topic: Monitoring

topic: Monitoring

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A ‘lost’ Philippine pigeon reappears after 20 years — but its forest is disappearing
- Philippine conservation nonprofit CCIPH and Indigenous Iraya Mangyan forest patrollers documented a Mindoro bleeding-heart pigeon, providing the first confirmed image of the critically endangered species in two decades.
- Two independent ornithologists confirmed the identification based on the bird’s orange-red breast marking, iridescent green plumage, and other distinctive features.
- The image was recorded at an elevation above 900 meters (about 3,000 feet), higher than the species’ typical lowland range of 400-88 m (1,300-2,600 ft).
- Experts called for expanded camera-trap surveys, a comprehensive population. assessment, stronger habitat protection, and measures to address logging, poaching and accidental trapping.

During Nepal floods, decentralized, community-based warning saved lives
- During Nepal’s Aug. 26, 2026 floods, which have killed 987 people and left 3,916 missing, informal, community-based warnings saved lives while Nepal’s official SMS alert system failed, arriving late, in Nepali only, and without actionable, location-specific guidance.
- While Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology can forecast and issue warnings, it has no legal authority to order evacuations, and no law requires a forecast to automatically trigger one. This means decisions rest on individual heads.
- A 2022 study found the same failure after a 2021 rainfall disaster that killed 120 people and called for binding SOPs linking forecasts to action. The recommendation remains unimplemented.
- Fixes already exist: cell broadcast technology (studied by GSMA/ITU, about $1.75-$3 million, reaches a zone in about 10 seconds in multiple languages) and community-based East networks both offer potential models, but neither has been scaled up or funded.

Recording a rainforest before Indonesia’s new capital changes it
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In the forests around Pemaluan in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, researchers led by Wendy Erb at the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics in the U.S. have placed audio recorders on mountains, beside caves, and among […]
Local knowledge guides rediscovery of spinach pipefish, not seen in four decades
- Scientists have rediscovered spinach pipefish, a freshwater species endemic to Papua New Guinea’s Sepik River, not seen in nearly 40 years.
- The discovery came during a two-week survey led by local scientists and community members. Local fisherwoman Helen Asu netted two spinach pipefish, which scientists sent to experts for confirmation of the taxonomy.
- Scientists say the rediscovery offers hope that populations of the little-known, elusive fish still survive and provides an opportunity to understand more about its life cycle, habitat and ecology.
- The discovery highlights the importance of combining local knowledge with scientific research.

Reconnecting the skies: Linking flyways for migratory seabirds across continents
- Seabirds are the most threatened group of birds, with more than 30% at risk of extinction. Migratory seabirds are especially vulnerable.
- Researchers have described six marine flyways used by migratory pelagic seabirds, aerial corridors that cross the national waters of 56 countries; the high seas are used by at least 151 species.
- In March, the U.N. Convention on Migratory Species adopted a resolution on marine flyways, creating a structure for international cooperation on protections.
- Researchers are using seabird tracking data to identify key sites along marine flyways that need protection or mitigation measures against threats.

Nepal’s newest national parks drive tiger recovery, but emerging concerns threaten progress
In the last four years, Nepal’s wild tiger population has experienced a historic increase. In 2022, the tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) population was numbered at 355 individuals. Now, it has reached an estimated 429 individuals — nearly a four-fold jump from 16 years ago, reports Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi. Bed Kumar Dhakal, spokesperson for the […]
Caught on camera: Sand cats may have a ‘sizable population’ in Qatar
- The tiny, seldom-studied sand cat is the only feline adapted to survive in harsh deserts: It lives across Southwest and Central Asia, northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
- Because of its large geographic range, this cat isn’t classified as threatened by the IUCN, but data is difficult to come by. Some scientists want to uplist the species to near-threatened status.
- The sand cat is difficult to see, day or night. After scattered anecdotal reports, scientists used camera traps to document the first systematic record of the sand cat in Qatar. Their findings offer valuable glimpses into this elusive species’ distribution and preferred habitat.

How AI helps gather remote biodiversity data: Interview with Microsoft’s Juan Lavista Ferres
- An AI-powered tool is helping keep an eye on the world’s most remote forests.
- Named SPARROW, the biodiversity monitoring tool continuously gathers and analyzes images and audio from forests over a long time period without human intervention.
- Developed by Microsoft, it aims to make data gathering and analysis from remote forests easier for scientists and conservationists.
- SPARROW has been deployed in five continents and, according to Microsoft, tests on location show it can function for more than a year without interruption.

Forest fires likely to continue to burn twice as much without ‘serious action’ on climate change
Elizabeth Goldman is a co-director of Global Nature Watch, previously known as Global Forest Watch, a database measuring forest loss that’s frequently cited in Mongabay reporting. She joins this week’s podcast to detail GNW’s updated 25-year analysis of global forest fire trends. The picture is stark: Forest fires burn twice as much forest today as […]
On the frontlines of conservation in Sumatra: Rangers safeguard Batutegi forest
- In southern Sumatra, a small team of forest rangers is racing to protect Batutegi forest, an important watershed and refuge for endangered wildlife such as tigers and slow lorises.
- Batutegi faces persistent pressures from forest encroachment and the need to balance conservation with local livelihoods.
- Experts say protecting Batutegi will require sustained collaboration with local communities, alongside long-term conservation and forest management efforts.

From radar blobs to bird species, AI helps transform migration tracking
- A new tool is helping scientists identify specific bird species from among flocks of migrating birds.
- BirdFlow combines citizen science observations with weather radar data to help scientists detect specific species and predict their migration routes.
- Conventional tracking of migrating birds uses weather radar, but this technology can’t distinguish between different species in a flock.
- The BirdFlow developers say the tool can be helpful for tracking threatened species and improving conservation measures along the birds’ migratory routes.

Nepal’s newest national parks drive tiger recovery, but new concerns arise
- Nepal’s tiger count hit a record 429, but growth is concentrated almost entirely in the country’s newer national parks. Meanwhile Bardiya, the second-oldest park, declined 10%.
- Researchers point to three drivers behind the split: drought pushing tigers toward parks with better water infrastructure, cross-border habitat connectivity with India, and invasive weeds degrading grazing land in the older parks.
- Prey density doesn’t track with tiger growth the way expected — Bardiya’s prey density actually rose 74% (the largest gain of any park) even as its tiger numbers fell, suggesting water management, not food scarcity, is driving movement across park boundaries.
- Amid ongoing protests over human-wildlife conflict, some Bardiya residents suspect the government undercounted tigers there, while researchers flag a related emerging concern tigers displacing leopards into human settlements.

Researchers find ‘priority zones’ for yellow fever vaccination of golden lion tamarins
- Golden lion tamarins, an endangered species of monkey endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, are susceptible to yellow fever: An outbreak in 2017-2019 wiped out roughly 30% of the population.
- A new study finds that certain environmental factors, including habitat connectivity and human population, were linked to higher numbers of deaths during the outbreak.
- Scientists have identified areas where tamarins could be at high risk for yellow fever transmission, which could help guide vaccination efforts and help protect the monkeys in the event of another deadly outbreak.

Forests in Liberia are falling to cocoa, in half a year the EU could ban imports
On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with features writer Ashoka Mukpo, who traveled to southeastern Liberia to investigate what satellite images indicated was a spike in deforestation over a relatively concentrated period. Along with video production coordinator Juan Maza, Mukpo documented illegal cacao plantations in the rainforests in the county of […]
Bangladesh gets ready for its first release of tiger rescued from poachers’ trap
- In early 2026, the Bangladesh Forest Department rescued an adult female Bengal tiger from the Sundarbans from a poachers’ trap set for deer.
- The critically injured tiger was taken to the Khulna Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center. After receiving the treatment, she is now ready to be released back into the mangrove forest.
- Since this is the first release of its kind in the country, the authority is struggling to decide on the best process, including whether the tiger should be fitted with a satellite collar or monitored with camera traps after release.
- Since last year, the Forest Department has taken strict action against deer poachers by conducting raids and seizing large amounts of netting and other traps. The tiger’s rescue from a snare and the increased deer population are results of these efforts.

Iran rearrests prominent conservationists freed just two years ago
Iranian security forces in Tehran arrested wildlife conservationists Houman Jowkar and Sepideh Kashani, alongside Sepideh’s sister, Sima Kashani, on July 1, 2026, according to reports from multiple Iranian news sources. Jowkar and Sepideh, who are married, are experts on the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and were previously arrested in 2018 on espionage […]
Telling one guiña from another: It’s all about the angle
- Guiña are small cats found in Chile and Argentina. Though in 2025 the IUCN downlisted the species to least concern, not enough is known about populations under threat from habitat loss, persecution and forest fires.
- To help fill those gaps, researchers switched the angle of the camera traps used for surverying the species to film guiña individuals from above rather than at ground level. That enabled them to identify individual cats during camera trapping between February 2019 and November 2020 in a protected area in Reñihué Valley, Chile.
- If used more widely in camera trap surveys, this technique could help accurately estimate guiña populations in the wild.
- The researchers also say this technique could be applied to other small cat species.

How snow leopards, wolves and leopards share the same Himalayan valley, study
- Three apex predators (snow leopards, common leopards, and Himalayan wolves) coexist in a remote valley in Nepal’s central Himalayas by relying on different food sources.
- Researchers analyzed six years of camera-trap footage and fecal DNA from the Lapchi Valley to discover that snow leopards eat mainly wild ungulates, leopards feed on livestock and animals near human settlements, and wolves eat a mix of both.
- All three predators are mostly nocturnal and use overlapping terrain, but their specialized diets prevent direct conflict among these similarly sized apex predators.
- Protecting abundant wild prey is the most effective way to keep all three predators away from livestock and reduce retaliatory killings that threaten their survival.

Community-led initiatives safeguard marbled cats in northeast India
In India’s northeast, local communities are leading the charge for the protection of the marbled cat, one of Asia’s most poorly studied small wild cat species, reports contributor Barasha Das for Mongabay India. The marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) is widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia. However, not much is known about its population and […]
How a popular spaghetti dish is threatening Italy’s marine ecosystem
- In the waters off Naples, Italy, a single 75-minute raid by poachers can net nearly 1,000 sea urchins, an in-demand ingredient in a dish popular with tourists. A haul like that can deal a significant blow to the local urchin population.
- In a healthy marine ecosystem, fish like sea bream feed on urchins, keeping populations in check. When poachers decimate sea urchin colonies, commercial fish move elsewhere to find food, threatening legal fishers’ livelihoods.
- Experts say Italy’s marine protected areas are particularly vulnerable. Although they have criminal penalties to deter poachers, the surrounding waters have been completely stripped bare of urchins, making them attractive targets.
- Now, scientists are collecting data from law enforcement operations to raise awareness and drive regulatory changes.

In Bangladesh, scientists learn what happens after rescued pangolins return to the wild
- Chinese pangolins are one of the most trafficked mammals on Earth.
- In Bangladesh, scientists are tracking rescued and released individuals to learn about their ecology, behavior and habitat requirements.
- Using radio trackers, camera traps and burrow surveys, researchers found these elusive animals stay surprisingly close to home, and readily integrate with wild populations, even sharing burrows with other species.
- With very little known about the species, every new insight could help conservation teams better protect them across their range in Asia.

To improve its floundering fisheries, Kenya boosts data collection on artisanal fleet
- In Kenya, fishers are experiencing increased competition for dwindling catches. A lack of data is stymying their decision-making about where and when to fish as well as the governments’ decision-making about how to manage fishing in the country, experts say.
- A new project aims to improve the collection of fisheries data, harmonize them and make them accessible to fishers and the government alike.
- It involves beefed-up data collection methods, the installation of trackers on fishing vessels and a centralized database and digital platform.
- The initiative is modeled around a program in Timor-Leste that began in 2016 and now serves as the country’s national fisheries monitoring system.

Why conservation urgently needs acoustic baselines
- A forest can appear intact from above while losing part of its animal community below the canopy. Satellite images and carbon accounting can miss these changes, making bioacoustics a useful way to detect whether a forest’s living rhythms remain intact.
- The Soundscape Baselines Project, described by Zuzana Buřivalová and colleagues, is building acoustic reference points for intact forests before those baselines disappear. Its pilot sites span Brunei, Ecuador, Gabon, Germany, Peru, and the United States, using continuous recordings managed with local teams.
- Acoustic monitoring can reveal changes that averages and visual measures obscure. In Gabon, logged forests could appear similar to baseline forests in coarse daily measures, but the timing and shape of dawn and dusk choruses showed important differences.
- Bioacoustics has both promise and limits. Tools such as acoustic indices and BirdNET can expand conservation monitoring, but they require careful calibration, local knowledge, and transparent treatment of uncertainty if they are to support credible claims about biodiversity protection or recovery.

A year on, Australia’s biggest harmful algal bloom continues to wreak havoc
- The largest and longest-lasting harmful algal bloom in Australia’s history, which started in early 2025, has potentially affected more than 20,000 square kilometers of ocean waters and about a third of the coasts in the state of South Australia.
- The algal bloom has devastated marine ecosystems and caused significant economic losses in the local fishing, aquaculture and tourism industries.
- As officials, researchers and communities grapple with its ecological, health and social impacts, the bloom has exposed a lack of preparedness at all levels of government for responding to future HABs.

Rare Chinese pangolin found in a sacred community forest in Nepal
Researchers in Nepal have confirmed a rare Chinese pangolin living in a small community forest considered sacred by locals, according to a recent study. It may also be the first video evidence of the pangolin in Nepal’s Sunsari district, researchers said. The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla), listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List […]
The ‘ghost dog’ of the Amazon reveals the value of intact forests
The short-eared dog is one of the Amazon’s least-known carnivores. In Bolivia, it’s also one of the hardest to find. The species has a fox-like snout, small rounded ears, partially webbed toes, and a long bushy tail that often drags on the forest floor. In Spanish, it’s sometimes called perro fantasma, or ghost dog, a […]
How small actions can become planetary forces
- Nature’s Echo argues that feedback loops shape everything from the formation of stars and the spread of life to climate change, ecological recovery, and human behavior.
- Crowther is strongest when applying this framework to ecology, showing how forests, food webs, restoration, and resilience depend on the balance between reinforcing and stabilizing forces.
- The book moves from explanation to application, suggesting that restoration succeeds when nature recovery creates tangible benefits that people want to sustain.

National platform launches in Australia to turn wildlife imagery into action
Wildlife monitoring in Australia could get a boost from a new platform that uses AI and computer vision to speed up the processing of millions of camera trap images being collected across the country. The national initiative named the Wildlife Observatory of Australia (WildObs) is a way to collect, store and share camera trap data […]
Nature’s feedback loops can drive collapse. Thomas Crowther thinks they can also drive recovery
- Thomas Crowther’s Nature’s Echo argues that feedback loops shape everything from ecosystems and climate systems to human psychology and social change.
- Drawing on ecology, cosmology, and restoration science, the book reframes conservation as the cultivation of self-reinforcing systems rather than isolated interventions.
- Crowther suggests that optimism, behavior, and narrative are not peripheral to environmental outcomes, but part of the forces that influence them.
- In an interview with Mongabay’s founder and CEO, Crowther discusses how these ideas inform his thinking on restoration, regenerative movements, ecological resilience, and the role individuals play in larger systems of change.

For Honduran coffee growers, EUDR compliance means changing old habits
- The EU Deforestation Regulation requires companies importing coffee from Honduras into the European market to track their supply chains all the way back to the small-scale farmers who grow the crop.
- For many farmers, the urgency of complying has led to the modernization of farming practices, providing a competitiveness boost to a supply chain historically based on informality.
- Digitalization could help to halt Honduras’s rural exodus and make coffee farming attractive to younger generations, but challenges remain around accessibility, managing digital tools, and data ownership.

How much suffering do invasive species cause? Researchers are measuring that
- Researchers have developed a new framework for measuring the suffering caused by invasive species, which they hope will complement the existing global standard for assessing these species’ impact on native biodiversity.
- Initial case studies from around the world assessed by the Animal Welfare Impact Classification for Invasion Science (AWICIS) suggest that the suffering caused by invasive ants and flies has been systematically overlooked. Focusing on welfare impacts also challenges conservationists to consider how management might harm invasives themselves.
- Results from AWICIS were, however, skewed by a relative lack of research describing invasive welfare impacts in lower-income countries. Its authors hope AWICIS’ adoption will encourage conservationists to record suffering more regularly and systematically.

