to a greater number of vulnerable coastal fish species. Lessons learned via Japan’s protection and fish forests could benefit nations the world over as the environmental crisis deepens.

Kelp forests contribute $500 billion to global economy, study shows
- New research suggests that kelp forests generate up to $562 billion each year by boosting fisheries productivity, removing harmful nutrients from seawater, and sequestering carbon dioxide.
- The findings suggest that kelp forests are about three times more valuable than previously believed, contributing the equivalent of Sweden’s entire GDP to the global economy.
- However, experts say that kelp forests are generally overlooked and undervalued, and that many of these ecosystems are under threat worldwide.

A mountain of gold: Mining titles threaten Indigenous lands in Guainía, Colombia
- A potential gold rush is awaiting in the surroundings of the Mavicure Hill and the Fluvial Star of Inírida, two of Colombia’s particular ecosystems. Authorities approved 13 proposals for mining concession contracts for extracting gold and gold concentrates.
- Mongabay Latam and Vorágine visited the Indigenous communities surrounding the Fluvial Star of Inírida. Their residents now live in a climate of uncertainty because of the promises of a better future based on mining. There is simultaneously ignorance and enthusiasm about the prospect of new jobs.
- Mining has not started yet in the area, and there is already division surrounding this issue in the Remanso Chorrobocón Indigenous Reserve. Some people view mining positively, but there are also complaints that the mining titles are being managed in the name of the Indigenous people, even though they have not been consulted.

Home to rare corals, a Chilean fjord declines in spite of protection
- The Comau Fjord, in the Chilean region of Patagonia, is one of the only sites in the world where the cold-water coral Desmophyllum dianthus lives just 5 meters (16 feet) below the sea surface.
- The easy access to these animals, which elsewhere live at extreme depths, motivated a group of scientists to study them.
- Their research brought new information to light about the corals’ biology and also revealed that the Comau Fjord is at serious risk.

Counterintuitive conservation: Fire boosts aquatic crustaceans in U.S. savannas
- In an interesting twist, two kinds of rare American freshwater crustaceans have been found to thrive after prescribed burns in their habitats.
- Populations of vernal pool fairy shrimp in Oregon and several species of threatened crayfish on the Gulf Coast increased after the removal of invasive plants, woody shrubs and trees from their habitats using fire or mechanical means.
- Fairy shrimp populations were shown to increase more than fivefold following habitat treatments that featured fire, while speckled burrowing crayfish also responded positively following fires set to favor nesting of sandhill cranes (whose own population has soared since).
- Both areas are savanna ecosystems that have relied on frequent fires over millennia — whether naturally occurring or intentionally set by Indigenous peoples — to maintain the open habitats to which myriad organisms have adapted.

Indigenous women in Colombia protect rich Amazonian wetland from overfishing
- Dozens of Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon are monitoring, managing, raising awareness and restoring a wetland ecosystem impacted by overfishing.
- After partnering with environmental organizations to establish a fishing agreement in the area, they have witnessed the increase and recovery of fish species such as sardines, catfish and the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas).
- The wetland area of Lake Tarapoto, located in the department of Amazonas in southern Colombia, provides a habitat for numerous aquatic animals and supports the livelihoods of 22 Indigenous communities.

Bankrolling biodiversity: How are private philanthropists investing in nature?
- A Mongabay analysis of the largest-ever private philanthropic campaign for biodiversity conservation has found about a quarter of the pledged $5 billion has already been allocated.
- The Protecting Our Planet (POP) campaign was launched in late 2021 ahead of the COP15 conference in Montreal. The POP group includes foundations representing some of the richest people on Earth.
- Critics of the scheme have called for greater transparency in the use of private funds for protected areas conservation, such as the creation of a charter of principles and commitments, or compliance framework, to mitigate negative impacts.

Rewilding animals could be key for climate: Report
- A new report published in Nature Climate Change suggests that trophic rewilding, or restoring and protecting the functional roles of animals in ecosystems, is an overlooked climate solution.
- Reintroducing just nine species or groups of species (including African forest elephants, American bison, fish, gray wolves, musk oxen, sea otters, sharks, whales and wildebeest) would help limit global warming to less than the 1.5°C (2.7°F) threshold set by the Paris Agreement, according to the report.
- Animals play a significant role in how much carbon plants, soil and sediments can capture, as they redistribute seeds and nutrients and disturb soil through digging, trampling, and nest-building.
- The report emphasizes the need for a change in mindset within science and policy to take advantage of the vast potential of wildlife, while working closely with local communities to address social issues that can affect conservation efforts.

‘Impact assessments need a shake-up’: Q&A with Georgine Kengne & Morgan Hauptfleisch
- Environmental and social impact assessments as they’re implemented in development projects across Africa need a “shake-up” to ensure they’re fit for purpose, experts say.
- Georgine Kengne, from the WoMin African Alliance, says the ideal ESIA process would be one in which “the government and the mining company are not just colluding to make profits.”
- Morgan Hauptfleisch, a professor of nature conservation in Namibia, says the fundamental problem is that ESIAs and other safeguards can simply be ignored with little consequence other than fines that the companies just budget for anyway.
- Mongabay spoke with both Kengne and Hauptfleisch about ESIAs, community participation, and the underused tool that is the strategic environmental assessment (SEA).

Blended finance can supercharge conservation (commentary)
- Bringing together donors, nations, UN agencies, foundations, NGOs, and private investors, ‘blended finance’ can align private investment with public monies to fund conservation.
- A new commentary by the founding chairman of the world’s largest such mechanism focused on ocean conservation — the Global Fund for Coral Reefs — argues that it can serve as a model for others working to reverse biodiversity loss.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Deforestation could pose disease threat to Amazon’s white-lipped peccaries
- White-lipped peccaries are vital ecosystem engineers and an important source of food for people living in the Amazon.
- Deforestation has reduced their habitat and, in addition, researchers highlight that disease is an understudied factor in their conservation.
- Scientists say it could represent an additional threat to an already vulnerable species, as continuing deforestation and expanding agricultural frontiers can bring greater contact between domestic animals and wildlife, potentially leading to spillover events.

Biodiversity conservation needs a more ecological context and transformational concept (commentary)
- Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and if we want international conservation policies that work, we need to urgently re-evaluate how we think ecosystems work, argue the authors of this op-ed.
- We can do so by measuring some core processes of the many unique ecosystems, by employing factors like proxy measuments and analyzing the local ecological and environmental processes taking place in an ecosystem.
- Nations must move away from simplistic policy based on a desire for general rules and instead embrace the complexity of their ecosystems, with the help of researchers and scientists. “Only by protecting this complexity can we protect our diversity into a changing future.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Bangladesh has proposed designating a third Ramsar site in the country, but the current state of its two other important wetland ecosystems suggests such a designation won’t be of much protection.
- The Sundarbans, the world’s biggest mangrove forest, and Tanguar Haor, a freshwater swamp forest, have been severely degraded by deforestation, hunting of wildlife and fish, overexploitation of natural resources, and water pollution.
- Hakaluki Haor, the largest marsh wetland ecosystem in South Asia, which the government wants designated a Ramsar site, is already facing similar threats.
- “The problem is, the government does nothing after the recognition. They completely fail to take necessary measures, in the interest of vested quarters in the government,” says environmental lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

Saving Masungi, a last green corridor of the Philippines: Q&A with Ann Dumaliang
- The Masungi Georeserve is an important geological region about 30 miles from Manila, within a watershed and conservation area that is home to more than 400 species of flora and fauna, several of which are rare and threatened.
- Ann Dumaliang is a co-founder of the foundation that manages conservation and geotourism in the reserve, which is threatened by illegal quarrying, logging and development.
- Masungi’s rangers have faced violent attacks in recent months, but Dumaliang, her family and colleagues are working with numerous organizations and individuals to reforest and preserve the area.

Ukrainian ecologists say nature will suffer no matter war’s result (commentary)
- “As Ukrainian ecologists, we are constantly reminded of the extent to which war itself is at war with nature.”
- In a new commentary, two scientists linked to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group share their views on the current and future ecological restoration work that will be needed in their country.
- Scientists and communicators linked to the group also hail from Russia and Belarus, countries which are engaged in the conflict against Ukraine: this is unusual and touching, the authors say. “The project has a huge democratic weight: when we’re trying to do the right thing for people and for nature, nationality doesn’t matter.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

The dark side of light: Coastal urban lighting threatens marine life, study shows
- A new study finds that artificial lights in coastal megacities have come to outshine the moon for most of the year, putting marine species at risk.
- The researchers say that light pollution impacts on marine ecosystems are difficult to assess compared to other pollutants, as levels of light underwater are not only hard to detect with current instruments, but the spectrum and magnitude can change with tides and water clarity.
- Experts note that artificial light pollution needs to be addressed through mitigation plans aimed at cutting the use, duration and intensity of urban lighting, especially considering the popularity of LEDs, whose blue light penetrates the sea deeper than orange lights.

Understanding reptile intelligence can aid conservation and safeguard ecosystems (commentary)
- Reptile intelligence has long been considered inferior to that of birds and mammals. But recent studies in reptile cognition show reptiles have a profound understanding of their environment.
- Reptiles’ understanding of their surroundings and their evolution of learning can play a part in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provisioning, especially on agricultural lands.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Five species within the Canidae family are considered endangered. These species, while found far apart in North and South America, Asia and Africa, often share similar threats, including habitat loss, persecution, disease and climate change.
- For some at-risk canid species, loss of prey, particularly due to snaring, is a significant concern that can also exacerbate human-wildlife conflict. Ecosystem-level conservation that protects prey species populations is required to protect canids and other carnivore species, experts say.
- Conservationists and researchers emphasize that canids play important roles in maintaining the habitats in which they live. That makes protecting these predators key to restoring and maintaining functional ecosystems.
- In the face of widespread global biodiversity loss, some canid reintroductions are taking place and proving successful. These rewilding efforts are offering evidence of the importance of canids to healthy ecosystems and to reducing various ecosystem-wide threats, even potentially helping curb climate change.

Island conservation should focus on land-sea links for most impact, paper says
- A new perspective piece in PNAS explores the idea that people, wildlife and the environment of islands thrive when conservation efforts focus on restoring both the land and sea together.
- One way to restore land-sea connections on islands is to eradicate invasive species, such as rats, which can harm native island species like seabirds and crabs.
- Research has shown that terrestrial and marine ecosystems reap benefits when invasive species are eliminated from islands.

Dollars and chainsaws: Can timber production help fund global reforestation?
- As global reforestation commitments grow, how will companies, governments and communities pay to restore forest ecosystems and help sequester carbon over the long-term?
- One option: Grow and sell timber on the same plots of land where reforestation work is underway, as exemplified by pioneering restoration projects in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, where a single harvest of fast-growing eucalyptus grows up amid restored native trees. Eucalyptus sales then help pay for long-term restoration.
- Another approach is to concurrently grow tree plantations and forest restorations on separate, often adjacent, plots of land, with a large portion of the profits from timber harvests going to support the long-term management of the reforestation projects.
- But some scientists and forest advocates worry that projects or businesses that become overreliant on timber revenues to finance restoration could undermine an initiative’s environmental benefits, and lock in unintended harvesting within native ecosystems. Experts ask: Can we truly pay for new trees by cutting others down?

Zero-deforestation commitments can push agriculture to other rich biomes, study warns
- Zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) made by the palm oil industry and adopted by producers of other crops as well focus on preserving rainforests, while leaving other biomes unprotected.
- New research by the University of York shows that even if current ZDCs are fully met, around 167 million hectares of mostly tropical grassy and dry forest would remain open for agricultural expansion.
- Often confused with degraded areas that emerge after clearing the rainforest, those biomes are actually rich and biodiverse and also play a role in storing and capturing carbon.
- New EU legislation approved in December adds extra protection for rainforests, but could push even more agricultural production to other biomes, most of them in Africa and Latin America.