Most wildlife AI focuses on the ground. This model looks up in the trees
- Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence model that can detect and identify tree-dwelling species.
- TropiCam-AI can recognize 84 taxa, including 63 species, with the tool showing an accuracy of 95% with the majority of the taxa.
- AI is widely used to automate the detection of animals from camera-trap data sets that can run into millions of images.
- However, the existing AI models developed for this purpose focus primarily on ground-dwelling animals, with tree-dwelling species largely overlooked.

Loopholes undermine palm oil industry’s antideforestation pledges
- More than a decade after the palm oil industry adopted “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) commitments, new satellite data show forest clearing for palm oil in Indonesia persists, with more than 31,000 hectares (nearly 77,000 acres) lost in 2025.
- Campaigners say deforestation increasingly slips through structural gaps in the system, including incomplete traceability, fragmented smallholder supply chains, and loopholes that allow companies linked to forest clearing to continue selling into supposedly deforestation-free markets.
- Investigators cite cases in Indonesia, the top producer of the commodity, as examples of how palm fruit from deforestation-linked plantations can still enter global supply chains through third-party mills and opaque ownership structures.
- Analysts warn these unresolved weaknesses could create major problems for compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will require firms to prove commodities sold in the EU are not linked to recent deforestation.

A ‘symphony’ of wildlife suggests carbon financing is working in Sierra Leone
- A study conducted in Sierra Leone’s Gola Rainforest National Park found that the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) financing program, set up to ensure that forests sequester carbon, also confers some benefits to the park’s animal biodiversity.
- Compared to a neighboring protected area without REDD+ funding and a bordering community-owned agroforestry area, the national park had higher soundscape saturation, a proxy for biodiversity. However, the authors also found that the agroforestry area had a higher diversity of insects than the two other study areas.
- The study emphasizes that carbon financing programs can provide benefits outside of storing carbon, but experts also highlight that it shows that on-the-ground monitoring can be cheaply, effectively added to programs like REDD+ to help better conserve forests as whole ecosystems.

Electric fences help farmers and elephants coexist in Zambian borderlands
- In 2015, Malawi and Zambia signed a treaty to create a transfrontier conservation area that allows wildlife to cross from Malawi’s Kasungu National Park, to Zambia’s Lukusuzi and Luambe national parks.
- Much of Kasungu’s eastern boundary is fenced, but there’s no fence along its western boundary, located along Zambia’s eastern border.
- This means the elephants can move out of the park into an area of human settlements to reach Lukusuzi. But they also raid farmers’ fields.
- Conservation group IFAW is setting up cluster farms, surrounded by electric wires to prevent the elephants from destroying crops, giving them a chance to cross farmlands to reach secure rangelands in Zambia.

‘We’ve got bats’: The community bringing New Zealand’s pekapeka into the spotlight
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s only native land mammals are three bat species — one of which is likely extinct and the other two headed in the same direction due to habitat loss and other threats.
- A community-led bat research group, one of the first in the country, is working to help save the New Zealand long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus) by conducting surveys for bats in and around Franklin county, near Auckland.
- Their research project, called Finding Franklin Bats (FFB), is also aiming to spread local awareness of New Zealand’s bats and their plight by working with landowners and community members.
- Over the past three years, volunteer numbers have swelled from 50 to more than 180, and in 2026 FFB received enough funding to employ seven people, six of them members of local Indigenous communities.

Study gathers over 4,000 photos to find Bolivia’s rarest Amazonian dog
- A study conducted for more than 20 years with camera-trap surveys in different parts of the Bolivian Amazon has recorded 594 independent events for the short-eared dog in more than 4,600 images.
- This species, popularly known in Bolivia as the ghost dog, is one of the least-known canids in the world. Its survival depends highly on the quality of its natural habitat, according to experts.
- In the Bolivian forests, it can generally be found in protected areas or Indigenous territories, which scientists say underscores the importance of these kinds of areas for biodiversity conservation.

Tiremakers ready to roll with EUDR, but repeated delays frustrate industry
- Tire manufacturers, major consumers of natural rubber, say they’re ready for the implementation of the EU’s antideforestation regulation, or EUDR, and lament its repeated delays.
- Natural rubber supply chains are notoriously complex, with 85% of natural rubber coming from 6 million smallholders, and the rubber passing through numerous intermediaries before being turned into tires.
- Ensuring EUDR compliance throughout natural rubber supply chains remains challenging; European tire industry representatives also point to ongoing problems with the information system and due diligence requirements in downstream supply chains.
- The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber, made up of industry, civil society and producers, promotes sustainability within the natural rubber supply chain and supports smallholders.

Elephants return to Mount Elgon side of Uganda after four decades
- Monitoring of elephants on Mount Elgon, on the Uganda-Kenya border, shows a herd of elephants have crossed over to the Ugandan side, into areas they had largely abandoned since the 1970s.
- The Uganda Wildlife Authority says their return is a positive sign that efforts to restore degraded forest in Mount Elgon National Park is succeeding.
- Residents of Bukwo district, which overlaps with the national park, say elephants destroyed crops in 2025 but UWA rangers have so far prevented this in 2026.

Radio and satellite alerts help Zambian farmers live with dangerous wildlife
- In Zambia’s Eastern Province, a community radio station beams out programs and messages on coping with human-wildlife conflict.
- Tuning in are villagers living in a transfrontier conservation area straddling this part of Zambia, and neighboring Malawi.
- When Mongabay visited, residents were mostly worried about attacks by hyenas, which officials say have recently claimed the lives of four children.
- But cutting-edge satellite technology also provides farmers with an early warning on the approach of potentially destructive elephant herds.

As elephants return in eastern Zambia, communities adapt to coexistence
- Four years ago, more than 200 elephants were relocated to Malawi’s Kasungu National Park, which shares an open border with three farming districts in eastern Zambia.
- The elephants regularly move into farms, sometimes raiding granaries and destroying crops and posing a risk to people.
- Amid deep skepticism, conservationists and wildlife officials are working with locals to change attitudes, turning conflict into coexistence.

Sawfish in Sri Lanka may be ‘functionally extinct,’ but refuges remain
The sawfish, recognizable by its distinctive saw-shaped snout or rostrum, is now thought to be “functionally extinct” in Sri Lankan waters. This, researchers say, means that while a few individuals may still exist, their numbers are likely too low to maintain a viable breeding population, reports contributor Malaka Rodrigo for Mongabay. In a 2021 study, […]
Can listening to a forest reveal whether it is ecologically healthy?
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Researchers have been using sound to study ecosystems for years. A study from ETH Zürich uses it to examine Costa Rica’s payment for ecosystem services program, reports Mongabay’s Abhishyant Kidangoor. Giacomo Delgado, a doctoral researcher, compares the method […]
In Guatemala, new AI technology will be ‘listening’ for illegal deforestation
- A new project in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve will install bioacoustics devices that can “listen” for illegal activity, using AI models trained to identify chainsaws, gunshots and other sounds associated with environmental crime.
- The project is part of the $100 million AI for Climate and Nature Grand Challenge, run by the Bezos Earth Fund for innovative uses of artificial intelligence for tackling biodiversity loss, climate change and food insecurity.
- The devices will be installed in parts of the reserve threatened by cattle ranching and illegal human settlements, accounting for thousands of hectares of annual forest loss in recent years.
- If successful, bioacoustics technology could be combined with camera traps, drone monitoring, satellite data and human observation to create a more efficient and data-driven conservation strategy, members of the project said.

On World Tapir Day, data gaps cloud future of Malaysia’s tapirs
Asia’s only tapir species still remains understudied in Malaysia, researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society say. Recent findings from Thailand suggest that some forest complexes there may hold more Malay, or Asian tapirs (Tapirus indicus) than previously estimated. However, across the border in Malaysia, experts warn that the endangered species faces an uncertain future, complicated […]
Rare, high-altitude jaguar sighting in Honduras raises hope for conservation
- For the first time in a decade, camera traps set up high in the Sierra del Merendón mountain range in Honduras captured images of a male jaguar.
- The cat was documented at an altitude of 2,200 meters (about 7,200 feet), much higher than their normal range. Jaguars typically live below 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
- These mountains can act as a high-elevation corridor for animals to move between landscapes in Honduras, Guatemala and beyond.
- Jaguars, like all big cats, continue to lose habitat and are targeted by poachers. But this cat moving back into its former territory shows that conservation efforts, such as anti-poaching patrols, land protection and the introduction of prey species, may be working.

Celebrating the ‘gardeners of the forest’ on World Tapir Day
Described as “gardeners of the forest,” tapirs help maintain healthy ecosystems by dispersing seeds and landscaping the vegetation. Yet they remain underfunded for research. All four tapir species — the Asian (Malayan) tapir (Tapirus indicus), Baird’s tapir (T. bairdii), the lowland or South American tapir (T. terrestris) and the mountain tapir (T. pinchaque) — are […]
AI tool listens for endangered orcas in real time to reduce human disturbance
- An AI initiative is listening to southern resident orcas in real-time to help them steer clear of vessels and noisy coastal construction.
- OrcaHello builds on a network of underwater microphones to detect orcas and push out alerts that have helped pause coastal construction and redirect boat traffic as the orcas pass by.
- Southern resident orcas are considered an endangered subspecies, with only 76 remaining individuals.
- Major threats to the species include a decline in their food sources, primarily Chinook salmon, along with noise pollution and vessel traffic.

Conservation collects more data than ever. What is it for?
- Conservation has focused on collecting more data, but often without clearly defining how that information will improve outcomes.
- Monitoring can track trends, but understanding impact requires linking data to decisions and establishing what would have happened otherwise.
- A new framework identifies multiple reasons for monitoring, many of which operate indirectly through policy, funding, and public support.
- The key question for practitioners is simple: if data will not change a decision, the monitoring effort may not be worth the cost, argue the authors of the framework.

Studying the world’s largest gathering of forest elephants with sound and field observation
- At Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic—one of the few places where forest elephants gather in large numbers—researchers can observe behaviors that are otherwise difficult to document in dense rainforest.
- Ivonne Kienast leads long-term research combining direct observation with acoustic monitoring, building a detailed record of elephant behavior, social structure, and change over time.
- Her work highlights how sustained presence, local collaboration, and incremental data collection shape understanding of both elephants and the broader forest system they inhabit.
- Kienast spoke with Rhett Ayers Butler, Mongabay founder and CEO, and David Akana, director of Mongabay Africa, over two weeks of conversations in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo during March 2026. Her responses have been edited and consolidated.

Listening to forests reveals signs of recovery beyond tree cover
- Scientists have deployed acoustic monitoring techniques to measure the success of a forest protection mechanism in Costa Rica.
- Using more than 16,000 hours of audio data, scientists found that the payments for ecosystem services (PES) initiative in Costa Rica has helped recover biodiversity in naturally regenerated forests.
- On comparing the soundscapes, scientists found that naturally regenerated forests sound more similar to protected forests than to pastures.

10 forces that could reshape the future of the world’s forests
- A new horizon scan identifies ten emerging forces—spanning politics, finance and technology—that are likely to shape forests over the next decade, increasing uncertainty for ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
- Traditional funding for conservation is weakening as public aid declines, while new mechanisms—from carbon markets to direct financing for Indigenous and local communities—are expanding unevenly.
- Advances in remote sensing, AI and connectivity are improving monitoring and accountability, but are also enabling illegal activities and accelerating pressures in some regions.
- Growing demand for critical minerals, shifting trade rules and tighter political control over civil society are reshaping forest governance, fragmenting authority and redistributing risks and benefits.

Brazil: Satellites expose rampant gold mining expansion on Indigenous Kayapó land
The Kayapó Indigenous Territory has emerged as a major hotspot for illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon’s Xingu River Basin, a major Amazon tributary. That’s according to a new report from the watchdog Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program (MAAP). At least 7,940 hectares (19,620 acres) of forest on Kayapó land were cut down […]
Avian bird flu surges in New York urban wildlife, increasing disease concerns
- The H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has spread across the globe, infecting hundreds of birds and mammal species. Few places offer a clearer view of the virus’s spread in urban wildlife than New York state, where the Atlantic Flyway and a layered surveillance system have made the virus easier to track.
- Scientists and local wildlife rehabilitators in New York City have reported a sharp uptick in suspected avian influenza cases this past winter. The current H5N1 strain is unusual not only for its significant impact on migratory birds, but for its ability to jump to a growing number of mammal species.
- H5N1 continues to surface in live animal and poultry markets across New York City, after more than a decade of recurring avian influenza outbreaks. Experts say the crowded, mixed-species conditions in these markets can amplify viral spread and create new opportunities for spillover to other species, potentially including humans.
- If H5N1 can move this readily across species in a city as heavily surveilled and globally connected as New York, experts warn that the risks may be even greater in other urban centers with more migratory wildlife, large live animal markets and weaker surveillance.

Hidden cameras reveal macaws’ secret lives
High up in the Amazon canopy, camera traps have recorded the entire breeding cycle of red-and-green macaws in Peru’s Madre de Dios region. Researchers watched these birds team up to defend their nest, raise a chick, and face rivals — all from a single artificial nest box. As natural nesting spaces are lost to logging, […]
Plenty of biodiversity data, but too few conservation answers
- New technologies—from environmental DNA to AI-powered sensors—are generating vast amounts of biodiversity data, creating unprecedented opportunities to monitor nature at scale.
- Yet more data does not necessarily improve understanding: conservation still struggles to distinguish real impacts from broader environmental trends, especially without credible counterfactuals.
- A growing shift toward impact evaluation and “precision” approaches aims to identify what works, where, and under what conditions, drawing on methods from economics and public health.
- The next challenge is not collecting more information, but turning diverse sources of evidence—including Indigenous knowledge—into decisions that improve conservation outcomes.

The ocean’s enforcement gap
- Governments have designated vast marine protected areas and pledged to conserve 30% of the ocean by 2030, enforcement often lags behind these commitments.
- Research shows that the ecological benefits of marine protected areas depend less on their size than on whether rules are visible, monitored, and enforced.
- New tools—such as satellite imagery, vessel-tracking systems, and data analytics—are making it easier and cheaper to detect illegal fishing and focus enforcement efforts.
- As monitoring improves, the future of ocean conservation may depend less on creating new protected areas than on ensuring existing rules are consistently applied.

Flagship conservation platforms SMART and EarthRanger join forces in new tech partnership
- The two largest conservation technology platforms, SMART and EarthRanger, are merging into a single product known as SERCA.
- SMART and EarthRanger have overlapping functions yet are different enough that many organizations need to adopt both. Managing data across two platforms has created logistical challenges that ultimately led to the idea of merging the software.
- SERCA will combine EarthRanger’s user-friendly interface and real-time visualization with SMART’s data collection and analysis capabilities.
- The project is a collaboration between WCS, WWF, Re:wild, Panthera, North Carolina Zoo, Wildlife Protection Solutions, the Frankfurt Zoological Society and the Zoological Society of London and EarthRanger, developed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Archived camera-trap images bring Thailand’s tapirs into focus
Archived camera-trapping images have revealed a new stronghold for Asian tapirs in Khlong Seang–Khao Sok Forest Complex, in southern Thailand. Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan reports that a recent study found camera-trap “bycatch” data — images of species that researchers hadn’t intended to photograph — can be used to monitor Asian tapirs (Tapirus indicus). The camera traps […]
Birds are changing — and Indigenous memory is the longest record we have
- A global study drawing on Indigenous and local knowledge across three continents finds that bird communities have shifted toward smaller-bodied species over the past 80 years, suggesting a substantial loss of larger birds even in places with little formal monitoring.
- Traditional ecological knowledge, built through daily interaction with landscapes over generations, can reveal long-term environmental changes that scientific datasets — often only decades deep — fail to capture.
- Because larger species tend to be more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and environmental stress, a shift toward smaller birds may signal deeper ecological restructuring rather than a simple decline in numbers.
- Integrating lived experience with scientific methods offers a fuller picture of environmental change, highlighting that some of the earliest warnings come from people who depend most directly on the natural world.

In Thailand, old camera-trap photos shed new light on Asian tapirs
- Archived camera-trap data from southern Thailand’s Khlong Saeng–Khao Sok Forest Complex identified at least 43 individual Asian tapirs, suggesting the area may be a key refuge for the endangered species.
- Researchers used “bycatch” images from camera traps originally set to photograph bears to estimate tapir density at 6-10 individuals per 100 square kilometers, showing existing data can help monitor elusive species.
- Modeling suggests the forest complex could hold up to 436 mature tapirs, far higher than previous estimates for Thailand and Myanmar combined, though researchers warn the figure may overestimate actual numbers.
- Despite the promising findings, Asian tapirs face ongoing threats from habitat loss and snaring, and experts say protecting intact forest strongholds is vital for the species’ survival.