Brazil’s Pantanal is at risk of collapse, scientists say
- Though the Pantanal is 93% privately owned, this vast Brazilian tropical wetland remains a stronghold for jaguars and untold other species, and connects animals with the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes.
- A confluence of human activities in Brazil and worldwide — including deforestation and climate change — are heating and drying this watery landscape, threatening the entire ecosystem with drought, wildfires and habitat loss.
- Now, a plan to dredge and straighten the Paraguay River that feeds the Pantanal could serve as the death knell for this vast wetland ecosystem.
- There’s hope that president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who campaigned on an environmental platform, will initiate stewardship that stops Pantanal deforestation and the waterway project, helping curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Mongabay’s Conservation Potential series investigates: Where do we need to protect biodiversity?
- Leaders and decision-makers are recognizing the urgency of protecting the world’s remaining biodiversity, but investing in conservation requires these actors have access to reliable and actionable information about ongoing conservation projects.
- Mongabay is launching a series of stories called “Conservation Potential,” in which we investigate conservation efforts in high-priority biodiversity areas in tropical forests across the globe.
- To introduce this series, we look at what some experts say about where to prioritize biodiversity conservation, what are some popular approaches to conservation, and what makes conservation projects successful.
- Approaches to conservation vary according to priorities, and there are even debates over what it means to protect biodiversity. This introduction is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the dozens of plans and schemes for preserving biodiversity, but it offers a conceptual starting point for our series.

Tech companies work to make fishing, aquaculture more sustainable
- Several companies around the world are developing technology to make fishing and aquaculture more sustainable.
- These include the use of artificial intelligence to identify non-native species that disrupt marine food webs and the fisheries they support, and lights that attempt to attract only target species to fishing nets in a bid to reduce the capture of non-targeted species.
- With the rapidly increasing global population underscoring the need to source protein more sustainably, experts say it’s urgent to find ways to make fishing less damaging and more productive.

Counterintuitive: Large wild herbivores may help slow climate change
- Large animals, especially herbivores such as elephants, are often seen as being destructive of vegetation, so are not thought of as a nature-based climate solution. Scientists are proving otherwise.
- By removing living and dead plants, large animals dispose of material that may fuel wildfires, which can add large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere; by consuming vegetation and excreting dung, large animals may improve the availability of nutrients to plants and support the storage of carbon in vegetation and soil.
- By creating gaps in the vegetation and dispersing seeds, large animals create diverse ecosystems with plenty of opportunities for a variety of plants to grow, making ecosystems more resilient and better able to deal with climate change.
- By nibbling down polar region shrubs and trampling snow, large animals help maintain permafrost, helping prevent the release of carbon to the atmosphere.

Climate change is hammering insects — in the tropics and everywhere else: Scientists
- A new review paper finds that climate change is pounding insects in a wide variety of ways all over the world.
- Because insects are so sensitive to temperature change, climate change is impacting them directly, including potentially decreasing their ability to breed.
- But climate change is also causing insects to change their behavior as it shifts seasonal beginnings and ends, risking that insects will act out of sync with the rest of the environment on which they depend. Climate change-intensified drought, extreme precipitation, lengthening heat waves, and fires are also harming insects.
- The best way to protect insects? Combat climate change and safeguard micro-habitats.

Peat on land and kelp at sea as Argentina protects tip of Tierra del Fuego
- Argentinian legislators recently approved a law to permanently protect the Mitre Peninsula at the tip of South America, which harbors vast peatlands and kelp forests that host an assortment of species.
- The Mitre Peninsula is thought to hold about 84% of Argentina’s peatlands, which are known to sequester about 315 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly equivalent to three years of emissions in Argentina.
- The region also holds more than 30% of the world’s kelp forests, another key store of carbon.

Animating the Carbon Cycle: Earth’s animals vital allies in CO2 storage
- The idea of animating the carbon cycle (ACC) is relatively new. The concept champions the role that healthy populations of wild animals, both terrestrial and marine, can play in boosting the ability of ecosystems to store carbon, helping the planet stay within 1.5°C (2.7°F) of temperature rise over pre-industrial levels.
- But for ACC to be fully effective, humanity needs to preserve and protect intact nature. We also need to rebuild populations of wild animals, including apex predators such as wolves, large herds of herbivores, and invertebrates such as pollinators. By doing so we can help rebalance the functions of natural systems.
- ACC puts the spotlight on oceans too, and the role animals there can play in sequestering carbon. It calls for greater protection of the seas and marine life, allowing whale populations to grow, and protecting mesopelagic fish — the largest group of vertebrates on the planet — from overfishing.
- By looking at the bigger picture of animal-plant-ecosystem relationships, and based on the growing popularity of nature-based climate solutions, scientists believe that now is the time for the wider conservation and rewilding movements to embrace ACC to help animals fulfill their vital roles in the carbon cycle.

Will shipping noise nudge Africa’s only penguin toward extinction?
- The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is expected to go extinct in the wild in just over a decade, largely due to a lack of sardines, their main food.
- A colony in South Africa’s busy Algoa Bay is suffering a population crash that researchers say coincides with the introduction of ship-to-ship refueling services that have made the bay one of the noisiest in the world.
- They say theirs is the first study showing a correlation between underwater noise pollution and a seabird collapse.
- Current studies are investigating whether the ship noise is interfering with the penguins’ foraging behavior and their ability to find fish.

Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin
- Two African penguin chicks have hatched at a nature reserve in South Africa where conservationists have been working for years to entice the endangered birds to breed.
- The colony was abandoned more than 10 years ago after a caracal killed a number of penguins.
- The recent hatching comes at a time when survival prospects for Africa’s only resident penguin species look grim, due mainly to declining food stocks.
- But encouraging new colonies at sites close to abundant food sources could help to bring the species back from the brink.

Rat killers in paradise: An eradication program remakes a tropical atoll
- Like many islands around the world, Tetiaroa Atoll in French Polynesia has been overrun by rats and other invasive species that profoundly affect its terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
- In July, the paradisiacal 12-island atoll was declared rat-free after years of concerted efforts to wipe out the predators.
- Scientists have been studying the atoll’s plants, seabirds, insects, lizards, crabs, coral and algae, establishing a uniquely comprehensive ecological baseline to better understand how the rat eradication will affect the atoll — and others like it.

Negotiations to conserve Antarctic Ocean end in stalemate on many issues
- The 41st annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the intergovernmental body charged with conserving marine life in the Southern Ocean and managing fisheries there, ended Nov. 4 with little progress made on several key issues.
- In 2009 CCAMLR committed to creating a network of marine protected areas to preserve Antarctic ecosystems. It established one that year and another in 2016, but since then China and Russia have repeatedly blocked the creation of additional protected areas, as well as other conservation-related measures.
- The commission also failed to reach the consensus required to enact new regulations for the krill and toothfish fisheries, or to protect a vast nesting area for icefish discovered earlier this year.
- CCAMLR members did agree to designate eight new vulnerable marine ecosystems, areas home to slow-growing organisms such as corals, sponges, brittle stars and feather stars that are now permanently protected from bottom fishing.

Who decides on ‘priorities’ for ecosystem restoration?
- A set of maps from research published in 2020 in the journal Nature suggested that restoring ecosystems in “priority areas” offered a cheap and effective way to slow climate change and stem the global loss of species.
- Soon after the study’s release, however, researchers from around the world raised concerns about the areas identified by the study, whether the biodiversity- and climate-related gains would be as substantial as the authors claimed, and how decision-makers might use the maps to guide policy.
- The study aimed to point out optimal spots for restoration based on the biggest boost they could provide to avoid the extinction of species and sequester the most carbon at the lowest costs. But, the authors wrote, the study did not consider “socio-economic issues,” and the maps were not intended to directly inform local implementation.
- The study’s critics say that, in spite of the authors’ intentions, investors and policymakers could use the maps in ways that might not consider the impacts on local communities.

Deep dive uncovers previously unknown underwater ecosystem in Maldives
- Scientists recently identified a previously undiscovered marine ecosystem in the waters around the Maldives, known as the “trapping zone,” about 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) below the surface.
- The researchers say the trapping zone refers to a region of subsea vertical cliffs and shelving terraces that “trap” small, migrating mesopelagic organisms, which attract pelagic predators like sharks, tuna and large fish.
- Prior to this mission, very little was known about the Maldivian sea below 30 m (about 100 ft), despite the country’s total area consisting 99% of water.
- The researchers say trapping zones likely exist in the waters around other oceanic islands with similar topography, and that they’re already gathering evidence of such an ecosystem in the waters of the Chagos archipelago, south of the Maldives.

Humans are decimating wildlife, report warns ahead of U.N. biodiversity talks
- Wildlife populations tracked by scientists shrank by nearly 70%, on average, between 1970 and 2018, a recent assessment has found.
- The “Living Planet Report 2022” doesn’t monitor species loss but how much the size of 31,000 distinct populations have changed over time.
- The steepest declines occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, where wildlife abundance declined by 94%, with freshwater fish, reptiles and amphibians being the worst affected.
- High-level talks under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be held in Canada this December, with representatives from 196 members gathering to decide how to halt biodiversity loss by 2030.

Loss of Brazilian pines threatens Kaingáng Indigenous culture
- The decline of the Paraná pine forests in the southern region of Brazil poses serious consequences for the Kaingáng culture, which uses pine trees as an important source of food, culture and resilience.
- The ecosystem is one of the most devastated in Brazil: Only 3% of its original area remains.
- The tree occupies a noble position in the Kaingáng culture, considered the third-largest Indigenous group in Brazil, with 45,000 people living in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná and southern São Paulo.
- “Efforts to revitalize Kaingáng culture must be aligned with the resurgence of araucaria planting in the territories of the Kaingáng people,” says an Indigenous expert.

To protect the Southern Ocean, leaders must act now (commentary)
- This week in Australia, global leaders have the opportunity to protect Antarctica’s vast and biodiversity rich Southern Ocean at the annual Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting.
- Emperor penguins, orcas, crabeater seals, albatross, and krill are among the species that call this region home, but the latter is a key one that plays a huge role in the health of Antarctica, since it underpins the food web.
- The commercial krill fishery produces fishmeal for pets, people and aquaculture and has become concentrated in recent years, with most of the catch taken from small, nearshore areas where wildlife feed: “We need Southern Ocean MPAs and well-designed fishery measures to effectively conserve fish populations, habitats and wildlife,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Fish-feed industry turns to krill, with unknown effects on the Antarctic ecosystem
- The Antarctic krill fishing industry has been growing in the past two decades.
- The global growth of fish farming is driving the demand for Antarctic krill as an alternative to wild fish in fish feeds, amid the depletion of many wild fish stocks.
- Independent scientists say the krill fishery could have a detrimental effect on Antarctica’s predator populations, which are also suffering from the impacts of global warming.
- The krill industry is expanding its fleet and planning to significantly increase catches in the next few years.

On the roof of the world, water is life. Or a sign of it, thanks to eDNA
- A first-of-its-kind expedition in 2019 attempted to map the biodiversity on Mount Everest by using environmental DNA, or eDNA.
- With eDNA, the team was able to detect species that would have been hard to observe visually.
- The findings aim to serve as baseline data for future expeditions that study how climate change is reshaping life on the world’s highest peak.

Examining cooperation in nature: Q&A with author Kristin Ohlson
- In her new book, “Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World,” author Kristin Ohlson explores the science behind collaboration in nature.
- Her work examines research revealing that cooperation between species, and not just competition, contributes to the development and diversification of life.
- Mongabay spoke with Ohlson prior to the book’s publication.