AI-generated wildlife photos make conservation more difficult
Anyone who looks at a social media feed with any regularity is likely familiar with the deluge of fabricated images and videos now circulating online. Some are harmless curiosities (other than the resource use). Others are more troubling. Among the most consequential are AI-generated depictions of wildlife, which are beginning to distort how people understand […]
Women secure a future with pumas in the Andes
AYACUCHO, Peru — High in the Peruvian Andes, fear of wildcats once meant survival. Pumas, pampas cats and the elusive Andean cat were seen only as threats to livestock — and were hunted without hesitation. But one woman’s journey has helped transform her community’s story. Through women-led conservation, camera traps and weaving traditions, Ida and […]
Making 60% of the ocean manageable (Commentary)
- A new UN treaty, BBNJ, has entered into force to create the first global framework aimed explicitly at conserving biodiversity on the high seas, where industrial activity has expanded faster than oversight. The agreement matters less for its text than for whether it can be translated into real-world governance and enforcement.
- The high seas have never been lawless, but they have been managed through fragmented sector-by-sector institutions, leaving biodiversity as a secondary concern. BBNJ attempts to close that gap without replacing existing bodies, which creates both opportunity and friction.
- The treaty’s success will hinge on practical systems: transparent environmental assessments, credible monitoring, and the capacity for more countries to participate meaningfully. Technology can make harmful activity harder to hide, but it cannot substitute for political will and durable enforcement.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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

Camera traps in China capture first-ever footage of Amur tigress with five cubs
Camera traps installed in the world’s largest tiger reserve, in China, have captured footage of an Amur tigress and her five cubs for the first time. Recorded in November 2025, the footage from Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park shows an adult tigress ambling along a dirt road, and four young cubs tootling behind […]
How are California’s birds faring amid ever more frequent wildfires?
- Long-term research in California shows that many bird populations increase after wildfires and can remain more abundant in burned areas for decades, especially following moderate fires.
- Although some bird species are adapted to fire and benefit from low to moderately severe blazes, megafires in California are becoming more frequent.
- Megafires, scientists say, are unlikely to benefit most bird species and harm those that depend on old-growth forests.
- Wildfire smoke poses a serious threat to birds’ health, with evidence linking heavy exposure to particulate matter in smoke to reduced activity, weight loss and, possibly, increased mortality.

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

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

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

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

In Brazil, a new label gives more visibility to deforestation-free beef
- A new certification for deforestation-free beef in Brazil, the first of its kind, aims to bring more transparency to existing protocols for monitoring deforestation in meat supply chains.
- The Beef-on-Track (BoT) label has four tiers of certification to guarantee that certified beef meets certain socioenvironmental requirements.
- The label was created to meet demands from China, but it could also help with EUDR compliance, as its highest tier meets EUDR requirements for a deforestation-free supply chain.
- Brazil’s meat industry has not yet embraced the BoT certification, but companies are expected to get on board, as demand for BoT-certified beef grows among exporters, retailers and other actors.

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

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

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

Artisanal fishers in Liberia question benefits of new tracking devices from government
- The Liberian government earlier this year distributed 400 automatic identification system (AIS) transponders to small-scale fishers in the counties of Grand Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Margibi and Montserrado.
- The devices transmit a vessel’s position and speed via radio signals, and Liberian authorities say they hope it will help in speeding up responses to vessels that are in distress.
- However, many small-scale fishers appear reluctant to adopt the new device, with some saying they would prefer GPS-equipped devices that let them track their own location.
- The Liberia Artisanal Fishermen Association (LAFA), an advocacy group, blames the low adoption rate on the inadequate involvement of fishers during the design and rollout of the project.

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

New underwater acoustic camera identifies individual fish sounds, helping track threatened species
- More than 35,000 species of fish are believed to make sounds, but less than 3 percent of species have been recorded.
- A new audio and visual recording device allowed scientists to identify the most extensive collection of fish sounds ever documented under natural conditions.
- Labeling the unique sounds of fish will allow conservationists to better track the behaviors, locations, and populations of threatened fish species.

Reforestation and wild pig decline spark surge in miniature deer in Singapore
- Once thought extinct in Singapore, a little-known species of miniature deer has reemerged in unprecedented numbers on a small island reserve in the Johor Strait.
- Researchers documented the greater mouse-deer thriving on Pulau Ubin at the highest population density recorded anywhere in the species’ range.
- The team put the surge down to increased availability of prime habitat following a decade of forest restoration, as well as reduced competition for food after the collapse of the island’s wild pig population due to African swine fever.
- Experts say the dramatic “ecological cascade” underscores the need for long-term, ecosystem-wide monitoring throughout Southeast Asia, particularly at sites impacted by sudden shifts triggered by disease.

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

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

As Zambia eyes green minerals, Kabwe’s poisoned past looms large
- Zambia is seeking to capitalize on the green energy boom through copper and other critical minerals, but campaigners warn that without real accountability and community participation, the next mining wave could create new “sacrifice zones,” repeating a painful history.
- The town of Kabwe remains severely polluted after decades of lead and copper mining, with more than 95% of children showing dangerous blood lead levels.
- The “Zambia’s Sacrifice Zone” campaign, launched by young activists, journalists and NGOs, uses storytelling and radio to demand accountability, raise awareness and amplify community voices in the fight for environmental justice and cleanup.
- Authorities have rolled out remediation projects with World Bank support, testing tens of thousands of residents and improving water and infrastructure, but activists say compensation is lacking and enforcement of environmental laws remains weak.

Peru Indigenous patrols see success & struggles in combating illegal miners
- In 2024, the Wampís Indigenous nation formed the territorial monitoring group Charip to combat the expansion of illegal gold mining, loggers and other invaders in their territory in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Charip combines traditional knowledge with monitoring technology but lacks the financial resources to expand its control posts and cover more ground.
- Members of the group are unpaid, which has led to a decline in the number of available guards.

Asian golden cat range expands, but declines continue amid rising threats
- The Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is a medium-sized cat species that was once abundant across Asia, ranging from India to China. Today its population is undergoing a significant decline.
- That’s resulted in it now being declared a threatened species as its habitat is lost or fragmented, and indiscriminate snaring removes it from forests, particularly in Southeast Asia.
- Targeted research, conservation and funding are rare for this species, resulting in significant knowledge gaps about its basic ecology and threats. That uncertainty is causing some conservationists to say it could warrant endangered status.
- It’s hoped that increasing threat levels imperiling the Asian golden cat will spur donor funding, giving researchers the tools to shine a light on the needs of this lesser-known felid. Nepal has so far led the way in conservation efforts.

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

Heart checkup for anteaters
Technology has evolved enough to identify animals, understand their habitats and track their movements. But understanding how environmental factors are physiologically causing stress to animals is still a challenge. Scientists at the Smithsonian are now deploying tiny cardiac monitors to study how 27 species, including anteaters in Brazil, are affected by changes in the environment. […]
Primatology goes high tech — from bioacoustics to drones & AI
- From thermal cameras to deep learning AI, researchers are reinventing how they study primates in the wild.
- What began with Jane Goodall’s observational notes has evolved into artificial intelligence that identifies chimpanzees and decodes their social lives.
- A custom-built “dronequi” with a thermal and a high-definition camera is helping scientists spot Brazil’s elusive and endangered muriquis from above the trees.
- Hidden microphones across Borneo’s rainforests capture haunting gibbon duets, revealing clues about hybridization and habitat loss.

Indigenous monitoring project helps protect isolated peoples in Colombia’s Amazon
- Indigenous communities neighboring the peoples living in isolation in Colombian Amazon have spent more than a decade helping the latter remain separate from the outside world.
- Members of the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve and of the community of Manacaro use traditional knowledge and technology alike to monitor threats to their territory and to protect nearby communities living in isolation.
- In Manacaro, women take on traditionally masculine roles by patrolling the rivers, collecting data, and safeguarding their neighbors’ lives amid the advance of armed actors and illegal mining.
- Surveillance work has provided evidence of uncontacted peoples, such as the Yuri and Passé ethnic groups, which was fundamental in the federal government’s decision to formally recognize them.

Regenerative fashion initiative in Indonesia wins 2025 Pritzker Environmental Genius Award
- Indonesian economist and entrepreneur Denica Riadini-Flesch won UCLA’s 2025 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award for creating a “farm-to-closet” supply chain that regenerates land, revives traditional craft, and empowers rural women through her social enterprise, SukkhaCitta.
- Her model replaces factory production with smallholder cotton farms and artisan workshops across Indonesia, restoring more than 120 acres of land, cutting pollution from synthetic dyes, and raising women’s incomes by 60%, while teaching ecological literacy and entrepreneurship through Rumah SukkhaCitta schools.
- Runner-up Anthony Waddle of Macquarie University is reviving Australia’s endangered green and golden bell frog, pioneering habitat-based solutions such as “frog saunas,” vaccination trials, and genetic resistance research to counter the deadly chytrid fungus threatening amphibians worldwide.
- Runner-up Seema Lokhandwala, founder of the Elephant Acoustics Project, uses low-frequency sensors to detect elephants near villages in Northeast India, giving communities advance warnings that prevent deadly encounters and foster coexistence between people and wildlife.

In Panama, poison dart frog move brings hope amid amphibians’ fight with fungus
- Twelve pairs of poison dart frogs were recently translocated in Panama in a bid to strengthen the species’ chances of survival and provide answers over a deadly fungal disease threatening amphibians worldwide.
- The effort hopes to boost the population of these frogs, which play a vital role in forest ecosystems and whose toxins could be important for human medicinal use.
- The amphibian chytrid fungus has affected hundreds of species of amphibians over the last decades, leading to the extinction in the wild of 90 species, estimates say.
- Apart from the fungal disease, amphibians are also at risk because of habitat loss driven by urban development and agriculture, experts warn.

Fears of major locust swarms wane in the Sahel but agencies step up monitoring
- Fears of major desert locust swarms in the Sahel in 2025 are receding, as authorities in the region continue to monitor breeding sites.
- The FAO says control measures were carried out by teams in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria in response to earlier alerts.
- While field reporting has been hampered by limited resources and insecurity in many key parts of the region, improved remote surveillance and information-sharing tools have been strengthened.

DJs inspired by nature
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. The music began long before humans arrived. Rivers carried their basslines downstream, insects beat time in the dusk, and birds poured their arias into the dawn. For Dominik Eulberg, who grew up without radio or television, this was […]
Northern Cameroon’s lions are reproducing, but concerns remain
- GPS tracking of 10 collared lions in Bouba Ndjida National Park has confirmed multiple lionesses with cubs, indicating successful reproduction of Cameroon’s highly threatened northern lion subspecies.
- Conservationists warn many cubs may not reach adulthood because dispersing young lions are exposed to snares, retaliatory killings, and other human pressures along the park’s edges.
- With only about 60-80 lions in Bouba Ndjida and fewer than 1,000 northern lions left in Central Africa, the park is seen as crucial to the subspecies’ survival and recovery.
- Uncontrolled livestock grazing, poaching, insecurity, and weak connectivity with neighboring parks hamper conservation; experts call for larger safe areas, community involvement, and coordinated management to ensure long-term survival.

To track a unicorn: Laos team goes all out to find the last saolas
- An intensive search is underway in Laos to find perhaps the most threatened large mammal on the planet: the saola ox.
- Sniffer dogs, local and international wildlife tracking experts, and a state-of-the-art DNA kit have all been deployed to try to home in on any unknown individuals of the species so elusive conservationists once dubbed it the “Asian unicorn.”
- Last documented in 2013, when a camera trap photographed an adult in central Vietnam, previous attempts to study the saola have been stymied by a lack of sightings.
- Conservationists are aware of the ever-ticking clock, however, and warn that extinction is “inevitable” without a dedicated and intensive push to study remaining individuals and safely bring them into captivity to start a conservation breeding program to revive the species.

Counting kings: How annual lion surveys reveal the health of Africa’s protected areas (commentary)
- Lions are more than charismatic megafauna shaping the balance of species in the savannah food web. As such, their presence or absence can tell us a lot about the health of an ecosystem.
- Annual lion surveys offer a disciplined way to pair concern with action, writes Jon Ayers, board chair of wild cat conservation group Panthera and major supporter of lion conservation.
- Such surveys do not guarantee recovery. They make it possible to know, sooner and more accurately, whether recovery is under way.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Long-lost white shark tag traces remarkable journey from South Africa to SE Asia
- The discovery of a satellite tag from a subadult female white shark in Indonesia marks the first recorded connectivity of white shark movement between South Africa and Southeast Asia.
- The white sharks found in South Africa and Australia belong to different genetic pools, which makes the two populations distinct from one another, even though they share the same migratory route.
- The biggest threats facing white sharks in South Africa and Indonesia are unsustainable fishing, where the sharks become both the bycatch and main catch.
- While there are attempts to support local fishers to pioneer shark conservation instead of hunting them, such efforts are thwarted by lack of funding.

Turning camera traps into real-time sentinels: Interview with Conservation X Lab’s Dante Wasmuht
- Wildlife technology nonprofit Conservation X Labs has developed and deployed an AI-powered device to make real-time monitoring of camera-trap images easier and more seamless.
- The Sentinel device can be attached to camera traps and serves as a minicomputer with built-in AI models.
- The device has been deployed around the world, and has found applications in detecting invasive species in New Zealand and in the Florida Everglades.
- While camera traps are widely used in conservation, it’s often a challenge to retrieve the data from remote locations, often leading to a delay in conservation action and management.

The formula that reduced deforestation in Brazil in the 21st century
- In 2009, the Brazilian government made a commitment to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to decrease deforestation by 80% by 2020, but exceeded that target in 2012, when the annual deforestation rate was only 20% of its twenty-year historical mean.
- The Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm) is considered one of Lula da Silva’s major wins during his first two terms as president. Although the initiative did not eliminate deforestation, its policies succeeded in changing human behavior and business models on the forest frontier.
- In 2019, president Jair Bolsonaro defunded the programme’s law-and-order components and dissolved the PPCDAm, while running limited activities to combat deforestation.
- Once Lula de Silva got re-elected in 2023, he revived the program, which now focuses less on command-and-control measures like deforestation fines and land-use planning, and more on promoting sustainable livelihoods.

Funding is needed to save Samoa’s ‘little dodo’ from extinction (commentary)
- Since 2014, Samoa’s “little dodo” has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List: related to the extinct dodo, an adult manumea, as it’s called locally, has not been photographed well in the wild, and its song has rarely been recorded.
- But an underfunded conservation effort led by the Samoa Conservation Society and the nation’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) could still snatch this fascinating species from the extinction list, a new commentary argues.
- “In my view, a large-scale, multiyear forest conservation project funded by the Global Environment Facility and led by the MNRE is essential,” the author writes.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Mozambican reserve harbors largest documented breeding population of rare falcon
- A new study estimates Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique hosts 68–76 breeding pairs of Taita falcons, likely the world’s biggest population of the rare raptor.
- Niassa’s granite inselbergs provide hunting advantages over larger falcons, allowing the Taitas to thrive.
- Woodland clearance, charcoal production, agriculture and domestic fowl could shift the balance in favor of peregrines and lanners, but conservation measures and the resilience of miombo woodlands offer hope.
- Once-healthy populations in South Africa and Zimbabwe have collapsed, underscoring Niassa’s importance for the species’ survival.

Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
- The largely unregulated mining of rare earth minerals in Myanmar’s Kachin state is taking a heavy toll on forests, rivers and human health, according to sources and satellite imagery collected by Mongabay.
- From 2018 to 2024, townships where the mining is concentrated lost about 32,720 hectares (80,850 acres) of tree cover in subtropical and moist forests.
- Researchers say all rare earth minerals from Kachin state wind up at magnet manufacturers in China, which supply some of the world’s best-known producers of electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics.
- Myanmar’s ongoing civil war is a complicating factor in the issue, with the armed group that controls the Kachin mining sites currently renegotiating terms with Chinese companies and authorities that import the elements, while also formulating regulations for rare earth mining. Whether these will meet international standards remains to be seen, sources say.

Meet the DJs of nature, inspired by biodiversity
- Technology has allowed electronic music artists endless possibilities for mixing and creating sounds.
- Some of these artists draw inspiration from nature and biodiversity, incorporating birdsong, rainforest soundscapes and the sounds of plant and animal species into their work.
- From Frankfurt, Germany, to the Peruvian Amazon, musicians are creating music that raises awareness about the beauty of biodiversity and how it is nowadays threatened.

Rainwater reveals the hidden life of rainforest canopies, study shows
- Researchers developed a cost-effective way to collect DNA from species high in the rainforest canopy: they hung umbrellas to collect rainwater that washed through the trees.
- The method revealed 562 taxa across French Guiana’s Amazonian forests, capturing genetic signatures from elusive nocturnal mammals, poorly documented reptiles, and countless undescribed insects that traditional survey techniques consistently overlook.
- Comparative analysis showed old-growth forests harbored 1.3 to 1.9 times greater species diversity than in nearby managed plantations.
- This simple technique provides local communities and conservationists with a practical way to monitor their forests, as each raindrop carries genetic evidence of the species present in the area over time.

New gecko species findings highlight threats to Cambodia’s limestone hills
- Researchers have described three new gecko species in northwestern Cambodia’s limestone hills and are eager to conduct further research, but recent border clashes with Thailand have disrupted their studies.
- The region’s limestone karst landscape is a biodiversity hotspot that could harbor many species yet unknown to science.
- These areas are also threatened by the growing demand for cement, made from limestone.

Leopards and wild dogs are thriving in Zambia’s Kafue National Park
Camera-trap images from a section of Kafue National Park in Zambia show conservation efforts are paying off: Populations of leopards, wild dogs and lions are all growing, Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott reported in July. Truscott interviewed Chisomo M’hango, trainee field ecologist at Musekese Conservation (MC), a nonprofit monitoring wildlife in the Musekese-Lumbeya section of the park. […]
Edward McNabb, pioneer of conservation bioacoustics died on May 7, aged 81
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For most people, the bush falls silent after dark. For Edward McNabb, it came alive. In the folds of night across the forests in the Australian state of Victoria, he attuned himself to sounds few others could name: […]
Arboreal camera traps reveal wildlife feasting on Borneo’s fruiting fig trees
Camera traps installed high in the rainforest canopy in Malaysian Borneo have filmed a bounty of threatened primates, hornbills and a host of tree-dwelling animals feasting on figs. Biologists from Malaysia-based nonprofit 1StopBorneo Wildlife, along with Sabah Parks and local conservationists, scaled two enormous fig trees in Tawau Hills National Park in Sabah state to […]
Saving polar bears and beluga whales: Interview with Alysa McCall
- Beluga Cam is a long-running initiative that aims to document the migration of almost 57,000 beluga whales through Hudson Bay in Canada.
- The project is run by the nonprofit Polar Bears International in a bid to collect more data about beluga migration as well as to create more awareness about the species.
- The initiative got an upgrade this year with a new boat that houses the cameras and other equipment deployed for the work.
- As the Arctic rapidly loses sea ice, species such as beluga whales and polar bears bear the brunt in terms of losing access to food and their habitats.

In rare triumph, camera traps snap endangered wildcats in Pakistan
- Conservationists in Pakistan have snapped incredibly rare images of two small cat species: the Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schmitzi) and the sand cat (Felis margarita).
- The 2025 caracal image comes after two other sightings in the country were captured on camera phones.
- Very little is known about caracal and sand cat populations in the country. Though both species are of least concern at the global level, they’re highly endangered in Pakistan.
- Conservationists say they’re hopeful these sightings will spur interest in small cat species in Pakistan and encourage greater protection and targeted conservation measures.

Videos capture an unlikely alliance between ocelots and opossums in the Amazon
Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In the Peruvian Amazon, a series of curious encounters has left biologists scratching their heads. Camera traps have captured an unexpected partnership: solitary, nocturnal ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) strolling alongside common opossums (Didelphis marsupialis). Not once, but four times, […]
Bicolored waterberry: The overlooked tree shaping Zambia’s rivers
- The bicolored waterberry (Syzygium guineense subsp. barotsense) is a dominant tree along the Kafue and other major Zambian rivers, where it plays a vital structural and ecological role.
- Though capable of self-pollination, the tree’s flowers attract bees, birds and moths, creating vibrant micro-ecosystems in its canopy.
- While not currently threatened, riparian clearing poses local risks, and the trees’ value to pollinators may offer a path to conservation.

River of giants: Canoe team tracks hippos in one of Africa’s last strongholds
- A team from The Wilderness Project has conducted a survey of hippos along Zambia’s Kafue River, one of the last strongholds of the species in Southern Africa.
- The expedition faced regular close encounters with hippos, which are highly territorial and can be dangerous to people, especially when traveling by boat.
- The team counted nearly 2,400 hippos, most of them along a 350-kilometer (217-mile) stretch of the Kafue within the Kafue National Park and adjoining protected areas, underscoring the park’s conservation importance.
- Despite their ecological significance as ecosystem engineers, hippos remain understudied and increasingly vulnerable to habitat loss and pollution, including upstream mining spills.

‘Hopeful sign’ as Eurasian otter reappears in Malaysia after a decade
Camera traps in Tangkulap Forest Reserve in Malaysia’s Sabah state have photographed a Eurasian otter — a grainy image of an individual ambling next to a waterbody. This is the first confirmed sighting of the species in Malaysia in more than a decade, bringing cheer to conservationists. The last confirmed Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) sighting […]
Wildlife & tourists on the up in Zambia’s Kafue Park: Q&A with manager Craig Reid
- Zambia’s Kafue National Park, co-managed by Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife and conservation NGO African Parks, is home to up to 22 different species of antelopes, the highest diversity in Africa, more than 500 species of birds and at least 2,400 hippos in the river from which the park takes its name.
- Park manager Craig Reid says the nine game management areas that provide a buffer zone around the park have been modified in one way or another — including by climate-affected farmers and livestock herders — and illegal hunting also poses a threat to the core zone’s ecological integrity, as does pollution from mining and large settlements upstream.
- But, he says, around 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of the GMA buffer remains completely unsettled, and the park and the stretch of the Kafue that runs through it are doing well – more than $4 million worth of fish is sustainably caught within its boundaries every year.
- African Parks plans to introduce as many as 60 black rhinos to Kafue NP in the coming years and has already reestablished a thriving population of Kafue lechwe, a wetlands antelope unique to this landscape.

‘Croc on a rock’: How a group of explorers suffers for science
- A team from The Wilderness Project is traversing Zambia’s Kafue River by canoe, collecting ecological data as part of a long-term survey.
- The expedition involves grueling portages over sharp, slippery rocks, close encounters with crocodiles and hippos and physically demanding conditions.
- Researchers gather DNA from fish and invasive crayfish, record nocturnal wildlife sounds and retrace a sampling transect first surveyed the year before.
- Despite the challenges, moments of beauty and wildlife encounters — from elephant herds to misty hornbill flights — punctuate the journey.

A success story at Zambia’s leopard hotspot: Interview with ecologist Chisomo M’hango
- At the Musekese Conservation research station, deep in Zambia’s Kafue National Park, trainee field ecologist Chisomo M’hango analyzes camera trap images of leopards, lions and wild dogs.
- M’hango and colleagues have identified 95 individual leopards, one of the highest densities of this vulnerable species anywhere in Southern Africa.
- The camera traps have caught relatively few lions, likely due to lack of prey in an area where widespread hunting of large antelopes has taken place for decades; M’hango says lion numbers are starting to rise, signaling renewed efforts to prevent poaching in the park and its buffer areas is bearing fruit.
- There are also encouraging signs that populations of wild dogs are recovering, with the single pair monitored soon after Musekese’s research began in 2020 multiplying into three healthy packs of this gregarious endangered carnivore.

From cattle to crayfish, human pressures mount on Zambia’s Kafue River
- A group of scientists paddled the length of Zambia’s Kafue River to document ecological pressures, including invasive species, habitat changes and human encroachment.
- Australian red-clawed crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus) have infested the river, outcompeting native species, disrupting fisheries and altering fishing practices. The crayfish invasion spans nearly the entire 1,600-kilometer (995-mile) river, traced to an original introduction in 2001.
- Overgrazing and invasive plants like the giant sensitive bush are transforming some riparian zones, threatening biodiversity, including endemic species like the Kafue lechwe (Kobus leche kafuensis).
- Researchers with The Wilderness Project’s Great Spine of Africa project are using standardized field methods to monitor river health and the spread of invasive species to inform future conservation efforts.

Endangered Andean cat is imperiled by climate change and its solutions
- The Andean cat is an endangered and elusive wildcat species found in the high Andes Mountain regions of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
- The species is exceedingly rare across its entire range and researchers must endure high altitudes, reduced oxygen levels and adverse weather conditions to study and monitor widely scattered populations.
- Climate change and our attempts to curb it both put this small cat at risk. As the world warms, the Andean cat’s cold mountain habitat shrinks ever smaller. Global warming is also driving up demand for lithium and other rare metals for electric vehicles, with extractive industries pushing ever deeper into alpine zones.
- With low numbers and low density, addressing local threats is vital to protecting felid populations, making every single Andean cat important for species survival, researchers say. Innovative local community programs have contributed to conserving this small Latin American cat.

Mining spill highlights need to protect Zambia’s vital Kafue River & its fish
- Researchers from The Wilderness Project (TWP) are documenting fish diversity along Zambia’s Kafue River to build a DNA reference library.
- The TWP scientists are collecting fin clippings and environmental DNA to help identify species, including some potentially new to science, without needing to catch them in the future.
- The river, a vital source of food and income for local communities, suffered from major pollution in February when a mine waste dam failed upstream.
- Protected stretches of the river within Kafue National Park offer crucial refuge for fish and other aquatic life, enabling recolonization after environmental shocks like toxic spills.

Agencies race to prevent new food crisis as locusts return to northern Africa
- Swarms of desert locusts are moving across parts of North Africa following ideal breeding conditions in late 2024 and early 2025, raising fears of major locust infestations moving south into the Sahel later this year.
- The Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in the Western Region (CLCPRO) has conducted joint surveys and provided equipment and vehicles to strengthen ground response in countries like Libya and Tunisia.
- Mobile apps are helping to integrate Indigenous knowledge and local observations with enhanced satellite and remote monitoring of areas where desert locusts breed.
- These and other efforts are working to keep up with climate change, which has enhanced conditions that spur desert locust outbreaks, and regional insecurity which undermines already patchy monitoring of outbreaks on the ground.

DNA sequencing to meet global biodiversity goals: Interview with Tyler Kartzinel
- A new study has highlighted gaps in reference databases that are required by scientists for DNA sequencing, especially in tropical biodiversity hotspots around the world.
- DNA technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, but the lack of extensive reference databases makes species identification a challenge, especially in remote areas.
- The lead author of the study emphasizes the need to ramp up work to create these databases, especially as the world works toward critical goals to protect ecosystems and the biodiversity that lives in them.

Another way to check the health of a coral reef: Study the microbes in the seawater
- An increasingly common way to keep tabs on coral reef health is by measuring microorganisms in the local seawater.
- Microbial-based coral reef monitoring is excellent at detecting nutrient and health changes on a reef and can draw attention to environmental disturbances; microbes are particularly good at sending such signals because they react quickly to pollution.
- This type of monitoring can help provide a fuller, faster and lower-cost picture of reef health than visual surveys alone, the most common current method.
- Two marine scientists explain the “why” and the “how” of microbial-based reef monitoring in a recent paper.

First elephant sighting in 6 years sparks hope for species’ return to a Senegal park
- A camera trap has captured video of an elephant for the first time in six years in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park, reviving hopes that the species may still survive in the park after their near disappearance due to poaching and habitat loss.
- Ousmane, a hybrid of African forest and savanna elephants, is the first confirmed sighting since 2019, sparking discussions about reintroducing a small herd to reestablish a breeding population.
- Ongoing conservation efforts, including more than $6 million in investment and strengthened antipoaching patrols, have helped wildlife populations in Niokolo-Koba recover, leading to its removal from UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger List in 2024.

After years of silence, Indonesia moves to assess its iconic wildlife
- Indonesia, home to critically endangered orangutans, elephants, tigers and rhinos, has gone nearly two decades without official updates on the populations of some key species.
- Under the previous forestry minister, population surveys and conservation plans were shelved or retracted, and relationships with conservation organizations were often tense.
- Under new leadership, the ministry has signaled that initiating wildlife surveys and publishing population and habitat viability analyses (PHVAs) are key priorities, and surveys of several key species are already underway.
- While welcoming pro-science statements from environment authorities, conservationists caution that data remain alarmingly deficient for many species, and that updating surveys is time-consuming and expensive — a particular concern given recent cuts to the ministry’s budget.

Scientists rediscover a Mexican rabbit they hadn’t seen in 120 years
- Lost to science for more than a century, the Omiltemi cottontail rabbit has been confirmed by scientists to be alive and hopping in southern Mexico.
- The species was rediscovered via interviews with local communities and footage from camera traps intended to photograph jaguars.
- Sierra Madre del Sur in the state of Guerrero is the only place in the world where the Omiltemi cottontail is known to exist.
- Satellite data show continued forest loss within its known range, while hunting for food by local communities remains another threat to the species.

Countries failing to stop illegal bird killings despite 2030 commitment: Report
Most countries that pledged to reduce the number of birds being illegally killed along an important migratory route in Europe and the Mediterranean region are failing to do so, a new report shows. For the report, conservation organizations BirdLife International and EuroNatur tracked the progress of 46 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, […]
Radio tags help reveal the secret lives of tiger salamanders
- Scientists are using radio telemetry to map out the home range and habitats of tiger salamanders in the Hamptons in New York.
- Tiger salamanders spend most of their time in burrows underground; they emerge during breeding season and lay eggs in seasonal pools.
- Studying their movements and how far they move from the pools is challenging because of their underground lifestyle.
- With the help of radio transmitters, scientists have found that the salamanders move greater distances than previously thought; they were also found to burrow under fields.

Brazil antideforestation operation blacklists more than 500 farms in the Amazon
The Brazilian government blocked 545 rural properties in the Amazonian state of Pará from selling crops and livestock both domestically and internationally, citing illegal deforestation, according to a May 6 announcement by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. The announcement marks one of Brazil’s largest uses of remote sensing to sanction agriculture activity associated […]
Rectifying the damage: environmental fines in the Brazilian Amazon
- Companies and individuals committing environmental crimes will often be requested to pay fines, but critics say that the amounts imposed by authorities often do not reflect the extent of the damage done.
- Many environmental fines remain unpaid or are contested in the courts until the statute of limitations is reached.
- The current administration in Brazil has reversed a decree by the former Bolsonaro regime which pardoned more than 180,000 cases involving environmental fines.

Attacks on Cambodian environmental journalist continue to pile up
- Cambodian environmental journalist Ouk Mao was attacked by a group of men, apparently including a former police officer, while documenting illegal logging in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, following a pattern of escalating harassment and threats.
- Mao has faced numerous legal challenges, including defamation and incitement charges, that he claims are retaliation for exposing environmental crimes, with local officials allegedly trying to silence his work.
- Cambodia’s crackdown on critical journalism has intensified, with Mao’s case reflecting a broader decline in press freedom, as highlighted by the country’s plummeting rank in the 2025 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedoms Index.
- Advocacy groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists and Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association warn that the lack of accountability for attacks on journalists has created a dangerous environment for those reporting on illegal logging and other sensitive issues.

In Cameroon’s forgotten forests, gorillas and chimps hang on
- Many forest reserves in southern Cameroon, despite being highly degraded and fragmented, harbor significant biodiversity.
- A recent study using camera traps in two such forest reserves captured the first evidence of great apes — a gorilla and several chimpanzees — foraging in and navigating the mosaic of fragmented landscapes.
- Some of the videos show apes and humans using the same parts of the forests at different times, highlighting the risk of human-ape conflicts that could impact the already threatened great apes.
- Conservationists say the presence of great apes outside protected areas indicates the need to protect these areas, and that further research is needed to understand how great apes use fragmented landscapes close to human communities.

Indonesia’s deforestation claims under scrutiny over ‘cherry-picked’ data
- Researchers say Indonesia’s claim of a 90% deforestation drop over the past decade is misleading due to cherry-picked data and an extreme baseline year.
- The actual decline is closer to 50-69%, driven by earlier policies and reduced forest availability in many regions.
- Deforestation is rising again, especially in Papua and Sulawesi, fueled by palm oil, pulpwood, and mining expansion.
- Civil society groups are crucial in tracking and exposing forest loss amid conflicting government policies and rising environmental threats.