Stamping out invasive species has successful track record on islands, study finds
- A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that efforts to remove invasive vertebrates from islands were 88% successful between 1872 and 2020.
- Invasive species can be particularly devastating to delicate island ecosystems and the unique native species they harbor.
- The researchers looked at the methods, locations and target species of 1,550 eradication attempts on nearly 1,000 islands around the world.
- The authors say the results of the research provide a guide for conservation groups, scientists and countries to take on eradication projects in an effort to encourage the resurgence of native wildlife and restore ecosystems.

In Nepal, endangered tiger kills critically endangered gharial. What does it mean?
- A tiger entered the Kasara gharial breeding center in Chitwan National Park and killed three critically endangered gharials.
- The incident raised concerns that as the tiger population in Nepal increases, the animals could turn to the crocodiles for easy food.
- Conservationists, however, say that is unlikely as tigers have other animals to feed upon.

In Kathmandu, when the falcon’s away, pigeons come out to play. And poop
- Once treated as pets, Kathmandu’s pigeons have now become a menace.
- With their population growing unchecked, the birds invade homes, soil buildings, and frequently carry parasites.
- Ornithologists attribute the pigeon population boom to the decline in urban birds of prey, such as peregrine falcons that once kept pigeon numbers under control.
- The long-term solution to the problem, they say, is to identify and fix the factors that have pushed the raptors out of the city.

Video: Biodiversity underpins all, as California is finding out the hard way
- A new episode of “Mongabay Explains” delves into the biodiversity crisis in California, which is known to be one of the most biodiverse states in the U.S., hosting about 6,500 animal species, subspecies and plants.
- California has been bearing the brunt of climate change in recent years as wildfires and drought transform the land.
- The film focuses on three species that are being negatively affected by the climate crisis: California tiger salamanders, acorn woodpeckers, and monarch butterflies.
- The filmmaker says California is the “poster child of what’s happening to our ecosystems around the world.”

Jumbo task as Malawi moves 263 elephants to restock a degraded national park
- Over the last month, 263 elephants were relocated from Liwonde National Park to Kasungu National Park, both in Malawi.
- Liwonde, managed by African Parks, an NGO, hosts some 600 elephants, more than its ecosystem can support.
- Kasungu’s elephant population was previously decimated by poaching, but officials say the park is ready to host more elephants after years of anti-poaching and community engagement efforts.

First-of-its-kind freshwater mangroves discovered in Brazil’s Amazon Delta
- Researchers on an expedition in the Amazon River Delta have found mangroves growing in freshwater — a phenomenon never before documented in deltas or coastal mangroves anywhere else in the world.
- The mangroves, overlooked by previous satellite mapping efforts, increase the known area of mangroves in the region by 20%, or an additional 180 square kilometers (70 square miles).
- Mangroves are a more effective carbon sink than other types of tropical forest, with more than 8% of all carbon stocks worldwide held in Brazil’s mangroves.
- Despite their many ecosystem services, mangroves are not well protected or funded in Brazil.

EU’s anti-deforestation bill leaves out critical ecosystems, study shows
- New regulation proposed by the European Commission aims to reduce the import of commodities that cause deforestation and forest degradation abroad.
- But according to a report commissioned by the EU Greens parliament members, the narrow definition of forest and deforestation in the revised legislation would not protect ecosystems in South America where EU demand for commodities such as soy and beef create high deforestation risk.
- Soy production is not only destroying native vegetation, but also threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities in the Cerrado and Chaco biomes, made of grasslands, savannas and dry forests stretching down the center of South America.
- Broadening the definition of forest to include other types of wooded land, or adopting a definition based on native vegetation rather than forest, would protect much more of the Cerrado and the Chaco, and be much more effective at tackling deforestation, the report says.

Latest ‘plan for the planet’ calls for protecting 44% of land, home to 1.8b humans
- A new study says 44% of Earth’s terrestrial area needs conservation attention to halt the runaway destruction of the natural world.
- The figure is significantly higher than the goal currently under discussion as part of the global post-2020 agenda, which is to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030.
- The area identified for protection by the new study is home to 1.8 billion people, almost a quarter of the human population.
- The study authors suggest prioritizing biologically rich regions at the highest risk of being converted for human use by 2030, most notably in Africa.

Yellowstone’s wolves defied extinction, but face new threats beyond park’s borders
- Since their reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park in the Mountain West of the United States in the 1990s, the North American gray wolf has recovered, once again taking up the mantle of a keystone species in its environment.
- But the wolf’s resurgence has raised the ire of ranchers and hunters, and new laws allowing expanded wolf hunts have sprung up across the region.
- Biologists contend that wolves play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and data suggest that the threat to overall livestock numbers is exaggerated.
- Still, an entrenched fear, perhaps dating to humans’ earliest interactions with wolves, has helped to stir up a desire for vengeance against the species.

Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ 60 years on: Birds still fading from the skies
- Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” catalyzed the modern environmental movement and sparked a ban on DDT in the U.S. and most other nations, though DDT has since been replaced by a growing number of other harmful biocides.
- Now, 60 years later, birds may face more threats than any other animal group because they live in — or migrate through — every habitat on Earth. Birds are impacted by land-use changes, pollution (ranging from pesticides to plastics), climate change, invasive species, diseases, hunting, the wildlife trade, and more.
- The 2022 update to the “State of the World’s Birds” report notes winners and losers amid increasing human alteration of the planet, but documents a continuing downward trend.

Scientists uncover widespread declines of raptors in Kenya
- New research has found a steep decline in numbers for Kenya’s raptors over the past 40 years.
- Encounters with 19 of 22 species studied using road surveys fell during that period, 14 of these declining by 20-95% when compared to the 1970s.
- The study’s findings underlined the importance of protected areas for Kenya’s raptors as populations declined less severely inside parks and reserves.

Boom and bust on Lake Victoria: Q&A with author Mark Weston
- In a new book, British author Mark Weston examines an environmental crisis on East Africa’s Lake Victoria that’s been a century in the making and stems from the introduction of the non-native Nile perch to the lake in the 1950s.
- Weston lived on Ukerewe, the lake’s largest island, for two years, and relates the knock-on legacy of the fish’s introduction through the experiences of the people he met there.
- The boom and bust of the fishery brought about a surging population, deforestation, declining land fertility, and increased pollution in the lake.
- With Nile perch catches down precipitously and little else to sustain the economy of Ukerewe, residents struggle through poverty, lack of opportunity and a trickling exodus from the once-prosperous community, in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

Amid war, Ukrainians are tracking Russia’s crimes against the environment
- With civilian and political welfare as the Ukrainian government’s number one priority, environmental destruction has largely been overlooked during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- But civilians and experts alike have rallied together to record more than 100 separate instances of “crimes against the environment,” with the aim of bringing Russia to justice under international courts after the war.
- From the destruction of fuel and gas depots to the long-term effects of ecosystem services on Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of the world,” environmental impacts can also become humanitarian crises, activists warn.

Saving the near-extinct estuarine pipefish means protecting estuary health
- The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known to inhabit only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa.
- Recent studies are uncovering how the health of its estuarine habitat rests on a dynamic balance between freshwater inflows that support the food change, and salinity levels that promote growth of eelgrass habitat for pipefish and other species.
- Genetic analysis of the remaining estuarine pipefish populations has found low genetic diversity, highlighting a further risk to its conservation.
- Conservationists are working toward a plan to protect the species and the wider ecology of the estuaries it inhabits.

As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.

Unseen crisis: Threatened gut microbiome also offers hope for world
- Plants and animals provide a home within themselves to an invisible community of microbes known as the microbiome. But these natural microbial communities are being degraded and altered by human-caused biodiversity loss, pollution, land-use change and climate change.
- On the macro level, habitat loss and diminished environmental microbe diversity, particularly in urban environments, is altering the gut microbiomes of humans and wild animals. Studies have linked microbiome changes to higher risk of chronic and autoimmune diseases.
- Coral bleaching is an extreme example of climate stress-induced microbiome dysfunction: During heat waves, beneficial microbes go rogue and must be expelled, leaving the coral vulnerable to starvation. Microbiome resilience is key to determining corals’ ability to acclimate to changing ocean conditions.
- There are solutions to these problems: Inoculating coral with beneficial microbes can reduce bleaching, while the restoring natural green spaces, especially in socioeconomically deprived urban areas, could encourage “microbiome rewilding” and improve human and natural community health.

In Mexico, a race to save the last wetlands of San Cristóbal de las Casas
- The mountain wetlands of La Kisst and María Eugenia are protected areas in the state of Chiapas, and have been listed as Ramsar sites of international importance. But that hasn’t been enough to guarantee their conservation.
- For more than a decade, local organizations have spoken out against the degradation of the wetlands, which provide around 70% of the water used in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
- The National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) said not all officials have worked to guarantee wetland conservation.
- It has called for the creation of a program to recover ecosystems and investigate those responsible for environmental crimes.

Global biodiversity is in crisis, but how bad is it? It’s complicated
- Biodiversity has been defined as one of nine planetary boundaries that help regulate the planet’s operating system. But humanity is crossing those boundaries, threatening life on Earth. The big question: Where precisely is the threshold of environmental change that biodiversity can withstand before it is destabilized and collapses planetwide?
- The planetary boundary for biodiversity loss was initially measured by extinction rates, but this, as well as other measurements, have proved to be insufficient in determining a global threshold for biodiversity loss. At present, a worldwide threshold for biodiversity loss — or biosphere integrity, as it is known now — remains undetermined.
- However, thresholds for biodiversity loss can be clearly defined at local or regional levels when an ecosystem goes through a regime shift, abruptly changing from one stable state to another, resulting in drastic changes to biodiversity in the changed ecosystem.
- While the planetary boundary framework provides one way of understanding biodiversity or biosphere integrity loss, there are many other measures of biodiversity loss — and all point toward the fact that we are continuing to dangerously destabilize life on Earth.

‘Nature has priority’: Rewilding map showcases nature-led restoration
- The Global Rewilding Alliance and OpenForests have officially launched a map of rewilding projects around the world.
- Organizations have contributed stories, photos and videos for projects in 70 countries covering 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles), and the alliance’s leaders say more will be added.
- Rewilding is a type of ecological restoration that aims to restore natural dynamics and processes to ecosystems.
- Proponents of the approach say it has the potential to address both biodiversity loss and climate change.

Indigenous communities transform a Mexican desert landscape into forest
- In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, 22 communities have taken on the challenge of reviving soils depleted by centuries of overgrazing.
- Over the last two decades, they’ve managed to restore at least 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres), turning many sites into burgeoning forests.
- The task is especially challenging because the communities are starting from “less than zero” — having to find ways to restore their soil before they can even think about planting trees.
- The success of the initiative means the communities can now look forward to more options for forest-based livelihood, such as agroforestry or even selling carbon credits.

Greek conservationists collaborate to protect endemic species in face of climate change
- Across Greece, conservation NGOs are working in close collaboration to study and save numerous endemic species found nowhere else.
- Often working in areas famed for Greek mythology like Mount Olympus and Mount Oiti, the plants and animals now need what seems like divine intervention to survive the ravages brought by climate change.
- Why so many endemic species? Greece has “an amazing diversity of climates and also soils. This creates an amazing diversity of life,” one conservationist tells Mongabay.

Winds of change: Detecting species from airborne DNA just got real
- In recent years, environmental DNA has enabled conservationists and citizen scientists to study entire ecosystems and to monitor elusive species that would otherwise evade detection.
- A suite of new research studies demonstrates that eDNA extracted from thin air can be used to identify a variety of plants and animals.
- Airborne DNA technology is potentially a valuable new tool for monitoring biodiversity, with particularly promising applications for monitoring rare and endangered species and providing early warning of invasive organisms.
- While a lot of work to hone the technique remains, experts are hopeful that prior advances in other eDNA technologies will help to accelerate the development of airborne DNA sampling so that it can be used in the field.

Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.