‘Puma detectives’ highlight wildlife where Brazil’s Cerrado meets the Atlantic Forest
- A project in the Brazilian state of Goiás is monitoring the routes and distances traveled by pumas, known locally as suçuaranas, to understand how the species lives in environments that have been modified by human activities.
- The mapping is fundamental for strengthening the research carried out inside the ecological corridor stretching between two important state parks in Goiás, one in the Cerrado savanna biome and the other in the coastal Atlantic Forest.
- The project, called Suçuaranas Detetives (Puma Detectives) is part of a broader project involving education and awareness-building programs on peaceful coexistence between rural communities and the ecosystems in Brazil’s central regions.

Study reveals untold, and unprotected, wildlife wealth of Nepal’s Madhesh province
- The first comprehensive vertebrate survey in Nepal’s Madhesh province has documented 163 fish, 24 amphibian, 578 bird and 90 mammal species, highlighting the region’s ecological significance despite a lack of protected areas.
- Infrastructure expansion and human-wildlife conflict pose challenges to the province’s biodiversity, fueled by rapid development of roads and railway lines.
- Researchers call for multilevel conservation strategies, including stronger wildlife laws, school-based awareness programs, establishing ecological corridors, and translocating conflict-prone species to tiger habitats.

Listening to whales is key to their conservation
Biological oceanographer John Ryan joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss his team’s multiyear study that examined vocalizations of baleen whales, including blue (Balaenoptera musculus), humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), and how this science is critical for understanding their feeding habits, and thus informing their conservation. The study found that these whales’ songs rise […]
Fishing cats misunderstood, misidentified in Nepal’s Kapilvastu
- Fishing cats in Nepal are often misunderstood and mistaken for leopards or blamed for fish losses, leading to retaliation and conflict with fish farmers.
- Surveillance measures like CCTV and myths have fueled fear and misinformation, despite little evidence showing fishing cats as major threats to aquaculture.
- A conservation initiative called “fish banks” tried to reduce conflict by compensating farmers with fish instead of money but had mixed results and eventually lost funding.
- Experts emphasize the need for science-based conservation, better population data and public education to protect fishing cats and promote coexistence in human-altered landscapes.

Nepal announces its snow leopard population after first-of-its-kind assessment
- Nepal has released its first consolidated national estimate of snow leopards, placing the population at 397 individuals, after synthesizing multiple studies conducted between 2015 and 2024.
- Despite covering just 2% of global snow leopard habitat, Nepal hosts nearly 10% of the global population, making it the fourth largest population of the species.
- The estimate contributes to the Population Assessment of the World’s Snow Leopards (PAWS), a global initiative aiming for standardized and robust population assessments across all 12 snow leopard range countries.
- While the estimate is a milestone, it’s based on just 43% of Nepal’s potential snow leopard habitat, with key areas like Dhorpatan and Api-Nampa still under-surveyed.

Indonesia strengthens forest monitoring with new tool to meet EU deforestation law
- Indonesia is stepping up traceability efforts to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which bans imports of deforestation-linked commodities like palm oil, timber and coffee starting in December 2025.
- A new platform, Ground Truthed.id (GTID), combines field-based evidence and geolocation data to detect and document environmental violations in real time, offering a bottom-up alternative to satellite-reliant systems.
- GTID emphasizes collaboration with Indigenous peoples, civil society and law enforcement, using a verification process to turn grassroots reports into legally actionable cases.
- The platform is expected to complement a government-run traceability dashboard by acting as an independent watchdog, helping prevent illegally sourced or conflict-ridden products from entering international supply chains.

Vital Mekong fish corridors tracked for first time, but funding cuts threaten future research
- By implanting fish with small electronic transmitters, researchers were able to track key migration corridors in the Mekong River.
- The findings underscore the threat that dozens of planned dams along the Mekong will cut off these vital migratory paths.
- The study, which the lead author describes as a “pilot effort,” was funded by USAID; the funding gap caused by the U.S. foreign aid freeze leaves the future of such research in question.

AI uncovers how birds remix their songs over time
- A new study has confirmed the belief that birdsongs evolve as a result of age, population dynamics and movement of the birds.
- Researchers gathered thousands of hours of audio of great tits (Parus major) and used artificial intelligence to analyze songs in the data.
- They found that birds that move around a lot tended to know the popular songs, while the ones that didn’t had pockets with unique songs.
- While older birds were found to act as repositories of old songs, mixed-age bird communities were found to have more song diversity.

2 Mongabay podcasts shortlisted for 2025 Publisher Podcast Awards
Podcasts from Mongabay and Mongabay India have been shortlisted in two categories of the 2025 Publisher Podcast Awards. Media Voices, the weekly publication behind the award, announced the shortlist for the Publisher Podcast Awards last week. Episodes from Mongabay Explores, hosted by Mike DiGirolamo, and Mongabay India’s Wild Frequencies were both shortlisted in the “Best […]
New bat detection system in India promises more efficient data collection
Studying insect-eating bats isn’t easy: they’re tiny, fly at night, and navigate using ultrasonic frequencies far above human hearing range. But experts in India have come up with a potential solution to make long-duration bat research easier: they’ve devised an automated, solar-powered instrument called BatEchoMon that continuously listens for bat calls in the surrounding landscape, […]
Deep-sea shark recorded on video for first time using low-cost camera
Most of what’s known about the deep-sea painted swellshark, was learned when researchers found specimens in the fish markets of Bali and Lombok, Indonesia back in the early 2000s. However, a recent survey in Timor-Leste used low-cost deep-sea cameras to observe the painted swellshark in the wild for the first time. Researchers recorded footage of […]
Scientists team up for Snapshot USA nationwide mammal survey
- Snapshot USA is an annual project that aims to collate camera-trap data on mammals from across the country.
- Since it was launched in 2019, the project has received data from universities, Native American reservations, non-profit organizations and others from across the U.S.
- Over the past six years, the project has gathered data that include more than 1 million image captures of mammals from about 16 million raw images.
- By establishing a standardized survey protocol to camera-trap mammals, the team at Snapshot USA says it hopes to create a data set that can be used to formulate effective conservation strategies.

Traffic noise turns Galápagos warblers into angry birds
Traffic noise isn’t just unpleasant; in the Galápagos Islands, it can also make songbirds aggressive, a recent study has found. Once famed for their undisturbed natural ecosystems, the Galápagos Islands have seen a rise in road infrastructure and traffic in recent decades. Researchers wanted to understand how birds react to the increased noise. So they […]
Panama conducts large illegal fishing bust in protected Pacific waters
- Panamanian authorities seized six longliner vessels on Jan. 20 for fishing illegally in protected waters. They also opened an investigation into an additional 10 vessels that surveillance data showed had apparently been fishing in the area but left by the time authorities arrived.
- The seizures took place in the Cordillera de Coiba, a marine protected area that’s part of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, which connects several MPAs in four countries. It was the largest illegal fishing bust in the history of Panama’s MPAs.
- The vessels, whose activity is still under investigation, were Panamanian-flagged, meaning they were registered in the country, but the identity and nationality of the owners isn’t clear.
- The surveillance work in the case was done in part through Skylight, an AI-powered fisheries intelligence platform, and was supported by a group of fisheries monitoring nonprofits.

Surgically implanted tags offer rare insight into rehabilitated sea turtles
In 2021, the New England Aquarium in the U.S. state of Massachusetts began surgically implanting acoustic tags in rescued loggerhead sea turtles before returning them to the ocean. Four years on, these tags are providing a rare peek into where rehabilitated turtles travel. “Surgically implanted acoustic transmitters have been used for many years in many […]
Both legal and illegal wildlife trade ‘need better monitoring’: Interview with Alice Hughes
- The legal wildlife trade is worth $220 billion annually and involves at least 70,000 species, yet data on its sustainability is scarce, especially for species not listed under CITES, the global wildlife trade convention.
- CITES only covers a fraction of traded species, and most countries lack standardized, publicly available trade data, making it difficult to assess threats to biodiversity.
- The rise of online marketplaces and demand for exotic pets, including lesser-known species like arachnids and woodlice, is driving unsustainable harvesting, often before regulations can catch up.
- Researcher Alice Hughes, from the University of Hong Kong, proposes shifting to a “green listing” system where only preapproved species can be traded, combined with real-time monitoring, genetic barcoding, and digital tracking to improve enforcement and sustainability.

Counting whales by eavesdropping on their chatter, with help from machine learning
- Scientists have combined passive acoustic monitoring, machine-learning tools and aerial surveys to estimate the population of North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay.
- Using the method, researchers from Cornell University in the U.S. were able to estimate the daily population of the whales over a period of four months.
- While passive acoustic monitoring has helped scientists around the world detect the presence of whales, it’s often challenging to estimate population numbers from the data, especially for species like North Atlantic right whales that have highly variable call rates.

Whale songs rise and fall with food supply, study finds.
Each year, during summer and fall, large groups of baleen whales gather off the coast of California, U.S., to feast on krill and fish before heading south to breeding areas in the tropics. It’s a crucial time for whales to fatten up, and a new study suggests some whale species announce an abundance of food […]
Sri Lanka calls for five-minute surveys to identify crop-raiding animals
- Sri Lanka’s agriculture suffers significant losses due to crop-raiding wildlife, especially elephants, monkeys, wild boars, giant squirrels, porcupines, and peafowls.
- An island-wide, citizen-assisted count of wild animals on agriculture land and in home gardens is planned for Mar. 15, lasting five minutes starting 8 a.m.
- Crop-raiding wild animals remain a significant challenge in Sri Lanka as cultivations suffer but the problem is exacerbated by limited scientific data, prohibitive costs and public opposition to certain solutions like culling.
- The forthcoming survey excludes major nocturnal raiders such as elephants, wild boars, and porcupines, raising questions on the effectiveness of the exercise, while some consider it a step in the right direction.

First Niger Delta red colobus monkey videos reflect community conservation success
Camera traps installed in December 2024 in a community conservation area in the Niger Delta have captured the first videos of elusive and critically endangered red colobus monkeys. The news comes after years of community efforts to protect their habitat following degradation from oil extraction. So far, camera traps have recorded 15 videos that show […]
Camera trap films two rare black wolves in Poland
A camera trap placed inside a forest in Poland has filmed two rare black wolves crossing a stream, SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland announced recently. Originally set up to record beavers that were building a dam in the water, the camera ended up capturing the black wolves on film twice: once in the summer of […]
Mammals, birds in Vietnam’s rare coastal forests revealed by camera traps
- A new camera-trapping study has found several rare and threatened species in Vietnam’s Nui Chua National Park, home to one of mainland Southeast Asia’s last remnants of dry coastal forest.
- However, the findings also indicate intense pressure on wildlife populations within the reserve from habitat fragmentation and snaring.
- The study found a relatively high diversity of species in transitional habitats between different types of forest, indicating a need for more nuanced conservation planning to target localized measures, the authors say.
- The findings reaffirm the importance of Vietnam’s dry coastal forests for biodiversity and the need for strengthened protection to reduce pressure on wildlife from snaring and habitat degradation.

Surge in rat numbers linked to climate warming, urbanization: Study
What’s new: Cities experiencing warmer temperatures, fewer green spaces and denser human populations are seeing a rise in rat numbers, a recent study shows. What the study says: Jonathan Richardson, a biology professor at the University of Richmond, U.S., and his colleagues wanted to check if anecdotal media claims about increasing urban rat (Rattus spp.) […]
How to tell if mangrove restoration is working? Listen to the birds
- Mangrove restoration is often motivated by the desire to bring back biodiversity to degraded coastlines, but it’s difficult to know exactly when that objective has been achieved.
- Researchers in Malaysia say that monitoring mangrove-dwelling bird communities using bioacoustics could be a game-changer for managers tracking mangrove ecosystem recovery.
- Bioacoustics, the use of audio recording devices to listen to animals in their natural habitats, is increasingly being used as a rapid and relatively cost-effective way of measuring ecosystem health.
- The new study found bird species richness increases across a range of mangrove forest characteristics, including greater canopy cover, tree height and ground cover, indicating birds could serve as useful indicators of mangrove health.

Camera traps capture first glimpse of genetically distinct chimps in southwestern Nigeria
In a win for Nigeria’s only Indigenous grassroots conservation organization, camera traps installed in Ise Conservation Area have captured the first known video of a resident Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee. The individual, seen swinging between tree branches and feeding on figs, is a mature male in his prime, said Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh, founder director of the South-West/Niger […]
Leopards’ unique ‘sawing’ sounds could aid conservation efforts
- Leopards frequently make a distinctive, deep, guttural roar that is sometimes called “sawing” because it sounds like someone manually cutting wood.
- In a study published in the journal of Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, researchers discovered that by examining these sounds using a method called bioacoustics, they can monitor far wider areas.
- In Tanzania’s Nyerere National Park, the team used a camera trap and autonomous recordings to survey large African carnivores. They were able to identify individual leopards by their vocalizations with up to 93% accuracy.
- According to a specialist who was not involved in the study, identifying and tracking leopards by their roars demonstrates how cutting-edge concepts and tools can be used to unearth intriguing new information about the natural world.

Survey uncovers ‘wildlife treasure’ in Cambodian park — but also signs of threats
- A survey of a little-known patch of forest on Cambodia’s border with Thailand has uncovered a “treasure of wildlife,” including potentially new-to-science plant species.
- The Samlout Multiple Use Area was established 30 years ago to conserve natural resources while also developing economic activities, but deforestation rates in the region have matched the national average.
- The survey, conducted by Fauna & Flora and commissioned by the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, found about 140 bird, 30 mammal, 15 bat and 50 orchid species.
- But camera traps used in the survey also recorded the presence of armed humans in the area and evidence of snare traps, prompting calls for improved protection by law enforcement agencies.

Satellite ‘backpacks’ help keep track of parrot migration in Mexico
- Scientists and conservationists have deployed lightweight satellite backpacks, containing transmitters, to study and understand the migration patterns of thick-billed parrots.
- Teams from San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in the U.S. and conservation NGO Organización Vida Silvestre in Mexico have gathered more than 70,000 data points over four years.
- The data helped them identify corridors that are critical for the birds’ movements; they also served to justify the designation of protected areas that are important for the birds.
- Thick-billed parrots, known for their raucous calls, are an endangered species endemic to Mexico; illegal logging in recent years has led to the degradation of their habitats.

Smart tags reveal migratory bats are storm-front surfers
What’s new: Some bats, like birds, migrate long distances. But these long-distance bat migrations have been somewhat of a mystery to researchers, especially since only a few species embark on them. Now, in a new study, researchers have mapped the odyssey of common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) using innovative tiny trackers. And the results have […]
Meet Africa’s most lethal cat: the black-footed cat
In this episode of Candid Animal Cam meet the African black-footed cat (Felis nigripes), one of the continent’s rarest and most lethal predators. Found only in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana, this tiny feline is known for its remarkable hunting accuracy—striking its prey 60% of the time, far outpacing even tigers. However, despite her prowess, […]
Companies banking on tech and collaboration to comply with EUDR
- The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which takes effect at the end of 2025, will require companies to trace commodity origins along the entire supply chain to ensure they’re deforestation-free.
- Technological solutions, such as satellite data and precise digital mapping, have become essential tools to assess deforestation risks and ensure compliance across complex supply chains.
- Tech isn’t a silver bullet though, experts say, and the best results will blend technological tools, strong partnerships and human collaboration across the supply chain.
- Smallholders in particular risk exclusion from global markets due to challenges in meeting EUDR compliance, especially due to limited access to technology and data tools.

Bangladesh adopts new technology to fight wildlife crimes
- Bangladesh’s forest department has recently included modern technologies and tools to strengthen its crime combat arsenal, after having lagged behind its surrounding countries for over a decade.
- So far, Bangladesh’s wildlife crime control is mostly dependent on volunteers connected by telecommunication and social media.
- Experts say use of technology helps deploy the country’s limited resources to address wildlife crime and prevent wildlife deaths more effectively.

Sea change for soy champion Brazil as it wrestles with EUDR compliance
- A dry run of a shipment of soy by commodities trader Cargill from Brazil to Europe, replicating the requirements to comply with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), found that although the company met several requirements, it still faced other challenges.
- The EUDR, initially planned to come into effect this month and recently postponed for another year, will require suppliers to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from illegally deforested areas.
- To comply with the EUDR requirements, companies from the soy industry are setting up new business structures to provide 100% traceability point by point from the producer to the port, until it enters the ship, in addition to tackling logistics challenges, says the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove).
- California-based nonprofit CTrees says it’s uncertain whether the EUDR will result in a significant reduction in deforestation, and raised concerns on the potential exclusion of smallholders and local communities from the supply chain because of the difficulty of getting them to meet compliance requirements.