Despite sanctions, U.S. companies still importing Myanmar teak, report says
- U.S. timber companies undercut sanctions to import nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, according to a new report.
- Advocacy group Justice for Myanmar said in its report that firms have been buying timber from private companies acting as brokers in Myanmar, instead of directly from the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions.
- With MTE under military control, Myanmar’s timber auctions have become more opaque, making it difficult to take action against companies circumventing sanctions.

How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.

How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.

Decline of threatened bird highlights planning importance of bison releases
- In a recent study, a team of biologists found that the release of American bison (Bison bison) on a small section of North American grassland led to declines in a species of bird called the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), likely because the density of the bison in the fenced-in study area was too high.
- Bison once numbered in the tens of millions on the Great Plains, but hunting drove the population down to around a thousand by the end of the 1800s.
- Concerted efforts to protect remaining wild populations and reintroduce the animal to parts of the Plains has resulted in a resurgence, and the species is no longer in danger of imminent extinction.
- However, the results of the bobolink study reveals that bison releases and reintroductions must be done carefully to avoid negative impacts on the broader ecosystem.

Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.

As Ethiopia’s war rages, a 400-year-old conservation site is scarred by battle
- A major fire has burned more than 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of grassland in the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands.
- The area is among the oldest examples of community-managed conservation in Africa, centered on preserving the Festuca grass that is used for thatching roofs.
- The grasslands are also home to endangered Ethiopian wolves and gelada baboons, and more recently have become a favored ecotourism site.
- It’s still unclear what triggered the blaze, but the area was the site of a battle in Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war in late November.

Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.

Hold the tree planting: Protect ecosystems first for maximum carbon storage, study says
- When it comes to slowing climate change, there’s one natural solution that has recently gripped the world: large-scale tree planting and reforestation.
- But a new study warns that other natural climate solutions should be considered first.
- By comparing different natural climate solutions against four criteria, the study proposes a hierarchy: protect ecosystems first, then improve their management, and lastly restore them.
- Protecting natural ecosystems offered the greatest climate benefits, fairly quickly, at relatively low cost, while at the same time providing other benefits for people and wildlife, such as reducing the impact of extreme weather and yielding clean air and water.

‘Our land, our life’: Okinawans hold out against new U.S. base in coastal zone
- Opponents of the planned relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa say they remain undeterred despite the defeat in elections last month of the opposition party that supported the cause.
- Local activists plan to continue opposing the relocation of the Futenma Marine base, from the densely populated city of Ginowan to the less crowded Henoko Bay coastal area.
- The proposed new facility and other military bases in Okinawa have been linked to toxic environmental pollution, military-linked sexual violence, and historical land conflicts between native Okinawans and the mainland Japan and U.S. governments.
- The Okinawa prefecture government recently rejected central government plans to sink more than 70,000 compacting pillars into Henoko’s seabed for construction, which would impact coral and seagrass that host more than 5,000 species of marine life.

In China, agroforestry serves up tea with a spoonful of sustainability
- In Yunnan, China, smallholder farmers applying agroecological principles to tea cultivation have seen results in the form of better-tasting tea, lower management costs, and richer biodiversity.
- With ethical consumerism on the rise, integrating agroecology could be an opportunity for tea farms to contribute toward conservation goals, experts say.
- Tea farmers and scientists have observed a shift toward more sustainable farming practices, but highlight a need for government policy that can further boost these bottom-up changes.
- By sequestering carbon and contributing to local food security, agroforests can help humans adapt to and combat the climate crisis.

Study shows ‘encouraging’ results of China’s bid to protect coastal wetlands
- China’s coastal wetlands experienced a significant recovery in recent years after many decades of loss and destruction, a new study suggests.
- Satellite imagery shows that different kinds of coastal wetlands deteriorated between 1984 and 2011, but began to improve from about 2012.
- The degradation of China’s coastal wetlands is largely attributed to land reclamation, construction and other economic activities, the study suggests.
- But the nation has recently recognized the importance of coastal wetlands, and initiated several projects aiming to restore and conserve these ecosystems.

Study chronicles dying of a lake in PNG with advent of oil & gas activities
- A new study finds warning signs of ecosystem collapse at Lake Kutubu in Papua New Guinea, a wetland of international significance.
- The warning signs come in the form of major shifts in algal composition and dung-inhabiting fungi in the lake sediment in the 1980s and 1990s, indicating a drop in water quality and coinciding with oil and gas extraction in the area.
- The lake used to have extensive beds of microalgae known as charophytes, which provided a breeding ground for endemic fish and crayfish, but these beds have since all but disappeared.
- The researchers have called for action such as monitoring of the lake’s algae and fish populations to save the lake from ecological collapse.

Green groups call for scrapping of $300m loan offer for Borneo road project
- The Asian Development Bank is considering a $300 million loan proposal from the Indonesian government to fund a road project in Borneo.
- The 280-kilometer (170-mile) project across North and East Kalimantan provinces are designed to boost economic growth and further the integration of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industries.
- Environmental groups around the world have urged the ADB to impose stricter environmental and social requirements for the project to reduce its expected impacts on the environment and the Indigenous communities living in the region.
- Indigenous peoples like the Dayak rely on the forests staying intact, as do critically endangered species such as Bornean orangutans.

Inland mangroves reveal a tumultuous climatic past — and hint at our future
- A new study concludes that the presence of inland mangroves along a river in southern Mexico was the result of climate change-driven sea level rise during the Pleistocene Epoch, some 115,000 to 130,000 years ago.
- The researchers’ analysis of the genetic history of the mangrove trees suggests that they are closely related to trees found on the coastline, and sediments nearby are similar to those found in ocean environments.
- Publishing their work Oct. 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team notes that their research highlights the impacts of global climate change.

Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.

Fires leave trail of dead wildlife, scorched land in Bolivia’s protected areas
- Forest fires in Bolivia have torn through several protected areas, including San Matías and Ñembi Guasu, with experts warning of a repeat of the widespread burning of recent years.
- The main cause of the fire is slash-and-burn clearing by farmers ahead of crop planting, which local laws permit, even in forested areas.
- The burning has spread beyond Bolivia’s borders and into Paraguay, where the fires raged for several days in the Pantanal wetlands before being doused by rains.

Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.

When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.

Marine experts flag new Peru marine reserve that allows industrial fishing
- Experts say the establishment of a new marine protected area off Peru that allows large-scale fishing and the capture of deep-sea cod will damage the biodiversity inside the reserve.
- Nazca Ridge National Reserve is the first fully marine protected area in Peru, covering 62,392 square kilometers (24,089 square miles) of the ocean.
- Its establishment in June increased the proportion of the country’s territorial waters under some sort of protection from less than 1% to nearly 8%.

Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
- As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue in Myanmar, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat.
- On Sept. 6, environmental and democracy activist Kyaw Minn Htut became one of the latest political prisoners; authorities had detained his wife and 2-year-old son a day earlier.
- He had openly challenged the military and reported on illegal environmental activities, making him a “well-known and well-hated” target, fellow activists said.
- Some 20 environmental organizations across the world have signed a statement calling for Kyaw Minn Htut’s release.

Borneo’s bearded pigs and traditional hunters adapted to oil palms. Then came swine fever
- Oil palm expansion and urbanization have altered the traditional hunting of bearded pigs by the Indigenous Kadazandusun-Murut (KDM) community in Sabah, Malaysia, a new study has found.
- Researchers interviewed 38 hunters on changes in pig behavior and hunting practices before the African swine fever (ASF) epidemic hit Sabah in 2021.
- They found that even though pig hunting patterns have changed dramatically, the activity remains a cornerstone of KDM communal culture for food, sport, gift-giving, festivals and celebrations.
- As ASF devastates wild pig populations, the researchers’ findings highlight a need for long-term hunting management that conserves both the bearded pig and Indigenous cultural traditions.

Highway cutting through Heart of Borneo poised to be ‘very, very bad’
- With Indonesia planning to shift its capital from Jakarta to the Bornean province of East Kalimantan, infrastructure development pressures on the island have intensified.
- Neighboring Malaysia is adding new stretches to the Pan Borneo Highway to capitalize on spillover economic benefits; within Indonesia, East Kalimantan’s developmental gains are also expected to trickle to other provinces through the transboundary highway.
- While the new roads could spur economic development in remote villages, they also carve into protected areas in the Heart of Borneo, opening them up for resource extraction.
- In particular, the roads could fast-track development of a new “oil palm belt,” with disastrous consequences for the wildlife and Indigenous peoples of Borneo, and for global climate, experts say.

In Chile, a prickly coalition tries to bring a salt flat back to life
- Indigenous communities, environmental activists and a mining company have agreed on a set of measures to try to save the Salar de Punta Negra salt flat in northern Chile.
- Communities say the extraction of groundwater by copper miner Minera Escondida has drained the salt lake and caused irreparable environmental harm.
- Under a court-mediated settlement, all sides have agreed to a series of scientific studies to help identify the cause of the problem and options for addressing it.
- Not everyone is happy about the agreement, however, with some criticizing the meager budget allocation for carrying out the studies compared to the much larger funding for publishing the results.

Platform presents unpublished data on Brazilian biodiversity
- Partnership between scientists and journalists translates scientific data into visual information to warn of the importance of preserving Brazil’s biomes.
- Brazil alone accounts for 17% of the entire terrestrial territory of the tropics with a biodiversity that is more abundant than entire continents: over 20% of the freshwater fish on the planet and 17% of all birds are found in Brazil.
- One problem is the lack of investment in research to survey biodiversity, which usually comes at a slower pace than changes in ecosystems – animals and plants are at risk of disappearing before scientists are able to get to know them.

Seed dispersal is just as important as pollination (commentary)
- Why does it seem like conservationists only care about pollination, and the creatures like bees that do it?
- Seed dispersal is every bit as important, and to ensure a future with the greatest plant diversity, we should focus effort on conserving the animal groups known for this activity, known as ‘zoochory.’
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

For monitoring mammals, eDNA boasts ‘killer feature’ over other methods
- Mounting evidence suggests that the fast-developing tool of eDNA could be a game-changer for terrestrial mammal monitoring.
- A new study demonstrates that eDNA analysis of stream water can reveal the diversity of terrestrial mammals in a large landscape as effectively as camera trapping and for a fraction of the cost.
- Traditional mammal survey methods can be time-consuming, expensive and far from failsafe; eDNA is a reliable and comparatively inexpensive way for conservationists to gain a snapshot of an ecosystem’s mammal fauna, scientists say.
- It could also have a big impact on conservation, since eDNA data allows timely decisions on which species to prioritize and which areas to protect.

Scientists turn to eDNA to curtail the freshwater extinction crisis
- Freshwater ecosystems are understudied and underfunded, resulting in a lack of information on what species are at risk of extinction.
- The eBioAtlas program, a partnership between the IUCN and NatureMetrics, uses environmental DNA gathered from freshwater samples to figure out what freshwater ecosystems to conserve and what species to prioritize.
- So far, a pilot study in southeast Liberia has successfully picked up environmental DNA from nearly 170 species, including some that are critically endangered.
- The new data will provide up-to-date information for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and empower local communities to maintain ownership of their land and water resources.

Nine principles for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (commentary)
- Oil drilling on Russia’s Arctic coast has led to loss of vegetation and the organic soil layer, with sediments now running into rivers: permafrost thawing is also increasing due to carbon emissions.
- Without clear parameters for what constitutes successful restoration, restoration projects in places like this may achieve one narrow objective, such as carbon capture, but may not also benefit biodiversity, or the health, wellbeing, and livelihoods of people and local communities.
- In April, a group of restoration experts met to define ‘net gain’ from restorative activities, establish a framework to help prioritize nature-based restorative activities and draft common principles for all types of ecosystem restoration, in support of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Nauru’s intention to mine the seabed prompts alarm among conservationists
- Nauru has notified the International Seabed Authority (ISA) that its sponsored entity, Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), plans to commence deep-sea mining in two years’ time, triggering a two-year rule embedded in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
- The ISA has yet to generate a mining code that would set out rules and regulations for deep-sea mining activities.
- Experts are concerned that the ISA will prematurely approve Nauru’s application and that deep-sea mining will commence before we fully understand the damage it could cause to biodiversity and ecosystems.

Earth tipping points could destabilize each other in domino effect: Study
- A new risk analysis has found that the tipping points of five of Earth’s subsystems — the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Amazon rainforest — could interact with each other in a destabilizing manner.
- It suggests that these changes could occur even before temperatures reach 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels, which is the upper limit of the Paris Agreement.
- The interactions between the different tipping elements could also lower critical temperature thresholds, essentially allowing tipping cascades to occur earlier than expected, according to the research.
- Experts not involved in the study say the findings are a significant contribution to the field, but do not adequately address the timescales over which these changes could occur.

Big bioacoustics boost: Cornell University program receives $24 million donation
- The field of bioacoustics has been a game changer when it comes to monitoring and discovering new things about animals and ecosystems, both on land and at sea.
- Still a relatively new discipline, one of the leading programs in the field globally was founded in the 1980s at Cornell University, which has just announced a donation of $24 million to support its bioacoustics work.
- The K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics will use the funds to accelerate its training of researchers, facilitate development of new tools and partnerships, and build a global network of people who can share bioacoustics best practices.

Study shows it took the Amazon as we know it over 6 million years to form
- An asteroid impact near Mexico 66 million years ago triggered an ecological catastrophe that claimed nearly half of all plant species and took Amazon forests more than 6 million years to recover from.
- Colombian researchers analyzed fossilized pollen and leaves and found plant diversity declined by 45% after the impact; when plant diversity finally recovered, open forests of ferns and conifers had been replaced by dense, closed-canopy forests dominated by flowering plants.
- The researchers suggested three interlinked explanations for the sudden transition: the extinction of large-bodied dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous reduced forest disturbance; dust from the impact acted as a fertilizer; conifers were more likely to go extinct.
- In the time periods studied, Earth’s climate was warmer and CO2 levels were higher, showing that climate alone is not enough to trigger a forest-to-savanna transition, with the pace of warming and deforestation the crucial puzzle pieces that determine whether today’s forests can survive.

Reptile traffickers trawl scientific literature, target newly described species
- The descriptions and locations of new reptile species featured in scientific literature are frequently being used by traders to quickly hunt down, capture and sell these animals, allowing them to be monetized for handsome profits and threatening biodiversity.
- New reptile species are highly valued by collectors due to their novelty, and often appear on trade websites and at trade fairs within months after their first description in scientific journals.
- In the past 20 years, the Internet, combined with the ease and affordability of global travel, have made the problem of reptile trafficking rampant. Some taxonomists now call for restricted access to location information for the most in demand taxa such as geckos, turtles and pythons.
- Once a new species has been given CITES protection (typically a lengthy process), traders often keep the reptiles in “legal” commercial circulation by making false claims of “captive breeding” in order to launder wild-caught animals.

Belize’s Maya Forest Corridor a ‘missing link’ to giant rainforest reserve (commentary)
- With nearly 40% of its lands under protection, Belize already contributes significantly to the IUCN’s post-2020 biodiversity framework of preserving 30% of the planet by 2030.
- Now conservationists hope to create the Maya Forest Corridor, connecting the massive Belize Maya Forest in the country’s northwest with the Maya Mountains Massif network of protected areas in southern Belize.
- It would also connect these areas of Belize with adjacent protected areas of La Selva Maya in Guatemala and Mexico, and become the largest rainforest preserve north of the Amazon, a haven for threatened and endangered species including the jaguar, the Central American river turtle and spider monkey, and Baird’s tapir.
- “My hope is the corridor will be approved and a massive expanse of Central American rainforest will be fused together,” writes a research professor with Northern Arizona University in this commentary piece. The views expressed are of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Study confirms sightings of endangered blue whale in Philippine waters
- For years, a group of scientists have been tracking a mysterious whale that they initially labeled as belonging to another blue whale subspecies.
- Their decade-long efforts resulted in a new study that confirms the species as an endangered pygmy blue whale — an animal last recorded in Philippine waters in the 19th century.
- Researchers call the pygmy blue whale “Bughaw,” a Filipino word for the color blue.
- They say Bughaw’s presence could help establish Philippine waters as part of the extended migration path of the Indo-Australian population of pygmy blue whales.

Keeping animals wild vs ‘safe’ should be prioritized, lion biologists argue (commentary)
- Despite growing media and public pressure to ‘sanitize’ the wild, the priority for conservation should always be keeping populations and areas wild above keeping individual animals safe, six leading lion conservationists argue.
- The power and beauty of a wild lion comes in part from immense struggle, as they battle for food and supremacy: many lions are badly injured or killed in fights with their prey and with one another.
- The urge to intervene and treat injured lions, perhaps even to scoop up their cubs to keep them safe at rescue centers, is of course deeply human. But when we do that, their lives are often degraded and endangered, anyhow, as we go against all we hold dear: the essence of wilderness embodied in these animals.
- Public-pressured, sanitized, and media-friendly management of animal populations will ultimately be crippling for real conservation efforts. This article is a commentary, and the views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Arctic biodiversity at risk as world overshoots climate planetary boundary
- The Arctic Ocean biome is changing rapidly, warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. In turn, multiyear sea ice is thinning and shrinking, upsetting the system’s natural equilibrium.
- Thinner sea ice has led to massive under-ice phytoplankton blooms, drawing southern species poleward; fish species from lower latitudes are moving into the peripheral seas of the Arctic Ocean, displacing and outcompeting native Arctic species.
- Predators at the top of the food chain, such as polar bears, are suffering the consequences of disappearing ice, forced onto land for longer periods of time where they cannot productively hunt.
- The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement has been signed by 10 parties to prevent unregulated commercial fishing in the basin until the region and climate change impacts are better understood by scientists. International cooperation will be critical to protect what biodiversity remains.

‘Profound ignorance’: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle
- Researchers are certain that human activity has resulted in a decline in plant and animal species. But a huge unknown remains: what impacts have human actions —ranging from climate change, to ocean acidification, deforestation and land use change, nitrogen pollution, and more — had on the Earth’s microbes?
- A new paper poses this significant question, and offers a troubling answer: Science suffers from “profound ignorance” about the ways in which microbial biodiversity is being influenced by rapid environmental changes now happening on our planet.
- Researchers are supremely challenged by the microbial biodiversity question, finding it difficult to even define what a microbe species is, and uncertain how to effectively identify, analyze and track the behaviors of microbes on Earth —microorganisms estimated to be more numerous than stars in the known universe.
- We do know microbes play crucial roles — helping grow our food, aiding in the sequestering and release of soil carbon, curing and causing disease, and more. One thing researchers do agree on: knowing how human activities are influencing the microbial world could be very important to the future of humanity and our planet.

Researchers rush to understand kelp forests as harvesting increases
- A growing seaweed industry based on the production of alginate, a thickener used in the food, textiles and pharmaceutical industries, has driven a boom in harvesting of kelp off the coasts of Chile and Peru.
- At the same time, researchers are warning that kelp remains relatively understudied, and that large-scale harvesting of kelp forests could have significant ecosystem impacts.
- To fill this information gap and push for sustainable management of this resource, scientists are carrying out important research, but have been stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries can transform the climate crisis with ocean-based action (commentary)
- Protecting coastal “blue carbon” ecosystems like mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes is 10 times more effective at sequestering carbon per area than terrestrial forests, and is just one ocean-based solution that can help mitigate climate change.
- But lacking such action, an IPCC report estimated that climate-induced declines in ocean health will cost the global economy $428 billion by 2050 and $1.979 trillion by 2100.
- As world leaders meet at the upcoming Leaders Summit on Climate, Chile calls for countries to advocate for the adoption of new international objectives on biodiversity, such as protecting 30% of the global ocean by 2030.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

On the sea’s surface, a wealth of ocean life gets its start, study finds
- A new study found that surface slicks — moving patches of smooth water that form on the sea’s surface — host an array of species in larval form off the west coast of Hawaiʻi Island.
- The researchers identified more than 100 fish species from 54 families inside these slicks, representing 10% of all fish species ever recorded in Hawaiian waters.
- Surface slicks play a pivotal role in the marine ecosystem by providing food and shelter for larvae, and transporting them into different parts of the ocean.
- In addition to larvae, surface slicks accumulate large quantities of plastic, which has been found to be infiltrating the food chain.

Growing concern over Okavango oil exploration as community alleges shutout
- Public consultations are under way for 450 kilometers (280 miles) of seismic surveys, the next phase of oil exploration in northeastern Namibia.
- Critics say the consultations offer only limited public participation, preventing members of affected communities from attending or understanding the unfolding process.
- There is also concern that a series of incremental environmental impact assessments potentially obscures the full implications of ReconAfrica’s ultimate goal of oil production in this region, which may include fracking.

Podcast: Is ecosystem restoration our last/best hope for a sustainable future?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at the growing movement to restore degraded ecosystems worldwide. The decade of 2021 to 2030 has been declared the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
- Author Judith Schwartz joins us to discuss her 2020 book The Reindeer Chronicles: And Other Inspiring Stories of Working with Nature to Heal the Earth, which documents numerous restoration projects around the globe and highlights the ways the global ecological restoration movement is challenging us to reconsider the way we live on planet Earth.
- We’re also joined by Tero Mustonen, president of an NGO based in Finland called the Snowchange Cooperative, who tells us about the group’s Landscape Rewilding Programme, which is “rewilding” Arctic and Boreal habitats using Indigenous knowledge and science.

Cat corridors between protected areas is key to survival of Cerrado’s jaguars
- Only 4% of the jaguar’s critical habitat is effectively protected across the Americas, and in Brazil’s Cerrado biome it’s just 2%.
- A survey in Emas National Park in the Cerrado biome concludes that the protected area isn’t large enough to sustain a viable jaguar population, and that jaguars moving in and out could be exposed to substantial extinction risk in the future.
- The study suggests that improving net immigration may be more important than increasing population sizes in small isolated populations, including by creating dispersal corridors.
- To ensure the corridors’ effectiveness, conservation efforts should focus on resolving the conflict between the jaguars and human communities.

‘Race against time’: Saving the snakes and lizards of Brazil’s Cerrado
- Brazil’s Cerrado is among the world’s most biodiverse savannas, covering two million square kilometers (772,204 square miles), nearly a quarter of the country and half the size of Europe.
- Once thought of as a “wasteland,” scientists have counted 208 snake species, some 80 lizards, 40 worm lizards, seven turtles and four crocodile species — many recently logged in the biome’s grasslands, palm-covered riverscapes, lowland forests and dry plateaus.
- But half of the Cerrado’s natural vegetation has been lost to mechanized agribusiness and ranching, with native plants and wildlife also at risk from climate change, and more frequent and intense fires. Today’s biome is fragmented, with just 3% under strict protection, and another 5% “protected” in farmed, inhabited mixed-use areas
- While researchers agree that there is an urgent need to protect large swathes of remaining savanna, there is also a vital requirement to preserve patches of unique habitat where diverse, niche-specialized reptilians make their homes.

Alarm as exploratory drilling for oil begins in northern Namibia
- Reconnaissance Energy Africa, an oil and gas company with headquarters in Canada, has recently begun exploratory drilling in northern Namibia.
- Conservationists and local communities are concerned over the potential environmental impact that oil and gas extraction could have on such an important ecosystem.
- Northern Namibia and Botswana have a number of interconnected watersheds including the Okavango Delta – the potential for pollutants to enter watercourses and spread throughout the region are a particular concern.