‘Wild Frequencies’: Podcast miniseries from India explores wild animal sounds
Watching wild animals can be exhilarating, educational and a richly rewarding experience. But spotting wildlife and keeping them in sight is often challenging. So wildlife researchers are increasingly turning to learning about animals through the sounds they produce. A new podcast series by Mongabay India titled “Wild Frequencies” explores this emerging science of bioacoustics in […]
Golden jackals thrive in mangroves of Indian megacity Mumbai: Study
The wolf-like golden jackal still thrives in some parts of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, according to a new study, reports contributor Sneha Mahale for Mongabay India. Historically, the golden jackal (Canis aureus) could be spotted in several areas of southern Mumbai, study co-author Nikit Surve, research manager at Wildlife Conservation Society-India told Mongabay India. “Today, […]
Coffee agroforestry promises a path to EUDR compliance, but challenges remain
- Companies in the coffee sector have begun preparing for compliance with the EU’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR); among them are Nespresso and commodity trader Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC).
- For both companies, the pathway to regulatory alignment involves previous commitments to eliminating deforestation from their supply chains and sourcing coffee from farms employing agroforestry and regenerative agriculture methods.
- International NGOs such as the Rainforest Alliance are supporting companies and farmers in implementing best practices and meeting EUDR requirements.
- Despite considerable progress in the coffee sector, challenges remain, particularly in enforcing deforestation-free practices within supply chains, overcoming financial constraints, and distinguishing “forest” from “agroforest” through satellite imagery.

Agribusiness giant Olam gets head start on EUDR; its suppliers, not so much
- Some smallholder farmers, associations and suppliers in exporting countries are concerned about their readiness for the EU’s antideforestation law due to a lack of technology, information and resources.
- Meanwhile, leading agricultural commodity businesses such as Olam Agri and ofi say they expect to be ready before the legislation comes into force at the end of 2025.
- Olam Agri and ofi say they’ve developed and implemented advanced traceability and information systems to meet regulatory requirements, as well as other tools and technologies.
- But independent experts warn that pressure to meet the law’s obligations are leading to large companies dropping suppliers who aren’t ready, and pushing smallholders to switch to crops where traceability and sustainability aren’t strict requirements.

Internet crackdown shrinks already constrained room for activism in Vietnam
- Vietnam’s shrinking civil space has gotten even smaller with the issuance of a new decree on online activity, impacting environmental activists among others.
- The decree requires, among other things, that platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok maintain a server in-country that stores user data that the government can inspect whenever it wants.
- Social network users must also verify their accounts with local phone numbers or IDs, making it “impossible to remain anonymous on social media to comment on sensitive political issues,” an activist says.
- The new online restrictions follow a similar real-world tightening of civic space, with nonprofits required to legally register, and public gatherings also constrained.

Even for ‘progressive’ Danone, complying with EUDR is a challenge
- The EU deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) requires companies importing cocoa, cattle, rubber, soy, wood, palm oil and coffee into the EU to demonstrate their products weren’t grown on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020.
- French dairy giant Danone works with soy, cocoa and palm oil — products subject to the EUDR, which goes into effect at the end of 2025.
- In general, Danone’s sustainability policies have been better than most, outsider observers said. But it still has a lot of work to do to ensure 100% of its supply chain is free of deforestation and land conversion.

Brazil paper and pulp industry invests in blockchain to comply with EUDR
- Brazil’s paper and pulp industry says the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR), which will come into effect in late 2025, won’t affect the sector’s operations, which has already traced its supply chains “from farm to factory” for more than two decades and doesn’t source from illegal deforested areas.
- The EUDR will require suppliers to prove that their products exported to the EU aren’t sourced from illegally deforested areas; in Brazil, experts say it will help halt illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- To fulfill some specific EUDR requirements, companies need to invest in blockchain and other technologies, which could increase the cost per ton of pulp by up to $230, according to the Brazilian Tree Industry (Ibá).
- The EUDR postponement was received differently by the industry and experts: While Ibá says it would allow “a smoother and more effective implementation,” given some aspects that need improvement from the EU Commission, deforestation experts say there is no time to wait, as deforestation continues and the climate crisis gets worse.

Satellites and lidar get AI boost to count forest carbon stock worldwide
- A newly launched tool combines satellite images, lidar data and artificial intelligence to estimate carbon stored in forests around the world.
- The Forest Carbon Monitoring tool, developed by Earth-imaging company Planet, trained an AI model using the organization’s archival satellite data and globally available lidar data.
- The model is now being used in conservation efforts as well as in the voluntary carbon market.

Colliding icebergs and chirping seals: Polar ocean sounds are reimagined in art-science collaboration
- The United Nations declared the 2020s the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to highlight the need for public engagement, citizenship, and connection to harness positive change for the world’s seas.
- Art and science collaborations can make the hidden depths of the oceans come alive for people via creative pieces drawing from real marine research.
- Researchers in Germany and artists from around the world united to highlight the sounds of the polar oceans through art projects created with recordings from the Ocean Acoustics Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute.

Using science to fight deforestation: Interview with World Forest ID’s Jade Saunders & Andrew Lowe
- World Forest ID, a nonprofit consortium of research organizations, uses chemical and genetic profiling techniques to trace timber to the location where it was grown and harvested.
- The technique has been used to locate the origin of wood in the European Union and to keep a check on the import of products made with sanctioned Russian timber.
- The organization is now working to expand its database to include soy, cocoa and coffee to be able to use its technique when the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) comes into effect.

Camera traps, drones meant for wildlife can ‘spy’ on women: Study
Technologies like camera traps and drones have made monitoring wildlife in forests easier than ever. However, a new study has found that in a protected area in northern India, these devices also end up watching and harassing women who use those forest spaces. “These findings have caused quite a stir amongst the conservation community,” Chris […]
New transmission lines cut a Cambodian rainforest sanctuary in half
- Satellite imagery, drone photography and testimony from residents indicate that work has begun on electricity transmission lines that will cut through the heart of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in order to connect Cambodia’s energy grid with that of Laos.
- A 5.8-kilometer-long (3.6-mile) strip of land has already been cleared inside Prey Lang, indicating that plans are moving forward to run the transmission lines 65 km (40 mi) through the sanctuary.
- Conservationists, and even the former environment minister, recommended alternate routes avoiding the core of the forest, leading one expert to question whether the lines have been deliberately sited to facilitate access by timber traffickers and land investors.

Camera traps reveal little-known Sumatran tiger forests need better protection
- A new camera-trapping study in Indonesia’s Aceh province has identified an ample but struggling population of Sumatran tigers, lending fresh urgency to calls from conservationists for greater protection efforts in the critically endangered subspecies’ northernmost stronghold forests.
- The study focused on the Ulu Masen Ecosystem, an expanse of unprotected and little-studied forest connected to the better-known Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth that houses rhinos, tigers, elephants and orangutans.
- The big cat population and its prey likely contend with intense poaching pressure, the study concludes; their forest home is also under threat from development pressure, illegal logging, rampant mining and agricultural encroachment.
- As a key part of the Leuser–Ulu Masen Tiger Conservation Landscape, experts say Ulu Masen merits more conservation focus to protect the tigers, their prey populations and their habitats.

Tracking footprints to monitor wildlife: Interview with WildTrack’s Zoe Jewell
- WildTrack, a U.S.-based nonprofit, uses footprints as a noninvasive way of identifying and tracking wildlife.
- The organization has developed an artificial intelligence model that can identify 17 species, including rhinos, lions, leopards and polar bears.
- The footprint identification model has been used to identify the home range of fishers in California, support antipoaching efforts in Botswana, and understand human-wildlife conflict in South America.

Camera trap survey in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains finds 108 species
What’s new: The first ever camera trap study from Cambodia’s Central Cardamom Mountains has captured footage of 108 wildlife species, including 23 that are threatened with extinction. This survey confirms the area’s importance as a biodiversity hotspot, a recent report says. What the study says: The Central Cardamom Mountain Landscape (CCML), part of the Indo-Burma […]
New brown bear ‘stronghold’ in Nepal redraws species’ range map
- A population of brown bears has been discovered in western Nepal, extending the species’ known geographical range and suggesting a potential “contact zone” between the Himalayan and Tibetan brown bear subspecies.
- Researchers from the Himalayan Wolves Project discovered the bears during camera-trap studies in the Limi Valley, which is rich in biodiversity but has seen limited ecological research compared to other regions of Nepal.
- The bears exhibit physical traits associated with the Tibetan subspecies, but genetic analysis is necessary to confirm their subspecies classification and determine if they’re hybrids.
- Research indicates that habitat for brown bears in Nepal may shrink significantly due to climate change, with predictions showing up to 82% habitat loss by 2070 if global temperatures rise by 2.7°C (4.9°F) by end-century, emphasizing the urgent need for conservation efforts.

As Nepal counts its snow leopards, even the best estimate is still a guess
- A committee of experts is combining various studies across different times and regions to estimate Nepal’s snow leopard population for the first time using new standards.
- Past studies varied in their methodology, often leading to overestimates due to sampling bias. The committee is integrating camera-trap and genetic data from fragmented research across Nepal’s snow leopard habitat landscapes.
- Unlike tigers, Nepal’s better-known big cats, snow leopards live in rugged, expansive habitats, making simultaneous surveys across all habitats impractical. Setting up extensive camera traps, as is done for tigers, would be costly and logistically challenging.
- Accurate population estimates are crucial for funding and assessing conservation impact, though the elusive nature of snow leopards means even the best estimate, backed by science, will still be an educated guess.

Satellite firm Planet’s ‘biodiversity subscription’ aims to make tech accessible
- A new initiative by Earth-imaging company Planet gives conservation organizations in biodiversity hotspots access to high-resolution, high-frequency satellite data.
- As part of Project Centinela, eight entities have received access to satellite data and analysis tools to help them track and monitor biodiversity in places including Bolivia, Costa Rica, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The organizations will have access to the data for three years as part of what Planet calls a “biodiversity subscription.”
- Planet aims to partner with 50 organizations around the world over the next three years as part of the initiative.

Local reps should lead Nepal’s conservation education: Interview with Anil Adhikari
- Author, journalist and conservationist Anil Adhikari focuses on grassroots conservation education by creating books for schoolchildren that feature local wildlife such as red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) and snow leopards (Panthera uncia), aiming to foster early environmental awareness and pride.
- Adhikari incorporates colorful illustrations and community-based stories in his books, making them more appealing and relevant for rural students whose traditional textbooks are often in black and white.
- He advocates for local governments to take responsibility for conservation education.

An inventory for acoustic monitoring: Interview with Kevin Darras
- The Worldwide Soundscapes project is a global database that documents when and where passive acoustic monitoring has been deployed to study biodiversity in terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems.
- The initiative aims to build a community of bioacoustics researchers with the goal of fostering collaboration and facilitating macro-ecological analyses.
- Passive acoustic monitoring, which involves listening in on wildlife using audio recorders, has helped scientists detect elusive species; it also helps understand complicated behavioral patterns.
- Kevin Darras, who initiated the Worldwide Soundscapes project, said the goal is to “harmonize our approaches and to benefit from each other’s experience.”

Influential Vietnamese environmentalist released from prison two years early
- Vietnamese environmental advocate Hoàng Thị Minh Hồng was quietely released from prison Sept. 28, two years ahead of the end of her sentence.
- Hồng was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion, a charge frequently levied against environmental and human rights advocates in Vietnam.
- Her release, which was not publicized in official Vietnamese media, coincides with a trip to the United States by Vietnamese General Secretary and President Tô Lâm.

Jumbo collaring effort reveals key elephant movement corridors
- Scientists and conservationists have collaborated to create what is possibly the largest database of GPS-collared elephants.
- The database contains 4 million GPS data points that were collected by collaring 300 African elephants in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, home to the largest population of African elephants in the world.
- Based on the movement of elephants, the team assessed the landscape to identify key areas and corridors for conservation purposes.
- The findings have already been used to identify small-scale movement corridors for elephants in Zambia.

Fishing in a fog: Ship noise hampers orcas’ hunting success
Underwater noise from ships is making it tough for killer whales, or orcas, to find and catch their favorite fish, a recent study has found. Orcas (Orcinus orca) rely heavily on sound to hunt. They emit ultrasonic echolocation clicks that bounce off objects. By listening for the echoes of these clicks, the orcas can identify […]
Sri Lanka completes first elephant census since 2011 amid uncertainty
- Sri Lanka recently carried out a three-day elephant survey by counting the animals as they visited watering holes across the country.
- It’s the first such survey carried out since 2011, when Sri Lanka’s minimum elephant population was estimated at 5,879.
- In the intervening period, a total of 4,262 elephants have died, many of them in conflicts with humans, so it won’t be clear until the results are published in a month’s time whether the population trend is up or down.
- Despite potential inaccuracies in the total count, the survey is expected to provide essential insights, such as the male-to-female ratio and the number of calves, which are key indicators of the health of Sri Lanka’s Asian elephant population.

Logging has a ‘lasting legacy’ on Gabonese forest soundscapes
Noncertified logging concessions in Gabon have much quieter soundscapes, a proxy for vocalizing wildlife, than either national parks or sustainably logged concessions, according to a recent study. However, forests that have never been logged are home to the highest diversity of vocalizing wildlife, researchers found. “Therefore, conserving these increasingly rare never logged forests, in combination […]
Scientists find unexpected biodiversity in an African river, thanks to eDNA
- Scientists have used environmental DNA analysis to identify 125 species of aquatic and terrestrial animals in the remote Corubal River in West Africa.
- The identified species include critically endangered animals as well as species that weren’t previously known to occur in the region.
- The Corubal flows through Guinea and Guinea-Bissau; because of its remote nature, there haven’t been a lot of large-scale attempts to study the biodiversity in the river and its basin.
- The scientists are also working to collect specimens and tissue samples from animals encountered along the river to build a DNA reference database for the future.

In Vietnam, environmental defense is increasingly a crime
- In the past two years, six prominent environmental defenders have been imprisoned in Vietnam, sending a chill across civil society in the one-party state.
- In the past, activists in Vietnam were often charged with spreading anti-state propaganda. More recently, ambiguous tax laws have been used against environmental experts and advocates, and 2023 saw the use of a novel charge: misappropriation of state documents.
- Analysts say the moves against environment defenders are part of an effort to clamp down on civil society in general, and environmental activism in particular, due to fears that such movements could serve as an engine for broad-based organizing outside of party control.

$35m debt-for-nature deal aims to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
- A $35 million debt-for-nature swap between Indonesia and the U.S. aims to conserve coral reefs in eastern Indonesia over the next nine years, with the funding offset by canceled sovereign debt payable to the U.S.
- Indonesian conservation groups and their international partners will implement ground programs to protect reefs in key areas, strengthen marine protected areas and support community livelihoods under the deal.
- While environmentalists welcomed the funding, some argued debt swaps were insufficient to address the larger environmental and development challenges faced by countries in the global south.

Indonesia, EU reconcile forest data ahead of new rules on deforestation-free trade
- The Indonesian government and its European Union counterparts are ironing out differences in their forest and commodity supply chain data ahead of a looming deadline that could shut Indonesian commodities out of the EU market.
- Under the EU’s Deforestation Regulation, commodities associated with deforestation will be barred as of next year from entering the EU market; Indonesia is a major producer of four of the seven listed commodities: palm oil, coffee, cocoa and rubber.
- To be allowed to export these commodities to the EU, producers and traders must be able to show that they weren’t sourced from land that was deforested to grow them, but the forest maps used by Indonesia and the EU have several differences that need to be reconciled.
- The EU ambassador to Indonesia says his side is working with local authorities to resolve the matter, which he attributes to the differing definition of “forest” as used by the European and Indonesian authorities.