Tropical forests can take the heat, study finds. Dryness? Not so much
- Researchers simulated extreme global warming conditions for tropical forests in the Biosphere 2 dome in the Arizona desert, cranking up the temperature to 40°C (104°F).
- To gauge the trees’ resilience, they looked at how well they continued to photosynthesize, and found that they could do so up to 38°C (100°F), which is 10°C (18°F) warmer than the average temperature in tropical forests today.
- However, the enclosed dome helped maintain humidity levels, whereas real-world warming would lead to drier air, and therefore greater loss of water from plants through transpiration.
- The researchers say the study nevertheless provides relevant information on the main threats to these ecosystems: the combination of a warmer world and a drier climate.

Restaura Cerrado: Saving Brazil’s savanna by reseeding and restoring it
- The Cerrado is Brazil’s second largest biome, and the most biodiverse tropical savanna in the world. It is of vital importance for Brazil’s watersheds, for global biodiversity, and is an important but undervalued carbon stock.
- But in recent decades, half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been destroyed to make way for cattle, soy, and other agricultural commodities. In the southern Cerrado, scientists are now shifting their focus to restoring the native vegetation
- However, scientific knowledge on savanna restoration is scarce. So one collaborative network, Restaura Cerrado, is bringing together scientists, seed collectors, and the public to advance practical knowledge about restoration. The group’s goal is to achieve the means for ongoing effective Cerrado restoration.
- Restaura Cerrado is a collaboration between ICMBio, the University of Brasília, the Cerrado Seeds Network, and Embrapa (the Brazilian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Research Enterprise); together they hope to use restoration to bring sustainable development to the savanna region.

Crimefighting NGO tracks Brazil wildlife trade on WhatsApp and Facebook
- A nonprofit, the National Network Combating Wild Animal Trafficking (RENCTAS) was founded in 1999, and since then has won international awards and acclaim for its innovative approach to tracking and combating the global illegal wildlife trade, especially the sourcing of animals in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
- The group’s pioneering strategy: use social media to track the sale and movement of animals out of Brazil, and turn over the data to law enforcement. In 1999, it identified nearly 6,000 ads featuring the illegal sale of animals on e-commerce platforms. By 2019, it reported 3.5 million advertisements for the illegal trade on social networks.
- The most trafficked Brazilian animals currently: the double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens); a small, finch-like songbird with a yellow bill that thrives in the southern Cerrado, and the white-cheeked spider monkey (Ateles marginatus), found across the Amazon basin. Sales of animals have been tracked to 200+ illegal trafficking organizations.
- Tragically, of the millions of Brazilian animals captured, sold, resold, and transported, only an estimated 1 in 10 ever reach Brazilian and foreign consumers alive. The rest, ripped from their homes, starved and abused, die in transit.

Bottlenose dolphins could disappear from Ecuador’s Gulf of Guayaquil
- The abundance of bottlenose dolphins in Ecuador’s Gulf of Guayaquil has decreased by around 50% in the last decade.
- Several rivers in Ecuador, as well as neighboring Peru, empty into the gulf, and it is one of the most productive fishing areas in the country.
- But entanglements in fishing gear, along with tourism and water pollution, are contributing to the dolphins’ decline and could lead to their disappearance altogether in the coming decades, researchers report in a new study.

One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

Court allows referendum on mining in the Ecuadoran Andes to go forward
- Leaders in the Andean city of Cuenca are trying to get a referendum, also known as a popular consultation, to prohibit mining around the city on the ballot in the upcoming national elections scheduled for February 2021.
- The five-question consultation seeks to prohibit mining to protect the ecosystem around the Tomebamba, Yanuncay, Machángara, Tarqui and Norcay rivers.
- Experts say that mining could destroy these critical sources of water.

At-risk Cerrado mammals need fully-protected parks to survive: Researchers
- A newly published camera trap study tracked 21 species of large mammal in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna biome from 2012-2017.
- The cameras were deployed in both fully protected state and federal parks and less protected mixed-use areas known as APAs where humans live, farm and ranch.
- The probability of finding large, threatened species in true reserves was 5 to 10 times higher than in the APAs for pumas, tapirs, giant anteaters, maned wolves, white-lipped and collared peccaries, and other Neotropical mammals.
- With half the Cerrado biome’s two million square kilometers of native vegetation already converted to cattle ranches, soy plantations and other croplands, conserving remaining habitat is urgent if large mammals are to survive there. The new study will help land managers better preserve biodiversity.

‘No other choice’: Groups push to protect vast swaths of Antarctic seas
- A coalition of conservation groups is advocating for the establishment of three new marine protected areas (MPAs) in East Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea, which would encompass 4 million square kilometers (1.5 million square miles) of the Southern Ocean, or 1% of the global ocean.
- These proposals will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which is due to take place online because of the pandemic.
- Conservationists anticipate that China and Russia may not support these MPA proposals due to fishing interests in the region, although they are optimistic that the MPAs will eventually be approved.

We’re not protecting enough of the right areas to save biodiversity: Study
- In 2010, the member nations of the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 195 countries plus the EU, agreed that at least 17% of global land and 10% of the ocean needed to be protected by 2020.
- A new global review finds that many countries have fallen short of these targets, and the expansion of protected areas over the past 10 years has not successfully covered priority areas such as biodiversity hotspots and areas providing ecosystem services.
- The research team overlaid maps of protected areas, threatened species, productive fisheries, and carbon services, and found that 78% of known threatened species do not have adequate protection.
- Adequate protection of the world’s biodiversity will require conservation areas in the right places, the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making and management, ecologically connectivity between protected areas, and much more financing.

The social network of coral reef fish: Q&A with ecologist Mike Gil
- Mike Gil, an ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, deployed video cameras to “spy” on coral reef fish over months and found that they have surprisingly strong social networks.
- This research uncovered that reef fish pay close attention to when others leave the safety of the reef to eat in open water, and when they flee from predators.
- Fish were more likely to stay out in dangerous feeding areas when other fish were nearby, essentially finding safety in numbers the same way humans do.
- Computer models showed that this social network makes reefs much more sensitive to overfishing, and that if fishing is scaled up slowly, reefs can adjust and survive.

Could disruptions in meat supply relieve pressure on the Amazon? (commentary)
- Ranching and beef production have put great pressure on the Brazilian Amazon, resulting in significant deforestation which harms biodiversity, could add to the destabilization of the global climate, and even lead to future pandemics. While much Brazilian meat is consumed domestically, a large portion is exported to China.
- With the pandemic raging out of control in Brazil, meat plants have become viral “hot spots” and helped to spread COVID-19 in several places around the country. Meanwhile, the global pandemic has, for a variety of reasons, now reduced meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
- Meat and dairy are responsible for public health problems and for 18% of global greenhouse emissions, so any reduction in consumption could be good for the health of the planet. Though the pandemic has led to untold human suffering, could cratering demand for meat lead to a new environmental consciousness?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In Argentina, a movement to save the Chaco forest hits the COVID-19 wall
- Civil society groups calling for better protection of the Chaco, the largest forest ecosystem in South America after the Amazon, say their efforts have been set back by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures.
- Reports show that deforestation in Argentina increased in the first six months of this year compared to last, and that most of the deforestation of the past 20 years occurred in the Chaco.
- Activists say a major obstacle is the lack of funding for enforcement of the forestry law; since it was enacted in 2007, it has received less than 10% of its prescribed budget.
- Argentina’s environment minister has acknowledged the need for revisions to the law, but activists and lawmakers say he must follow up the rhetoric with action.

Is Chinese investment driving a sharp increase in jaguar poaching?
- A 200-fold increase in the number of trafficked dead jaguars seized by authorities in Central and South America between 2012 and 2018 has been reported in a new study.
- Researchers suggest the major surge in the trade may be facilitated by Chinese investment networks in Latin America.
- Corruption and low incomes in source countries also are likely a significant factor boosting trafficking.
- Acting on the paper’s findings, initiatives organized by nations, states, municipalities, NGOs, universities and research institutes could help improve collaborative regional efforts to combat the illicit trade.

They outlived dinosaurs, but can glass sponge reefs survive man-made warming?
- A new study has found that warming ocean waters and increased acidification could weaken the skeletal structure of Canada’s iconic glass sponge reefs.
- The potential loss of glass sponge reefs, which were thought to have gone extinct 40 million years ago, would imperil the regionwide and distinct ecosystem, including potentially hundreds of fish species.
- Researchers say the Canadian government must take climate change more seriously or risk losing an ecosystem found nowhere else.

Traversing Russia’s remote taiga in pursuit of the Blakiston’s fish owl
- The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest owl, ranging from the eastern woodlands of Hokkaido, Japan, to the Primorye territory in the south of Russia’s Far East.
- The species is endangered, with only 1,500 to 3,700 fish owls remaining in the wild.
- In his new, just published book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, biologist Jonathan Slaght chronicles his experiences and misadventures as an American researcher in Siberia, while also revealing the fish owl’s fascinating secret world.
- To protect the fish owl, Slaght and his Russian colleagues advocate for limiting road access into high biodiversity areas in Siberia.

The Large-antlered muntjac — Southeast Asia’s mystery deer (Commentary)
- 12 species of muntjac, the so-called barking deer because of its unique auditory calls, are found only in Asia. The Large-antlered muntjac is Critically Endangered with members of its scant, rarely seen population inhabiting the rugged Annamites Range bordering the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Vietnam and Cambodia.
- One of the biggest dangers to muntjacs is snaring, a hunting method used widely across Indochina. No one knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of snares clutter Southeast Asia. But rangers in one Cambodian national park found 27,714 snares in 2015 alone — 7 snares per square kilometer, or 17.5 per square mile.
- If muntjacs are to be preserved, greater public awareness of their plight is required. On Vietnam’s Dalat Plateau and in Lao’s Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, conservation appears possible, and scientists hope to garner better population density estimates in relation to the snaring threat. Captive breeding may be needed.
- This story is the second in a series by biologist Joel Berger written in conjunction with colleagues in an effort to make seriously endangered animals far better known to the public. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
- A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
- This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
- While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
- The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.

How Mexican communities are helping to save a fir forest
- The future of an endemic tree and the ecosystem where it’s found depends, to a large extent, on stopping illegal logging and the expansion of avocado crops in southern Jalisco.
- The Colima fir tree (Abies colimensis) is listed as an endangered species by Mexican authorities that can reach 60 meters (196 feet) in height and 2 meters (6.5 feet) in diameter.
- Its survival has been threatened by logging and, more recently, by fires to clear the land and the avocado orchards that follow.
- But community-driven efforts are finding ways to leave the forest standing while still generating livelihoods and developing the local economy.

Palm oil from Indonesian grower that burned forest is still being sold
- An investigation by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows that palm oil from PT Kallista Alam, a company in Sumatra, entered the global supply chain and may have ended up in products made by Nestlé and Mars.
- The company was largely blackballed by buyers with sustainability commitments after a 2012 fire on its concession razed 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of pristine lowland rainforest that’s home to critically endangered Sumatran orangutans.
- An “oversight” in the second half of 2019 led to its crude palm oil being bought by a refinery run by the Permata Hijau Group, a top Indonesian palm oil processor that supplies commodities giant Cargill.
- Cargill, in turn, sells palm oil to multinational brands including Nestlé and Mars; RAN has called on the latter two companies to explicitly issue a no-buy order to their suppliers for Kallista Alam’s palm oil.

Amazon river dolphin risks extinction if Brazil moratorium not renewed
- The Amazon river dolphin (also known as the pink river dolphin, or boto) is the largest of the world’s freshwater dolphins. It lives in the Amazon and Orinoco river systems.
- For years, the dolphin’s populations, though protected in Brazil, trended downward, halving every decade there, as poachers hunted the animals, using their fatty blubber as bait to catch a carnivorous catfish known as the piracatinga, which is drawn to the scent of rotting flesh.
- In 2015, the government of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tried to curb this chronic criminal behavior and protect the dolphins by introducing a five-year moratorium on catching piracatinga.
- Early in 2020 that moratorium lapsed and scientists urged its quick renewal to prevent the Amazon river dolphin from going extinct. UPDATE: Within days of this Mongabay story being published, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture announced that the piracatinga moratorium will be extended for one year starting 1 July.

Conservation insights from an enormous aspen clone: Q&A with ecologist Paul Rogers
- Pando is the name of a 40-hectare (100-acre) aspen forest in central Utah whose 47,000 stems share a single genome. It’s thought to be the largest and one of the oldest organisms on Earth.
- In discovering that Pando might be dying, ecologist Paul C. Rogers came to realize that the problems troubling the famous giant were a microcosm of the problems troubling aspen forests across the Northern Hemisphere, and with them the highly biodiverse set of organisms they support.
- That sparked a collaboration among aspen researchers from eight countries, who propose a conservation strategy they’re calling ‘mega-conservation.’ It aims to protect common ecosystems distinguished by a species that, like aspen, supports uncommon levels of biodiversity while facing common threats.
- Mongabay spoke with Rogers about Pando, mega-conservation, and the wisdom of thinking like an aspen forest.

Taylor and Tate: Canine-human teams rescue Australia’s fire-ravaged koalas
- Specially-trained koala detection dogs joined rescue teams during and after the catastrophic Australian bushfires to help find the injured marsupials quickly and increase their chance of survival.
- Koalas had a hard time escaping the fires. Because they are slow moving and their first instinct is to climb into the canopy, curl into a ball, and wait, they were often killed or injured by the incredibly intense bushfires.
- Koalas numbers had already dropped significantly in New South Wales due to habitat loss, climate change, drought and disease. The fires exacerbated what was already a precarious situation.
- Eventually, surviving koalas will be released back into the wild, but it will take great care due to their specialized diets, need for social cohorts, and time required to recover from their burns.

In the Ecuadoran Andes, protectors of the páramos guard their water source
- Climate change and human intervention, including mining, are a big threat to water security in the region.
- Through its water fund, Fonag, Ecuador is facing these challenges in an innovative way.
- The secret to the fund’s success is that it is inclusive, engaging a wide spectrum of stakeholders to ensure the continued protection of the páramos.

Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects
- In a new paper, a group of 30 scientists offers suggestions for industry, land managers, governments and individuals to protect insects in the face of a global decline.
- Noting that invertebrates lack the “charisma” of larger species like pandas and elephants, the scientists call for spreading “the message that appreciation and conservation of insects is now essential for our future survival.”
- They suggest a list of actions that individuals can take to help, including planting native plants, going organic and avoiding pesticides, and reducing carbon footprint.
- “As insects are braided into ecosystems, their plight is essentially integrated with more expansive movements such as global biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and in an alliance with them,” the scientists say.

As habitat degradation threatens Amazon species, one region offers hope
- Two recent studies looked into the impact of human disturbance on ecological diversity in Amazonia habitats. Another study in the Rupununi region of Guyana found how important maintaining connectivity is to maintaining ecosystem health.
- The first study investigated how forest fragmentation impacts mixed-species flocks of birds. The research found evidence that forest habitat fragmentation in the Amazon has caused mixed-species bird flocks to severely diminish and even disappear.
- A second study evaluated the impact of logging and fire on seed dispersal in tropical forest plots in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The research team found that Amazon forests which have been heavily logged and burned are populated primarily by tree species with smaller seeds, and smaller fruits.
- The remote Rupununi region provides water connectivity between the ancient Guyana Shield and the Amazon basin. A recent study there identified more than 450 fish species within the Rupununi region. The research illustrated the value of conserving connectivity between diverse habitats.

Climate tipping point ecosystem collapses may come faster than thought: Studies
- Two recent studies shine a light on a relatively new field of study: the means by which climate tipping points can lead to ecosystem collapse, and how quickly such crashes might occur.
- The first study modeled a database of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and found that large ecosystems, while seeming more stable, can collapse disproportionately faster than small ones due to a domino effect by which interrelated habitats and species within a system can impact each other, causing a rapid cascading collapse.
- Some scientists praised the study for being pathfinding, while others faulted it for looking at too few ecosystems, and then making overlarge generalizations about the crashing of large systems, like the Amazon rainforest, a biome which was not included in the study database.
- A second study found that even small changes in an ecosystem can, via evolution, ripple outward, creating bigger and bigger alterations leading eventually to a system collapse. Scientists agree that much more research will be needed to refine collapse forecasts.

Pandemic lockdown gives Philippine province time to rethink planned split-up
- The coronavirus pandemic has halted a planned vote on whether to split up the biodiverse province of Palawan into three smaller ones.
- Those in support of the proposal say breaking up the country’s biggest province into more manageable constituencies will allow officials to better address poverty and development issues.
- But critics say it will exacerbate bureaucratic bloat, allow the ruling elites to grab more power, and harm both the management of natural resources and welfare of indigenous peoples.
- They say the argument that the province is too big to properly manage is flawed, given how officials have largely been able to execute pandemic responses, and that the real issue is political will.

Forest clearing proceeds for dam in Sumatra despite locals’ land claims
- Road construction for a state-backed dam project has cleared forest in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.
- The Indonesian government says the dam will benefit locals by providing water and electricity.
- But many communities are disputing the land acquisition process as they are trying to get a certificate of ownership from the government.
- A fisherman and a construction worker drowned last month after being swept into the dam by flash floods, and a second worker is missing and feared dead.

In a Colombian wetland, oil woes deepen with the arrival of fracking
- The wetlands around the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja have for a long time been battered by pollution, including from the region’s oil industry.
- Fishermen say the century of oil extraction here has failed to yield the promised social and economic dividends, while compromising local water resources.
- State oil company Ecopetrol now plans to carry out fracking in a series of pilot projects here, but many communities are skeptical that it will be done responsibly.

The next great threat to Brazil’s golden lion tamarin: Yellow fever
- Once critically endangered due to extremely high levels of poaching, the golden lion tamarin — a primate endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest — was down to just a few hundred by the 1980s, holding out in forest fragments 80 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro city. Intensive conservation efforts restored that number to 3,700 by 2014.
- But now, yellow fever, transferred from people via mosquitoes, is putting the tamarin’s recovery at risk. In May 2018, the first tamarin death due to yellow fever was recorded in the wild following an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease across Brazil. An astonishing 32% of the population has disappeared in the year since.
- Dr. Carlos Ruiz, President of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, told Mongabay that the disease could set back conservation efforts thirty years. However, another Brazilian researcher is pioneering a possible yellow fever vaccine for the primate. The approval application is currently being considered by the Brazilian government.
- While trafficking continues, that risk has been much reduced. Experts today believe that a combination of climate change and deforestation (drastically reducing tamarin habitat) is largely driving the devastating yellow fever epidemic.

Chile’s biosphere reserves get supersized, but protection isn’t a given
- Three biosphere reserves in Chile were expanded last year to include buffer zones and transition areas.
- Biosphere reserves are not included in Chilean legislation, so their protection is not guaranteed under the law.
- Experts say that referencing the reserves and their buffer and transition zones in future laws will help ensure their preservation.

Costa Rica caterpillar decline spells trouble for ecosystems
- A new study in Scientific Reports suggests declines in caterpillar richness in a protected Costa Rican tropical rainforest, as well as in the parasite species that live off them.
- Researchers examined data from 1997 to 2018 to identify long-term patterns of extreme weather events and the impact these have on insect diversity.
- More than 40% of the 64 common caterpillar genera decreased, suggesting the decline of entire groups of caterpillars.

The commons, community and conservation: Q&A with anthropologist Leticia Merino
- Leticia Merino began studying community forestry 30 years ago, a management approach developed in Mexico that involves communities organizing to conserve their forests and at the same time generating income from it.
- The best way to conserve and regenerate these ecosystems is not reforestation, says Merino, now a renowned anthropologist.
- Community forest management has been proven to be an effective and non-exclusionary method of maintaining biodiversity, she says.
- Merino spoke with Mongabay Latam about her life and her award-winning work in the field of community forestry.

Climate fix? ‘Fertilizing’ oceans with iron unlikely to sequester more carbon
- Since the 1980s, scientists have studied whether adding iron to the oceans might represent a relatively simple and inexpensive solution to climate change.
- The idea is that adding iron would encourage the growth of carbon-munching marine phytoplankton that would pull carbon out of the atmosphere on a global scale.
- But a new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that iron fertilization, as the process is called, is unlikely to work.

Unsung Species: One of Earth’s rarest land mammals clings to a hopeful future (commentary)
- South America’s huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is the Western Hemisphere’s most endangered large land mammal, a fleet-footed Patagonian deer. The species once enjoyed broad distribution, but its numbers have been fractured into roughly 100 small disconnected populations, with huemul totals likely less than 1500 individuals.
- Historically, the huemul was diminished by habitat destruction, poachers, livestock competition and alien predators (especially dogs). More recently climate change may be playing a role, hammering Patagonian coastal fisheries, so possibly causing local villagers to increase hunting pressure on the Andean mountain deer.
- The huemul also suffers from being an unsung species. Unlike the polar bear or rhino, it lacks a broad constituency. If it is to be saved, the species requires broad recognition and support beyond the scientific community. This story is the first in a series by biologist Joel Berger in an effort to make such animals far better known.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Fire in Australia is a symptom of a degraded ecosystem (commentary)
- Ancient, human-induced climate change in Australia precipitated an ecological catastrophe, turning a rainforest continent into desert.
- A compromised ecosystem where biological decomposition of plant matter is insufficient renders an imbalance between photosynthesis and respiration, leaving fire as the only way to balance the carbon equation.
- Steps towards ecological regeneration will have far-reaching and exponential benefits to environment and society and provide natural fire mitigation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Plastic trash kills half a million hermit crabs on remote islands each year
- An estimated 570,000 hermit crabs become trapped and die in plastic containers on the remote Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Henderson Island each year, according to a new study.
- Accumulated plastics on beaches could cause a serious decline in hermit crab populations, the study’s authors say.
- Hermit crabs are at risk on beaches globally where crabs and plastic pollution overlap.

As we act on climate, we mustn’t neglect nature (commentary)
- The discussion of the environment has been unbalanced. While all the talk is about carbon and climate, that is actually only half the story when it comes to our environmental crisis. The other catastrophe is of course the destruction of the natural world, the ecological crisis which threatens a million species with extinction over the coming decades.
- These twin evils are as important and serious as each other, but you wouldn’t think it from a glance at the papers – media coverage of the ecological crisis is being completely eclipsed by the climate, which received eight times more press attention in recent years.
- This imbalance needs to be rectified, and we must start treating our twin crises equally, because we cannot address them in isolation. Natural ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and seagrass beds, store huge amounts of carbon, and protecting and restoring them is the cheapest and most effective action we can take to lessen the climate crisis. The trouble is, our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change can seriously undermine these key natural ecosystems.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Update to biodiversity treaty proposes protecting at least 30% of Earth
- Global policymakers have proposed extending protections to at least 30% of terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems around the world.
- The coming decade of biodiversity protection looks to borrow from the Paris climate agreement by setting targets for protecting intact ecosystems, curbing the spread of invasive species, and halving pollution from organic and plastic waste.
- For biodiversity hotspots, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) calls for safeguarding 60% of these areas by bringing them under the protected area framework or other management mechanisms.
- Some groups have questioned whether offering protection to 30% of areas and strict protection to only 10% will be enough to curb the alarming loss of biodiversity being witnessed globally.

EU/Chinese soy consumption linked to species impacts in Brazilian Cerrado: study
- The Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s largest tropical savanna, is a biodiversity hotspot with thousands of unique species and is home to 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
- However, half of the Cerrado has already been converted to agriculture; much of it is now growing soy which is exported abroad, particularly to the European Union (EU) and China, primarily as animal feed. But tracing soy-driven biodiversity and species losses to specific commodities traders and importing nations is challenging.
- Now a new groundbreaking study published in the journal PNAS has modeled the biodiversity impacts of site-specific soy production, while also linking specific habitat losses and species losses to nations and traders.
- For example, the research found that the consumption of Brazilian soy by EU countries has been especially detrimental to the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), which has lost 85 percent of its habitat to soy in the state of Mato Grosso.