Indian bioacoustics researchers boost wildlife conservation with exciting animal insights
For an exciting new podcast series featuring Indian scientists at the forefront of bioacoustics research, Mongabay newswire editor Shreya Dasgupta and Mongabay-India senior digital editor Kartik Chandramouli traveled across their vast country and the resulting series, Wild Frequencies, can now be heard via all podcast apps. On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Dasgupta discusses […]
Cambodia’s largest mangrove forest is ‘teeming with life,’ biodiversity survey finds
- A survey of biodiversity in Cambodia’s Pream Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary and Koh Kapik Ramsar site identified more than 700 unique species.
- The study also highlights how biodiversity is being lost due to threats including habitat loss and hunting; while this survey recorded rare species including otters and pangolin, a decade ago there would have been tigers and dugongs in the area.
- The researchers plan to conduct further surveys, focusing on the marine environment of the mangrove zone.

Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests
- Camera-trapping data revealed in a new study show a steady recovery of tigers in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex over the past two decades.
- The tiger recovery has been mirrored by a simultaneous increase in the numbers of the tigers’ prey animals, such as sambar deer and types of wild cattle.
- The authors attribute the recovery of the tigers and their prey to long-term efforts to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to restore key habitats and water sources.
- Experts say the lessons learnt can be applied to support tiger recovery in other parts of Thailand and underscore the importance of the core WEFCOM population as a vital source of tigers repopulating adjacent landscapes.

Regions with highest risks to wildlife have fewest camera traps, study finds
- Camera traps are widely used to monitor biodiversity and guide conservation actions, but a first-of-its-kind study finds the technology isn’t as prevalent in highly biodiverse areas that face the most threats from human activities, such as the Congo Basin and the Amazon Rainforest.
- Even in areas with a high number of camera-trap studies, nearly two-thirds were conducted outside the regions facing the highest risk of animal extinctions.
- Country income, accessibility, mammal diversity and biome largely determine the locations of nearly two-thirds of camera-trap research.
- Experts suggest expanding the network of camera-trap studies, building capacity among local research communities, and leveraging tools and platforms that help with data sharing and analysis to address these disparities.

Reimagining insect research: Interview with Roel van Klink and Leandro Nascimento
- Three out of every four known species on Earth are insects, but efforts to monitor, study and protect them have been lagging worldwide.
- A new themed issue published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society delves into four tech tools that have the ability to reshape insect research in the coming years.
- The issue highlights acoustic monitoring, remote sensing using radars, computer vision, and DNA sequencing as potential tools that could help scientists and researchers ramp up global insect biodiversity monitoring.

Crowdsourcing eDNA for biodiversity monitoring: Interview with Kristy Deiner
- Scientists at ETH Zurich launched a global project to gather biodiversity data from 500 lakes around the world.
- As part of LeDNA, citizen scientists from around the world collected environmental DNA samples from lakes to commemorate the U.N.’s International Day for Biological Diversity.
- With the samples, the team behind the project aims to understand more about how lakes could potentially serve as “sensors” detecting the richness of life in the catchments surrounding them.

Elusive jaguarundi inspires biologists to share data across Latin America
- The jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) is a little-known small felid with a range extending from northern Argentina to Mexico. The last confirmed sighting in the United States was in 1986.
- H. yagouaroundi is found in a variety of habitats, but is thought to occupy mostly rugged areas with good shrub cover, including near agricultural lands. Unlike most other felids, the jaguarundi is active during the day, which can easily bring it into conflict with farmers who don’t appreciate its habit of raiding chicken coops.
- Like most small, noncharismatic cat species, there’s little funding to learn more about the jaguarundi. But researchers are developing new tools, for example pooling sparse “bycatch” data gathered by many biologists from camera traps in widely scattered places and modeling it to predict habitat use and population size.
- An ongoing IUCN jaguarundi assessment is using a Google Forms questionnaire to reach out widely to researchers, governments and NGOs, while also using easily shared social media tools. A detailed understanding of jaguarundi behavior is needed to assure it is conserved both inside and outside protected areas.

New satellite data documents deforestation across ecosystems worldwide
- New satellite data documents the loss of vegetation in all types of ecosystems, not just tropical rainforests, around the world.
- The OPERA DIST-ALERT was developed by the makers of popular forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch.
- The monitoring system incorporates managed forests, grasslands, shrublands and croplands along with tropical forests.
- The data obtained from two of NASA’s Landsat satellites and two of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites reflected lost vegetation around the world due to various factors — ranging from fires in Canada to logging in the Republic of Congo and cyclones in Malawi.

Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally
- The biggest deforestation hotspot for palm oil in Indonesia is located on a small island off the southern Borneo coast, new data show.
- Up to 10,650 hectares (26,317 acres) of forest — one-sixth the size of Jakarta — were cleared from 2022-2023 inside the concession of PT Multi Sarana Agro Mandiri (MSAM), part of the influential Jhonlin Group.
- Activists say the company’s operations may be illegal, given the questionable process through which it obtained its permits.
- However, law enforcers have ignored calls to investigate, and previous efforts by journalists to expose the group’s business practices have led to their criminal prosecution on hate speech charges.

Bioacoustics and AI help scientists listen in on elusive Australian cockatoos
- Researchers in Australia have deployed acoustic recorders and artificial intelligence to study, monitor and protect eastern pink cockatoos (Lophochroa leadbeateri leadbeateri).
- The technology led scientists at the Queensland University of Technology to a previously unknown breeding hollow of the birds.
- Pink cockatoos, with eastern and western subspecies, are endemic to Australia and hard to monitor because they live in remote arid and semiarid ecosystems.
- With the research, scientists say they hope to understand more about where the birds live and how they react to changes in rainfall and temperature.

Bangladesh uses satellite transmitters on saltwater crocodiles in Asia’s first
- On March 13, the Bangladesh forest department tagged satellite transmitters on two saltwater crocodiles for the first time in Asia and released them in the Sundarbans waters.
- So far, four saltwater crocodiles — three from captivity and one from the wild — have been tagged and the preparation is in place to tag more.
- The forest department has already started collecting data using the satellite transmitters to understand the crocodile’s habits in this ecosystem and identify nesting its hotspots, ecology, mortality rate and habitat range.
- Experts say the satellite data will play an important role in crocodile conservation in Bangladesh, where the species is critically endangered, and will help the authorities make proper conservation management plans to protect it.

Protected areas bear the brunt as forest loss continues across Cambodia
- In 2023, Cambodia lost forest cover the size of the city of Los Angeles, or 121,000 hectares (300,000 acres), according to new data published by the University of Maryland.
- The majority of this loss occurred inside protected areas, with the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary recording the highest rate of forest loss in what was one of its worst years on record.
- A leading conservation activist says illegal logging inside protected areas is driven in part by demand for luxury timber exports, “but the authorities don’t seem to care about protecting these forests.”
- Despite the worrying trend highlighted by the data, the Cambodian government has set an ambitious target of increasing the country’s forest cover to 60% by 2050.

The potential for tracking wildlife health & disease via bioacoustics is great (commentary)
- Bioacoustics is the passive, non-invasive recording of sounds emitted by a wide range of animals.
- Analysis of this information reveals the presence and behavior of wildlife, and can also be valuable indicator of animal health, which can then be used in ecosystem monitoring.
- “As disease prevalence skyrockets in wildlife, we are desperately in need of tools to remotely monitor ecosystem health,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Tropical forest loss puts 2030 zero-deforestation target further out of reach
- The overall rate of primary forest loss across the tropics remained stubbornly high in 2023, putting the world well off track from its net-zero deforestation target by 2030, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute.
- The few bright spots were Brazil and Colombia, where changes in political leadership helped drive down deforestation rates in the Amazon.
- Elsewhere, however, several countries hit record-high rates of forest loss, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Laos, driven largely by agriculture, mining and fires.
- The report authors call for “bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives … to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries.”

‘The Javan tiger still exists’: DNA find may herald an extinct species’ comeback
- A 2019 sighting by five witnesses indicates that the long-extinct Javan tiger may still be alive, a new study suggests.
- A single strand of hair recovered from that encounter is a close genetic match to hair from a Javan tiger pelt from 1930 kept at a museum, the study shows.
- “Through this research, we have determined that the Javan tiger still exists in the wild,” says Wirdateti, a government researcher and lead author of the study.
- The Javan tiger was believed to have gone extinct in the 1980s but only officially declared as such in 2008, along with the Bali tiger; a third Indonesian subspecies, the Sumatran tiger, is also edging closer to extinction.

PalmWatch platform pushes for farm-to-fork traceability of palm oil
- PalmWatch, an online, open-source tool, is seeking to bring greater transparency to the global palm oil supply web, to better help consumers trace the impact of the commodity.
- A key hurdle to transparency has long been the fact that batches of palm oil and their derivatives sourced by consumer brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo potentially contain product from hundreds of mills processing palm fruit from thousands of plantations.
- By scraping various websites with mill disclosure data and standardizing the information in one place, PalmWatch can come up with a supply chain map that can link specific mills, suppliers and consumer brands to harms associated with palm oil.
- Advocacy groups have welcomed the launch of the tool, saying it will allow for improved targeting of campaigns to get brands to push for more sustainable practices in their supply chains.

Ancient giant river dolphin species found in the Peruvian Amazon
- Paleontologists discovered a fossilized skull of a newly described species of giant freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon, which lived around 16 million years ago and is considered the largest-known river dolphin ever found.
- The ancient creature, measuring 3-3.5 meters (9.8-11.5 feet), was surprisingly related to South Asian river dolphins rather than the local, living Amazon river pink dolphin and shared highly developed facial crests used for echolocation.
- The discovery comes at a time when the six existing species of modern river dolphins face unprecedented threats, with their combined populations decreasing by 73% since the 1980s due to unsustainable fishing practices, climate change, pollution, illegal mining and infrastructure development.
- Conservation efforts are underway, including the signing of the Global Declaration for River Dolphins by nine countries and successful initiatives in China and Indonesia, highlighting the importance of protecting these critical species that serve as indicators of river ecosystem health.

Mini radio tags help track ‘murder hornets’ and other invasive insects
- Our increasingly interconnected world is moving insect pests around the planet, introducing invasive species that threaten agriculture and local ecologies.
- But tech is fighting back: Researchers have developed radio-tracking tags small enough to attach to invasive yellow-legged hornets in the U.K. and Europe, allowing scientists to find and destroy their nests.
- Researchers are now deploying this technology in the U.S., to address yellow-legged hornets in Georgia and northern giant hornets in the Pacific Northwest.

New trackers bring prairie dogs’ little-known underground life to light
- Researchers have deployed a new tracker that helps them monitor prairie dogs and track their movements underground.
- The tracker uses sensors, including accelerometers and magnetometers, and combines them with GPS technology to enable researchers to retrace the trajectories of the animals.
- Prairie dogs dig up complex burrow systems and spend most of their time underground, making their movements elusive.
- During initial trials, researchers were able to use the trackers to reconstruct the trajectories of prairie dogs while they were underground.

Tech to recover rainforest: Interview with Osa Conservation’s Carolina Pinto & Paulina Rodriguez
- Osa Conservation is a nonprofit organization working to monitor and protect biodiversity in the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.
- The peninsula is home to plants and animals seen nowhere else on the planet, and is estimated to harbor 2.5% of the global terrestrial biodiversity.
- The organization uses a wide array of tech tools — from camera traps to acoustic recorders and GPS tags — to study, monitor and protect animals such as sea turtles, jaguars and spider monkeys.
- However, the harsh terrain, weak internet connectivity and the remote nature of the ecosystem are proving to be hurdles to quicker and more efficient deployment of tech tools.

Risks to Myanmar’s last saltwater crocs point to coastal conservation needs
- A new study confirms that Myanmar’s last population of saltwater crocodiles is perilously isolated and that without efforts to connect suitable coastal wetlands, the future of the species is in the country is uncertain.
- Deforestation and conversion of coastal habitats for commercial production, persecution due to conflicts with people, and hunting and wild capture to supply demand for crocodile meat and skin products have all taken their toll on crocodile numbers.
- The researchers recommend conservationists and policymakers in Myanmar focus on reconnecting remaining coastal habitats, including existing coastal protected areas, and identify key crocodile habitat areas and potential movement corridors to aid such conservation action.
- Enhancing coastal habitat connectivity would not only enable crocodile population recovery, it would also reduce pressure on communities coping with negative interactions with crocodiles.

‘We’re doing so much with so little’: Interview with WildLabs’ Talia Speaker
- The use of technology for conservation and wildlife monitoring increased in recent years, with camera traps and remote sensing being the most popular tools, a report has found.
- The report by conservation technology network WildLabs also found that artificial intelligence was highly ranked for its potential impact, but was ranked low in terms of current performance because of accessibility issues.
- Marginalized groups, including women and people from lower-income countries, were found to face disproportionate barriers to accessing resources and training.
- “The motivation behind this research was to capture the experiences of the global conservation technology community, and to speak with a united voice,” says Talia Speaker, who led the research.

Conservation X Labs announces merger with AI nonprofit Wild Me
- Conservation technology company Conservation X Labs has announced a merger with Wild Me, a nonprofit that focuses on using artificial intelligence for conservation purposes.
- The two organizations plan to combine their resources and expertise to ramp up the use of artificial intelligence to prevent the sixth mass extinction.
- The merger comes at a time when AI’s role in biodiversity monitoring and conservation has seen rising popularity.
- According to a press statement by Conservation X Labs, the company will “integrate Wild Me’s technology into its product offerings.”

Camera-traps help identify conservation needs of Thailand’s coastal otters
- Otters are sometimes described as the “tigers of the mangrove” in Southeast Asia, where they’re well-known to display extraordinary resilience and adaptability to human activity and urbanization.
- A new camera-trap study now highlights the importance of expanses of natural habitat, such as coastal forests and wetlands, for two species of otter living along southern Thailand’s increasingly modified coasts.
- The research team found that while otters are able to live within human-modified landscapes, tracts of natural habitat offer them vital refugia from a slew of threats, such as road collisions, prey depletion due to pollution of watercourses, and conflict with fish and shrimp farmers.
- The authors used their findings to create maps that indicate where conservationists and wildlife departments should prioritize management and monitoring for these vital top wetland predators.

‘No end in sight’ for potential of conservation tech: Q&A with Megan Owen
- For the past seven years, the conservation technology lab at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has been working to develop and deploy technology that can automate the collection and processing of wildlife data.
- Running a tech lab in a zoo has the benefit of providing scientists with a setting where they can use the wildlife in their care to validate the data and calibrate the technology.
- Team members at the lab are also working to develop and mentor the next generation of conservation technologists who can keep up with the rapidly evolving field.
- Making the technology “low-cost and accessible, fixable, deployable and programmable” continue to be some of the challenges that the team is working to overcome, according to SDZWA vice president of conservation science Megan Owen.

Shrinking civil space and persistent logging: 2023 in review in Southeast Asia
- Home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest and some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Southeast Asia has seen conservation wins and losses over the course of 2023.
- The year was characterized by a rising trend of repression against environmental and Indigenous defenders that cast a shadow of fear over the work of activists in many parts of the region.
- Logging pressure in remaining tracts of forest remained intense, and an El Niño climate pattern brought regional haze crises generated by forest fires and agricultural burning returned.
- But some progress was made on several fronts: Most notably, increasing understanding of the benefits and methods of ecosystem restoration underpinned local, national and regional efforts to bring back forests, mangroves and other crucial sanctuaries of biodiversity.

‘The police are watching’: In Mekong countries, eco defenders face rising risks
- Activists, journalists, environmental lawyers and others who raise attention for environmental issues in the Mekong region say they feel threatened by authoritarian governments.
- Environment defenders say they feel under surveillance and at risk both in their home countries and abroad.
- The risks they face include violence and arrests, as well as state-backed harassment such as asset freezes and smear campaigns.

Betting on biodiversity: Q&A with Superorganism’s Kevin Webb & Tom Quigley
- Superorganism is a newly launched venture capital firm, touted to be the first that’s dedicated to addressing the biodiversity crisis.
- The firm aims to support startups that are developing and deploying technology to prevent biodiversity loss and protect nature.
- The firm’s early portfolio includes companies that are working to tackle extinction drivers and finding solutions that lay at the intersection of biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

Conservationists look to defy gloomy outlook for Borneo’s sun bears
- Sun bears are keystone species, helping sustain healthy tropical forests. Yet they’re facing relentless challenges to their survival from deforestation, habitat degradation, poaching and indiscriminate snaring; fewer than 10,000 are thought to remain across the species’ entire global range.
- A bear rehabilitation program in Malaysian Borneo cares for 44 sun bears rescued from captivity and the pet trade and has been releasing bears back into the wild since 2015. But with threats in the wild continuing unabated, success has been mixed.
- A recent study indicates that as few as half of the released bears are still alive, demonstrating that rehabilitation alone will never be enough to tackle the enormous threats and conservation issues facing the bears in the wild.
- Preventing bears from being poached from the wild in the first place should be the top priority, experts say, calling for a holistic approach centered on livelihood support for local communities through ecotourism to encourage lifestyles that don’t involve setting snares that can kill bears.