As pesticide approvals soar, Brazil’s tapirs, bees, other wildlife suffer
- Brazil has been recognized as the world’s largest pesticide consumer since 2008, which has resulted in widespread application and in significant environmental contamination. Since then there has been an explosion of new pesticide registrations, first under President Michel Temer, now under Jair Bolsonaro.
- While research is scant, evidence points toward pesticide harm to Brazil’s wildlife, including the death of 500 million bees in four Brazilian states between December 2018 and February 2019. Another report found that 40 percent of samples collected from 116 tapirs were contaminated with insecticides, herbicides and heavy metals.
- High concentrations of the insecticide carbamate aldicarb were detected in 10 of 26 stomach content samples. Because the animals much prefer native vegetation to crops, this suggests that aerial spraying — with residue carried by wind — may be resulting in the spread of the pesticide from croplands into unsprayed natural areas.
- The Bolsonaro administration and bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress are moving rapidly to deregulate pesticides, especially pushing for passage of amendment 6299/2002, dubbed “The Poison Bill” by critics. It would transfer pesticide regulation to the Agriculture Ministry, a move that analysts decry as a serious conflict of interest.

Indonesian dam raises questions about UN hydropower carbon loophole
- North Samatera Hydro Energy (PT NSHE) wants to build the Batang Toru dam, a 510-megawatt project, in Indonesia. But, the discovery of a new primate species, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), with under 800 individuals mostly inhabiting the project site, has alarmed activists and put the dam’s funding at risk.
- PT NSHE is at the COP25 climate summit this month extolling the project’s contribution to curbing global warming: company reps say the dam will reduce Indonesia’s carbon emissions by 4 percent. In fact, the nation is already counting the proposed project as part of its 2015 Paris Climate Agreement carbon reduction pledge.
- However, while the United Nations and Paris Agreement count most new hydroelectric dams as carbon neutral, recent science shows that tropical dams can emit high levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide; this especially occurs when reservoirs are first filled.
- Dams built over the next decade will be adding their greenhouse gas emission load to the atmosphere when the world can least afford it — as the world rushes to cut emissions to prevent a 2 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures. PT NSHE argues its dam will have a small reservoir, so will not produce significant emissions.

Amazon’s giant South American river turtle holding its own, but risks abound
- The arrau, or giant South American River turtle (Podocnemis expansa), inhabits the Amazon and Orinoco rivers and their tributaries. A recent six nation survey assessed the health of populations across the region in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.
- The species numbered in the tens of millions in the 19th century. Much reduced today, P. expansa is doing fairly well in river systems with conservation programs (the Tapajós, Guaporés, Foz do Amazonas, and Purus) and not so well in others (the Javaés and Baixo Rio Branco, and the Trombetas, even though it has monitoring).
- The study registered more than 147,000 females protected or monitored by 89 conservation initiatives and programs between 2012 and 2014. Out of that total, two thirds were in Brazil (109,400), followed by Bolivia (30,000), Peru (4,100), Colombia (2,400), Venezuela (1,000) and Ecuador (6).
- The greatest historical threat to the arrau stems from eggs and meat being popular delicacies, which has led to trafficking. Hydroelectric dams and large-scale mining operations also put the animals at risk — this includes mining noise impairing turtle communication. Climate change could be the biggest threat in the 21st century.

World is fast losing its cool: Polar regions in deep trouble, say scientists
- As representatives of the world’s nations gather in Madrid at COP 25 this week to discuss global warming policy, a comprehensive new report shows how climate change is disproportionately affecting the Arctic and Antarctic — the Arctic especially is warming tremendously faster than the rest of the world.
- If the planet sees a rise in average temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius, the polar regions will be the hardest hit ecosystems on earth, according to researchers, bringing drastic changes to the region. By the time the lower latitudes hit that mark, it’s projected the Arctic will see temperature increases of 4 degrees Celsius.
- In fact, polar regions are already seeing quickening sea ice melt, permafrost thaws, record wildfires, ice shelves calving, and impacts on cold-adapted species — ranging from Arctic polar bears to Antarctic penguins. What starts in cold areas doesn’t stay there: sea level rise and temperate extreme weather are both linked to polar events.
- The only way out of the trends escalating toward a climate catastrophe at the poles, say scientists, is for nations to begin aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions now and embracing sustainable green energy technologies and policies. It remains to be seen whether the negotiators at COP 25 will embrace such solutions.

What makes community ecotourism succeed? In Madagascar, location, location, location
- For the past two decades, donors and international NGOs have worked with the Malagasy government to create thousands of local associations to manage and conserve parcels of forest.
- Ecotourism ventures, along with farming support, are often presented as an important way to overcome the loss of income that usually accompanies new restrictions on how local people can use their land.
- Successful ecotourism ventures are few and far between, but a common factor is also something that’s hard to replicate: proximity to highways and other tourist destinations.

The climate crisis and the pain of losing what we love (commentary)
- World leaders came to the UN last week to decisively tackle climate change again. “This is not a negotiation summit because we don’t negotiate with nature. This is a Climate Action Summit!” declared the UN Secretary-General. But again, global leaders failed and committed to carbon cuts that fall far short of curbing catastrophe.
- In doing so, our leaders committed us to an escalating global environmental crisis that is already unleashing vast changes across Earth’s ecosystems — with many sweeping alterations charted by our scientists, but many other local shifts and absences only noted by those who observe and cherish wild things.
- The loss of familiar weather patterns, plants and animals (from monarchs to native bees) and an invasion of opportunistic living things (Japanese knotweed to Asian longhorned ticks) can foster feelings of vertigo — of being a stranger in a strange land — emotions, so personal and rubbing so raw, they can be hard to describe.
- So I’ve tried to express my own feelings for one place, Vermont, my home, that is today seeing rapid change. At the end of this piece, Mongabay invites you to tally your own natural losses. We’ll share your responses in a later story. This post is a commentary. Views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Climate change threatens some island conifers with extinction
- A quarter of 55 conifer species native to islands are likely to go extinct by 2070 due to climate change, researchers from Brown University write in a new study.
- The researchers looked at where these species are living and thriving outside their native climatic ranges, to study their climatic tolerance in a more comprehensive way.
- Island conifers are keystone species, playing a vital part in maintaining the ecosystem and ensuring the survival of other species that depend on them.
- If the conifers in an ecosystem go extinct, the entire nature and composition of species found in that place could change dramatically.

Camera trap study reveals Amazon ocelot’s survival strategies
- Ocelots suffered severe declines in the 1960s and 70s due to hunting, but populations have rebounded since the international fur trade was banned. Now, heavy deforestation and increasing human activity across their range threaten to put this elegant creature back on the endangered list.
- Researchers collected images from hundreds of camera traps set across the Amazon basin and analyzed the effect of different habitat characteristics on the presence of ocelots. Statistical modeling revealed the cat’s preference for dense forests and a dislike of roads and human settlements.
- Experts say ocelots may also be responding to human activity and forest degradation in ways that camera traps cannot easily detect, such as changing how and when they use a particular habitat. The study looked at ocelot behavior in protected and forested habitat, not in degraded landscapes.
- Ocelots are considered ambassador species for their forest ecosystem, and studies like this give support to maintaining protected areas, which are increasingly under threat from agricultural expansion and other human activities.

Altered fish communities persist long after reefs bleach, study finds
- In a new study, bleached reefs in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles had fewer predators like snappers and groupers and more plant-eating fish such as parrotfish and rabbitfish.
- The researchers found that this change in the composition of fish species persisted for more than a decade and a half after bleaching occurred in 1998.
- Scientists expect bleaching events to occur more frequently as a result of climate change, making it likely that these shifts in fish communities will become permanent.

New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families
- A new short film, titled Sides of a Horn, looks at the impacts of the illegal trade of rhino horn on a community in South Africa.
- The 17-minute film follows two brothers-in-law, one who is a wildlife ranger and another who contemplates poaching as a way to pay for his ailing wife’s medical care.
- A trip to South Africa in 2016 inspired British filmmaker Toby Wosskow to write and direct the short feature, which was publicly released June 25.

Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003
- Logging road networks have expanded widely in the Congo Basin since 2003, according to a new study.
- The authors calculated that the length of logging roads doubled within concessions and rose by 40 percent outside of concessions in that time period, growing by 87,000 kilometers (54,000 miles).
- Combined with rising deforestation in the region since 2000, the increase in roads is concerning because road building is often followed by a pulse of settlement leading to deforestation, hunting and mining in forest ecosystems.

Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
- In a newly published four-part series, Mongabay takes a deep dive into the science behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse,” recently reported in the mainstream media.
- To create the series, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations, producing what is possibly the most in-depth reporting published to date by any news media outlet on the looming insect abundance crisis.
- While major peer-reviewed studies are few (with evidence resting primarily so far on findings in Germany and Puerto Rico), there is near consensus among the two dozen researchers surveyed: Insects are likely in serious global decline.
- The series is in four parts: an introduction and critical review of existing peer-reviewed data; a look at temperate insect declines; a survey of tropical declines; and solutions to the problem. Researchers agree: Conserving insects — imperative to preserving the world’s ecosystem services — is vital to humanity.

Primates lose ground to surging commodity production in their habitats
- “Forest risk” commodities, such as beef, palm oil, and fossil fuels, led to a significant proportion of the 1.8 million square kilometers (695,000 square miles) of forest that was cleared between 2001 and 2017 — an area almost the size of Mexico.
- A previous study found that 60 percent of primates face extinction and 75 percent of species’ numbers are declining.
- The authors say that addressing the loss of primate habitat due to the production of commodities is possible, though it will require a global effort to “green” the international trade in these commodities.

Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince
- Big-cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with Saudi prince and culture minister Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Farhan Al Saud in which the latter’s royal commission has pledged $20 million to the protection of leopards around the world, including the Arabian leopard, over the next decade.
- The funds will support a survey of the animals in Saudi Arabia and a captive-breeding program.
- The coalition also hopes to reintroduce the Arabian leopard into the governorate of Al-Ula, which Bader heads and which the kingdom’s leaders believe could jump-start the local tourism sector.

The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.

Out on a limb: Unlikely collaboration boosts orangutans in Borneo
- Logging and hunting have decimated a population of Bornean orangutans in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park in Indonesia.
- Help has recently come from a pair of unlikely allies: an animal welfare group and a human health care nonprofit.
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration to meet the needs of ecosystems and humans is becoming an important tool for overcoming seemingly intractable obstacles in conservation.

The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
- Insect species are most diverse in the tropics, but are largely unresearched, with many species not described by science. But entomologists believe abundance is being impacted by climate change, habitat destruction and the introduction of industrial agribusiness with its heavy pesticide use.
- A 2018 repeat of a 1976 study in Puerto Rico, which measured the total biomass of a rainforest’s arthropods, found that in the intervening decades populations collapsed. Sticky traps caught up to 60-fold fewer insects than 37 years prior, while ground netting caught 8 times fewer insects than in 1976.
- The same researchers also looked at insect abundance in a tropical forest in Western Mexico. There, biomass abundance fell eightfold in sticky traps from 1981 to 2014. Researchers from Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania and Africa all expressed concern to Mongabay over possible insect abundance declines.
- In response to feared tropical declines, new insect surveys are being launched, including the Arthropod Initiative and Global Malaise Trap Program. But all of these new initiatives suffer the same dire problem: a dearth of funding and lack of interest from foundations, conservation groups and governments.

Feeds: news | india | latam | brasil | indonesia