Sound recordings and AI tell us if forests are recovering, new study from Ecuador shows
- Acoustic monitoring and AI tools were used to track biodiversity recovery in plots of tropical Chocó forest in northwestern Ecuador.
- The study found that species returned to regenerating forests in as little as 25 years, indicating positive progress in forest recovery.
- Acoustic monitoring and AI-based methods proved to be powerful and cost-effective techniques for assessing biodiversity levels in restored forests, including insects and animals that don’t vocalize.
- The authors hope these methods make biodiversity monitoring more transparent, accountable, and accessible to support land managers and market-based conservation mechanisms that rely on forest restoration, such as payments for ecosystem services.

Nepal’s tiger conservation gets tech boost with AI-powered deer tracking
- Endangered tigers in Nepal heavily rely on spotted deer as their primary prey, making their conservation crucial.
- Researchers in Nepal are using vertical cameras and AI technology to track and profile individual spotted deer (Axis axis), similar to the methods used for tigers.
- However, the project has faced challenges, including low recapture rates and difficulty in distinguishing individual deer in the wild.

Sliver of hope as ‘mountain chicken’ frog shows resistance to deadly disease
- A Caribbean frog species known as the mountain chicken is on the brink of extinction due to the spread of an infectious fungal disease.
- However, a recent survey found that there were still 21 of these supersized frogs on the island of Dominica.
- Some of these frogs were found to have genes resistant to the fungal disease, raising hope for the species’ survival.

Taking the global pulse of biodiversity monitoring: Q&A with Andrew Gonzalez
- A group of scientists have put forward a proposal to set up a global network that centralizes biodiversity monitoring and facilitates seamless sharing of data.
- The group wants its proposed Global Biodiversity Observing System (GBiOS) to function similarly to the network of local weather monitoring stations across the world, whose data are used to analyze and monitor climate change.
- While the technology being used to monitor biodiversity has become more sophisticated over the years, there still exists a void in getting different communities to work together to address the broader challenges in dealing with the biodiversity crisis.
- “We would not only federate people who are working together more effectively, but also fill many of the gaps in the data that currently exist in the biodiversity field,” Andrew Gonzalez, who is leading the proposal for GBiOS, told Mongabay.

Communities track a path of destruction through a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Illegal logging persists deep in the heart of Cambodia’s Chhaeb-Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary amid government inaction and even complicity with the loggers.
- Routine patrols by local activists and community members have painstakingly documented the site of each logged tree in the supposedly protected area, even as these community patrols have been banned by the authorities.
- Mongabay reporters joined one of these patrols in April, where a run-in with rangers underscored complaints that the authorities crack down harder on those seeking to protect the forest than on those destroying it.
- A government official denied that the logging was driven by commercial interests, despite evidence to the contrary, instead blaming local communities for cutting down trees to build homes.

Logging route cut into Cambodia’s Prey Lang from Think Biotech’s concession
- A road carved from a reforestation concession into the heart of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia appears to be facilitating the illegal logging and trafficking of valuable timber, a Mongabay investigation has revealed.
- The road originates in the concession of Think Biotech, a company previously implicated in forestry crimes, but its director denies being involved in the new road.
- The road had advanced 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the ostensibly protected Prey Lang before authorities ordered a crackdown — one that activists say was just for show and targeted only small-time loggers.
- Community groups and activists say Prey Lang’s forests are being decimated at alarming rates, with satellite data showing nearly the same amount of forest cover loss in the past five years as in the previous 18.

Barely making it: A conversation with ‘Eight Bears’ author Gloria Dickie
- Gloria Dickie is an award-winning journalist who has documented the state of the world’s eight remaining bear species in a compelling new book, “Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future.”
- Despite the conservation gains made by iconic bear species like the giant panda and the brown bear, most bear species remain at risk.
- In this podcast conversation, the author shares the context behind why some bear species, such as the Andean bear and the polar bear, which face climate-related threats, are much harder to protect.
- “It’s quite tricky for bears threatened by climate change and not just habitat loss,” she says on this episode.

Protected areas a boon for vertebrate diversity in wider landscape, study shows
- A new study reveals that protected areas in Southeast Asia not only boost bird and mammal diversity within their confines, but they also elevate numbers of species in nearby unprotected habitats.
- The researchers say their findings back up the U.N.’s 30×30 target to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030.
- The findings indicate that larger reserves result in more spillover of biodiversity benefits into surrounding landscapes. The authors call on governments to invest in expanding larger reserves over the proliferation of smaller ones.
- Conservationists say that while expanding protected area coverage is part of the solution, serious investment in management and resourcing for existing protected areas is a matter of urgency to ensure they are not simply “paper parks.”

With fewer birds seen on farms, scientists try listening for them
- Scientists in the U.S. Midwest have piloted a methodology that combines satellite imagery and audio data to study and monitor birds in croplands.
- While remote-sensing technology helped researchers understand the attributes of the habitat, bioacoustic data aided them in identifying the birds that live there.
- Biodiversity monitoring on working lands often doesn’t get a lot of attention due to the logistical hurdles involved in accessing these often privately owned areas.
- The methods used by the scientists involved engaging with farmers and landowners to put up audio recorders in an effort to be more collaborative.

Cambodia approves, then suspends, marble mine in Keo Seima REDD+ project
- The Cambodian government has suspended a planned marble mine inside a wildlife sanctuary that it had approved just months earlier.
- It’s not clear why this commercial extractive concession inside a protected area was approved in the first place, or why it’s now been suspended (but not canceled).
- The mine would have threatened an important REDD+ project in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary that benefits both local communities and the area’s biodiversity.
- The REDD+ project is also a bulwark against deforestation; satellite data show it suffers far less forest loss than other parts of the wider wildlife sanctuary and surrounding areas that overlap with concessions.

Wildlife management platform EarthRanger goes mobile with new app
- Since it was launched in 2017, the EarthRanger software has helped protected-area managers, law enforcement agencies and wildlife conservationists to collect, visualize and track data from the field on a single platform.
- In a bid to be nimbler, the software has now gone mobile with an app that builds on the functions of the web-based platform; it also helps rangers use their phones as tracking devices.
- The app has already been used to track elephants as well as rangers in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, as well as to plan the response to an oil spill off the coast of the Philippines.

Zika, dengue transmission expected to rise with climate change
- A new study foresees a 20% increase in cases of viruses like dengue, Zika and chikungunya over the next 30 years due to climate change.
- Higher temperatures are already causing the diseases carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread in cooler regions like southern Brazil and southern Europe.
- Deforestation also favors the spread of these illnesses because biodiversity-rich forests with more predators tend to inhibit mosquito populations.
- Brazil set a historic record in 2022, when more than 1,000 deaths resulting from the dengue virus were reported.

AI unlocks secrets of Amazon river dolphins’ behavior, no tagging required
- Freshwater dolphins in the Amazon Basin navigate through flooded forests during the wet season using their flexible bodies and echolocation clicks.
- Researchers have combined advanced acoustic monitoring and AI to study the habits of endangered pink river dolphins (boto) and tucuxi in seasonally flooded habitats.
- They used hydrophones to record sounds in various habitats and employed convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify the sounds as either echolocation clicks, boat engine noises, or rain — with high accuracy.
- Understanding the dolphins’ movements and behaviors can aid conservation efforts to protect these endangered species, as they face various threats such as fishing entanglement, dam construction, mining, agriculture and cattle ranching.

When wildlife surveillance tech ‘watches’ people
- Conservation technologies such as camera traps, drones and acoustic sensors, are playing a greater role in protecting endangered species, preventing poaching, finding rare plants, tackling forest fires, and monitoring changes in forests and oceans.
- However, researchers and communities say these technologies are also increasingly playing a role in human surveillance, infringing on privacy, exasperating human conflicts with conservation, and posing serious social and ethical implications through their use.
- As conservation technologies increasingly monitor people much the same way CCTV cameras do, their use must be subjected to similar ethical guidelines of other public surveillance tech — which they lack, say researchers.
- Some researchers have drawn up checklists of best practices, such as getting consent from nearby communities, being transparent about how the technology will be used, not using human images opportunistically, and using tech only when there’s no alternative, less-intrusive way of collecting data.

New Tree Tech: Real-time, long-term, high-tech reforestation monitoring
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Many people see reforestation as a quick fix to the climate emergency, but tree-planting projects often fail to put in place the monitoring programs needed to track newly planted forests. Traditionally, forest monitoring has been done by hand, one tree at a time, which is extremely expensive and time-consuming.
- Satellites are mapping and remapping the entire planet daily, providing real-time data that can be used to monitor forests remotely. Drones can fly over or through forests to collect data on tree growth, bridging the gap between on-site measurements and distant satellites.
- Sensors can be installed to monitor individual trees directly, while people can collect and analyze the data electronically from a safer and easier-to-access location. Multiple sensors can form a distributed network that returns detailed information on the growth of each tree within huge reforestation plots.

New Tree Tech: Cutting-edge drones give reforestation a helping hand
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Restoring hundreds of millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest worldwide will require a gigantic effort, a challenge made doubly hard by the fact that many sites are inaccessible by road, stopping manual replanting projects in their tracks.
- Manual planting is labor-intensive and slow. Drone seeding uses the latest in robotic technology to deliver seeds directly to where they’re needed. Drones can drop seeds along a predefined route, working together in a “swarm” to complete the task with a single human supervisor overseeing the process.
- Drone-dropped seed success rates are lower than for manually planted seedlings, but biotech solutions are helping. Specially designed pods encase the seeds in a tailored mix of nutrients to help them thrive. Drones are tech-intensive, and still available mostly in industrialized countries, but could one day help reseed forests worldwide.

New Tree Tech: Data-driven reforestation methods match trees to habitats
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- To create healthy, diverse ecosystems, native tree species need to be identified that will thrive at each unique site within a habitat. But with more than 70,000 tree species worldwide, gathering and analyzing the data needed to understand species’ needs, habitat preferences and limitations is no small feat.
- Environmental niche models use data on climate, soil conditions and other characteristics within a species’ range to calculate a tree’s requirements. Artificial intelligence helps sort through vast data sets to make informed predictions about the species suited to an ecosystem, now and in a warmer future.
- Biotechnology company Spades uses laboratory testing of tissue samples from plant species to quantify what growing conditions a species can tolerate and to identify its optimum growing conditions.

New Tree Tech: AI, drones, satellites and sensors give reforestation a boost
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Current forest restoration efforts fall far short of international goals, and behind the hype lies a string of failed projects and unintended environmental consequences that have left a bad taste in the mouths of many investors, politicians and conservationists. Projects are often expensive and labor-intensive.
- Applying cutting-edge technology to the problem is helping: Advanced computer modeling and machine learning can aid tree-planting initiatives in identifying a diverse set of native species best able to thrive in unique local conditions, today and in a warming future.
- Drones are revolutionizing large-scale tree planting, especially in remote and inaccessible locations. Once trees are planted, satellite-based and on-site sensors can help monitor young forests — offering long-term scrutiny and protection often missing from traditional reforestation initiatives, and at a lower cost.

Sounds of the soil: A new tool for conservation?
- Researchers are discovering that listening to the soil can be a way to understand biodiversity belowground without having to overturn every bit of the land.
- Studies have shown that soils of restored forest areas have both more complex sounds and more critters than soils of degraded sites.
- Soils of intensively managed agricultural lands, also appear to be quieter, indicating that soil sounds could be a proxy for soil health.
- Some researchers are also using sounds to identify distinct species in the soil, which could open up lots of possibilities for both pest management and wildlife conservation.

Expedition catches Amazon river dolphins to help save this iconic pink species
- In December, researchers gathered extensive data on a population of Amazon river dolphins in the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
- They fitted some of the dolphins with radio transmitters to help map their preferred zones and identify priority regions for species protection.
- At the top of the food chain, the river dolphins play important roles as regulators of Amazonian river life and as environmental indicators for potential zoonoses.
- Hydroelectric dams, fishing, and contamination from mining pose the greatest threats to the species across its range.

Nearly 30% of all tree cover in Africa may be outside of forests, study says
- A team at the University of Copenhagen has generated a map of tree cover in 45 African countries down to individual tree crowns by feeding high-resolution satellite imagery into a machine-learning model.
- The analysis showed that nearly 30% of the continent’s tree cover lies outside what are traditionally considered forest areas in land-cover maps.
- For nine countries, trees outside forests account for around half their tree cover: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Mauritania and Sudan.
- Such high-resolution tree-cover data could lead to more precise carbon stock assessments and better monitoring of land-use changes.

Flooding for hydropower dams hits forest-reliant bats hard, study shows
- Researchers have found that bats specialized to feed on insects within the dense canopy of tropical forests are disproportionately affected by hydropower development.
- The study in Peninsular Malaysia adds to a growing body of evidence demonstrating how hydropower developments impoverish tropical ecosystems.
- Although forest-specialist bats were lost from the flooded landscape, bats that forage along forest edges and in open space were still present.
- To minimize localized extinctions, the researchers advocate a preventive rather than mitigative approach to hydropower planning that prioritizes habitat connectivity and avoids creating isolated forest patches.

How do you study one of the world’s rarest whales?
- Researcher Dana Wright is one of a handful of scientists studying one of the world’s rarest creatures, the North Pacific right whale.
- With about 500 individuals remaining, and its eastern population that swims off the coast of North America totaling perhaps 30 individuals, it’s so rare that in a decade of research, she has yet to see a living individual of the population, though her colleagues have.
- How does one study a creature that’s so hard to document? With tools like bioacoustics, for example, and Wright has listened to tens of thousands of hours of recordings to aid the conservation of these endangered animals.
- The team continues to develop new approaches to solving the mystery of these whales’ migratory patterns and biology with a goal of identifying — and then protecting — the location of their winter calving grounds.

The more degraded a forest, the quieter its wildlife, new study shows
- Tropical forest researchers are increasingly using bioacoustics to record and analyze ecosystem soundscapes, the sounds that animals make, which in turn can be used as a proxy for forest health.
- Researchers studying soundscapes in logged rainforests in Indonesian Borneo have tested a novel approach that could provide a reliable and low-cost way for conservation agencies and communities to monitor tropical forest health.
- Their new method, which partitions animal groups into broad acoustic frequency classes, offers a stop-gap method for measuring acoustic activity that could be used in the short-term until more detailed artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology is developed.
- During their study, they found that animal sounds diminished and became asynchronous in forests disturbed by selective logging, factors that could be used as proxies for disturbed habitats.

Conservationists unite to tackle Latin America’s dog threat to wild cats
- Across Latin America, free-ranging and domestic dogs pose a threat to endangered wildlife, including several small cat species, conservationists say.
- Dogs entering forests or protected areas can disturb wildlife, directly prey upon them, decimate prey populations, and also spread disease.
- Last year, small-cat conservationists from Mexico to Chile united to vaccinate dogs in multiple countries to raise awareness of the problem and mitigate the threat.
- A second phase of this international campaign is planned this May, potentially focused on other threatened species.

Study attempts to foresee the future of Amazonian mammals if the rainforest turns into savanna
- What could become of the some 300 species of mammals living in Amazonia if deforestation and global warming lead to the savannization of the rainforest?
- Researchers analyzed images from 400 photo traps placed in four natural enclaves of the Cerrado biome in southern Amazonia to find some answers; analysis of the photos showed that, when given the choice between preserved Amazon Rainforest and preserved Cerrado, most species chose the rainforest.
- Another study analyzed rainforests around the world, finding that savannization may happen sooner than expected; in Amazonia, this occurrence will mean reduced population and range for mammals like jaguars, tapirs and deer.

Uterine implants and underwater ultrasounds aim to demystify shark births
- For years, studying the reproductive biology of sharks has depended on capturing the animals and dissecting them.
- Scientists recently developed the Birth Alert Tag, an egg-shaped satellite transmitter that can be implanted in the uterus of pregnant sharks to document the location and timing of births.
- In another development, scientists took ultrasound readings of whale sharks and sampled their blood to detect if they were pregnant.
- The new methods aim to help researchers determine sharks’ pregnancy status and the location of shark births; one goal is to inform the establishment of corridors to protect the animals, which are among the most vulnerable vertebrates on Earth.

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